Events

•  Speaker:  Dr. Tip Meckel, Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin

•  Title of Seminar: “Current Engineering and Geologic Challenges for Achieving Giga-ton Scale Carbon Storage”

•  Abstract: Momentum continues to build toward management of carbon emissions from industrial sources, most recently with the entering into force of the global 2016 Paris Agreement. Many strategies exist for reaching the scientifically endorsed goal of 2 degrees Celsius, but current consensus is that achieving those goals will be more costly and less attainable without capture of industrial emissions and permanent storage in the deep geologic subsurface. Technologies currently exist (if expensive) for capturing CO2 from industrial sources, transporting CO2, and injecting into the deep subsurface. Large volumes of CO2 have been used for decades for enhanced oil recovery, primarily in the United States. So we already know how to do this, right? Not entirely. The problem is that the industrial demand for CO2 (hundreds of mega-tons per year currently) will be far less than the emissions reductions required for the desired atmospheric benefit (giga-tons per year). Large-scale CO2 injection is not simply oil extraction in reverse. It presents a new subset of challenges for large-scale storage related to flow simulation and well engineering. This presentation will review the current status of geologic carbon storage, summarizing ongoing industrial and research projects and the technical engineering and geologic challenges that remain to achieve giga-ton scale storage.

•  Biography:   Dr. Tip Meckel is a research scientist investigating geologic carbon storage for the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin. 

During his 10 years with the Gulf Coast Carbon Center at the Bureau he has led research focusing on geologic characterization, structural geology, monitoring design, and pressure evolution for CO2 injections.  He has been directly involved with many large-scale field demonstration projects funded through the DOE-NETL Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships. After early exposure during the FRIO tests east of Houston in 2006, he co-directed the research program for the SECARB demonstration project in Cranfield Mississippi, and currently leads the research initiative to identify offshore sequestration potential in the Gulf of Mexico with focus on capacity assessment and seismic monitoring technologies. Dr. Meckel works closely with offshore CCS developments in China, Japan, and the North Sea. He also leads research for one of the three Energy Frontier Research Centers focusing on CCS in the United States, supported through Basic Energy Sciences, and hosted by CPGE at UT-Austin.

Dr. Meckel earned his Master’s degree in geology from the University of Montana in Missoula in 1998 and his doctorate in geology and geophysics from The University of Texas at Austin in 2003. He subsequently taught undergraduate geology at Colby College in Maine followed by a two year position with the U.S. Geological Survey as a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow in Woods Hole, MA.