Andy Chadwick, UKCCSRC CG Member, visits The Coal Authority

On the 14th April 2015, I made my way to a pleasant small site near the southern edge of Mansfield, to visit The Coal Authority offices, which are neighboured by the Environment Agency and the NHS.

I was surprised at the number of people working there, although I shouldn’t have been – The Coal Authority has an inspection programme covering more than 170,000 known coal entries across the UK! Indeed, there are many more historic shafts across the UK dating back to before 1872 whose locations are not yet known.

I was invited to The Coal Authority to deliver a lunchtime CPD talk on the latest research on CCS, focussing particularly on storage, as it was deemed to be of most interest to the folk there. The overlap between the work of The Coal Authority and CCS is likely to be quite small; since storage of CO₂ in the UK will be offshore (and The Coal Authority is mostly concerned with onshore) but there are some scientific overlaps.

My talk was well received, by an audience of around 30 – some were geologists and most had experience in subsurface processes and risks. There were plenty of  good questions which provoked a really interesting discussion after the talk. I hope they all enjoyed it!

You can read a copy of my presentation here.