U.S. DOE'S R&D PROGRAM TO DEVELOP INFRASTRUCTURE FORCARBON STORAGE: RESULTS OF FIELD TESTING IN DIFFERENT GEOLOGIC ENVIRONMENTS

The Carbon Storage Program being implemented by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is focused on developing technologies to store CO₂ in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without adversely affecting energy use or hindering economic growth. A key element of the program, which is important in advancing geologic carbon storage technology towards commercialization, involves small and large scale field tests being carried out through the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSPs) initiative. These tests highlight DOE’s awareness of the importance of addressing CO₂ mitigation on a regional level to most effectively manage differences in geology, climate, population density, infrastructure, and socioeconomic development. Regarding differences in geology, the depositional environment has a major influence on the properties and architecture of reservoirs, affecting how CO₂ is trapped, and how it moves and interacts with other formation fluids and solids. The effectiveness of CO₂ injection and storage and the ability of technologies to monitor and simulate storage will differ among depositional environments. This paper summarizes lessons learned to date from DOE’s field testing in a variety of depositional environments. The Storage Program is considering 11 different classes of geologic formations, based on depositional environment, as having potential for storage. The RCSPs have completed 18 small scale field projects involving CO₂ injection into eight of the 11 classes; one small scale test in basalt is on-going. Eight projects were in oil and gas fields; five in saline formations; and five in unmineable coal seams. Currently, under the RCSP initiative, a number of large-scale (1 million metric tons CO₂ injected) field projects are underway in regionally significant geologic formations representing six different depositional environments, focusing on saline formations and oil fields.