Indiana — land of farms, fields and forests — is also home to factories, fertilizer plants and other industries that emit carbon dioxide. The Hoosier state ranks third in the nation in carbon dioxide emissions and 11th in the number of carbon-dioxide-emitting sources.
Indiana, however, could also become a leader in decarbonizing the atmosphere through carbon capture and storage — the capture of carbon dioxide from industry emissions and the storage, or sequestration, of carbon dioxide in deep underground geologic formations. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, researchers at the Indiana Geological and Water Survey at Indiana University are working with colleagues from other states to evaluate locations in Indiana and the Midwest where carbon storage in geologic formations could be successful.
Over the past 187 years, researchers at the Indiana Geological and Water Survey have laid the groundwork for carbon capture and storage by mapping in increasing detail the types, thicknesses, depths and properties of rock formations under Indiana. The Indiana Geological and Water Survey maintains a library of hundreds of thousands of feet of rock cores at a facility in Bloomington so researchers from inside and outside the organization can study them as windows into the deep subsurface. Samples collected decades ago are still yielding new information.
In carbon capture and storage, carbon dioxide is made into a supercritical fluid — held at a particular temperature and pressure — and is injected thousands of feet underground into specific types of rock formations. It can be stored in unmineable coal, in natural gas or oil reservoirs, and in other porous sedimentary rocks capped by impermeable rocks. A majority of Indiana is underlain by saline formations consisting of layers of rocks saturated with salty brine water. According to the Department of Energy, these formations have “an enormous potential for CO2 storage.”
“In the Indiana-Illinois region, the porosity and permeability of some of the deep reservoirs are ideal for injecting CO2,” Douds said. “They are below the 2,600-foot depth threshold so that the CO2 remains in a supercritical state as it is injected, which allows for more CO2 to be stored in a given volume of rock compared to gaseous CO2. They are widespread throughout a big region, and they haven’t produced oil and gas, so they’re not heavily drilled in that manner.”
Douds said people might be surprised to find that deep reservoirs have been used before as injection reservoirs for wastewater, particularly from factories.
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Categories: Indiana, Energy