Hakusan Industries (headquartered in Fuchu City, Tokyo) announced on June 12 that its "Development of a Permanent Subsea CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) Reservoir Monitoring System Using an Optical Hybrid Submarine Cable" has been selected for the "Nippon Foundation and Deepstar* Partnership Technology Development Grant Program for the Promotion of Decarbonization in the Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Sector. The Nippon Foundation and Deepstar* announced that the project has been selected for the "Technology Development Grant Program to Promote Decarbonization in the Offshore Oil and Gas Sector.
One of the technical challenges for CCS toward carbon neutrality is the need for a system to monitor the safety of CO2 stored underground for a long period of time at all times. Many CO2 storage sites are located under the seabed, making it difficult to supply power, and there have been issues with the long-term stability of electronic components. According to the announcement, Hakusan Kogyo will develop a 4D observation system to solve these problems by using its own advanced measurement technology to continuously capture minute vibrations over a long period of time using optical technology without the use of electronic components. In addition to intermittent active exploration using seismic vessels, a new feasibility study of seafloor seismic sources will be conducted to investigate the possibility of continuous active exploration.
The Earth Science Research Institute (headquartered in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo) will participate in the development of the analysis method, and Chevron (U.S.), Shell (U.K.), Total Energies (France), and Petrobras (Brazil) will participate from Deepstar as supporters.
Tsutomu Yamate, Director of the Extreme Environment Sensing Division of Hakusan Industrial Extreme Environment Robotics Laboratory, commented on the selection, "This project is extremely useful as it will develop a subsea CCS reservoir monitoring system, which is essential for promoting decarbonization. We would like to steadily promote the commercialization of this adopted project through direct cooperation opportunities with the oil majors through technological development.
JETRO has been involved in this project since the MOU signing stage and has actively supported the selected Japanese companies by organizing technology development projects in collaboration with the Nippon Foundation and Deepstar, and by managing the project progress through web conferences.