Techno-Economic Aspects of Noble Gases as Monitoring Tracers

Abstract

A comprehensive monitoring program is an integral part of the safe operation of geological CO2 storage projects. Noble gases can be used as geochemical tracers to detect a CO2 anomaly and identify its origin, since they display unique signatures in the injected CO2 and naturally occurring geological fluids and gases of the storage site complex. In this study, we assess and demonstrate the suitability of noble gases in source identification of CO2 anomalies even when natural variability and analytical uncertainties are considered. Explicitly, injected CO2 becomes distinguishable from shallow fluids (e.g., subsea gas seeps) due to its inheritance of the radiogenic signature (e.g., high He) of deep crustal fluids by equilibration with the formation water. This equilibration also results in the CO2 inheriting a distinct Xe concentration and Xe/noble gas elemental ratios, which enable the CO2 to be differentiated from deep crustal hydrocarbon gases that may be in the vicinity of a storage reservoir. However, the derivation has uncertainties that may make the latter distinction less reliable. These uncertainties would be best and most economically addressed by coinjection of Xe with a distinct isotope ratio into the CO2 stream. However, such a tracer addition would add significant cost to monitoring programs of currently operating storage projects by up to 70% (i.e., from 1 $US/t to 1.7 $US/t).