COREu (CO2 ROUTES ACROSS EUROPE)

COREu is conducting research to make Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) workable and safe across Europe, by testing key technologies and producing evidence that future CO2 transport and storage networks can rely on.

First, the project is improving how CO2 is handled before and during transport. Researchers are analysing what conditioning capture plants need, then running corrosion and hydrate experiments and comparing results with existing models. The goal is to propose improved CO2 stream specifications that support shared, open access transport infrastructure.

Second, COREu is generating new safety data and tools for transporting CO2. This includes leakage and dispersion experiments for buried pipes, and work that strengthens quantitative risk assessment for CO2 transport by pipelines, ships, trains, and trucks. The project is also developing an open source engineering tool to help prevent running ductile fractures in high pressure pipelines, tested onroutes that use pipelines above 74 bar.

Third, the project is advancing monitoring and measurement technologies, including work on better flow and composition measurement and monitoring for CO2 transport systems, and links between research and standardisation through participation in ISO and CEN. Fourth, COREu is producing real world evidence from a full CCS chain demonstration in Greece, focused on preparing a saline aquifer storage site and learning how to monitor and assess storage performance. This includes site conformance monitoring, induced seismicity work, and improving predictions of how the CO2 plume may move under geological uncertainty, plus an onshore test system that supports offshore transfer and injection operations.

Finally, COREu is studying how CO2 routes can scale in practice. It develops regional scenarios and techno economic assessments that look at costs, benefits, and who finances investments, and it builds business cases that support new CO2 routes in Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe.