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SUMMARY:Fluid dynamical\, geochemical and geomechanical aspects of geologi
 cal CO2 storage
DTSTART:20110524T111500
DTSTAMP:20260510T165724Z
UID:8795169e19893682694baa061882b09b3dfa204665975d950a809b04
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Marc Hesse\, Assistant Professor\, University of Texas at Aust
 in\, USA\nGeological CO2 storage raises many fundamental scientific questi
 ons and challenges our ability to simulate the long-term evolution and fat
 e of the injected CO2. In my talk\, I will discuss recent results and the 
 ongoing work to answer the following questions: 1) How fast is CO2 dissolv
 ing into the brine? 2)Can geochemical field observations constrain the lon
 g-term convective dissolution rate? 3) Do surface deformation measurements
  provide a cost effective and real-time monitoring approach for geological
  CO2 storage?\nThe dissolution rate of CO2 is likely controlled by the pre
 sence or absence of convective currents induced by the increase in brine d
 ensity with increasing CO2 saturation.  I will present recent experimental
 \, numerical and scaling results for the convective flux from a horizontal
  interface\, and discuss possible opportunities to quantify CO2 dissolutio
 n rates from geochemical field data.\nWhile convective currents have been 
 observed in the lab and in numerical simulations the persistence of natura
 l CO2 fields over geological periods of time suggests that convective diss
 olution may be limited in nature. Variations in noble gases and carbon iso
 topes in natural CO2 reservoirs suggest that large amounts of CO2 have dis
 solved\, and lateral isotopic gradients may constrain the long-term CO2 di
 ssolution rate. This requires the extension of our numerical simulations t
 o include the isotopic fractionations occurring during two phase flow.\nFi
 nally\, I will address how detailed observations of surface deformation ma
 y be assimilated into poroelastic models for coupled flow and deformation 
 to improve predictions of the long-term CO2 migration. The unknown permeab
 ility structure of the storage formation contributes greatly to the uncert
 ainty of our predictions. Repeated areal maps of changes in surface elevat
 ion provide valuable additional information that constrains the physical p
 roperties of the storage formation. Currently no systematic approach to th
 e assimilation of this new data source is available. I will present first 
 results from a poroelastic inverse model that can assimilate multiple type
 s of data and will therefore greatly reduce the uncertainty in the permeab
 ility distribution in the storage formation.
LOCATION:ELA 1
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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