The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) has selected two projects to receive approximately $4 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development for the safe storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in geologic formations.

The selected projects are supported through funding opportunity announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0001725, Technology Development to Ensure Environmentally Sustainable CO₂ Injection Operations. This FOA focuses on developing modeling and monitoring methods, technologies, and tools that help assess the position of CO₂ plume over time within various geologic formations and sedimentary environments.

DOE’s Carbon Storage Program advances the development and validation of technologies that enable safe, cost-effective, and permanent geologic storage of CO₂. The projects will support the program by increasing understanding of subsurface behavior and by enabling scientists to more precisely assess CO₂ plumes to verify their conformity, stability, and containment. The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) will manage the projects, which are described below.

• Integration of Seismic-Pressure-Petrophysics Inversion of Continuous Active-Source Seismic Monitoring Data for Monitoring and Quantifying CO₂ Plume—The Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA) will develop algorithms to process data obtained through continuous active-source seismic monitoring to provide an accurate map of a CO₂ plume over time. The project will culminate with a laboratory test of the algorithms in a controlled subsurface experiment. DOE Funding: $2,016,033; Non-DOE Funding: $514,415; Total Value: $2,530,448
• Joint Inversion of Time-Lapse Seismic Data—The University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, ND) will develop and apply two modeling and monitoring tools to address shortcomings of existing plume-mapping techniques. Successful application of the tools will help extract more information from existing data; improve methods for detecting, assessing, and forecasting changes in CO₂ saturation over time; inform cost-effective operational and monitoring decisions; and improve the ability to delineate the extent and location of CO₂ in the subsurface. DOE Funding: $1,831,910; Non-DOE Funding: $557,550; Total Value: $2,389,460

The Office of Fossil Energy funds research and development projects to reduce the risk and cost of advanced fossil energy technologies and further the sustainable use of the Nation’s fossil resources. To learn more about the programs within the Office of Fossil Energy, visit the Office of Fossil Energy website or sign up for FE news.