Geological and geophysical aspects of the underground CO2 storage

Observed impact of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on the climate changes resulted in significant intensification of the research focused on the development of the technologies, which would enable CO2 capture from the flu gases and its safe storage in the adequately selected geological formations. The member countries of the European Union (UE-27) worked out special CCS (CO2 Capture and Storage) directive concerning industrial application of this technology. It must be emphasized, that extremely important and difficult from the technical point of view is its final stage connected with CO2 storage process itself. The paper presents key geological problems, which may occur during above mentioned stage of CCS technology, it draws also attention on the problem of monitoring the locations selected for CO2 storage. It points out significant role of geophysical methods for effective application in this domain.