SCO2TPRO: Unlocking the Nation's Subsurface to Support the Energy Transition

The US currently stores around 25 MtCO2/yr of anthropogenic CO2 in saline or non-oil-production reservoirs but meeting the country’s energy transition goals requires identifying total storage between two and three orders of magnitude (10–100s GtCO2) across 100s–1,000s of storage sites. The challenge is finding the 100–1000s of CO2 storage sites to make this happen. We developed new and game-changing science to rapidly and realistically screen for CO2 storage resources with the Sequestration of CO2 Tool (SCO2T). SCO2T can, for the first time and on the scale and accuracy demanded by the climate challenge, simultaneously estimate: (1) CO2 injection rates, (2) CO2 plume evolution, (3) storage capacity, and (4) end-to-end costs. We: 1) developed new data using reservoir simulation; 2) used this data to develop new Reduced Order Models (ROMs); 3) reviewed publicly available databases of saline formation properties; 4) demonstrated SCO2TPRO; 5) compared SCO2TPRO to its competitor; 6) added a new capability to SCO2TPRO to estimate the capacity and cost of CO2-geothermal power plants; and 7) demonstrated this new utilization capability. We disseminated these research activities with multiple peer-reviewed and open-source journal publications. We will construct new ROMs to represent advanced CO2 injection and storage operations (e.g., including injection well spacing, overlapping CO2 plumes, brine extraction strategies, dynamic injection rates). We will couple this with new detailed sequestration cost models to produce the most advanced end-to-end sequestration estimates. We will develop the most sophisticated national geologic database for the US that will enable us to produce the first-ever nationwide understanding of CO2 storage potential, including the first-ever across-the-nation supply curves for CO2-storage and CO2-geothermal power plants. We will also incorporate these curves into a capacity expansion model of the electricity system to understand and demonstrate the role these technologies may play in reaching our Nation’s energy transition goals. SCO2TPRO is an essential tool for many commercial applications, including market assessment, project feasibility, and project design and CO2 storage certification. Our nine letters of support provided with this proposal represent the breadth of potential users and investors in SCO2TPRO across the entire CCS value chain—capture, transport, and storage—and from industry, investment banks, government, and researchers. Together, our Phase I market assessment and initial Phase II letters of support indicate massive demand for our SCO2TPRO software, as well as substantial confidence from our letters that the project will be a success