Coordinated by Haroun Mahgerefteh at UCL, the EC funded FP7 CO2QUEST project addressed the main challenges associated with determining the optimal composition and purity of CO2 product streams derived from carbon capture systems for enabling its safe and economic transport and storage. The project brought together academics and major stakeholders to perform computational studies backed-up by large-scale experiments aimed at identifying CO2 mixtures that have the most profound impact on the different parts of the CCS chain. The project ran from March 2013 until June 2016, involving 9 partners across Europe, including from Canada and China. It resulted in over 100 peer reviewed journal publications and conference proceedings, three international conferences and several newsletters, receiving the IChemE Highly Commended Global Process Safety Award in 2016. More information about CO2QUEST including its objectives, deliverables and list of publications may be found at: http://www.co2quest.eu/

Contains location and associated parameter information for microseismicity detected in the Reykjanes peninsula between June 2020 and August 2021. Primary detection and location carried out using Quakemigrate. Template matching used to find very small magnitude events. GrowClust used to obtain accurate relative relocations. Local magnitudes of events also computed. Data from a total of 42 stations were used for the detection and location process. Repository also includes the 1-D velocity model used for the relocation.

Results of Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) study conducted in Kwale County, Kenya in July and August 2017 by University of Nairobi and Water Resources Management Authority as part of the Gro for GooD project (https://upgro.org/consortium/gro-for-good/) to determine the existence of deeper aquifers.

Controlled CO2 release experiments and studies of natural CO2 seeps have been undertaken at sites across the globe for CCS applications. The scientific motivation, experimental design, baseline assessment and CO2 detection and monitoring equipment deployed vary significantly between these study sites, addressing questions including impacts on benthic communities, testing of novel monitoring technologies, quantifying seep formation/style and determining CO2 flux rates. A review and synthesis of these sites studied for CCS will provide valuable information to: i. Enable the design of effective monitoring and survey strategies ii. Identify realistic site-specific environmental and ecosystem impact scenarios iii. Rationalise regulatory definitions with what is scientifically likely or achievable iv. Guide novel future scientific studies at natural or artificial release sites. Two global databases were constructed in Spring 2013, informed by a wide literature review and, where appropriate, contact with the research project leader. i. Artificial CO2 release sites ii. Natural CO2 seeps studied for CCS purposes The location and select information from each of these datasets are intended to be displayed as separate GoogleMap files which can be embedded in the QICS or UKCCSRC web server. These databases are not expected to be complete. Information should be added as more publications or become available or more case studies emerge or are set up. To facilitate this process, a contact email should be included beneath the map to allow viewers to recommend new or overlooked study sites for the dataset. Grant number: UKCCSRC-C1-31. These data are currently restricted.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a crucial technology to enable the decarbonisation of fossil fuel electricity generation. The UK has considerable potential for geological storage of CO2 under the North Sea and extensive offshore industry experience that could be applied. While initial storage is likely to be undertaken in depleted oil and gas fields, much larger saline aquifer formations are estimated to have sufficient capacity to securely contain 100 years of current UK fossil fuel power plant CO2 emissions. The CO2 Aquifer Storage Site Evaluation and Monitoring (CASSEM) project brings together the experience and different working practices of utilities, offshore operators, engineering contractors, and academic researchers to build collective understanding and develop expertise. CASSEM produced both new scientific knowledge and detailed insight into the CCS industry, developing best-value methods for the evaluation of saline aquifer formations for CO2 storage. Alongside work to assess the storage potential of two saline aquifer formations in close proximity to large coal power plant, CASSEM applied a novel Features, Events and Processes method to explore perceptions of risk in the work undertaken. This identified areas of industry and research community uncertainty and unfamiliarity to enable targeted investment of resource to reduce overall project risk. An openly accessible and flexible full chain (CO2 capture, transport and storage) costing model was developed allowing the CCS community to assess and explore overall costs. CASSEM's work also included the first use of citizen panels in the regions investigated for storage to assess public perception and educate the general public about CCS.

Technical report from CO2MultiStore project, component of ‘Optimising CO2 storage in geological formations: a case study offshore Scotland, September 2015. The report captures knowledge gained from the process, progress and findings of the research that is applicable to the development of any multi-user storage resource. Available for download at http://hdl.handle.net/1842/16475.

Description of peatland sites included in the compilation of carbon accumulation rates, including resolution (high, low), interpolation (yes/no), contributor name, country, lon, lat, peatland type, dominant plant type, no. of dates used in the last millenium carbon accumulation rate calculation, and problems with the data. Peatland sites at northern hemisphere high and mid latitudes (260), tropical (30) and southern hemisphere high latitudes (7 sites).

Rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection. Table of the input and output parameters of the simulations. Snapshot of the temperature field, three components of the velocity and three components of the magnetic field in 3D. Data generated with a magnetohydrodynamical code of rotating Boussinesq convection in planar geometry (Cattaneo et al. 2003 ApJ 588 1183-1198). Data published in Guervilly, Hughes & Jones 2014 JFM 758 407-435 (DOI:10.1017/jfm.2014.542) and Guervilly, Hughes & Jones 2015 PRE 91 041001 (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.91.041001)

Supplementary material for published paper, Early Paleogene wildfires in peat-forming environments at Schoningen, Germany by BE Robson et al, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2015.07.016 NERC grant abstract: Human activity has led to an increase in pCO2 and methane levels from pre-industrial times to today. While the former increase is primarily due to fossil fuel burning, the increase in methane concentrations is more complex, reflecting not only direct human activity but also feedback mechanisms in the climate system related to temperature and hydrology-induced changes in methane emissions. To unravel these complex relationships, scientists are increasingly interrogating ancient climate systems. Similarly, one of the major challenges in palaeoclimate research is understanding the role of methane biogeochemistry in governing the climate of ice-free, high-pCO2 greenhouse worlds, such as during the early Paleogene (around 50Ma). The lack of proxies for methane concentrations is problematic, as methane emissions from wetlands are governed by precipitation and temperature, such that they could act as important positive or negative feedbacks on climate. In fact, the only estimates for past methane levels (pCH4) arise from our climate-biogeochemistry simulations wherein GCMs have driven the Sheffield dynamic vegetation model, from which methane fluxes have been derived. These suggest that Paleogene pCH4 could have been almost 6x modern pre-industrial levels, and such values would have had a radiative forcing effect nearly equivalent to a doubling of pCO2, an impact that could have been particularly dramatic during time intervals when CO2 levels were already much higher than today's. Thus, an improved understanding of Paleogene pCH4 is crucial to understanding both how biogeochemical processes operate on a warmer Earth and understanding the climate of this important interval in Earth history. We propose to improve, expand and interrogate those model results using improved soil biogeochemistry algorithms, conducting model sensitivity experiments and comparing our results to proxy records for methane cycling in ancient wetlands. The former will provide a better, process-orientated understanding of biogenic trace gas emissions, particularly the emissions of CH4, NOx and N2O. The sensitivity experiments will focus on varying pCO2 levels and manipulation of atmospheric parameters that dictate cloud formation; together, these experiments will constrain the uncertainty in our trace greenhouse gas estimates. To qualitatively test these models, we will quantify lipid biomarkers and determine their carbon isotopic compositions to estimate the size of past methanogenic and methanotrophic populations, and compare them to modern mires and Holocene peat. The final component of our project will be the determination of how these elevated methane (and other trace gas) concentrations served as a positive feedback on global warming. In combination our work will test the hypothesis that elevated pCO2, continental temperatures and precipitation during the Eocene greenhouse caused increased wetland GHG emissions and atmospheric concentrations with a significant feedback on climate, missing from most modelling studies to date. This work is crucial to our understanding of greenhouse climates but such an integrated approach is not being conducted anywhere else in the world; here, it is being led by international experts in organic geochemistry, climate, vegetation and atmospheric modelling, and palaeobotany and coal petrology. It will represent a major step forward in our understanding of ancient biogeochemical cycles as well as their potential response to future global warming.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are critical for the UK to achieve its an ambitious target to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050. The development of an accurate, cost efficient and scalable metering technology that could be deployed in the commercial scale transportation of CO2 by pipeline for CCS purposes is critical for the deployment of CCS. However, current technologies employed in metering CO2 flows by pipeline are unable to provide the required levels of accuracy, particularly in situations where the CO2 stream contains different levels of impurities. Accordingly, in this project we will conduct laboratory trials to assess meters for accurate flow measurements, and ultimately develop technical specifications for accurate flow metering for CCS applications. Grant number: UKCCSRC-C2-201.