Development of Models to Simulate Tracer Behavior in Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Williams, Mark; Vermeul, Vincent R.; Reimus, Paul W.; Newell, Dennis L.; Watson, Thomas

doi:10.2172/992377

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Vetter and Crichlow (1979) proposed the use of an adsorbing tracer to overcome limitations of inert tracer tests in the context of geothermal reservoirs. Since then, numerous investigations into practical application of the method have been met with disappointing results (e.g., Breitenbach, 1982;Dean et al, 2015;Horne et al, 1982;Vetter & Zinnow, 1981;Williams et al, 2010Williams et al, , 2013. Broadly, three reasons accounted for the method's failure: (1) poorly constrained reaction parameters; (2) incomplete models for adsorption; and (3) complex fracture fluid/matrix interactions (e.g., Fox & Horne, 1988;Pot & Genty, 2005;Reimus & Callahan, 2007;Reimus et al, 2003;Sullivan et al, 2003;Toride et al, 1993Toride et al, , 1995Vetter & Zinnow, 1981).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the study by Dean et al (), for instance, lithium and cesium appeared to exhibit dual‐porosity behavior at high temperature in a column specifically designed to have single‐porosity. In the study by Williams et al (), the adsorptive tracer method failed to adequately constrain reservoir properties at the Soda Lake Geothermal Field near Fallon, Nevada. Field measurements did indicate the adsorbing tracer experienced reduced mass recovery relative to an inert tracer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Hawkins

Becker

Tester

2018

Water Resources Research

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Field tests in a discrete rock fracture validated a combined inert/adsorbing tracer test method to estimate the contact area between fluids circulating through a fracture and the bulk rock matrix (i.e., flow‐wetted surface area, A). Tracer tests and heat injections occurred at a mesoscale well field in Altona, NY. A subhorizontal bedding plane fracture ∼7.6 m below ground surface connects two wells separated by 14.1 m. Recovery of the adsorbing tracer cesium was roughly 72% less than the inert tracer iodide. Using an advection‐dispersion‐reaction model in one‐dimension, the adsorbing/inert tracer method identified substantial flow channelization. These results are consistent with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and thermal sensors. All characterization methods suggest circulating fluids were concentrated in a narrow, 1–2 m wide channel directly connecting the injection and production well. The inert/adsorbing tracer method identified two flow channels with areas of 28 and 80 m2. A one‐dimensional heat transport model predicted production well temperature rises 20.5°C in 6 days, whereas measured temperature rise was 17.6°C. For comparison, two‐dimensional heat transport through a fracture of uniform aperture (i.e., homogeneous permeability) predicted roughly 670 days until production well temperature would rise 17.6°C. This suggests that the use of a fracture of uniform aperture to predict heat transport may drastically overpredict the thermal performance of a geothermal system. In the context of commercial geothermal reservoirs, the results of this study suggest that combined inert/adsorbing tracer tests could predict production well thermal drawdown, leading to improved reservoir monitoring and management.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Hawkins

Becker

Tester

2018

Water Resources Research

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“…A few methods have been proposed to resolve this uncertainty, e.g. by Kocabas (2005) and Williams et al (2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fracture Characterization in Enhanced Geothermal Systems by Wellbore and Reservoir Analysis

Horne¹,

Li²,

Alaskar³

et al. 2012

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“…Particle tracers that release dye upon reaching a threshold temperature are another possibility (Alaskar et al, 2011). Williams et al (2010) also proposed a dye-release mechanism, in which encapsulated dyes are released once a threshold temperature is reached. Rose et al (2011) proposed surface-modified quantum dots to measure the fracture surface area at the interwell spacing in enhanced geothermal systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature nanotracers for fractured reservoirs characterization

Alaskar

Ames

Liu

et al. 2015

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

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nanoparticle silica deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) thermochromic inverse problem a b s t r a c t Nanoparticle tracers are being investigated as a potential tool to measure temperature distributions in subsurface reservoirs. If the temperature distributions could be measured more precisely, this would greatly enhance the ability to estimate other reservoir properties, which would in turn inform reservoir engineering and field management decisions. Work toward two distinct but parallel objectives are described here. The first is to rank the informativity of various tracer candidates using modeling. The second is to develop temperature sensitive tracers experimentally, such that they would be capable of characterizing fracture properties and temperature distribution.The design of temperature-sensitive tracers is built around the design of the temperature sensing mechanism. In other words, the mechanism by which temperature is measured and the form and resolution of the resulting data, or response, have a profound impact on how informative that tracer can be about thermal breakthrough. Therefore, it is important to model the responses of candidate tracers in the context of an inverse problem to determine their relative informativity. In order to quantify tracer informativity for the simplified case in which the reservoir consists of a single parallel-plate fracture, one-dimensional analytical models were used to calculate the responses of four tracer types: conservative solute tracer, dye-releasing nanotracer, threshold nanoreactor, and temperature-time tracer (TTT). Inverse modeling was performed for various scenarios, and thermal breakthrough curves were calculated for each solution found. Tracers investigated in this study were found to perform very well, with small ranges of uncertainty for both thermal breakthrough forecasting and fracture property estimation. This was because the problem was highly constrained by defining the reservoir as a single fracture. For more realistic reservoir models consisting of complex fracture networks, it is expected that the uncertainty ranges would be larger and that all three temperature-sensitive tracers investigated here will outperform conservative solute tracers because their responses contain information about the temperature distribution.Experiments were performed to evaluate several potential nanosensor candidates for their temperaturesensitivity and to investigate particle mobility through porous and fractured media. Temperature-sensitive particles investigated in this study include the irreversible thermochromic, dye-attached silica and silicaprotected DNA particles. A combined heat and flow test confirmed the temperature-sensitivity of the irreversible thermochromic particles by observing the color change. A detectable change in the fluorescent emission spectrum of the dye-attached silica particles upon heating was observed.The processing and detection of silica-encapsulated DNA particles with hydrofluoric acid chemistry was tested. A protocol to release the DNA by disso...

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Development of Models to Simulate Tracer Behavior in Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Cited by 5 publications

References 15 publications

Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Fracture Characterization in Enhanced Geothermal Systems by Wellbore and Reservoir Analysis

Temperature nanotracers for fractured reservoirs characterization

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