Figure 3.

CO₂ plume. (a) Analytical solutions (Dentz & Tartakovsky, 2009; Vilarrasa et al., 2010) of the CO₂ plume position for a 10‐year injection into a 500‐m‐thick (solid lines) and 1,000‐m‐thick (dotted lines) reservoirs. We assume a fixed overpressure of 10 MPa at injection, isothermal injection, an initial reservoir temperature and pressure of 500°C and 34 MPa, respectively, and a range of reservoir permeability, k, that spans 3 orders of magnitude. The mass flow rate, Q _m, is a function of the reservoir permeability and thickness. The analytical solution predicts a sinking profile due to the density difference between water and CO₂. (b) Simulation results after 10 years of injecting 1.0 Mt yr⁻¹ of CO₂ at 50°C through 500 m of open well centered into a 2,000‐m‐thick reservoir. The extent of the cooled region has a limited size compared to the CO₂ plume and does not affect its sinking tendency.