Energy
The KGS, with industry and government partners, continues a multi-year project to test the safety and efficacy of storing carbon dioxide (CO2)—from industrial processes and other sources—deep underground and also using it to squeeze out trapped oil unreachable by traditional recovery methods. CO2 is a natural and essential component of the atmosphere, but it is also a greenhouse gas—a byproduct of fossil fuels emissions from vehicles and such stationary sources as electric, cement, ethanol, and fertilizer plants—that has been considered a cause of climate change. The KGS-led project has received to date nearly $21.5 million in cooperative agreement funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. This funding has helped support drilling and evaluation of wells in Sumner County south of Wichita, Ellis County north of Hays, and Haskell County northwest of Liberal. The cooperative agreement is the largest ever received by the KGS.
In the summer of 2013, CO2 transported from the Abengoa Bioenergy Corporation's ethanol plant near Colwich will be injected at the KGS Wellington field site in Sumner County for both enhanced oil recovery and CO2 sequestration in the deep Arbuckle saline aquifer. The Arbuckle is a porous rock group that contains saline water unfit for human consumption in that area of the state and is separated from shallower freshwater aquifers by thousands of feet of impermeable rock. This will be the first time CO2 emitted during industrial activities will be captured and injected underground for long-term storage in Kansas. Sequestration of CO2 in saline aquifers is being tested throughout the United States, with a larger test currently underway in Illinois.
In response to demand for information on horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing following increased public awareness and acceleration of horizontal drilling in the Mississippian play in south-central Kansas, the KGS published a circular on hydraulic fracturing in Kansas. The KGS also studies coalbed methane (CBM) and other unconventional sources of natural gas. With funding from the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Kansas Department of Revenue, the KGS continues development of online methods for reporting oil and gas information to the state of Kansas and from the Kansas Geological Society to develop software for the display of digital well logs.
The KGS provides a variety of information related to oil and gas production through the KGS website, the Data Resources Library and Drill Core Library in Lawrence, and the Wichita Well Sample Library, which collects, archives, and loans cuttings samples from more than 130,000 wells drilled in Kansas. Data on Kansas oil and gas production are available through the KGS interactive oil and gas field map. In support of the CO2 sequestration and enhanced oil recovery project, the Data Resources Library added a large quantity of new oil and gas records and data to its online database, and the Drill Core Library added important new collections to its inventory.
Read more about this topic: Kansas Geological Survey
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