Cadmus’ Expertise Supports Efforts to Reduce CO2 Emissions
For Immediate Release
For Additional Information, contact:
Melissa Saunders
The Cadmus Group
757.897.6268
mwsaunders@cox.net
Watertown, Mass. April 23, 2007 — Emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2) from the large-scale burning of coal, gas, and oil continue to change global climate patterns and raise the planet’s temperature, but a new use for an established technology may help reduce those emissions and slow the pace of global warming. The Cadmus Group is providing technical support to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as it considers how to manage wells that will inject CO2 deep underground in a process known as geologic sequestration (GS) or carbon capture and storage.
GS involves capturing CO2 from a power plant or other emission source, transporting the CO2, and injecting it into deep subsurface rock formations with the aim of keeping it out of the atmosphere for hundreds of years and perhaps longer. The CO2 could be injected into deep saline aquifers, depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs, or coal seams that cannot be mined. The wells that will be used to inject the CO2 are subject to regulation by EPA’s Underground Injection Control (UIC) program. Cadmus has been the key support contractor for the UIC program since the late 1980s.
“Because of our knowledge base in underground injection and our experience with the UIC program, we were able to support the Agency’s development of a recently issued guidance concerning the permitting of CO2 injection wells of pilot projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy,” says Dr. Chi Ho Sham, the Cadmus vice president who leads the firm’s GS technical support. The pilot projects will assess the effectiveness of GS and gather data on CO2 injection.
“Cadmus is also supporting EPA in organizing a series of workshops on GS. So far two have been held, and the third will be held this July in Washington,” Dr. Sham says. At the first workshop, EPA asked state UIC regulators for their input on what technical and research questions need to be answered to develop a strategy for safely managing CO2 injection.
The personnel from EPA and the Department of Energy laboratories, representatives of the oil and gas industry, academics, and other stakeholders who attended the second workshop delved deeper into the issues raised at the first meeting. They included the research that will be necessary to determine appropriate methods for constructing and testing CO2 injection wells.
“Future workshops will consider the selection of safe, appropriate sites for GS projects, the best way to monitor CO2 if it moves within—or leaves—the underground zone into which it has been injected, and various liability and financial responsibility issues,” says Dr. Sham.
CO2 injection is used routinely to increase the production of some oil and gas wells. But injecting large volumes of CO2 captured from fossil-fuel-burning plants raises several new technical issues and concerns. One is that the injected CO2 may make its way through fractures and faults in rock formations and leak back to the land surface where it can be trapped in low-lying and enclosed areas where it may cause asphyxiation.
Another key concern is the corrosive nature of the carbonic acid that is created when CO2 dissolves in water. Questions remain about how the carbonic acid will affect the cement and other materials used to construct the CO2 injection wells or any oil and gas wells in a planned CO2 storage area. This “well integrity” issue is very important for new injection wells and for oil and gas wells in areas affected by the injected CO2 because these wells can provide pathways for the CO2 to escape to the surface. Cadmus staff members Dr. Jonathan Koplos, Shari Ring, and Dr. Ken Klewicki have worked in conjunction with EPA staff to prepare background materials on well integrity issues.
“Another concern is the impact of the sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and other impurities that may be injected along with the CO2. Cadmus is supporting EPA in developing a research strategy to address these concerns,” says Dr. Sham.
Not all the issues facing regulators and industry are strictly technical. They also will have to grapple with such legal and policy questions as who owns the pore space below ground into which the CO2 will be injected, who will take responsibility for sequestration that may last hundreds of years, and who will be liable if the injected CO2 escapes into the atmosphere, Dr. Sham notes.
Geologic sequestration of CO2 has global applications. Available evidence suggests that, worldwide, there is a likely technical potential storage capacity in geologic formations of perhaps 2,000 Gigatons (Gts or a billion metric tons) of CO2, according to the 2005 IPCC Special Report: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, Summary for Policymakers. (About 23 Gts of CO2 are emitted worldwide each year; the United States accounts for about one-quarter of that total.) One advantage of GS, Dr. Sham explains, is that it could allow developed and developing countries to continue using fossil fuels without adding CO2 to the atmosphere—ideally as the world transitions at least partly to other energy sources.
EPA plans to invest a great deal of effort in researching the relevant technical issues to develop a scientifically sound management strategy for using injection wells to address this important global problem. Cadmus is pride to be a part of the efforts to investigate and deploy new technologies to address global climate change issues.
About The Cadmus Group
Founded in 1983, employee-owned Cadmus (cadmusgroup.com) helps government, nonprofit, and corporate clients address critical challenges in the environmental and energy sectors. We provide an array of research and analytical services in the United States and abroad, specializing in solving complex problems that demand innovative, multidisciplinary thinking. Among Cadmus’ major practice areas are Drinking Water and Water Quality, Communications and Social Marketing, Energy Services (including energy efficiency and renewable energy), Risk Assessment, Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmentally Sound Design, and Environmental Management.
Our staff includes scientists; engineers; statisticians; economists; MBAs; marketing, public relations, and communications professionals; attorneys; information technology specialists; and public policy analysts. Many of our senior consultants are nationally recognized experts in their fields and several serve on high-level U.S. government science advisory boards.