Humankind will need to harness carbon capture and storage technologies to help keep global warming to 2 degrees C or less. New research shows that there’s plenty of room to store captured CO2 — in offshore geologic rock formations.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) will play a vital role in helping the world cut its carbon dioxide emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says.
Yet less than two dozen CCS projects have been initiated globally, partly because of costs, but also because of uncertainty about the viability of the technology.
As policymakers wrap up their meetings in Madrid this week to discuss the next steps to curb global warming, a new study demonstrates that there’s more than enough suitable storage for captured carbon dioxide on the world’s continental shelves.
Read more at Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Image: This visualization illustrates how CO2 is injected into a subsea geologic formation at the Sleipner field. Equinor began injecting CO2 into the formation in 1996. More than 20 million tonnes of CO2 have been injected into the formation since then. This is the equivalent to the annual emissions from 10 million cars. (Credit: Illustration: Equinor)