Keynote: The Study of CO2 Natural Reservoirs to Develop Criteria for Risk Assessment and Safety Strategy

The potential for leakage from a man-made CO2 geological storage reservoir has received much recent attention, as concern has been voiced by governments, environmental NGO's, and the general public regarding possible risks involved in this global warming mitigation strategy. Despite the fact that most scientists working in this field consider carbon capture and storage (CCS) to be a realistic and safe approach to decreasing man-made greenhouse gas emissions while, at the same time, minimising impact on world-wide economic development, a lack of public support could potentially block the wide-spread implementation of this very promising technology. As such it is critical that we in the research and development community take on the challenge of understanding gas migration mechanisms and the potential for leakage (where, over what time scale, and how much). Only by facing this issue directly will we be able to assure the public that: i) scientific knowledge exists to choose the best and safest sites, ii) techniques and approaches have been developed to monitor the safety of these sites during the operational and post-injection phases; and iii) strategies and technologies exist should remediation action be required. In other words, to show that all potential risks have been examined and minimised.