Heterogeneity-assisted carbon dioxide storage in marine sediments

Dai, Zhenxue; Zhang, Ye; Bielicki, Jeffrey; Amooie, Mohammad Amin; Zhang, Mingkan; Yang, Changbing; Zou, Youqin; Ampomah, William; Xiao, Ting; Jia, Wei; Middleton, Richard; Zhang, Wen; Sun, Youhong; Moortgat, Joachim; Soltanian, Mohamad Reza; Stauffer, Philip

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.05.038

Title: Heterogeneity-assisted carbon dioxide storage in marine sediments

Journal Article · Sat May 26 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Applied Energy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.05.038· OSTI ID:1459831

^[1]; Zhang, Ye ^[2]; Bielicki, Jeffrey ^[3]; Amooie, Mohammad Amin ^[4]; Zhang, Mingkan ^[5]; Yang, Changbing ^[6]; Zou, Youqin ^[7]; Ampomah, William ^[8]; Xiao, Ting ^[9]; Jia, Wei ^[10]; Middleton, Richard ^[11]; Zhang, Wen ^[12]; Sun, Youhong ^[12];

^[4]; Soltanian, Mohamad Reza ^[13]; Stauffer, Philip ^[11]

Jilin Univ., Changchun (China). College of Construction Engineering; Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY (United States). Dept. of Geology and Geophysics
The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Dept. of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering. John Glenn College of Public Affairs
The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). School of Earth Sciences
Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY (United States). Dept. of Geology and Geophysics; Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Energy & Transportation Science Division
Edwards Aquifer Authority, San Antonio, TX (United States)
Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States). Bureau of Economic Geology; Nanchang Univ. (China). School of Resources, Environmental and Chemical Engineering
New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech), Socorro, NM (United States). Petroleum Recovery Research Center
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States). Energy and Geoscience Inst.
Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States). Energy and Geoscience Inst.
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Jilin Univ., Changchun (China). College of Construction Engineering
Univ. of Cincinnati, OH (United States). Dept. of Geology

Global climate change is a pressing problem caused by the accumulation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture and storage is a promising component of a portfolio of options to stabilize atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. Meaningful capture and storage requires the permanent isolation of enormous amounts of CO₂ away from the atmosphere. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of heterogeneity-induced trapping mechanism, in potential synergy with a self-sealing gravitational trapping mechanism, for secure CO₂ storage in marine sediments. We conduct the first comprehensive study on heterogeneous marine sediments with various thicknesses at various ocean depths. Prior studies of gravitational trapping have assumed homogeneous (deep-sea) sediments, but numerous studies suggest reservoir heterogeneity may enhance CO₂ trapping. Heterogeneity can deter the upward migration of CO₂ and prevent leakage through the seafloor into the seawater. Using geostatistically-based Monte Carlo simulations of CO₂ transport in heterogeneous sediment, we show that strong spatial variability in permeability is a dominant physical mechanism for secure CO₂ storage in marine sediments below 1.2 km water depth (less than half of the depth needed for the gravitational trapping). We identify thresholds for sediment thickness, mean permeability and porosity, and their relationships to meaningful injection rates. Our results for the U.S. Gulf of Mexico suggest that heterogeneity-assisted trapping has a greater areal extent with more than three times the CO₂ storage capacity for secure offshore CO₂ storage than with gravitational trapping. Finally, these characteristics offer CO₂ storage opportunities that are closer to coasts, more accessible, and likely to be less costly.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); Univ. of Cincinnati, OH (United States); Jilin Univ., Changchun (China)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); US-China Advanced Coal Technology Consortium; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396; 41772253; 1230691

OSTI ID:: 1459831

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-16-27783

Journal Information:: Applied Energy, Vol. 225; ISSN 0306-2619

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 68 works

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