Authors / CoAuthors
Ayling, B.F. | Rose, P.E. | Budd, A.R.
Abstract
In Australia to date, there are only a handful of projects that have drilled deep wells to intersect geothermal reservoir targets, and limited flow tests have been performed. Consequently, the characteristics and behaviour of geothermal reservoirs in Australia (geometries, fluid chemistry, mineralogy, permeability type and distribution, temperature distribution etc.) are not well understood. It is clear that the geological variability in the geothermal plays targeted to date (and in the future) will result in diverse reservoir types, but regardless of setting, all geothermal reservoirs must have sufficient permeability to enable fluid flow and heat extraction. Geochemical tracers have been used internationally for many years to improve the understanding of reservoir dynamics in conventional geothermal systems. Their application in Australia is yet to be widely demonstrated however they provide an attractive opportunity to learn more about geothermal reservoirs in Australian geological settings. Tracers can be classified as either conservative or reactive, and can be used in liquid-phase, vapour-phase or two-phase reservoirs. Tracer tests can provide information on inter-well connectivity, fluid mean residence time, recharge areas, swept pore volumes, temperatures, fracture surface area, flow-storage capacity relationships and volumetric fluid sweep efficiencies. In addition, tracer data can be used with numerical transport codes to help validate 3D reservoir models. This paper presents an overview of existing tracers and their capabilities, and new research directions in tracer science internationally.
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nonGeographicDataset
eCat Id
74758
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Keywords
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- External PublicationConference Paper
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- geothermal
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- geochemistry
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- fluid flow pathways
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- fluid reservoirs
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
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2012-01-01T00:00:00
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