The Water, Energy, and Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Simulation Model (WECSsim). A user's manual

Abstract

The Water, Energy, and Carbon Sequestration Simulation Model (WECSsim) is a national dynamic simulation model that calculates and assesses capturing, transporting, and storing CO 2 in deep saline formations from all coal and natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. An overarching capability of WECSsim is to also account for simultaneous CO 2 injection and water extraction within the same geological saline formation. Extracting, treating, and using these saline waters to cool the power plant is one way to develop more value from using saline formations as CO 2 storage locations.WECSsim allows for both one-to-one comparisons of a single power plant to a single saline formation along with the ability to develop a national CO 2 storage supply curve and related national assessments for these formations. This report summarizes the scope, structure, and methodology of WECSsim along with a few key results. Developing WECSsim from a small scoping study to the full national-scale modeling effort took approximately 5 years. This report represents the culmination of that effort.The key findings from the WECSsim model indicate the U.S. has several decades' worth of storage for CO 2 in saline formations when managed appropriately. Competition for subsurface storage capacity, intrastate flows of CO 2 and water, and a supportive regulatory environment all Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the authors would like to thank the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), and Andrea McNemar and the Existing Plants, Emissions & Capture (EPEC) program in particular, for funding and guiding the research in the areas of Energy-Water Program Management and Research. Thanks also go to Lynn Brickett, Jared Ciferno, Andrea Dunn, and Tom Feeley of NETL for their guidance and support of this project. Additionally, the authors wish to thank Mike Hightower from SNL for his initial insights, Malynda Cappelle of the University of Texas at El Paso for her contributions to this work by providing insights to the water treatment engineering and cost analyses, as well as Jim Krumhansl, Sean A. McKenna, and La Tonya Walker for their contributions.

Parametric analysis of technology costs for CO2 storage in saline formations

“…The single power plant modeling uses a focused, single power plant selection option along with the plant-specific fuel, heat rate, water treatment and cost metric. The fleet-wide modeling includes all of the coal and natural gas fired power plants in the lower 48 states of the U.S. using the fleet-wide interface (Kobos et al, 2011;Kobos et al, 2014;Roach et al, 2014).…”

“…The CO 2 capture module assumes 90% capture for all power plants, including the make-up plants required to power the CCS operations. This parasitic energy requirement varies by power plant type including 30% for subcritical pulverized coal plants, 20% for natural gas combined cycle plants (NGCC), 22% for natural gas combined cycle plants (NGCC), and 25% for gas turbine plants as described in Roach et al(2014). The formation assessment module builds from a set of guiding, analytical equations tuned to numerical simulations using TOUGH2 (Pruess et al, 1999).…”

“…The formation assessment module builds from a set of guiding, analytical equations tuned to numerical simulations using TOUGH2 (Pruess et al, 1999). Combining these analytical equations with flow rates through well pipelines and the formation (homogenous isotropic porous media with constant pressure boundaries), the injection flow rate and well spacing develops for each power plant and geological formation CCS system scenario at the national level (Roach et al, 2014;Kobos et al, 2014). Figure 1 also illustrates the basis of the parameter analyses behind three sets of national level scenarios.…”

“…The CCS and WET parasitic energy requirements were adapted from NETL (2007aNETL ( , 2007b and USBR (2003). These costs include amortized capital costs and annual operations and maintenance costs (O&M) as also described in Roach et al (2014) as well as , 2011…”

“…Previous analyses have shown that CO 2 capture costs represent the dominant cost in a CCS cost breakdown, which includes a substantial cost variability when accounting for different geological parameters (Klise, et al, 2013;Roach et al, 2010Roach et al, , 2012Roach et al, , 2014Heath et al, 2012;Kobos et al, 2011Kobos et al, , 2012Tidwell et al, 2011). Costs of the CCS systems may vary dramatically as well.…”