Energy innovation is critical to our future. With the limitations of current technology to convert our natural resources to marketable energy supplies while ensuring a cleaner environment, there is a dire need to continue developing cutting-edge technologies for increasingly efficient and responsible utilization of unconventional hydrocarbon sources. But we know the transition of energy supply from mainly fossil sources to renewable energy sources is essential for mitigating climate change effects and preparing for a future of sustainable energy supply. However, energy supply from renewable sources like wind or solar power is subject to strong natural temporal fluctuations and therefore frequently does not match the instantaneous energy demand and energy base load. Energy storage is thus required, to dampen these fluctuations and to compensate for times of low power production.

By taking up surplus power, energy storage also contributes to grid stability in times of high renewable energy production. The role of the geological subsurface as an element of energy storage options, was also given particular significance in the recently released Hydrogen Strategy for Canada “Seizing the Opportunities for Hydrogen” released in December 2020 which identified storage assets such as depleted reservoirs, saline aquifers and salt caverns as important enablers for wide-spread deployment of hydrogen by serving as permanent CO₂ (which is produced when H₂ is produced) storage, and potentially storing hydrogen at scale.

Under these scenarios, the potential exists for the cumulative effects of future fluid-injection activities to overwhelm the subsurface pore space suitable for fluid disposal, increase subsurface fluid containment and storage risks and compromise future economic potential of the subsurface pore space. It is becoming clear that large-scale development of current and future energy systems will directly or indirectly depend on the safe, effective use of the subsurface for permanent energy waste and intermittent energy storage. The quantitative application of a subsurface planning approach will be required to achieve a sustainable ecologic, economic and safe use of the subsurface as a resource, which will become more critical for the transformation of our energy system to dominantly renewable sources.

Complementing and supporting the outstanding research embodied in the NSERC/Energi Simulation Industrial Research Consortium on Reservoir Geomechanics, the Reservoir Geomechanics Research Group [RG]² has initiated a research program that focuses on GeoSAFETY – Geoscience for Subsurface Assurance oF Energy TechnologY. The GeoSAFETY initiative will create solutions to overcome the technical challenges of adopting subsurface formations for fluid storage and utilization (e.g., carbon dioxide, hydrogen), geothermal systems, nuclear waste repositories, and intermittent subsurface energy storage (associated with renewables such as wind and solar) and the efficient and responsible development of hydrocarbon resources as we progress towards renewable energy systems. GeoSAFETY research will enable comparative risk and performance analysis of specific energy storage options within both current and future energy supply chains, and will consider the physics of subsurface storage systems, and their operation at different time scales, to strategically bridge short-term (hour/day) and long-term (annual/decades) subsurface storage resilience.

At the infrastructure scale, the research strategy within GeoSAFETY is focussed on deploying a new generation of experimental systems within our GeoInnovation Environments to advance new knowledge related to how at multiple scales (e.g., pore to fracture to reservoir scale), geomechanical processes impact multiphase fluid flow processes in subsurface environments deployed for current and future energy systems. The establishment of the GeoSAFETY provides an unique, integrated, multidisciplinary university research laboratory environment that will enable breakthroughs in our understanding of constitutive material behavior and our ability in simulating their complex reservoir geomechanical behavior during subsurface energy production and energy storage. A thorough understanding of these effects and a corresponding analysis of their long-term and short-term risks, such as integrity of confining units, land subsidence or uplift, changes of groundwater flow fields as well as groundwater composition, is a prerequisite for the implementation of current and future energy storage techniques on the required large scale.

• Geological storage of CO₂

  • Reservoir geomechanical simulations

  • Salt precipitation

  • Laboratory testing

  • Reservoir surveillance and field observations during injection

• Salt caverns - laboratory studies and numerical modelling

• Ultra-low permeability testing

• Novel reservoir geomechanical modelling of fractured rock masses

• 3D printing for geoscience research

• In Situ stress and shear modulus determination using a reservoir geomechanical pressuremeter

• Thermal properties testing under realistic in situ conditions

• Subsurface risk assessment

• Underground gasification

• Digital rock approaches for reservoir geomechanical behaviour

• Effective stress controls on capillarity and spontaneous imbibition processes

• GeoInnovation Environments - including GeoREF (Geomechanical Reservoir Experimental Facility), GeoCERF (Geomechanical Centrifuge Experimental Research Facility), GeoPRINT (Facility for 3D Printing of Geological Media) and GeoRMT (Geomechanical Reservoir Modelling Technology)