Assessment of options for the development of a stacked storage complex in the Northern Michigan Basin, USA

Abstract

The Northern Michigan Basin (NMB) Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) Integrated Pre-Feasibility Project is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) CarbonSAFE initiative. The objective of the NMB CarbonSAFE pre-feasibility project was to assess the feasibility of an integrated, commercial-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) storage complex in the NMB, which includes one or more deep saline geologic formations with sufficient capacity to permanently store at least 50 million metric tons of CO2 over a 20- to 30-year period. Subsurface injection of CO2 into depleted oil reservoirs for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) was also evaluated in the pre-feasibility study as an additional geologic storage mechanism because there are hundreds of depleted pinnacle reef reservoirs in the NMB, along with an established CO2-EOR operation, a feature that distinguishes this area from most other locations in the United States. Additionally, these reefs are co-located with the most favorable saline formations in the basin – the St. Peter sandstone and the Bass Islands dolomite – making stacked storage a real possibility. The study demonstrates that there are multiple locations in the northern Michigan study area that could support a commercial-scale storage complex with either saline storage or associated storage via CO2-EOR in the depleted pinnacle reefs alone (i.e., each storage mechanism has sufficient capacity alone) or via a combination of the two storage mechanisms. The term stacked storage refers to the concept of using both mechanisms together, in the same area, to achieve the required storage capacity. Key sites were identified in the northern part of the southern Michigan Peninsula that had sufficient geologic storage, nearby CO2 sources, a favorable social and economic setting, and a strong developed team.