The Mitigation Method
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October 17, 2014
Alongside improving oil and gas recovery, UT PGE is playing a significant role in advancing the important field of carbon storage research through a multi-million dollar government grant.
Coinciding with the White House’s announcement during the summer of 2014 to reduce 30 percent of carbon emissions from power plants by 2030, compared with the level in 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Dr. Larry Lake and the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering’s Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security a four-year, $12 million grant to fund carbon storage research aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Professor Larry Lake
The goal of the research is to improve geologic CO2 storage, which is a key technology for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption — especially from coal and natural gas used to generate electricity.
A multidisciplinary team from the Cockrell School of Engineering and the Jackson School of Geosciences at the university and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will collaborate on the project to devise a meaningful mitigation method.
The carbon storage process is taking carbon from the atmosphere after it is burned in a coal fire power plant and turning it into a super critical liquid that can be injected into the ground and stored either for future use or permanently.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz announced in June that UT Austin’s center is one of 32 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) across the nation that will receive a total of $100 million in funding. UT Austin is the only university in Texas to receive the grant. According to Moniz, the purpose of the funding is to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build the 21st-century energy economy.
“Today, we are mobilizing some of our most talented scientists to join forces and pursue the discoveries and breakthroughs that will lay the foundation for our nation’s energy future,” Moniz said. “The funding will help fuel scientific and technological innovation.”
This grant is a renewal of a five-year, $15.5 million research grant to the center in 2009. The previous grant, led by Drs. Steve Bryant and Gary Pope, discovered the significant limitations of effective CO2 storage, including the restrictions in accessing the space in underground aquifers. The research was critical to this upcoming grant, which will incorporate more applied science, as that foundational knowledge will help address the next set of issues.
“UT Austin has become a leading university for addressing critical carbon storage challenges, including sustaining large carbon dioxide storage rates for decades, better using storage space and improving carbon containment,” said Lake, who holds the Shahid and Sharon Ullah Endowed Chair in Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering. “This research has the potential to create a healthier environment and economy.”
The multi-year project aims to determine how to access all the pore volume in a reservoir. Currently, it is restricted because when CO2 is injected the pressure rises quickly, blocking access to the space.
The research project, which includes 20 faculty members from across the university, begins fall 2014. In addition to Lake, seven faculty members within UT PGE will contribute to the research including: Hilary Olson (associate director), Sanjay Srinivasan (theme lead), Matthew Balhoff, David DiCarlo, Nicolas Espinoza, Chun Huh and Mary Wheeler.
