Geochemical detection of carbon dioxide in dilute aquifers

Background  

Carbon storage in deep saline reservoirs has the potential to lower the amount of CO₂ emitted to the atmosphere and to mitigate global warming. Leakage back to the atmosphere through abandoned wells and along faults would reduce the efficiency of carbon storage, possibly leading to health and ecological hazards at the ground surface, and possibly impacting water quality of near-surface dilute aquifers. We use static equilibrium and reactive transport simulations to test the hypothesis that perturbations in water chemistry associated with a CO₂ gas leak into dilute groundwater are important measures for the potential release of CO₂ to the atmosphere. Simulation parameters are constrained by groundwater chemistry, flow, and lithology from the High Plains aquifer. The High Plains aquifer is used to represent a typical sedimentary aquifer overlying a deep CO₂ storage reservoir. Specifically, we address the relationships between CO₂ flux, groundwater flow, detection time and distance. The CO₂ flux ranges from 10³ to 2 × 10⁶ t/yr (0.63 to 1250 t/m²/yr) to assess chemical perturbations resulting from relatively small leaks that may compromise long-term storage, water quality, and surface ecology, and larger leaks characteristic of short-term well failure.