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CAROL
Conoco Phillips Oil Sand Tour and Oils Sand Discovery Centre
Today, we were fortunate enough to join a tour at one of Conoco Phillips oil sand sites near Fort McMurray. We received a quick information session about how their extraction process works and we were able to walk around the site (perimeter walk) to see how these processes actually work. A lot of the details that I learned today was taught through one of the petroleum geology classes I took, however, it was definitely great to see how classroom knowledge is applied in extraction of oil. Some of the possible areas that they wanted us to consider is:
- Since bitumen is difficult to extract due to its viscosity (its very thick), is there a way to engineer bacteria that can lower viscosity. As of now they use heat to change the viscosity of the bitumen, but if there is a more cost effective and efficient way to change the viscosity, it would be a great project...
- About 10% of the water that goes through the whole treatment is not reused
After the great tour, we also went to the oil sand discovery centre and we were able to learn the details of oil composition and how oil is extracted. I thought the tour was excellent because it gave me more insight of how all these technologies come from. As well, we were able to watch a video regarding some history of oil. In general, I had fun and I thought the trip was definitely useful in terms of iGEM and my career. I will update more as I think about the things we learned the last few days, and will explain it on friday.
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CHINMOYEE
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EMILY
Tour of ConocoPhilips and Discover Centre
- Today we went on a tour of Conoco Philips. In the morning we got a general overview of their processes and went on a perimeter walk to see how everything actually worked. I found this a lot more interesting than yesterday as I found it easier this way to see the bigger picture, how all the parts of the process fit together. Yesterday it was harder to see how all the parts of the processes were interconnected.
Some things I took away from this:
- ConocoPhilips has a much smaller footprint due to their different extraction method than Suncor (In Situ versus surface extraction). It also doesn't use large tailings ponds, etc
- Despite competiton, all companies rely on each other for various materials, technologies, etc.
- One of the major problems facing the project is the high viscosity of the bitumen. They need a way to make it less viscous in order to get it to the surface. Right now they are using steam injected in to the ground. This uses a lot of energy and water though, so is there a way to reduce this viscosity using either less steam or something else?
- Another problem they face is that some of the water that goes through the process is released as vapour and lost. Is there a way to save this water? They are currently looking into using some form of a condenser, which apparently poses some engineering challenges, is there another way?
- A third problem is that not all of the Bitumen can currently be extracted. Is there a way to fix this?
- In the afternoon, we went to one of the two pads where the drilling actually happens. We then finished the day with a tour of the discovery centre before returning to Calgary.
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FAHD
Day 2 of the Tour of the Oil Sands
Today was the second day of our trip to the Fort McMurrary courtesy of Andrew Hessel and OSLI (Oil Sands Leadership Initiative). OSLI is an organization of 5 Oil giants who have taken the initiative to promote Youth Leadership and Biotechnology in Alberta. Today we toured the Oil Sands of ConocoPhillips Inc., which is a joint venture of Total and Surmont Inc. We learned about the SAGD method of extracting bitumen out the oil sands, discussed the potential biotechnology projects in the field of synthetic biology and took a tour of their operation sites.
We also visited the Oil Sands Discovery centre, which is a museum that describes the history and establishment of the Oil Sands in Alberta. There were self-toured exhibits tour in the museum and a 45 minute long documentary based on the history of the Oil Sands.
On the whole, the entire tour was an excellent learning experience and a huge success. The tour gave me a vision of the future potential synthetic biology projects that I can do as part of the iGEM Team Calgary. It also gave me an opportunity to understand the workings and the importance of the Oil Sands in Alberta.
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IMAN
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JAMIE
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JEREMY
ConocoPhillips, the Oil Sands and Synthetic Biology
Julie, Bob, Andrew and Pat, all representatives from ConocoPhillips, were able to give our group an amazing tour of their site today. Whereas Suncor’s site was devoted to mining the Oil Sands, ConocoPhillips’ site at Surmont used a different approach: Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). This method involves the injection of steam through a horizontal pipe through the oil sand in order to reduce the incredibly viscosity of the bitumen. The heated bitumen then flows by gravity down to a pipe lower and parallel to the steam injection pipe to be pumped back up to the surface. The production of oil appeared to be a byproduct as most of the plant was devoted to the recycling, heating and cooling of water.
Although ConocoPhillips employed a different method of extracting the oil from the sands, we can see many similarities between the two extraction methods, the largest being the large dependence on incredible amounts of heat energy. Whether it be heating massive amounts of water up to over 300ºC or processing the oil by “cracking” it at incredibly high pressures and temperatures, it appears we cannot avoid this energy demand, yet.
This is where iGEM Calgary and synthetic biologists come in to play. The entire purpose of these past two days was to get people in our field thinking about how we can use the tools and techniques in biology to benefit these energy giants. And that we did. We are bound to find and exploit a gene that allows for the processing of oil, whether it be an enzyme that catalyzes the cracking process at 20ºC instead of 700ºC, or an enzyme that allows for a decrease in viscosity of extracted oil. In any event, I am starting to think that a collaboration between iGEM and the oil sands will inevitably happen in the near future.
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KATIE
Useful Refresher and Initial Lab Completion
For the majority of the morning the second life team was able to get a walkthrough of what has been happening in the lab. It served as a useful refresher to the beginning of the year and included:
- The purpose of everyone’s tasks in the lab.
- Returning to the original signalling system inside of a cell
- The circuits required (signalling, reporter etc.)
- How the circuits will be tested.
The virtual lab has basically been completed aside from some structural modifications and position changes within the second lab. Do to permission setting difficulties, these modifications will be made tomorrow when the team members with modify permissions can make changes.
I began working on the framework for DNA replication, which now consists of a double stranded DNA strand that has been separated along with nucleotides for each strand. A representation of helicase will now travel to its respective position along the framework and now I will be working on changing the nucleotide orientation once rezzed behind the DNA polymerase.
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KEVIN
2nd half of the tour...
ConocoPhilips have given us a thorough tour through their oil processing plant. Their footprint was much smaller than the Suncor's due to the use of different technologies. Where as the Suncor uses surface mining to collect the bitumin from the mine fields, ConocoPhilips uses what's called in situ method, which uses high temperature steam to lower the viscosity of bitumin, which is then sucked up to the ground. They mainly are looking for solutions to lower the viscosity of bitumin without steam or with lower amount of steam so that they can save some energy related costs, and we may be able to remedy the problem with bacteria. Further research is required regarding this issue.
The oil sand discovery center was very interesting. They provided us with clear demonstrations of how bitumin was extracted and processed, and how thick bitumin actually is. We were also given the opportunity to watch a film regarding the history of the oil sands, which gave us a good idea of the gradual development of the oil sands.
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MANDY
A Lab Review and Some Culturing
Today, the second life team were able to get a refresher from Thane to review what was going in lab, in relation to our entire project which was very useful for keeping updated. It also gave us a better idea of how to represent our own project within Second Life for others to see.
Also did a tiny bit of lab work today:
- Made overnight cultures for Jeremy and Jamie's bacteria with luxPQ-luxOU construct
Second Life Lab Completion & Intuitive Exploration
Most of the lab was completed today. The DNA extraction process has been fine tuned 'movement-wise' in the second lab. Nearly all components of the first lab were duplicated and modified for the second lab today, indicating that we have completed most of that part of our project. I've also completed most of the texturing for the lab, making equipment look more realistic.
I built pathways and tubes, as well as began putting together a teleportation map that allows users to more easily and intuitively explore through the three different segments of the island. I will be continuing this as well as write-ups for instructions and background info this week.
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PRIMA
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STEFAN
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VICKI
Fort McMurray oilsands tour: reflections of day 2
We rose early this morning to venture to Surmount, another oil sands development site that is co-operated by ConocoPhilips and Total (of France). Whereas the oil sands on the Suncor lease site is high enough for it to be mined relatively inexpensively, the sands in Surmount are much deeper and the bitumen must be extracted with SAGD technology. SAGD entails drilling a horizontal well far below the surface, consisting of an upper pipe that releases steam into the surrounding area and a lower pipe that collects the bitumen runoff and channels it to another location for processing. As the bitumen in raw form is extremely viscous and will not travel through the pipe untreated, it must be mixed with another petroleum-based product (which they purchase from Suncor!). Some semi-iGEM-related issues that come from this 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 oilsands 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 oilsands 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 held 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.
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