Environmental Monitoring using off-shore wind and tidal power optical fibres

国际能源署表示，如果没有碳捕获、利用和储存（CCUS），我们就无法在2050年实现净零目标。地下地质储存水库必须进行监测，以便监管机构能够确保储存的安全，运营商可以设计水库以避免二氧化碳泄漏。因此，有必要发展准确和经济的地下监测技术。与此同时，根据苏格兰可再生能源公司的数据，潮汐发电，特别是风能发电在过去十年中翻了两番，预计到2030年风能发电量将再翻一番。然而，拟议用于风电场开发的三个主要近海区域占据了与CCUS相关的区域（NSTA，2022）。地震地下CO2监测船不能靠近风电场基础设施运行，涡轮机噪声引起了对地震数据信噪比和可重复性要求的担忧。NOC的新技术首次允许声波和地震波的信号沿着与电力电缆相连的光纤每隔一米和每一毫秒被记录。它们从陆地穿过海床，到达潮汐和风力发电场，甚至到达水面上的单个涡轮机。沿着每条光纤沿着长度检测波的能力创建了一个新的、密集分布的大数据传感器网络，以监测固体地球、海洋声学和近海大气声音。这种相对未开发的能力允许风电场噪声被真实的时间记录，从而可以从地震数据中去除噪声，以改善地下监测。涡轮机噪声本身是潜在的地震源，以使用记录噪声的地震梯度测量、干涉测量和神经网络层析成像来监测地下（Cao等人，2020; Zhang等人，2020; Zhang等人，2022年）。该项目将研究这些方法并开发其他方法，以改进地下二氧化碳监测，监测海洋生物和人类活动发出的海洋声学信号，并分析海洋上空和电力电缆着陆站周围陆地上的声学，以探测人类活动和其他活动。研究问题该项目旨在使用部署在风电场的光纤记录的信号进行环境监测。这可以包括监测地下、海洋生物、海洋动态或人类活动，并将随着项目的进展而发展。方法学开始，您将探索部署在海底和涡轮机本身的光纤上记录的风力涡轮机噪声信号。然后，您将探索如何使用此噪声作为震源来监测地下。您还将探索光纤记录的其他信号，其中可能包括来自海洋生物，人类活动，洋流和微震活动的信号。有多种工具可用于协助进行这一分析。

The International Energy Agency states that we cannot achieve net zero ambitions by 2050 without Carbon Capture, Use & Storage (CCUS). Subsurface geological storage reservoirs must be monitored so that regulators can ensure security of the store, and operators can engineer reservoirs to avoid CO2 leakage. So there is a need to develop accurate and economical subsurface monitoring techniques. In parallel, tidal and particularly wind energy generation quadrupled in the past decade, with the expected capacity for wind energy to double again by 2030, according to Scottish Renewables. Yet three major off-shore areas proposed for wind farm development occupy areas related to CCUS (NSTA, 2022). Seismic subsurface CO2 monitoring vessels cannot operate close to wind farm infrastructure, and turbine noise raises concerns over signal to noise and repeatability requirements for seismic data. Novel technology from NOC has for the first time allowed signals from acoustic and seismic waves to be recorded every metre and every millisecond along optical fibres bound to power cables. They cross the seabed from land to tidal and wind farms, even up to individual turbines above the water surface. The ability to detect waves along the length of each fibre creates a new, densely distributed network of big-data sensors to monitor the solid Earth, ocean acoustics, and atmospheric sound off-shore. This relatively unexplored capability allows wind-farm noise to be recorded in real time so that it can be removed from seismic data to improve subsurface monitoring. The turbine noise itself is potentially a seismic source to monitor the subsurface, using seismic gradiometry, interferometry and neural network tomography of the recorded noise (Cao et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2022). This project will investigate these methods and develop others to improve subsurface CO2 monitoring, to monitor ocean acoustic signals from marine life and human activity, and to analyse acoustics in air above the sea and on land around power cable landing stations to detect human and other activity. Research questionsThe project aims to use signals recorded by optical fibres deployed at wind farms for environmental monitoring. This can include monitoring of the subsurface, marine life, ocean dynamics or human activity, and will develop as the project progresses. MethodologyYou will begin by exploring the signals of wind turbine noise recorded on optical fibres deployed on the seabed and on the turbines themselves. You will then explore using this noise as a seismic source to monitor the subsurface. You will also explore other signals recorded by the optical fibres, which could include signals from marine life, human activity, ocean currents and microseismicity. A variety of tools are available to assist in this analysis.