Browsing by Subject "carbon capture and storage"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Efficient marine environmental characterization to support monitoring of geological CO2 storage
(2021) Blackford, Jerry; Romanak, Katherine; Huvenne, Veerle A.I.; Lichtschlag, Anna; Strong, James Asa; Alendal, Guttorm; Schütz, Sigrid Eskeland; Oleynik, Anna; Dankel, Dorothy J.
Carbon capture and storage is key for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, and offshore geological formations provide vast CO2 storage potential. Monitoring of sub-seabed CO2 storage sites requires that anomalies signifying a loss of containment be detected, and if attributed to storage, quantified and their impact assessed. However, monitoring at or above the seabed is only useful if one can reliably differentiate abnormal signals from natural variability. Baseline acquisition is the default option for describing the natural state, however we argue that a comprehensive baseline assessment is likely expensive and time-bound, given the multi-decadal nature of CCS operations and the dynamic heterogeneity of the marine environment. We present an outline of the elements comprising an efficient marine environmental baseline to support offshore monitoring. We demonstrate that many of these elements can be derived from pre-existing and ongoing sources, not necessarily related to CCS project development. We argue that a sufficient baseline can be achieved by identifying key emergent properties of the system rather than assembling an extensive description of the physical, chemical and biological states. Further, that contemporary comparisons between impacted and non-impacted sites are likely to be as valuable as before and after comparisons. However, as these emergent properties may be nuanced between sites and seasons and comparative studies need to be validated by the careful choice of reference site, a site-specific understanding of the scales of heterogeneity will be an invaluable component of a baseline.
Final Report for Gulf Coast Stacked-Storage Project SECARB Phase II at Cranfield
(2011) Hovorka, Susan D.; Clift, S. J.; Meckel, Timothy A.; Treviño, Ramón H.; Zeng, Hongliu; Nicot, Jean-Philippe; Romanak, Katherine D.; Smyth, Rebecca C.
Phase I regional geologic characterization found that in the Gulf Coast, abundant geologic sequestration targets are found in many areas. The idea of stacked storage, developed for the current (Phase II) study, included the use of multiple hydrologically isolated injection zones beneath a common surface area to produce large capacity yet minimize the monitoring infrastructure footprint and increase public acceptance. Stacked zones include the use of CO2 for enhanced oil production (EOR), which was the focus of the Phase II study. An EOR project provided an opportunity to monitor injection at a higher rate and over a more prolonged injection period than an earlier test in brine (Frio Brine Pilot). The downdip water leg of the same field was then used for Phase III to assess geologic storage capacity beyond the use of CO2 for EOR (Hovorka and others, 2010). At the end of the regional study of options, the site selected was a four-way structural closure at a depth of 10,300 ft (3100 m) below the surface at Cranfield, Mississippi. The field produced oil, gas condensate, and methane gas from the lower Tuscaloosa Formation "D-E" sandstones during the period 1944 through 1966. The field was then pressure depleted and wells plugged and abandoned. The field was purchased by Denbury Onshore, LLC, to be flooded with large volumes of CO2 transported via pipeline from CO2 produced from a geologic accumulation at Jackson Dome, Mississippi. Project design focused on coordination of the monitoring design with Denbury's commercial plans for injection, infrastructure development, and permitting in the Phase II area on the north side of Cranfield field. Phase II provided an opportunity to test innovative monitoring approaches that may be needed in the future to document that either EOR or brine storage is performing correctly in terms of permanence of storage (Hovorka and others, 2010). Injection started July 15, 2008, in 2 wells but increased over the study period to 16 wells over an area of several square miles. Half the wells were updip injectors at the gas-oil contact, and half were downdip injectors injecting CO2 at the oil-water contact. The monitored injection was commercial (½ million metric tons per year) scale, and was sustained over a multiyear time frame, with the end of the Phase II project defined as September 30, 2010. In the report period, 23,640 MMSCF (1,229,510 metric tons) of CO2 was stored under Phase II. Injection and monitoring continued in the Phase II area; however, these were logistically connected to ongoing Phase III injection, which was conducted on the east side of Cranfield.
Final Research Performance Progress Report: CarbonSAFE Phase I: Integrated CCS Pre-Feasibility ? Northwest Gulf of Mexico
(2018) Treviño, Ramón H.; Meckel, Timothy A.; Hovorka, Susan D.
Offshore storage achieves two major objectives for the US commercial large-scale CCS deployment: 1. Adding large capacity to serve local, regional, and potentially broader objectives. 2. Lowering risk by providing storage with one public owner, away from population centers, with no conflict with water resources and reduced concern about induced seismicity. A high-concentration CO2 source was identified as the top candidate for the project and going forward with the CarbonSAFE Phase II proposal. The top-rated source is the NET Power facility in Houston (La Porte), Texas. A manuscript based on analysis of results from the two-stage survey conducted in eight selected Texas counties (Brazoria, Chambers, Liberty, Galveston, Jefferson, Orange, Fort Bend, and Harris) was submitted to the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control on August 21, 2018. A primary confining interval (seal) is associated with MFS9 (biochronozone Amphistegina B), which can reach a thickness of up to 250 m. However, the Amphistegina B confining interval thins considerably in the onshore direction. Consequently, the most suitable portion of the Miocene section for future CO2 sequestration in the study area is considered to be the offshore area where Amphistegina B is thickest. Based on three models for capacity assessment, the study proposes a base case for the High Island 10-L Field in which 9 wells operated for 12 years each, completed into 4 zones, will emplace a total of 150 MMT of CO2, with wells placed in the water leg where all the plume will slowly migrate into the structural trap is feasible in terms of geology and engineering. The 10-L Field was assessed in more detail than other examined oil and gas fields in the study area to look at some specifics about how initial future CCS projects might be accomplished in the favorable GoM of the US region and expand the sites to a larger set to experiment with matching all the possible sources to sinks. The 10-L site is large enough to accept CO2 from multiple sinks; the expanded sinks are estimated to be large enough to accept all the CO2 from the region plus some from outside the region. A number of uncertainties were identified. The largest and most consequential uncertainty is the cost of offshore pipelines in the study setting, which impacts the conditions where CO2 transport would be by ship versus the cases where pipelines would be preferred. Ships are preferred for small volumes and short durations; pipelines for larger volumes and long duration. Additional work is needed to advance the maturity of multiple sinks available, to continue outreach to industries and the public, and to develop realistic source opportunities. The study demonstrates that industrial source clusters connected to a transport hub delivering CO2 to a nearby storage complex is the most cost-effective and improved way to decarbonize industrial activities, particularly in an expected low-carbon and increasing carbon price environment. The feasibility of the new business models should be based on the best use of the existing infrastructure and strategically built on new supporting infrastructure to drive down the costs of large-scale CCS deployment. Assessing the pre-feasibility of the commercial implementation of a CCS cluster and hub in the GoM energy ecosystem, our study links these elements successfully through an optimized combination (minimum cost) of CO2 sources on land with offshore storage.
Review of the 2008 resistivity surveys at the WCS facility, Andrews County, Texas
(2009) Paine, Jeffrey G.
Technos, Inc. completed two resistivity surveys on behalf of Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS) at the WCS facility in Andrews County, Texas. These surveys, conducted between January 24-27, 2008, and August 29-September 2, 2008, are summarized in three reports (Technos 2008a, 2008b, and 2008c). Results of the January survey, including processing and analysis of resistivity lines A and B extending northeast from the northern boundary of the proposed Federal Waste Disposal Facility, are reported in Technos 2008a. Discussion of those results led to additional resistivity surveying along lines C and D, which extend across and northward from the Byproduct Disposal Site as described in Technos 2008b. The general lack of agreement between processed resistivity data and known depths to a significant conductive layer (the redbeds) identified in boreholes and in geophysical logs led to additional processing and analysis of the resistivity data, which is summarized in a supplemental report (Technos 2008c). Technos subsequently provided resistivity data files from both surveys to allow a preliminary independent assessment of the resistivity data. Troubling aspects from the report on the January 2008 survey included: (a) the poor agreement between the resistivity-depth sections and the known depth to a relatively conductive layer (the resistivity data significantly overestimated the depth to the redbeds), (b) the poor agreement between borehole conductivity data and resistivity values in the inverted depth sections, and (c) the conclusion that surface resistivity data would not be useful in examining water saturation trends in the shallow subsurface at the site. Many of the same issues remained in the second report following the August-September acquisition and processing. The supplemental processing described in Technos 2008c was intended to address these issues by reprocessing the resistivity data and examining trends in unprocessed data at different electrode spacings to identify a possible relationship between water saturation and apparent resistivity but only partly satisfied that objective. We have briefly examined the raw resistivity data provided by Technos to further investigate issues of conversion of raw resistivity data to true resistivity-depth profiles and possible correlations between field data and water saturation along lines A, B, C, and D.
Review ofTOUGH2 Numerical Modeling of the WCS Facility, Andrews County, Texas
(2007) Nicot, Jean-Philippe
The Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) was tasked with reviewing the TOUGH2 numerical modeling submitted by WCS (two 3D models and one 2D model for the low-level application and one 2D model for the byproduct application). The preliminary step to the review consisted of the lengthy installation of the software and ensuring that the results agreed with those supplied by WCS and the software developers. The TOUGH2 2D transport modeling by the applicant addressed subsurface-parameter uncertainty in a relatively thorough fashion except for one variable: assumed top-boundary fluxes of ~0.01 inch/yr are too low. Simulations performed for and presented in this report with top flux increases to 0.1 and 1 inch/yr lead to much less conservative results, decreasing breakthrough time from ~14,000 years (applicant's base case) to less than 5,000 years (flux x 10) and less than 1,000 years (flux x 100) for Tc-99. Chloride's breakthrough time, used as a marker for the byproduct facility, also decreases from over 1,000 years (applicant's base case) to less than 200 years in other cases. Note that cases in which simulation results do not meet concentrations suggested by regulations do not necessarily invalidate the site. Because the 2D model used in the simulations is so conservative, a more realistic conceptual model consistent with site geology and hydrology would probably yield results that would be less extreme than some of those presented in this analysis. It is, however, the applicant's charge to develop such models, for example, by modeling the bottom liner (as applicable), by evaluating fracture extent and connectivity, and by better understanding the source (leachate chemical composition was obtained with no credit given to containers; in addition, high water flux is also likely to translate into a much lower radionuclide concentration). TOUGH2 3D models do provide insight into the behavior of the natural system but should be better calibrated and better constrained to provide arguments to the unproven applicant's contention that the system is and has been at steady state for tens of thousands of years.
Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership
(2005) Hovorka, Susan D.
Major efforts of the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) have been supplying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data to support analysis of geologic storage potential of the Gulf Coast part of the SE Regional Sequestration Partnership region. Initial results submitted were geological characterization of Texas and Louisiana oil and gas reservoirs, highlighting those suitable for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In response to evolving partnership needs, BEG then compiled and digitized additional brine aquifer data and created GIS data layers to add to the previously created brine formation data layers. BEG has also participated in partnership activities through presentations, reviews, meetings, and national CO2 sequestration forums.