Environmental effects related to CO2 storage

 

The captured CO2 is to be stored underground. Stores require monitoring and maintenance, which in itself will involve minor environmental effects.

The potential environmental effects associated with storage are primarily linked to the risk of leakage to groundwater and the marine environment.

According to the IPCC the risk of leakage to the atmosphere is not high: "The special report suggests that geological storage is very likely to result in 99 per cent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) being retained more than 100 years, and is likely to result in 99 per cent of the CO2 being retained more than 1000 years. "

The practical applicability of such reviews, however, is more than dubious, because history again and again has proven appraisals from technical experts to be erroneous because the real world has turned out to be far more complex and unpredictable than preconditioned. Serious accidents in the chemical industry and in the history of nuclear power industry ( Chernobyl e.g.) go to prove this point. Underground storage of a waste product like CO2 implies a fundamental change in environmental policy since it legalizes the use of the underground as a dumpsite. This introduces a radical shift in the current waste strategy.

It should also be noted that CO2 at concentrations above 10% is deadly to humans, implying that there is a theoretical risk of fatal accidents associated with future CO2 storage caused by sudden massive leakages (for example) caused by pressure-induced cracks or earthquakes.

See this link with the current U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu. In the debate on responsibility for the stores it is frequently mentioned that there is a theoretical risk that the injection of CO2 in itself can trigger earthquakes due to the changes in pressure conditions in the underground.

In December 2008 an area 15 kilometres northeast of Ystad in the Southernmost part Sweden was hit by an earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale. Whether tremors of this force involve a risk of leakage from CO2 stores, we do not know.

In August 1986 a heavy discharge of CO2 from the underground took place at Lake Nyos in Cameroon in which 1700 people died from suffocation. See this link.