Supported with funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Instructure Law (BIL), NETL’s development of computational models and software applications are poised to accelerate the commercialization of technologies to safely inject and store hundreds of years of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the subsurface.

This innovative use of data will provide research universities and technology developers, government agencies and regulators, community groups, property owners and others with tools to accurately predict how CO₂ will behave when it is sequestered in underground storage reservoirs and forecast how CO₂ will react with subsurface conditions.

Using the new technologies, decades’ worth of data collected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), state regulators, research institutes, universities and others can now be leveraged using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to understand subsurface features and develop reliable estimates for storage capacity, estimate the porosity of rock layers and build real-time visualizations of faults and fracture networks and subsurface flows.

NETL and its partners are on the cusp of taking data from years of research to establish the digital infrastructure and science-based capabilities to save the planet and meet the nation’s goals for a 100% carbon pollution-free electricity sector by 2035 and a net-zero-carbon economy by 2050.

These goals are backed by BIL, a historic, once-in-a-generation opportunity to address climate change and generate economic growth by transforming the nation’s energy infrastructure. NETL is positioned to implement major provisions of the $1.2 trillion legislation, which carries specific funding to advance significant NETL data analysis projects for CO₂ sequestration.

The new tools have been designed to mine the massive volumes of subsurface information in the Energy Data eXchange (EDX). DOE and NETL created EDX in 2011 as an open-source digital platform to support a wide range of energy research through efficient data access and cross-research collaboration. Currently, EDX publicly hosts more than 23,000 published data resources, almost 25 million federated data resources and 48 EDX research and development groups where information can be shared and analyzed across research teams.

Tools to receive BIL funding include the Energy Data eXchange for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (EDX4CCS) project, which provides an advanced, strategic carbon capture and storage (CCS)-specific data infrastructure system to drive efficient and rapid deployment of CCS efforts.

The five-year project targets the deployment of strategic data integration, model/tool virtualization and capacity building through the DisCO2ver Platform hosted within the EDX data curation system. DisCO2ver will host virtualized tools, data sets, geospatial data, dashboards, search capabilities (both within and outside EDX) and more.

In short, DisCO2ver is being developed as a central hub for all things carbon storage and aligns with larger data and advanced computing innovations sponsored through NETL’s Science-based AI/ML Institute (SAMI). 

The National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) is an NETL-led, multi-national laboratory effort focused on developing and demonstrating computational tools that serve as the engine for quantitative assessment of risks associated with geologic carbon storage.

These tools fall into three topic areas — ensuring containment effectiveness/quantifying leakage risk, assessing subsurface stress and managing induced seismicity, and strategic monitoring design for uncertainty reduction.

Currently in a BIL-funded third phase, NRAP researchers are focused on extending and applying these tools and related workflows to quantitatively assess and manage risks and liability for geologic carbon storage (GCS) at site and basin scales and promoting their application for permitting and risk-related decision-making to enable safe and effective GCS commercial deployment.

BIL funding will also be used to launch the second phase of the Science-informed Machine Learning (ML) for Accelerating Real-Time Decisions in Subsurface Applications (SMART) Initiative.

A multi-year, multi-phase, multi-organizational effort, SMART is transforming the ability to make better informed decisions related to the subsurface through real-time visualization, forecasting and virtual learning. SMART is often described as a “CT for the subsurface.” Just as a CT scanner uses a series of X-ray images to construct cross-sectional views of the human body, SMART analyzes data to build real-time visualizations of subsurface features and flows.

Furthermore, SMART will enable the carbon storage industry to consolidate technical knowledge, optimize carbon storage reservoirs and explain subsurface behavior during carbon storage operations to non-experts.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By using its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.