A plan to store large amounts of carbon dioxide underground in West Clare has been ruled out.
New research from the Environmental Protection Agency found that storing CO2 emissions from the Moneypoint Power Plant is unsuitable due to the local rock formation.
The plan to store CO2 like this is a key technology in the fight against climate change and the study results are seen as a blow for the use of such methods.
Carbon Capture and storage (CCS) takes emissions from heavy industry, such as power plants and transforms them into a liquid before pumping them into vast reservoirs under the sea..
It was hoped that such a project could be undertaken with emissions from Moneypoint near Killimer stored off the Clare coast – however it now appears that this isn’t technically possible.
New research from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Geological Survey of Ireland found that the coastline rock was too porous and that the space available within the rock for CO2 storage was limited.
The project findings have implications for the long term plans to use CCS here and potential storage capacity of the coast of Clare and elsewhere may be less than originally considered.
