T155 Advances in Clean Coal Technology, Carbon Sequestration, and Enhanced Resource Recovery

Tuesday, 2 November 2010
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Mile High Ballroom 1CD

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY NATIONAL GEOLOGIC CARBON DIOXIDE SEQUESTRATION ASSESSMENT

Paper number: T155-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:05 AM – 8:25 AM

Authors

Abstract

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a long history of assessing national and global ground- and surface-water resources and geologically based energy and mineral resources. In 2007, the Energy Independence and Security Act (Public Law 110–140) authorized the USGS to conduct a national assessment of geologic storage resources for carbon dioxide (CO2) in consultation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and State geological surveys. An initial step in this process was to develop a methodology to estimate the CO2 storage resource potential that can be uniformly applied to geologic formations across the United States. After extensive peer, public, industry, and academic review, a final assessment methodology report (Brennan and others, 2010, http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1127) was published in June, 2010, and will be the probability based methodology used by the USGS to assess the Nation’s geologic storage resources for CO2.

A team of USGS geologists working with State geologic surveys, and other State and Federal agencies, will delineate storage assessment units (SAU) and estimate CO2 sequestration capacity in buoyant and residual storage traps within each assessed basin. SAUs will (1) be composed of a storage formation and an overlying seal which prevents CO2 migration out of the storage unit; (2) be located at depths of 3,000 to 13,000 ft (914 to 3,962 m) to ensure that CO2 is in a supercritical state (upper depth limit) and can be injected at pipeline pressures (lower depth limit); and (3) contain no formation water with total dissolved solids >10,000 parts per million (ppm) to prevent contamination of potential potable water. Assessment results will be compiled and released as a USGS publication in 2013.