DOE has created a network of seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSPs) to help develop the technology, infrastructure, and regulations to implement large-scale CO2 sequestration in different regions and geologic formations within the Nation. Underlying this Regional Partnership approach is the belief that local organizations and citizens will contribute expertise, experience, and perspectives that more accurately represent the concerns and desires of a given region, thereby resulting in the development and application of technologies better suited to that region. Collectively, the seven RCSPs represent regions encompassing 97 percent of coal-fired CO2 emissions, 97 percent of industrial CO2 emissions, 96 percent of the total land mass, and essentially all the geologic sequestration sites in the U.S. potentially available for carbon storage. The seven partnerships include:

• Big Sky Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (Big Sky)
• Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership (PCOR)
• Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC)
• Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP)
• Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB)
• Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Sequestration (SWP)
• West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB)

MORE INFO Read the Nov. 17, 2008, DOE Remarks Announcing the Final Large-Scale Field Test

This initiative, launched by DOE in 2003, forms the centerpiece of national efforts to develop the infrastructure and knowledge base needed to place carbon sequestration technologies on the path to commercialization. During the first phase of the program, the Partnerships characterized the potential for CO2 storage in deep oil-, gas-, coal-, and saline-bearing formations. This work led to the publication of two versions of the Carbon Sequestration Atlas of the United States and Canada, last updated in May 2009. In the program's second phase, the Partnerships confirmed and validated regional sequestration opportunities through small-scale geological storage tests.

In Phase III, the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships are working to implement nine large-scale sequestration projects that will demonstrate the long-term, effective, and safe storage of CO2 in the major geologic formations throughout the United States and portions of Canada. These injections are expected to begin at some sites as early as Spring 2010. These large-scale injections represent a major expansion of the 22 small-scale geologic storage tests that the Partnerships are implementing today. The locations of the large-scale projects represent the major geologic basins throughout the United States and Canada.  The tests will:

• Provide scientific data to validate the capacity estimates to within +30% for deep saline formations, where little data currently exists.
• Assess the effects of reservoir heterogeneity on the performance of the storage operations to contact the pore space and maintain injectivity.

• Validate the reservoir models against field data; implement mitigation strategies to reduce potential hazards; and verify the fate of the injected CO2 using the most advanced monitoring networks applied to date.

• Finally, these projects will demonstrate that the projects are representative of the regional geology to store the next 100 years of CO2 emissions generated from major point sources.

Large-scale field tests that have already been awarded are described in detail below [click on each link for more details about the Partnership]:

• Southwest Regional Partnership for Carbon Sequestration. The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is working to demonstrate the storage of CO2 into the Jurassic Age sandstone formations which are present throughout the region from Wyoming to Northern New Mexico. These formations have relatively high porosity and permeability and exhibit thicknesses near 200 feet. The project will be injecting over two million tons over four years (up to one million tons per year) from a natural CO2 deposit and monitoring the CO2. The sandstones are overlain by several large deposits of shale. Some of the region has some inactive faults and fracturing throughout the region. The project will be using a variety of monitoring techniques to determine the impact of these features on the injection operations and integrity of the storage reservoirs.
• Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership. The Southern States Energy Board (SSEB) will inject CO2 into the Tuscaloosa Massive Sandstone at two different locations (~200 miles apart) to determine the effect of the heterogeneity of the formation on the injection operations and storage capacity. For the first stage of this test the SSEB is working with an oil and gas operator to inject 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year near an existing CO2 enhanced oil recovery field. The project will inject CO2 down dip of the oil field into the saline portion of the reservoir. Extensive monitoring, verification and accounting (MVA) will be conducted to determine the fate of the CO2 as it moves in the saline formation. The second stage of this test will be coordinated with a major electric utility in the region who will construct a post-combustion CO2 capture plant at an existing coal-fired power plant. The CO2 will be injected below the power plant for up to six years. The project will compare the results between the sites to determine effects of heterogeneity on the operation's capacity, and monitoring requirements at each site.

• Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership. The University of North Dakota's Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) is the largest of the seven regional partnerships and includes portions of Canada in the Partnership. Therefore, the project will implement two large-scale field tests to assess the storage potential available in the region. The EERC is working with the owner of the largest gas production plant in North America to inject 1.8 million tons of CO2 into a deep saline sandstone formation in the Alberta Basin in Northwest British Columbia, Canada. Over 15% of the gas will be hydrogen sulfide. The EERC is working with a major electric utility and oil and gas company in the Williston Basin to capture and inject up to one million tons of CO2 per year into the deep (>10,000ft) carbonate saline formation which is also an oil-bearing reservoir. These tests will demonstrate the availability of storage capacity in the region, the impacts on hydrogen sulfide and other contaminants on storage integrity and operations, and heterogeneity of several different injection locations on the fate of the CO2. The project will also assess the impacts of CO2 on the different reservoirs' seals.

• Midwest (Illinois Basin) Geologic Sequestration Consortium. The Illinois State Geological Survey is working to develop a project in the center of Illinois with the Archer Daniels Midland Corporation. The project will inject one million tons of CO2 over three years into the Mount Simon sandstone formation which covers the entire region. The Mount Simon formation is an ideal storage formation in that it has relatively high permeability, porosity, and thickness (1500ft+). Very little characterization data is available on the Mount Simon formation. The Mount Simon formation is also overlain by several hundred feet of organic shale. The project is located at one of the thickest sections of the formation. The project will inject at the base of the Mount Simon formation at greater than 6,000 feet to measure the effects of the layers of low and high permeability on the transport of CO2, and its ability to contact more pore space. This project will also demonstrate that the Mount Simon formation will be available as the predominant storage reservoir in the region. The project is lead by ISGS in conjunction with Schlumberger and LLNL to test the most advanced monitoring technologies, industrial reservoir models, and more recent advancements in geochemical and reservoir models. The primary injection well has been drilled; several cores have been collected, and logging of the well conducted in early 2009. Interpretation of this data is being integrated into the simulation models to select injection horizons and plan field operations. In fall of 2009, 3-D seismic will be collected, and injection is expected to begin in early 2010.

• Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP) - The MRCSP, led by Battelle Memorial Laboratories, is planning to validate large-volume CO2 storage in a relatively shallow (3,000 feet deep) portion of the Mt. Simon Sandstone by injecting one million tons of CO2 over four years from the Andersons-Marathon Ethanol LLC (TAME) facility in Greenville, Ohio. The TAME Plant is expected to serve as the injection site for MRCSP's test as well as the source of the CO2. Although CO2 plume migration underlying the site is expected to be small (less than about one square mile), the test will enable geologists to learn more about the capacity of the entire formation. The MRCSP covers Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan.

• West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB) - The WESTCARB Partnership, led by the California Energy Commission, will conduct a geologic CO2 storage project in the San Joaquin Basin in Central California.  The project will inject one million tons of CO2 over four years into deep (7,000+ feet) geologic formations below a 170-megawatt, zero-emission power plant in Kimberlina, CA.  The Clean Energy Systems plant uses natural or synthesis gas in an oxyfuel system and produces a relatively pure stream of CO2.  This CO2 will be compressed and injected into one of a number of potential storage formations below the surface of the plant. WESTCARB will develop, operate, and close the injection site as well as monitor the fate of the injected CO2.  The WESTCARB Partnership includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, and British Columbia.

• Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership (Big Sky). The Big Sky Partnership, led by Montana State University-Bozeman, will conduct a large-volume test in the Nugget Sandstone formation to demonstrate the ability of a geologic formation to safely, permanently, and economically store more than two million tons of carbon dioxide. The Big Sky Partnership’s large-volume injection test will be located at the Riley Ridge Unit on the LaBarge Platform in Southwest Wyoming. The project will demonstrate the entire CO2 injection process—pre-injection characterization, injection process monitoring, and post-injection monitoring—and provide the foundation for the future development of CO2 capture and storage opportunities in the region. Big Sky plans to drill a CO2 injection well and then inject up to one million tons per year of CO2 into the Nugget Sandstone formation at a depth of approximately 11,000 feet.  These eolian sandstone formations are present throughout the region and present the opportunity to store more than 100 years of CO2 emissions from point sources in the region. The CO2 for the project will be supplied by Cimarex Energy Company’s planned helium and natural gas processing plant at Riley Ridge.

The seven large-scale field tests are required to validate and improve model predictions of scientific behavior of injected carbon dioxide at scale, demonstrate the engineering and scientific processes for successfully implementing and validating long-term safe storage of sequestered carbon, and achieve cost-effective integration with power plant systems for capture, all within their respective regional constraints, be they geologic, economic, or political. The primary goal of the large-scale tests is the development of large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects across North America, where large volumes of CO2 will be injected into a geologic formation representative of relatively large storage capacity for each region. The injection will continue over several years at a scale representative of a typical power plant.