| Abstract |
Current geochemical and geophysical injectate tracking methods are useful reservoir management techniques but do not track injectate movement quick enough to maximize injection efficiency or avoid negative impacts on nearby steam production wells. A preliminary analysis indicates that two dimensional electrical resistance tomography (ERT) may be useful for imaging plume movement resulting from Geysers/Lake County Effluent Pipeline injectate in near real time. ERT models comparing an injection plume resistivity of 50 Ohm-m with background resistivities of 10, 100 (typical Geysers greywacke), and 500 Ohm-m (typical Geysers felsite) indicate that liquid plumes can be imaged at depths of 6,000 feet to 8,000 feet or greater for resistivity contrasts of 2 to 1 or greater. Further refinement of the ERT model could be accomplished with more data on porosity in the vicinity of the borehole, resistivity measurements, and reservoir engineering estimates of plume temperature and saturation. Based on the results of this analysis and previous successes in using ERT to map shallow subsurface steam and water movement in porous media it is likely, but not certain, that ERT will prove to be an additional reservoir management tool to be used in conjunction with additional geochemical, geophysical, and reservoir engineering techniques. A field scale test at The Geysers is required to verify the utility of ERT for injectate tracking. The goal of this paper is to stimulate discussion among geothermal researchers regarding use of the ERT technique for injectate tracking at The Geysers 433 and get some input on the appropriateness and utility of the assumptions used. |