Ceri J. Vincent

The Potential for Storing Carbon Dioxide in the Rocks Beneath the UK Southern North Sea

Publisher Summary The CO2 storage potential of the U.K. sector of the Southern North Sea has been intensively studied in the EU Energie Programme project, European Potential for Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide from Fossil Fuel Combustion (GESTCO). This project determines the cost and practicality of extending carbon dioxide storage technology, similar to that being demonstrated at the Sleipner West gas field to the major industrial plant of western Europe. An inventory of industrial point sources of carbon dioxide in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and the U.K. demonstrates that the Southern North Sea Basin is surrounded by a significant proportion of northern Europes heavy industry including many fossil fuel fired power plants, steel works and oil refineries / petrochemical complexes. Thus, the reservoir rocks of the Southern North Sea are ideally sited to act as a repository for CO2, which would otherwise be emitted to the atmosphere by these plants.

Thermal and burial history modelling in the Midlothian-Leven syncline in the Midland Valley of Scotland using BasinMod and HotPot

Synopsis Basin subsidence and thermal history models of the eastern part of the Midland Valley of Scotland have been constructed to characterize the development of the Midlothian-Leven synclinal basin from the mid Mississippian to the present day. Two modelling programs were used: BasinMod and HotPot. BasinMod models are based on thermal maturity at borehole sites; HotPot models operate on stacks of 2D layer grids using a mechanical compaction method. The thermal and burial history modelling indicates up to 1.9 km of additional burial of Carboniferous strata compared to present day levels: up to 660 m deposited by the end of the Carboniferous period, subsequently removed by Variscan uplift and erosion, followed by up to 1.9 km of burial by sedimentary rocks deposited during the Permian to the Palaeogene periods. Temperatures greater than 130 °C were reached by the most deeply buried Carboniferous sedimentary rocks. Mississippian (Lower Carboniferous) rocks reached the oil generation window during the mid Carboniferous, with Pennsylvanian (Upper Carboniferous) rocks reaching the oil generation window during the Cretaceous. Sedimentation rates were of 0.03–0.63 m ka−1 (metres per thousand years) with changes in the rate and the positions of depocentres consistent with both extensional and strike-slip basin formation.