C
Captain Compassion
Guest
Analysis: Oil from shale could meet need
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/85170.html
WASHINGTON, July 20 Technology to draw oil from rock in Rocky Mountain
states and other unconventional sources is getting another look from
companies and the government as the demand for energy increases and
supply tightens, especially in the United States.
Oil was more than $78 per barrel Friday, nearing an all-time high.
According to a National Petroleum Council report, commissioned by U.S.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and released this week, demand will
exceed supply by 13 million barrels per day by 2030.
One potential major source of domestic oil is found in shale rock in
Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Interest and experiments rose and fell
with the oil price spikes during the 1970s to early 1980s and have
risen once again.
"It's an enormous resource," said Daniel I. Fine, an MIT research
affiliate. The area was protected for the future with the creation of
the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserve in 1912. "It was understood
that one day we would use it at a time when the technology and
economics would be right," Fine added.
The oil found in these rocks is called kerogen, organic matter
containing hydrocarbons that must be converted to oil and gas. It's
unclear how much oil may eventually be produced, but the United States
holds 60 percent of the world's shale.
On-site experiments to heat and extract the kerogen are starting on
160-acre tracks leased by the Bureau of Land Management. The 10-year
research development & demonstration leases are intended "to test and
demonstrate what are considered state of the art methods of recovering
shale oil," BLM spokeswoman Heather Feeney said. They can be converted
to commercial leases for oil shale after demonstrating commercial
production capacity and a BLM review.
Shell is probably the leader in the field, said Jeremy Boak, project
manager for the Colorado Energy Research Institute at the Colorado
School of Mines. Shell expects to extract from 3.5 to 5 barrels for
each barrel of energy used, Boak said, by heating the rocks
underground for three or four years, after which the oil seeps through
cracks so it can be pumped out. It's relatively efficient, he
explained, because it partially refines the kerogen underground and
brings it to the surface as fuels requiring little processing:
naphtha, diesel and kerosene.
Chevron has partnered with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to
recover oil from shale formations in Colorado's Piceance Basin. Fine
explained that it will use explosives underground to fractionate the
shale, then inject a critical fuel, which creates a hot gas and allows
extraction. The need for water and on-site production will have a
heavy impact on the environment, however.
Raytheon, known for numerous military technologies, has developed the
use of radio frequency, or RF, technology with contributions from
partner Critical Fluids Technologies.
John Cogliandro, program manager for Raytheon's oil from shale
technologies program, said the new technology is powerful and
environmentally responsible. Since it doesn't use steam or heat the
actual rock, there's no residue that might enter groundwater supplies,
he said.
RF heats much more uniformly and quickly through radiation that
targets the hydrocarbon molecules. Cogliandro added that critical
fluids release and move the oil, so that the oil seeps through cracks
in the shale and is pumped to the surface.
Fine said Raytheon's technology is an advance over earlier microwave
feasibility tests -- dating back to the 1980s -- because it heats the
shale rock more quickly and it is easier to control while deploying
smaller, cost-effective equipment.
Global Resource Corp. uses microwaves to extract oil from shale. While
previous microwave tests didn't experiment with different wavelengths,
GRC is using a continuing microwave system with variable frequencies.
Operating in a vacuum, the microwave frequencies gasify, then condense
the hydrocarbons, which turn into gas and liquid oil, said a GRC
spokesman.
GRC is using the technology to reinvigorate older wells as well as
draw oil from tires, petroleum-based plastics and automobile shredder
residue. The company has patent-pending numbers for seven different
technologies, and both the U.S. Energy Department and the state of
Pennsylvania have given GRC a capped well for experimentation.
GRC CEO Frank Pringle said interest is growing, despite skepticism
about the technology: "I know what my process can accomplish, but
there's a lot of prejudice against us."
Raytheon is seeking to license its know-how to energy companies that
are better able to apply the technology in the field. Oil companies
experimenting with shale have shown significant interest in Raytheon's
technique, but Cogliandro doesn't think they'll abandon current
approaches.
"You'll see a lot of pilot projects out in the field being tested.
They are going to find where certain technologies work best and then
they'll analyze the economics of each," Cogliandro said.
Cogliandro has also received samples of oil sands, or "heavies," from
Oklahoma and Texas on which to test the technology. Raytheon's methods
had been tried successfully with Canada's tar sands and should work
with the heavier oil sands, he said.
Both Raytheon and GRC say their technologies use one barrel of oil's
worth of energy to produce 4.5 barrels of shale oil compared to one
barrel for 3.5 barrels using older methods.
Boak said these technologies will have to prove how they can do as
well or better than the newest techniques in the field.
"The big question for shale oil and heavy oil processing is how far
you can make those waves reach out into the rock," said Boak. He
emphasized the importance of field tests given the uncertainty in
geological formations. GRC said the microwaves can be used as far down
as can be drilled.
If the technology leads to commercial viability, only limited
investment in refinery extensions and pipeline spurs will be needed
because the industry can make use of existing regional refineries.
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/85170.html
WASHINGTON, July 20 Technology to draw oil from rock in Rocky Mountain
states and other unconventional sources is getting another look from
companies and the government as the demand for energy increases and
supply tightens, especially in the United States.
Oil was more than $78 per barrel Friday, nearing an all-time high.
According to a National Petroleum Council report, commissioned by U.S.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and released this week, demand will
exceed supply by 13 million barrels per day by 2030.
One potential major source of domestic oil is found in shale rock in
Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Interest and experiments rose and fell
with the oil price spikes during the 1970s to early 1980s and have
risen once again.
"It's an enormous resource," said Daniel I. Fine, an MIT research
affiliate. The area was protected for the future with the creation of
the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserve in 1912. "It was understood
that one day we would use it at a time when the technology and
economics would be right," Fine added.
The oil found in these rocks is called kerogen, organic matter
containing hydrocarbons that must be converted to oil and gas. It's
unclear how much oil may eventually be produced, but the United States
holds 60 percent of the world's shale.
On-site experiments to heat and extract the kerogen are starting on
160-acre tracks leased by the Bureau of Land Management. The 10-year
research development & demonstration leases are intended "to test and
demonstrate what are considered state of the art methods of recovering
shale oil," BLM spokeswoman Heather Feeney said. They can be converted
to commercial leases for oil shale after demonstrating commercial
production capacity and a BLM review.
Shell is probably the leader in the field, said Jeremy Boak, project
manager for the Colorado Energy Research Institute at the Colorado
School of Mines. Shell expects to extract from 3.5 to 5 barrels for
each barrel of energy used, Boak said, by heating the rocks
underground for three or four years, after which the oil seeps through
cracks so it can be pumped out. It's relatively efficient, he
explained, because it partially refines the kerogen underground and
brings it to the surface as fuels requiring little processing:
naphtha, diesel and kerosene.
Chevron has partnered with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to
recover oil from shale formations in Colorado's Piceance Basin. Fine
explained that it will use explosives underground to fractionate the
shale, then inject a critical fuel, which creates a hot gas and allows
extraction. The need for water and on-site production will have a
heavy impact on the environment, however.
Raytheon, known for numerous military technologies, has developed the
use of radio frequency, or RF, technology with contributions from
partner Critical Fluids Technologies.
John Cogliandro, program manager for Raytheon's oil from shale
technologies program, said the new technology is powerful and
environmentally responsible. Since it doesn't use steam or heat the
actual rock, there's no residue that might enter groundwater supplies,
he said.
RF heats much more uniformly and quickly through radiation that
targets the hydrocarbon molecules. Cogliandro added that critical
fluids release and move the oil, so that the oil seeps through cracks
in the shale and is pumped to the surface.
Fine said Raytheon's technology is an advance over earlier microwave
feasibility tests -- dating back to the 1980s -- because it heats the
shale rock more quickly and it is easier to control while deploying
smaller, cost-effective equipment.
Global Resource Corp. uses microwaves to extract oil from shale. While
previous microwave tests didn't experiment with different wavelengths,
GRC is using a continuing microwave system with variable frequencies.
Operating in a vacuum, the microwave frequencies gasify, then condense
the hydrocarbons, which turn into gas and liquid oil, said a GRC
spokesman.
GRC is using the technology to reinvigorate older wells as well as
draw oil from tires, petroleum-based plastics and automobile shredder
residue. The company has patent-pending numbers for seven different
technologies, and both the U.S. Energy Department and the state of
Pennsylvania have given GRC a capped well for experimentation.
GRC CEO Frank Pringle said interest is growing, despite skepticism
about the technology: "I know what my process can accomplish, but
there's a lot of prejudice against us."
Raytheon is seeking to license its know-how to energy companies that
are better able to apply the technology in the field. Oil companies
experimenting with shale have shown significant interest in Raytheon's
technique, but Cogliandro doesn't think they'll abandon current
approaches.
"You'll see a lot of pilot projects out in the field being tested.
They are going to find where certain technologies work best and then
they'll analyze the economics of each," Cogliandro said.
Cogliandro has also received samples of oil sands, or "heavies," from
Oklahoma and Texas on which to test the technology. Raytheon's methods
had been tried successfully with Canada's tar sands and should work
with the heavier oil sands, he said.
Both Raytheon and GRC say their technologies use one barrel of oil's
worth of energy to produce 4.5 barrels of shale oil compared to one
barrel for 3.5 barrels using older methods.
Boak said these technologies will have to prove how they can do as
well or better than the newest techniques in the field.
"The big question for shale oil and heavy oil processing is how far
you can make those waves reach out into the rock," said Boak. He
emphasized the importance of field tests given the uncertainty in
geological formations. GRC said the microwaves can be used as far down
as can be drilled.
If the technology leads to commercial viability, only limited
investment in refinery extensions and pipeline spurs will be needed
because the industry can make use of existing regional refineries.
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
