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The Sim-SEQ Project: Comparison of Selected Flow Models for the S-3 Site

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Abstract

Sim-SEQ is an international initiative on model comparison for geologic carbon sequestration, with an objective to understand and, if possible, quantify model uncertainties. Model comparison efforts in Sim-SEQ are at present focusing on one specific field test site, hereafter referred to as the Sim-SEQ Study site (or S-3 site). Within Sim-SEQ, different modeling teams are developing conceptual models of \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\) injection at the S-3 site. In this paper, we select five flow models of the S-3 site and provide a qualitative comparison of their attributes and predictions. These models are based on five different simulators or modeling approaches: TOUGH2/EOS7C, STOMP-CO2e, MoReS, TOUGH2-MP/ECO2N, and VESA. In addition to model-to-model comparison, we perform a limited model-to-data comparison, and illustrate how model choices impact model predictions. We conclude the paper by making recommendations for model refinement that are likely to result in less uncertainty in model predictions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Curt Oldenburg (LBNL) and Dan Hawkes (LBNL) for their constructive reviews of the draft manuscript. LBNL’s (Berkeley Lab.) efforts in coordinating Sim-SEQ are supported through funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy and managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Funds were provided to Berkeley Lab. through the U.S. Department of Energy Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. BEG’s efforts, headed by Susan Hovorka, were partly supported by funds provided by the Department of Energy and managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory through the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB) (managed by the Southern State Energy Board). URN’s modeling effort is supported by the MatMoRA project under Contract No. 215641, funded by the CLIMIT program of the Research Council of Norway and Statoil. The publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of Energy or the Berkeley Lab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Sumit Mukhopadhyay, Christine Doughty & Jens T. Birkholzer

  2. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA, 99352, USA

    Diana Bacon

  3. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Jun Li

  4. Shell (China) Innovation and R&D Centre, Beijing, 100004, China

    Lingli Wei

  5. Taisei Corporation, 344-1 Nase-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama, 245-0051, Japan

    Hajime Yamamoto

  6. Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research, Uni Research, 5020, Bergen, Norway

    Sarah Gasda

  7. Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG), University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78713, USA

    Seyyed A. Hosseini & Jean-Philippe Nicot

Authors
  1. Sumit Mukhopadhyay
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  2. Christine Doughty
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  3. Diana Bacon
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  4. Jun Li
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  5. Lingli Wei
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  6. Hajime Yamamoto
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  7. Sarah Gasda
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  8. Seyyed A. Hosseini
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  9. Jean-Philippe Nicot
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  10. Jens T. Birkholzer
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Correspondence to Sumit Mukhopadhyay.

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Mukhopadhyay, S., Doughty, C., Bacon, D. et al. The Sim-SEQ Project: Comparison of Selected Flow Models for the S-3 Site. Transp Porous Med 108, 207–231 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-014-0361-0

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