Diagnostic Seismic toolbox for the Efficient Control of CO2 Storage (DiSECCS) is an interdisciplinary collaborative project focusing on developing monitoring tools and methodologies to identify and characterise injection-induced pressure build-up in storage reservoirs, to predict the onset of mechanical instability, and to verify performance and improve in situ quantification. The focus will be on storage in saline aquifers (comprising the largest potential global storage resource), where considerable amounts of in situ water have to be displaced and pressure effects will have consequences for both storage integrity and storage capacity, but the research will also be relevant to storage in depleted hydrocarbon fields where strong pressure cycling might have affected reservoir and top-seal integrity.
Work at Tyndall Manchester, will focus on social responses to underground CO2 storage. Experience to date demonstrates that underground storage of CO2 is associated with significant levels of concern amongst lay publics. Furthermore, concern about links between CO2 storage and potential induced seismic activity were spontaneously raised by lay participants in focus groups. Gaining a better understanding of these concerns and how they may manifest themselves is a crucial element of establishing a monitoring process that will instil wider public confidence in CO2 storage. In the absence of live storage projects in the UK it can be difficult to accurately gauge the potential public response. This study will draw on analogues, in conjunction with a discursive process involving lay participants, to gain vital insights into how a lay population engages with similar geological processes and how controversies surrounding particular projects develop and evolve.