Impact/Purpose:

We hypothesize that (1) geologic sequestration will impact USDWs, but (2) at suitable sites, GS will not adversely impact USDWs. The specific objectives of our study are (1) identify risks specific to USDWs and develop associated Probability Density Functions ( PDFs), (2) quantify risks to USDWs by pressure/brine/CO2 migration through seals, (3) quantify risks to USDWs by lateral migration of pressure/brine/CO2, and (4) determine conditions that minimize (or eliminate) the risks to USDWs.

Description:

The University of Utah project team will utilize existing CO2 geologic sequestration (GS) demonstration sites to develop an "Aquifer Risk Assessment Framework," or ARAF. The ARAF will be a systematic framework that researchers may use to assess and quantify potential risks to Underground Sources of Drinking Water (USDWs) at a specific GS site. The most useful application of the ARAF will be determination of optimized engineering conditions that minimize risks to USDWs for a given set of geologic conditions at a specific GS site.

URLs/Downloads:

2012 Progress Report

2011 Progress Report

Record Details:

Record Type:PROJECT( ABSTRACT )

Start Date:12/01/2009

Completion Date:11/30/2012

Record ID: 251922

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Related Organizations:

Role :OWNER

Organization Name :UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Mailing Address :200 S University St

Citation :Salt Lake City

State :UT

Zip Code :84112

Project Information:

Approach :

A key to making the ARAF truly effective is to identify which factors (processes, parameters, etc.) are most important with respect to adverse impacts on USDWs, and to achieve this we will use a case-study approach to test and evaluate the specific components with real data and results. The case study sites include (1) the Gordon Creek field in north-central Utah; this site has never been subjected to CO2 injection, and will not begin injection for at least 1 year from now, (2) an active CO2 injection field site in the Permian Basin in western Texas; CO2 injection at this site began in October, 2008, and injection is not slated to cease until 2010 at the earliest; and (3) an active CO2 injection field site in the San Juan Basin in northern New Mexico; CO2 injection at this site began in July, 2008, and injection ceased in August, 2009. The latter two of these field sites are part of the Validation Phase of the Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Sequestration, a partnership and project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and its National Energy Technology Laboratory. A PI of this EPA STAR project (R834386) also formed the Southwest Regional Partnership and has led that project since 2003. Thus, access to the field sites and associated data are assured.

We plan to include all three of these field sites in the EPA-sponsored Aquifer Risk Assessment Framework (ARAF) STAR project (R834386). These three sites represent the three primary permutations of a CCS geologic site, to facilitate evaluation of different stages of risk analysis and framework development. Specifically, Gordon Creek is a new project area slated for future CO2 injection, and thus it represents a site with no baseline CCS analysis data at the onset of the project. The Permian Basin site represents active CO2 injection and monitoring with a relatively mature set of fundamental geologic evaluation, monitoring and simulation data to support ARAF development. Finally, San Juan

Cost :$899,567.00

Research Component :Drinking Water

Project IDs:

ID Code :R834386

Project type :EPA Grant