A numerical sensitivity study of how permeability, porosity, geological structure, and hydraulic gradient control the lifetime of a geothermal reservoir

Bauer, Johanna F.; Krumbholz, Michael; Luijendijk, Elco; Tanner, David C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-2115-2019

Articles | Volume 10, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-2115-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-2115-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 6

Research article

|

18 Dec 2019

Research article |

| 18 Dec 2019

A numerical sensitivity study of how permeability, porosity, geological structure, and hydraulic gradient control the lifetime of a geothermal reservoir

Johanna F. Bauer, Michael Krumbholz, Elco Luijendijk, and David C. Tanner

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Final revised paper (published on 18 Dec 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 17 Jun 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Please see comments in attached PDF', Anonymous Referee #1, 01 Jul 2019
- AC1: 'Response to reviewer 1', Johanna Bauer, 03 Aug 2019
RC2: 'Reviewer Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 Jul 2019
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer 2', Johanna Bauer, 13 Aug 2019
RC3: 'Review for Bauer et al., “A numerical study of how permeability, geological structure, and hydraulic gradient control the lifetime of a geothermal reservoir.”', Owen Callahan, 12 Aug 2019
- AC3: 'Response to reviewer 3', Johanna Bauer, 08 Sep 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Johanna Krumbholz on behalf of the Authors (07 Oct 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (08 Oct 2019) by Federico Rossetti

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (15 Oct 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (28 Oct 2019)

ED: Publish as is (30 Oct 2019) by Federico Rossetti

ED: Publish as is (30 Oct 2019) by Federico Rossetti (Executive editor)

AR by Johanna Krumbholz on behalf of the Authors (04 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

We use a 4-D numerical sensitivity study to investigate which geological parameters exert a dominant control on the quality of a deep geothermal reservoir. We constrain how the variability of these parameters affects the economic potential of a reservoir. We show that the interplay of high permeability and hydraulic gradient is the dominant control on reservoir lifetime. Fracture anisotropy, typical for faults, leads to fluid channelling and thus restricts the exploitable volume significantly.