CO₂ Storage

Storage, Monitoring and Verification (SMV)

The principal objective of the second phase (CCP2) of the SMV programme was to continue to develop promising storage technologies identified in the first phase, and address remaining technical issues in geologic CO₂ storage assurance. The focus was on improving our understanding of the integrity of geologic and engineered systems, storage site assessment protocol, optimization of operations, cost effective monitoring and risk assessment.

The key findings from the second phase include:

A Well Integrity Field Study shows that selecting the appropriate drilling and installation procedures is more important for long term well stability than the choice of materials.

A Certification Framework has been developed to provide a simple, transparent guide to the site review process; essential to help decision makers to identify and manage the CO₂ storage process.

The CCP2 storage technology portfolio

The CCP portfolio for storage, monitoring and verification (SMV) consisted of seven technologies. Table 2 lists the technologies together with the involved R&D institutions and co-funding sources. The portfolio consisted of an integrated platform for site certification for CO₂ permitting, operation and decommissioning; well integrity logging, sampling, modeling, history matching and simulation of post-closure sealing capability over extended time; testing the capability of standard logging tool to detect a sharp interface between free-phase CO₂ and brine; coupling of geochemical and geomechnical models; simulation of safe and effective operational constraints and monitoring for CO₂ injection in coal beds; and a field test of airborne remote sensing technologies.

Table 2: List of major SMV projects undertaken in CCP2.
Note: The institutions in bold text are the leading institutions.

Project Name	Involved institutions	Co-Funder	Starting Date	End Date
Certification Framework	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Univ. Texas	100% CCP2	April 2006	Q1 2009
Well Integrity Field Study	Schlumberger, Los Alamos national Laboratory (LANL)	100% CCP2	April 2006	Q1 2009
Well-Based in situ Detection	Schlumberger	100% CCP2	April 2006	Q1 2009
Coupled Geochemical-Geomechanical Simulation	Univ. Bergen and University of Catalonia, Spain	Norwegian Research Council, CLIMIT Programmeme	April 2006	Q1 2009
Operability of ECBM	Sproule Associates,	US Department of Energy	April 2006	Q1 2009
Non-seismic monitoring of ECBM	LBNL	US Department of Energy	June 2005	Q1 2009
Direct Detection of CO₂ and Methane	University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC)	US Department of Energy	June 2005	Q1 2009