Texas agency skips EPA hearing

The most telling news coming out of a US Environmental Protection Agency hearing in Dallas was the absence of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). EPA’s Jan. 14 hearing concerned the federal takeover of permits for new or expanding Texas power plants, refineries and other industrial plants.

"The state's position on proposed greenhouse gas regulations has been clearly articulated to the EPA and well documented in several pending court cases,” TCEQ said in an email statement to OGJ.

“Our attempts to reason with EPA and efforts to have constructive discussions on our position and their authority under federal law have been ignored,” TCEQ said. “We look forward to pursuing our position in the court system, and we are confident that science and the law will prevail."

The EPA and Texas state officials disagree about whether EPA legally can regulate GHG emissions such as carbon dioxide, and whether EPA has a right to issue GHG-gas permits in Texas when the state refuses to do so.

Effective this year, permit applications for industrial plant expansions must outline plans to use “best available control technology” to reduce GHGs. That stems from a 2007 US Supreme Court decision saying that the Clean Air Act authorizes limits on GHG emissions.

State agencies in every state but Texas are issuing the permits or putting procedures in place to do so. But Texas refuses to take part, saying the EPA overstepped its authority by regulating GHG emissions.

Meanwhile, the battle continues in federal court. Separately, the EPA is taking written comments until Feb. 14.

ARI: More carbon dioxide EOR could help environment

Advanced Resources International Inc. of Arlington, Va., recently issued a report studying both the economic benefits of increased US oil production and the environmental benefits of increased enhanced oil recovery using carbon dioxide.

ARI outlines its conclusions in a white paper entitled “US Oil Production Potential from Accelerated Deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage.”

Carbon capture stemming from proposed US climate legislation could boost US oil production by 3-3.6 million b/d by 2030, assuming all the captured CO2 were to be used for EOR, ARI said (OGJ Online, Mar. 11, 2010).

“Despite what is assumed about increased efficiencies in transportation, it is important to realize that a critical choice for society, at least in the near term, will be between a domestically produced barrel of crude oil and an imported barrel,” said Mike Godec, ARI vice-president and the paper’s author.

Reduced atmospheric carbon emissions are not the only environmental benefit resulting from CO2-EOR projects, he said.

“The incremental environmental impacts, at least at the surface, associated with CO2-EOR would include installing additional infrastructure necessary for CO2 injection and recycling, and some additional new wells,” Godec said.

“These additions and their associated disturbances would be minimal compared to producing the same volume of oil from areas not already under development,” he noted. EOR produces incremental oil from fields already in production.

Canadian researchers work to update EOR methods

Oil companies have used enhanced oil recovery for decades, but researchers continue trying to refine and update EOR methods. Some are trying to reduce the environmental impact of existing EOR methods.

The Petroleum Technology Research Center (PTRC) in Regina, Sask., is working to develop a process they call solvent vapor extraction (SVX) to boost recovery of heavy oil reserves.

The overall research project is called Joint Implementation of Vapor Extraction. In the 3-year, $40 million JIVE initiative, PTRC researchers coordinate laboratory studies, physical modeling, and simulations with three vapor extraction pilot projects in the Lloydminister area straddling Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Husky Energy Inc. has a pilot in Edam field, and Nexen Inc. has a pilot in Luseland field, both in Saskatchewan. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has a pilot in Primrose field in Alberta.

Researchers are hopeful SVX processes could boost recovery rates from partially depleted heavy oil reservoirs having thinner pay zones, wormholes, and bottom water. Wormholes develop underground when sand is pumped along with oil.

The use of solvent vapor could reduce water use and carbon dioxide emissions compared with steam injection. CO2 emissions would be reduced because the use of SVX eliminates natural gas from being burned for steam injection. SVX processes do not require thermal energy.

The vapor extraction process involves injecting a gaseous hydrocarbon solvent (propane, butane, methane, or CO2) in to the reservoir where it is displaced into the oil, making the oil less viscous so that it drains into a lower horizontal well.

PTRC researchers say success hinges upon a quick uptake of the solvent into the heavy oil and upon 90% of the solvent being recovered. So far, lab researchers have recovered solvent but very little oil. In other cases, they have recovered oil but not solvent.

NETL experimenting with bees, balloons to trace CO2 leaks

Researchers at the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) believe bees, pollen, and helium-filled balloons possibly can help monitor for carbon dioxide leaks from sequestration sites.

NETL injected chemical tracers at low levels to fingerprint CO2 being sequestered, differentiating it from natural CO2. Researchers will determine if pollen collected by bees contains tracer or if bees bring back tracer from direct contact with foliage in a field near the sequestration site.

In cooperation with bee experts at Montana State University in Bozeman, NETL researchers placed hives about 150 m from a controlled CO2 release source marked with tracers. A third control hive was located some distance from the test plot.

NETL researchers used a large helium-filled balloon to elevate a carousel containing sealed sorbent tubes to determine if atmospheric plume monitoring of tracer will be feasible.

Monitoring consists of exposing sorbent in a small packet of sorbent tubes to the atmosphere. The tubes are heated while helium gas is flowing through them. This desorbs the tracer which is then analyzed, researchers said.

RGGI auctions under way

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a group of 10 northeastern US states conducting a series of carbon auctions. During 2008, RGGI conducted two auctions. The goal is to provide a model for an eventual national cap and trade program.

Peter Iwanowicz, director of New York's Office of Climate Change, told the Associated Press that RGGI might merge with the Western Climate Initiative being developed by seven western states, including California. Four Canadian provinces also are part of the Western Climate Initiative.

RGGI members are New York, Connecticut, Deleware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The program covers total carbon dioxide emissions allowed from power plants in the RGGI region.

Participants of these auctions will help to determine a carbon price. So far, auction participants have been power generating companies although the auctions are open to others.

Oil companies and power plants

As a writer for the Oil & Gas Journal, I find myself starting to report more about power plants because oil companies are getting involved in sequestration projects

Shell Oil Co. is contributing $1 million to help finance a planned carbon dioxide underground storage pilot program. The donation is being made to a field test project that will be managed by the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB), a group of 70 organizations led by the California Energy Commission.

Clean Energy Systems Inc. of Rancho Cordova, Calif., will supply CO₂ to test and monitor the long-term effectiveness of sequestration.

Clean Energy Systems has a 5-MW power plant on the Kern County, Calif., site and plans to build a 50-MW plant. The project will inject CO₂ into porous rock 7,000 ft underground over 4 years, beginning in 2011.

WESTCARB is one of the US Department of Energy’s seven partnerships, involving 41 US states and four Canadian provinces. The partnerships are in Phase Three, which focuses on large-scale storage tests involving 1 million tonnes/year or more.

“We live in a world that demands more energy, but less carbon dioxide,” said Edward Hymes, Shell project manager, who added that Shell is looking to “to strike this critical balance.”

Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency concluded the partnerships are unique in that no other country or region has initiated such an ambitious carbon capture and storage effort as the DOE’s sequestration partnerships.