Welcome

Interactive Design of Monitoring Programmes for the Geological Storage of CO2

This Monitoring Selection Tool has been developed to help identify appropriate techniques for monitoring CO2 that has been injected into a geological storage reservoir.

Getting Started

The CO2 Monitoring DSS comprises a separate control panel and results window. The user interface allows you to modify your storage scenario and run the tool from within a single web page. Buttons on the control panel allow you to run your scenario, produce a print‐friendly page of the results window contents and download a CSV file containing the ranked monitoring techniques.

Using the Monitoring Selection Tool

  1. Using the control panel you can define the basic site characteristics of your storage project, in terms of location, reservoir depth, reservoir type and injection rate and duration. Depending on your choice of monitoring package [see point 4 below] it is also possible to select the dominant landuse in the vicinity of the storage site and the stage of project evolution for which monitoring is being considered.

  2. The control panel also allows you to define a set of monitoring aims designed to improve site understanding, predictive modelling and public acceptance. These include CO2 plume imaging, model calibration, and surface leak detection [more]. Most monitoring aims require baseline datasets to be available prior to the start of CO2 injection against which subsequent time‐lapse datasets may be compared.

  3. On submitting the storage scenario specification form you are presented with the ranking of monitoring techniques. Each monitoring technique is assigned a score corresponding to each of the selected monitoring aims. Aim‐specific scores range on a numerical scale from 0 to 4, allowing technique assessment as set out in the table below:

    Aim Score Definition Explanation Colour‐scale
    0 Not applicable The technique cannot be used for the selected aim. Blue
    1 Possibly applicable The technique may be appropriate for the selected aim but is probably of marginal utility. It is unlikely to be a preferred option but may be useful in combination with other methods. Site‐specific conditions or specialised scientific requirements however may call for deployment of the technique. Blue
    2 Probably applicable The technique is likely to be suitable for the storage application, though there are probably other more effective techniques that should also be considered. The technique could be included in a monitoring protocol to provide additional information for a monitoring aim, supplementing other, higher‐ranked techniques. Site‐specific conditions or specialised scientific requirements however may call for deployment of the technique. Orange
    3 Definitely applicable The technique would normally be included to meet a particular monitoring aim and its exclusion may reduce the potential for the aim to be achieved. However, site‐specific conditions may degrade the efficacy of the technique, or even preclude its deployment. Orange
    4 Strongly recommended The technique would normally be regarded as a key element in meeting a particular monitoring aim and its exclusion would reduce the potential for the aim to be achieved. However, site‐specific conditions may degrade the efficacy of the technique, or even preclude its deployment. Red

    A total score for each monitoring technique is also calculated, based on all of the aims selected in the storage scenario. This is normalised to the maximum possible score for the selected monitoring aims to give a percentage "applicability" rating.

    In addition to the numerical scoring scheme, techniques are also assigned a qualitative "traffic‐light" colour‐scale. This is based on the highest score attained across the range of selected aims. Thus, if a technique scores 4 for any individual aim then it is automatically assigned a red traffic light, even if its applicability is quite low. This is to ensure that strongly recommended techniques for any selected monitoring aim are always appropriately identified.

  4. Monitoring packages: deployment of all of the monitoring techniques supplied by the Monitoring Selection Tool is unlikely to be realistic, either logistically or financially. In order to rationalise this, three monitoring package filter options are available to the user: "Core", "Extra" and "All".

    The "All" filter, displays the complete list of potentially useful monitoring technologies. The "Core" and "Extra" filters can be used to evaluate a more realistic range of monitoring options.

    The "Core" monitoring package provides a selection of tools that would be employed to adequately verify that injection and storage were behaving as expected, to identify any deviations from predicted behaviour, and to provide the basis for robust prediction of longer‐term site performance.

    N.B The selected "Core" techniques correspond to the requirements of a generic storage site and will vary according to the particular site setting and the stage of project evolution for which monitoring is being considered.

    The "Extra" monitoring package includes techniques that provide additional, possibly complementary, datasets to the core package. These could be required in the event that observed site behaviour were to deviate from that predicted, or less radically, for supplementary monitoring aims addressing particular scientific or public confidence issues. These would typically include storage efficiency and fine‐scale processes, quantification, seismicity and surface/atmospheric measurements. These techniques would normally be used in addition to those selected from the core package. In particular site‐specific circumstances, "Extra" techniques may appropriately replace one or more of the "Core" techniques.