Environment & Safety
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects have a long history of operating safely due to careful site selection; regulation from state and federal agencies; early, continual, and transparent community engagement; and a wide variety of monitoring techniques developed over decades of research, development, and use. Because of these efforts, projects like the Northern Lights Project and the Sleipner Project have been safely injecting and storing CO₂ offshore, some for decades. Additionally, continued efforts have been made to the carbon dioxide transport side of CCS with hundreds of miles of CO₂ pipelines safely crisscrossing the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma since the 1970s, and more being developed in other parts of the United States.
Executing a CCS project safely starts well before any equipment ever touches the ground. Geoscientists can spend months, or even years, studying models and data retrieved from multiple sources to determine if the site and subsurface meet the requirements to host a CCS well. Additional time and energy go into engineering to determine the amount of CO₂ a site can store as well as how much stress the layers of rock involved can withstand. These efforts ensure a minimal impact on the environment as well as the safe operation of a project.
CCS projects are only located in areas where the layers of rock underground are ideal for storing CO₂. With proper permitting, construction, and monitoring, CCS projects can be executed with the utmost assurance that CO₂ stored underground will not leak back to the surface or impact the surrounding environment and communities. Once a site is deemed ideal for a carbon storage project, additional work is done at the surface (seismic monitoring) and in the subsurface (wire logging and core samples) to ensure geologists and engineers have the most robust information possible about a potential CCS site.
For an offshore CCS hub, there will be no visible impact from the shore, preserving unobstructed sunrises and a thriving tourism industry. Operations will either be subsea or on the surface, and because the human eye cannot see farther than three miles away at sea level, any surface operations will be out of sight from the shoreline.
The research conducted by the project team will make it possible for CCS to be safely developed in the offshore Atlantic region should potential developers decide to move forward with projects in the future. These efforts will ensure a minimal impact on the environment as well as the safe operation of a future project. No drilling or CO₂ injection will take place during this project.