Spatially-Explicit Water Balance Implications of Carbon Capture and Sequestration
Abstract
Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration (CCS) is increasingly discussed as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit climate destabilization. CCS implementation is likely to have varied effects on local water balances. On one hand, power plants equipped with CO2 capture may require substantially more cooling water than plants without CO2 capture. On the other hand, injection of captured CO2 into saline aquifers may require brine extraction for pressure management, and the extracted brine may be desalinated and used as a fresh water resource. We conduct a geospatial analysis detailing how CCS implementation affects the county-level balance of water supply and demand across the contiguous United States. We calculate baseline water stress indices for each county for the year 2005, and explore CCS deployment scenarios for the year 2030 and their impacts on local water supply and demand. We use GIS mapping to identify locations where water supply will likely not constrain CCS deployment, locations where fresh water supply may constrain CCS deployment but brine extraction can overcome these constraints, and locations where limited fresh water and brine availability are likely to constrain CCS deployment. We conduct sensitivity analyses to determine bounds of uncertainty and to identify the most influential parameters. We find that CCS can strongly affect freshwater supply and demand in specific regions, but overall it has a moderate effect on water balances.; Locations of 217 coal-fired (red) and natural gas-fired (green) power plants that meet criteria for CO2 capture. Size of circle corresponds to amount of CO2 emission in 2005.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFMGC41A0958S
- Keywords:
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- 1655 GLOBAL CHANGE / Water cycles;
- 1803 HYDROLOGY / Anthropogenic effects;
- 1819 HYDROLOGY / Geographic Information Systems;
- 1878 HYDROLOGY / Water/energy interactions