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posted by mrpg on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the blame-dinosaurs dept.

Until renewable sources of energy like wind or solar become more reliable and less expensive, people worldwide remain reliant on fossil fuels for transportation and energy. This means that if people want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there need to be better ways of mitigating the effects of extracting and burning oil and gas.

Now, Adam Brandt, assistant professor of energy resources engineering in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences at Stanford, and his colleagues have performed a first global analysis comparing emissions associated with oil production techniques -- a step toward developing policies that could reduce those emissions. They published their work Aug. 30 in Science.

The group found that the burning of unwanted gas associated with oil production -- called flaring -- remains the most carbon-intensive part of producing oil. Brandt spoke with Stanford Report about the group's findings and strategies for reducing flaring.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @03:38AM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @03:38AM (#729090)

    I heard somewhere about a research project to create an internal combustion engine that is rugged enough to burn the gas that is normally flared. Not a straightforward problem--while it may be mostly methane(?), it can be full of nasty stuff that would normally be cleaned up before distribution. Anyway, if they are successful, the idea is to run the special IC engine to turn a generator and dump the electricity into the local power grid.

    It's a lot easier to string wires than to either:
        + run a pipeline to every well (capturing the gas for processing & sale)
        + set up a compressor station and truck the gas to a processing plant

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:59AM (12 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:59AM (#729100)

    EPA problems; you'd find it impossible to get EPA approval to run an engine on that garbage fuel WRT noxious emissions; doesn't matter if its cleaner than flaring, there's already exemptions for flaring (because the only greenhouse gas worse than burning methane producing CO2, is just dumping methane). Its a political face saving thing; flaring is allowed because flaring causes fifty times less greenhouse effect than just dumping raw unburned methane, yet running "crap 60s era emissions control car engines" is totally unacceptable in a world of 2010s car engines.

    Meanwhile you can't just wipe the regs or you'll have people running hyper-pollution generators instead of clean gens for electricity.

    Another problem is raw "drip gas" is crap fuel leading to issues where the generator might not survive long enough to generate more power than it took to create it, making it a net waste of energy, like a 1970s solar cell or similar. I mean... people don't build billion dollar refineries because drip gas is such a fantastic non-corrosive non-polluting high octane rating IC engine fuel...

    An interesting thought experiment thats somewhat more realistic is for ultra low flow rate wells, instead of requiring expensive EPA approved pipes despite low flow rate, just run garden hoses or some such junk to gather the gas. We're talking about rather low flow rates.

    The energy biz is interesting to learn about; there's almost infinite stuff to learn. It can also be profitable WRT financial investment. Energy is like a whole nother world of knowledge at least as complicated as computer science.

    Maybe in summary drip gas and flaring is kind of like the attractor effect you see with crap process heat; normies can't understand how infinite quantities of bad fuel (in the case of drip gas) or 100 F heat (in the case of process waste heat) is thermodynamically useless, but it is...

    I mean, people been flaring gas for a century or two... If you could do something profitable by waving the flame at something really simple like a steam boiler, people wouldda done that a century ago... so proposing something thats way more complicated from an engineering standpoint like a IC engine or maybe a turbine is going to be a non-starter.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @05:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @05:21AM (#729102)

      The flare gas is free, and currently there's no cost to burning it. If the producers had to pay per ton of CO2 produced, they might come up with something better.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @05:32AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @05:32AM (#729105)

      Why does it have to be an internal combustion engine? Could be a sterling motor or even a boiler running a turbine or steam engine. These types of energy converters have no moving parts in the combustion chamber and can be easily built to withstand the crappiest of crap fuels.

      Or is this an American thing?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @12:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @12:59PM (#729212)

        As I heard it, the IC engine choice was based on being compact and easy to move around, runs at a decent speed to turn a generator, fast response time so easily matches changing loads. The engineering challenge is finding materials and designs that tolerate the crap fuel.

        In terms of EPA acceptance, there is plenty of experience with after-treatment for exhaust. The methane burns cleanly, maybe catalysts and diesel particulate filters would handle the rest? Or, as others suggest, go somewhere where the emission regulations are not an issue.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:30AM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:30AM (#729141) Journal

      the idea is to run the special IC engine to turn a generator and dump the electricity into the local power grid.

      It's a lot easier to string wires than to either:
              + run a pipeline to every well (capturing the gas for processing & sale)
              + set up a compressor station and truck the gas to a processing plant

      EPA problems; you'd find it impossible to get EPA approval to run an engine on that garbage fuel WRT noxious emissions;

      You say that EPA is OK to flare that gas, but is not OK to combust that gas to generate energy in the same place they flare it?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday September 01 2018, @08:37AM

        by deimtee (3272) on Saturday September 01 2018, @08:37AM (#729157) Journal

        I can see how that could happen:
        Historically, flaring the gas is part of oil production, not regulated as generator emissions. As soon as you start generating power you come under different rules.

        "Rules is Rules". Sometimes the law is an ass.

        --
        If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday September 02 2018, @03:13PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 02 2018, @03:13PM (#729542)

        Good luck enforcing "we get to burn high sulfur fuel in this engine because the fuel woudda been wasted but not in this engine over dere"

        Also you run into interesting flame temp issues... the unburned heavier crap is going to make life for the cat conv very difficult while at the same time if you lean it out you can produce plenty of nitrogen oxides creating more acidic exhaust than just torching it.

        Given a crap enough fuel, I can see the exhaust being filthier than just lighting it up due to the nitrogen oxides production alone.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:28AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:28AM (#729191)

      EPA problems; you'd find it impossible to get EPA approval to run an engine on that garbage fuel WRT noxious emissions; doesn't matter if its cleaner than flaring, there's already exemptions for flaring (because the only greenhouse gas worse than burning methane producing CO2, is just dumping methane).

      In the US, yes. But in countries like Venezuela, that are oil rich yet economically poor, they would welcome these engines with open arms to help their desperate need for electricity. I'm certain there are other countries that would take them, too.

      Yes, Venezuela's economy is shit because of their government and its policies. Sitting on the world's largest confirmed oil reserves and they have 1,000,000% inflation in 2018 - that's just inept management. But they are looking for any advantages they can gain, and these engines would provide some advantage for them.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:31AM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:31AM (#729193) Journal

        In the US, yes. But in countries like Venezuela, that are oil rich yet economically poor, they would welcome these engines with open arms to help their desperate need for electricity.

        With open arms, but not with hard currency. Therein lies the rub of that particular problem.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:46PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:46PM (#729244)

          While I doubt anyone in the Venezuelan government is that creative, all they would have to do is require "flare gas-->electricity" production as part of granting oil drilling leases. The oil is worth enough that the multinational drilling companies would work it out.

          While it's probably too early to do the numbers, the extra cost of running this generation might not be all that much compared to the total cost of a drilling operation(?), so maybe this electricity is put on the grid for free.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 01 2018, @09:29PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 01 2018, @09:29PM (#729329) Journal

            granting oil drilling leases

            They nationalized the oil industry in Venezuela. There's no multinational drilling companies there to figure this stuff out.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday September 02 2018, @03:19PM (1 child)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 02 2018, @03:19PM (#729543)

        But in countries like Venezuela, that are oil rich yet

        Production peak in '04 smooth steady decline since then.

        Ironically I know more about their petrochem situation than their politics. Good luck arguing the chicken and the egg ALTHOUGH historically government quality has not had much effect on production in pre-peak years across multiple continents and civilizations, so I'd theorize Venezuela falling apart politically is a result of post-peak declining production, not the other way around.

        Economic health as most see it is linked to growth first derivative, so post peak its all downhill.