Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREENHOUSE GAS CONTROL
Volume 5, Issue 4, Pages 850-861Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijggc.2011.01.003
Keywords
Brine leakage; Pressure increase; Area of Review
Categories
Funding
- US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water and Office of Air and Radiation, under U.S. Department of Energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Fossil Energy, Office of Sequestration, Hydrogen, and Clean Coal Fuels, National Energy Technology Laboratory, of the U.S. Department of Energy
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Industrial-scale storage of CO2 in saline sedimentary basins will cause zones of elevated pressure, larger than the CO2 plume itself. If permeable conduits (e.g., leaking wells) exist between the injection reservoir and overlying shallow aquifers, brine could be pushed upwards along these conduits and mix with groundwater resources. This paper discusses the potential for such brine leakage to occur in temperature- and salinity-stratified systems. Using static mass-balance calculations as well as dynamic well flow simulations, we evaluate the minimum reservoir pressure that would generate continuous migration of brine up a leaking wellbore into a freshwater aquifer. Since the brine invading the well is denser than the initial fluid in the wellbore, continuous flow only occurs if the pressure perturbation in the reservoir is large enough to overcome the increased fluid column weight after full invasion of brine into the well. If the threshold pressure is exceeded, brine flow rates are dependent on various hydraulic (and other) properties, in particular the effective permeability of the wellbore and the magnitude of pressure increase. If brine flow occurs outside of the well casing, e.g., in a permeable fracture zone between the well cement and the formation, the fluid/solute transfer between the migrating fluid and the surrounding rock units can strongly retard brine flow. At the same time, the threshold pressure for continuous flow to occur decreases compared to a case with no fluid/solute transfer. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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