Coupled Hydromechanical Modeling of Induced Seismicity from CO2 Injection in the Illinois Basin

Abstract

One contemporary critical challenge is to significantly mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases in order to prevent a dramatic global climate change. In the last decades, geological carbon sequestration (GCS) has been investigated as one possible solution to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the atmosphere (Benson & Cole, 2008). Geological carbon sequestration (GCS) consists in injecting captured CO 2 into deep subsurface geological reservoirs such as deep saline aquifers or depleted oil and gas fields (Celia, 2017;Metz et al., 2005).The underground injection of large volumes of CO 2 causes pressure rise that results in geomechanical strain and stress changes within and surrounding the targeted storage formation (Rutqvist, 2012). Activation of pre-existing fractures and faults may be an issue of concern for the potential of inducing seismicity that could be felt by humans on the ground surface or for the potential of opening up a new flow path through an overlying caprock (

CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers: evaluation of geomechanical risks using integrated modeling workflow

“…Coupled TOUGH-FLAC simulations are proposed in Rutqvist and Tsang, 2003), and, since then, its capabilities have been extended considerably (Rutqvist, 2011;Blanco-Martín et al, 2017;Rinaldi et al, 2022). The simulator was applied to investigate various problems related to CO 2 storage including the tightness of the caprock, maximum sustainable injection pressure, thermal effects, tectonic fault reactivation, induced seismicity as well as the risk of CO 2 and pore fluid leakage along the fault zone, Tsang, 2002, 2005;Rutqvist et al, 2008Rutqvist et al, , 2009Rutqvist, 2011, 2012;Rinaldi et al, 2014Rinaldi et al, , 2015Vilarrasa et al, 2017;Guglielmi et al, 2021;Luu et al, 2022).…”