Developed by Qmast LLC, microwave technology is used for the extraction of oil shale, which is different from shale oil. Oil shale is found in rock formations that contain kerogen. One of the current extraction methods of kerogen has been strip mining because these are shallow formations. The extracted rock is then crushed and heated to high temperatures to liquefy the oil.
Qmast’s method concentrates a microwave beam equivalent to about 500 household microwaves to heat up an area that reaches approximately 80 feet from the wellbore. The crude oil then flows freely to the wellbore.
h/t Gagnon
Unintended Consequence: Gopher Bacon?
I’ll believe it when it finally works, if at all.
I worked in the oil industry during my undergrad summers and for a while after I got my B. Sc. I heard of all sorts of schemes and ideas by which oil from the Fort Mac tar sands might be extracted. Some of them seemed so outlandish that even Ripley’s Believe It or Not would reject them. Most of them, not surprisingly, didn’t go anywhere.
My favorite extraction method is Fire flooding – injecting compressed oxygen down-hole and igniting to soften everything.
“Fire flood method for recovering petroleum from oil reservoirs of low permeability and temperature”
http://www.google.ca/patents/US4465135
And those that did work revolutionized the industry. I’m not saying the above idea will work, but I am confident in time someone will find something that does.
I’m sure someone at Greenpeace is working feverishly to invent an excuse to oppose it.
I’m sure they are not alone.
OMG ! The poor earthworms … let’s start a new WWF fundraising drive to SAVE the earthworm from BIG OIL ! Ohhhhhh mammmmmmma …
I’ll bet the Green Priests loved it when the idea of using spent nuclear fuel rods was brought up for Oil Shale. Makes a lot of sense from an energy savings perspective.
It’s just another small piece of the puzzle with limited use in my opinion. Many “shale” wells will still produce native water along with hydrocarbon. Also hydrocarbons need pathways opened up in tight rock lacking a sufficient already accessible natural fracture network so frac’ing operations will still be needed for most unconventional reservoirs. Still microwave tech might be an alternative to re-frac’ing as it could increase the recovery factor in that 80m wellbore radius enough to make it economically worthwhile, depending on the higher capital and operating costs it brings of course. Electrical infrastructure may not readily support wide-use of the power intensive tech. Not a silver bullet by any means. Just another tool in the kit.
As I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of ideas being considered for recovering Fort Mac area oil 40 years ago.
One involved injecting live steam into the formation, heating up the oil and reducing its viscosity. Another required setting part of the formation on fire, with the resulting heat doing the same thing.
I’m not sure if any of these method were ever tried or, if they were, what the results were.
Always enjoy a good fracking story.
But are they first nationworms of european worms? there maybe a financial difference you know>> And where are the LIKE buttons?
Steam assisted gravity drainage or SAGD….is one of the methods you are referring to….it was tried, and is probably the most extensively used recovery method today other than mining. it involves drilling pairs of horizontal wells in parallel…steam injection in one and recovery through the other. Most of the oil in the oil sands….the ~2.0 Trillion barrel part, is too deep to cost effectively open pit mine, so drilling is the answer.
Both were done. Firefloods not as successful as the sagd
Andy, cal2:
I haven’t had much to do with the business for several years except as an investor. It’s rather hard to keep track of all the names after all the mergers, acquisitions, and amalgamations of the last 2 decades.
At least one major company has tried SAGD, though I recall that the results were mixed.
I used to work for one outfit nearly 40 years ago which had a division that looked into fireflooding (it went by another name but, from what I recall, it was that method). I later worked for a company that supplied hardware to another one that was interested in that technique as well.
Just before I quit and went to grad school, I worked on a project for yet a third company that was looking at extracting the heavy oil in Saskatchewan near Lloydminster. I believe that was another variation on fireflooding.
In the 1970s and ’80s, there were a lot of companies active in that region of the country between there and Fort Mac. Nearly every one of them had a different idea on how to get the oil out. Most of them were fairly conventional like those just discussed. There was one suggestion to use steam from nuclear reactors, which didn’t go over very well, and I vaguely recall hearing another idea that involved using large electrical resistance heaters or some such thing.
One interesting aspect to this was that many of my undergrad classmates were involved with these projects as they went to work for those companies. Often, if I read through the list of managers, there was a good chance that I’d recognize at least one of the names.
The lib-lefties will oppose it because it’ll use Microwave RADIATION !!!!
!!! RADIATION !!!
Another Chernobyl !!!
Fukushima !!
Hide the microwave ovens!!! Hide them. The anti oil zealots are coming for yours!!!!
These heat extraction methods would use a lot of electricity and the only viable option besides burning more coal is nuclear. The idea of burning coal to extract oil seems ludicrous to me when nuclear has all the advantages and none of the disadvantages, especially if they use thorium for fuel.
We have the technology to solve our energy problems, what’s missing is the public and political will to make it happen.
750kW required to run their microwave stick per borehole. A 5 MW heat reactor should be big enough to run a site, but the likelihood of those being built soon, is small/nil. In addition, the greens/neoluddites will block any use of nuclear power because progress ended in the 1920s.
A more interesting question, at what point does it become more cost effective to make syngas from coal, versus running a coal plant to produce enough electricity to microwave the ground?
Building a nuclear power reactor can take up to 20 years from the initial proposal to final commissioning. Much of that time is used in reviewing compliance with applicable regulations, for which it seems that several forests have to be felled to produce all the paper that’s required.
Aside from actual reactor safety, the biggest concern is waste disposal.
Building an obsolete 1970s design large scale nuclear power reactor can take up to 20 years.
They were not primarily designed to produce electricity, they were designed to produce a useful waste product called weapons grade plutonium. The surplus electricity was a useful by-product.
Only a fool would try to reintroduce the Edsel today.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.
The future is small scale nuclear reactors fuelled with thorium.
It’s been decades since I worked in Alberta. Does the UofA still have an operating SLOWPOKE reactor?
At one time Canada was a world leader in the development of small scale nuclear reactors.
Sagd is used very extensively and successfully western Canada. In the late 90’s special drilling tools were developed in Alberta by iirc at the time Sperry-Sun, that allowed the accurate drilling of pairs of horizontal wells by directional drillers….this enabled the producer to be accurately placed within the zone of influence of the steam injector. Once this nut was cracked, the huge surge in sagd operations started.
It’s due to start being decommissioned spring 2017 iirc.
I worked at a SAGD for 18 months – From commissioning to where it was producing at about 80% capacity. KIrby In-situ. a CNRL site South of Conklin about 45k.
The Water used for this facility was from a pair of deep brine wells…treated and then used in the Steam Gens. the Same for the Natural Gas used in the Steam gens…both produced on site.
It took some 3-4 months of steam injection before any measurable amount of bitumin was found within the emulsion stream. 8 well pads that all produced varying amounts. All requiring service drilling from time to time. To date this site is a good producer- planned and situated on a good piece of property that will likely produce for a couple of decades yet. They, CNRL, are also looking at restarting the construction on Kirby North – across Hwy 881 and about 15km from their initial site – I recently heard. good news.
Not so however for a more famous SAGD – Nexen at Long Lake…the one the Chinese bought…and that now sits pretty much inoperative / closed down A world class facility – Built in the wrong place – it never produced in any measurable amounts. One can see why they sold it..!!
Some firefllods worked but they are rare, first you are burning some of your reserves and plugging the porosity with by products. Creates very corrosive products. All your down hole steel gets eaten . Even that above the fire as you are injecting air.
CO2 is created which can at a certain depth be miscible with oil and decrease the viscosity but most firefloods are not deep enough.
There were patented versions of it notably a toe to heel pattern that was patented . I believe in the end it got zero recovery