CARBON STORAGE TESTS BY THE KENTUCKY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN WESTERN KENTUCKY - Ownership, Access, and Liability Issues

Transcription

1 Vol. 21, No CARBON STORAGE TESTS BY THE KENTUCKY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN WESTERN KENTUCKY - Ownership, Access, and Liability Issues J. RICHARD BOWERSOX AND MICHAEL J. LYNCH Kentucky Geological Survey Introduction Concerns about the role that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions play in global climate change have prompted collaborations and projects to explore the potential of deep geologic injection and storage of. A number of states have partnered among themselves, with private industry, and with the U.S. Department of Energy to create consortiums on carbon sequestration (or storage). Several projects have been underway around the country to assess the storage potential in various geologic formations and to do actual test injections to demonstrate the feasibility of permanent injection into pore spaces deep underground. The Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) received a mandate and partial funding from the Kentucky General Assembly s House Bill 1, approved in August 2007, to research the viability of permanent geologic injection and storage of in both the Eastern and Western Kentucky Coal Fields. State legislators were concerned about the effects on Kentucky of anticipated federal limits to carbon-dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is considered a major component of the human-caused contribution to global climate change. Flue gas from coalfired power plants is 10 to 12 percent carbon dioxide by volume, making these plants major emitters of carbon dioxide. Kentucky s coal mining industry, the state s dependence on coal for over 90 percent of its electricity, and its relatively low electricity rates are among the issues driving the legislature s concern about future carbon-management requirements. On August 19, 2009, carbon dioxide was injected into the Hancock County well to demonstrate the capacity of the deep geology to permanently store. Storage tanks, injection pumps and other equipment used for the injection are arranged around the rig. Energeia Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010 UK Center for Applied Energy Research (continued, page 2)

2 Carbon Storage Tests (cont.) Coal-related industries are naturally interested in the possibility of emission limits, as well. So industry funding was provided by Peabody Energy, ConocoPhillips, and E.ON U.S. to create the Western Kentucky Carbon Storage Foundation for a Western Kentucky Coal Field project. The Tennessee Valley Authority, Illinois Office of Coal Development, and the U.S. Department of Energy s National Energy Technology Laboratory also provided funding. A site in east-central Hancock County, about 4 miles southeast of the Ohio River, was chosen for the test injection. The test well was located on the easternmost margin of the coal field in order to evaluate the storage characteristics of the Knox Group, a geologic formation that has a broad distribution in Kentucky. Results of this test will be used to calibrate storage reservoir models and further evaluate the storage capacity in the Knox Group in Kentucky. KGS and its industry partners regularly pointed out in two public meetings and several news releases that this well was only a temporary test well for research purposes, and no industrial amounts of carbon dioxide would be injected. Drilling and Injection Testing After 18 months of planning, drill-site construction, and regulatory-agency permitting, drilling began April 24, 2009, on the Marvin Blan No. 1 well, named for the site owner. Sixty-three days later, it reached its total depth of 8,126 ft in Precambrian Middle Run Sandstone. The testing of the well s capacity to store carbon dioxide or brine lasted from July 25 through August 22. Brine was injected, as well as, because brine is less expensive to buy and inject at higher rates than. Its injectivity is proportional to that of, and researchers can calculate from brine-injection data how much carbon dioxide would have been injected in the same location. All the testing was done on the open wellbore below 3,660 feet. (Steel casing was installed and cemented to that depth.) Prior to injection, formation water samples were collected from the Knox Group to establish the geochemical composition of the water and to determine its reactivity with. The first injection test into the basal Copper Ridge Dolomite established the fracture pressure (the pressure at which the rock would break and control of the movement of injected material would be lost) in the Knox Group. The EPA Workers at the test site bring up a sample of sandstone retrieved from more than 8,000 feet below the surface. Samples taken at various depths during the drilling were tested for a variety of properties. permit for the project required this test. The Beekmantown Dolomite, interbedded Gunter Sandstone, and uppermost section of the underlying Copper Ridge Dolomite subdivisions of the Knox Group were identified as the principal storage reservoirs in the well. Temperature surveys of the wellbore showed 70 percent of the injected brine was stored in the Beekmantown-Gunter interval. Total brine injected in the first testing phase equaled 18,454 barrels. Carbon-dioxide injection was tested on August 19. A total of 323 tons of was injected at the pumping-equipment maximum rate of 4.1 barrels per minute. Post-injection surveys showed the deepest point at which was successfully injected was 5,230 ft, at the base of the Gunter formation. The buoyancy of compared to that of the waters in the geologic formation prevented deeper injection. Reservoir Seals It was also important to demonstrate that the injected carbon dioxide would be permanently sealed deep underground by the geologic formations above the injection zones. The sealing formations needed to be deeper than 2,500 feet, the approximate depth at which carbon dioxide enters a supercritical state. (The pressure and temperature at this depth causes carbon dioxide to take on the density of a liquid and the properties of a gas. In this supercritical state, occupies about 0.4 percent of the area it would under normal pressure and temperatures.) Two samples were taken from the carbonate rocks of the Black-River Group at a depth of 3,124 to 3,497 ft in the well and 11 core samples from the overlying Maquoketa Shale during drilling. Tests for porosity, permeability, and rock strength demonstrated that those two overlying formations provide effective seals for the Knox reservoir beneath them. Estimated Storage Capacity in the Knox Under the depth, pressure, and temperature conditions of the test well, estimated storage capacity in the test well is 8,600 tons per acre of storage reservoir, using an industry standard of 5 percent storage efficiency. The project demonstrated that an industrial storage well drilled into those subsurface conditions would require approximately 120 acres to store 1 million tons of, or approximately 3,500 acres of reservoir to store 30 million tons of. Depending on well spacing, 7-10 wells would be required to store 30 million tons of in a supercritical state. Thus, KGS and its industry partners believe injection into the Knox was demonstrated, as well as the presence of sealing formations capable of ensuring long-term storage. Initial evaluation of the Marvin Blan No. 1 and regional wells drilled into the Knox suggest that large areas of western Kentucky may have storage potential. Although potential storage volumes in a field of comparable wells may prove insufficient to store the entire Energeia Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010 UK Center for Applied Energy Research 2 (continued, page 3)

3 Carbon Storage Tests (cont.) stream produced by a coal-fired power plant throughout its useful lifetime, the capacity would be adequate to mitigate emissions to meet federal goals. Additional research and testing at the Hancock County well during the summer of 2010 has been funded through a DOE grant of $1.6 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and $400,000 from private partners. The Kentucky Geological Survey is also seeking industry partners to conduct a similar test of deep geologic storage of in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field, as mandated by House Bill 1. Ownership, Access, and Liability Issues The large area needed for storage of industrial amounts of carbon dioxide raises the issues of property ownership and access, liability, and long-term maintenance for carbon storage projects. An informal work group began meeting at the Kentucky Governor s Conference The Hancock County carbon storage project site in June 2009 during the drilling phase. This rig drilled the test hole to a depth of 8,126 feet. on the Environment in September 2008 to discuss these legal issues. Participants included representatives of state agencies, universities, utilities, energy-related companies, law firms, and public-advocacy groups. After four meetings, the group submitted a report with a list of recommendations to the State Cabinet for Energy and the Environment. The report concluded that Kentucky could see severe economic effects from possible restraints on the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result of the amount of coal mining and heavy use of coal in the state. The state s low-cost electricity, fueled by coal-fired power plants, has helped attract industry to Kentucky. The report notes that a draft National Energy Technology Laboratory study indicated that retrofitting an existing pulverized coal-fired power plant with scrubbing capability would double the cost of electricity from that plant and require 25% more coal in order to power the scrubbing process. The report also cites several studies that concluded thousands of coal mining, aluminum, steel, and automaking jobs could be lost in Kentucky if certain carbon-management proposals were to be enacted into law. Among the other conclusions in the report: Ownership of the pore space in which is stored will depend on the existing ownership of the property. Access to the pore space could be obtained by several methods, including current utility- and pipeline-related methods, the creation of a new type of state-regulated utility for the purpose of carbon storage, or through the use of the state s power of eminent domain. Liability should rest with the operator of a storage facility during storage operations and immediately afterward, then transfer to the state or federal government over the long term. A fee assessed for each ton of stored would fund the cost of longterm management of storage sites, and a quasi-governmental entity would be created for this purpose. A number of the recommendations from the report were incorporated into House Bill 491, introduced by Rep. Brent Yonts of Greenville during the 2010 Kentucky General Assembly. The bill proposed to declare management to be an important goal for the state and to direct the Division of Oil and Gas to develop a regulatory framework for storage, permitting, assessments, and long-term maintenance. Although the bill did not get out of a House committee, the issue is expected to resurface in the future, because of its importance to Kentucky. Rick Bowersox is a geologist in the Energy and Minerals Section of KGS. He received his Ph.D. in geology from the University of South Florida. Mike Lynch is responsible for communications and outreach at KGS. He received his bachelor s degree in journalism from Eastern Kentucky University. He may be reached at: mike.lynch@uky.edu. We ve Joined the Social Networking Age Many of our Energeia readers probably already have our web site marked as a favorite: You can now follow CAER through:? RSS Feeds? Facebook? Twitter Energeia Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010 UK Center for Applied Energy Research 3

4 WORLD OF COAL ASH 2011 CALL FOR PAPERS: Abstracts due October 3, 2010 The conference is hosted by the University of Kentucky s Center for Applied Energy Research and the American coal Ash Association. It will be held May 9-12, 2011 in Denver, Colorado at the Marriott Tech Center. For more information on submitting abstracts and on the meeting, go to the conference web site: COAL COMBUSTION BYPRODUCT PROFESSIONALS: Now accepting Submissions for the Coal Combustion and Gasification Products Journal The CAER is investigating using algae to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants by growing algae to convert to biomass. This and several other biomass issues were discussed during a Center-organized Biomass to Energy short course held April 14th at the Regional Enterprise Center in West Liberty, where CAER has a regional office. The 60+ attendees learned about environmental topics ranging from forestry biomass to the economics of the burgeoning industry. Instructors included experts from CAER, the UK Dept. of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Moore Ventures, LLC, and the USDA. The Chair of the event Biomass to Energy an overview short course was Mark Crocker, Associate Director of the Biofuels and Environmental Catalysis group at CAER. Mike Montross, UK Assoc. Professor. These are just a few of the reasons to publish in this new refereed journal created by CAER and ACAA to serve the ash community. Please go to the web site to learn more about the journal: or contact Editor-in-chief Dr. Jim Hower (hower@caer.uky.edu). Publication in two media ensures greater visibility of scientific content. The on-line journal version serves as a centralized dissemination point that can make an impact on policymakers, researchers, industrial analysts, educators, ash marketers, advertisers and others involved in the coal combustion by-products industry. The CCGP printed insert publication of extended abstracts and short, topical research communications pieces in the American Coal Ash Association s Ash at Work, with its circulation of over 3000, guarantees the author s research immediately reaches a focused target audience. Authors are not charged to publish in nor will readers be charged to access content from CCGP Journal. Attendees at the course in eastern Kentucky. Energeia Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010 UK Center for Applied Energy Research 4

5 COMMENTARY Clean Coal Technologies are the Pathway to SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH and REDUCED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FRANK CLEMENTE The Pennsylvania State University The United States has the most reliable electric power supply system in the world. Coal is the foundation of that reliability. Coal produces 50 percent of our electricity nationally and that means 2,000 billion kilowatt hours -- more than all the electricity used in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom combined. The 600 coal plants scattered throughout the nation are embedded in the socioeconomic fabric of their respective communities, providing good jobs, supporting businesses and generating tax revenues for local schools. Coal plants produce electricity when drought hits the hydroelectric dams, solar panels are clouded over and wind turbines are in the doldrums. They produce electricity when natural gas is too expensive to use and when nuclear power plants are closed. Coal power plants are there each day, every day, 24-7 as the tireless workhorses of our electric generation fleet and a core component of our continuing high quality of life. During the 1980s and 90s, increased generation from coal led to declining real electricity prices. These lower energy prices stimulated an economic boom that was unprecedented in American history. Over the last 10 years however, the dash to gas resulted in 90 percent of new power plants being based on natural gas. Since then, electricity prices have steadily increased. From 2000 to 2008, the cost to generate electricity from coal averaged $1.76 per million btu compared to $7.84 for natural gas. Further, and importantly, research at Carnegie Mellon University has shown that even coal with carbon capture and storage will be less expensive than nuclear or wind alternatives. As President Obama strives to both renew economic growth and meet climate change policy goals, the future role of coal looms large. Coal is increasingly the source of incremental electricity at the global level. In fact, Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, recently stated that coal is likely to be a major and growing source of electricity generation for the foreseeable future. Energy from new coal power plants (EIA) The Energy Information Administration projects that by 2030 the United States will need: 21,000 additional megawatts in coalbased electricity generating capacity. 310 additional billion kilowatt hours of coal based generation. To meet the environmental challenges of this increased utilization of coal, during the next decade the Administration seeks to immediately facilitate the broad implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS). In fact, Secretary Chu stated: We must make it our goal to advance carbon capture and storage technology to the point where widespread, affordable deployment can begin in 8 to 10 years. Over the past several decades the US electric power industry has invested almost $100 billion to control pollutants with stunning success. Emissions such as sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide have declined significantly since 1970 despite a dramatic increase in coalbased generation. Clean coal technology has solved other emission challenges and now the creative gaze of the scientific and engineering communities has turned to the management of. International Energy Agency (IEA) An 80 percent reduction in emissions while maintaining economic growth is an important goal of the Obama Administration. The International Energy Agency has identified CCS as a critically important technology in attaining such goals. Improved energy efficiency at new power plants will reduce emissions by 15 to 30 percent. Energeia Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010 UK Center for Applied Energy Research 5 (continued, page 6)

6 Center for Applied Energy Research 2540 Research Park Drive University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky Non-Profit Organization U.S.Postage PAID Lexington, Kentucky Permit No. 51 Energeia is published six times a year by the University of Kentucky s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER). The publication features aspects of energy resource development and environmentally related topics. Subscriptions are free and may be requested as follows: Marybeth McAlister, Editor of Energeia, CAER, 2540 Research Park Drive, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY , (859) , FAX: (859) , mcalister@caer.uky.edu. Current and past issues of Energeia may be viewed on the CAER Web Page at Copyright 2010, University of Kentucky. Clean Coal Technologies (cont.) CCS technologies are the pathways the Administration has identified and to this end the Obama administration has made a $1 billion commitment to FutureGen, a near-zero emission facility, with the goal of achieving a commercial scale power plant with CCS by Such leadership by the United States is essential to making CCS technologies available to the rest of the world. Over 1.6 billion people do not have any electricity at all and another 2 billion have inadequate access. Billions of people toil grimly in the dark. Coal is a crucial key to turning on the light. These are the global realities of energy poverty and clean coal technologies are the pathway to improving the quality of life across the world. In a major report on Low Carbon Coal issued in December of 2009, the National Coal Council found that deployment of about 360 GW of coal-based genera- tion with CCS by 2050 would revitalize the industrial sector of America, provide over 28 million job-years spanning four decades, and increase our nation s Gross Domestic Product by more than $2.7 trillion a remarkable payoff for a $1.2 trillion investment. Research conducted for the AFL-CIO (2009) indicates operation and maintenance of these facilities would provide over 800,000 permanent jobs throughout the economy thereby benefiting generations of Americans yet to come. Further and just as importantly, the NCC found that near-term, significant reductions in emissions from a portion of the existing coal-based generating fleet could be achieved by: 1) retrofit technologies which improve generation efficiency, thereby lowering the amount of coal used for the same amount of electricity generated; 2) using partial capture technologies (i.e percent); or 3) a combination of efficiency improvements and partial capture. These technologies are available now. While the investment costs will be significant, we do not need to wait until the higher capture rate technologies begin to be deployed at large scale later in the decade. Higher efficiency, partial capture, and having at least 10 large-scale CCS demonstration projects in operation by 2016 are crucial steps in meeting the President s goal of an 80 percent reduction in emissions by These are important and necessary investments in the energy future of our nation. Energeia Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010 UK Center for Applied Energy Research 6