401169 Time-Dependent Multi-Period Assessment of Life Cycle Cost and Environmental Impacts of CO2 EOR
EOR (enhanced oil recovery) methods has been widely adopted for increasing oil production rate, and injection of CO2 into the reservoir other than other mediums in EOR applications can be favorable in these days, due to CCS (carbon capture and sequestration). Although sustainable gains can be obtained from CO2 EOR, considerable investment and energy consumptions are needed to accommodate CO2 purchase, CO2 injection, product separation and CO2 recovery. Therefore, it is helpful to perform LCA (life-cycle analysis) for gathering an inventory of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental releases related to CO2 EOR operation, and evaluating them in a systematic and integrated manner.
A few studies conducted for life cycle analysis of CO2 EOR have been mainly focused on compiling overall energy and material inputs for whole life time of EOR, and assessing total amount of CO2 purchase, CO2 recycle and oil production as a whole. These lumped life-time values may not be adequate for interpreting time-dependent and non-constant characteristics in EOR operations, for example, design and operation of surface facilities in CO2 EOR, . Hence, in this study, multi-period approach considering time-dependent characteristics of CO2 EOR operation is introduced for LCA. Process modeling for CO2 EOR production facility is coupled with LCA, with which processing capacity and energy consumption can be simultaneously considered. Also multi-period consideration of material and energy inputs allows detailed interpretation of life time impacts of CO2 EOR. A case study is presented to highlight the importance of time-dependent consideration on CO2 EOR operation and to effectively quantify key economic and environmental trade-offs through LCA.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by “The development of CO2 geological storage technologies through 1,000 ton CO2-EOR pilot test” of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) grant funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) (No.2012T100201728).
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