Regional
Assessment of CO2 Sources and Sinks for the Indian Subcontinent
Beck, Richard A.1, Yolanda
Price2, S. Julio Friedmann3, Lynn Wilder3, Lee
Neher3 (1) University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH (2) Central
State Univeristy, Wilberforce, OH (3) Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA
Carbon-dioxide capture and geological
storage has emerged as a key technology pathway to greenhouse gas emissions
reduction from large fossil-fuel point sources. Developing countries are
expected to substantially add to future greenhouse gas emissions due to
programs for electrification, rapid economic growth, and increased
industrialization. India's CO2 emissions are
expected to increase 70% by 2025, mostly from combustion of coal. Geologic
carbon storage (GCS) offers a way to reduce CO2 emissions provided there is
sufficient storage near large current and future sources. We analyzed public
data using GIS to answer two questions. 1. Where are the major CO2 sources,
sinks and risks in South Asia? 2. Where should geologic CO2 sequestration
efforts be focused in South Asia? To improve this
assessment we augmented the International Energy Agency's GHG database for South Asia by locating 1/3 of the
region's large stationary CO2 sources with emissions > 0.1 MM t CO2/y . We also integrated many geological and geographic data
sets. Based on our preliminary analysis, a few important points can be made: 1)~5.6 MM t CO2/y are generated within 20 km of well
understood old oil and gas fields. 2)~ 40.6 MM t CO2/y
are generated less than 20 km from major saline aquifers. Approximately 30
large sources (>0.1 MM t CO2/y) that generate 50 million tons CO2/y lie
within 20 km of viable targets. This represents nearly one fifth of India's total CO2 emissions.