Isaline took over as Project Coordinator for PilotSTRATEGY in May 2024
During her engineering studies, Isaline attended a talk on energy and environment. A single slide mentioning CO2 geological storage set her on a career path in CCS.
“I found the concept fascinating, as it combined my interest in geosciences with my concerns for the environment! So, I decided to pursue a career in this field.”
Upon finishing her studies, Isaline began working at the French Geological Survey (BRGM) in Orléans, 14 years ago. She was involved in the STRATEGY-CCUS project, working on the French regions together with Fernanda Veloso, developing plans for CCUS in the Paris basin. From this work, they identified a promising site for CO2 storage that now is being studied and characterised in the PilotSTRATEGY project. In PilotSTRATEGY, Isaline started as WP5 leader, and has been involved in the safety studies and the relations with stakeholders in France.
With such a busy professional life, she enjoys spending precious away time outdoors.
“I like hiking and climbing, although I don’t have as much time to practice as I’d like. I enjoy spending my holidays in the Alps or Brittany, where there are beautiful rocks to explore.””
In May 2024, the project coordinator Fernanda Veloso left BRGM and the PilotSTRATEGY project. Isaline took over as Project Coordinator.
“I was already deeply involved in the Project Management Board as WP leader. This allowed me to have a clear vision of the project activities, which is helpful for this new challenge that is coordinating the project. We have an amazing project team, with some members I know from previous STRATEGY-CCUS project, and very competent WP leaders and region leaders I know I can rely on to conduct a successful work!”
PilotSTRATEGY has produced a wide variety of outputs. Public deliverables are available in the Results page, and on the open-access repository Zenodo. Isaline is proud of the work that the project has done so far.
“The PilotSTRATEGY team has done a great job with geological characterisation of the different storage sites that led to the construction of numerical models, which enable to simulate the injection of CO2 in the reservoir. In parallel to these geoscientific studies, important work has also been carried out from the social science side, involving regions’ profile, stakeholder engagement and citizen engagement.”
PilotSTRATEGY is expected to finish in 2026. The next steps will be to study the storage evolution on the long term and to complete the risk assessment. In parallel, the project will study how the CCS pilots would be implanted, perform techno-economic evaluations, and at the end prepare pre-investment proposals for the 3 pilots in France, Portugal and Spain. Looking ahead, Isaline is positive about the outlook for CCUS in Europe, and the role that PilotSTRATEGY will have played in it.
“I think that CCS will play an essential role in meeting our ambitious GHG reduction targets. And currently, the main challenge for its deployment is developing storage capacities. By characterising deep saline aquifers for CO2 storage pilots in our different regions, PilotSTRATEGY is bringing valuable contributions to unlock storage knowledge in Europe. Moreover, PilotSTRATEGY proposes an interesting approach by including social studies from the beginning of the project, in order to develop CO2 storage pilot concepts that are anchored in a local reality.”