The UK Carbon Capture and Storage Consortium.

人们越来越关注全球变暖，以及最近认识到的海洋酸化，这主要是由我们使用化石燃料时释放的二氧化碳引起的。但是，从目前的情况来看，我们从化石燃料中获得大部分能源，到我们使用更少的能源，从可再生能源和新的核电站中获得大量能源，可能还需要很长时间才能改变。而且在某些用途上替代化石燃料可能很困难——例如，在风力不足以转动风车时发电。那么，如果我们需要尽快大幅减少化石燃料排放到大气中的二氧化碳量，但又不能在不留下“能源缺口”的情况下以我们希望的速度减少它们的使用，我们该怎么办呢？打破使用化石燃料和向大气中排放二氧化碳之间联系的一种方法是捕获化石燃料燃烧发电或在未来制造可作为无碳燃料的氢气时释放的二氧化碳。然后，通过在地下钻1公里或更深的特殊钻孔，将二氧化碳注入地下。这些综合起来称为二氧化碳捕获和储存（CCS）。为了将二氧化碳保持在地下，我们需要一个多孔的储层岩石，比如砂岩，上面有一层渗透性较差的岩石密封层。CCS显然不是气候变化的最终解决方案，但它确实给了我们时间去做所有其他的事情，通常是困难的，向一个更可持续的世界迈进所需的事情。化石燃料的耗尽并不是一个迫在眉睫的问题——这可能会持续至少一个世纪——但应对气候变化才是！重要的是，二氧化碳至少要在地下存留一万年。我们知道，通常含有二氧化碳的石油和天然气已经在地下埋藏了数百万年。该提案着眼于在不久的将来如何利用英国的石油和天然气田作为众所周知的二氧化碳储存场所。这也可能使更多的石油被开采出来，我们将研究如何为英国经济充分利用这一点。我们可能还需要将额外的二氧化碳储存在海底深层含水层中，这是一层多孔岩石，它们是密封的，但在过去没有碰巧捕获石油和天然气，所以只含有咸水。我们将看看英国近海含水层岩石能安全容纳多少二氧化碳。总有一些二氧化碳会从这些地质储存地点泄漏到海洋中的风险。这个项目将研究这种情况是如何发生的，如果发生了如何检测，以及它对海洋生态系统的影响。但无论如何，当大气中的二氧化碳增加时，更多的二氧化碳溶解在海水的表层，使水更酸。这项工作也将显示这有什么影响。从发电站和氢气厂捕获二氧化碳的方法是相当容易理解的，尽管仍然需要研究来提高性能和降低成本。因此，我们将重点关注的是如何充分利用二氧化碳捕获作为整个英国能源系统的一部分，就像它现在和未来可能发展的那样。为此，我们将与TSEC项目中的其他团体，特别是英国教育与教育委员会，以及其他英国和国际合作者密切合作。CCS系统将遍布整个英国和近海地区，因此绘制项目数据并了解它们如何整合在一起将非常有帮助。由于CCS必须成为通往新能源的桥梁，我们对CCS系统如何补充可再生能源特别感兴趣，例如，通过提供备用电力或提供一个市场来鼓励新的生物质燃料工业。CCS还将允许使用化石燃料来制造氢气，从而帮助实现氢经济。最后，在实际、技术和经济因素之外，同样重要的是，我们要了解可能影响CCS作为减少二氧化碳排放的一种选择的社会和政治方面。

Concern is rising about global warming and, more recently recognised, ocean acidification, mainly caused by CO2 released when we use fossil fuels. But it may still take a long time to change from the current situation, where we get most of our energy from fossil fuels, to one where we use much less energy and get a lot of the energy that we do use from renewables and perhaps new nuclear power stations. And it may be difficult to replace fossil fuels for some purposes - for example, to generate electricity when the wind does not blow enough to turn windmills. So what are we to do if we need to make big reductions in the amounts of CO2 from fossil fuels getting into the atmosphere as soon as possible, but cannot reduce their use as fast as we would like without leaving an 'energy gap'? One way to break the link between using fossil fuels and putting CO2 into the atmosphere is to capture the CO2 that is given off when fossil fuels are burnt to make electricity or, in the future, to make hydrogen gas that can be used as a carbon-free fuel. The CO2 can then be injected underground by drilling special boreholes to 1km depth or more. Combined together this is called CO2 capture and storage (CCS). To keep the CO2 underground we need a porous reservoir rock, such as sandstone, with a sealing layer of less permeable rock on top. CCS is obviously not a final solution to climate change, but it does give us time to do all the other, often difficult, things required to move towards a more sustainable world. Running out of fossil fuels is not an immediate problem - these will probably last for at least a century more - but tackling climate change is! It is important that CO2 stays in the ground for at least 10,000 years. We know that oil and gas, often containing CO2, have been trapped underground for millions of years. This proposal looks at how the UK's oil and gas fields might be used in the near future as well-understood places to store CO2. This is also likely to allow more oil to be extracted, and we will study how to make the most of this for the UK economy. We may also need to store additional CO2 underground offshore in deep aquifers, layers of porous rock that are sealed but didn't happen to trap oil and gas in the past and so just contain salty water. We will look at how much CO2 the UK's offshore aquifer rocks can safely hold. There is always a risk that some CO2 will leak into the sea from these geological storage sites. This project will study how this might happen, how to detect it if it does, and what effect it might have on ocean ecosystems. But in any case, when CO2 increases in the atmosphere more CO2 dissolves in the surface layers of seawater, making the water more acid. This work will also show what effects this has. Ways to capture CO2 from power stations and hydrogen plants are fairly well understood, although research is still needed to improve performance and reduce the costs. So what we will concentrate on is how to make the best use of CO2 capture as part of the whole UK energy system, as it is now and as it might develop in the future. To do this we will work closely with other groups in the TSEC programme, particularly UKERC, and other UK and international collaborators. CCS systems will spread across all of the UK, and offshore, so mapping data for the project and seeing how it all fits together will be very helpful. Because CCS has to be a bridge to new energy sources we are particularly interested in how CCS systems can complement renewables, for example by supplying backup electricity or by providing a market to encourage a new biomass fuel industry. CCS would also allow fossil fuels to be used to make hydrogen and so help get a hydrogen economy under way. Finally, beyond the practical, technical and economic factors it is equally important that we understand the social and political aspects that may affect the introduction of CCS as an option for reducing CO2 emissions.