DISCO2 STORE — Discontinuities in CO2 Storage Reservoirs

Results in brief

Discontinuities in CO2 Storage Reservoirs

Every year billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) are released into the atmosphere, causing an unprecedented environmental damage. This requires an urgent action from the scientific community. One of the options to tackle CO2 emissions is storing it in geological repositories. This solution is widely considered as a promising tool to mitigate the effects of climate change. We need to develop new technologies and knowledge regarding CO2 injection to make it safe and applicable worldwide. To date, there are 27 operational carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities around the world, 4 under construction, and 102 under development. These facilities are capable of sequestering 149.3 million tons of CO2 annually. Moreover, there is still a vast geological storage potential for future operations. Yet, CO2 storage projects face considerable challenges and risks that need to be addressed for a successful operation. Leaks and contaminations, landscape deformations, and enhanced seismic activity in the areas of CO2 injection are among the most common challenges. Leaks are associated with discontinuities in the reservoir or caprock. They either naturally occur or are man-made. DISCO2 STORE participants are looking for viable long-term solutions to these challenges. We aim to develop methods to detect, predict, and quantify the behavior of the mechanical discontinuities to reduce the risks associated to the CO2 injection. The main goal is to thoughtfully analyze mechanical discontinuities (MD) from their origin to their distribution, exploring hydraulic and mechanical properties, and their respective evolution when fluids are injected in the formation. We use the most recent experience of the oil and gas industry, top-notch engineering knowledge, and pioneering laboratory and computational experimentation. We expect the project outputs to contribute to the development of technologies in the context of other fields of current interest, such as geothermal energy production, hydrogen and natural gas storage and waste disposal.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

The current scientific consensus indicates that it is vital to reach zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 in order to avoid a large number of negative and unprecedented impacts on our planet due to global warming, such as extreme weather events, significant sea level rise, extinction of species and loss of biodiversity, among many others. It is therefore clear that a series of parallel mitigation actions must be undertaken, among which CO2 sequestration in geological repositories plays a major role. A worldwide application of this technology can take place only if a long-term storage of CO2 is assured, which, in turn, depends on a deep understanding of the reservoir characteristics. In this context, naturally-occurring or artificial underground mechanical discontinuities (MDs) are ubiquitous features which constitute the primary reasons for possible hazards associated with CO2 injection operations. DISCO2 STORE consortium thoughtfully examines MDs, in order to provide new knowledge and tools towards a riskless CO2 injection practice. This enterprise is tackled by building an interdisciplinary and international network, gathering 12 institutions from EU and TC. It congregates 36 experienced researchers, from academic and non-academic institutions, that share their variety of research expertise by means of international secondments and promote high-level training in a topic of high social impact. In addition, 20 PhD students participate in the project, gaining knowledge and acquiring competences on this environmental hot topic, in an international and stimulating framework. The outputs of this ambitious research proposal permit a deeper understanding of the effects of MDs and contribute towards making CO2 geological sequestration operations a safer and more reachable alternative for the mitigation of the effects of global warming.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

UNIVERSITE DU MANS · Le MansCoordinatorFrance
COMISION NACIONAL DE ENERGIA ATOMICA · BUENOS AIRESArgentina
CONSEJO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS Y TECNICAS (CONICET) · Buenos AiresArgentina
ECOLE NATIONALE DES PONTS ET CHAUSSEES · Marne La Vallee Cedex 2France
EPSLOG SA · LiegeBelgium
SINTEF AS · TrondheimNorway
UNIVERSIDAD DE SANTIAGO DE CHILE · SantiagoChile
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA · BogotaColombia
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE LA PATAGONIA SAN JUAN BOSCO · Comodoro RivadaviaArgentina
UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA DE MADRID · MadridSpain
UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLOGICA NACIONAL · Ciudad Autonoma Buenos AiresArgentina
UNIVERSITE DE LAUSANNE · LAUSANNESwitzerland
YPF TECNOLOGIA SA · BUENOS AIRESArgentina

DISCO2 STORE · Discontinuities in CO2 Storage Reservoirs

Results in brief

Discontinuities in CO2 Storage Reservoirs

Project objective

Participants

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