Underground storage of carbon dioxide

Abstract

Decarbonization in the global economy is impossible without large-scale implementation of trapping, disposal and storage of carbon. Holding colossal resources for natural storage, Russia can greatly reduce its carbon footprint by burying carbon dioxide. Reliability of carbon dioxide burial depends on the geological, geochemical and methodological conditions of underground storage of this gas. Researchers have found that favorable underground storages are the depleted oil and gas reservoirs, nonminable coal seams, deep-level salt-bearing strata and other porous media in the Earth’s crust. It recommended to introduce a three-level monitoring of atmospheric emission of carbon dioxide as a result of natural phenomena (outgassing from the Earth) and human activities both on land and sea. The first level is the space monitoring: monitoring of atmospheric concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide in various ranges; monitoring of natural gas and oil occurrences on land and sea. The second level is the use of unmanned vehicles. The third level is the ground surface monitoring: real-time monitoring of the underground geological environment from a geophysical observatory; spectral laser and radar detection; monitoring of carbon dioxide concentrations using laser absorption spectroscopy and distributed sensor networks.