GECO - Geothermal Emission Control

GECO (Geothermal Emission Control) is an international research project that started in 2018, funded by the EU through the H2020.The project consortium is led by Carbfix and consists of 18 partners from 9 countries across Europe. The GECO project builds uponthe success of the recently developed Carbfix gas re-injection method. Applying the Carbfix method advanced considerably ourability to clean the exhaust gases emitted by geothermal power plants based on a novel water dissolution method in a dedicatedscrubbing tower. The injection of the resulting gas charged waters into the subsurface disposes the captured gases within precipitatedminerals that remain stable over geologic time. This method has been demonstrated to be successful and has been running at theHellisheidi power plant in Iceland for the past six years. Through this industrial scale demonstration, this new method has beendemonstrated 1) to offer considerable cost savings compared to other approaches to capture and dispose acidic carbon and sulphurbearing gases; 2) to be far more environmentally compared to other available technologies; and 3) to aid in the long-term viability ofgeothermal systems by enhancing the permeability of fluid injection wells. The goal of the GECO project is to adopt the Carbfix reinjectiontechnology, together with emission gas reuse schemes, to become a standard to the geothermal power industry worldwidethrough the application of gas injection to five new sites across Europe. By consistently monitoring the reactions that occur in theGECO field sites, each having a distinct geology, we will be able to generalise these findings to create a tool for predicting thechemical behaviour of a large number of other systems before they are developed for geothermal energy. Such tools have the potentialto decrease both the risk and the cost of future geothermal energy projects. The GECO project aims to provide a new general, efficient,cost-effective, and environmentally benign technology to clean and permanently store or reuse geothermal exhaust gases throughoutEurope and the rest of the world.