Carbon capture or hazard release? Geoscience opportunities, strategic assets, and a couple of headaches

• Main Author: Umberto Fracassi
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: CCUS; Permafrost thawing; Coastal exposure; Multi-hazard; Population growth; permafrost
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/7644466; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7644466

EU and global commitments for CO2 reduction include removal of major volumes, to be captured and stored underground. For such efforts to affect current concentrations, CCUS at colossal scale is required, far greater than current pilot projects, and upscaled in the future, as population growth will drive construction, thereby cement and steel, whose emissions are inherently hard-to-abate. However, although promising and needed, massive-scale CCUS is not devoid of potential associated hazards (including induced seismicity), requires unevenly distributed subsurface conditions, and dictates major understanding of pre-existing geophysical processes. Geoscientists must then be centerstage to drive energy policies in these efforts.