A Web-Based Decision Support System for Geologic Carbon Sequestration
by Erik R. Venteris, Ohio Division of Geological Survey; Katharine L. Avary, West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey; Jeremy Bartley, Kansas Geological Survey; David A. Barnes, Western Michigan University; Kristen Carter, Pennsylvania Geological Survey; Catherine Garcia, Maryland Geological Survey; Premkrishan Radhakrishnan, Indiana Geological Survey; and Michael P. Solis, Kentucky Geological Survey
Participants of the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP) and NATional CARBon sequestration GIS project (NATCARB) have created a web-deployed Geographic Information System to provide maps, data, and decision-support tools for geologic carbon sequestration. Both of these collaborative, interstate projects are being conducted through the U.S. Department of Energy's national network of Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships. A range of online information for various sequestration technologies is being provided, including information on supercritical injection of carbon dioxide (CO2) into depleted petroleum reservoirs and saline aquifers, as-well-as the utilization of CO2 for enhanced recovery of oil and coalbed methane.
The creation of regional-scale digital geologic maps is a major accomplishment of these projects. Prior to this new work, data on the depth, thickness, and characterization properties of rock layers was available only from digital well databases or as legacy paper records and maps. A major success of these projects has been the integration of disparate sources of data through the combined used of GIS and geostatistical techniques. In addition, techniques for mapping petrophysical parameters from geophysical logs were employed. Calculations were made on vectorized logs and converted to continuous maps using geostatistics.
A Website based on ESRI's Arc Internet Mapping Service (ArcIMS) technology was built to display the geologic models and to conduct calculations of carbon-sequestration capacity. The site allows the display of structure and isopach maps of the major sedimentary units along with the locations of major CO2 point sources. Online tools to calculate sequestration capacity can provide analyses as specific as the capacity of a given rock layer below a specific point source, or as general as regional totals.