U.S. geological carbon dioxide storage potential

viability or accessibility due to land-management or regulatory restrictions for geologic carbon sequestration within these basins.

The assessment is also the first geologically based and probabilistic assessment, estimating a range of 2,400 to 3,700 metric gigatons of CO2 storage potential across the United States. For comparison, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that in 2011, the United States emitted 5.5 metric gigatons of energy-related CO2, while the global emissions of energy-related CO2 totaled 31.6 metric gigatons.  Metric gigatons are a billion metric tons.

“Today’s climate challenges require new, scientifically supported solutions like storing the carbon dioxide created by use of fossil fuels, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere,” said Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Anne Castle.  “This new study provides the scientific underpinning needed to better manage options related to reducing emissions that contribute to climate change.”

Although the scope of sequestration included in this assessment is unprecedented, injecting CO2 into geologic formations is not a new process or technology. Carbon dioxide injection has been one method of enhanced oil recovery since the 1980s. The process works by flooding the oil reservoir with liquid CO2, which reduces the viscosity of the hydrocarbons and allows them to flow to the well more easily.

The USGS project results announced today represent an assess­ment of storage capacity on a regional and national basis, and results are not intended for use in the evaluation of specific sites for potential CO2 storage.

All sedimentary basins in the United States were evaluated, but thirty-six were assessed because existing geologic conditions or the available data suggested only these thirty-six met the assessment’s minimum criteria.

The geologic foundation that underpins the assessment was facilitated by data provided by the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and State geological surveys. The methodologyfor the assessment released today was developed by the USGS and consistently applied across all thirty basins, so that results are comparable.  This national assessment complements the regional estimates that the Department of Energy includes in their periodically updated Atlas.

The USGS says it has a long history of assessing national and global oil and gas resources.  In 2007, Congress authorized the USGS to conduct the carbon sequestration assessment in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-140). In addition to geologic carbon sequestration, the USGS also studies biologic carbon sequestration — sequestration that happens naturally in trees, fields, and different types of ecosystems that store carbon. The USGS has already completed assessments for the Great Plains Regionand the western U.S.; reports on the eastern U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii will follow.

The geologic carbon sequestration assessment released today has the following publications:

To learn more about this or other geologic assessments, see the USGS Energy Resources ProgramWeb site.