Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Thermal and solubility effects on fault leakage during geologic carbon storage

Journal Article · · International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4]
  1. Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Freshwater Trust, Portland, OR (United States)
  4. Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Geologic carbon storage (GCS) is a promising method for reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. To safely deploy GCS in the field, it is necessary to assess risks and the effect of uncertainty on safe storage. The effect of uncertainty can be quantified using batches of simulations, but the high computational costs of high-resolution simulations necessitate use of reduced-order models (ROMs). Previous work involves ROMs for quantifying the risk of different potential leakage paths from storage reservoirs to shallow formations. However, previous studies on development of fault-leakage ROMs have limited numbers of uncertain parameters and do not explicitly examine impacts of CO2 solubility and thermal stresses on fault reactivation, which can generate high-permeability pathways and compromise CO2 storage. Here, we analyze an ensemble of simulations considering CO2 leakage from a storage reservoir to a shallow aquifer through a fault while varying a number of uncertain parameters related to thermo-hydro-mechanical properties and CO2 injection. We show the effects of solubility on: free-phase CO2-leakage rates, brine-leakage rates, and poroelastic fault destabilization. We find that CO2 solubility is more important for estimating free-phase CO2-leakage rates compared to brine-leakage rates or poroelastic fault destabilization. We also find that thermal stresses and overpressures have different spatial distributions within the fault, indicating that the spatial variability of overpressures due to variation in flow parameters does not necessarily make the spatial variability of thermal stresses negligible. We suggest the use of the CO2 phase-change path as a variable in future fault-leakage ROMs.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE), Clean Coal and Carbon Management
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1866957
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-21-24959
Journal Information:
International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Journal Name: International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control Vol. 116; ISSN 1750-5836
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (38)

Coupled multiphase flow and poromechanics: A computational model of pore pressure effects on fault slip and earthquake triggering journal May 2014
Regional-scale advective, diffusive, and eruptive dynamics of CO 2 and brine leakage through faults and wellbores : CO2-BRINE LEAKAGE VIA FAULT AND WELLBORE journal May 2015
Uncertainty quantification of CO 2 leakage through a fault with multiphase and nonisothermal effects journal December 2012
Quantification of fault leakage dynamics based on leakage magnitude and dip angle
  • Meguerdijian, Saro; Jha, Birendra
  • International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, Vol. 45, Issue 16 https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.3267
journal August 2021
The impact of CO2 on shallow groundwater chemistry: observations at a natural analog site and implications for carbon sequestration journal June 2009
Great SCOT! Rapid tool for carbon sequestration science, engineering, and economics journal September 2020
Coupling between transport and geomechanics affects spreading and mixing during viscous fingering in deformable aquifers journal February 2020
A two-stage preconditioner for multiphase poromechanics in reservoir simulation journal December 2019
Numerical Investigation of Thermoelastic Effects on Fault Slip Tendency during Injection and Production of Geothermal Fluids journal August 2015
Can Fault Leakage Occur Before or Without Reactivation? Results from an in Situ Fault Reactivation Experiment at Mont Terri journal July 2017
Pulverized rocks in the Mojave section of the San Andreas Fault Zone journal May 2006
Pulverized fault rocks and damage asymmetry along the Arima-Takatsuki Tectonic Line, Japan journal August 2011
Geomechanical effects on CO2 leakage through fault zones during large-scale underground injection journal January 2014
Reduced order models of transient CO2 and brine leakage along abandoned wellbores from geologic carbon sequestration reservoirs journal February 2016
Reduced order models for assessing CO2 impacts in shallow unconfined aquifers journal March 2016
Combining multiple lower-fidelity models for emulating complex model responses for CCS environmental risk assessment journal March 2016
Assessing induced seismicity risk at CO2 storage projects: Recent progress and remaining challenges journal June 2016
The National Risk Assessment Partnership’s integrated assessment model for carbon storage: A tool to support decision making amidst uncertainty journal September 2016
Potential CO2 and brine leakage through wellbore pathways for geologic CO2 sequestration using the National Risk Assessment Partnership tools: Application to the Big Sky Regional Partnership journal February 2019
Probabilistic analysis of Vette fault stability in potential CO2 storage site Smeaheia, offshore Norway journal June 2021
Coupled multiphase flow and transport simulation to model CO2 dissolution and local capillary trapping in permeability and capillary heterogeneous reservoir journal June 2021
Geologic CO2 Storage Optimization under Geomechanical Risk Using Coupled-Physics Models journal September 2021
A new coupled multiphase flow–finite strain deformation–fault slip framework for induced seismicity journal May 2021
Structural controls on leakage from a natural CO2 geologic storage site: Central Utah, U.S.A. journal November 2010
Structural analysis of the Smeaheia fault block, a potential CO2 storage site, northern Horda Platform, North Sea journal November 2020
Effect of Poroelastic Coupling and Fracture Dynamics on Solute Transport and Geomechanical Stability journal October 2021
Internal structure and weakening mechanisms of the San Andreas Fault journal January 1993
Groundwater extraction-induced seismicity around Delhi region, India journal May 2021
Quantifying mixing in viscously unstable porous media flows journal December 2011
Solutal convection in porous media: Comparison between boundary conditions of constant concentration and constant flux journal September 2018
Fluid Mixing from Viscous Fingering journal May 2011
Synergetic Fluid Mixing from Viscous Fingering and Alternating Injection journal October 2013
The Elastic Coefficients of the Theory of Consolidation journal December 1957
Response of Regional Seismicity to the Static Stress Change Produced by the Loma Prieta Earthquake journal March 1992
Fault rocks and fault mechanisms journal March 1977
Significance of fault seal in assessing CO 2 storage capacity and containment risks – an example from the Horda Platform, northern North Sea journal January 2021
A Reduced-Order Model of Fault Leakage for Second-Generation Toolset dataset January 2017
Stress field orientation controls on fault leakage at a natural CO2 reservoir journal January 2020

Similar Records

Related Subjects

03 NATURAL GAS
CO2
earth sciences
fault leakage
fault reactivation
geologic carbon storage
reduced-order model
thermal stress