Thermal effects on geologic carbon storage

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2016.12.011One of the most promising ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gases emissions, while carbon-free energy sources are developed, is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Non-isothermal effects play a major role in all stages of CCS. In this paper, we review the literature on thermal effects related to CCS, which is receiving an increasing interest as a result of the awareness that the comprehension of non-isothermal processes is crucial for a successful deployment of CCS projects. We start by reviewing CO2 transport, which connects the regions where CO2 is captured with suitable geostorage sites. The optimal conditions for CO2 transport, both onshore (through pipelines) and offshore (through pipelines or ships), are such that CO2 stays in liquid state. To minimize costs, CO2 should ideally be injected at the wellhead in similar pressure and temperature conditions as it is delivered by transport. To optimize the injection conditions, coupled wellbore and reservoir simulators that solve the strongly non-linear problem of CO2 pressure, temperature and density within the wellbore and non-isothermal two-phase flow within the storage formation have been developed. CO2 in its way down the injection well heats up due to compression and friction at a lower rate than the geothermal gradient, and thus, reaches the storage formation at a lower temperature than that of the rock. Inside the storage formation, CO2 injection induces temperature changes due to the advection of the cool injected CO2, the Joule-Thomson cooling effect, endothermic water vaporization and exothermic CO2 dissolution. These thermal effects lead to thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical coupled processes with non-trivial interpretations. These coupled processes also play a relevant role in “Utilization” options that may provide an added value to the injected CO2, such as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), Enhanced Coal Bed Methane (ECBM) and geothermal energy extraction combined with CO2 storage. If the injected CO2 leaks through faults, the caprock or wellbores, strong cooling will occur due to the expansion of CO2 as pressure decreases with depth. Finally, we conclude by identifying research gaps and challenges of thermal effects related to CCS.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

EOR as sequestration: Geoscience perspective

CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) has a development and operational history several decades longer than geologic sequestration of CO2 designed to benefit the atmosphere and provides much of the experience on which confidence in the newer technology is based. With modest increases in surveillance and accounting, future CO2 EOR using anthropogenic CO2 (CO2-A) captured to decrease atmospheric emissions can be used as part of a sequestration program.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Enhanced gas recovery using pressure and displacement management

The work contained in this thesis combines two previous enhanced gas recovery techniques; coproduction of water and gas from water-drive reservoirs and waterflooding of low pressure gas reservoirs. These two techniques allow the control of reservoir pressure and sweep efficiency through planed production or injection of water. A recovery optimization method, which is applicable to any gas reservoir, was developed using the concept of pressure and displacement management (PDM). Two simulation studies were conducted, using Eclipse©, to investigate recovery optimization by coproduction and waterflooding. From the coproduction study it was determined that the water production rate needed to optimize recovery increases over time, and that accelerating production rate causes the optimum coproduction rate to increase even faster over time. In the case of the waterflooding study it was concluded that the injection rate necessary to obtain a given recovery factor in a given amount of time, with a limited injection volume goes up significantly over time, and that beginning water injection early in the life of a reservoir can have several advantages to performing a waterflood near abandonment. In addition, a PDM computer model, that can be used for recovery analysis was developed for Excel. Although this application could be adapted to other programs, Excel allows for fast and effective screening of reservoirs amenable to PDM. Two field cases are analyzed in order to demonstrate the idea of recovery optimization and the versatility of the PDM application

A simulation/optimization model for selecting infrastructure alternatives in complex water resource systems

The paper introduces a simulation/optimization procedure for the assessment and the selection of infrastructure alternatives in a complex water resources system, i.e. in a multisource (reservoirs) multipurpose bulk water supply scheme. An infrastucture alternative is here a vector X of n decision variables describing the candidate expansions/new plants/water transfers etc. Each parameter may take on a discrete number of values, with its own investment cost attached. The procedure uses genetic algorithms for the search of the optimal vector X through operators mimicking the mechanisms of natural selection. For each X, the value of the objective function (O.F.) is assessed via a simulation model. Simulation is necessary as the O.F. contains, besides investment costs, also incremental operation costs and benefits that depend on the incremental water amounts which the alternative can provide. The simulation model transforms a thirty-year hydrologic input at daily/monthly scale in water allocations, accounting for the usual non-negativity constraints and using some simple, sytem-specific rules aimed at reducing spills and at sharing water deficits among demand centres. Different O.Fs and constraints have been tested, such as incremental financial cost/benefit minimization under various maximum water deficit constraints scenarios or cost/benefit mimization including scarcity costs. This latter approach has the advantage of implicitly allowing for the magnitude of deficits, but requires the assessment of deficit-scarcity cost relationships. The application of the procedure to a water resources system in south-western Sicily shows that the model is able to converge to results that are consistent with the planning options expressed by the selected O.Fs

Water allocation strategies for the Kat Basin in South Africa : comparing negotiation tools and game theory models

Governments and developing agencies promote participatory approaches in solving common pool resource problems, such as in the water sector. Two main participatory approaches have been applied separately, namely negotiation and mediation. In this paper the authors apply the Role-Playing Game that is a component of the Companion Modeling approach, a negotiation procedure, and the Cooperative Game Theory (Shapley value and the Nucleolus solution concepts) that can be mirrored as a mediated mechanism to a water allocation problem in the Kat watershed in South Africa. While the absolute results of the two approaches differ, the negotiation and the cooperative game theory provide similar shares of the benefit allocated to the players from various cooperative arrangements. By evaluating the two approaches, the authors provide useful tips for future extension for both the Role-Playing Games and the Cooperative Game Theory applications.Water Supply and Systems,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water Conservation,Town Water Supply and Sanitation

Hydrogeological challenges in a low carbon economy

Hydrogeology has traditionally been regarded as the province of the water industry, but it is increasingly finding novel applications in the energy sector. Hydrogeology has a longstanding role in geothermal energy exploration and management. Although aquifer management methods can be directly applied to most high-enthalpy geothermal reservoirs, hydrogeochemical inference techniques differ somewhat owing to peculiarities of high-temperature processes. Hydrogeological involvement in the development of ground-coupled heating and cooling systems using heat pumps has led to the emergence of the sub-discipline now known as thermogeology. The patterns of groundwater flow and heat transport are closely analogous and can thus be analysed using very similar techniques. Without resort to heat pumps, groundwater is increasingly being pumped to provide cooling for large buildings; the renewability of such systems relies on accurate prediction and management of thermal breakthrough from reinjection to production boreholes. Hydrogeological analysis can contribute to quantification of accidental carbon emissions arising from disturbance of groundwater-fed peatland ecosystems during wind farm construction. Beyond renewables, key applications of hydrogeology are to be found in the nuclear sector, and in the sunrise industries of unconventional gas and carbon capture and storage, with high temperatures attained during underground coal gasification requiring geothermal technology transfer

Methodologies to detect leakages from geological carbon storage sites

2014 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Geological carbon storage (GCS) has been proposed as a favorable technology to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the atmosphere. Candidate storage formations include abandoned oil and natural gas reservoirs, un-mineable coal seams, and deep saline aquifers. The large global storage capacity and widespread occurrence of deep saline formations make them ideal repositories of large volumes of CO2, however they generally lack of data for geological characterization in comparison to oil and gas reservoirs. Thus, properties of the injected formation or the sealing formation are unknown, which implies that the evolution and movement of the CO2 plume are uncertain in these geological formations. The first part of this research aims to provide an understanding of the main sources of uncertainty during the injection of CO2 that cause leakage variability and fluid pressure change near the injection well, which could be responsible for fracturing the sealing formation. With this purpose the effect of uncertain parameters such as permeability and porosity of injected aquifer, permeability of CO2 leakage pathways through the sealing layers, system compressibility, and brine residual saturation are investigated using stochastic and global sensitivity analyses. These analyses are applied to a potential candidate site for GCS located at the Michigan Basin. Results show aquifer permeability and system compressibility are the most influential parameters on fluid overpressure and CO2 mass leakage. Other parameters, such as rock porosity, permeability of passive wells, and brine residual saturation do not influence fluid overpressure nearby the injection well. CO2 mass leakage is found to be sensitive to passive well permeability as well as the type of statistical distribution applied to describe well permeability. Scarce data of the Michigan Basin exist that can be used directly to describe the spatial distribution at the basin scale of the caprock overlying the candidate site. The continuity of this formation is uncertain. The second part of this investigation explores the application of binary permeability fields for the study of CO2 leakage from GCS at the candidate site. A sequential indicator simulation algorithm is used to populate binary permeability fields representing a caprock formation with potential leaky areas (or inclusions). Results of the caprock continuity uncertainty conclude that increasing the probability of inclusions occurrence increases the CO2 leakage. In addition, the correlation length used by the sequential indicator simulator affects the occurrence of inclusions. The third part investigates the detection and location of the presence of possible brine or carbon leakage pathways at the caprock during the injection operations of a GCS system. A computational framework for the assimilation of changes in head pressure data into a subsurface flow model is created to study the evolution of the CO2 plume and brine movement. The capabilities of two data assimilation algorithms, the ensemble smoother (ES) and the ensemble Kalman smoother (EnKS), to identify and locate the leaky pathways are examined. Results suggest that the EnKS is more effective than the ES in characterizing caprock discontinuities

On the prediction of pseudo relative permeability curves: meta-heuristics versus Quasi-Monte Carlo

International audienceThis article reports the first application of the Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) method for estimation of the pseudo relative permeability curves. In this regards, the performance of several meta-heuristics algorithms have also been compared versus QMC, including the Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC). The mechanism of minimizing the objective-function has been studied, for each method. The QMC has outperformed its counterparts in terms of accuracy and efficiently sweeping the entire search domain. Nevertheless, its computational time requirement is obtained in excess to the meta-heuristics algorithms

Plug and abandonment of oil and gas wells: a comprehensive review of regulations, practices, and related impact of materials selection.

This paper reviews the state of research in permanent barrier materials for plug and abandonment of oil and gas wells to identify key strengths and weaknesses of each barrier material and understand the impact of reservoir conditions and fluids on barrier failures. The influence of regulatory requirements on P and A practices and the impact of selected barrier material on possible repurposing of depleted reservoirs for hydrogen and CO2 storage are also discussed. This review reveals that previous studies in these areas have focused primarily on improving plug placement and durability without significant consideration of the potential for long term development of leakage paths in the old wellbore infrastructure (cement and casing) whose surfaces remain exposed to reservoir fluids below the permanent plug after conventional P and A. The need for a new approach to plug and abandonment materials selection and reengineering of materials placement methods to ensure permanent isolation of reservoir fluids from existing well infrastructure is herein identified especially as the stock of wells nearing their end of life grows on a global scale. A summary of studies in the accelerated degradation of Portland cement in the presence of corrosive reservoir fluid under high temperature and pressure conditions is also presented. This will significantly drive research in materials selection for alternative barrier as HPHT wells mature for permanent abandonment