Geological Energy Storage, CCUS, and Subsurface Waste Disposal

Our project team was amongst the twelve invited speakers for the 2024 annual core workshop, hosted at MGRRE in October. Autumn Haagsma, Amber Conner, and Bill Harrison, discussed their current research on formations that can act as seals for CCUS. They addressed the complexity of deploying regional CCUS and talked about identifying potential host rocks for critical minerals. Seven cores were available for hands-on examination. Several WMU students presented poster about their research. 

On September 21st-27th 2024, Amber Conner, MGS Paleozoic geologist, and Max Copus and Alex Kominek, Western Michigan University students, set out on a trip to Anaheim, CA, to present their research at the Geological Society of America (GSA) Connects 2024 conference. Max and Alex, first time presenters and attendees, presented their work on the “Development of a Wellbore Integrity Database to Aid CO2 Storage Site Screening.”

Max said, “For my first conference, it was a great experience presenting our work and seeing the interest from experts in our research. It was really inspiring to see how so many other geology students were passionate about their research on numerous different topics.” Alex said, “My experience at GSA was great. There were lots of opportunities to meet new people and learn about what the other research geologists are working on. I think presenting for the first time was fun and it was inspiring to hear so much positive feedback about our research.” Amber Conner commented, “They were the quintessence of the student talent we have working on these projects. Geologists, government, and industry partners were really interested in their work, and they handled the questions and presentation like rock stars!”  

Amber Conner presented her work on “Characterizing and Mapping the Lithological and Petrophysical Diversity of Potential Confining Units in the Michigan Basin.” Her work focuses on characterizing and identifying various key properties of confining units for the Michigan Basin which have not been fully explored for CCUS storage sites.

Dr. Autumn Haagsma and John Yellich co-presented to the Illinois Sustainability Technology Center on the history and importance of outreach and engagement. We discussed strategies and provided examples of different types of engagement. The recording is available to watch!

Dr. Autumn Haagsma chaired the annual CCUS conference for the fourth year in a row. The conference attendance continued to grow with about 1700 attendees from around the world. The conference had topics covering a broad range of issues, high-profile key note speakers, engaging panel sessions and luncheons, student opportunities, exhibitions, and networking events. Dr. Haagsma kicked-off the conference with opening remarks and was interviewed by OGGN for upcoming podcasts (to be released this summer).