Fluids and Rocks - Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration - page 397

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 9.3.2 Stimulation of the upwelling of CO 2
(a) The caprock or seal is preventing the injected CO 2 to move upward. In some cases
(see Chapter 10 for more details), faults or abandoned wells can be leakage path-
ways for CO 2 in these simulations, we are interested in simulating the fl ow in the rock
formation as indicated by the grey cylinder, above the CO 2 plume that is escaping
through a fault. In the movies, the effect of heat transfer on the behavior of CO 2 is
studied: in Movie 9.3.1 , heat that is generated during the expansion is dissipated,
while in Movie 9.3.2 the walls of the cylinder are insulated.
(b) Sketch of the 500 m deep and 1 m wide column. In the simulations, the column is
assumed to be fi lled with sand.
(c) Initial conditions for the system are fully brine-saturated (no CO 2 present). The fi gure
shows with a color coding the hydrostatic P (left) and geothermal-gradient T (right)
profi les in the column.

( Continued )