Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
9/18/2015
A comprehensive technical review of the CO2 storage plan for Shell’s Peterhead Carbon Capture and Storage project published this week finds that the plan is “robust and will provide for the secure long-term underground storage of CO2,” according to a statement by the British Geological Survey released with the review.
The Peterhead project will retrofit CCS technology onto a 385-megawatt portion of an existing gas-fired power plant in Scotland, transporting the CO2 via the existing Goldeneye underground pipeline and storing it in a depleted gas field in the North Sea. The project is expected to capture about 90 percent of the CO2 from the power station, at 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year. Peterhead is one of two remaining projects the United Kingdom’s £1 billion CCS commercialization competition, which is expected to be decided in 2016.
The review, performed by the British Geological Survey and Heriot-Watt University, assessed several key elements of the Peterhead storage plan, including geological site characterization, predictive dynamic models of storage performance, risk assessment, monitoring and corrective measures planning, handover criteria, and post-closure actions, and found Shell’s work in these areas adequate. “It is clear that the technical studies carried out by Shell are founded on a comprehensive suite of modern high-quality datasets and are very robust. We conclude therefore that the Goldeneye storage site is characterised and understood to a high level of detail and is suitable for the purpose of storing up to 20 million tonnes of CO2 injected according to the specified plan,” according to the report
Shall hailed the results of the review as a victory for its project. “This report provides independent verification, by global experts, of the excellent storage capabilities of the Goldeneye reservoir. It also affirms the work our project team – and other teams previously – has done to demonstrate why it is such a high-calibre site for storing CO2 from the proposed Peterhead CCS project,” a Shell spokesperson said by e-mail.
