Earth's capacity for storing CO2 underground in pore space may be much less than expected
Storing captured CO2 as a semi-liquid in the tiny pore spaces of sedimentary rock underground is widely considered to be one strategy for reducing global warming. CO2 would be captured from industrial emissions (carbon capture and storage, CCS) and industrial direct air capture plants (direct air capture with pore space storage, DACPS).
Rock layers in sedimentary basins throughout the world have been widely estimated to have enough pore space to ultimately store a total of gigatonnes. This far exceeds the 2,000 GtCO2 that has been widely viewed as requiring storage by the year 2100 — suggesting there should be no concern about adequate future storage capacity.
But a new modelling study . . . Read more






