Release Date: October 3, 2001

MORGANTOWN, WV - The amount of natural gas needed to fuel new electric power plants projected to be built in the next 20 years is likely to outstrip existing pipeline capacity - making natural gas storage an increasingly important element of the Nation's energy infrastructure.

To prepare for the day when natural gas may need to be stored in a variety of different settings - for example, as hydrates in aboveground tanks, or in chilled form in refrigerated rock caverns, or in salt formations miles away from the Nation's coastline - the U.S. Department of Energy has selected four projects to study these innovative gas storage methods.

Valued at more than $2.5 million, these cost-shared projects are expected to expand the geographic locations around the country where natural gas could be stored, making the U.S. gas delivery system more responsive to consumer needs.

Today, more than 400 underground rock or salt formations or depleted reservoirs serve as storage reservoirs for natural gas. These gas storage sites are heavily clustered in and near major eastern and midcontinent markets. Many regions, however, such as the South Atlantic and Pacific Northwest, do not have the right geology for conventional gas storage in underground formations. Even where suitable geology exists, some existing conventional storage does not meet the requirements of end users.

To help industry expand the Nation's gas storage system, the Energy Department's Strategic Center for Natural Gas - part of the National Energy Technology Laboratory - is preparing to award research contracts to:

• New York State Museum, Albany, NY, which proposes to use sophisticated geologic reservoir techniques to develop a systematic "blueprint" for removing and disposing of salt water (brine) produced when caverns are developed in areas remote to ocean disposal. Brine disposal is the primary barrier to using salt caverns for natural gas storage sites in many regions of the U.S. Emphasis is on identifying potential reservoirs that can accept large volumes of brine - and maintain acceptable environmental levels - near salt deposits that have the potential for gas storage cavern development in the Northeast.

  Project cost: $629,645; DOE share: $484,427; participant share: $145,218;
  Project duration: two years
  Project contact: Dr. Langhorne Smith, (518) 473-6262

• CAES Development Co., LLC, Houston, TX, which plans to conduct a proof-of-concept study to establish the potential for full-scale deployment and commercialization of a previously developed DOE technology, known as Refrigerated-Mined Rock Cavern Technology (RMRCT). The RMRCT concept involves mining deep openings in crystalline rocks to store chilled and compressed natural gas in areas without conventional gas storage options. Chilling the gas means more gas can be stored in the space available, and mining costs can be reduced. The project will use a compressed air energy storage facility being built in Norton, Ohio, to test how hard rocks react to pressure changes. Because conditions at the air storage facility would be similar to those at an RMRCT facility, the proposed work is directly applicable to understanding the physical nature of the technology.

  Project cost: $560,018; DOE share: $354,918; participant share: $205,100
  Project duration: 2 years
  Project contact: Michael J. McGill, (281) 378-9032

• Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, which will demonstrate a gas-hydrate storage process for safe, aboveground natural gas storage that operates at moderate pressures and temperatures. Hydrates are ice-like formations with a molecular structure that holds large volumes of gas. The proposed work will design, assemble and demonstrate, at proof-of-concept scale, a gas-hydrate laboratory process that pressurizes a surfactant and water solution to grow gas-laden, self-packing hydrates on metal. Previously supported DOE research shows a test cell could be packed with gas hydrates containing about 86 percent of their maximum theoretical storage capacity in less than three hours. This project will scale up that work using a 20-gallon cylindrical tank, aluminum plates and a surfactant-water solution to grow the hydrates.

  Project cost: $1.21 million; DOE share: $834,600; participant share: $379,091
  Project duration: 4 years
  Project contact: Rudy E. Rogers, (662) 325-5106

• Clemson University, Clemson, SC, which will assess the costs of creating gas storage capacity within underground carbonate rocks by using hydraulic fracturing and acid dissolution. The project focuses on developing a case study of a limestone formation near major pipelines and gas markets by establishing preliminary specifications for the technology, modeling the limestone dissolution process and storage field performance, and preparing an economic analysis. If successful, the project could be applied to the Northeast, Midwest, Western states and several other regions in the country where carbonate formations are widespread.

  Project cost: $1.36 million; DOE share: $647,194; participant share: $718,581
  Project duration: 3 years
  Project contact: Michael Strickland, (864) 656-6444