SOCORRO, N.M. – The Petroleum Recovery Research Center was awarded a $6.24 million contract from the Department of Energy.

The project was one of four selected to receive federal funding for cost-shared research and development. The grant is for $5 million with 20 percent cost share. This award will fund the creation of the Carbon Utilization and Storage Partnership (CUSP) of the Western United States, spearheaded by the PRRC.

Project director Dr. Robert Balch said New Mexico Tech has been a leader in carbon storage research for decades. PRRC personnel have developed significant expertise in managing and executing similar partnership programs through the years. 

“Programs like these have allowed us to diversify our skillsets and use skills we already have for different purposes,” Balch said. “They enable us to hire many students every year to perform funded research.”

New Mexico benefits from such programs because they bring technology and expertise into the state, and create jobs, Balchsaid. Ultimately, the project goal is to reduce atmospheric CO₂, a potent greenhouse gas, which will benefit everyone.

The purpose of the new partnership is to advance existing carbon capture, utilization, and storage research and development. The research group will address key technical challenges, facilitate data collection, sharing, and analysis; evaluate regional infrastructure; and promote regional technology transfer. This new regional initiative will advance efforts undertaken by the previous Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships. NMT has been the manager of one of these partnerships, the Southwest Regional Partnership, since its formation in 2003.

“Those regional partnership programs are running out their course and Congress likes the impact those programs had and the progress that was made on technology,” said Balch, who is the principal investigator for the partnership. “Congress wanted to do it again, but with the focus of making projects commercially viable. In addition to the $5 million already received, the partnership has received an additional $5 million funding that will allow extension of the project to five years; the project also has potential of even more funding in the future.”

In support of the project goals, the group will first focus on improved mapping and characterization of all significant CO₂ sources and potential storage zones, and transport pathways for CO₂ in the West. Different agencies will provide data, but also, the mapping would be done using machine learning algorithms, optimum locations, and focus areas to try and develop projects in the 13 western states.

Balch said the western United States has some unique opportunities, because of existing pipeline infrastructure to transport captured CO₂, significant experience in using CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery, expertise in storage and a wealth of different types of geological storage, and abundant available CO₂ resources from power plants and other manufacturing processes.

The partnership was created in response to the DOE call for proposals to continue its carbon program initiatives, by merging the Southwest Partnership and parts of two other regional partnerships – the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership and Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership. The CUSP is a collection of state geological surveys, universities, and national laboratories in 13 western states an Indiana.

NMT will also partners with the University of Utah, Arizona Geological Survey, Colorado School of Mines, Stanford University, Desert Research Institute of Nevada, Montana State University, Kansas Geological Survey, Oklahoma Geological Survey, Washington Geological Survey, the University of Oklahoma, Indiana University, Utah Geological Survey, and Pacific Northwest, Sandia National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

– NMT –