Iman Rahimzadeh Kivi in the Webinar cycle in Hydrogeology and Geochemistry on Thursday 9th February at 3:00 pm.
HYDROGEOLOGY GROUP (Associated Unit CSIC-UPC, Barcelona)
Date: Thursday, 9th February 2023
Starting time: 3:00 pm (Central European Time)
Duration: 1h
Guest Speaker: Iman Rahimzadeh Kivi. Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Title: Assessment of CO2 leakage risk within basin-scale CO2 storage in multi-layered sedimentary basins
Venue: UPC, Module D2, 2nd floor, 216 Classroom or
Live in: https://meet.google.com/snb-qdkn-eex (free of charge)
Abstract
Hundreds of gigatonnes of CO2 will need to be stored in deep geological formations in the upcoming decades to mitigate climate change. Success in the massive deployment of geologic CO2 storage depends primarily on the selection of geological settings through which minimal CO2 leakage toward the surface could take place. Here, I present numerical simulations that allow for understanding the leakage risk from basin-scale CO2 storage sites over geological time scales (million years), much longer than what had been investigated so far. The model accounts for the vertical two-phase flow of CO2 and brine and diffusive transport of aqueous CO2 through multi-layered geological settings.
I argue how this model enables us to reliably capture the dynamics of basin-wide vertical CO2 migration at affordable computational costs. Based on the obtained results, I discuss the effects of geological configurations, caprock thickness, and its notably scale-dependent transport properties on the leakage risk. I conclude that a high-frequency layering of aquifers and caprocks, even if pervasively fractured and a few tens of meters thick, will build confidence in the permanent containment of CO2 in the subsurface.
Reference
Kivi, I.R., Makhnenko, R.Y., Oldenburg, C.M., Rutqvist, J. and Vilarrasa, V., 2022. Multi-layered systems for permanent geologic storage of CO2 at the gigatonne scale. Geophysical Research Letters, 49 (24) e2022GL100443