Potential CO2 storage sites revealed

New website to help kickstart UK's Carbon Capture and Storage Industry

Companies with lots of carbon dioxide can now access a website, developed by the British Geological Society and the Crown Estate, which reveals potential storage sites in the UK.

The UK could potentially hold 78 billion tonnes of CO₂ in offshore underground sites, making it one of the largest potential CO₂ dumps in Europe,“in effect a national asset” according to the Crown Estate.

The stores are actually 600 depleted oil and gas fields and saline aquifers, mainly in the North Sea. Visitors to www.co2stored.co.uk can access data about these locations such as capacity, injectivity, pore volume and geological faults.

Professor Mike Stephenson, director of science and technology at the British Geological Survey, said: “Storage of CO₂ in the rocks under the North Sea could be big business in the future. CO₂ Stored is an important milestone in the development of CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) and will help kickstart this new industry.”

The website is part of a five year, £1 million project and presents data gathered for a £4 million Energy Technologies Institute project, which appraised potential CO₂ storage sites in the UK.

Andrew Green, CCS programme manager at the ETI, said: “Whilst a lot of focus is on the build and demonstration of CCS plant, the availability of sufficient high-quality storage capacity is crucial to the large-scale rollout of CCS in the UK. CO₂ stored contains a comprehensive picture of how much storage space is practically available around the UK coastline.”