With the Help of an IEI Grant, LSU Professors Tackle the Environmental Impacts of Sequestration

The potential impact of carbon sequestration on the environment has been a local hot button issue for years, fueled largely by a lack of credible data. A team of LSU researchers led by Frank Tsai, a professor in LSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, hopes to change all that.

Funded by a $490,000 Experimental Research grant from the LSU Institute for Energy Innovation, much of their work focuses on Lake Maurepas in southeastern Louisiana, where Air Products plans to eventually operate some 20 CO₂ injection wells.

Tsai’s team is conducting independent research and utilizing available data to provide crucial insights into the potential risks and benefits of CO₂ storage in Louisiana’s geological formations. Air Products, a collaborative partner, is providing information that will help in the effort, including a Lake Maurepas seismic survey, Class V stratigraphic test well results and lake water data.

Several findings could come from the research. “Louisiana’s geology, formed by fluvial-deltaic sedimentation over millions of years, introduces complexities such as faulting and shale layer discontinuity, which could create pathways for CO₂ escaping to drinking water aquifers,” Tsai says. “Additionally, CO₂ injection may induce artificial earthquakes and raise geo-pressure, potentially leading to ground-elevation changes.”

The LSU team is conducting the research in four modules. In Module 1, “Characterizing Geology and Groundwater,” Tsai is analyzing well logs and conducting groundwater-flow simulation around injection sites. “This will provide valuable information about subsurface aquifers, sands and shales and identify potential faults,” Tsai says.

LSU professors Christopher Kees and Ahmed Abdalla are co-principal investigators on Module 2, “Simulating CO₂ Transport,” which aims to simulate the migration of CO₂ in the subsurface environment. Tsai explains, “We can simulate the injection of CO₂ underground and potentially see how the CO₂ transports vertically or horizontally under Lake Maurepas to determine if leaks could occur.”

In Module 3, “Monitoring CO₂ Concentrations,” LSU Renewable Natural Resources Professor Yi-Jun Xu is monitoring CO₂ concentrations in groundwater and surface water to differentiate between naturally occurring deposits and underground leak sources. “People need to know if an increase in CO₂ is naturally occurring or due to an injection, so this will help us create a baseline,” according to Tsai.

And in Module 4, “Monitoring Ground-Elevation Changes,” Kees and Abdalla are utilizing a Global Navigation Satellite System and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data to assess spatiotemporal ground deformation. As Tsai notes, “When you inject CO₂, the groundwater will rise along with the ground. However, it could dissipate or move into other locations over time. They’re currently accumulating data to create a baseline that will allow us to monitor these elevation chance once the injection process begins.”

Progress on the four-pronged project has been swift, and Tsai expects much of the research to be completed in two years after they finish monitoring for CO₂ and ground elevation changes. The findings will then be shared with Air Products and state regulatory and permitting agencies, such as the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

Additionally, the project team will communicate its results through platforms such as the Annual Louisiana Water Conference, workshops hosted by the LSU Institute for Energy Innovation, and professional conferences.