The Plains CO2 Reduction (PCOR) Partnership: Carbon Management Options for the Central Interior of North America
The PCOR Partnership is one of seven regional partnerships established by the U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory to assess carbon sequestration opportunities. The PCOR Partnership covers an area of over 1.4 million square miles in the central interior of North America and includes all or part of nine states and four Canadian provinces. The central interior of North America is home to several seismically stable geologic basins that are ideal potential sinks for geologic CO2 sequestration. These basins have been well characterized because of commercial oil and gas activities. The coal-fired electrical utilities in the PCOR Partnership region produce over 60% of the CO2 emissions from stationary sources. With the distinct possibility of carbon management becoming mandatory in the future, industries that rely on fossil fuels are evaluating CO2 sequestration. Further, many of the region's oil fields could develop CO2-based enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects if CO2 were more readily available. Formations that contain oil fields in the PCOR Partnership region have a potential capacity to store over 10 billion tons of CO2. The region's oil and gas reservoirs offer significant opportunities for CO2-based EOR. Tertiary EOR projects offer a means of developing the expertise and infrastructure required to make geologic CO2 sequestration a commercial reality while maintaining, and even enhancing, the regional economy.The PCOR Partnership has developed a regional vision for the widespread commercial development of CO2 sequestration. The vision includes several key elements: 1) targeting tertiary EOR opportunities; 2) employing the existing oil and gas regulatory structure and agencies for oversight; 3) developing a protocol for the establishment of geologic sequestration units that is based on the standard oil-field practice of unitization; 4) developiView/Download Document
Event/Meeting Information
EUEC 2010 13th Annual Energy & Environment Conference
2/1/2010
Phoenix, AZ