OR/16/029 Opportunities for mutually beneficial collaboration

Pearce, J M, Akhurst, M C, Jones, D G, Vincent, C J and Booth, J H. 2016. Pathways from pilot to demonstration: How can research advance CO2 geological storage deployment? (Energy and Marine Geosciences Programme) British Geological Survey External Report, OR/16/029.

The workshop participants were assigned to one of three breakout topics according to their known research interest and pilot/demonstrator project expertise and experience. Participants were offered the opportunity to ‘swap’ with another contributor if they wished. Each breakout topic was by two groups to allow each group to be small enough to encourage individual conversation and contribution by everyone. A chairman and a rapporteur, with known relevant international expertise and experience in leading and recording discussions, respectively, had been asked to lead and capture the discussion. Each session had been tasked to identify research areas they would wish to add to their own site, wider ‘gaps’ in research knowledge and how that that might be met by collaboration between projects and sites and align with research on other geo-energy resources. Summaries of the discussions in each breakout session were prepared by the chairman and rapporteur and presented to the workshop by the rapporteurs. Themes for collaborative research that were identified in common by the breakout groups were highlighted and

The three breakout topics, chairmen and rapporteurs were:

1. Deep monitoring and injection optimisation and other geo-energy resources
   Session 1A –  chairman Charles Jenkins (CO₂CRC), rapporteur Jim White (BGS)
   Session 1B – chairman Ceri Vincent (BGS) and rapporteur Ton Wildenborg (TNO)
2. Shallow migration/leakage monitoring & remediation and other geo-energy resources onshore
   Session 2A – chairman Dave Jones (BGS)and rapporteur Matt Hall (GERC)
   Session 2B – chairman Kyle Worth (PTRC) and Andrew Feitz (Geoscience Australia)
3. Shallow migration/leakage monitoring & remediation and other geo-energy resources offshore
   Session 3A – chairman Jerry Blackford (PML) and rapporteur Karen Kirk (BGS)
   Session 3B – chairman Andy Chadwick (BGS) and rapporteur Sue Horvorka (TBEM)

Summaries of the discussions in each breakout session were prepared by the chairman and rapporteur and presented to the workshop by the rapporteurs. After the presentations themes for collaborative research and steps in a process to that were identified in common by the breakout groups were highlighted.

The presentations prepared by the breakout groups (Appendix 3 - Output from collaboration breakout discussion sessions) were used to compile this summary of key messages, steps in a process to enable collaboration between sites and common themes in collaborative research topics summarised in the following text sections.

Key messages

Key messages taken from the presentations given by the breakout group rapporteurs and discussion with:

1. A primary benefit of international collaboration between projects is to build confidence in CO₂ storage and give a social licence to operate for CCS.
2. Comparisons between different technologies that have been applied at different sites with different geological conditions will increase confidence in the operation and wider deployment of CCS.
3. Pilot projects provide opportunities for capacity building to take CCS forward and the transfer of skills and expertise, as much as knowledge, would be a primary benefit of collaboration between projects to truly achieve best practice.
4. Transfer of knowledge and application of techniques which have been developed at onshore pilots to offshore sites, where experimental development is less accessible and more costly, should be encouraged.
5. Exchange of data across projects is essential for collaboration on developing cost-effective monitoring.
6. Potential synergies with other geo-resources were identified:

• Re-inject CO₂ with recirculated fluids from geothermal energy production;
• Provide pressure support for hydrocarbon operations from CO₂ injection and storage;
• Producing heat from brine produced for pressure management of a CO₂ storage site;
• Use of the ¹⁴C signature of the injected anthropogenic CO₂ source as a tracer for environmental assessment;
• Low-cost drilling techniques developed for CO₂ storage applied to other subsurface activities and vice versa;
• Application of techniques developed as CO₂ storage site corrective measures to environmental remediation, and vice versa;
• CO₂ migration characterisation and prediction modelling by ‘fault laboratories’ applied to radioactive waste repositories, hydrocarbon migration pathway assessment.

Steps in a process to create opportunities for research collaboration

• Broaden the applicability of ‘best practice’ by combining and integrating findings at two (or many) pilot sites
• Identify and integrate existing ‘best practice’ reporting and recording
• Consider publication of learning gained by comparison of sites, including the processes inferred and recognised at pilot sites, e.g. compare findings at onshore sites with QICS offshore pilot release site
• Give access and provide information to allow opportunities for collaboration between pilots with large-scale projects to be identified via:

o   A portal or web site to share metadata on datasets collected or being acquired at pilot sites

o   An archive of data agreed for sharing

o   Funding to present metadata/data to a standard suitable for collaboration and sharing

• Identify a portfolio of sites that would be willing to consider collaboration, that would be described in a common format
• Present a process for sites to offer and implement opportunities for mutually beneficial collaboration by sharing:

o   Schedules of planned pilot site experiments and research, with a diary of deadlines to consider ‘volunteer’ complementary research activities

o   Alignment with national and international funding sources and objectives to leverage additional resources

• Invest in ‘overseas’ research to gain benefit for the implementation of CO₂ storage in one’s own country, e.g. collaboration by Japanese and UK research consortia at the QICS pilot site
• Agree and offer datasets for concerted multi-organisation interpretation, e.g. modelling of multiple realisations of pilot site datasets
• Identify organisations that would facilitate collaboration between pilot sites and large projects

Common themes in collaborative research topics

A number of common themes were identified from the discussions that offer potential for further development.

Role and effect of faulting on fluid migration in CO₂ storage

• Property attribution in the fault structures or volumes including generic characterisation of fault zones to inform monitoring techniques
• Quantification of the volume of fluid migration in damage zones around faults and the rate of migration
• Stimulation of fault reactivation by increased pressure of injection
• Investigation of the role of fine-scale faulting, unresolved on seismic data, in fluid migration
• Combining many pilot-scale fault laboratories into a global-scale experiment

Increasing monitoring efficiency, reducing and minimising cost of monitoring

• Investigation and testing new monitoring technologies, e.g. remote data access and download, smaller, lighter and more robust monitoring hardware and ‘real time’ monitoring
• Establish a minimum portfolio of monitoring techniques to be deployed by collaboration at pilot sites, such as monitoring of adequate well completion
• Identification of monitoring techniques relevant to different scales of monitoring
• Development of new monitoring sensors and assessment by deployment in a hostile environment, e.g. onshore development and offshore deployment
• Monitoring of geochemical tracers to reassure secure containment
• Reduce cost of monitoring by minimising the area to be monitored and use of mobile, rather than static, surface monitoring techniques
• ‘Permanent’ installation of monitoring sensors and arrays for monitoring at depth
• Optimisation of data gathered and ‘sifting’ of data acquired during monitoring
• Qualitative and quantitative comparison of monitoring data between pilot sites
• Mass balance and quantification of injected CO₂ to instil confidence in the efficacy of storage

Up-scaling from pilot to large scale

• Scaling of pilot projects to ensure the results will be suitable to inform large-scale projects
• Consider the implications to certainty of prediction when extrapolating from small areas of high data density to large project areas
• Examine what inferences can be drawn about deep monitoring from shallow measurements
• Prediction of pressure and temperature changes in the wellbore to inform scaling up
• Offshore implementation of monitoring technology developed and tested at onshore sites
• Increased monitoring resolution of stored CO₂ to increase confidence in capacity and reduce cost
• Optimum characterisation of a well to inform upscaling to assess future injectivity and storage efficiency

Post-closure monitoring, overburden and remediation studies

• Long-term, minimal-input monitoring to demonstrate conformance, assurance of post-closure site behaviour and satisfy regulatory requirements
• Study of the overburden to storage sites by investigation of strata at depths greater than surface site investigations and less than hydrocarbon exploration
• Analysis of terrain and bathymetric surface datasets to infer overburden characteristics e.g. fault mapping
• Completed pilot project sites to be made available as test beds for remediation technologies and methods or corrective measures e.g. plume steering by microbes or biofilms

Public perceptions

Instill public confidence in the security and integrity of CO₂ storage by ensuring good project management, public awareness activities and careful choice of terminology used Share and publish the methods followed to manage perception of project risk and achieve a ‘social licence to operate’