by Susan Hovorka

A lot of work has been done on designing monitoring programs for carbon capture and storage sites. All of the regulations, very properly, say that monitoring should be site-specific. But the details of how a regulator and an operator determine what is site-specific have not been fully explored. This creates uncertainty. What the site-specific phrase means to a regulator may not match up with what the site-specific phrase means to a site developer.

At the Gulf Coast Carbon Center, we have considered the ways that monitoring tools interact with sites. In this context, we have found it useful to think of these tools as traps for catching carbon dioxide leaks. Leakage from a well-characterized storage reservoir is not expected, however even from a site for which the characterization is excellent, some uncertainty remains. Stakeholders, such as regulators, capture industries, project financiers, or the public may find such uncertainty unacceptable. To borrow an analogy from a business whose entire goal is the elimination of the unacceptable: You can’t catch a mouse with a squirrel trap. You also won’t catch a mouse in a lake in the winter. You have to set the right kind of trap, in the right place, at the right time to determine if you do or do not have mice.

We explore how to set the right trap to catch leakage using four common tools as examples. Continue reading →