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Abstract: Commissioned in 2009, the CO2CRC/H3 Capture Project is demonstrating post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) on a lignite fired power plant in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia. The facility is located within International Power’s Hazelwood Power Plant and uses three different CO2 capture technologies — solvent, adsorption and membrane processes. This project, addressing the PCC issues specific for Victorian brown coal fired power stations, was initiated in July 2007 as a three year research project by the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) under the Victorian State Government’s Energy Technology Innovation Strategy (ETIS) program. The project is part of the Latrobe Valley Post Combustion Capture (LVPCC) Project — a multi site, multi scale, multi technology PCC trial. The integrated research and development program includes an evaluation of these technologies for commercial scale application. This paper describes the technologies used, how they have progressed from laboratory to pilot demonstration, the main outcomes, and plans for future developments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The CO2CRC pilot project in the Otway basin of Australia has recently started injecting supercritical CO2 into a depleted gas reservoir, in what is the first geological storage project in the southern hemisphere. For CO2 geological storage to be successful, every effort should be made to ensure that CO2 doesn’t find its way back to the atmosphere for a very long time - possibly centuries. Potable aquifers and other permeable formations (e.g. hydrocarbon deposits) must also be protected against CO2 contamination. Wells are generally recognized as a weak spot in CO2 storage, where containment can break down. This is because cement, steel and elastomers can be corroded by CO2, and the ageing process will be accelerated by any defects in the cement sheath. In particular, containment must be assured across impermeable geologic barriers - the caprock. In Otway’s case, an objective of the project was to contain CO2 below a relatively short shale interval (around 150 ft in length). This represents the primary barrier, backed up by a much longer section higher up the well. This paper discusses how the integration of 3D ultrasonic imaging together with an advanced understanding of cement petrophysical properties brings about a detailed picture of the cement sheath. Caprock properties and borehole detailed shape and features can also be characterized through formation evaluation logging. The actual in-situ cement properties can then be used in a mechanical analysis of the cement-rock-casing system in order to assess the occurrence of cement defects (such as cracks and microannuli). This methodology is applied step-by-step over the short section of cement that must assure isolation across the primary barrier, providing an accurate input to long-term leak models that will estimate the risk to containment over hundreds of years. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper summarises the modelling approach and lessons learnt at the CO2CRC Otway Project Pilot Site and how uncertainties were significantly reduced by utilising a new CO2 injection well for multi-disciplinary formation evaluation. From subsequent data analysis porosity/permeability relationships were better constrained by a depositional facies model. With a better informed geological model, the dynamic simulation results produced an excellent history match with pre and post production data from the depleted gas field. Further more, prediction of the CO2 plume direction and shape, and arrival times of the CO2 at the monitoring well, may now be regarded with a higher degree of confidence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]