Geology Department Postgraduate Web Pages

Name: Luca Mancinelli

Contact Details

Tel: +353 (0)1 8963618
Fax:
Email: mancinel@tcd.ie

Title of Project

Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) in Carboniferous Black Shales in Ireland

Sponsors

Project details

Coals have the potential to store vast quantities of CO2. Published estimates of potential CO2 sequestration capacity in unminable coal reserves in the USA alone are 324 Gt of CO2. It has also been established that CO2 can not only be adsorbed by coals but is preferentially adsorbed in organic‐rich shales, displacing CH4 and facilitating enhanced natural gas recovery2. Ireland has considerable unminable coal reserves and extensive black shale deposits of Carboniferous age. However, these rocks have not yet been assessed in terms of either their relevant properties such as coal rank, thermal maturity, total organic carbon content (TOC) or their subsurface geological setting.

The objectives of this project are:

• To establish the geological setting of selected Carboniferous rock units on‐ and offshore Ireland that appear to have potential for CO2 sequestration and enhanced coal bed methane production. These include the Pennsylvanian 'coal measures' in the Kish Bank Basin, offshore Dublin, and also the Mississippian Clare Shale onshore in County Clare together with its westward extension into the offshore Clare Basin.
• To characterise the basic physical and chemical properties of relevant lithologies, including coal rank, thermal maturity of organic‐rich shales, TOC, porosity and permeability.
• Using the above results, on‐ and offshore prospects that merit detailed exploration and commercialisation will be identified.

This PhD topic fits perfectly within the prioritized interdisciplinary research topic, “CO2 subsurface/ocean sequestration/carbon capture” and is also highly relevant to, "Enhanced/clean sub‐surface oil/gas recovery", both within the PhD strand, “Energy and Environmental Engineering.”
This project will involve close collaboration between the TCD/UCD group working in carbon sequestration and the UCD team working in capture.
Development of a successful Irish CO2 sequestration programme will have a major impact in terms of the essential reduction of CO2 emissions whereas enhanced natural gas production will reduce Ireland's current dependence on imported energy.

Name of supervisor

Principal Investigator: Professor Geoff Clayton (TCD)

Name of co-supervisor

Collaborators: Dr David Chew (TCD); Professor Don MacElroy (UCD); Dr Denis Dowling (UCD); Dr Robbie Goodhue (TCD); Dr Damian Mooney (UCD); Dr Gareth O Brien (UCD)

Postgraduate personal details

I studied geology at the University of Perugia where I got my BSc and MSc degrees. During the last two years in Perugia I had the chance to follow some courses held by ENI on basin analysis and petroleum geology. I was really interested in the topic and I spent 3 months for my MSc project in ENI headquarters in Milan studying the petroleum system of the Kirthar Fold Belt (Pakistan). In 2010 I started an MSc in Petroleum Geophysics at Imperial College London and for my project I went back to ENI in Milan for my final project.

Project Start Date

1-09-2011