Opportunities for Using Anthropogenic CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2 Storage

CO2-enhanced Oil recovery (CO2=EOR) has emerged as a Major option for productively using CO2 emissions. captured from electric power and other industrial facilities as part of carbon capture and storage (CCS) operations. Not only can depleting oil fields provide secure, well-characterized sites for storing CO2, such fields can also provide a source of revenues to offset the costs of capturing CO2 by producing incremental oil. This paper draws significantly on work by Advanced Resources International, Inc. (ARI), sponsored by the United States Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (U.S. DOE/NETL) [Advanced Resources International, Inc. (ARI). Improving Domestic Energy Security and Lowering CO2 Emissions with Next Generation CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery; ARI: Arlington, VA; 2011; http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/storing%20co2%20w%eor_final.pdf] and the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas Research and Development Programme (IEAGHG) [Advanced Resources International, Inc: (ARI). CO2 Storage in Depleted,Oilfields Global Application Criteria for Carbon. Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery; ARI: Arlington, VA, Dec 2009; IEAGHG Programme Technical Report Number 2009-12], that demonstrates that CO2-EOR Offers large CO2 storage capacity potential and could accommodate a major portion of the CO2 captured from industrial facilities for the next 30 years. This work also demonstrates that CO2 can be effectively and permanently stored when deployed in association with CO2-EOR, with the amount stored depending upon the, priority placed on maximizing storage. In addition to showing that CCS benefits from CO2-EOR by providing the revenues from sale of CO2, overcoming other barriers, while producing oil with a lower CO2 emissions footprint, the report demonstrates that, CO2-EOR needs CCS, because large-scale future implementation of CO2-EOR will be dependent upon CO2 supplies from industrial sources.