Borehole EM Monitoring at Aquistore: Final Report to the Carbon Capture Project (CCP)

Technical Report · Mon Oct 15 04:00:00 EDT 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1172132· OSTI ID:1172132

Daley, Thomas M. ^[1]; Smith, J. Torquil ^[1]; Beyer, John Henry ^[1]; LaBrecque, Douglas ^[2]

---

1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Multi‐Phase Technologies, LLC, Sparks, NV (United States)

Geologic carbon sequestration (GCS) is a technology whose goal is to prevent atmospheric release of greenhouse gases via injection of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into an underground reservoir for long term storage. GCS is typically part of a program of carbon capture and storage (CCS) that captures CO₂ from point sources such as power plants, transports the CO₂ to a storage site, and operates an injection facility. One recent CCS pilot project is the Aquistore CO₂ sequestration project, near Estevan, Saskatchewan, Canada. The Aquistore project is managed by the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) and will be one of the first integrated CCS projects storing CO₂ in a deep saline aquifer from a coal fired power plant (PTRC, 2011). Aquistore is expected to store 500,000 tons of CO₂ during its lifetime (Ministry of Environment, 2012). Assuring the long-term, safe storage of CO₂ requires the development of effective monitoring strategies. As part of the geophysical monitoring effort at Aquistore, there were initial plans for deployment of borehole electrodes for electrical or electromagnetic measurements to monitor CO₂ within the reservoir. The injected CO₂ displaces saline brine in the reservoir, and because CO₂ has a high resistivity compared to brine, the overall resistivity of the formation increases and can be monitored by measuring electric or magnetic fields. Previous work by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) had indicated that borehole-to-surface electromagnetic monitoring, using an electric dipole source near the bottom of a well penetrating the reservoir, could detect the resistivity change induced by GCS. To assess the potential application of electromagnetic monitoring at Aquistore, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Multi-Phase Technologies collaborated on a two-part study including (1) numerical forward modeling of a time-lapse, controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) monitoring survey, and (2) an initial engineering study of instrumentation and proposed design for a borehole electric dipole source and electrode sensors.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 1172132
• Report Number(s): LBNL--6238E
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES