4.4 Transport Risk management

Main objectives

Environmental risks of large scale CO2 transport from ‘source till sink' differ from other large scale transports of gases. The physical behaviour of high pressure (liquefied) CO2 and the presence of possible toxic and/or corrosive impurities explain this.

This WP aims to

Enhance understanding of the factors affecting the frequency and magnitude of CO2 releases from pipelines, including impurities and phase flow
Describe the impact of CO2 on humans and the terrestrial and marine environment and develop a suitable impact assessment approach
Develop a risk assessment model for CO2 pipelines with a view to support risk management and licensing of CO2 pipelines, and to facilitate spatial

The risks with regard to capture installations are dealt with in the SP Capture and are integrated in the normal industrial activities.

A detailed literature study will be carried out to describe the state-of-the-art in release and dispersion models. This will be the basis for a detailed proposal for the release and dispersion experiments. The literature review will also support the development of a theoretical model for the dispersion of CO2.

An impact assessment approach that is compatible with existing national and international legislative frameworks (including CBD -Convention on Biodiversity-or Bird and Habitats directives) will also be developed. Starting point for an impact assessment will be a probabilistic approach using probit functions and species sensitivity distributions (as well as individual dose-response curves). This task will include the development of criteria for a quality assessment of human and environmental effect data. The literature will be reviewed to collect available human and environmental (terrestrial and marine) effect data. Data will be subject to the quality assessment. A gap analysis will be performed to identify necessary experimental work (no budget allocated in the project for as yet).