Robust Ceramic Coaxial Cable Down-Hole Sensors for Long-Term In Situ Monitoring of Geologic CO2 Injection and Storage
Energy generation by use of fossil fuels produces large volumes of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, whose accumulation in the atmosphere is widely seen as undesirable. CO2 Capture followed by sequestration has been identified as the solution. Subsurface geologic formations offer a potential location for long-term storage of CO2 because of their requisite size. Unfortunately, the inaccessibility and complexity of the subsurface, the wide range of scales of variability, and the coupled nonlinear processes, impose tremendous challenges to determine the transport and predict the fate of the stored CO2. Among the various monitoring approaches, in situ down-hole monitoring of the various state parameters provides critical and direct data points that can be used to validate the models, optimize the injection, detect leakage and track the CO2 plume. However, down-hole sensors that can withstand the harsh conditions and operate over decades of the project lifecycle remain unavailable. Given that the widespread of carbon capture and storage will be the necessity and reality in the future, fundamental and applied research is required to address the significant challenges and technological gaps in lack of long-term reliable down-hole sensors This project focused on the development and demonstration of a novel, low-cost, distributed, robust ceramic coaxial cable sensor platform for in situ down-hole monitoring of geologic CO2 injection and storage with high spatial and temporal resolutions. The coaxial cable Fabry-Perot interferometer (CCFPI) has been studied as a general sensor platform for in situ, long-term, measurement of temperature, pressure and strain, which are critical to CO2 injection and storage. A novel signal processing scheme has been developed and demonstrated for dense multiplexing of the sensors for low-cost distributed sensing with high spatial resolution. The developed temperature, pressure and strain sensors have been extensively tested under laboratory conditions that are similar to the downhole CO2 storage environment, showing excellent capability for in situ monitoring the various parameters that are important to model, optimize the injection, detect leakage and track the CO2 plume. In addition, the interactions between the sensor datum and the geological models have been investigated in details for the purposes of model validation, guiding sensor installation/placement, enhancement of model prediction capability and optimization of the injection processes. This project has resulted in the successful development of new ceramic coaxial cable based sensor systems that can monitor directly the changes in pressure, temperature, and strain caused by increased reservoir pressure and reduced reservoir temperature due to the supercritical CO2 injection. Integrated with geological models, the sensors and measurement data can improve the possibility to identify plume movement and leakage in the cap rock and wells with higher precision and more accuracy. The low cost, ease of deployment, small size and dense multiplexing features of the new sensing technology will allow a large number of sensors to be deployed to address the objective to demonstrate that 99% of the CO2 remains in the injection zone.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Missouri, Rolla, MO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE), Clean Coal and Carbon Management
- DOE Contract Number:
- FE0009843
- OSTI ID:
- 1328860
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-S&T-FE0009843
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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