What do you think?

Domestic and Commercial energy use — Energy production for domestic and commercial use is heavily dependent on burning fossil fuels. This causes the emission of large quantities of CO₂ to the atmosphere. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a technology that is capable of preventing this CO₂ being released into the atmosphere.

CO₂ captured at the power plant — CO₂ can be stripped from flue gases produced at power plants using chemicals called amines via a process called amine scrubbing.

Compression — CO₂ is compressed to high pressure and transported as a fluid through pipelines to the storage site

Saline aquifer — The UK has a large volume of CO₂ storage potential in saline aquifers in the North Sea

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) — The process of EOR allows a greater quantity of oil to be extracted from a reservoir by flooding the reservoir with a fluid that pushes additional oil out of the production well. Water has been used to flood the reservoirs for many decades. Liquid CO₂ can also be used as a flooding fluid and can be stored in the reservoir at the same time.

Caprock — reservoirs require an impermeable caprock to trap fluids. The caprock integrity is fundamental to the successful storage of fluids. Caprocks are typically thin bands of shale that have trapped oil and natural gas for many millions of years.

CO₂ injection at rig — Almost all of the storage potential for CO₂ in the UK is in old oil reservoirs and saline aquifers that are located offshore. The storage reservoir must be below 750m-1km depth so that the CO₂ remains at a high enough pressure to keep it as a liquid.

CO₂ is piped to the storage location — CO₂ is transported from the capture site through pipes to an appropriate storage location. Transporting the CO₂ has an energy cost and therefore this distance should ideally be small.

CO₂ is injected under pressure via a well into the storage site — CO₂ is pumped into the ground at a well. The storage reservoir could be a saline aquifer, a disused oil or gas reservoir or a brown coal mine. The storage depth must be above about 800 m depth so that the weight of the overlying rock creates enough pressure in the reservoir to maintain the CO₂ as a supercritical fluid.