Quality of geological CO 2 storage to avoid jeopardizing climate targets

We explore allowable leakage for carbon capture and geological storage to be consistent with maximum global warming targets of 2.5 and 3 °C by 2100. Given plausible fossil fuel use and carbon capture and storage scenarios, and based on modeling of time-dependent leakage of CO 2 , we employ a climate model to calculate the long-term temperature response of CO 2 emissions. We assume that half of the stored CO 2 is permanently trapped by fast mechanisms. If 40 % of global CO 2 emissions are stored in the second half of this century, the temperature effect of escaped CO 2 is too small to compromise a 2.5 °C target. If 80 % of CO 2 is captured, escaped CO 2 must peak 300 years or later for consistency with this climate target. Due to much more CO 2 stored for the 3 than the 2.5 °C target, quality of storage becomes more important. Thus for the 3 °C target escaped CO 2 must peak 400 years or later in the 40 % scenario, and 3000 years or later in the 80 % scenario. Consequently CO 2 escaped from geological storage can compromise the less stringent 3 °C target in the long-run if most of global CO 2 emissions have been stored. If less CO 2 is stored only a very high escape scenario can compromise the more stringent 2.5 °C target. For the two remaining combinations of storage scenarios and climate targets, leakage must be high to compromise these climate targets. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012