What Needs to be Done? Environmental Impacts

Carol Turley and Jerry Blackford

Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK

                                                                   

                                                                                                   

                                          

CCS R & D Workshop, Royal Academy of Engineering, 28 February 2008

Point escapes:-Remote sensing???

Diffuse escapes:-Carbon isotope analysis of soil gases

Early Warning System:

CCS Below Land (important in some countries) – Environmental Detection and

ImpactSpectral responses in plantsEnvironmental impact assessment

Volume/concentration

velocity

Sea/air flux

Flux to sea

Key Questions:

1. Time and space scales, quantities of any CO2 release, dispersion rate, zones of impact?

2. Impacts on biology and biogeochemical cycles?

3. Impacts on ecosystems?

4. Recovery rate?

5. Can we monitor and survey for change?

6. Relative environmental benefits and risks of CCS?

7. What are the economic risks, costs and benefits?

8. What are the public perception and regulatory issues?

gentle catastrophic

d

Vol/conc

Mixing & dispersion

density

3

1

1

4

Impact of CO2 Release from UK Subsea CCS

6-7

Cabled observatory

Moored buoy with satellite link, monitoring pH/CO2 dissolved in seawater

Marine surveys

2

5

5 1

North Sea is Productive, Diverse and Economically Important

Shelf seas very important for:

Global productivity

Biodiversity

Economics

Driven by benthic –pelagic coupling!

There are Numerous Species Vulnerable to High CO2

Impacts,Adaptations& Recovery

Molecular

Population& Community

Ecosystem

Biodiversity

Biogeochemistry

Goods & Services

Organismal

Cellular

Time

Sp

ace

Scales of Impact, their Adaptation and Recovery

Adaptation

& Recovery

From genes to ecosystems and their services

Our research to date suggests the following hypothesis:

Fast dispersal and propagation, driven by mixing will limit the impact to the pelagic ecosystem.

However benthic systems exposed to significant perturbation would show impacts to some functionally significant biota and recovery of these relatively longer-lived species would be slower.

Hence we propose a research program that focuses (although not exclusively) on exposure, impact and recovery in benthic systems, their biodiversity and their ability to cycle carbon and key nutrients.

Key Objectives

Develop fine scale dispersion models that will quantify the spatial and temporal perturbation profile for a wide range of leakage scenarios

Using the model results to drive the experimental set up, run a series of experiments that will investigate responses and recovery in different sediment types and species.

Investigate CO2 injection beneath the sediments, (geological leakage and buried infrastructure),

Examine the impacts of potential contaminants of CO2 such as H2S and NOx

Develop detailed system models to scale up and quantify whole system impact, including economic and risk assessments.

CCS Proposal ConceptMarine Impacts of Leakage from Carbon Capture and Storage

High resolution physical models (POL / ?)

3D medium resolution coupled Ecosystem models

(PML)

Complex ecosystemimpact and recovery

models(PML)

Impact &Recovery

Experiments(PML)

Gas Dynamics

in fluids(PML / Others)

Geological leakage

probability(BGS)

Engineering system leakage

parameters & risks(Industry, CCSC)

Impactrisk

assessment(PML/Others)

Dissemination to science and policy

Contaminants(CCSC)

Retention of CO2

define expts

Definescenarios

Leakdispersion

Defineprobabilities

Processes, params, functions

Ecosystemimpacts

SpatialDispersion

concentrations

Processes, params, functions

Monitoring for Leakage and Impact (or Long Term Retention)

PML has a 30 year history of research into biodiversity and sustainable ecosystems, in measuring ocean pH and pCO2 and more recently assessing the impact of CO2 using our experimental facilities and ecosystem modelling

The future? A cabled under-sea long-term observatory liked to buoyed and satellite communications for:

continuous measurement

rapid detection