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SPE Tech Talk

Join Stanford Alumni Prof. Yunyue Elita Li to talk about carbon sequestration in subsurface!

Stanford SPE Tech Talk: Yunyue Elita Li

March 31, 2022 (Thursday) 10 am 11 am PT
Location: Zoom
Title: Carbon sequestration in the subsurface: the atlas and the monitoring

About the speaker

Dr. Yunyue Elita Li joined the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science at Purdue University as a Mary J. Elmore New Frontiers Associate Professor in Data Science since August 2021. Prior to that, she worked in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore as an assistant professor since 2016. Elita did her postdoctoral research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holding a joint position in the Earth Resources Laboratory and the Department of Mathematics. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Geophysics from Stanford University in 2014 and 2010, respectively. She obtained her B.S. degree in Information and Computational Science from China University of Petroleum, Beijing in 2008. Elita’s research group works on geophysical applications in urban environments for smart cities and sustainable developments. By integrating geophysical inversion techniques, ambient noise data analysis, and distributed sensor networks, her group focuses their research efforts on the development of non- invasive, high-resolution, and real-time systems to solve pressing challenges in space, water, security, and sustainability. Elita was the recipient of the J. Clarence Karcher Award from SEG in 2018 and nominated as the SEG South & East Asia Honorary Lecturer for 2022.

Abstract

As the global population continues to grow and societies pursue economic prosperity for their citizens, the demand for access to affordable energy has never been greater to improve quality of life, to achieve greater life expectancy, to reduce poverty, and to provide higher levels of education. While energy needs in OECD nations have seen an overall decreasing trend in recent years thanks to the improved energy efficiency and the conscious efforts to mitigate the risks of climate change, energy demands in the developing regions are still rapidly increasing. To address the dual challenge of satisfying the growing energy demand while reducing the greenhouse gases (GHG) emission, it is important to acknowledge the necessity of all sources of energy and the utmost importance of decarbonization. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in the subsurface is considered one of the most important decarbonization technologies to achieve societal climate goals because of its capability to decarbonize some of the most carbon- intensive industries. In this talk, we first focus on the Southeast Asia region to evaluate its carbon storage capability in the subsurface. We map out the potential storage sites among the depleted oil and gas reservoirs and estimate the total storage volume at the reservoir and the basin level. We then demonstrate a machine-learning-based approach to monitor presence and migration of super-critical CO2 in the subsurface once it is injected at the storage site. We emphasize the importance of intergovernmental collaboration and technological exchange to achieve the 1.5 oC goal that is crucial for the survival of the mankind.