ABSTRACT:

The Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes (CESEP) conducted an intermediate-scale laboratory experiment to validate a developed approach for designing control systems for the potential brine leakage from CO2 storage zones. The developed approach applies the technique of deep brine extraction to control the leakage, thus it incorporates the global optimizer of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and a FEFLOW-based transport model to find the best extraction locations in the storage zone that minimizes the needed amount of extracted brine. In an ~8m long soil tank, a brine leakage plume was controlled using the extraction system designed based on the GA results. Collected data was then used to first make sure that the GA results and boundary conditions were accurately applied in the experiment and second to evaluate whether the observed plume concentrations in the shallow aquifer met the predefined constraining limits in the optimization problem. Acquired data during the experiment included transient measurements of the injection and extraction flow rates as well as plume concentrations. The conducted experiment and the testing system are described in detail in a research article developed by the dataset authors and entitled "Monitoring Brine Leakage from Deep Geologic Formations Storing Carbon Dioxide: Design Framework Validation Using Intermediate-Scale Experiment". For any questions, users are referred to the data owners.

ABSTRACT:

The Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes (CESEP) conducted an intermediate-scale laboratory experiment to validate a developed framework for designing CO2-sequesteration monitoring systems based on using brine leakage as an early indictor for CO2 leakage. The developed framework incorporates the linear uncertainty analysis tool in PEST with the global optimizer of Genetic Algorithm and a FEFLOW-based transport model to find the best monitoring locations to detect the leakage and provide the designer with useful data to make remediation-related predictions. In an ~8m long soil tank, a brine leakage plume from the storage zone to the shallow aquifer was monitored using the system designed by this framework. The collected high-resolution data was then used to calibrate the model and make the predictions of interest, which were eventually compared to experimental measurements to evaluate the data informativity and thus validate the framework applicability. Acquired data from the monitoring system included transient measurements of the hydraulic heads and plume concentrations. In additions, the tracer injection rates, tank inflows and outflows were also measured. The conducted experiment and the testing system are described in detail in a research article developed by the dataset authors and entitled "Monitoring Brine Leakage from Deep Geologic Formations Storing Carbon Dioxide: Design Framework Validation Using Intermediate-Scale Experiment". For any questions, users are referred to the data owners.

ABSTRACT:

The Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes (CESEP) conducted three intermediate-scale laboratory experiments to generate high-resolution spatiotemporal data on the development of brine leakage plume from CO2 geological storage. The brine plume migration was simulated from a deep geological storage to a shallow aquifer and across multiple intermediate formations. Instead of creating a large vertical testing system to conduct this simulation, the experiments were performed in a horizontal long soil tank with internal dimensions of 800cm ⨉ 123cm ⨉ 6.5-8.0cm (length ⨉ height ⨉ width). In this tank, the brine surrogate (NaBr Tracer) was injected at sufficiently low concentrations to avoid creating a significant density contrast between the leakage plume and the background water, which can result in a vertical sinking of the plume. Collected data included transient measurements of the hydraulic heads and plume concentrations at different locations at the system. In additions, the tracer injection rates, tank inflows and outflows were also measured and reported. The three conducted experiments and the testing system are described in detail in a research article developed by the dataset authors and entitled "Exploring the Impact of Uncertainties in Source Conditions on Brine Leakage Prediction from Geologic Storage of CO2: Intermediate-Scale Laboratory Testing". For any questions, users are referred to the data owners.

ABSTRACT:

The Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes (CESEP) operates and conducts research at a large scale coupled wind tunnel-porous media test facility located at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. The facility consists of a closed-circuit, climate-controlled (i.e., relative humidity 5 to 95%, air temperature -2 to 45 deg. C, soil temperature -4 to 35 deg. C, grow lights), low wind speed (<10 m/s) wind tunnel that is interfaced along the centerline of it's test-section with a large soil tank (inner dimensions l x w x d = 7.15 x 0.11 x 1.1 m). Climate conditions are manually set and automatically maintained using a variety of climate controls. The soil tank and test section are outfitted with a variety of sensors for the continuous measurement of key atmospheric and subsurface state variables. This resource contains the raw data from a series of bare-soil evaporation experiments conducted under varying subsurface and surface conditions by the shown research team. The test-facility is described in detail and these experimental results are analyzed in a manuscript entitled "Experimental testing scale considerations for the investigation of bare-soil evaporation dynamics in the presence of sustained above-ground airflow" published in Water Resources Research. For questions regarding the test-facility or possible collaboration involving the facility, interested parties are referred to the CESEP website (www.cesep.mines.edu) and CESEP director, Dr. Tissa Illangasekare.