Update on Soil CO2 Flux Monitoring at the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project, USA

Abstract

The Illinois Basin – Decatur Project (IBDP) is a large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Decatur, Illinois, USA demonstrating storage of one million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a deep saline reservoir. The IBDP Monitoring, Verification, and Accounting (MVA) program at the 0.65 km2 study site includes a soil CO2 flux monitoring network, measured weekly during the growing season since 2009 and a high-frequency flux and atmospheric CO2 monitoring station. Over 11,000 flux measurements have been collected from the point network and over 50,000 flux measurements have been collected at a higher frequency from a LI-COR Biosciences® LI-8150 multiplexer. No anomalies related to CO2 injection were identified. We also examined site-specific biophysical relationships among soil CO2 flux, soil temperature, and soil moisture, and assessed the flux data to better characterize flux variability. This extensive dataset provides an opportunity to characterize site-wide flux variations in detail, and provides insights into ways t at measured fluxes could be evaluated to identify atypical variations.