Concerns about elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2
) and the effect on
global climate have created proposals for the reduction of carbon emissions from large
stationary sources, such as power plants. Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration
(CCS) in deep geologic units is being considered by Florida electric-utilities. Carbon
dioxide-enhanced oil recovery (CO 2
-EOR) is a form of CCS that could offset some of the
costs associated with geologic sequestration. Two potential reservoirs for geologic
sequestration were evaluated in south-central and southern Florida: the Paleocene
Cedar Keys Formation/Upper Cretaceous Lawson Formation (CKLIZ) and the Lower
Cretaceous Sunniland Formation along the Sunniland Trend (Trend). The Trend is a
slightly arcuate band in southwest Florida that is about 233 kilometers long and 32
kilometers wide, and contains oil plays within the Sunniland Formation at depths starting
around 3,414 meters below land surface, which are confined to mound-like structures
made of coarse fossil fragments, mostly rudistids. The Trend commercial oil fields of the
South Florida Basin have an average porosity of 16% within the oil-producing Sunniland
Formation, and collectively have an estimated storage capacity of around 26 million tons
of CO 2
. The Sunniland Formation throughout the entire Trend has an average porosity
of 14% and an estimated storage capacity of about 1.2 billion tons of CO 2 (BtCO2
). The
CKLIZ has an average porosity of 23% and an estimated storage capacity of
approximately 79 BtCO 2
. Porous intervals within the CKLIZ and Sunniland Formation
are laterally homogeneous, and low-permeability layers throughout the units provide
significant vertical heterogeneity. The CKLIZ and Sunniland Formation are considered
potentially suitable for CCS operations because of their geographic locations,
appropriate depths, high porosities, estimated storage capacities, and potentiallyeffective
seals. The Trend oil fields are suitable for CO
2
-EOR in the Sunniland
Formation due to appropriate injected-CO
2
density, uniform intergranular porosity,
suitable API density of formation-oil, sufficient production zones, and adequate
remaining oil-in-place following secondary recovery. In addition to these in-depth
investigations of the CKLIZ and Sunniland Formation, a more-cursory assessment of
deep geologic units throughout the state of Florida, which includes rocks of Paleocene
and Upper Cretaceous age through to rocks of Ordovician age, shows additional units in
Florida that may be suitable for CO
2
-EOR and CCS operations. Furthermore, this study
shows that deep geologic units throughout Florida potentially have the capacity to
sequester billions of tons of CO
2
for hundreds of fossil-fuel-fired power plants. Geologic
sequestration has not yet been conducted in Florida, and its implementation could prove
useful to Florida utility companies, as well as to other energy-utilities in the southeastern
United States.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-4848 |
| Date | 10 November 2010 |
| Creators | Roberts-Ashby, Tina |
| Publisher | Scholar Commons |
| Source Sets | University of South Flordia |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | default |
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