Potential of Co-practicing Enhanced Rock Weathering and Geologic Carbon Storage

Hang Deng, Qi Li

ABSTRACT:

Geologic carbon storage (GCS) is an important technology for mitigating climate change, and hundreds to thousands of gigatons of CO2 needs to be stored via GCS by 2100 to achieve the 2 °C or 1.5 °C target.1 One challenge that hinders the large-scale deployment of GCS is the risk of the injected CO2 migrating through abandoned wells and/or faults/fractures into overlying formations or the atmosphere. Assessments that considered extensive empirically measured and simulated data of GCS suggests that the surface seepage rate is highly likely to be less than 0.05% stored/year,2 corresponding to CO2 fluxes at the land surface on the order of 0.1−104 μmol m−2 s−1 depending on the affected area (e.g., 1000 m2 for a single leaky well and ∼100 km2 for the CO2 plume of a typical GCS project).

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c02173