Rice University graduate student Valeriia Sobolevskaia at the on-campus well site being developed to help geoscientists continue development of fiber-optic sensors to find and evaluate small faults at underground carbon dioxide storage reservoirs. Courtesy of the Ajo-Franklin Lab
Rice University graduate student Valeriia Sobolevskaia at the on-campus well site being developed to help geoscientists continue development of fiber-optic sensors to find and evaluate small faults at underground carbon dioxide storage reservoirs. Courtesy of the Ajo-Franklin Lab - Department of Energy grant backs development of Jonathan Ajo-Franklin's fiber-optic monitors Rice University geoscientists and their colleagues will develop sophisticated fiber-optic sensors and seismic sources to find and evaluate small faults deep underground at sites that store carbon dioxide (CO2) to keep it out of the atmosphere. The Department of Energy has awarded Rice geoscientist Jonathan Ajo-Franklin $1.2 million to adapt his lab's distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) method to monitor storage sites where reactivation of small faults could allow leakage into adjacent groundwater or the atmosphere. The project is part of $4 million in grants announced in late May to enhance the safety and security of CO2 storage. Capturing CO2 and sequestering it underground, often in former oil and gas reservoirs, is seen as a way to bring the nation closer to its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. "Moving forward, we need to focus on reducing emissions, even while fossil fuels are still part of the mix," Ajo-Franklin said.
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