Author: Sarah G

The deadline for submitting participation agreements for SPE11 has now passed, and we are very excited to see that more than 40 teams have signed up! These include all relevant sectors, and are spread across the globe. 

Two of the study leads, Professors J. M. Nordbotten and Martin Fernø, are Focus Area Leads and deputy directors of CSSR.

The 46 participants from all corners of the world will be working on their solutions through 2024, with final results due to be submitted in September. After spending the winter analyzing the submissions, the conclusions of the study are expected to be presented at the 2025 SPE Reservoir Simulation Conference. Further details on the study can be found at spe.org/csp.

Background

The 11th Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) comparative solution project (known
as the SPE11), was launched in 2023 at the SPE Reservoir Simulation Conference. The study consists of three datasets built around a common geometry, and is motivated by
the simulation challenges associated with CO₂ storage operations in geological settings typical of the Norwegian continental shelf.

During the development of SPE11, three CSSR partners – NORCE, SLB and Stuttgart University – were involved in the quality control and the testing of the datasets. This pre-launch process allowed reservoir simulation groups from academia and industry to provide feedback on the simulation challenges involved in the SPE11.

The FluidFlower experiment is a powerful experimental and communication tool — making visible what no one has ever seen before. A new video explains what happens to CO₂ stored deep below the ocean’s surface. CSSR centre deputies Martin Fernø (UiB/NORCE) and Jan Martin Nordbotten (UiB/NORCE) explain the context of the experiments.

The video was produced by Wintershall Dea, an industry partner in CSSR.

June 19 – 22, the SIAM Conference on Mathematical & Computational Issues in the Geoscience (GS23) was held in Bergen. The conference was co-chaired by CSSR deputy director Jan Martin Nordbotten. In the Local Organizing Committee, we also recognize many others from the CSSR team: Sarah Gasda, Eirik Keilegavlen and Jakub Both. 

The conference had 350 registered participants from the whole geoscience’s community. At the first day, the FluidFlower experimental rig was in the center of attention both in the icebreaker in the evening, and during several concurrent sessions. During the icebreaker Jan Nordbotten announced the first ever live experiment at a conference venue, as CO2 was injected in the FluidFlower in front of engaged participants! Our partner Wintershall Dea sponsored part of the icebreaker.  

Throughout the week, the CSSR team participated in organizing 4 mini-symposiums, contributed to 15 scientific talks, presented posters, and promoted some of the research being done in our Centre. In addition, all our international partners represented by collogues from Imperial College London, Oregon State University, Stuttgart University, TNO, and TU Delft, contributed to the program. 

The conference demonstrated that the FluidFlower experimental has become an arena for international verification of geological carbon storage simulation capabilities. In addition, much of the centers dedicated research on advanced methods for data-driven modeling in porous media applications was presented through the work of Birane Kane, Jakub Both, Eirik Keilegavlen and others. Our PhD student Peter von Schultzendorff gave a very interesting talk on Two-Phase Flow with a Data-Driven Flux Mode.  

The CSSR team was particularly visible in the mini-symposium on Testing Predictive Capabilities of Geologic CO2 Storage with Meter-Scale Laboratory Experiments, organized by CSSR deputy directors Martin Fernø and Jan Nordbotten. In the same mini-symposium, results from David Landa-Marban on An Open-Source Image-Based History Matching Framework for the FluidFlower Data Set was presented. The CSSR team was also co-organizing a mini symposium on Developing Complex Simulation software, which cumulated in an interesting panel debate where Tor Harald Sandve participated.  

On Tuesday many of the delegates attended an exciting excursion to the Northern Lights CCS site in Øygarden. The conference-dinner on Wednesday was held in the spectacular venue at the Aquarium in Bergen. Overall, an inspiring week with many scientific discussions and highlights.  

Photos by Trine Mykeltvedt and Sergey Alyaev 

Digital rock physics has been in use for the last 30 years as a method to extract petro-physical properties from digital scans of reservoir rocks or reservoir rocks analogs. This is a multi-stage process that includes collection of representative samples, digitalization of the rock’s pore space and numerical simulations of the physical properties we want to study.

One challenge, from the numerical simulation perspective, is that simulating how fluid flows inside the rock is very computational demanding, so that we want to use fast fluid solvers. A problem with these solvers for intermittent flooding scenarios is that they exaggerate compressible effects in fluid simulations for complex geometries, like porous media, and can even induce spurious acoustic phenomena.

The top subfigure shows the magnitude of a force field representing a pressure driven flow. Note how the force magnitude adapts to the pore geometry. The bottom subfigure shows the associated velocity field.

A standard method to remove these unwanted effects is to use an implicit numerical solver, which is the natural choice for stationary problems. However, for dynamic systems, where boundary pressures and/or fluxes change rapidly, implicit solvers can impose a heavy computational burden.

Our method is a generalization of the well-established forcing method, which is used to induce flow where the inlet and outlet are positioned opposite of each other in a regular computational domain. In this paper, we show that our method performs well for general complex geometries with multiple open boundaries. We also show that our method improves the simulation of systems where the standard forcing scheme is applicable. The only increase in computational time is during the initialization step, so there are no additional costs at run-time.

Jettestuen, Espen; Aursjø, Olav; Vinningland, Jan Ludvig; Hiorth, Aksel. A generalized bodyforce scheme for lattice Boltzmann simulations of incompressible flow in complex geometries. Physics of Fluids, 35, (2023).

Over the last 2 years, CSSR deputy directors Martin Fernø (UiB/NORCE) and Jan Martin Nordbotten (UiB/NORCE), together with their research groups, have worked on developing the FluidFlower experimental rig to become an arena for international verification of geological carbon storage simulation capabilities.

This work is now culminating in a special issue of the journal Transport in Porous Media, with 15 contributed papers currently under review from around the world. The CSSR team is involved in seven of these papers, including the centerpieces of the effort. The interdisciplinary collaborative effort is a double-blind forecasting and validation study, where nine academic research groups active in numerical simulation of carbon storage from around the world forecasted the outcome of a carefully curated carbon storage operation in the FluidFlower (Flemisch et al.). The forecasting and validation study is made possible through a suite of laboratory work, involving petrophysical characterization and experiments, documented in detail to be available as a resource for carbon storage modelers worldwide (Fernø et al.). To bridge the gap between laboratory measurements and simulation technology required the development of DarSIA, a dedicated image analysis toolbox for porous media which has been released open-source (Nordbotten et al.).

The core papers mentioned above are supported by additional papers on the experimental methodology (Eikehaug et al.), detailed supporting experimental data (Haugen et al.) and the value of field-pilot type training data for operational forecasting (Saló-Salgado et al.). The final piece of the puzzle is showing how the learnings at the lab scale translate to the field scale, as analyzed by Tony Kovscek of Stanford University, who spent his sabbatical visiting Bergen during the fall of 2022 (Kovscek et al.).  

A new review is published on subsurface CO₂ and H₂ storage: ‘Subsurface carbon dioxide & hydrogen storage for a sustainable energy future‘ from Krevor et al., in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.. This is a forward looking review where we evaluate the feasibility of expanding subsurface CO₂ storage into a global-scale business, and translate lessons to H₂ storage.  

Article for download: https://lnkd.in/egr7z8PQ
And freely available to read: https://rdcu.be/c3LE5

CCS is poised for widespread deployment, and it will happen fast if we have any chance of tracking IPCC pathways. What’s the hold-up? CO₂ storage capacity has historically lagged behind capture capacity by 7-10 years. 96% of the worldwide storage potential is undiscovered. For Europe that translates to 172 Gt of storage waiting to be developed. There are no technical showstoppers here. Industry and research need to work together to make more headway on assessment of new storage sites. 

The paper provides an overview on:

➡ CCS Monitoring Technologies
➡ CCS Business Models 
➡ Analogies and Differences between CCS and Hydrogen
➡ The importance of social licenses to operate these technologies
➡ Ways for communities & governments to work together

Contributions by CSSR researchers: Sarah Gasda (NORCE) and Hadi Hajibeygi (TU Delft).

The news agency Deutsche Welle (DW) was in Norway covering the official opening of the Northern Lights visitors centre and stopped by NORCE to hear the perspectives of carbon storage experts on how CCS can help reduce emissions safely and effectively. The reporters viewed new simulation results of the FluidFlower study also took a tour of the lab where CO₂ storage experiments are conducted.

Watch the video report to hear excerpts of the expert interview with Sarah Gasda, CSSR director. Many thanks to Ketil Djurhuus, Morten Aara and David Landa Marban for supporting the site visit.

Date: November 15, 2022

Reporter: Max Zander, DW

Original story link

The annual seminar gathers representatives from research, academia, industry and the public sector from the greater Bergen region. A diverse and exciting two-day program highlighted cutting edge research and industrial innovations that will help accelerate deployment of CCUS technology in western Norway. Participants also had the unique opportunity to visit the Northern Lights site and hear the latest updates of the groundbreaking project.

The main message from participants is despite tremendous progress in recent years, time is running out! We need to move fast, we need to work together, and we need to innovate to reduce costs.

The seminar was organized by NORCE and University of Bergen (UiB) in collaboration with Energiomstilling Vest, Grøn Region Vestland, Øygarden næringsutvikling KF, Gassnova SF og Bergen kommune. Read more on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7001834278216962048/