PNNL

Abstract

This paper examines the role that carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies could play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions if a significant unconventional fuels industry were to develop within the United States. Specifically, the paper examines the potential emergence of a large scale domestic unconventional fuels industry based on oil shale and coal-to-liquids (CTL) technologies. For both of these domestic heavy hydrocarbon resources, this paper models the growth of domestic production to a capacity of 3 MMB/d by 2050. For the oil shale production case, we model large scale deployment of an in-situ retorting process applied to the Eocene Green River formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming where approximately 75% of the high grade oil shale resources within the United States lies. For the CTL case, we examine a more geographically dispersed coal-based unconventional fuel industry. This paper examines the performance of these industries under two hypothetical climate policies and concludes that even with the wide scale availability of cost effective carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies, these unconventional fuels production industries would be responsible for significant increases in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The oil shale production facilities required to produce 3MMB/d would result in net emissions to the atmosphere of between 3000-7000 MtCO2 in addition to storing potentially 1000 to 5000 MtCO2 in regional deep geologic formations in the period up to 2050. A similarly sized domestic CTL industry could result in 4000 to 5000 MtCO2 emitted to the atmosphere in addition to potentially 21,000 to 22,000 MtCO2 stored in regional deep geologic formations over the same period up to 2050. Preliminary analysis of regional CO2 storage capacity in locations where such facilities might be sited indicates that there appears to be sufficient storage capacity, primarily in deep saline formations, to accommodate the CO2 from these industries. However, additional analyses plus detailed regional and site characterization is needed, along with a closer examination of competing storage demands.