THE INTEGRATION AND MAPPING OF AN OPEN-SOURCE NATIONAL WELL RESOURCE TO INFORM GEOLOGIC CARBON STORAGE SITE SELECTION AND RISK PREVENTION: THE CO2-LOCATE DATABASE

Geologic carbon storage (GCS) provides a unique opportunity to capture and permanently store CO2 from fossil fuel operations in underground geologic structures via wellbores. The process posits as one of the strategic avenues for continued extraction and usage of fossil fuels while transitioning into a carbon neutral energy economy. However, CO2 injection sites can experience gas leakage through existing wells that penetrate the storage reservoirs. Thus, knowledge of existing well locations and characteristics is pivotal in making informed decisions regarding permitting, infrastructure reusability, and risk assessment in GCS. Currently, free, publicly available wellbore resources from state, federal and tribal entities are disparate, and vary in standards and formats, with significant redundancies and gaps.

To meet the need for an open-source, integrated well database at a national-scale, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) developed CO2-Locate, a dynamic, geospatial database and online application. CO2-Locate is an up-to-date and standardized national well database, comprised of more than 50 resources from federal, state, and tribal entities. The database, which was developed with funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is publicly available on the Energy Data eXchange®(EDX) and viewable via the CO2-Locate web mapping application. The CO2-Locate application enables data visualization, interrogation, and access in support of GCS planning. Within the application, users can query and filter the database, alongside spatial aggregations of the well data, to obtain critical information insights to support area evaluations for GCS. Overall, CO2-Locate will serve as a useful data repository to support the decision-making process for GCS research, permitting, and risk assessments.

This presentation will discuss the methods used to create the integrated CO2-Locate Database including acquisition, processing, attribute-mapping, and integration, much of which has been coded to enable automatic future updates. Furthermore, the resource curation and attribute mapping steps in the data standardization process, along with the web mapping application and its usage in GCS site selection will be discussed.