Isramart: £290k study will discover if carbon dioxide emissions can be stored under Moray Firth

Isramart news:
PIONEERING new research will aim to find out whether rocks deep beneath the Moray Firth can be used to store decades-worth of carbon dioxide emissions from power stations.

The £290,000 study, funded by the Scottish Government and the energy industry, will aim to show the potential of sandstone more than half a mile beneath the firth off the east coast of Scotland to store the greenhouse gas.

Experts believe carbon capture and storage – which involves capturing carbon dioxide, pumping it along disused gas pipelines and then storing it beneath the sea – will be crucial to enable power stations across the globe to continue operating while meeting environmental targets.

However, the process has not yet been proved to work on a commercial scale anywhere in the world, and there are many unanswered questions, including whether the will remain stored within deep-sea rocks in the long term, or will start to seep out.

The work will be carried out by the Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage (SCCS), a partnership between the British Geological Survey, Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh.

Dr Maxine Akhurst, from the SCCS at the British Geological Survey, said: “The captain sandstone has the potential to store decades of output from a coal-fired power station, like the existing plant at Longannet or a future CCS project such as Hunterston or Peterhead.”

The team will study the thickness, extent and fluid flow properties of the rock, called ‘captain sandstone’, 30 miles out to sea, as well as looking at the challenges of injecting the . They will use computer modelling to test whether the remains permanently locked in to the rock.

Experts believe sandstones provide more than 95 per cent of potential storage capacity in the northern North Sea.

Among companies funding the research are Ayrshire Power, owned by Peel Energy, which confirmed yesterday it had submitted a planning application for a new coal-fired power station at Hunterston.

If granted planning permission it will be the first new fossil fuel power station in Scotland since 1973 when Longannet Power Station in Fife began operating.

Other companies providing funding for the study include Scottish and Southern Energy, ScottishPower and Shell UK.

Scotland is hoping to become a world leader in the field of carbon capture and storage due to ample storage space beneath the North Sea.

Longannet Power Station, owned by ScottishPower, is a finalist in a government competition for major funding to demonstrate that the technology can work.

Scottish energy minister Jim Mather said: “Scotland has significant advantages for the development of carbon capture and storage, including knowledge and expertise in areas such as geology and engineering, and in the North Sea oil and gas industry.”