Combining natural gas recovery and CO2-based geothermal energy extraction for electric power generation

Ezekiel, Justin; Ebigbo, Anozie; Adams, Benjamin M.; Saar, Martin O.

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115012

Cited by 90 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The base CCU 3 S system is a so-called CO 2 -plume geothermal power system (CPGs), where the captured CO 2 is circulated underground in deep saline aquifers or hydrocarbon reservoirs (e.g. during enhanced oil recovery) (Randolph and Saar 2011;Adams et al 2015;Garapati et al 2015;Ezekiel et al 2020). In these reservoirs, the CO 2 is naturally geothermally heated and produced to the surface, where it is expanded in a turbine to generate electricity.…”

Section: Co 2 Utilisation: Turning Co 2 Into a Power Resourcementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent advances in carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies: a review

et al. 2020

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Human activities have led to a massive increase in $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 emissions as a primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to climate change with higher than $$1\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}$$ 1 ∘ C global warming than that of the pre-industrial level. We evaluate the three major technologies that are utilised for carbon capture: pre-combustion, post-combustion and oxyfuel combustion. We review the advances in carbon capture, storage and utilisation. We compare carbon uptake technologies with techniques of carbon dioxide separation. Monoethanolamine is the most common carbon sorbent; yet it requires a high regeneration energy of 3.5 GJ per tonne of $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 . Alternatively, recent advances in sorbent technology reveal novel solvents such as a modulated amine blend with lower regeneration energy of 2.17 GJ per tonne of $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 . Graphene-type materials show $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 adsorption capacity of 0.07 mol/g, which is 10 times higher than that of specific types of activated carbon, zeolites and metal–organic frameworks. $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 geosequestration provides an efficient and long-term strategy for storing the captured $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 in geological formations with a global storage capacity factor at a Gt-scale within operational timescales. Regarding the utilisation route, currently, the gross global utilisation of $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 is lower than 200 million tonnes per year, which is roughly negligible compared with the extent of global anthropogenic $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 emissions, which is higher than 32,000 million tonnes per year. Herein, we review different $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 utilisation methods such as direct routes, i.e. beverage carbonation, food packaging and oil recovery, chemical industries and fuels. Moreover, we investigated additional $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 utilisation for base-load power generation, seasonal energy storage, and district cooling and cryogenic direct air $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 capture using geothermal energy. Through bibliometric mapping, we identified the research gap in the literature within this field which requires future investigations, for instance, designing new and stable ionic liquids, pore size and selectivity of metal–organic frameworks and enhancing the adsorption capacity of novel solvents. Moreover, areas such as techno-economic evaluation of novel solvents, process design and dynamic simulation require further effort as well as research and development before pilot- and commercial-scale trials.

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Section: Co 2 Utilisation: Turning Co 2 Into a Power Resourcementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent advances in carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies: a review

et al. 2020

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“…The application of heat conduction is further explained in Adams et al (2020) and implemented in Ezekiel et al (2020).…”

Section: S331 Geothermal Drilling Success Rate Swellmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the Geothermal Electricity Generation Potential of Sedimentary Basins Using genGEO (The Generalizable GEOthermal Techno-Economic Simulator)

Adams

Ogland-Hand²,

Bielicki³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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AbstractSedimentary basins are ubiquitous, naturally porous and permeable, and the geothermal heat in these basins can be extracted with geologic water or CO2 and used to generate electricity. Despite this, the broad potential that these formations may have for electricity generation is unknown. Here we investigate this potential, which required the creation of the generalizable GEOthermal techno-economic simulator (genGEO). genGEO is built with only publicly available data and uses five standalone, but integrated, models that directly simulate all components of geothermal power plants to estimate electricity generation and cost. As a result of this structure, genGEO, or a portion of it, can be applied or extended to study any geothermal power technology. In contrast, the current techno-economic tools for geothermal power plants rely on characterizations of unpublished ASPEN results and are thus not generalizable enough to be applied to sedimentary basin geothermal power plants which use subsurface CO2. In this study, we present genGEO as open-source software, validate it with industry data, and compare its estimates to other geothermal techno-economic tools. We then apply genGEO to sedimentary basin geothermal resources and find that using CO2 as a subsurface heat extraction fluid compared to water decreases the cost of geothermal electricity across most geologic conditions that are representative of sedimentary basins. Using genGEO results and p50 geologic data, we produce supply curves for sedimentary basin geothermal power plants in the U.S., which suggests that there is present-day potential to profitably increase the capacity of geothermal power by ~10% using water as the subsurface heat extraction fluid. More capacity is available at lower cost when CO2 is used as the subsurface fluid, but realizing this capacity requires geologically storing between ~2 and ~7 MtCO2/MWe. But developing sedimentary basin resources in the short-term using subsurface water may not eliminate options for CO₂-based power plants in the long-term because the least-cost order of sedimentary basins is not the same for both CO2 and water. With sufficient geologic CO2 storage, developing sedimentary basins using CO2- and water-based power plants may be able to proceed in parallel.

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“…CO2-based geothermal power generation was initially considered for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) [35,37,42,43], which involves hydraulically stimulating (fracturing or shearing) crystalline rocks to create flow paths for the injected CO2. However, EGS comes with the disadvantages of limited spatial extent, and thus a rather limited energy resource, and induced seismicity [44,45] Over the last decade, the conceptcalled CO2 Plume Geothermal (CPG)of injecting CO2 into sedimentary reservoirs (for example deep aquifers or hydrocarbon reservoirs) overlain by a lowpermeability caprock has been featured more prominently in research [38][39][40][46][47][48][49][50][51]. During CPG, instead of only storing CO2 in sedimentary basins (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity of Reservoir and Operational Parameters on the Energy Extraction Performance of Combined CO2-EGR–CPG Systems

Ezekiel¹,

Kumbhat²,

Ebigbo³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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There is a potential for synergy effects in utilizing CO2 for both enhanced gas recovery (EGR) and geothermal energy extraction (CO2-plume geothermal, CPG) from natural gas reservoirs. This “combined CO2-EGR–CPG system” has been introduced as a feasible approach that constitutes a CO2 Capture double-Utilization and Storage (CCUUS) system. In this study, we carry out reservoir simulations, using TOUGH2, to evaluate the sensitivity of the natural gas recovery, pressure buildup, and geothermal power generation performance of the combined system to various key reservoir and operational parameters. The reservoir parameters include horizontal permeability, permeability anisotropy, reservoir temperature, and pore-size-distribution index; while the operational parameters include wellbore diameter and ambient surface temperature. Using an example of a natural gas reservoir model, we also investigate the effects of different strategies of transitioning from the CO2-EGR stage to the CPG stage on the energy-recovery performance metrics and on the two-phase fluid-flow regime in the production well. The simulation results show that overlapping the CO2-EGR and CPG stages and having a relatively brief period of CO2 injection but no production (which we call the CO2-plume establishment stage) achieves the best overall energy (natural gas and geothermal) recovery performance. Permeability anisotropy and reservoir temperature are the parameters the natural gas recovery performance of the combined system is most sensitive to. The geothermal power generation performance is most sensitive to the reservoir temperature and the production wellbore diameter. The results of this study pave the way for future CPG-based geothermal power-generation optimization studies. For a CO2-EGR–CPG project, the results can be a guide regarding the required accuracy of the reservoir parameters during exploration and data acquisition.

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Combining natural gas recovery and CO2-based geothermal energy extraction for electric power generation

Cited by 90 publications

References 56 publications

Recent advances in carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies: a review

Recent advances in carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies: a review

Estimating the Geothermal Electricity Generation Potential of Sedimentary Basins Using genGEO (The Generalizable GEOthermal Techno-Economic Simulator)

Sensitivity of Reservoir and Operational Parameters on the Energy Extraction Performance of Combined CO2-EGR–CPG Systems

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