Preliminary Hydrogeologic Investigation of the FutureGen 2 Site in Morgan County, Illinois.

In anticipation of the FutureGen 2 carbon sequestration activities in Morgan County (Section 25, Township 16 North, Range 9 West), field work was conducted to describe shallow geologic conditions and characterize shallow groundwater quality at the site. The Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) drilled one shallow stratigraphic boring to 230 feet. Bedrock was encountered at 123.5 feet below the land surface. No aquifer material was encountered in the Quaternary material or in the bedrock. A shallow groundwater monitoring well was installed at a depth of 20 feet and developed to ensure water levels and water quality within the well were representative of in situ conditions. A surficial 2-D seismic survey and an electrical earth resistivity (EER) survey were conducted at the site. The seismic survey was conducted before drilling primarily to assess the presence of shallow natural gas. None was detected. An EER survey was conducted following installation of the shallow monitoring well to assess whether aquifer materials were present at other locations in the vicinity of the shallow well. Results from the EER survey indicated a slight increase in resistivity to the southwest and southeast. The higher resistivity may indicate a slight increase in the occurrence of shallow sand in those directions. Water from 10 private water supply wells and the shallow groundwater monitoring well were sampled between October 25 and November 17, 2011. Most constituent concentrations were less than the drinking water standards. Iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nitrate (NO3), and total dissolved solids (TDS) were the only constituents whose concentrations exceeded USEPA primary or secondary standards in some of the groundwater samples. Groundwater samples from two wells contained nitrate concentrations above the EPA Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL), 10 mg NO3-N/L. The concentrations of nitrate in the samples from these wells were also significantly greater than those detected in other samples. This report summarizes results from the stratigraphic bore hole, the geophysical surveys, and analytical results from groundwater sampling.US Department of Energypublished or submitted for publicatio

Atmospheric monitoring and detection of fugitive emissions for Enhanced Oil Recovery

In Weyburn, Saskatchewan, carbon dioxide (CO₂) is injected into the Weyburn oilfield for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Cenovus Energy Inc. operates more than 1000 active wells, processing plants, and hundreds of kilometres of pipeline infrastructure over a >100 km² area. While vehicle-based atmospheric detection of gas leakage would be convenient for a distributed operation such as Weyburn, implementing atmospheric detection schemes, particularly those that target CO₂, are challenging in that natural ecosystems and other human activities both emit CO₂ and will contribute to regular false positives. Here we present field test results of a multi-gas atmospheric detection technique that uses observed trace gas ratios (CO₂, CH₄, and H₂S) to discriminate plumes of gas originating from different sources. This work is part of a larger project focused on multi-scale fugitive emissions detection and plume discrimination. During 2013 and 2014, we undertook vehicle-based mobile surveys of CO₂, CH₄, H₂S, and δ¹³CH₄, in the Weyburn oilfield, using customized Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) instruments that also alternated as stationary receptors. Mobile surveys provided georeferenced observations of atmospheric gas concentrations every 20–30 m, along a route driven at roughly 70 km h⁻¹. Data were uploaded to remote servers and processed using visualization tools that allowed us to constrain the location and timing of potential emission events. Results from one day of mobile surveying, September 24, 2013, are presented here to illustrate how industrial activities, combustion engine and flare stack source emissions can be discriminated on the basis of excess mixing gas ratios, at distances from a few hundreds metres, to kilometres, in the Weyburn oilfield.Keywords: Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage, Monitoring, Enhanced Oil Recovery, Atmospheric, Multi-ga