High-Resolution Simulations of Geological CO2 Injection: Application to the SPE11 Benchmark

Summary Geological carbon sequestration (GCS) will play a critical role in decarbonization and in facilitating the transition to clean energy systems. Because CO2 is highly mobile, ensuring its safe and permanent injection into subsurface geological formations involves monitoring over larger spatial domains and longer time periods than is typical for hydrocarbon reservoirs. This can benefit from simulation tools capable of modeling key CO2 trapping mechanisms, particularly those optimized for speed and scalability on high-performance computing systems. Using isothermal versions of the SPE11B and SPE11C benchmark cases, we conduct a mesh refinement study simulating CO2 injection into kilometer-scale rock formations at centimeter resolution with the GEOS open-source simulation framework. We focus on how mesh refinement improves the accuracy of convective mixing in both 2D and 3D simulations. The computational costs associated with achieving a converged solution highlight the need for predictive upscaling techniques. A systematic performance scaling analysis—including both central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures—complements the “Results” section.