Publications

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Despite economic, political, legal, and technical challenges, carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) holds promise as a means to substantially reduce anthropogenic atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide. One of the technical challenges to CCS is an accurate quantification of the potential geologic storage resource. This analysis uses the publically available national-scale, systems-level Water Energy and Carbon Sequestration simulation model (WECSsim), to show that, depending on assumed boundary conditions, the majority of storage associated with large-scale CCS in the U.S. (on the order of 90-100GT of total reduced emissions) would occur at a small number of well-located sites with favorable geologic properties. WECSsim, through the use of marginal abatement cost curves, shows that under such a scenario, added costs associated with resident saline water extraction, transport, and treatment (SWETT) are justified by resulting increases in carbon dioxide storage efficiency in the geologic formation. This argument is strengthened when geologic uncertainty is taken into consideration. Like an insurance policy, the enhanced carbon dioxide storage efficiency that comes from SWETT adds well-defined costs to reduce potential economic risks associated with overestimates of the available geologic storage resource. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

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The Water, Energy, and Carbon Sequestration Simulation Model (WECSsim) is a national dynamic simulation model that calculates and assesses capturing, transporting, and storing CO₂ in deep saline formations from all coal and natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. An overarching capability of WECSsim is to also account for simultaneous CO₂ injection and water extraction within the same geological saline formation. Extracting, treating, and using these saline waters to cool the power plant is one way to develop more value from using saline formations as CO₂ storage locations. WECSsim allows for both one-to-one comparisons of a single power plant to a single saline formation along with the ability to develop a national CO₂ storage supply curve and related national assessments for these formations. This report summarizes the scope, structure, and methodology of WECSsim along with a few key results. Developing WECSsim from a small scoping study to the full national-scale modeling effort took approximately 5 years. This report represents the culmination of that effort. The key findings from the WECSsim model indicate the U.S. has several decades' worth of storage for CO₂ in saline formations when managed appropriately. Competition for subsurface storage capacity, intrastate flows of CO₂ and water, and a supportive regulatory environment all play a key role as to the performance and cost profile across the range from a single power plant to all coal and natural gas-based plants' ability to store CO₂. The overall system's cost to capture, transport, and store CO₂ for the national assessment range from $\$$74 to $\$$208 / tonne stored ($\$$96 to 272 / tonne avoided) for the first 25 to 50% of the 1126 power plants to between $\$$1,585 to well beyond $\$$2,000 / tonne stored ($\$$2,040 to well beyond $\$$2,000 / tonne avoided) for the remaining 75 to 100% of the plants. The latter range, while extremely large, includes all natural gas power plants in the U.S., many of which have an extremely low capacity factor and therefore relatively high system's cost to capture and store CO₂.

People save for retirement throughout their career because it is virtually impossible to save all youll need in retirement the year before you retire. Similarly, without installing incremental amounts of clean fossil, renewable or transformative energy technologies throughout the coming decades, a radical and immediate change will be near impossible the year before a policy goal is set to be in place. Therefore, our research question is, To meet our desired technical and policy goals, what are the factors that affect the rate we must install technology to achieve these goals in the coming decades? Existing models do not include full regulatory constraints due to their often complex, and inflexible approaches to solve for optimal engineering instead of robust and multidisciplinary solutions. This project outlines the theory and then develops an applied software tool to model the laboratory-to-market transition using the traditional technology readiness level (TRL) framework, but develops subsequent and a novel regulatory readiness level (RRL) and market readiness level (MRL). This tool uses the ideally-suited system dynamics framework to incorporate feedbacks and time delays. Future energy-economic-environment models, regardless of their programming platform, may adapt this software model component framework or module to further vet the likelihood of new or innovative technology moving through the laboratory, regulatory and market space. The prototype analytical framework and tool, called the Technology, Regulatory and Market Readiness Level simulation model (TRMsim) illustrates the interaction between technology research, application, policy and market dynamics as they relate to a new or innovative technology moving from the theoretical stage to full market deployment. The initial results that illustrate the models capabilities indicate for a hypothetical technology, that increasing the key driver behind each of the TRL, RRL and MRL components individually decreases the time required for the technology to progress through each component by 63, 68 and 64%, respectively. Therefore, under the current working assumptions, to decrease the time it may take for a technology to move from the conceptual stage to full scale market adoption one might consider expending additional effort to secure regulatory approval and reducing the uncertainty of the technologys demand in the marketplace.

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Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) has important implications relative to future thermoelectric water use. A bounding analysis is performed using past greenhouse gas emission policy proposals and assumes either all effected capacity retires (lower water use bound) or is retrofitted (upper bound). The analysis is performed in the context of recent trends in electric power generation expansion, namely high penetration of natural gas and renewables along with constrained cooling system options. Results indicate thermoelectric freshwater withdrawals nationwide could increase by roughly 1% or decrease by up to 60% relative to 2009 levels, while consumption could increase as much as 21% or decrease as much as 28%. To identify where changes in freshwater use might be problematic at a regional level, electric power production has been mapped onto watersheds with limited water availability (where consumption exceeds 70% of gauged streamflow). Results suggest that between 0.44 and 0.96 Mm3/d of new thermoelectric freshwater consumption could occur in watersheds with limited water availability, while power plant retirements in these watersheds could yield 0.90 to 1.0 Mm3/d of water savings.

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has an interest in large scale hydrogen geostorage, which could offer substantial buffer capacity to meet possible disruptions in supply or changing seasonal demands. The geostorage site options being considered are salt caverns, depleted oil/gas reservoirs, aquifers and hard rock caverns. The DOE has an interest in assessing the geological, geomechanical and economic viability for these types of geologic hydrogen storage options. This study has developed an economic analysis methodology and subsequent spreadsheet analysis to address costs entailed in developing and operating an underground geologic storage facility. This year the tool was updated specifically to (1) incorporate more site-specific model input assumptions for the wells and storage site modules, (2) develop a version that matches the general format of the HDSAM model developed and maintained by Argonne National Laboratory, and (3) incorporate specific demand scenarios illustrating the model's capability. Four general types of underground storage were analyzed: salt caverns, depleted oil/gas reservoirs, aquifers, and hard rock caverns/other custom sites. Due to the substantial lessons learned from the geological storage of natural gas already employed, these options present a potentially sizable storage option. Understanding and including these various geologic storage types in the analysis physical and economic framework will help identify what geologic option would be best suited for the storage of hydrogen. It is important to note, however, that existing natural gas options may not translate to a hydrogen system where substantial engineering obstacles may be encountered. There are only three locations worldwide that currently store hydrogen underground and they are all in salt caverns. Two locations are in the U.S. (Texas), and are managed by ConocoPhillips and Praxair (Leighty, 2007). The third is in Teeside, U.K., managed by Sabic Petrochemicals (Crotogino et al., 2008; Panfilov et al., 2006). These existing H{sub 2} facilities are quite small by natural gas storage standards. The second stage of the analysis involved providing ANL with estimated geostorage costs of hydrogen within salt caverns for various market penetrations for four representative cities (Houston, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles). Using these demand levels, the scale and cost of hydrogen storage necessary to meet 10%, 25% and 100% of vehicle summer demands was calculated.

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The National Water, Energy and Carbon Sequestration simulation model (WECSsim) is being developed to address the question, 'Where in the current and future U.S. fossil fuel based electricity generation fleet are there opportunities to couple CO{sub 2} storage and extracted water use, and what are the economic and water demand-related impacts of these systems compared to traditional power systems?' The WECSsim collaborative team initially applied this framework to a test case region in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico. Recently, the model has been expanded to incorporate the lower 48 states of the U.S. Significant effort has been spent characterizing locations throughout the U.S. where CO{sub 2} might be stored in saline formations including substantial data collection and analysis efforts to supplement the incomplete brine data offered in the NatCarb database. WECSsim calculates costs associated with CO{sub 2} capture and storage (CCS) for the power plant to saline formation combinations including parasitic energy costs of CO{sub 2} capture, CO{sub 2} pipelines, water treatment options, and the net benefit of water treatment for power plant cooling. Currently, the model can identify the least-cost deep saline formation CO{sub 2} storage option for any current or proposed coal or natural gas-fired power plant in the lower 48 states. Initial results suggest that additional, cumulative water withdrawals resulting from national scale CCS may range from 676 million gallons per day (MGD) to 30,155 MGD depending on the makeup power and cooling technologies being utilized. These demands represent 0.20% to 8.7% of the U.S. total fresh water withdrawals in the year 2000, respectively. These regional and ultimately nation-wide, bottom-up scenarios coupling power plants and saline formations throughout the U.S. can be used to support state or national energy development plans and strategies.

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Concerns over rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have resulted in serious consideration of policies aimed at reduction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. If large scale abatement efforts are undertaken, one critical tool will be geologic sequestration of CO2 captured from large point sources, specifically coal and natural gas fired power plants. Current CO2 capture technologies exact a substantial energy penalty on the source power plant, which must be offset with make-up power. Water demands increase at the source plant due to added cooling loads. In addition, new water demand is created by water requirements associated with generation of the make-up power. At the sequestration site however, saline water may be extracted to manage CO2 plum migration and pressure build up in the geologic formation. Thus, while CO2 capture creates new water demands, CO2 sequestration has the potential to create new supplies. Some or all of the added demand may be offset by treatment and use of the saline waters extracted from geologic formations during CO2 sequestration. Sandia National Laboratories, with guidance and support from the National Energy Technology Laboratory, is creating a model to evaluate the potential for a combined approach to saline formations, as a sink for CO2 and a source for saline waters that can be treated and beneficially reused to serve power plant water demands. This presentation will focus on the magnitude of added U.S. power plant water demand under different CO2 emissions reduction scenarios, and the portion of added demand that might be offset by saline waters extracted during the CO2 sequestration process.

In an effort to address the potential to scale up of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) capture and sequestration in the United States saline formations, an assessment model is being developed using a national database and modeling tool. This tool builds upon the existing NatCarb database as well as supplemental geological information to address scale up potential for carbon dioxide storage within these formations. The focus of the assessment model is to specifically address the question, 'Where are opportunities to couple CO{sub 2} storage and extracted water use for existing and expanding power plants, and what are the economic impacts of these systems relative to traditional power systems?' Initial findings indicate that approximately less than 20% of all the existing complete saline formation well data points meet the working criteria for combined CO{sub 2} storage and extracted water treatment systems. The initial results of the analysis indicate that less than 20% of all the existing complete saline formation well data may meet the working depth, salinity and formation intersecting criteria. These results were taken from examining updated NatCarb data. This finding, while just an initial result, suggests that the combined use of saline formations for CO{sub 2} storage and extracted water use may be limited by the selection criteria chosen. A second preliminary finding of the analysis suggests that some of the necessary data required for this analysis is not present in all of the NatCarb records. This type of analysis represents the beginning of the larger, in depth study for all existing coal and natural gas power plants and saline formations in the U.S. for the purpose of potential CO{sub 2} storage and water reuse for supplemental cooling. Additionally, this allows for potential policy insight when understanding the difficult nature of combined potential institutional (regulatory) and physical (engineered geological sequestration and extracted water system) constraints across the United States. Finally, a representative scenario for a 1,800 MW subcritical coal fired power plant (amongst other types including supercritical coal, integrated gasification combined cycle, natural gas turbine and natural gas combined cycle) can look to existing and new carbon capture, transportation, compression and sequestration technologies along with a suite of extracting and treating technologies for water to assess the system's overall physical and economic viability. Thus, this particular plant, with 90% capture, will reduce the net emissions of CO{sub 2} (original less the amount of energy and hence CO{sub 2} emissions required to power the carbon capture water treatment systems) less than 90%, and its water demands will increase by approximately 50%. These systems may increase the plant's LCOE by approximately 50% or more. This representative example suggests that scaling up these CO{sub 2} capture and sequestration technologies to many plants throughout the country could increase the water demands substantially at the regional, and possibly national level. These scenarios for all power plants and saline formations throughout U.S. can incorporate new information as it becomes available for potential new plant build out planning.

The U.S. Department of Energy has an interest in large scale hydrogen geostorage, which would offer substantial buffer capacity to meet possible disruptions in supply. Geostorage options being considered are salt caverns, depleted oil/gas reservoirs, aquifers and potentially hard rock cavrns. DOE has an interest in assessing the geological, geomechanical and economic viability for these types of hydrogen storage options. This study has developed an ecocomic analysis methodology to address costs entailed in developing and operating an underground geologic storage facility. This year the tool was updated specifically to (1) a version that is fully arrayed such that all four types of geologic storage options can be assessed at the same time, (2) incorporate specific scenarios illustrating the model's capability, and (3) incorporate more accurate model input assumptions for the wells and storage site modules. Drawing from the knowledge gained in the underground large scale geostorage options for natural gas and petroleum in the U.S. and from the potential to store relatively large volumes of CO{sub 2} in geological formations, the hydrogen storage assessment modeling will continue to build on these strengths while maintaining modeling transparency such that other modeling efforts may draw from this project.

There is growing evidence of human induced climate change. Various legislation has been introduced to cap carbon emissions. Fossil powered electric generation is responsible for over 30% of the U.S. emissions. Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technology is water and energy intensive. The project's objectives are: (1) Explore water consumption implications associated with full deployment of a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) future; (2) Identify vulnerable areas in which water resources may be too limited to enable full deployment of CCS technology; and (3) Implement project with the cooperation of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and DOE Office of Policy and International Affairs. Thermoelectric consumption projected to increase by 3.7 BGD due to CCS by 2035, a doubling over 2004. This increase is equivalent to projected growth in consumption by all other sectors. Demand is not equally distributed across the U.S. 18.5% of this future demand is located in watershed prone to surface and groundwater stress. 30% of current and future demand is located in watersheds prone to drought stress.

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Most climate scientists believe that climate geoengineering is best considered as a potential complement to the mitigation of CO{sub 2} emissions, rather than as an alternative to it. Strong mitigation could achieve the equivalent of up to -4Wm{sup -2} radiative forcing on the century timescale, relative to a worst case scenario for rising CO{sub 2}. However, to tackle the remaining 3Wm{sup -2}, which are likely even in a best case scenario of strongly mitigated CO{sub 2} releases, a number of geoengineering options show promise. Injecting stratospheric aerosols is one of the least expensive and, potentially, most effective approaches and for that reason an examination of the possible unintended consequences of the implementation of atmospheric injections of sulphate aerosols was made. Chief among these are: reductions in rainfall, slowing of atmospheric ozone rebound, and differential changes in weather patterns. At the same time, there will be an increase in plant productivity. Lastly, because atmospheric sulphate injection would not mitigate ocean acidification, another side effect of fossil fuel burning, it would provide only a partial solution. Future research should aim at ameliorating the possible negative unintended consequences of atmospheric injections of sulphate injection. This might include modeling the optimum rate and particle type and size of aerosol injection, as well as the latitudinal, longitudinal and altitude of injection sites, to balance radiative forcing to decrease negative regional impacts. Similarly, future research might include modeling the optimum rate of decrease and location of injection sites to be closed to reduce or slow rapid warming upon aerosol injection cessation. A fruitful area for future research might be system modeling to enhance the possible positive increases in agricultural productivity. All such modeling must be supported by data collection and laboratory and field testing to enable iterative modeling to increase the accuracy and precision of the models, while reducing epistemic uncertainties.

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