Carbon Storage Beyond the Basin: Insights into Carbon Mineralization from Reactive Transport Simulation
Presenter
Ryan M. Pollyea, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Virginia Tech Geosciences
Description
Limiting global warming to less than 1.5ยบ C requires a broad portfolio of decarbonization technologies to be deployed with unprecedented speed and scale. Within this portfolio, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is one technology that is designed to reduce point-source CO2 emissions from fossil fuel electricity production and hard-to-decarbonize industries, such as cement, steel, and petrochemicals. Traditional geologic environments for CCS include depleted oil reservoirs and deep saline aquifers; however, this geologic constraint limits the geographic regions where CCS can be deployed. To expand geographic opportunities for CCS, a growing body of evidence suggests reactive basalt formations may be ideal targets for CO2 storage. Injecting CO2 into basalt formations induces a series of fluid-rock geochemical reactions that permanently trap CO2 as stable mineral phases. Although permanent carbon mineralization is generally considered to be the most durable carbon trapping mechanism, basalt reservoirs are characterized by dense fracture networks that may allow buoyant, supercritical CO2 to escape the target reservoir prior to widespread mineralization. Such leakage limits our ability to certify carbon credits, thus increasing uncertainty and decreasing economic feasibility. In this presentation, Dr. Ryan Pollyea shares a series of student research studies that leverage numerical simulation to explore feedbacks between multi-phase flow and carbon mineralization in fractured mafic formations.
