Techno-Economic Aspects of Noble Gases as Monitoring Tracers

Ulrich Wolfgang Weber, Niko Kampman and Anja Sundal
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Ulrich Wolfgang Weber: Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, 0371 Oslo, Norway
Niko Kampman: Shell Global Solutions International B.V., 1031 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Anja Sundal: Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, 0371 Oslo, Norway

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: A comprehensive monitoring program is an integral part of the safe operation of geological CO 2 storage projects. Noble gases can be used as geochemical tracers to detect a CO 2 anomaly and identify its origin, since they display unique signatures in the injected CO 2 and naturally occurring geological fluids and gases of the storage site complex. In this study, we assess and demonstrate the suitability of noble gases in source identification of CO 2 anomalies even when natural variability and analytical uncertainties are considered. Explicitly, injected CO 2 becomes distinguishable from shallow fluids (e.g., subsea gas seeps) due to its inheritance of the radiogenic signature (e.g., high He) of deep crustal fluids by equilibration with the formation water. This equilibration also results in the CO 2 inheriting a distinct Xe concentration and Xe/noble gas elemental ratios, which enable the CO 2 to be differentiated from deep crustal hydrocarbon gases that may be in the vicinity of a storage reservoir. However, the derivation has uncertainties that may make the latter distinction less reliable. These uncertainties would be best and most economically addressed by coinjection of Xe with a distinct isotope ratio into the CO 2 stream. However, such a tracer addition would add significant cost to monitoring programs of currently operating storage projects by up to 70% (i.e., from 1 $US/t to 1.7 $US/t).

Keywords: carbon capture and storage; monitoring and verification; noble gases; leakage detection; inherent distinctiveness; tracer addition; cost calculation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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