Risk, Liability, and Economic Issues with Long-Term CO2 Storage—A Review

Abstract

Given a scarcity of commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the risks, liability, and their cost implications for geologic storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). The probabilities of leakage and the risk of induced seismicity could be remote, but the volume of geologic CO 2 storage (GCS) projected to be necessary to have a significant impact on increasing CO 2 concentrations in the atmosphere is far greater than the volumes of CO 2 injected thus far. National-level estimates of the technically accessible CO 2 storage resource (TASR) onshore in the United States are on the order of thousands of gigatons of CO 2 storage capacity, but such estimates generally assume away any pressure management issues. Pressure buildup in the storage reservoir is expected to be a primary source of risk associated with CO 2 storage, and only a fraction of the theoretical TASR could be available unless the storage operator extracts the saltwater brines or other formation fluids that are already present in the geologic pore space targeted for CO 2 storage. Institutions, legislation, and processes to manage the risk, liability, and economic issues with CO 2 storage in the United States are beginning to emerge, but will need to progress further in order to allow a commercial-scale CO 2 storage industry to develop in the country. The combination of economic tradeoffs, property rights definitions, liability issues, and risk considerations suggests that CO 2 storage offshore of the United States may be more feasible than onshore, especially during the current (early) stages of industry development.

Carbon dioxide mineralization feasibility in the United States

“…Given the lack of valuation estimates for in situ mineralization's stability benefits, it is useful to compare the costs of in situ mineralization with the costs of lower-risk saline storage. Zoback and Gorelick (2012) and others (Birkholzer and others, 2015;White and Foxall, 2016;Anderson, 2017b) have suggested that pressure buildup is a major source of potential risk associated with CO 2 injection into saline aquifers. Therefore, cost estimates for pressure-limited storage could be more appropriate for comparison with the estimated costs of CO 2 storage via in situ mineralization.…”

Hydrogen import pathway comparison framework incorporating cost and social preference: Case studies from Australia to Japan

“…Further, social considerations bring into question the use of brown coal. Although it is an economical fuel source for hydrogen production, social challenges include local pollution issues resultant from ongoing mining, and also any risks associated with CCS, particularly when volumes increase to a commercial scale …”

Analysis of Civil Liability Regarding CCS: The Brazilian Case

“…As previously described, the risk of injecting CO 2 into geological formations depends on the amount of fluid and gas present in the rock, its permeability and the volume of gas to be injected. Due to these factors, the injection can be successful or exceeded, and thus leak and infiltrate into aquifers, rivers and atmosphere, and, in addition, create a pressure accumulation in the storage tank, fracturing the surface [17]. The environmental impacts of CO 2 geological storage can be integrated into two types: local environmental effects and global effects, on the atmosphere.…”