An international experiment on CO2 ocean sequestration

The ocean represents the largest potential sink for anthropogenic CO2. In order to better understand this potential, Japan, Norway, and the United States signed a Project Agreement for International Collaboration on CO2 Ocean Sequestration in December 1997; since that time, Canada and ABB (Switzerland) have joined the project. The objective of the project is to investigate the technical feasibility of, and improve understanding of the environmental impacts from, CO2 ocean sequestration in order to minimize the impacts associated with the eventual use of this technique to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. The project will continue through March 31, 2002, with a field experiment to take place in the summer of 2000 off the Kona Coast of Hawaii. The implementing research organizations are the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (Japan), the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (Norway), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). The general contractor for the project will be the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research in Hawaii. A Technical Committee has been formed to supervise the technical aspects and execution of this project. The members of this committee are the co-authors of this paper. In this paper we discuss key issues involved with the design, ocean engineering, measurements, siting, and costs of this experiment.