[CCoE Notice] ChBE Seminar: Climate Concern and Energy Perspectives - CO2 for EOR and Unconventional Gas Production by CO2 Sequestration in Hydrates

[Grayson, Audrey A]

ChBE SEMINAR

Climate Concern and Energy Perspectives - CO2 for EOR and Unconventional Gas Production by CO2 Sequestration in Hydrates

Dr. Arne Graue
Department of Physics and Technology
University of Bergen, Norway

Wednesday May 14, 2014, 3 - 4 pm
UH Energy Research Park, Bldg 9, Rm 124

Synopsis of the talk:
Global energy strategies need to reflect current climate conditions. Huge amounts of energy is needed for future generations, thus existing energy production needs to be optimized in an environmental friendly way and new energy resources need to be found. Two aspects of these strategies utilize CO2 as a commodity; CO2 for EOR, or CCUS, and CO2 injection in hydrates; the latter being a win-win situation for CO2 storage with simultaneous natural gas production.

Fundamental research to determine the physical processes and the optimum boundary conditions for these strategies have been successful partially due to application of complementary state of the art in-situ fluid saturation measurement techniques. The research results have determined mechanistic fluid dynamics in heterogeneous porous rocks, illustrating the importance of knowing the in-situ fluid saturation development to determine the kinetics of fluid flow and the fluid displacement mechanisms. Within the field of hydrocarbon recovery, CO2 used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) from fractured oil reservoirs and unconventional natural gas production by CO2 injection in hydrate saturated rocks will be presented. Improved understanding and determination of fundamental mechanistic fluid flow behavior have been obtained utilizing high spatial resolution Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to determine fluid saturation development within and around fractures and the results are compared to complementary experiments using Nuclear Tracer Imaging (NTI) in larger scale laboratory models.