The project assessed the modelled impact of removing brine from potential undersea carbon dioxide stores on store capacity and costs using selected real locations and synthetic models. It extended previous work to assess the UK’s potential capacity for carbon dioxide storage for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The project was funded and commissioned by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) and delivered by Heriot-Watt University, Element Energy, T2 Petroleum Technology and Durham University.
Selected data from the Aquifer Brine project are now available in the UKERC Energy Data Centre here.
These are geological simulation models, for which proprietary simulation software is needed, and a cost benefit analysis tool (an Excel model) for assessing the cost benefits of incorporating brine production when storing CO2 in aquifers.
Carbon Capture and Storage plays an important role in pathways to a mitigate climate change, but is as yet undeveloped commercially. The ETI commissioned a series of projects to assess the potential capacity and economic viability of CCS.
The UK Storage Appraisal Project provided an overall estimate of UK CO2 storage capacity for CCS in offshore geological formations and published this as the CO2 Stored Database (EDC linked dataset at this link) with some of the underlying simulation models now available in the EDC.
This led to detailed geological and economic modelling of storage at 5 sites in the Strategic UK CCS Storage Appraisal Project and to the investigation of the Impact of Brine Production on Aquifer Storage of CO2 (this dataset) which is significant because over 75% of potential UK CO2 storage capacity is found in saline aquifers.