Practice-based vs performance-based standards for carbon sequestration projects

AbstractInterest in deployment of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is at odds with the lack of regulations to guide deployment. This can be resolved by a practice-based regulatory framework focused on data collection, prediction, and iteration. Such a regulatory framework could require operators to undertake behaviors that would empower initial regulatory efforts and tell potential operators what to do and why, not how to do it or to what precision. The most important practices comprise prediction and validation. This approach would have several positive effects, including encouraging would-be operators to invest in site selection, planning, modeling and prediction, monitoring, and regular updating of geotechnical operation

Stratigraphy, sedimentology, and tectonic evolution of the 1.86 Ga El Sherana and Edith River Groups, Northern Territory, Australia

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, 1990.Accompanied by one map on folded leaf in pocket.Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-61).by S. Julio Friedmann.M.S

Teapot Dome: Site Characterization of a CO2- Enhanced Oil Recovery Site in Eastern Wyoming

Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3 (NPR-3), better known as the Teapot Dome oil field, is the last U.S. federally-owned and -operated oil field. This provides a unique opportunity for experiments to provide scientific and technical insight into CO{sub 2}-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and other topics involving subsurface fluid behavior. Towards that end, a combination of federal, academic, and industrial support has produced outstanding characterizations of important oil- and brine-bearing reservoirs there. This effort provides an unparalleled opportunity for industry and others to use the site. Data sets include geological, geophysical, geochemical, geomechanical, and operational data over a wide range of geological boundary conditions. Importantly, these data, many in digital form, are available in the public domain due to NPR-3's federal status. Many institutions are already using portions of the Teapot Dome data set as the basis for a variety of geoscience, modeling, and other research efforts. Fifteen units, 9 oil-bearing and 6 brine-bearing, have been studied to varying degrees. Over 1200 wells in the field are active or accessible, and over 400 of these penetrate 11 formations located below the depth that corresponds to the supercritical point for CO{sub 2}. Studies include siliciclastic and carbonate reservoirs; shale, carbonate, and anhydrite cap rocks; fractured and unfractured units; and over-pressured and under-pressured zones. Geophysical data include 3D seismic and vertical seismic profiles. Reservoir data include stratigraphic, sedimentological, petrologic, petrographic, porosity, and permeability data. These have served as the basis for preliminary 3D flow simulations. Geomechanical data include fractures (natural and drilling induced), in-situ stress determination, pressure, and production history. Geochemical data include soil gas, noble gas, organic, and other measures. The conditions of these reservoirs directly or indirectly represent many reservoirs in the U.S., Canada, and overseas

Quantifying the potential exposure hazard due to energetic releases of CO2 from a failed sequestration well

AbstractWells are designed to bring fluids from depth to the earth’s surface quickly. As such they are the most likely pathway for CO2 to return to the surface in large quantities and present a hazard without adequate management. We surveyed oil industry experience of CO2 well failures, and separately, calculated the maximal CO2 flow rate from a 5000 ft depth supercritical CO2 reservoir. The calculated maximum of 20,000 tonne/day was set by the sound speed and the seven-inch well casing diameter, and was greater than any observed event. We used this flux to simulate atmospheric releases and the associated hazard utilizing the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) tools and real meteorology at a representative location in the High Plains of the United States. Three cases representing a maximum hazard day (quiet winds <1 m s−1 near the wellhead) and medium and minimal hazard days (average winds 3 m s−1 and 7 m s−1) were assessed. As expected for such large releases, there is a near-well hazard when there is little or no wind. In all three cases the hazardous Temporary Emergency Exposure Levels (TEEL) 2 or 3 only occurred within the first few hundreds of meters. Because the preliminary 3-D model runs may not have been run at high enough resolution to accurately simulate very small distances, we also used a simple Gaussian plume model to provide an upper bound on the distance at which hazardous conditions might exist. This extremely conservative model, which ignores inhomogeneity in the mean wind and turbulence fields, also predicts possible hazardous concentrations up to several hundred meters downwind from a maximal release