Team:Calgary/News/Oilsands

• AiF Dragon's Den (05/25)
• AiF Ethics Workshop (05/31)

• Campus Fair (06/06)

• NUTV Full Frontal (07/04)
• AiF Presentation/ Fundraising/ Wiki Workshops (07/11-07/12)

• Oilsands Tour (08/10-08/11)

September

• UToday Article (09/18)
• aGEM Jamboree (09/18-09/20)

An Overview of Alberta Regional Team Meet-ups

On August 10th and 11th nine members of the U of C team and 2 facilitators, along with some team members and facilitators from U of L and U of A had the opportunity to go on a tour of the Oil Sands near Fort McMurray.

Monday started off with a visit to Suncor's site. We looked at some of the machinery and took some photos by a giant tire. We spent the morning doing a bus tour of the site, looking at the different parts of the operation and how they work together. We had the opportunity to drive out to a viewpoint where we got a good idea of the expansiveness of the operation.

We then drove part way into the mining site where we got a close up view of some of the trucks. It was incredible to see just how big they are. All of the other vehicles that travel on the site have to have special flags and lights so they can be seen. Our tour guide used the analogy that driving one of these giant trucks is like sitting on a bed in a second floor bedroom driving the house.

One thing we looked at was the tailings ponds. These are essentially large ponds where by-products are deposited and left for long periods of time for some of the components to break down and settle. Small sheets of pure water are added periodically to aid this process. The pollutants eventually settle out at the bottom while the clean water stays up near the surface. Eventually these lands are reclaimed, although this takes a lot of time. When reclaimed, the lands are made to be hilly in order to allow for drainage. Eventually, they will hopefully be certified for human use again.

Lunch was in the cafeteria where some of the workers live. We got a brief view of the facilities that they have for their workers. After lunch, we went and saw some reclaimed land. This is land that has been cleaned up son that plants and animals can live there. Bison is one animal that is currently living on some of this reclaimed land.

When land reclamation occurs, barley is planted over the Muskeg to prevent soil erosion. Barley holds the soil until the seedlings can grow then the Barley dries out, which is a good thing or else the seedlings would have to compete with barley to grow.

We also learned a little bit about the history of the oil sands. Essentially, underground oil reserves were brought up by the formation of the mountains and caused the oil to mix with the sand, causing oil sands. When oil sand is boiled the oil (bitumen) becomes less dense than water and floats on water. This is how the oil is separated. When oil sand is too deep and can’t be dug or some other reason. Pipelines are drilled – slant drills- until oil sand reservoir is reached then steam is pumped into the soil. The steam separates the oil from the sand and makes it possible to collect the oil from this underground deposit. Two types of products are produced: sweet product – without sulphur and sour product – with sulphur. The removed sulphur is used in fertilizer – Syncrude has a fertilizer plant on site.

On Tuesday we went on a tour of ConocoPhilips in the morning. This started out with a presentation of the general overview of their site and the processes they do. We learned that there is bitumen in oil sands ranging from the Rocky Mountains to Fort McMurray, including under Calgary. The bitumen is only extractable near Fort McMurray however because here it is closer to the surface. In other locations, the bitumen is found too deep from the surface to be able to be extracted.

It was interesting to see the differences between the procedures used by Suncor in comparison to what ConocoPhilips does. Were as Suncor uses surface mining, ConocoPhilips uses a method called SAGD. This stands for surface addicted gravity drainage. In this process, a vertical hole is drilled in the ground that then branches out horizontally once it has reached a certain depth. Pipes are then inserted. There are two pipes, a larger one for the Bitumen extraction and a smaller one to inject steam into the ground. This steam is used to reduce the viscosity of the bitumen so that it can then diffuse into the other pipe. Because it is less viscous then the surrounding bitumen, it is then able to rise to the surface. Here it is treated with a synthetic crude oil product (produced by Suncor) which further reduces the viscosity so that it can flow easier through the pipelines on its way to be treated. The steam moves upwards out of the pipe, creating a V shape of extraction. This steam is then partially recovered through the use of lifting gas. This form of extraction is used for bitumen found further from the surface than the bitumen that is mined through open excavation (like Suncor). A result of this method of extraction is that the majority of the pant is found underground, this reduces the surface impact and footprint. Pipelines are raised above the ground in several locations to allow various forms of wildlife to be able to cross underneath them. The pipes are also bent in some places to allow room for expanding and contracting with temperature changes in the air, which can be a particular problem in the winter time.

At the end of this presentation, we briefly discussed some of the major problems that they face right now in trying to make their site more efficient and environmentally friendly. This was interesting to us as this is where we might be able to help. Some possible things to look into are:

• Efficiency of energy production. One of the ConocoPhilips representatives mentioned that they can extract 6 barrels of oil for every barrel equivalent of energy that is put in. Most of the input energy is lost in producing steam to heat the bitumen and sufficiently lower its viscosity to enable it to flow. Although this number is certainly more realistic than what I heard at Suncor the day before (and, admittedly, the Suncor source did mention that he was not sure of the exact value), it is nowhere near the 30:1 output-input ratio that comes from conventional oil wells (Pressnail, 2007). Given that many people are anticipating an energy crisis, one must ask whether accelerated development of the oil sands is a responsible approach at this stage, especially when we consider one or two generations into the future, when the effects of the extravagant lifestyles of this generation become more pronounced. Please note that I have not said that the oil sands should not be developed – I am merely suggesting that we should approach their development cautiously until we have more efficient means of extracting oil – let’s say a 20:1 output-input energy ratio. For now, developing the technologies that are capable of extracting oil more efficiently is critical.
• From an iGEM perspective, this could entail designing bacteria that release an enzyme that lowers the viscosity of the bitumen. This would allow us to operate with lower steam temperatures, and thus lower the input energy necessary to get anything out of the process.
• Alternatively, we could design bacteria that can effectively crack longer carbon chains. This would help circumvent the energy expenditure required to bring the bitumen up to a high heat and pressure that are currently employed in the cracking process.
• Mining versus SAGD. Different technologies are more appropriate for different environments: the former is useful when the oil sands are close to the surface; the latter is more suited to sands that are too deep to be mined safely. Mining is advantageous because up to 95% of the bitumen trapped in the sands can be extracted for use. SAGD looks better because although the extraction efficiency is much lower, the surrounding land doesn’t look as scorched. Nevertheless, a day of production at the Cold Lake site uses as much input energy as the entire city of Edmonton in that time! Moreover, SAGD only extracts 65% of the bitumen that is actually present. From what we were told, the rest remains trapped in the sand pores and could be later extracted with different technologies, but that would entail re-drilling the well, re-clearing the reclaimed land and re-setting up the equipment for the well – each of which require time, money and energy.
• Bacteria that can survive the steam treatment and extract some of the remaining 35% of the bitumen that SAGD technology misses will enable us to gain more output energy for a similar amount of input and thus increase the efficiency of the process.
• Reclamation. Syncrude and Suncor both proudly displayed their reclaimed land and seemingly-flourishing ecosystems on earth that was once scorched. As mentioned yesterday, these efforts are admirable. I was particularly impressed by how they recruit people specifically to further their reclamation efforts. Again, however, we don’t know what the long-term effects of the former excavation site will be – say, whether tar ponds leach chemicals into the environment a generation down the road, or whether the reclaimed land better supports the survival of species that should not ordinarily flourish there, or the list goes on. Note that the latter point is not necessarily negative, but it remains unknown.
• There would be great value in developing bacteria that can digest harmful residual chemicals of the well site and release waste products that will not devastate the local environment if they leach beyond their containment points in the future. Similarly, bacteria that can serve as an obvious indicator of whether or not certain chemicals are present (before plants start dying off) can warn us that something is amiss, and will allow us to react before serious problems occur in the local environment. Of course, there’s always the issue of how sensible it really is to introduce a strain of bacteria into an ecosystem where it is not naturally found, depending on what chassis is used in the final product…
• Desulfonation of the tar. Suncor uses smoke stacks with limestone scrubbers to clean 95% of the sulphur out of the tar slurry and reduce the potential for acid rain down the road. Certain bacteria that are found in caves (and otherwise) can process sulfonated bodies and remove the sulphur that is present.
• If we could use bacteria that self-replicate and extract more than 95% of the sulphur – in addition to or lieu of limestone in finite supply – we could lower the environmental impact of this process.
• Exploiting the power of the natural environment. Although this term carries many negative connotations, it is not meant in an entirely self-serving sense – rather, if there are bacteria that naturally occur in the depths where oil sands are found, it would be useful to gain an understanding of what they are and what they can do.

This will better support our efforts in engineering an effective biological approach to improving the efficiency and lessening the environmental impact of the oil sands development projects.

We went on a perimeter walk to view the site and see the different processes in action. We looked at the camp facilities and had lunch in the camp's kitchen. After lunch we went to check out one of the two pads where the drilling actually happens. We looked at the pipelines that go to and from the pads as well as where they are currently drilling.

We finished the day with a visit to the Oil Sands Discovery Centre where we got some good background information in the Oil Sands and watched a film about how oil sands production started and the initial difficulties it went through in establishing itself as a successful industry.

After this, we spent some quality time in the Fort McMurray airport before heading back to Calgary. All in all this was a really great trip and we learned a lot and got to meet some interesting people. We've already started to think about how Synthetic Biology could play a role in the oil sands industry, which could provide some interesting directions for future iGEM projects.