The pore space scramble; challenges and opportunities for subsurface governance

Abstract

There is a rich literature on environmental governance that provides critiques and conceptual tools on how various environmental 'arenas' or overlapping global systems should be governed eg. climate, energy, oceans (Cherp et al., 2011, Berkes, 2006, Underdal, 2010). In this paper we argue that the geological subsurface should be considered as a new arena for governance in its own right. The arguments for this are presented by considering current and future challenges the subsurface will face as its 2 utilisation evolves and intensifies, particularly in the context of both energy security and low carbon energy. Three main challenges are highlighted; ownership, access and long term stewardship. These challenges are presented using the illustrative context of subsurface pore space for the long term storage of CO2 from Carbon Capture (CCS). This is presented in the UK context but ultimately has implication for global subsurface governance going forward.

“Do you Know What's Underneath your Feet?”: Underground Landscapes & Place‐Based Risk Perceptions of Proposed Shale Gas Sites in Rural British Communities☆

“…Moving forward, future research should explore: (1) how planning and decision‐making processes can better value and account for senses of place and place‐based knowledge, (2) authenticity and perceptions of developer strategies of place‐making which ground projects in their localities (Devine‐Wright 2009, 2011b), (3) how more pluralistic approaches to knowledge‐making in energy infrastructure projects might lead to more just, inclusive and democratic practices and decision‐making. These issues will continue to be increasingly important as use of the underground to support net‐zero strategies “evolves and intensifies,” (Gormally, Markusson, and Bentham 2018)—both in the UK and worldwide.…”

Territory incognita

“…This overlooks the dependence of states on the subterranean, as Melo Zurita and Monroe (2019: 40) demonstrate in their study of the ‘uncooperative volume’ of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, where the horizontal spread of the Spanish was checked by their lack of vertical access to aquifers. Gormally et al (2018: 73) also conceive territory as a ‘geosocial challenge’ rather than simple extent, in respect to the required administrative capacity for implementing underground carbon storage (see also Slesinger, 2018; Valdivia, 2015). While there has been increasing interest in the geological power of humans signalled by the Anthropocene, it is the ‘radical indifference of geology to human life’ (Yusoff, 2017: 107), its ‘utter matter’ (Macfarlane, 2019: 4) and unfathomable otherness, which is more salient and perturbing, revealing the ‘limits to our ability to “govern” the rhythms and singularities of earth systems’ (Clark, 2017: 229).…”

Downwind dispersion of CO2 from a major subsea blowout in shallow offshore waters

“…ffshore geologic carbon sequestration (GCS) largely avoids a variety of concerns related to onshore GCS in the United States, for example, potential for impacting groundwater quality in the case of leakage of CO 2 into underground sources of drinking water, 1,2 inducing seismicity that is felt and/or damaging to houses and buildings, 3,4 and securing subsurface storage rights from a potential multitude of property owners. 5,6 In addition, a great deal of capacity for GCS has been identified in the offshore waters of the United States., for example, in the near offshore waters of the Texas Gulf Coast where there are numerous existing industrial CO 2 sources and networks of transportation infrastructure. 7,8 In addition to the decrease in concerns as mentioned above, health, safety, and environmental (HSE) risks of offshore GCS are generally lower than for onshore GCS if for no other reason than there are fewer people Oldenburg and Zhang offshore.…”