To date, only the methods of reservoir engineering and geophysics have been applied to carbon storage. Reservoir engineering is based upon Continuum Mechanics and does therefore not take into account some of the basic physical principles, such as Hubbert's Force Potential. Hubbert's (1940) "rigorous treatise consolidated the scientific basis of groundwater hydrology within the general theory of hydrodynamics" (J.J. de Vries, 2007). Hubbert's Force Potential also applies to the migration of CO₂ stored in the subsurface. Hence, the methods of advanced hydrogeology (role of fresh water force fields, deep-penetrating regional groundwater flow systems and monitoring) are essential in predicting the migration behaviour of sequestered CO₂. In general, the methods of reservoir engineering, while successful economically in producing hydrocarbons, are confined to the immediate area of petroleum reservoirs, while hydrogeological methods deal with the fluid flow in all of the subsurface.

The primer "Applying Hydrogeological Methods and Hubbert’s Force Potential to Carbon Storage" works out the different approaches used by reservoir engineering on the one hand, and advanced hydrogeology (using Hubbert's Force Potential) on the other, and shows why and how these hydrogeological methods are essential in predicting the migration behaviour of CO₂ in the subsurface. To avoid a lengthy download and to ease, for the undecided, the assessment of the significance of the primer for anybody interested in geologic storage of CO₂, we provide the Introduction and Explanations portion of the primer as an independent download.

To emphasize the central role 'buoyancy' and so-called 'buoyancy forces' play in carbon sequestration, we have also provided a copy of a paper entitled "Physical Processes in Geological Carbon Storage". It presents physical causality to explain and apply buoyancy in subsurface flow and introduces potential applications within carbon sequestration, boundary conditions for long-range groundwater flow systems at the Weyburn, Zama, and Wadamun CO₂ sequestrations sites, and establishes that the Sleipner site in the North Sea has hydrostatic conditions and cannot be taken as an example for CO₂ migration at on-shore sites.

The December 21st, 2009 version of the aforementioned paper "Physical Processes in Geological Carbon Storage" was reviewed in an unsolicited fashion by E. O. Frind of the University of Waterloo and J. W. Molson of Laval University. The review also contained a series of mathematical flow models which confirmed the existence of Buoyancy Reversal, which had been previously derived theoretically by Weyer, 1978, and confirmed by field data referred to in the "Physical Processes in Geological Carbon Storage" paper.

Downloads