Geologic Carbon Sequestration Program

Over the past several hundred years, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations have steadily increased. These increases are attributed mainly to burning coal, oil, and natural gas for electricity generation, transportation, and industrial and domestic uses. Today, globally, nearly 30 billion tons of CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion are emitted into the atmosphere. There is growing consensus that increases in CO₂ concentrations will disrupt the earth's climate, cause sea level to rise enough to flood low-lying coastal regions, and damage sensitive ecosystems.

Experts believe that to avoid significant disruption of the climate system and ecosystems, CO₂ concentrations must be stabilized within the next several decades. At today's emission rates, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations will continue to grow rapidly and, within 50 years, may exceed the levels needed to protect sensitive ecosystems and avoid flooding in low-lying coastal areas. This situation is even more urgent when we consider that over the next 50 years CO₂ emissions are expected to double as the developing world's economies grow and the standard of living increases.

Geologic storage of CO₂ in underground formations has quickly advanced from a mere concept to a reality. Significant progress has been made in the critical areas of storage security and integrity, storage optimization, monitoring and verification, and risk assessment and mitigation. More remains to be accomplished before widespread application of this technology takes place, but the results of research conducted in various projects continue to demonstrate that this technology can make large contributions to the climate change problem.

In April 2007, to address this pressing climatic issue and to advance the technology related to geologic carbon storage, the Earth Sciences Division is adding a new program, the Geological Carbon Sequestration (GCS) Program. The GCS currently includes four main projects:

• GEO-SEQ
• West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB)
• Zero Emissions Research and Technology (ZERT)
• CO₂ Geological Storage and Groundwater Resources

Each of these is beneficial in very specific research areas. GEO-SEQ focuses on scientific field testing and analysis of geologic storage. WESTCARB is a partnership for the purpose of pilot testing to demonstrate the potential for CO₂ storage in deep geological formations and to enable deployment of CCS technology. ZERT performs fundamental research on geological storage. The potential impact of large-scale geologic sequestration of CO₂ on groundwater hydrology and quality is investigated in the forth project.

For more information, please contact:

• Larry Myer Earth Sciences Division Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory MS: 90-1116 Berkeley, CA 94720 Ph: 510-486-6456 Fax: 510-486-5686 LRMyer@lbl.gov

  Curt Oldenburg Earth Sciences Division Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory MS: 90-1116 Berkeley, CA 94720 Ph: 510-486-7419 Fax: 510-486-5686 CMOldenburg@lbl.gov