Planning, Designing, Operating, and Regulating a Geologic Sequestration Repository as an Underground Landfill—A Review

ABSTRACT

Geologic sequestration appears to be a technically feasible method of storing carbon dioxide in underground aquifers in order to lower greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The overall feasibility of geologic sequestration is still in question and as such, has been the focus of intense research over the past decade. Researchers have looked to the oil/gas industry and water well industry for lessons learned and technical knowledge, however, a better industry to emulate may well be the waste industry. Viewing geologic sequestration repositories as underground landfills has a great many benefits. First, there is a plethora of existing research and investigations that are directly analogous to geologic sequestration projects. Second, the regulatory framework is rather mature and can be easily adapted to serve geologic sequestration. This paper conducts an extensive literature search of the environmental, waste, and geologic sequestration literature to ascertain planning, design, and operational methodologies, lessons learned, and concepts that are directly useful for geologic sequestration to improve the technical and regulatory framework. Lastly, the paper uses a hypothetical underground landfill geologic sequestration site (ULGSS) in Florida, USA to discuss some of the findings and implications from the literature. It is concluded that there are a number of literature findings from the waste and environmental arena that should be adapted for geologic sequestration.

IMPLICATIONS

Geologic sequestration is a promising solution for greenhouse gas control. This work supports that notion but suggests further improvements to the technical and regulatory framework based upon an extensive review of the waste management and environmental literature. The improvements include suggestions in the areas of permitting, site selection, operations, cost accounting, and special waste handling. Some of these improvements are discussed using a hypothetical project site in Florida, USA.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper was made possible by support of the University of North Florida (UNF) Academic Affairs summer scholarship grant. The authors also offer thanks to the UNF graduate program and the two anonymous reviewers whose comments significantly improved the original manuscript.