Otway environmental monitoring

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Otway environmental monitoring

CO2CRC has had an environmental monitoring program at the Otway International Test Centre since 2006. It assures that the geological storage of carbon dioxide at our facility is environmentally sound.
The program ensures that the storage of carbon dioxide has no adverse impacts to the environment and demonstrates compliance with regulatory requirements. The facility is regulated under the Environment Protection Act.
The assurance monitoring program includes:

• An annual soil gas survey where we measure the composition and the CO₂ concentration in the soil gas at approximately 1m depth on a two square kilometre grid above our reservoirs to determine any change in the soil CO₂.
• An annual groundwater survey where we access every well in the vicinity of our site reaching either into the Port Campbell aquifer or the deeper Dilwyn aquifer, where we measure the groundwater chemistry.

As a research organisation, CO2CRC has a strong focus on developing new high-resolution monitoring programs. The majority of the research and the instrumentation at the site is to develop new and fit-for-purpose monitoring and verification (M&V) techniques. These techniques comprise highly sophisticated chemical and physical methods which measure CO₂ in the geosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. The ongoing and diverse research projects complement our assurance monitoring.

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