Data Assimilation Tools for CO2 Reservoir Model Development ? A Review of Key Data Types, Analyses, and Selected Software

Abstract

Printed in the United States of America AbstractPacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has embarked on an initiative to develop world-class capabilities for performing experimental and computational analyses associated with geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to provide science-based solutions for helping to mitigate the adverse effects of greenhouse gas emissions. This Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) initiative currently has two primary focus areas-advanced experimental methods and computational analysis. The experimental methods focus area involves the development of new experimental capabilities, supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory (EMSL) housed at PNNL, for quantifying mineral reaction kinetics with CO 2 under high temperature and pressure (supercritical) conditions. The computational analysis focus area involves numerical simulation of coupled, multi-scale processes associated with CO 2 sequestration in geologic media, and the development of software to facilitate building and parameterizing conceptual and numerical models of subsurface reservoirs that represent geologic repositories for injected CO 2 . This report describes work in support of the computational analysis focus area.The computational analysis focus area currently consists of several collaborative research projects. These are all focused on the development and application of conceptual and numerical models for geologic sequestration of CO 2 . The software being developed for this focus area is referred to as the Geologic Sequestration Software Suite or GS 3 . A wiki-based software framework is being developed to support GS 3 . This report summarizes work performed in FY09 on one of the LDRD projects in the computational analysis focus area. The title of this project is Data Assimilation Tools for CO 2 Reservoir Model Development. Some key objectives of this project in FY09 were to assess the current state-of-theart in reservoir model development, the data types and analyses that need to be performed in order to develop and parameterize credible and robust reservoir simulation models, and to review existing software that is applicable to these analyses. This report describes this effort and highlights areas in which additional software development, wiki application extensions, or related GS 3 infrastructure development may be warranted. v vii Acknowledgments