Laboratory experiments to characterize cation-exchanging tracer behavior for fracture surface area estimation at Newberry Crater, OR

Dean, Cynthia A.; Reimus, Paul W.; Oates, Jeffrey; Rose, Peter; Newell, Dennis L.; Petty, Susan

doi:10.1016/j.geothermics.2014.05.011

Cited by 16 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Vetter and Crichlow (1979) proposed the use of an adsorbing tracer to overcome limitations of inert tracer tests in the context of geothermal reservoirs. Since then, numerous investigations into practical application of the method have been met with disappointing results (e.g., Breitenbach, 1982;Dean et al, 2015;Horne et al, 1982;Vetter & Zinnow, 1981;Williams et al, 2010Williams et al, , 2013. Broadly, three reasons accounted for the method's failure: (1) poorly constrained reaction parameters; (2) incomplete models for adsorption; and (3) complex fracture fluid/matrix interactions (e.g., Fox & Horne, 1988;Pot & Genty, 2005;Reimus & Callahan, 2007;Reimus et al, 2003;Sullivan et al, 2003;Toride et al, 1993Toride et al, , 1995Vetter & Zinnow, 1981).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Hawkins

Becker

Tester

2018

Water Resources Research

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Field tests in a discrete rock fracture validated a combined inert/adsorbing tracer test method to estimate the contact area between fluids circulating through a fracture and the bulk rock matrix (i.e., flow‐wetted surface area, A). Tracer tests and heat injections occurred at a mesoscale well field in Altona, NY. A subhorizontal bedding plane fracture ∼7.6 m below ground surface connects two wells separated by 14.1 m. Recovery of the adsorbing tracer cesium was roughly 72% less than the inert tracer iodide. Using an advection‐dispersion‐reaction model in one‐dimension, the adsorbing/inert tracer method identified substantial flow channelization. These results are consistent with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and thermal sensors. All characterization methods suggest circulating fluids were concentrated in a narrow, 1–2 m wide channel directly connecting the injection and production well. The inert/adsorbing tracer method identified two flow channels with areas of 28 and 80 m2. A one‐dimensional heat transport model predicted production well temperature rises 20.5°C in 6 days, whereas measured temperature rise was 17.6°C. For comparison, two‐dimensional heat transport through a fracture of uniform aperture (i.e., homogeneous permeability) predicted roughly 670 days until production well temperature would rise 17.6°C. This suggests that the use of a fracture of uniform aperture to predict heat transport may drastically overpredict the thermal performance of a geothermal system. In the context of commercial geothermal reservoirs, the results of this study suggest that combined inert/adsorbing tracer tests could predict production well thermal drawdown, leading to improved reservoir monitoring and management.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Hawkins

Becker

Tester

2018

Water Resources Research

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“…Three different naphthalene disulfonate compounds were used for the conservative tracers and lithium and cesium were used for the sorbing tracers. These tracers were selected based on laboratory experiments at LANL and EGI as described by Dean et al (2013). The flowback phase of the test was delayed until the spring of 2013 because of winter weather conditions and associated access limitations at the site.…”

Section: Newberry Crater Oregonmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The experiments were performed using the above mineral assemblage at temperatures ranging from 125°C to 275°C. A more detailed description of the materials and methods for the experiment can be found in Dean et al (2013).…”

Section: Laboratory Experiments On Selected Tracersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Preliminary TOUGHREACT simulations were developed for fitting the Li + tracer pentamix experiments described in Section 6.2.1 and Dean et al (2013) with a cation-exchange reaction network. The main differences between the pentamix experiments and the trimix experiments was the mineralogy, water chemistry, and temperature.…”

Section: Cation Exchange Reactions Of Pentamix Experiments Using Tougmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development of Models to Simulate Tracer Tests for Characterization of Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Williams¹,

Reimus²,

Vermeul³

et al. 2013

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A comprehensive 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report found that electrical power derived from engineered (or enhanced) geothermal systems (EGSs) "represents a large, indigenous resource that could provide base-load electric power and heat that can have a major impact on the United States, while incurring minimal environmental impacts." EGS resources differ from high-grade hydrothermal resources in that they lack sufficient temperature distribution, permeability/porosity, fluid saturation, or recharge of reservoir fluids. Therefore, quantitative characterization of temperature distributions and the surface area available for heat transfer in EGS is necessary for the design and commercial development of the geothermal energy of a potential EGS site. The goal of this project is to provide integrated tracer and tracer interpretation tools to facilitate this characterization. This project was initially focused on tracer development with the application of perfluorinated tracer (PFT) compounds, non-reactive tracers used in numerous applications from atmospheric transport to underground leak detection, to geothermal systems, and evaluation of encapsulated PFTs that would release tracers at targeted reservoir temperatures. After the 2011 midyear project review and subsequent discussions with the U.S. Department of Energy Geothermal Technology Program, emphasis was shifted to interpretive tool development, testing, and validation. Subsurface modeling capabilities are an important component of this project for both the design of suitable tracers and the interpretation of data from in situ tracer tests, be they single-or multi-well tests.This project was a collaborative effort between Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and the Energy and Geoscience Institute (EGI) at the University of Utah. The project covered a wide array of activities including bench-scale testing of tracers, numerical modeling, interpretation of existing tracer tests, and design and conducting field tracer tests at a demonstration EGS site. The initial PFT development was led by BNL along with high temperature column studies by LANL. Various numerical models described in this study were applied by PNNL and LANL to bench-scale batch and column testing results of conservative and reactive tracers with different mineralogy, temperature regimes, and flow rates. These models were also used to 1) analyze an existing field reactive and conservative tracer test data set at a naturally fractured geothermal site at Soda Lake, Nevada, and 2) design the reactive and conservative tracer tests for an EGS demonstration site near Newberry Crater, Oregon, that was led by Alta Rock Energy, Inc. PNNL and EGI led tracer testing operations during this EGS demonstration that was conducted from October to December 2012. The numerical models developed under this project for the Newberry Crater EGS test will provide a useful tool for interpreting tracer test respon...

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“…Late-time signals from SW as well as inter-well tracer tests are used for parameter estimation for porous-fractured media; this is based on the existence of different parameter sensitivity regimes with increasing residence time (Guimerà and Carrera, 1997;Haggerty et al, 2000;Ghergut et al, 2013b). In geothermal applications, SW tracer methods have been deployed to estimate fractured reservoir parameters using thermosensitive tracers (Nottebohm et al, 2010), sorptive tracers (Rose et al, 2012), and ion-exchange tracers (Dean et al, 2015). Mid-late tracer signals from SW push-pull tests have been considered mainly for the purpose of inflow profiling in multi-zone EGS reservoirs in the NE-German basin (Ghergut et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early-flowback tracer signals for fracture characterization in an EGS developed in deep crystalline and sedimentary formations: a parametric study

2016

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Laboratory experiments to characterize cation-exchanging tracer behavior for fracture surface area estimation at Newberry Crater, OR

Cited by 16 publications

References 15 publications

Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Inert and Adsorptive Tracer Tests for Field Measurement of Flow‐Wetted Surface Area

Development of Models to Simulate Tracer Tests for Characterization of Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Early-flowback tracer signals for fracture characterization in an EGS developed in deep crystalline and sedimentary formations: a parametric study

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