• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.7-16
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• 2024

This study presents investigation on the technical characteristics and field cases of the salt cavern storage method for large-scale hydrogen storage. The salt cavern storage method enables effective hydrogen storage compared to other methods due to the low porosity and permeability of the rock salt that constitutes the cavern, which is not likely to leak and requires a small amount of cushion gas for operation. In addition, there is no chemical reaction between rock salt and hydrogen, and multiple injection/withdrawl cycles can be performed making it effective for peak shaving and short-term storage. The salt cavern is formed in three stages: leaching, debrining, and filling, and leakage tests are conducted to ensure stable operation. Field applications are currently performing to meet industrial demand in the surrounding area of four sites in the UK and Texas, USA, and salt cavern operation is being prepared for energy storage in European countries such as Germany and France. The investigated results in this study can be utilized as a basic guideline for the design of future hydrogen storage projects.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.301-313
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• 2015

The rock cavern storage for spent fuel has been assessed to apply in Korea with reviewing the state of the art of the technologies for surface storage and rock cavern storage of spent fuel. The technical feasibility and economic aspects of the rock cavern storage of spent fuel were also analyzed. A considerable area of flat land isolated from the exterior are needed to meet the requirement for the site of the surface storage facilities. It may, however, not be easy to secure such areas in the mountainous region of Korea. Instead, the spent fuel storage facilities constructed in the rock cavern moderate their demands for the suitable site. As a result, the rock cavern storage is a promising alternative for the storage of spent fuel in the aspect of natural and social environments. The rock cavern storage of spent fuel has several advantages compared with the surface storage, and there is no significant difference on the viewpoint of economy between the two alternatives. In addition, no great technical difficulties are present to apply the rock cavern storage technologies to the storage of domestic spent fuel.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.45-49
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• 2022

In the present study, a physical model was built for the Jintan underground gas storage cavern group according to the similarity theory. In this regard, four ellipsoid caverns were built with scaled in-situ stresses and internal pressure. Then the stability of underground caverns was analyzed. The obtained results demonstrate that loss of internal pressure adversely affects the safety of caverns and attention should be paid during the operation of gas storage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.705-712
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• 2000

The fluid generally flows through fractures in crystalline rocks where most of underground storage facilities are constructed because of their low hydraulic conductivities. The fractured rock is better to be conceptualized with a discrete fracture concept, rather continuum approach. In the aspect of fluid flow in underground, the simultaneous flow of groundwater and gas should be considered in the cases of generation and leakage of gas in nuclear waste disposal facilities, air sparging process and soil vapor extraction for eliminating contaminants in soil or rock pore, and pneumatic fracturing for the improvement of permeability of rock mass. For the purpose of appropriate analysis of groundwater-gas flow, this study presents an unsteady-state multi-phase FEM fracture network simulator. Numerical simulation has been also conducted to investigate the hydraulic head distribution and air tightness around Ulsan LPG storage cavern. The recorded hydraulic head at the observation well Y was -5 to -10 m. From the results obtained by the developed model, it shows that the discrete fracture model yielded hydraulic head of -10 m, whereas great discrepancy with the field data was observed in the case of equivalent continuum modeling. The air tightness of individual fractures around cavern was examined according to two different operating pressures and as a result, only several numbers of fractures neighboring the cavern did not satisfy the criteria of air tightness at 882 kPa of cavern pressure. In the meantime, when operating pressure is 710.5 kPa, the most areas did not satisfy air tightness criteria. Finally, in the case of gas leaking from cavern to the surrounding rocks, the resulted hydraulic head and flowing pattern was changed and, therefore, gas was leaked out from the cavern ceiling and groundwater was flowed into the cavern through the walls.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2010

The objective of this study was to examine the hydrogeochemical and microbiological characteristics for stable maintenance of coastal LPG storage cavern. Cavern seepage water and groundwater in the vicinity of the LPG storage cavern were sampled and analyzed (February, May, August and October 2007). Groundwater samples of propane cavern showed high pHs of 8.1~12.4 due to dissolution of cement grouting materials that had been applied during the well and cavern construction. The EC values showed distinctive seasonal variation. The negative ORP indicated reduced condition. The seepage and surrounding groundwater are classified as Na-Cl type, which represents seawater effects. All of aerobic bacteria, anaerobic bacteria, slime forming bacteria and sulfate reducing bacteria were less than 500 CFU/mL, which indicated that there was no abrupt increase of bacteria in the cavern. Therefore there exist no hydrochemical symptoms to indicate unstable conditions of the cavern operation. However, regular and continuous monitoring is essentially required.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.238-243
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• 2003

As there are many advantages on underground caverns, such as safety and operation, they can also be used for gas storage purpose. When liquefied gas is stored underground, the cryogenic temperature of the gas will affect the stability of the storage cavern. In order to store the liquefied gas successfully, it is essential to estimate the exact temperature distribution of the rock mass around the cavern. In this study, an analytic solution and a conceptual model that can estimate three-dimensional temperature distribution around the storage cavern are suggested. When calculating the heat transfer within a solid, it is likely to consider the solid as the intersection of two or more infinite or semi-infinite geometries. Therefore heat transfer solution for the solid is expressed by the product of the dimensionless temperatures of the geometries, which are used to form the combined solid. Based on the multi-dimensional transient heat transfer theory, the analytic solution is successfully derived by assuming the cavern shape to be of simplified geometry. Also, a conceptual model is developed by using the analytic solution of this study. By performing numerical experiments of this multi-dimensional model, the temperature distribution of the analytic solution is compared with that of numerical analysis and theoretical solutions.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.243-256
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• 2012

Developing efficient and reliable energy storage system is as important as exploring new energy resources. Energy storage system can balance the periodic and quantitative mismatch between energy supply and energy demand and increase the energy efficiency. Industrial waster heat and renewable energy such as solar energy can be stored by the thermal energy storage (TES) system at high and low temperatures. TES system using underground rock carven is considered as an attractive alternative for large-scale storage, because of low thermal conductivity and chemical safety of surrounding rock mass. In this report, the development of available thermal energy storage methods and the characteristics of storage media were introduced. Based on some successful applications of cavern storage and high-temperature storage reported in the literature, the applicabilities and practicabilities of storage media and technologies for large-scale cavern thermal energy storage (CTES) were reviewed.

• 한국터널공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.189-201
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• 2005

Brittle failure has been detected in over-stressed rock mass during the construction of oil storage cavern. The main characteristics of stress induced brittle failure of the site are introduced. Various evaluation and measures are sought to stabilize the over-stressed rock mass. The major results from numerical analysis of the cavern are presented, and from current microseismic monitoring to detect hazard from brittle failure are presented.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.283-288
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• 2014

The underground water quality of petroleum products storage cavern is influenced by that of dumping and landfill sites adjacent to cavern. From the chemical analysis of underground water sampled from landfill site, insignificant amounts of As, Cu and Pb were detected in a half of test samples while Cd, Hg, $Cr^{6+}$, $CN^-$, TCE, PCE and Phenol were not detected in all samples. All measurements of $COD^{Mn}$ were below $8.0mg/{\ell}$ that can be negligible for the contamination by organic matters. The total bacteria counted from 1st and 2nd microbiological analysis were $94.84{\times}10^4cells/m{\ell}$ and $146.26{\times}10^{-4}cells/m{\ell}$, respectively, and all counts of the sulfate reducing bacteria were less than $2cells/m{\ell}$. It can be suggested that the water quality adjacent to storage cavern can also be studied to improve the reliability of hydrogeologic stability of storage cavern.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.101-105
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• 1997

When the water curtain system is employed to keep the liquefied gas in the underground storage cavern, clogging is observed in borehole. Since this phenomenon causes serious difficulties in managing LPG storage cavern, it needs to detect the degree of clogging accurately under various circumstances. Thus, in this study the active factors of clogging, that is, groundwater head, injection water flowrate, and seepage water flowrate, were investigated experimentally using a physical model. Experimental results show that groundwater head around storage cavern increases as cavern Pressure increases, while it decreases as clogging becomes severe. The pressure in storage cavern is required to reduce up to atmospheric pressure in order to detect and identify the degree of clogging more accurately. The decrease of uroundwater head due to clogging slows down as the pressure in borehole increases. As amounts of suspended matters in injected water increase, both injection water flowrate and seepage water flowrate decrease linearly with time, and the flowrate of injection water drops rapidly compared with seepage water flowrate.