Fossil Fuels Review Group (FFRG)
Email circulated 3 March 2015
School of GeoSciences Research Income – note to the
Fossil Fuels Review Group
Dear all,
As promised at the meeting yesterday, below please find a statement about the
School of GeoSciences research income, and also about the necessary overlap
between the research into hydrocarbons and non-hydrocarbons fields.
Best wishes,
Andrew.
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Grant income to the School of GeoSciences falls roughly into the following
proportions. These vary from year to year, but show no clearly discernible trends
over time between 2007 and 2014.
Total external research income to the School from all sources (science councils,
charities, industry, governmental organisations and non-governmental organisations)
is on average around £14M per annum (pa). This is comprised of around £5M pa to
research related to anthropogenically-driven climate and environmental change and
its deep-time geological baselines, around £2M pa to research related to alternative
energy sources or to climate change mitigation strategies and technologies such as
carbon capture and storage, and around £1M pa to research that may be applied to
hydrocarbon production. Around £6M pa funds research that is unrelated to climate
change, hydrocarbons or energy.
These figures are approximate as they are estimated based on the titles of projects
funded. They do not necessarily reflect the research that was actually carried out in
those projects, since research can change direction substantially during research
projects and hence may not match the project titles. Additionally, some of the
research in each category falls also into (overlaps with) the other categories, and this
has not been accounted for in the above figures.
For instance, a clear case of the latter overlap is the research into new methods to
better image the interior of the Earth. Over £3M of research funding has come to the
School from hydrocarbon-related companies over the past 8 years to fund research
in this area. This research generally develops new methods of applied mathematics
and applied physics of waves or diffusion. While the sponsoring companies may
capitalise on the research for the purposes of imaging hydrocarbon reservoirs (and
hence this funding was included under the category of "may be applied to
hydrocarbons" in the figures given above), such advances in this same technology
are also important for other, non-hydrocarbon areas of application.
For example, carbon dioxide (CO2) is already pumped into subsurface geological
storage reservoirs in order to reduce atmospheric emissions of CO2 to reduce
greenhouse gas related climate change. In future this
CO2 will be derived not only from power plants but also from large industries such as
cement, paper, steel or whisky. Stored CO2 must be monitored such that any
potential movement of CO2 from the reservoir can be detected, and remedial action
taken. The accurate monitoring of CO2 requires low cost and increasingly accurate
methods of remote sensing, imaging and monitoring of the Earth's subsurface using
technology that is deployed on the surface, a kilometre or more above the reservoir.
Such methods are developed in the industrially funded imaging research projects,
and a lot of the fundamental research has ben, and is, undertaken in the UK. Indeed,
some of the same companies that sponsor the imaging research at the University of
Edinburgh are responsible for developing the only CO2 storage test sites currently in
operation in Europe, and hydrocarbons companies will almost inevitably be involved
in the UK's planned CO2 test storage sites, two of which are under consideration for
funding by the UK government. As a consequence, in recent years several grants
have been applied for from science councils for research on the monitoring of CO2
(or nuclear waste) stored in the Earth's subsurface, based on the technologies
developed in these industrially funded imaging projects.
A second example is basic research to improve our understanding of the secure
CO2 retention during deep geological storage. The deep reservoirs are well-known
from information directly derived from hydrocarbon exploration and production of oil
and gas. The overlying sediments are part of a natural sealing and retention system,
which prevents unintended movement of CO2 upwards towards the surface. The
uppermost kilometre of these sediments are often poorly known, because they do
not directly host hydrocarbon deposits. Nevertheless an improved understanding is
highly desirable. Consequently a consortium of UK, Norwegian and USA earth
scientists, initiated by the University of Edinburgh, is progressing towards a £25M
drilling campaign in the North Sea, to obtain cored sediment samples and other
measurements, from that uppermost kilometre. The evidence held in these
sediments will also provide the first continual record of the pre-glacial and glacial
history of ancient climate from the North European ice sheets during the past 2.8
Million years. The identification of drill sites, the understanding of rock layering, and
the technological support is all directly derived from oil company information. Two oil
companies are directly and closely involved with designing the research programme,
as they expect to use the results. This will be operated under the International Ocean
Discovery Program, the antecedents of which have made fundamental discoveries of
plate tectonics and global climate change.
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