Questions about potential leaks are at the heart of the debate, as they remain unresolved for John Underhill.
At the same time, the construction of wind farms could hamper the monitoring of storage sites and the wind industry.
According to John Underhill, Professor at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, the decisions taken at COP26 leave a number of questions unanswered.
The Norwegian Sleipner project, a reference model, has been storing 1 million tonnes of CO2 every year since 1996.
However, John Underhill believes that an independent study needs to be carried out on the UK projects.
Eni leads the Hynet North West project and BP the East Coast Cluster.
At the same time, the expansion of wind farms could hamper seismic monitoring of storage sites.
In particular, the Hornsea 4 project is set to be built, in part, on one of these storage sites.
John Underhill highlights various geological issues
For the professor, the tilt of the British Isles would be an obstacle to the installation of storage sites and could lead to leakage.
Furthermore, on the west coast, the depleted Hamilton field would be too shallow for the “Hynet” carbon project.
This solution is likely to lead to leaks due to a lack of pressure and unsuitable temperatures.
Finally, CO2 could react with water to form carbonic acid, threatening rocks and decommissioned oil wells.
The oil and gas regulator, the Oil & Gas Authority, has been criticized for its desire to make the decommissioned fields profitable.
However, it has announced that further studies will be carried out.
Annual verifications are also planned as part of emissions trading.
John Underhill urges London to review post-2020 offshore licenses
He proposed maximizing the exploitation of hydrocarbons while reducing emissions.
To meet climate targets, he said gas “is a crucial part of the transition”.
According to John Underhill, it is important to reduce emissions from the production process.
The reuse of infrastructure for gas and CO2 storage would become a reliable solution.
Discussions must take account of all fossil fuels and renewable energies, taking import dependency into account.
