NETL has introduced a free online tool to accelerate the discovery of publicly available data when developing permit applications for the sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO₂), a greenhouse gas, in the subsurface.

The Carbon Storage Site Mapping Inquiry Tool (MapIT) provides operators, project leads and researchers with user-friendly, web-based assistance to find, query and download relevant data to use in the development of Class VI permit applications. Class VI wells are used to inject CO₂ into deep geologic formations solely for the purpose of permanently storing it away from the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Carbon sequestration is a critical climate change mitigation strategy for reaching a net-zero carbon emissions economy in the United States by 2050. As the number of carbon storage projects increases, MapIT can streamline data access to support regulatory processes, including drilling applications,” said Paige Morkner, a geologist at NETL and member of the MapIT project team.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed Class VI program rules as a part of its Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program to ensure Class VI wells are appropriately sited, constructed, tested, monitored, funded and closed once injection activities are completed. The MapIT database serves as a data exploration resource to support the characterization of geologic carbon storage areas of interest and is designed to complement, but does not replace or replicate, resources available from the U.S. EPA UIC Class VI program.

“Disparate existing subsurface data resources require substantial time and effort to collect and prepare for stakeholder use. Our open-source tool streamlines the process of public data discovery and uses data to provide a credible representation of the subsurface to enable safe and permanent sequestration of CO₂ captured from power plants, industrial sites or directly from the atmosphere,” said Morkner, whose areas of expertise include big data curation, open-source data aggregation, data informatics and visualization.

The MapIT database has been aggregated from publicly available data gathered by various state and federal agencies, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Department of Energy and state geological surveys.

Modules within the tool curate data related to geology, faults, fractures, injection and confining zones, hydrologic information, groundwater, groundwater wells, geomechanical and petrophysical data, and geochemical data.

MapIT was developed by NETL’s Science-based AI/Ml Institute (SAMI), which advances the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and high-performance computing to develop technologies for clean and efficient energy production.

MapIT is one of several products in the Energy Data eXchange for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (EDX4CCS) portfolio, a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)-funded project which provides a strategic CCS-specific data infrastructure system to drive efficient and rapid deployment of CCS efforts.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By leveraging 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.