About
About
Events
Graduate Seminar - Dr. Jonny Rutqvist
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location: CPE 2.204
• Speaker: Dr. Jonny Rutqvist, Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• Title of Seminar: “Modeling of Fault Reactivation and Seismicity in CO2 Sequestration and Shale-gas Fracturing”
• Abstract: The presentation summarizes recent numerical simulations of injection-induced fault reactivation and seismicity associated with both underground CO2 injection and hydraulic fracturing of shale-gas reservoirs. Overall, the analysis shows that while the CO2 geologic sequestration in deep sedimentary formations are capable of producing notable events (e.g. magnitude 3 or 4); the likelihood for such felt events is much smaller in the case of shale-gas fracturing. In the case of shale-gas fracturing, the expected low permeability of faults intersecting gas-saturated shales is clearly a limiting factor for the possible rupture length and seismic magnitude. In both CO2 sequestration and shale-gas fracturing, the “brittleness” of the rock is an important factor, which is a site-specific property that should be considered when assessing the likelihood of felt seismicity.
• Biography: Dr. Jonny Rutqvist is a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California. His research is focused on modeling of geomechanics as well as coupled thermal, hydraulic, mechanical and chemical (THMC) processes in geological media for a wide range of geoscientific and geoengineering applications, including geologic carbon sequestration, geothermal energy extraction, gas hydrate production, underground compressed air energy storage, nuclear waste disposal, and shale gas extraction. He is the principal developer of the TOUGH-FLAC simulator, which has turned out to be a very versatile tool for modeling coupled multiphase fluid flow and geomechanics. Using TOUGH-FLAC he was one of the pioneers applying coupled fluid flow and geomechanical modeling to geologic carbon sequestration, such as at the In Salah CO2 storage project, and more recently on the issue of injection-induced seismicity.
