Lab to Help Lead West Coast Underground Carbon Storage Test

The West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB), which includes Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, received $65.6 million on May 6 from the U.S. Department of Energy to test storing a California power plant’s carbon dioxide emissions deep underground in order to curb global warming.

WESTCARB is one of seven research partnerships co-funded by DOE to characterize regional carbon sequestration opportunities. The California Energy Commission manages the partnership and is a major co-funder. Berkeley Lab scientists serve as the technical managers and principal scientific investigators of WESTCARB, which includes more than 70 organizations.

The proposed project will be the West Coast’s first large-scale carbon sequestration demonstration. Carbon dioxide emissions from a 49-megawatt, Clean Energy Systems-owned power plant located in Kern County, CA will be pumped more than one mile underground into porous rock filled with salt water. One millions tons of carbon dioxide will be injected over four years beginning in 2011.

“The Kern County location is fortuitous because the Central Valley contains California’s largest geologic carbon dioxide storage potential,” said Berkeley Lab’s Larry Myer, a geological engineer in the Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and the technical director of WESTCARB. “Field testing will allow us to determine how to best utilize this storage space.”

Carbon sequestration involves pumping carbon dioxide into porous formations capped by impermeable rock, which prevents the greenhouse gas from escaping into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. Myer is confident that the Central Valley’s saline formations will prove extremely effective at trapping carbon dioxide for thousands, perhaps millions of years. In addition, the Kern County test site is geologically similar to the many oilfields in the southern San Joaquin Valley, and many sites throughout western North America.

“The prospect of geologic carbon dioxide storage as a major component of efforts to achieve significant greenhouse gas reductions is real,” said Myer.

In the project planning phase, Berkeley Lab scientists will develop computer models that predict the underground fate of carbon dioxide within the storage zone. Once injection begins, Lab researchers will monitor the carbon dioxide’s subsurface movement. After the injection operation ends, Lab researchers will monitor the site as part of an environmental stewardship phase.

Other partners in the project include Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of California’s Office of the President, Stanford University, the California Geological Survey, and the oilfield services firm, Schlumberger. The WESTCARB partnership includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, and British Columbia. For more information on WESTCARB, visit: http://www.westcarb.org/

A DOE press release on the project can be found here.