At a media day event hosted by Basin Electric and the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, it was announced that a second test well is being drilled for the Wyoming CarbonSAFE (Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise) project, which is located near Dry Fork Station near Gillette, Wyoming. Spudding of the new test well, named PRB #2, began Dec. 23 and is now nearing completion. The event was held at the Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC) with tours by bus taken to the CarbonSAFE well site.
The first CarbonSAFE well, named PRB #1, was drilled in 2019. It was a stratigraphic test well designed to test the potential for carbon storage at a storage area near Dry Fork Station.
“We learned a lot from that well," said Fred McLaughlin, interim director for the Center for Economic Geology Research at the School of Energy Resources, University of Wyoming. "There aren’t a lot of wells in this area that go that deep. We were able to take core, water fluids, and a bunch of other data to help us identify and hone in on some geologic targets that we were interested in. We also learned that we needed to know more.”
The recently drilled second well is located less than 1,000 feet from the first and serves a slightly different purpose.
“The goal of this well is to fill in research gaps, but it’s also to optimize the pore space resources for carbon injection for the long-term,” said McLaughlin.
Three zones have been identified in the subsurface that have the ability to take injected carbon. Seals that will help keep that carbon in place have also been identified.
“What we’re trying to understand better is how much carbon dioxide we can inject underground safely and reliably. We’re in the middle of that testing so it’s a really exciting time,” said Holly Krutka, executive director of the University of Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources. “The information we generate we can use for the long term to help ultimately design a commercial CO2 storage site adjacent to Dry Fork Station’s power plant.”
Jim Ford, operations manager of the ITC through the Wyoming Energy Authority, explained that the ITC and CarbonSAFE project complement each other well.
“The operations at the ITC are all about carbon capture utilization and sequestration," Ford said. "That sequestration part of the puzzle is fulfilled by the CarbonSAFE project. Without the Department of Energy and University of Wyoming leading that project with Basin Electric, the CO2 that we capture here through the plant operations has no place to go. So really the ITC and CarbonSAFE fit together hand in glove.”
