Potential Capacity for Geologic Carbon Sequestration in the Midcontinent Rift System in Minnesota

Abstract

Minnesota, with a population of about five million, is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, and a state that is vulnerable to climate change, such as the impact that increased frequency or severity of drought would have on agriculture, water supply, wildlife, and lake levels. Minnesota therefore has an interest in reducing our own vulnerability, while concurrently contributing to needed world-wide solutions. As has been stressed, for example, in documents prepared for and by the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group, emissions reductions can have multiple benefits, including conservation, cost efficiency, and air quality enhancement, while also directly contributing to mitigation of climate change. Anthropogenic climate change seems already to have begun, however, so adaptation to climate change accompanies mitigation in the climate change policy agenda. Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved through reduced fossil fuel combustion, while concurrently capturing and storing carbon in biomass, or in geologic repositories. It has become apparent that the best approach in the current circumstances is for all options to concurrently be assessed.