Pilot plant will showcase new technology
High-pressure hydrogen extracts oil
Canwest News Service
Friday, August 01, 2008
The former chairman of Western Oil Sands Inc. is championing a new hydrogen-making technology that will be used at a $13-million pilot plant near Fort Saskatchewan.
Guy Turcotte said he intended to be a financial partner only in Western Hydrogen Ltd., a Calgary-based company that won a $4.3-million federal grant Monday, but he stepped up his involvement after his partner Doug Monaghan, 41, and seven-year-old daughter Amy were killed near Field, B.C., last Dec. 30.
"His wife and his five-year-old son are the other shareholders," Turcotte said. "Doug approached me 21/2 years ago to be his partner, knowing this could potentially be a product to sell to the oilsands upgrading world."
Turcotte, a chemical engineer, said the patented technology has been developed with the help of the U.S. Department of Energy over the past two years and has proven in the lab to be effective and more cost-efficient than existing methods.
The process, called alkaline metal reforming, produces high volumes of high-pressure hydrogen using low-cost feedstocks including glycerol, crop waste and petroleum coke. It is said to cost 35 per cent less to build and have environmental and energy cost advantages over widely used steam methane reforming or SMR.
The technology also produces a concentrated stream of CO2 that could be fed into a carbon capture and storage system. Turcotte said he has already applied to the Alberta government for a grant under its $2-billion carbon sequestration project to match the money committed by federal agency Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
The project has the support of Aux Sable Canada Ltd., which will contribute land at its site in Fort Saskatchewan among the refineries and chemical plants of the Industrial Heartland, on which a pilot plant will be built for about $12.9 million.
In return, it will likely wind up operating the two-million-cubic-feet-per-day hydrogen pilot plant and getting a front-row look at its technology. Aux Sable is owned by Enbridge Inc. and Fort Chicago Energy Partners. Western Oil Sands, founded by Turcotte, was sold to Marathon Oil Corp. last October for $6.6 billion.
To upgrade molasses-like bitumen from the oilsands into synthetic light crude, producers must either add hydrogen or subtract carbon.
Ian Potter, vice-president of energy at the Alberta Research Council, said 1.5 billion cubic feet of hydrogen is required every day to upgrade current production of 950,000 barrels of bitumen from the oilsands. Most of the hydrogen comes from natural gas.
"Companies are very comfortable (with SMR) so there needs to be a step change to get them away from it. The issue at the moment is the price of natural gas," he said.
Potter said alternative technologies are being investigated, including coal or petroleum coke gasification projects that could generate hydrogen as a main product.
