PhD position vacancy Petroleum Engineering Norway

PhD Research Fellowship in geological storage of CO2 - IVT-88/08 (22.12 2008) (Fjernes fra Innsida 31.1 2009)

Lagt inn av: Sissel Sæther

Melding til: IVT Fakultetsadministrasjon Nettopp: Ledige stillinger The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) invites applicants for a PhD research fellowship in the area of geological storage of CO2. The position is linked to a joint SINTEF and NTNU program related to CO2 capture and storage, BIGCO2, which is funded jointly by the Norwegian Research Council and a number of larger European energy companies. Climate change seems to be one of the biggest challenges of this century. One of the strategies to reduce climate change is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by capturing CO2 that otherwise would be emitted to the atmosphere and store it underground for a longer period. The PhD research topic will be Diffusion induced gravity convection in aquifers and is described briefly below: Saline aquifers constitute the largest capacity for geological storage of CO2. Important mechanisms for safe long-term storage are capillary trapping, diffusion into water and chemical reactions with minerals, while fluid transport properties of aquifer, seal and overburden are important for the short term safety. The outlined project will deal with improvements in measurement and modelling of the basic mechanisms and upscaling of these mechanisms for field-scale simulations. On the long-term CO2 stored in aquifers will dissolve in brine. Since brine with dissolved CO2 is denser than brine without CO2, the liquid column may be unstable, resulting in convection. The onset of convection is characterized by a special plume pattern which has a characteristic wave length. Experimental and theoretical work will be combined with simulations to study these plume patterns and used to improve the existing theories. Correct up-scaling of this phenomenon for large-scale simulations and predicting the plume behaviour for aquifers with inhomogeneous rock properties will be particularly interesting research topics. For more information about the position, please contact professor Ole Torsæter, email: ole.torsater@ntnu.no. An application with a CV, certified copies of transcripts and reference letters to be submitted electronically through http://www.jobbnorge.no, with the reference number as indicated above (IVT-88/08). Preferably, we want the attachments in one file. Application deadline: 31. January 2009.