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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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This data set consists of Computed Tomographic (CT) data for five sheared Eau Claire Formation core samples with complex and heterogeneous lithology. Each sample was prefractured, housed in a specially adapted core holder, and sheared in incremental fashion. CT scans were taken before and after each shearing event.
Computed tomography and core logger data described in Technical Report "Computed Tomography Scanning and Geophysical Measurements of the CarbonSAFE Seal Integrity Wells in the Illinois Basin" by Paronish et al., 2023
This is the excel-based life cycle model that contains all the parameters and Monte Carlo simulation capabilities to model the techno-regions contained in the report: Life Cycle Analysis of Natural Gas Extraction and Power Generation: U.S. 2020 Emissions Profile.
This is the excel-based life cycle model that contains all the parameters and Monte Carlo simulation capabilities to model the techno-regions contained in the report: Life Cycle Analysis of Natural Gas Extraction and Power Generation: U.S. 2020 Emissions Profile. This is an update to a previous version (https://edx.netl.doe.gov/dataset/netl-natural-gas-lifecycle-model) and corrects a modeling error in the post-processing natural gas composition.
Controlled-ionic-composition waterflooding is an economic and effective method to improve oil recovery in carbonate oil reservoirs. Recent studies show controlling the salinity and ionic composition of injection water can alter the wettability of carbonate mineral surfaces. The pore-scale oil connectivity and displacement by controlled-ionic-composition waterflooding in heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs, especially at the early stage, is still unclear. The goal of this study is to examine the role of ion concentrations and types in the oil displacement efficiency and investigate the impact of the waterflooding on the pore-scale oil displacement using the national synchrotron facility. A carbonate rock sample was flooded with synthetic high-salinity water and other water solutions with different sulfate concentrations. The waterflooding processes were visualized with synchrotron X-ray microtomography to follow the evolution of pore-scale oil/brine interactions at typical field flow rates. Experimental results show that the water with lower sulfate concentration and higher salinity did not change the wettability of the pore surfaces. Higher sulfate ion concentrations in the water, in contrast, altered the wettability of carbonate pore surfaces from oil-wet to neutral-wet within the first few minutes of waterflooding. Finally, novel insight was gained on the ability of water with high-sulfate concentration to displace oil in the small pores and through abundant oil channels, which could consequently lead to higher oil recovery from the carbonate rock.
Conference paper presented at 16th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-16) Conference, Lyon, France, October 23–27, 2023. This paper summarizes the regulatory environment in North Dakota, briefly illustrates the authors’ published risk-based approach to AOR delineation in overpressured reservoirs, and provides a case study example from the Project Tundra commercial CO 2 capture and storage project that was recently permitted in North Dakota, USA.
Conference paper presented at 16th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-16), Lyon, France, October 23–27, 2022. When two or more carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) storage targets are present in the subsurface at the same geographic location, a CO 2 storage project may pursue a stacked storage approach. This investigation was predominantly focused on dedicated storage in stacked saline formations to assess technical and geomechanical considerations. Along with a best practice stacked storage review, a geomechanical assessment was performed to test a 20-year CO 2 injection scenario.
Conference paper presented at 16th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-16), Lyon, France, October 23–27, 2022. We present an overview and initial results of the novel and sustainable monitoring techniques developed by the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) and its commercial partners associated with the Red Trail Energy (RTE) carbon capture and storage (CCS) project. RTE is an investor-owned 64-million-gallon dry mill ethanol production plant in Richardton, North Dakota, USA. Currently in operation as of June 2022, the RTE facility will capture 180,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) annually (>99% CO 2 ) that is otherwise emitted during the ethanol production process and inject it into the Broom Creek Formation, a deep saline aquifer, for permanent on-site geologic storage.
Conference paper presented at 17th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-17), Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 20–24, 2024. This study estimated the accuracy of the predicted 5-year carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and pressure plumes for a hypothetical geological storage project injecting CO 2 into the Broom Creek Formation near central North Dakota.
Conference paper presented at 17th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-17), Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 20–24, 2024. This paper presents an overview of the Plains CO 2 Reduction (PCOR) Partnership Initiative and the current commercial carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) activity in the region, discusses challenges facing CCUS in the region, and highlights important challenges that have recently been overcome to enable CCUS deployment in the region.
Conference paper presented at 17th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-17), Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 20–24, 2024. This paper presents the results of a detailed study into the potential atmospheric leakage risks associated with the geologic storage of CO 2 in saline aquifers. This study included a detailed literature review, a re-creation of existing CO 2 leakage models put forth by other authors and, lastly, the development of an enhanced model that can be utilized for assessing the potential losses to the atmosphere of stored CO 2 across a variety of potential project parameters. The results of this study indicate that, across broad ranges of input parameters for mechanisms that have the potential for CO 2 loss from the storage complex to the atmosphere, there is an extremely low risk of CO 2 leakage to the atmosphere, with the median leakage risk estimated to be 0.1% of total injected CO 2 . The risk of leakage from real-world storage projects is likely to be even lower than those estimated through this study.
Conference paper presented at 17th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-17), Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 20–24, 2024. A technical approach has been developed to demonstrate CO 2 plume stabilization: 1) construct a geologic model, 2) perform numerical simulations, and 3) estimate the rate of change in circumferential area of the CO 2 plume with respect to time (dA/dt). Demonstration of the technical approach for plume stabilization is presented using a North Dakota case study.
This report summarizes the state of the science related to marine renewable energy devices and their interactions with and effects on the marine environment, the animals that live there, and the habitats that support them. This report serves an update and a complement to the 2016 Annex IV report. https://tethys.pnnl.gov/publications/state-of-the-science-2020
Researchers at Los Alamos have developed Swept-Frequency Acoustic Interferometry (SFAI) a technology that enables businesses to have greater control over their industrial processes, allowing for significantly improved efficiency by giving operators vital composition and flow rate information in real-time. This technology fills the information gap by providing this data non-invasively and at a fraction of the cost of traditional composition meters. SFAI uses engineered ultrasound and advanced signal processing to characterize multiphase flow (e.g., liquids, gasses, multi-phase mixtures) and other flows inside sealed containers and flow pipes. By being both low-cost and non-invasive, this technology is set to disrupt the current oil field monitoring state-of-the-art by providing individual well-level composition data, compared to the multi-well macroscopic information that is currently available. We are seeking a commercialization partner to license the technology or fund us through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to a further develop a usable product for commercial purposes.
This project continued the development of the Supercritical Water Extraction – Enhanced Targeted Recovery (SWEETR™) technology, a novel desalination process for treating hypersaline brines. The overall objective is to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of an innovative, energy efficient, and robust supercritical desalination technology to treat hypersaline solutions and separating saltwater into a pure water stream and valuable recovered solids, resulting in zero liquid discharge (ZLD). The proposed technology, focuses on innovative methods of applying supercritical water to treat highly concentrated brine solutions without incurring a high energy penalty. Integrating the technology with solar energy reduces the energy cost for the system. The results obtained during the proof-of-concept testing demonstrate that the SWEETR™ concept is technically feasible and that supercritical water treatment is a viable option with strong merit for treating high salinity waters. The strategic design of the system provides the opportunity to localize the supercritical zone, which helps reduce the overall energy cost associated with the desalination process. The process can be tuned to remove only the amount of salts required to make the treated water “fit for purpose”, providing further opportunities to minimize energy costs. The ability to destroy organic compounds associated with the water while simultaneously being able to desalinate makes SWEETR™ uniquely fitted for treating aqueous streams such as produced water from oil and gas extraction which contain small amounts of organics. Such mixed contaminant streams pose an extreme challenge for other treatment options. Future work will further develop the SWEETR™ technology to take it from the bench-scale to the pilot-scale, and ready the technology for commercial application.
Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI ® ), Schlumberger Technology Corporation (SLB), and Chevron Corporation ® (Chevron) developed a novel, optimized, and lightweight process for natural gas (NG) to replace water as a low-cost fracturing medium with a low environmental impact. Hydraulic fracturing is used to increase oil and NG production by injecting high-pressure fluid, primarily water, into a rock formation, which fractures the rock and releases trapped oil and NG. This method was developed to increase yield and make feasible production areas that would not otherwise be viable for large-scale oil and NG extraction using traditional drilling technologies. Since the fracturing fluid is composed of approximately 90% water, one of the principal drawbacks to hydraulic fracturing is its excessive water use and associated large environmental footprint. According to recent data collected at fracture sites within the United States, fracturing applications in North America can consume as much as 9 million gallons of water per well. During the fracturing process, some of the fracturing fluid is permanently lost and the portion that is recovered is contaminated by both fracturing chemicals and dissolved solids from the formation. The recovered water or flow-back represents a significant environmental challenge, as it must be treated before it can be reintroduced into the natural water system. Although there is some recycling for future fracturing, the majority of the flow-back water is hauled from the well site to a treatment facility or to an injection well for permanent underground disposal. To mitigate these issues, an optimized, lightweight and modular surface process using NG to replace a majority of the water was developed as a cost-effective and environmentally clean fracturing fluid. Using NG will result in significantly less consumption since the gas that is injected as a fracturing fluid will be mixed with the formation gas and extracted as if it were from the formation itself. This process will minimize the collection, waste, and treatment of large amounts of water and will reduce the environmental impact of transporting and storing the fracturing fluid. There are two major steps involved in utilizing NG as the primary fracturing medium: (1) increasing the supply pressure of NG to wellhead pressures suitable for fracturing and (2) mixing the required chemicals and proppant needed for the fracturing process at these elevated pressures. The second step (NG-proppant mixing at elevated pressures) still requires demonstration; but very similar processes have been demonstrated in the field with other gases such as nitrogen (N 2 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). However, the first step (a compact, on-site unit for generating high-pressure NG at costs feasible for fracturing) has not been developed and is currently not commercially available. Due to the inherent compressibility of NG, more energy is required to compress the gas than what is required to pump water (or other incompressible liquids) to the very high pressure required for downhole injection. This project aimed to develop a novel, hybrid method to overcome this challenge. The project accomplishments and findings are discussed in this report. Ultimately, the research and development efforts described herein demonstrate that fracturing with NG foam is a feasible alternative to using water.
ZwitterCo, Inc. performed a two-year study on the use of its superfiltration membrane products for the treatment of produced water from the Permian Basin, including pilot testing using actual produced water samples. The results showed a highly competitive techno-economic analysis compared to existing produced water treatment options and show a path towards beneficial reuse of produced water.