Formulation of soil CO2 gas efflux with soil conditions to estimate its increasing rate and a baseline for CO2 capture and geological storage in shallow aquifers

Abstract

The use of fossil fuels remains prevalent despite the known negative environmental impacts. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are rising and so are global temperatures. One technique designed to mitigate GHG emissions is CO2 geological storage, whereby CO2 is stored underground. The sites chosen for CO2 storage need to be monitored in order to ensure there is no leakage. A collaborative team involving researchers based at Kyushu University, Japan, including Kyuro Sasaki and Dr Salmawati Salmawati who is currently a Senior Mine Environmental Analyst from PT Tura Consulting Indonesia, is engaged in an important project. It includes performing diagnostics of existing data on GHG emissions in the mining sector, which represents the first step towards the design of Indonesia's own Climate Smart Mining Roadmap in the future. A key focus for the researchers is on developing a device that can automatically and continuously monitor the surface flux in order to detect any leakage in carbon capture storage (CSS) sites. Key to this is measuring the natural gas flux and the surrounding characteristics, particularly those relating to the soil, such as temperature, moisture and carbon content. The researchers plan to measure this baseline data for a year in order to acquire the data necessary to accurately detect the leakage. The researchers found that the response of the soil moisture to soil CO2 flux was different in summer and winter, and changes were also detected depending on rainfall events.