Ten years ago, the Paris COP conference heralded an exceptional meeting to tackle climate change, backed by science, and soon embraced by industry. Much has been achieved, particularly in electrification through the explosive growth of renewables and EVs. However, the original optimism now risks stalling in much of the world as the reality of displacing
Carbon dioxide-induced corrosion of industrial equipment is very common, costly and particularly poses new challenges for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) systems. The role of impurities, such as SOx and NOx, which are also present in the stream, can also be important and has been discussed recently (cf. Corrosion Science, vol. 236, August 2024). A
Carbon storage in deep saline aquifers has become an important part of plans to decarbonise the energy system. Typically, aquifers are composed of a porous, permeable rock containing formation water. As CO2 is injected into an aquifer, some of it migrates towards topographic highs within the aquifer, while some is retained in the pore spaces
During the first part of today’s seminar, PhD student Ross Shepherd presented some of his recent work on the injection and storage of CO2 into underground aquifers. Carbon capture and storage will be required as one of many technologies in the global energy transition, and Ross has been studying how to optimise the injection of
On Friday 21 March 2025, professor Andy Woods returned from a 2-day visit to the Japan Academy. The visit was organised with the Royal Society to discuss issues relating to the energy transition, with particular focus on hydrogen generation, use and storage and carbon capture and storage. The visit included discussions of the research being
In a number of natural or industrial settings, such as magmatic intrusions or geothermal power systems, subsurface porous rocks are flooded by fluid of a different density and composition than the original formation fluid. As the invading fluid migrates through the formation and reacts, its density and composition might change. In turn, this may lead
On 9-10 December 2024 we hosted our annual Cambridge Energy Masterclass in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. This very well-attended event offered an illuminating insight into the state-of-the-art understanding of many vital areas of the energy transition, with talks on everything from wind, solar, and nuclear power; to ammonia, hydrogen, and geothermal energy storage; to
Andy Woods and Nicola Mingotti showcased Institute research in parliament on Tuesday 26th November during a session at which the four national academies presented their research activities related to energy transition. They took with them an analogue experiment demonstrating the dissolution of Carbon Dioxide in a deep saline aquifer. Throughout the morning Andy and Nicola
Today, PhD student Emily Flicos delivered our weekly seminar, with a presentation titled ‘CCS & permeability: thinking about uncertainty through a perturbation analysis’. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has a crucial role to play in the journey to Net Zero and represents an enormous challenge due to the scale of storage that we must meet.