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.