topic Research

Storage of Greenhouse Gases

Geologic Carbon Dioxide Storage

The Federal Government has adopted the commitment on international level to considerably reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in Germany by 2020 as a contribution to global climate protection. The use of subterranean space as a storage medium for carbon dioxide is a possible option to achieve the planned objectives. Therefore, the BMBF supports research work on geologic carbon dioxide storage.

1. Funding period: Investigation, Utilization and Protection of the Underground
   The projects of the 1st funding period (2005 - 2009) dealt with different strategies for the underground storage of carbon dioxide. These included the storage of carbon dioxide in salty aquifers, exhausted oil and natural gas deposits as well as in coal seams. In carrying out investigations, the chemical and kinetic behaviour of carbon dioxide during the geologic storage as well as its propagation in the underground should be observed. Also, investigations of safety aspects during the carbon dioxide storage as well as the evaluation of the long-term risk and the sustainability of the disposal of carbon dioxide in the underground were carried out.
   
   Approx. 5.7 million euros were held available for the research works.
2. Funding period: Using the underground for carbon dioxide storage for global climate protection goals
   The projects of the second phase (2008 - 2011) are concerned with the integrity of the cap rock and reservoir rock of possible storage sites and the long-term sealing of holes in the area of potential carbon dioxide stores. Furthermore, the effects of trace gases in carbon dioxide on rock properties shall be determined and alteration processes occurring in the area of natural carbon dioxide sources shall be investigated. Also, the biogeochemical transformation of carbon dioxide in methane as well as the modelling of carbon dioxide storage in deep salty aquifers is subject of the investigations. The further development of imaging methods shall help to better trace the carbon dioxide propagation in the underground. The combination of underground coal gasification with carbon dioxide storage as well as the possibility of carbon dioxide fixation in alkaline residues is surveyed.
   
   In cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the possibility of combining the use of submarine gas hydrate deposits as landfill for carbon dioxide with methane exploitation shall be researched. The effects of carbon dioxide leakages on aquifers shall be determined within the framework of field experiments. It is furthermore intended to instrumentally monitor the underground propagation of carbon dioxide in the test site in Ketzin (Brandenburg).
3. Funding period: Geologic CO2-storage - long-term safety
   A third funding period is currently being prepared.

Location-Specific Projects

The priority topic, within the framework of which mainly location-independent projects are supported, is associated with the location-specific major project CLEAN (Altmark, Saxony-Anhalt). With this project, the possibility of large-scale carbon dioxide storage in a nearly exhausted natural gas deposit shall be investigated for the first time.

In the context of the collaborative project BRINE, a potential storage site in Brandenburg shall be investigated to find out whether salt water migration from deep saline aquifers caused by carbon dioxide storage results in a hazard (salinisation) for drinking water-bearing aquifers in the upper mountain levels