Insights and guidance for offshore CO2 storage monitoring based on the QICS, ETI MMV, and STEMM-CCS projects

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a collective term for technologies that allow society to unlock the benefits of energy intensive processes like fertiliser production and combustion of fuels (fossil or biologically sourced) without releasing the CO2 to the atmosphere. Hence, CCS could assist in accelerating decarbonisation while society pursues a just energy transition. This paper aims to summarise the learnings of three research projects that all investigated aspects of marine monitoring for CCS from a CO2 storage operator’s perspective. The QICS (Quantifying and Monitoring Potential Ecosystem Impacts of Geological Carbon Storage), ETI MMV (Energy Technologies Institute Measurement, Monitoring and Verification of CO2 Storage), and STEMM-CCS (Strategies for Environmental Monitoring of Marine CCS) projects collectively represent over twelve years of dedicated research to assess environmental impacts and to develop technologies for detection, location, and quantification of potential leakage from offshore geological storage of CO2. Each project used controlled releases in representative environments to test their methods and technologies. QICS as the first of the three projects, focused on the understanding of sensitivities of the UK marine environment to a potential leak from a CO2 storage complex and tested technologies to detect such emissions. The ETI MMV project brought together research and industry partners to develop and sea trial an operational, integrated and cost-effective marine monitoring system for geological CO2 storage. As a commercial project, these results have never been published before and this paper shares for the first-time insights from this work. In February 2020, STEMM-CCS, completed its quest to test techniques for environmental monitoring over a marine CO2 storage site in the UK North Sea, further improved near seabed leakage characterisation capabilities, and delivered a first marine CCS demonstration level ecological baseline. This paper aims to summarise some of the key insights from the three projects and provides references where available for the interested reader. The key finding of all three projects is that the impacts of small to medium CO2 leakages from large-scale storage are limited and localised. Technology capabilities exist for integrated marine CO2 storage monitoring and their performance has been benchmarked at controlled release trials. Even small leakages of 10− 50 L/min can be detected at unknown locations in a large area of interest. Finally, the first important steps towards automated monitoring data analysis have been made, including automated leakage signal detection from Side Scan Sonar data (ETI MMV project) and automated species identification from marine biology images (STEMM-CCS project). Some remaining challenges include missed/ false alerts because of large variations in the background signal, the cost of monitoring large areas over long periods, and making real-time decisions based on big data. Continued work to reduce the cost of marine monitoring technologies and advancing automation of data processing and analysis will be important in order to support safe and efficient offshore CCS deployment at large scale

Introduction to the STEMM-CCS special issue

This special issue brings together a selection of papers resulting from the STEMM-CCS (Strategies for Environmental Monitoring of Marine Carbon Capture and Storage) project. STEMM-CCS was an ambitious, four-year, project on offshore geologic carbon dioxide storage funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 654,462). The aim was to deliver new insights, guidelines, and tools for the monitoring of CO2 storage at putative offshore Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) sites. CCS is an important potential mitigation strategy to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Although CO2 leakage from geological reservoirs is considered unlikely, there is a regulatory need and societal expectation to undertake appropriate monitoring to provide assurance that leakage is not occurring. Should leakage be suspected, the capacity to detect, attribute, monitor, and quantify potential CO2 leaks from sub-seafloor CCS reservoirs will be critical. In addition, it is important to predict and understand potential environmental impact from a range of leak scenarios, such that mitigation can be enacted if necessary. Regulatory and legislative bodies need assurance that potential storage leaks can be rapidly detected and quantified. Operators need to be able to detect and quantify, but also must have the ability to attribute leaks to a specific reservoir, potentially within a field of different storage systems and operators. Additionally, quantification techniques will be vital for storage operators if a carbon tax credit system were to be implemented. STEMM-CCS has successfully demonstrated solutions to these issues, though further development will be required to increase regulator and operator confidence. Further, these solutions will also underpin efforts to gain social licence to sequester CO2 in sub-seafloor geologic storage. Prior to any CO2 storage at a site, an environmental assessment needs to be carried out in order to identify any site-specific risks and characterise natural environmental variation sufficiently to allow the efficient detection of environmental anomalies and impacts throughout the lifetime of the storage site. One of the challenges for regulators is to understand what information is required to sufficiently characterise an environment, while for operators, it is obtaining that baseline environmental data cost effectively. STEMM-CCS has not only shown how to establish and interpret baseline data using traditional surveying and sampling but has shown that modelling and other numerical analysis can be used that negate the need for intensive surveying and/or enable targeted surveying, thus balancing the needs of regulators, the public and industry. These approaches can also be utilised for continued monitoring once storage commences

Isotopic signature of dissolved iron delivered to the Southern Ocean from hydrothermal vents in the East Scotia Sea

It has recently been demonstrated that hydrothermal vents are an important source of dissolved Fe (dFe) to the Southern Ocean. The isotopic composition (δ⁵⁶Fe) of dFe in vent fluids appears to be distinct from other sources of dFe to the deep ocean, but the evolution of δ⁵⁶Fe during mixing between vent fluids and seawater is poorly constrained. Here we present the evolution of δ⁵⁶Fe for dFe in hydrothermal fluids and dispersing plumes from two sites in the East Scotia Sea. We show that δ⁵⁶Fe values in the buoyant plume are distinctly lower (as low as −1.19‰) than the hydrothermal fluids (−0.29‰), attributed to (1) precipitation of Fe sulfides in the early stages of mixing, and (2) partial oxidation of Fe(II) to Fe(III), >55% of which subsequently precipitates as Fe oxyhydroxides. By contrast, the δ⁵⁶Fe signature of stabilized dFe in the neutrally buoyant plume is −0.3‰ to −0.5‰. This cannot be explained by continued dilution of the buoyant plume with background seawater; rather, we suggest that isotope fractionation of dFe occurs during plume dilution due to Fe ligand complexation and exchange with labile particulate Fe. The δ⁵⁶Fe signature of stabilized hydrothermal dFe in the East Scotia Sea is distinct from background seawater and may be used to quantify the hydrothermal dFe input to the ocean interior

Soluble iron conservation and colloidal iron dynamics in a hydrothermal plume

Iron (Fe) limits or co-limits primary productivity and nitrogen fixation in large regions of the world's oceans, and the supply of Fe from hydrothermal vents to the deep ocean is now known to be extensive. However, the mechanisms that control the amount of hydrothermal Fe that is stabilized in the deep ocean, and thus dictate the impact of hydrothermal Fe sources on surface ocean biogeochemistry, are unclear. To learn more, we have examined the dispersion of total dissolvable Fe (TDFe), dissolved Fe (dFe) and soluble Fe (sFe) in the buoyant and non-buoyant hydrothermal plume above the Beebe vent field, Caribbean Sea. We have also characterized plume particles using electron microscopy and synchrotron based spectromicroscopy. We show that the majority of dFe in the Beebe hydrothermal plume was present as colloidal Fe (cFe = dFe − sFe). During ascent of the buoyant plume, a significant fraction of particulate Fe (pFe = TDFe − dFe) was lost to settling and exchange with colloids. Conversely, the opposite was observed in the non-buoyant plume, where pFe concentrations increased during non-buoyant plume dilution, cFe concentrations decreased apparently due to colloid aggregation. Elemental mapping of carbon, oxygen and iron in plume particles reveals their close association and indicates that exchanges of Fe between colloids and particles must include transformations of organic carbon and Fe oxyhydroxide minerals. Notably, sFe is largely conserved during plume dilution, and this is likely to be due to stabilization by organic ligands, in contrast to the more dynamic exchanges between pFe and cFe. This study highlights that the size of the sFe stabilizing ligand pool, and the rate of iron-rich colloid aggregation will control the amount and physico-chemical composition of dFe supplied to the ocean interior from hydrothermal systems. Both the ligand pool, and the rate of cFe aggregation in hydrothermal plumes remain uncertain and determining these are important intermediate goals to more accurately assess the impact of hydrothermalism on the ocean's carbon cycle. This article is part of a special issue entitled: “Cycles of trace elements and isotopes in the ocean – GEOTRACES and beyond” - edited by Tim M. Conway, Tristan Horner, Yves Plancherel, and Aridane G. González

Technology mediator: a new role for the reference librarian?

The Arizona Health Sciences Library has collaborated with clinical faculty to develop a federated search engine that is useful for meeting real-time clinical information needs. This article proposes a technology mediation role for the reference librarian that was inspired by the project, and describes the collaborative model used for developing technology-mediated services for targeted users

Discourses of student orientation to medical education programs

Background: Although medical students’ initial orientation is an important point of transition in medical education, there is a paucity of literature on the subject and major variations in the ways that different institutions orient incoming medical students to their programs. Methods: We conducted a discourse analysis of medical education orientation in the literature and on data from a survey of peer institutions’ approaches to orientation. Results: These two discourses of orientation had clear similarities, in particular, the critical role of ceremony and symbols, and the focus on developing professionalism and physician identities. There were also differences between them, in particular, in the way that the discourse in the literature focused on the symbolic and professional aspects of orientation; something we have called ‘cultural orientation’. Meanwhile, those who were responsible for orientation in their own institutions tended to focus on the practical and social dimensions. Conclusion: By examining how orientation has been described and discussed, we identify three domains of orientation: cultural, social, and practical. These domains are relatively distinct in terms of the activities associated with them, and in terms of who is involved in organizing and running these activities. We also describe orientation as a liminal activity system on the threshold of medical school where incoming students initially cross into the profession. Interestingly, this state of ambiguity also extends to the scholarship of orientation with only some of its aspects attracting formal enquiry, even though there is a growing interest in transitions in medical education as a whole. We hope, therefore, that this study can help to legitimize enquiry into orientation in all its forms and that it can begin to situate the role of orientation more firmly within the firmament of medical education practice and research

The potential for research-based information in public health: Identifying unrecognised information needs

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether there is a potential for greater use of research-based information in public health practice in a local setting. Secondly, if research-based information is relevant, to explore the extent to which this generates questioning behaviour. DESIGN: Qualitative study using focus group discussions, observation and interviews. SETTING: Public health practices in Norway. PARTICIPANTS: 52 public health practitioners. RESULTS: In general, the public health practitioners had a positive attitude towards research-based information, but believed that they had few cases requiring this type of information. They did say, however, that there might be a potential for greater use. During five focus groups and six observation days we identified 28 questions/cases where it would have been appropriate to seek out research evidence according to our definition. Three of the public health practitioners identified three of these 28 cases as questions for which research-based information could have been relevant. This gap is interpreted as representing unrecognised information needs. CONCLUSIONS: There is an unrealised potential in public health practice for more frequent and extensive use of research-based information. The practitioners did not appear to reflect on the need for scientific information when faced with new cases and few questions of this type were generated

Observation of Nuclear Scaling in the A(e,e′)A(e,e^{\prime}) Reaction at xB>x_B>1

The ratios of inclusive electron scattering cross sections of $^4$He, $^{12}$C, and $^{56}$Fe to $^3$He have been measured for the first time. It is shown that these ratios are independent of $x_B$ at Q$^2>$1.4 (GeV/c)$^2$ for $x_B>$ 1.5 where the inclusive cross section depends primarily on the high-momentum components of the nuclear wave function. The observed scaling shows that the momentum distributions at high-momenta have the same shape for all nuclei and differ only by a scale factor. The observed onset of the scaling at Q$^2>$1.4 and $x_B >$1.5 is consistent with the kinematical expectation that two nucleon short range correlations (SRC) are dominate the nuclear wave function at $p_m\gtrsim$ 300 MeV/c. The values of these ratios in the scaling region can be related to the relative probabilities of SRC in nuclei with A$\ge$3. Our data demonstrate that for nuclei with A$\geq$12 these probabilities are 5-5.5 times larger than in deuterium, while for $^4$He it is larger by a factor of about 3.5.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

Observation of an Exotic Baryon with S=+1 in Photoproduction from the Proton

The reaction $\gamma p \to \pi^+K^-K^+n$ was studied at Jefferson Lab using a tagged photon beam with an energy range of 3-5.47 GeV. A narrow baryon state with strangeness S=+1 and mass $M=1555\pm 10$ MeV/c$^2$ was observed in the $nK^+$ invariant mass spectrum. The peak's width is consistent with the CLAS resolution (FWHM=26 MeV/c$^2$), and its statistical significance is 7.8 $\pm$ 1.0 ~$\sigma$. A baryon with positive strangeness has exotic structure and cannot be described in the framework of the naive constituent quark model. The mass of the observed state is consistent with the mass predicted by a chiral soliton model for the $\Theta^+$ baryon. In addition, the $pK^+$ invariant mass distribution was analyzed in the reaction $\gamma p\to K^-K^+p$ with high statistics in search of doubly-charged exotic baryon states. No resonance structures were found in this spectrum.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, add reference

Exclusive Photoproduction of the Cascade (Xi) Hyperons

We report on the first measurement of exclusive Xi-(1321) hyperon photoproduction in gamma p --> K+ K+ Xi- for 3.2 < E(gamma) < 3.9 GeV. The final state is identified by the missing mass in p(gamma,K+ K+)X measured with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Laboratory. We have detected a significant number of the ground-state Xi-(1321)1/2+, and have estimated the total cross section for its production. We have also observed the first excited state Xi-(1530)3/2+. Photoproduction provides a copious source of Xi's. We discuss the possibilities of a search for the recently proposed Xi5-- and Xi5+ pentaquarks.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.