Planning carbon storage projects requires careful consideration of many geologic, technical, social and environmental factors. For any given area, project teams must evaluate how communities may benefit or be affected by carbon storage projects.

“The data needed to inform planning activities are often available from authoritative sources but can be disparate, making acquisition, integration and use of them challenging to stakeholders,” said Paige Morkner, NETL geologist and principal investigator for PlanIT. “Data science researchers at NETL have developed a user-friendly, interactive dashboard-style web application to address this common and fundamental need.”

PlanIT serves as a one-stop shop for visualizing, interrogating, and analyzing relevant data assets, providing researchers, policy makers, operators and other stakeholders with efficient access and insights that support carbon storage planning, feasibility, and resource assessment efforts.

The interactive tool currently contains a range of authoritative datasets associated with geologic, technical, social and environmental factors. The data sets can be filtered geographically for an area of interest to update statistics and charts within the tool itself.

PlanIT was developed in support of NETL’s Science-based Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Institute (SAMI), which leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning  and high-performance computing to accelerate technology development for clean and efficient energy production.

The tool is one of several carbon capture and storage (CCS) products on EDX and part of the EDX Carbon Capture and Sequestration (EDX4CCS) portfolio, a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded project that provides an advanced, strategic carbon capture and storage-specific data infrastructure system to drive efficient and rapid deployment of CCS efforts. All these products can be found on the EDX DisCO₂ver Platform, hosted within the EDX data curation system. DisCO₂ver hosts virtualized tools, data sets, geospatial data, dashboards, search capabilities (both within and outside EDX) and more.

“Tools like PlanIT and other assets in EDX enable stakeholders all across the country to collect the data they need to take their carbon storage projects from concepts to reality,” said Jen Bauer, EDX4CCS technical director and NETL Geo-Data Scientist. “Making it easier for others to pursue carbon capture and storage projects is one of the greatest ways NETL is helping to realize the vision of a decarbonized future.”

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.