Unconventional Oil

[Tackler]

Scientists use fertilizer to quickly produce methane from old oil wells

2 hours ago

CALGARY - Researchers at the University of Calgary say they may have tapped into a vast new source of clean energy by harnessing the power of oil-eating bacteria that dwell deep beneath the surface of the earth.

The naturally occurring microbes convert crude oil into methane in a process that normally takes tens of thousands of years. The researchers were able to get the same result in just two years by feeding fertilizer to the tiny critters.

Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas - a fuel that expels fewer greenhouse gases than conventional oil when burned.

"We've got a process that naturally turns oil into natural gas," said Steve Larter, the University of Calgary petroleum geologist who led the research published Wednesday in the science journal "Nature."

"Why not just speed up the process by just lobbing in some fertilizer."

The discovery has been enticing to energy companies, who until now have been able to recover only about 17 per cent of oil from the ground.

"This is deemed fairly interesting technology, especially since we get such poor recovery from standard recovery methods of heavy oil," research co-author Jennifer Adams said in an interview.

"To get heavy oil out you've basically got to melt it ... it's like turning gold into lead," Larter said on the journal's website.

The scientists hope to do some field tests in 2009.

The researchers admit proving their process could work on a large scale, economically and in real world conditions, is the big unknown.

Adams said a few companies have expressed interest so far, but she wouldn't say which ones.

Larter said it was hard to come up with just how much energy they could produce, but speculated it could be near the equivalent of the world's conventional oil reserves.

"You're talking a very substantial amount of energy," he said on the journal's website. "It's potentially a game changer if it can be demonstrated."

The bacteria, which have existed underground for hundreds of millions of years, ferment the oil and expel natural gas without requiring oxygen.

Others have tried the approach used by Larter and his colleagues before, seeking to speed up the process by injecting more bacteria. But Larter says the key is giving the microbes their own version of vitamins.

"You'd basically feed them Miracle-Gro or fertilizer to accelerate their growth rate," he said.

The discovery could have big implications in Alberta's oilsands, which according the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers contain up to 175 billion barrels of oil. Canada's reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's in size.

The problem is that the process of extracting the tar-like bitumen takes up a lot of money, energy and water.

Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage, or SAGD, oilsands operations use natural gas to heat up the bitumen, making it less viscous and therefore easier to draw to the surface. Enviromentalists have decried that process as a waste of the clean burning fuel.

So the discovery is good news for Simon Dyer, a senior policy analyst with the Pembina Institute, a think tank that advocates sustainable energy.

"I can certainly say that Pembina Institute is supportive of any sort of technology that is going to reduce the environmental impacts associated with oilsands development and the massive amount of energy and greenhouse gases and water use associated with current oilsands production," he said.

But in order to get a project like this off the ground, there needs to be the political will, Dyer said.

"We're continually approving new oilsands projects based on old technologies and we're going to be locked into using these more destructive technologies even if better approaches are waiting in the wings," he said.

"I think the real obstacle is that we don't really have the regulatory framework that demands best practices or the sort of improvements to the environmental performance that would encourage the economic development of these technologies."

Speaking to a business audience in Regina on Wednesday, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said new technology is key to developing his province's oilsands resources.

The province contains 27,000 square kilometres of potential oilsands reserves. If technology increased recovery rates by five per cent, the province's remaining recoverable reserves would more than double from current levels, Wall said.

"Saskatchewan has an energy diversity that no other Canadian province can match in terms of primary energy supply," Wall said. "Oil is a critical part of that diversity, but we need research and new technology to unlock the resource that we have in not only oil sands but light, medium and heavy crude as well."