Unlocking Solutions: Innovative Approaches to Identifying and Mitigating the Environmental Impacts of Undocumented Orphan Wells in the United States.

In the United States, hundreds of thousands of undocumented orphan wells have been abandoned, leaving the burden of managing environmental hazards to governmental agencies or the public. These wells, a result of over a century of fossil fuel extraction without adequate regulation, lack basic information like location and depth, emit greenhouse gases, and leak toxic substances into groundwater. For most of these wells, basic information such as well location and depth is unknown or unverified.

Sustainable energy solutions: Well retrofit analysis and emission reduction for a net-zero future in the Intermountain West, United States of America.

To achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, we need economic means of sequestering carbon dioxide (CO) and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). We analyze the sequestration potential of the Intermountain West (I-West) region, US, as a primary energy transition hub through analysis of wellbore retrofit potential and emission reduction in both fugitive gas abatement and flare gas. We selected the I-West region due to its abundant energy sources and oil and gas production legacy.

Predictive scale-bridging simulations through active learning.

Throughout computational science, there is a growing need to utilize the continual improvements in raw computational horsepower to achieve greater physical fidelity through scale-bridging over brute-force increases in the number of mesh elements. For instance, quantitative predictions of transport in nanoporous media, critical to hydrocarbon extraction from tight shale formations, are impossible without accounting for molecular-level interactions. Similarly, inertial confinement fusion simulations rely on numerical diffusion to simulate molecular effects such as non-local transport and mixing without truly accounting for molecular interactions.

Flaring volumes in the intermountain west region: A geospatial analysis of satellite and operator-reported data with viable mitigation strategies.

Burning associated gas has been a prevailing problem across the world for decades. This practice consumes billions of (US) dollars' worth of valuable natural gas, contributes billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO) to the atmosphere, and releases volatile chemicals to nearby communities. To assess the prevalence of wellbore flaring within the Intermountain West (I-West) region, we analyzed data from the Nightfire project and contrasted it with wellbore surface hole locations.

Modeling and scale-bridging using machine learning: nanoconfinement effects in porous media.

Fine-scale models that represent first-principles physics are challenging to represent at larger scales of interest in many application areas. In nanoporous media such as tight-shale formations, where the typical pore size is less than 50 nm, confinement effects play a significant role in how fluids behave. At these scales, fluids are under confinement, affecting key properties such as density, viscosity, adsorption, etc.