The University of Edinburgh and Carbon Capture Scotland Limited KTP 24_25 R1

An old oil and gas reservoir off the Scottish coast is being redesigned as a permanent storage site for captured carbon dioxide. This matters because reaching Scotland’s Net Zero target requires removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, not just cutting emissions. The technical challenge is that depleted offshore reservoirs were never built for long-term CO₂ storage. They leak, react with injected gas, and behave unpredictably under pressure. This project will define exactly how to repurpose one such nearshore reservoir into a safe, permanent CO₂ store. If successful, the work will transfer expert geological knowledge from the University of Edinburgh into Carbon Capture Scotland Limited, a company that captures CO₂ from industrial sources. The company would then be able to develop the site for commercial storage. That would give Scotland a functioning piece of carbon removal infrastructure—something that currently does not exist at scale. The immediate impact is not on household energy bills or daily travel, but on the industrial and geological systems that underpin the country’s climate strategy. Without such storage capacity, captured CO₂ has nowhere to go.