Safety in Carbon Dioxide Capture, Transport and Storage

Publication Overview

Within the next few years it is expected that an increasing number of commercial-scale demonstrations of CO₂ capture and storage technology will be built and brought into operation. Many aspects of the design of such facilities including issues relating to engineering design, environmental impacts, standards and permitting have been the subject of studies undertaken for the IEA GHG. So far no study has been dedicated specifically to the issue of safety in the above ground elements of CCS systems although such safety issues have been addressed to some extent in earlier studies. This study was designed specifically to examine the safety issues which are likely to arise when preparing safety cases and planning emergency procedures for CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) projects

Publication Summary

The outcome of the workshop was agreement on the need to form a full research network, and this workshop was therefore classed as the first meeting of this network, with expressions of interest in hosting the second meeting in 2010 being received from the University of Utah in the USA. The workshop identified development of a web-based discussion forum, where problems can be shared, discussed, debated and solved between peer users, as an important ‘next step’ for the network. Another key element recognised was the implementation of knowledge sharing across networks, and although this has been actioned by the initiation of the joint network meetings, it was felt that feedback to networks on activities and meeting outcomes was necessary at more frequent intervals. It was also noted that the network should not focus too heavily on code comparison exercises, nor should it become a promotion platform for particular software solutions for modelling.