Clean and secure energy from domestic oil sands and oil shale resources: Quarterly progress report - January 2014-March 2014

The Clean and Secure Energy from Domestic Oil Shale and Oil Sands Resources program, part of the research agenda of the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy (ICSE) at the University of Utah, is focused on engineering, scientific, and legal research surrounding the development of these resources in Utah. Outreach and education efforts in Task 2, focused on disseminating results from the various subtasks via publication of papers in peer-reviewed journals (Subtask 4.9) and participation in conferences (Subtask 7.3).The website has also been updated with links to all recent outreach efforts. Task 3 focuses on utilization of oil shale and oil sands resources with CO2 management. The Subtask 3.1 team continued gathering and compiling information about emission factors associated with natural gas production and processing. The team is also evaluating the Utah Division of Air Quality's emissions projections for 2012 from oil and gas sources in the Uinta and Piceance Basin for five criteria pollutants. The Subtask 3.2 research team is using a new reaction model, the LES Rate Constrained Chemistry Model, in their simulations and has decided that carbon monoxide (CO) emissions will be the quantity of interest for the remainder of the study. The Subtask 3.3 and 3.4 project teams focused on utilizing decline curve analysis to fit individual wells in the Uinta Basin and then using the resulting range of fitted coefficients in a Monte Carlo simulations of oil production in the Basin over the 1999-2013 period. The analysis has also been extended to include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for conventional oil and gas production based in emissions factors compiled by the Subtask 3.1 team. Task 4 projects are related to liquid fuel production by in-situ thermal processing of oil shale. The Subtask 4.3 began examination of pyrolysis rates at low heating rates in February 2014. Bias errors relating to helium purity and mass flow were identified and fixed. The team has performed pyrolysis experiments at atmospheric pressure at low heating rates (0.5 and 1K/min). The 1 K/min pyrolysis experiments in pure helium agree very closely with the previous Brigham Young University (BYU) data. Task 5 projects provide analyses of the environmental, legal, economic, and policy framework. A final topical report on policy and economic issues associated with using simulation to assess environmental impacts (Subtask 5.3) has not been submitted. All Task 6 projects (economic and policy assessment of a domestic unconventional fuels industry) are now complete. Task 7 researchers are focused on research relevant to their industrial partner, American Shale Oil (AMSO). The Subtask 7.1 team continued its segmented linearization work and its development of constitutive modeling surfaces. They have performed preliminary permeability experiments on oil shale-type samples in a newly commissioned relative permeability apparatus. Subtask 7.3 researchers completed co-simulation of the second AMSO heater test for the fluid in the lower later well which houses the heater and for heat dissipation in the solid shale formation. They were able to match temperatures within 0.5 K over a period of 3 months as measured experimentally by AMSO in tomography wells at the site.