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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
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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
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PATRICK
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PRIMA
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STEFAN
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VICKI
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