NOSHAKE · a New paradigm fOr forecaSting injection-induced eartHquAKEs

NOSHAKE aims at proving the effectiveness of an innovative concept to forecast and manage induced seismicity in geo-energy projects. Humans need to take urgent action to achieve a climate-neutral society. Among the necessary actions, deployment of geothermal energy projects to produce renewable energy, geologic carbon storage to decarbonize the hard-to-abate industry, and subsurface energy storage, like hydrogen storage, are estimated to reduce 20% of the current CO2 emissions, i.e., 8 Gt/yr. This reduction implies scaling up the current capacity of geo-energies in two orders of magnitude by 2050. Yet, this massive deployment of geo-energies may be hindered by felt induced earthquakes. Current concepts to manage induced seismicity have failed in some occasions, leading to felt earthquakes that have ended up in project cancellation with millionaire loses. NOSHAKE proposes a change of paradigm in the way injection-induced seismicity is forecasted and managed by incorporating the physical processes that induce seismicity and basing the analysis on site characterization. The high gain of NOSHAKE is the safe deployment of geo-energies to mitigate the climate emergency. Nevertheless, forecasting induced seismicity is a grand challenge that contains high risks. In particular, the concept may not be effective for all geo-energy applications. To address this, developments will be made to the proposed concept to enhance its effectiveness, by adding thermal effects and/or fluid injection into a porous media instead of into a fault. We will disseminate and communicate the project outcomes to stakeholders and end users. We plan to (1) patent the NOSHAKE concept and establish consultancy agreements to assess energy companies in managing induced seismicity of geo-energy projects and (2) define a commercialization roadmap with the advice of industrial collaborators and experts in knowledge transfer that eventually may end up in the creation of a spin-off.