Prospective CO2 saline resource estimation methodology: Refinement of existing US-DOE-NETL methods based on data availability

• Published in: International journal of greenhouse gas control 2016-11, Vol.54 (P1), p.242-249
• Main Authors: Goodman, Angela, Sanguinito, Sean, Levine, Jonathan S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: CO2 resource estimation; CO2 sequestration; data availability; ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; geologic storage; GEOSCIENCES; saline formations
• ISSN: 1750-5836; 1878-0148
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijggc.2016.09.009

Carbon storage resource estimation in subsurface saline formations plays an important role in establishing the scale of carbon capture and storage activities for governmental policy and commercial project decision-making. Prospective CO2 resource estimation of large regions or subregions, such as a basin, occurs at the initial screening stages of a project using only limited publicly available geophysical data, i.e. prior to project-specific site selection data generation. As the scale of investigation is narrowed and selected areas and formations are identified, prospective CO2 resource estimation can be refined and uncertainty narrowed when site-specific geophysical data are available. Here, we refine the United States Department of Energy – National Energy Technology Laboratory (US-DOE-NETL) methodology as the scale of investigation is narrowed from very large regional assessments down to selected areas and formations that may be developed for commercial storage. In addition, we present a new notation that explicitly identifies differences between data availability and data sources used for geologic parameters and efficiency factors as the scale of investigation is narrowed. This CO2 resource estimation method is available for screening formations in a tool called CO2-SCREEN.