Future strategy to survive discovering 1 out of every 20 bbls of oil we now use.

[SharperDingaan]

‘Carbon tax’ is a dirty word too many, but we would suggest that it’s actually an industry saviour. Simply because putting a price on carbon can now be used to justify capital spending on pollution saving equipment and projects - as the NPV is now positive. Versus the current process of having to force investment in a negative NPV project through legislation.

Yes you’ll have to pay more for your gasoline and heating.
Your solutions are either change your lifestyle, use a vehicle with better mileage (gas/hybrid/electric), or put better insulation in your house. The rewards are the smiles in your kids eyes, and leaving them with a better future than you inherited. 

The vast bulk of Alberta’s tar-sand reserves are too deep to mine commercially with existing technology, but easily accessible via the drill bit. Simply pump Co2 INTO that unusable reserve, and get paid for it, as an entirely NEW and GREEN industry. A process that is already occurring at the re-purposed North Sea Goldeneye gas field. http://abarrelfull.wikidot.com/goldeneye-gas-field

And if you also happen to be shut-in while ‘carbon tax’ legislation is in effect …
You’re not paying as much as you might, because you aren’t producing as much AND
Canada is a lot closer to its environmental targets REMOVING much of the ongoing environmental criticism.

And if that domestic Co2 sequester is in place at the same time Alberta ramps up (post infrastructure build), the net Co2 increase is close to zero – permanently silencing the environmentalists.

SD

[bizaro86]

Putting CO2 into oilsands reservoirs is ridiculously untenable.

CO2 is not miscible with heavy oil, which is why CO2 tertiary recovery schemes are always light oil. If you put CO2 into your reservoir, you'll still need to steam the oil to get it out. But now you have acid gas in there, which makes every thing more dangerous and corrosive. Stainless steel costs way more than regular steel. Oops.

And of course, there's the issue that while the oilsands are mostly too deep to mine, they're not deep enough for permanent sequestration of Co2.  The rock on top of the reservoirs isn't thick enough to keep Co2 in permanently, it will migrate out to surface eventually, or if you're unlucky it will do it quickly and kill a bunch of people (Co2 is heavier than air. If it escapes it travels along the ground suffocating people...) If you try that, you won't get permission from the AER for cap rock reasons, it's really just simple geomechanics.

[SharperDingaan]

Agreed you wouldn't do this for every application, but you also don't need to. All you really need is net injection and some absorbtion of the Co2, you are not trying to permanently lock it in place. It doesn't have to be perfectly miscible.
https://petrowiki.org/CO2_miscible_flooding_case_studies

SD

[bizaro86]

Agreed you wouldn't do this for every application, but you also don't need to. All you really need is net injection and some absorbtion of the Co2, you are not trying to permanently lock it in place. It doesn't have to be perfectly miscible.
https://petrowiki.org/CO2_miscible_flooding_case_studies

SD

Your link is about miscible flooding. The oil in the oilsands isn't miscible with CO2.

Maybe you'd get a bit of absorption (I've only run simulation studies for CO2 floods on miscible reservoirs) but mostly you would create an artificial gas cap. I don't think it would have any positive impact on recovery, and it would have a huge negative impact on the cost of the project. It would almost certainly be cheaper to sequester an equivalent amount of CO2 in some other deep reservoir.

Have you ever done geomechanics in the oilsands area? I have, and it's complicated. CO2 is tough to sequester, and the oilsands reservoirs are very shallow.

[Cardboard]

Thanks Bizaro86 for straightening up another crazy dream.

This is no different than calling for carbon plans and Alberta to do this and that. Didn't Notley do that already? And what happened? She got betrayed.

The time to negotiate with greenies and abusing fat socialists from out East with their belief of moral superiority is over. Folks in Alberta and Saskatchewan need to say screw you and then stop all transfer payments immediately! This is the only thing they will understand or when they lose their freebies.

Cardboard

[SharperDingaan]

Years ago I had some peripheal involvement with trying to extract in-situ oil from tarsand via underground heating. Basically start a fire underground, pipe in air, pipe out CO2, and use the heat to improve viscocity. Pump the oil out via conventional extraction versus mining it instead. A lot less CO2 came out than was expected, indicating either absorbtion or leakage (which was unlikely). My own thoughts were that the heat was either causing the formation to partially absorb the CO2, or we were carbonating ground water.

Cardboard, I simply recognize that there is a pressing need to do something different.
Agreed we need new pipe and rail, and in large quantities, but we also need new attitude, and new approaches.
It's everyobody else's fault doesn't get us anywhere.

SD

[Cardboard]

Nope!

What we have learned here after the complete refusal of cooperation by Quebec/Montreal for Energy East, Trudeau cancelling Northern Gateway and now the same Federal government not using all its tools at its disposal to push through the project it has selected (TransMountain) is that they don't give a damn about Alberta/Saskatchewan and their citizens.

It is time for these people to keep their money home. Why would you give money to people who undermine you at every turn? This is way too many examples to be ignored.

Furthermore, if there is no future for oil and gas, they should retain every dollar a la Norway to ensure a future for next generations. Equalization will never flow the other way around.

And no, keeping Quebec happy to stay in the Confederation is not a good reason. They can threaten all they want. And if they were to decide to separate, very unlikely with PQ having been destroyed in the latest election (and also in the one before when Liberals took power), you would see the province split apart with those wanting to stick with Canada.

Take away their $7 day daycare and all their socialist benefits that they cannot afford.

Cardboard

[bizaro86]

With the limited information you've presented, I agree with you, at least partially. I would say CO2 entering ground water is vastly more likely than absorption. You can do lab tests to determine CO2 absorption, and bitumen does poorly.

The problem with that on any significant scale is that CO2 + H2O equals carbonic acid. On an industrial scale you aren't operating a sodastream, more like an acid plant. I predict acidifying the groundwater won't be regarded as an environmental coup, especially if it is classified as fresh water, which most of the water in contact with the oilsands is due to its shallow depth and changes to the classification system used in Alberta.

If politicians decide that sequester in CO2 is important, the engineers and geos that run the industry can do it. It just won't be in shallow oilsands reservoirs.

[SharperDingaan]

In practice in-situ CO2 sequesture really means chemical fixation in carbonates. Ideally by injecting CO2 into a porous formation, and letting the gas migrate through it. O/G involvement is because dolomite is both a petroleum reservoir rock, and an anhydrous carbonate.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920586106000800

Granted this isn't the typical tarsands reservoir, but there's still quite a bit of this in the rest of the WCSB.
Show that those reservoirs can also absorb carbon, and you've just extended their lives.
But it means thinking outside the box.

SD

[bizaro86]

Store Co2 all over the WCSB in deep carbonates? Absolutely. That deals with 100% of the objections I raised, and is how I would do it if it was my problem. Might as well start with all the light oil reefs (Nisku type stuff) as you'll sweep a bunch of extra oil.

Store it in the oilsands formations (which are mostly not deep and not carbonates) that's a whole different story for a variety of reasons.