Research Areas - Energy
ENERGY
The search for new and alternative energy sources is a major research focus of academia and industry as the global energy demand is expected to rise 54 per cent over the next two decades.
Alberta has the second-largest remaining oil reserves in the world. Researchers in the department are actively involved in conceptualization and design of new and/or improved recovery methods for conventional and heavy oil and increasingly in-situ upgrading of oil sands. Only 10 percent of Alberta's oil sands is recoverable with current technology. Canada has a goal to simultaneously expand production from the oil sands while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Alberta also has extensive coal reserves offering a source of energy, as well as the potential for coal bed methane. Promising research on coal bed methane is being undertaken to determine the optimum environmentally friendly approach to recover these reserves. Hydrogen is seen as offering a viable alternative to petroleum. Research on catalysts for hydrogen production as well as fuel cell research is underway.
In the department, efforts are focusing on new technologies to access and use these natural resources in an environmentally responsible manner. These efforts include advanced oil recovery, reservoir characterization and simulation, unconventional gas, and catalyst development.
Energy Research Faculty
Jalal Abedi, Roberto Aguilera, John Chen, Mingzhe Dong, Ian Gates, Thomas Harding, Geir Hareland, Josephine Hill, Jerry Jensen, Apostolos Kantzas, Nader Mahinpey, Brij Maini, Raj Mehta, Gordon Moore, Pedro Pereira-Almao, Anthony Settari
Advanced Oil Recovery
Air Injection/Combustion
High Pressure Air Injection is an improved oil recovery process where compressed air is injected into a high-gravity, high-pressure oil reservoir. Oxygen reacts with a small fraction of the oil to produce carbon dioxide. The resulting flue gas creates an immiscible, semi-miscible or miscible sweep. The research combustion tube is a one-dimensional model of this process. The tube is packed with actual reservoir samples and operated at reservoir pressure to optimize the process.
In-situ Upgrading of Bitumen and Heavy Oil
If heavy oil and bitumen could be upgraded in-situ, then the need to transport and dispose of large quantities of unwanted by-products, such as sand, heavy metals, carbon dioxide, sulphur and coke, would be considerably reduced or eliminated. Research is targeting the development of a process that minimizes and controls carbon rejection and uses the rejected carbon from the upgrading process to catalytically generate the essential hydrogen.
Foamy Oil
Improved understanding of the depletion of foamy oil reservoirs is expected to arise from experimental work to determine the dependency between oil and gas relative permeability and capillary number. This will enable researchers to refine the mathematical model, which will be validated through history matching several solution gas drive experiments.
Gravity Drainage Processes
Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) has revolutionized recovery of oil sands and heavy oil. However, for every barrel of produced oil, three barrels of water are required. Research is focused on techniques for lowering water requirements by using steam additives such as carbon dioxide, flue gas generated from steam production or other solvents (for example, butane). In Vapour Extraction (VAPEX), the solvent analogue of SAGD, vaporized solvents (for example, propane) are injected into the upper-horizontal well. The solvent dissolves into the viscous oil making it mobile enough to drain downward to the production well. New correlations are being developed to scale from the lab to field because of the high uncertaintysociated with scaling dispersion coefficients. New front tracking algorithms are being developed because the large grid sizes of the current simulation models have difficulty capturing rapid changes in properties with position near the gas-liquid interface. A consortium of researchers is also providing basic data and mechanistic understanding for the qualitative assessment of any solvent-assisted bitumen recovery process.
Hybrid Combustion Processes
Researchers are actively pursuing recovery methods that combine in-situ combustion with gravity drainage processes or cold production. Air injection after cold production is believed to benefit from lower oil saturations thus reducing the tendency for liquid blockage during ignition and the early life of the process. The wormholes created during cold production permit large volumes of air injection yielding high temperature combustion reactions.
Reservoir Characterization and Simulation
Predicting reservoir performance is increasingly complex as the petroleum industry resorts to development of lower quality fields. A high performance parallel computing facility is the cornerstone of the research and is being used to develop specific techniques using a Windows cluster environment.
Connectivity Measurement
Efficient reservoir management, modeling, and exploitation depend on a sound understanding of how the reservoir is ‘connected’. The sizes and directions of reservoir flow paths affect drainage effectiveness, well placement, displacement efficiency, and many other factors that influence the economics and environmental impact of resource recovery and fluid placement. We are developing new methods to predict connectivity based on injection and production rates in conventional and heavy oil reservoirs. These methods are more tolerant to typical field operating conditions, which include well shut-ins, workovers, and well conversions.
Fractured reservoirs
Research is being done to determine if, when pressure is increased, gas-oil capillary pressure may be reduced by a larger factor than the interfacial tension. Reduced capillary pressure leads to improved recovery by gas-oil gravity drainage. Research to develop a new methodology of integrated analysis of hydraulic fracturing is being conducted. Applications include: the stimulation of low permeability gas resources, waterflooding at fracture pressure; and re-injection of drilling cuttings.
Reservoir simulation
Coupled reservoir mechanisms are important in large offshore reservoirs and thermal recovery methods. Current research includes: development of dual porosity geomechanical models, application of geomechanics to pressure transient analysis and development of more efficient coupling strategies. Formation damage in injection wells is being studied to better understand plugging mechanisms and develop new modeling techniques to design ultra high-capacity disposal wells. The technology is also applicable for environmentally friendly deep disposal of produced sand and drilling cuttings.
Geomechanics
Collaborative research with the department of geology and geophysics is leading to the introduction of the geomechanical concepts in seismic interpretation.
Tomographic Imaging
Using CT Scanners and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometers developed for medical applications, researchers are seeking innovative ways to improve the recovery from oil reservoirs, such as visualizing the flow of oil, water and gas in reservoir rocks with applications in enhanced oil and gas recovery, and Enhanced Coal Bed Methane. Magnetic resonance spectrometers are designed for wellhead measurements in oil fields. Microtomography can discriminate features of objects with resolution from 5µm and has been applied to evaluate the internal microstructure of foamed gels used in enhanced oil recovery, and pore structure of porous media ranging from reservoir rocks to bones.
Unconventional Gas
Coal Bed Methane
Coal permeability and gas storage capacity for different gases are two of the most crucial parameters in development of coal bed methane. Different gases adsorb on coal to different degrees. Swelling and shrinkage caused by adsorption and desorption of different gases or by displacement of one gas by another are expected to affect coal permeability. The possibility of using waste gases (carbon dioxide, flue gas) and simultaneously disposing of them is being evaluated and coal reservoir characterization techniques tested.
Underground Coal Gasification
This other "clean coal technology" brings product gas to the surface by injecting oxidants into coal seams. In the early research and development stages, several key scientific and technical areas are being explored to develop modeling of the combustion and gasification, explore optimal processes and operation monitoring, assess environmental risk and look at the feasibility of storage of captured CO2.
Hydrates
It is estimated that the amount of natural gas trapped in hydrates around the world is approximately two orders of magnitude larger than the recoverable gas in conventional reservoirs. Hydrates are found all over the world and countries that are not known for natural gas would be able to meet some of their energy needs if an economic methodology is developed for extracting this resource. Through fundamental research on the kinetics of hydrate formation and deformation, researchers are developing mathematic models that can be used for the prediction of hydrate behaviour. The research is expanding into practical applications of this knowledge.
Tight Gas
Tight gas is defined as reservoirs with challenges relating to performance predication and productivity. Researchers are developing enhanced reservoir simulation models and hydraulic fracture methods that will reduce the costs of producing tight gas, which is currently four to five times that of conventional gas.
Clean Fuels
Fuel cells
Fuel cells convert fuel and oxygen into electricity. If hydrogen is used as a fuel, then the only by-product would be water. The main difficulty in directly reacting hydrocarbons is the propensity for coke formation. Research is being conducted on the design of electrocatalysts for solid oxide fuel cells to minimize or eliminate coke deposition when the hydrocarbons are converted to hydrogen.
Hydrogen production
Hydrogen demand is expected to increase because it is a much-needed commodity for upgrading of heavy oil and bitumen. Also, it might be the preferred energy source for fuel cells if this technology becomes economically competitive. The environmental sustainability of using upgraded oil sand by-products is of increasing interest to researchers. Research is being conducted on specifically designed, nanosized adsorbents and catalysts that will be introduced into the reservoir porous media. Research is also under way to develop a process for hydrogen production from agricultural residues.