Monetizing Leakage Risk with Secondary Trapping in Intervening Stratigraphic Layers

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture and storage, (CCS) has the potential to substantially mitigate CO₂ emissions, but concerns over the potential for leakage of CO₂ and brine from subsurface formations in which CO₂ has been geologically stored have impeded the deployment of CCS. In three lines of work, we investigated the causes and consequences of the leakage risk of CO₂ storage in deep saline aquifers. Our work developed the Leakage Impact Valuation (LIV) method to estimate the economic costs of leakage, produced an approach to probabilistically estimate the extent and magnitudes of leakage, and established the Leakage Risk Monetization Model (LRiMM) of geologic CO₂ storage to estimate the site-specific monetized leakage risk (MLR) of geologic CO₂ storage. The LRiMM combines the estimates of the economic costs and probabilistic extents and magnitudes of leakage in three dimensions within the geospatial context of leakage pathways and other subsurface activities. Here, we provide brief summaries of these lines of work and the lessons that arise from the results.