UU – Uppsala University

Person in charge: Professor Auli Niemi

Profile:

Department of Earth Sciences Department of Earth Sciences comprises research from geology and geophysics to hydrology http://www.geo.uu.se , being one of the largest Earth Sciences Departments in Scandinavia. Geological storage of CO2 is a major overlapping research areas of the department, comprising activities from the different disciplines, e.g. receiving ‘excellence research´ funding from the National Research Council. The project will be mainly placed within the Program of Air, Water and Landscape Sciences (LUVAL) and partly, for the part of seismic monitoring, within the program of Geophysics. The contact person was previously head of the LUVAL program, but resigned in order to coordinate the ongoing large scale integrating EU FP7 project MUSTANG (www.co2mustang.eu) for CO2 geological storage in saline formations (2009–2013).
The external funding to Earth Sciences Programs comes e.g. from National Research Councils (VR, FORMAS), EU (CO2SINK, MUSTANG, PANACEA, CO2CARE etc), national sector foundations as well as from private sector. The facilities and equipment comprise a hydrological laboratory, chemistry laboratory, laboratory facilities to observe CO2 behavior (two–phase flow, dissolution etc) in heterogeneous in analogue systems, significant geophysical instrumentation (including 60 permanent seismological stations, a 312 channel reflection seismic instrument (408UL), about 15 portable 3comp seismometers and a number of electromagnetic instruments., a computer network, and extensive modeling software. Most significantly, the group is in collaboration with EWRE (another partner in this proposal) installing major monitoring equipment into the deep injection/monitoring wells of the Heletz experiment, which equipment is owned by UU.

Relevant Expertise:

Subsurface hydrology, groundwater modeling, site characterization, multiphase flow, coupled processes, geophysics, seismic monitoring, heterogeneity and up–scaling, probabilistic modeling, coupled processes investigation of deep disposal of liquid waste, including CO2. Thermo–hydro–mechanical coupling of CO2 storage as well as natural analogue studies. Deep involvement in CO2 storage work, e.g. coordination of MUSTANG (www.co2mustang.eu).

Contribution:

The group will be responsible (i) parts of modeling and model development (Includign WP leader), in particular the multiphase–multicomponent, coupled processes and upscaling aspects and (ii) development of improved seismic monitoring. As coordinator of MUSTANG the partner will be important link to this project

Key Personnel:

Prof. Auli Niemi is Professor in Groundwater Modeling and is heading the geohydrology research at UU, Dept Earth Sciences. Over 25 yrs of experience on various aspects of geohydrology, including multiphase modeling, upcaling, site characterization. Coordinator of MUSTANG (EU FP7 program for CO2 geological storage) including major role in designing the Heletz CO2 injection experiment, together with EWRE. Scientific visibility e.g.: Convening major CO2 sessions in EGU, 2011 and 2012; Member of EASAC working group on CCS; Member of the editorial board of IJGHG etc.; Main responsible of the UU work in this project.
Prof. Christofer Juhlin is Professor in Geophysics at Uppsala and adjunct professor at Curtin University of Technology. Experience from many large projects, including the Swedish Deep Gas Drilling Project, nuclear waste storage, various Europrobe projects, and number of international CO2 projects such as CO2SINK, CO2CARE and MUSTANG. Head of the SwedSTORECO2 project.
Prof Chin–Fu Tsang (Senior Staff Scientist emeritus, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, visiting professor at Uppsala) is one of the foremost experts in the world in the field of modeling of coupled processes and fractured media. Extensive experience in THMC processes, high-level experience on several aspects of CO2 storage including the far field impacts and pressure plume. Relevant visibility e.g. by co-chairing intnl. workshop in CO2 storage (CO2SC 2006) held in Berkeley, USA. Will participate in supervisory role to pressure plume/far field impacts studies and hydromechanical (coupling) studies.
Dr. Fritjof Fagerlund is an Assistant Professor with experience in particular in multi–phase modeling, and his position is especially directed towards CO2 storage. Major experience in modeling the CO2 geological storage in particular as part of the design simulations of the Heletz injection experiment.
Dr. Prabhakar Sharma is an Assistant Professor with emphasis in experimental hydrology. He will give support to hydrological data analysis from Heletz.
In addition, there area number of PhD. students and PostDocs actively working with CO2 geological storage research and will contribute with their participation and support to this project.
We will hire a new PostDoc on geohydroloigcal work and one on geophysical work to participate to this project.
More detailed descriptions of the group and the persons can be found here (geohydrology) and here (seismic geophysics)

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Person in charge: Professor Jacob Bear

Profile:

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public research university in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1912, Technion is the oldest university in Israel. The university offers degrees in science and engineering, and related fields such as architecture, medicine, industrial management and education

Relevant Expertise:

Relevant to this projects are its experts in the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering/division of hydrodynamics and water resources, and the department of Mechanical engineering. Specifically, these departments include experts in:  
(1) Modelling phenomena of transport in porous media;
(2) Hydrology and hydraulics of groundwater;
(3) Management of water resources
(4) Chemical engineering
(5) Hydrodynamics and thermodynamics.
(6) Geo–Mechanics.
(7) Energy systems (information systems engineering).

Contribution:

Leading the activities in WP5. research leading to identification of all relevant flow, reactive transport, thermodynamic and geo–mechanic processes, analyzing them and eventually incorporating them in a comprehensive flow and transport model that will be used for analyzing CO2 sequestration in geological formations.

Key Personnel:

Jacob Bear Professor (Emeritus) of Hydrology, Hydrogeology in the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the Technion – Israel Institute. Of technology, Israel. His research and publication activities are covering the areas of: Hydrology of groundwater; Modelling flow and contaminant transport in aquifers; Management of water resources systems, especially aquifers; Phenomena of transport in porous media; Focus on the development of numerical tools (double continuum model); The quantification of flow processes in the fractured–porous fractured unsaturated zone as well as the characterisation of the aquifer geometries and hydraulic parameters. Further expertise in the area of water resources assessment in arid and semi–arid areas, infiltration processes in unsaturated fractured systems and the characterisation of geothermal reservoirs with tracer experiments.

UGOE – University of Göttingen, Geoscience Center (GZG)

Person in charge: Prof. Dr. Martin Sauter

Profile:

The Chair of Applied Geology at the Geosciences Centre in Göttingen was established in 2002 with a special focus on the hydrogeology of fractured aquifers and is now recognized to be a renowned institution in this field. Today it comprises approximately 45 personnel including two professors, 5 faculty and staff members, 13 post doctorate students, 19 Ph.D. students and 15 M.Sc. students, (http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/8483.html). Research and teaching at the Chair of Applied Geology is divided into seven groundwater orientated thematic groups placing an emphasis on subsurface investigation and characterization, modelling, exploitation of geothermal energy, hydro-geochemistry, risk assessment and remediation of contamination as a result of industrial activities

Relevant Expertise:

1) Long-term expertise in the characterization of fractured porous groundwater systems.
2) Subsurface investigation al laboratory scale, column experiments.
3) Subsurface investigation at field scale using hydraulic, tracer testing and borehole geophysical methods at large depths (4–5000 m).
4) Hydro-geochemistry, analytical techniques.
5) Numerical modelling of flow and reactive transport.

Contribution:

pscaling the experiment results to industrial scale; Development of KIS-Tracers; Modelling of CO2 storage processes in the subsurface; Risk-assessment.

Key Personnel:

Martin Sauter: Professor of Applied Geology at the GZG; focus on the development of numerical tools (double continuum model), quantification of flow processes in fractured–porous fractured unsaturated zone as well as the characterisation of the aquifer geometries and hydraulic parameters. Further expertise in the area of water resources assessment in arid and semi-arid areas, infiltration processes in unsaturated fractured systems and the characterisation of geothermal reservoirs with tracer experiments.
Tobias Licha: M.Sc. (1998) on Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry and Hydrogeology at the University College London, Ph.D. (2002) on „Short chained alkylphenols in groundwater- Chemical analysis, Adsorption Mechanism and Field Cases“. Currently head of the hydrochemical laboratories at GZG. Main research is on transport behavior of soluble organics, reactive tracers and instrumental organic analysis.
Thomas Ptak: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Ptak leads the groundwater research group at the Department of Applied Geology in Göttingen. He received his Diploma in civil engineering from the University of Karlsruhe, the Ph.D. degree from the University of Stuttgart. His work mainly focuses on the development of subsurface investigation methods, multilevel groundwater sampling technology, measuring equipment, quantification of natural attenuation processes, and numerical stochastic transport modelling techniques, which are based on geostatistical approaches.
Tatomir, Alexandru: Dr. A. Tatomir is a PostDoc in the Applied Geology Department at University of Göttingen. Ph.D. (2012) at the University of Stuttgart developing conceptual and numerical models for multiphase flow in fractured porous media. Main research interests are on up-scaling, flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media, code development, designing and modeling of tracer tests.

CSIC – National Research Council of Spain

Person in charge: Jesus Carrera Ramirez

Profile:

Spanish national network of research institutes. The team participating in MUSTANG comprises two groups: Hydrogeology (GHS with an associate unit at the Technical University of Catalonia, UPC – 6 professors and 20 investigators) and Environmental Geochemistry (GQA – 3 senior researchers and some 10 doctoral and post–doctoral assistants). It combines experience on Groundwater and Geochemistry, including the characterization of permeable media by means of hydraulic, hydro–chemical and environmental isotope data, solids and aqueous solutions and the quantitative assessment of water–rock interactions, with special emphasis on low permeability fractured media. Development of numerical modelling techniques and other part work in data acquisition both in the field (down–hole logging and monitoring equipment) and in the lab (access to XRD, TEM, AFM, etc). The group has a long record of collaboration on both publicly and privately funded projects, including more than 15 EU projects.

Relevant Expertise:

Code development: Single and Multiphase flow coupled to soil deformation under nonisothermal conditions, Reactive transport, parameter estimation. Modelling; nonisothermal single and multiphase flow, reactive transport processes for soil decontamination, multi-component gaseous transport in fractured media. Field Testing; Hydraulic and tracer testing in saturated and non saturated media and monitoring of hydraulic and reactive transport for low permeability fractured media. Laboratory testing; single and multiphase “flow–through” experiments, tests for reactive processes. Characterization; hydraulic parameters (retention and relative permeability), solid characterization (DFX, SEM, AFM,…), water samples extraction by squeezing and dilution. Currently working on several mayor Spanish (CIUDEN) and EU (MUSTANG. PANACEA) projects on CO2 geological storage.

Contribution:

Processes, Modelling, Integration

Resources:

Laboratory for experiments on fluid-rock interactions, fluid and solid analyses, access to supercomputing facilities for numerical modelling, access to Hontomin field data.

Key Personnel

Jesus Carrera: Ph.D. Univ. Arizona (1984). Professor at UPC until 2006, vice -president for research of the university (1994-1998). Leads a research group in groundwater hydrology of about 30 people that has developed 6 codes to model flow, transport, conjunctive management of surface and groundwater, network design, multiphase nonisothermal flow and reactive transport. These been applied to a wide set of problems. Coauthored more than 300 publications, including more than 70 in international refereed journals.
Jordi Cama: Ph.D. Geology, University of Barcelona, Spain (1998); Researcher at IDAEA, laboratory measurement of mineral dissolution kinetics, CO2-brine-rock interactions, passive treatment of contaminated waters, natural attenuation proceses.
Josep M. Soler: Professor, geologist (Ph.D. 1997 Yale University); Reactive transport modelling applied to weathering and bauxite formation, effect of hyperalkaline solutions on rocks hosting repositories for radioactive waste, diffusion and sorption in clay formations, coupled transport phenomena.
Marco Dentz: Doctor of Natural Sciences, Rupertus Carola University of Heidelberg, 2000; Stochastic processes, Transport theory, Up-scaling, Non-linear dynamics, Flow and transport in heterogeneous formations, Subsurface hydrology.

Collaborators from UPC:
Maarten W. Saaltink: Ph.D. UPC, Spain (1999); Interpretation of pumping and tracer tests in fractured media, development of finite element reactive transport model codes, numerical and computational behaviour of solution methods for reactive transport model codes, numerical modelling of reactive transport.
Tobias S. Rötting: Ph.D. UPC, Spain (2007); Researcher at UPC, Passive remediation of acid mine drainage and other waters with high metal concentrations, CO2-brine-rock interactions, Reactive transport modelling, Geostatistical inverse modelling of groundwater flow, Multilevel groundwater sampling techniques, Sustainable water management, Science-policy interactions.

CNRS– Géosciences Montpellier

Person in charge: Philippe Pezard

Profile:

Géosciences Montpellier (CNRS): 70 scientists with expertise from geochemistry to hydrology, 40 engineers and technicians, and 50 postdoc and PhD students. Scientific approaches including field measurements, laboratory experiments and quantitative modelling of (hydro)geologic processes. Ongoing projects include: (i) quantifying heterogeneities at all scales, (ii) determining temporal changes in hydrologic systems and the application of this knowledge to the remediation of pollution; (iii) diffusion and transport in sedimentary rocks; (iv) experimental and modelling studies of dissolution and precipitation during CO2 injection into geologic systems in cooperation with several industrial programs and the French National Research Agency and (v) borehole hydrogeophysical monitoring systems. Geosciences was ranked in 2010 at the highest level (A+) by the national evaluation commission (AERES).

Relevant Expertise:

Coordinator of numerous fundamental and applied research programs, including recently the ALIANCE European project, the group has partnerships with a variety of technologic partners including the CEA (the French Nuclear Research Agency), IRSN (the French Institute for radioactivity protection, TOTAL and SMEs. Its
experimental know-how and analytical expertise make it one of the leading
laboratories in the coupling of fluid-rock interaction with fluid flow and
hydrodynamics. The team is also strongly involved in three other projects at European scale, focusing on geothermal energy (HiTI) and CCS (CARBFIX, MUSTANG and PANACEA). CNRS is also developing monitoring and downhole geophysical and hydro-geological tools. At laboratory scale, CNRS has developed percolation benches for specific application to underground CO2 storage (the  ICARE LAB. Platform).

Contribution:

Laboratory experiments for developing remediation fluids. Monitoring strategy and monitoring data analysis (surface and downhole). Field applications (RTS monitoring and remediation experiment at Heletz). Training. Coordination of WP03 & WP06.

Resources:

High-tech laboratory equipment for performing percolation experiments up to 200°C – 20MPa and petrophysic analyses. Fluid and rock analysis (ICPMS-HR/Laser, ICP-AES, BEM, EBSD, Raman,XRD, AFM, …). Micro-tomograhy data analysis platform. CFD and flow-transport-reactions simulation tools and parallel computing resources.
Workbench for development/test/calibration of borehole logging and monitoring equipment. Experimental site for low depth CO2 injection (monitoring tool testing).

Key Personnel

Philippe Pezard: Ph.D from Columbia U., New York, (1990) and Head Research Scientist at CNRS. Former president of the French research group for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP; 2000 - 2003). Main research topics are petrophysical properties of rocks, geophysics, fluid flow and stress field analyses in the subsurface and monitoring devices development. Co-author of more than 100 publications, including 72 in international refereed journals.
Philippe Gouze: Ph.D in quantitative hydrology (1993) from the U. of Paris UPMC under the direction of G. de Marsily. Full time researcher CNRS from 1995. Head of the Transport in Porous Media group (29 peoples) part of the Geosciences research unit. His research works focus on groundwater and reservoirs modelling with emphasis on reactive transport and experimental characterization of flow, transport and reactions from laboratory scale to field scale. He co-authored more than 70 publications, including more than 45 in international refereed journals.

IMAGEAU –instrumentation du sous-sol

Person in charge: Laurent DEPRAZ

Profile:

Created in 2008, IMAGEAU is a start-up company specialized in the domain of subsurface instrumentation, particularly based on geophysical and hydrological methods. It is an SME with 10 employees, with individuals exceeding individually 20 years of experience in the domains of geophysics, downhole geophysical and hydrological methods, instrumentation and permanent observatories.

Relevant Expertise:

IMAGEAU is the exclusive owner of a patent (N° 06 09965 in France, with pending extension at European scale) dedicated to subsurface instrumentation from boreholes with hydrogeophysical methods. The project head engineer has experience in the domain of geophysical instrumentation and software development for the past 20 years. The head scientist for IMAGEAU, electrical engineer and PhD, has over 25 years of experience in Earth sciences and, particularly, borehole geophysics, environmental applications and instrumentation. Coordinator the ALIANCE European project (FP5), he has been a participant to the FP6 “HITI” project coordinated by ISOR (Iceland) and is a now a participant to the FP7 “MUSTANG” project coordinated by ISOR (Iceland). IMAGEAU field experimental knowledge and analytical expertise makes it one of the leading SME in downhole geophysical instrumentation. IMAGEAU has partnerships and contracts with a number of French and European research bodies (CNRS, BRGM, SINTEF, Environmental Ministry of Baleares), and international companies (Schlumberger, TOTAL, VEOLIA, SOLVAY, Bureau Veritas).

Contribution:

Design, construction and field deployment of the “RTSG” (resistivity/ temperature/ strain/ gas) downhole electrical resistivity observatory equipped with fiber optical sensors in the context of the geophysical monitoring experiment at the Maguelone site (Languedoc, France).

Resources:

Logging tools and associated equipments (truck, winch, cable, …) for field deployment and calibration of downhole observatories.

Key Personnel

Denis NEYENS: Head engineer - Instrument design & construction
Simon BARRY: Field geophysical engineer
Jean-Philippe BELLOT: Hydrogeologist
Philippe PEZARD: Head scientist
Laurent DEPRAZ: Project manager

UCAM

Person in charge: Herbert Huppert

Profile:

1989- Professor of Theoretical Geophysics and Foundation Director of the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics, University of Cambridge.
FRS since 1987.
Fellow of American Geophysical Union and American Physical Society.
2006-2011 Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.
2011 Bakerian Prize Lecture of the Royal Society on ‘Carbon storage: caught between a rock and climate change.
Author or co-author of approximately 230 scientific research papers discussing applied mathematics, crystal growth, fluid mechanics, geology, geophysics, oceanography, meteorology and science in general, with a total of over 8000 citations and an h index of 49.
BSc (Hons, Sydney)    MA (Cantab)    Ph.D. (California)
MS (California)    MSc (Australian National)    Sc.D. (Cantab)

Relevant Expertise:

Huppert’s research has been in many areas of quantitative fluid mechanics. His approach can be categorised as building nonlinear mathematical models, which require analytical, approximate or numerical solution, and comparing the results with specially designed laboratory experiments. He then extrapolates these new concepts to describe quantitatively large-scale natural events and industrial situations. Some five years ago he started working on carbon dioxide storage, presenting one of the first models to determine how far the storage pool, trapped by an impermeable cap rock, would extend with time. He then developed the initial models to calculate leakage times and dissolution rates. He is the author or co-author of over 235 papers, which have been published mainly in leading international journals devoted to aspects of fluid mechanics and applied mathematics.

Contribution:

Will conduct numerical and analytical investigations in broad areas relevant to carbon dioxide storage, confirmed by simple desk-top experiments. Will investigate and bring order to data from large-scale field experiments around the world.

Resources:

DAMTP has one of the best laboratories worldwide specialising in the investigation of small-scale fluid-dynamical systems. There are three permanent technicians employed in the laboratory, in addition to two part-timers. There is a considerable amount of experimental equipment, and more can be made in the attached machine shop, which has allowed many investigations of different types to be undertaken. The lab is under the directorship of Dr Stuart Dalziel, who is aided in this task by Prof. Paul Linden FRS, the recently appointed G. I. Taylor Professor, who has extensive experience over a whole range of environmental problems.

Key Personnel

Herbert Huppert
Jerome Neufeld
Neufeld is a recently appointed lecturer at the University of Cambridge. His appointment is equally split between the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, the BP Institute and the Department of Earth Sciences. He has performed innovative work on the melting of the base of an ice sheet due to an adjacent shear current, the solidification of binary alloys and recently on carbon dioxide sequestrations. He has been intimately involved in the investigations and resulting scientific papers on effects of leakage and dissolution. He has developed general models of the microstructure of crystalline arrays and how they are influenced by flows both internally and externally.

VIBROMETRIC Oy COSMA

Person in charge: Calin Cosma

Profile:

Vibrometric Oy is a consulting, R & D company specialised in geophysical studies for engineering, mining and environment. The company offers integrated contractual and / or consulting services, based on a range of hardware and software tools of proprietary design, the results from sustained R & D activity over two decades. In particular, Vibrometric has provided notable contributions to the development of small scale and deep seismic imaging methods and techniques. Since 1986, The company is based in Helsinki, Finland since 1986 (www.vibrometric.com).

Relevant Expertise:

Areas of expertise and fields of application include: site characterisation (prediction of weak zones and faults, rock quality assessment); mining (ore prospecting and delineation, mapping of ore bodies and seams); oil (fractured reservoir characterisation, 3D fracture mapping from VSP data) tunnels (prediction of rock anomalies ahead of works) & location of old shafts, drifts, caverns; nuclear and hydroelectric power plants (foundation and underground facilities); ground engineering & control of man-made structures; dams and dam sites (detection of leakage, mapping of karsts, checking of grout injection, etc.); bridges (detection of fissures, sand pockets and unconsolidated concrete); chemical and radioactive waste and chemicals, water resources, environmental contamination); storage for oil, gas, hot water

Contribution:

Vibrometric Oy is a consulting, R & D company specialised in geophysical studies for engineering, mining and environment. The company offers integrated contractual and / or consulting services, based on a range of hardware and software tools of proprietary design, the results from sustained R & D activity over two decades. In particular, Vibrometric has provided notable contributions to the development of small scale and deep seismic imaging methods and techniques. Since 1986, The company is based in Helsinki, Finland since 1986 (www.vibrometric.com).

Resources:

A wide range of hardware and software tools for seismic investigations. These are of proprietary design, resulted from a sustained R&D activity of more than two decades.

Key Personnel

Calin Cosma, president of Vibrometric Oy, has a broad international background in the development of specialised geophysical tools and geophysical surveying. He holds a PhD in physics. He has worked on several large projects, including the national and international programs for nuclear waste storage characterisation, various mining projects, and recently, the CO2SINK and MUSTANG EU funded projects for CO2 storage characterisation.
Nicoleta Enescu, Ph.D., specialized is signal processing and interpretation focused on seismic imaging from surface and boreholes. She has worked on several large projects, including the CO2SINK and MUSTANG EU funded projects for CO2 storage characterisation.

IMPCOL - Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine

Person in charge: Robert W. Zimmerman

Profile:

Imperial College is generally ranked among the top twenty universities in the world, and the top five in Europe (according to Times Higher Education, 2011: 9th in world, 3rd in Europe). The Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College is a world leader in modelling mechanical, hydrological and chemical processes occurring in the subsurface. The department has 45 full-time permanent academic staff, 57 post-doctoral researchers, 148 PhD students, and includes two member of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering. The group involved in the TRUST proposal has a long record of collaboration on both publicly and privately funded projects, including five EU projects, and numerous projects funded by major oil and mining companies.

Relevant Expertise:

The Imperial College team has extensive experience in both analytical and numerical modelling of subsurface geomechanical processes. Of particular relevance to the present project is the development of a proprietary two- and three-dimensional geomechanics simulation tool, in the form of an object-oriented finite element-based library for fracture propagation. The library is fully integrated into the CSMP++ multiphysics modelling Application Programming Interface, developed jointly with ETH Zurich.

Contribution:

Numerical modelling of geomechanical processes.

Resources:

Extensive in-house computer software for hydrogeomechanical process modelling, access to supercomputing facilities for numerical modelling.

Key Personnel

Robert Zimmerman: B.S., Columbia University, 1977; M.S., Columbia University, 1979; Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, 1984. He has been a lecturer at UC Berkeley, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Head of the Division of Engineering Geology and Geophysics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Since 2008 he has been Professor of Rock mechanics at Imperial College. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, and is on the Editorial Boards of Transport in Porous Media and the International Journal of Engineering Science. He is the author of the monograph Compressibility of Sandstones (Elsevier, 1991), and co-author, with JC Jaeger and NGW Cook, of Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics (4th ed., Wiley- Blackwell, 2007). He conducts research on the hydromechanical behaviour of fractured and porous rocks, petrophysics, fluid flow in porous media, rock failure and fracture, and on the relationship between microstructure and the physical properties of heterogeneous materials, with applications to petroleum engineering, underground mining, radioactive waste disposal, and subsurface carbon sequestration. He is the author of over 80 articles in refereed scientific journals.
Dr. Adriana Paluszny: M.S. in Computer Science, Simón Bolívar University, Caracas, 2003; Ph.D., Imperial College, 2008. Dr. Paluszny has over two years of industrial experience as a scientific developer. Since 2009 she has been a research associate at Imperial College, developing new methods to model fracture and fragmentation in rock masses using object-oriented C++. She conducts research in modelling of fracture growth, generation of topological and geometrically realistic fracture patterns, flow in fractured porous media, and fragmentation, in the context of petroleum engineering and mining. Her core expertise includes numerical methods, computational geometry, scientific visualization, object-oriented software development, and applied mathematics. She is an active reviewer for over a dozen different specialized journals and conferences, and has published a number of papers in high-ranked journals.

ETH - The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Person in charge: Ralf Brauchler

Profile:

Founded in 1855, ETH Zurich today offers researchers an inspiring environment and students a comprehensive education as one of the leading international universities for technology and the natural sciences. ETH Zurich has more than 16,000 students from approximately 80 countries, 3,500 of whom are doctoral candidates. More than 400 professors teach and conduct research in the areas of engineering, architecture, mathematics, natural sciences, system-oriented sciences, and management and social sciences. ETH Zurich regularly appears at the top of international rankings as one of the best universities in the world. 21 Nobel Laureates have studied, taught or conducted research at ETH Zurich, underlining the excellent reputation of the institute. Transferring its knowledge to the private sector and society at large is one of ETH Zurich’s primary concerns. It has succeeded in this, as borne out by the 80 new patent applications each year and the 215 spin-off companies that were created out of the institute between 1996 and 2010. ETH Zurich orients its research strategy around global challenges such as climate change, world food supply and human health issues.

Relevant Expertise:

Integration of flow, transport and geophysical data: Development of hydraulic and hydrogeophysical tomographic inverse schemes that are based on transformation of the diffusivity and transport equation into the eikonal equation as well as optimization procedures based on geostatistics. Development of analytical solutions for heat transport taking into account different boundary conditions. Performance of a large variety of hydrogeological and geophysical field and laboratory testing: multi-level, multi-well hydraulic and tracer testing, geophysical well bore logging, seismic tomographic measurements, pneumatic flow and transport measurements at fractured low permeability laboratory samples.

Contribution:

Inverse modelling, high resolution parameter estimation

Resources:

Access to a suite of numerical solvers (eikonal, diffusivity and solute transport) and access to supercomputing facilities for numerical modeling.

Key Personnel

strong>Ralf Brauchler: Ph.D. Univ. Tübingen (2005). Dr. Ralf Brauchler has been a Senior Research Associate in the engineering geology group since September 2010. His main research covers many aspects of hydrogeological site investigation with special focus on high resolution tomographic methods. He develops hydrogeological and hydro-geophysical inversion schemes to understand solute and heat transport processes in the subsurface. Therefore, Ralf Brauchler performs hydraulic, tracer tests and geophysical field measurements in unconsolidated and fractured aquifers. Beyond this, he has a broad experience in flow and transport on the laboratory scale in low permeable fractured geological materials.
Peter Bayer: Ph.D. Univ, Tübingen (2004); has been a Senior Research Associate in the engineering geology group since January 2009. His work is dedicated to groundwater, with the main focus set on characterization and simulation of hydrogeological and geothermal systems. He is also active in in operations research so as to integrate environmental model development and methods of applied optimization, geostatistics and probability theory. In 2007-2009 he worked on water related environmental assessment methods as Marie Curie Fellow at the Ecological Systems Design group at the ETH. Peter Bayer also served as consultant for the United Nations IAEA, was in the Editorial Board of the Hydrogeology Journal and of the MDPI Journal Sustainability.

KLOE SA

Person in charge: Paul Coudray

Profile:

Kloe was founded in 2000 for the development of new solutions in Optics and Photonics. The Dilase technology developed by Kloe provides a high flexibility for the development of new optical functions and products, which placed on the market a new range of passive optical sensors for a wide range of applications, such as temperature sensors (K-FBG), gas sensors (K-BGS) or strain sensors (K-STR).
These sensors, either based on optical fiber or optical integrated circuits technologies, are associated to a hardware interrogator : K-FBG / K-BGS and K-STR Monitoring Units, with high data refreshment rates in order to provide quasi real time readings. THe sensors are also associated to a GUI (Graphical User-friendly Interface) software which, in particular, is suitable for direct readings, localisation and quantification of any event observed along a sensing cable.

Relevant Expertise:

The K-FBG technology (temperature) developed by Kloé offers the unique ability to implement a very large number of precisely localized sensors along a same optical sensing cable, and to monitor several of these cables with a single hardware system. These sensors are highly sensitive and can detect temperature changes smaller than 0.5°C in a few seconds.
The K-BGS technology (gas) developed by Kloé offers now the ability to detect very low concentrations of alcanes gases, in a passive manner.
In parallel, this technology is being transfered to other strategical industrial gases such as CO, CO2, H2 and H2S.
Over the past years, Kloé accumulated expertise and qualifications with the deployment of these technologies in domains such as Oil&Gas exploration and production, land drilling and the geothermal industry.

Contribution:

Optical Integration for a downhole temperature array based on the BGS technology

Resources:

R&D capabilities (clean room…), Field optical instruments and tools

Key Personnel

Paul Coudray: CEO of KLOE
Nicolas Brillouet: CTO of KLOE and General Management of Optical Sensing Technologies
Benjamin Rolland: Product Manager, Optical sensors/Optical Integrated Sensors & Fiber Sensors

KIT

Person in charge: Dr. Gabriele Wiegand

Profile:

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a higher education and research organisation with about 8,900 employees and 20,000 students. KIT was established on 01/10/2009 as merger of Universität Karlsruhe (founded in 1825) and the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH (founded in 1956), member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. In the area of technology and the environment, KIT devotes its attention to research and development work in the interest of the public
Its Institute of Catalysis Research and Technology (IKFT) in general contributes to energy and environment related topics such as the use of biomass for chemicals and fuels production, improved combustion and gasification processes at high pressures and temperatures, geochemistry, and CCS. The IKFT has a staff of approx. 100, working in the field of: 1) Inline monitoring for separation processes in supercritical CO2 (extraction, cleaning); 2) fundamental studies in the water - CO2 system at high pressures and temperatures for CCS and geothermal applications (e.g. phase equilibria, distribution coefficients, salt effects, mass transfer, interfacial phenomena including the influence of surfactants); 3) homogeneous catalysis in supercritical fluids and using CO2 as a C1 building block; 4) production of synthetic fuels via combined fast pyrolysis and entrained flow gasification; 5) biomass utilization for hydrogen production via hydrothermal gasification (with integrated CO2-separation ready for use or storage); 6) catalyst design and catalysis for polymerisation of expoxy resins for composite materials. Special attention in the R&D work is paid to the full development of processes from lab scale up to process design and demonstration. Therefore, a broad variety of lab scale, PDU and pilot scale equipment is in use, providing fundamental and process data, supported by modelling and process simulation.

Relevant Expertise:

Handling of CO2 at high pressures, also for CO2 injection for storage; Physicochemical characterization of (water + carbon dioxide) systems under pressures up to 1000 bars and temperatures up to 200°C; Conceptual design, construction and operation of high pressure devices for phase behavior, mass transfer and interfacial phenomena, chemical reactions; Inline and online monitoring methods at high pressures and temperatures for water and CO2 phases, Measurement and modeling of results; Due to biomass and fossil feedstock utilization technologies long-term knowledge on CO2-mitigation problems.

Contribution:

Development of a CO2 handling method and strategies for high pressure injection for storage purposes; Elaboration of Risk Management for the TRUST Project.

Resources:

High pressure plants of IKFT (KIT) consisting of high pressure visual cells, different types of high pressure compression devices for CO2 and liquids (gas compressors, syringe and HPLC pumps), online monitoring systems for gas phase and liquid phase analysis, NIR inline monitoring device, analytical labs of IKFT.

Key Personnel

Dr. Gabriele Wiegand, Research Scientist and Certified Safety Officer according to German regulations, Management of WP07

BUREAU VERITAS - BV

Person in charge: Pierre Besse

Profile:

Coordination of R&D projects, including on CO2 storage (e.g. CO2FieldLab)
Bureau Veritas is a global leader in conformity assessment services the areas of quality, health and safety, environment and social responsibility (QHSE). It includes eight global businesses providing a complete set of services, servicing 370,000 customers across a wide range of end markets: Inspection, testing, audit, certification, risk management, outsourcing, consulting and training services. Particularly, in the field of certification, Bureau Veritas has expertise in conformity assessment of industrial equipment and installations to regulatory or client specifications from feasibility stage to de-commissioning.

Relevant Expertise:

Certification, formal safety assessment, management of Research on safety assessment, including numerical modeling and instrumentation.

Contribution:

Risk analysis, certification, dissemination

Resources:

Experts from various relevant fields

Key Personnel

Eric Baudin: instrumentation, qualification protocols
Mathieu Bertrane: risk analysis, certification

IEC - Israel Electric Corporation

Person in charge: Giora meron

Profile:

IEC is a large industry, producing and distributing the vast majority of the electricity in Israel. It is a state company, operates power plants the distribution network in Israel. It maintains a relatively large number R&D department, which focuses also on environmental problems in general and among them on CO2 issues. The main interest of IEC in the project is to be acquainted with CO2 storage as it may be the key client of the technology in Israel (all the IEC power plants are operated with fossil fuels such as gas and coal).

Relevant Expertise:

R&D in energy related problems.

Contribution:

Power supply for the operation of the injection at Heletz.

Key Personnel

Giora Meron, Ms.Sc.

MERIENCE

Person in charge: Meritxell Martell Lamolla

Profile:

Degree in Environmental Sciences. PhD in environmental sciences focused on public participation and sustainability. Executive Programme of Director of Communications.

Relevant Expertise:

MERIENCE managing director, Dr. Martell, is currently participating in an FP7 EU project InSOTEC looking at socio-technical challenges of geological disposal, where she is leading a WP and collaborating in the dissemination and communication of the project. In addition, she has coordinated and participated in several European R&D projects in the previous Framework Programme FP6 on governance of radioactive waste, such as OBRA (European Observatory for Long-term Governance on Radioactive Waste Management), CIP (Cowam In Practice), SAPIERR2. Apart from participating in European projects, Dr. Martell has been recently involved as IAEA expert, providing advice to the communicators in the Agency of Natural Resources and Energy of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan and its relevant organisations. Other IAEA expert missions where Dr. Martell has been involved have addressed the remediation of uranium tailings in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. In addition, she has been collaborating with different groups and committees of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) looking at crisis communication and stakeholder involvement. At present, Merience is involved in promoting a 2-year initiative bringing together a wide range of actors and pooling knowledge and experience to debate on the Spanish energy mix. This Spanish Energy Mix Forum (SEMF) aims to develop mutual understanding on low carbon energy alternatives in a way that can encompass societal needs and environmental, economic, technical and social concerns.

Contribution:

In TRUST, Merience will be leading a WP on public involvement, communication and liabilities, where the social aspects of the CCS will be investigated and the dissemination of the project will be developed.

Key Personnel

Meritxell Martell (communication and public involvement expert)

LAPIDOTH

Person in charge: Mr. Eli Kamar

Profile:

Lapidoth specializes in on-shore oil exploration and performs on a commercial basis, deep drilling for both oil exploration and water supply. It operates the Heletz site.

Relevant Expertise:

Deep Drilling and related activities.

Contribution:

Shall provide the site for injection, drill a new deep well for monitoring, three shallower wells for seismic monitoring, and reenter one well for the leakage experiment.

Key Personnel

Rami Matmon: Chief operator.