Environmental Monitoring Approach to Enhance Onshore CO2 Storage Site Acceptability: First R&D Results on Shallow Groundwater Aquifer

8 Pages Posted: 11 May 2019 Last revised: 27 Oct 2020

Date Written: October 21, 2018

Abstract

TOTAL has recently launched a R&D roadmap with the ambition of leading CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage) deployment worldwide while complying with local regulations, assessing and controlling risks of its operations and ensuring stakeholders engagement. From 2007 to 2016, TOTAL operated the first French onshore pilot of CO2 capture, transport and storage in Lacq-Rousse. An extensive monitoring program was implemented from the pre-injection phase (baseline) to the postinjection phase. This led to fruitful discussions between the operator, experts and local stakeholders on key issues such as: the pertinence and efficiency of an exhaustive environmental surface and subsurface monitoring plans, the pertinence of using several innovative monitoring techniques, and uncertainties related to natural variability of some monitored parameters. Nevertheless, these step-by-step interactions and the final agreement between stakeholders were key points for the acceptability and sustainability of this onshore project launched before the release of the European Directive 2009/31/EC on geological storage of CO2. Since 2017, TOTAL R&D has been exploring ways to demonstrate the relevance of innovative monitoring methods in order to fulfill regulatory requirements, ensure performance of the injection and storage operations, and gain public support in future projects. The two main complementary approaches of monitoring that have resulted from this successful Lacq-Rousse scientific, technical and social experience are: (i) the monitoring of subsurface assets (well/reservoir/caprock) where the efforts are focused on CO2 injection and its migration in the storage formation and the long-term behavior of the reservoir, the CO2 plume and the confining layer; (ii) the monitoring of surrounding subsurface and surface compartments, far from the subsurface assets, such as in aquifers and near-atmosphere, taking into account health and environmental concerns in case of hypothetical loss of integrity and CO2 and/or brine leakage. In these surrounding environmental compartments, R&D efforts are made to reach pertinent and effective measurements and analyses, and also rely on discriminating techniques (e.g. isotopy of carbon to discriminate its thermogenic/biogenic origins). In addition, cost-effective tools and methodologies are reviewed in order to provide periodically sufficient amount of data during the whole life of a project, from the baseline to the closure phase some decades later. The present article shows the recent progress of TOTAL R&D on in-situ, real-time and remote monitoring strategy in an onshore subsurface environmental context. The efforts are focused on shallow groundwater aquifer. Technologies considered include fiber optic, using both passive and active distributed temperature sensing (DTS), and Point Velocity Probe (PVP). The current program includes lab-scale, field testing and numerical modelling for the initial feasibility study. This first stage of experimental study performed at the lab scale will be followed by experiments in shallow and deep aquifer and in the context of CO2 geological storage pilot project.

Keywords: Environmental impacts, GHGT-14, Subsurface Environmental Monitoring, Groundwater, Fiber Optic, Point Velocity Probe, Acceptability

Suggested Citation

Credoz, Anthony and Bouet, Yannick and Cazes, Laurent and Marblé, André, Environmental Monitoring Approach to Enhance Onshore CO2 Storage Site Acceptability: First R&D Results on Shallow Groundwater Aquifer (October 21, 2018). 14th Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference Melbourne 21-26 October 2018 (GHGT-14) , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3365611 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3365611

Anthony Credoz (Contact Author)

TOTAL SA

av. Larribau
Pau, 64000
France

Yannick Bouet

AKKODIS ( email )

Helioparc, 4 rue Jules FERRY - PAU Cedex 09
Pau, 64053
France

Laurent Cazes

TOTAL SA

av. Larribau
Pau, 64000
France

André Marblé

TOTAL SA

av. Larribau
Pau, 64000
France

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