Pressurisation and Brine Displacement - Issues for Deep Saline Formation CO₂ Storage
- 1 November 2010
- Storage
Worldwide, deep saline formations are expected to store gigatonnes of CO₂ over the coming decades, making a significant contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation. At present, our experience of deep saline formation storage is limited to a small number of demonstration projects that have successfully injected megatonnes of captured CO₂. However, concerns have been raised over pressurization, and related brine displacement within and around deep saline formations, given the anticipated scale of future storage operations. This report aims to address these concerns and their origins in computational and analytical flow models. The report does not address the related impact of brine displacement on shallow potable groundwater, which is the subject of a separate IEAGHG study, to follow in 2011.