Item

Abstract

The geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) is the last link in the chain of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). CCS is, globally, regarded as one of the measures which need to be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming below 2°C, as agreed during the 2015 climate conference in Paris (COP21). During the past two decades, various storage projects at different scales were initiated, such as the Sleipner project in the Norwegian North Sea (commercial scale), the Illinois Decatur project (demo scale) or the Ketzin pilot site (pilot scale). As the first European onshore storage project, the Ketzin pilot site provided ideal conditions for demonstrating and testing a wide range of monitoring approaches. One of them was 4D seismic monitoring which was able to visualize the lateral propagation of the stored CO2 in the reservoir successfully. Monitoring data, such as the results of the seismic surveys, and reservoir pressure observations were used for setting up reservoir models as a basis for coupled process simulations at various time scales, enabling to predict long-term reservoir stabilization and to provide quantitative estimations of trapping mechanisms contributing to long-term stability.