Draft2:Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Sequestration

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File:Southwest partnership map.jpg
The region where SWP operates [1]

The Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Sequestration (SWP) is a public and private partnership aimed at exploring and testing carbon sequestration opportunities in the southwestern United States. It is one of seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships created by DOE's Office of Fossil Energy. DOE combines the findings from PCOR with other RCSP programs to build a national carbon storage atlas (NATCARB).

Mission

The overarching goal of the partnership is to promote the development of a regional framework and infrastructure required to verify and deploy storage technologies by developing safe, effective, and economical approaches for capturing and permanently storing CO2 to reduce the region's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. SWP relies heavily on existing technologies from engineering, geology, chemistry, biology, geographic information system (GIS), and economics to develop novel approaches for both geologic and terrestrial carbon storage in the region. SWP also engages in economic and regulatory analyses, public education and outreach, and regional demonstration projects to deploy and evaluate new technologies. [2]

Topic at DOE

File:Rcsp regions.jpg
A map of the seven RCSP regions [3]

DOE's Office of Fossil Energy has created a network of seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSP's) to help develop the technology, infrastructure, and regulations to implement large-scale CO2 storage (also called carbon sequestration) in different regions and geologic formations within the nation. Collectively, the seven RCSPs represent regions encompassing:

  • 97 percent of coal-fired CO2 emissions
  • 97 percent of industrial CO2 emissions
  • 96 percent of the total land mass

History

Each RCSP has three phases: characterization, validation, and development. Most RCSP's, including SWP, are currently in the development phase.

File:Swp emissions by state.jpg
A graph of emissions by state in the SWP region [4]

Phase I

The characterization phase discovered stationary CO2 sites that provide opportunities for regional carbon sequestration. They confirmed that the region has high potential for carbon sequestration in its mature oil fields and coal seams.

Phase II

The validation included field testing that sought to verify the feasibility of storing CO2 through enhanced coal bed methane (ECBM) extraction and Enhanced Oil Recovery. Three locations were selected, and those projects have taken place or are underway in Utah, New Mexico, and Texas. The projects located in the Paradox Basin in Utah and within the SACROC field in Texas will validate the use of CO2 for EOR activities and for storage within the basins by continuous circulation and storage. The project, located within the San Juan Basin in New Mexico, uses ECBM recovery techniques to store CO2 and enhance gas extraction. These projects will store almost 750,000 metric tons of CO2 by their completion. To date, results indicate that the storage formations being used have the potential to store a significant portion of the region's CO2 emissions.

The partnership's efforts have included one terrestrial storage research and pilot study to leverage the large amount of potential CO2 uptake sources within the region. The program was designed to determine best management practices for carbon storage in croplands and rangelands, and explore carbon market opportunities. SWP has conducted a validation phase terrestrial storage pilot test in the San Juan Basin, near the ECBM site. The water produced by the ECBM process is desalinated and used to aid in terrestrial storage. With this method, scientists can enhance the natural cycle of CO2 absorption by plants by using the water to irrigate grasslands for new vegetation growth. [5]

Phase III

SWP is currently working with Chaparral Energy for an Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) effort in Texas' Farnsworth Oil Field. The project aims to inject 190,000 tons of CO2 into the site each year over five and a half years, resulting in one million tones of sequestered CO2. All of this CO2 comes from nearby ethanol and fertilizer plants. Chaparral is using nearby ethanol and fertilizer plants to enhance the oil recovery and SWP is providing monitoring for these efforts and has built models that demonstrate the sequestration of carbon in the oil field. The project provides an opportunity for numerous sequestration monitoring methods to be tested, including 3D surface surveys, 3D vertical seismic profiling (3D-VSP), and cross-well tomography.

SWP is also monitoring the Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountain area for additional carbon sequestration development.

Related Links

External links

  1. ↑ https://netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/carbon-storage-infrastructure/swp
  2. ↑ Ibid.
  3. ↑ https://www.energy.gov/fe/science-innovation/carbon-capture-and-storage-research/regional-partnerships
  4. ↑ https://netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/carbon-storage-infrastructure/swp
  5. ↑ Ibid.
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