News :: Bryant and Burton Present New Research in CO₂ Sequestration

Associate Professor Steven Bryant and recent graduate McMillan Burton (MS '08) presented new research on Geological Storage of carbon dioxide at the ninth annual International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies in Washington D.C. last week. The presentation, entitled, “Surface Dissolution: Minimizing Groundwater Impact and Leakage Risk Simultaneously” describes a new approach to carbon sequestration which eliminates the risk of CO₂ escaping via buoyancy.

According to Bryant, “this process has several advantages, but the most important is that it eliminates the risk of sequestered carbon dioxide escaping from the storage formation. Our work shows that this alternative process does cost more than the standard approach, but not prohibitively more. In essence, the incremental cost can be regarded as the price of risk reduction. This is an important consideration because all stakeholders will want the greatest assurance of secure storage for the lowest cost.”