| Description |
The Clean and Secure Energy from Domestic Oil Shale and Oil Sands Resources program is part of the research agenda of the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy (ICSE) at the University of Utah. In its outreach efforts this quarter, ICSE finalized materials for a short course on kerogen liquefaction (e.g. oil shale thermal treatment) to Statoil in Trondheim, Norway, on October 8-10, 2012. In Task 3.0, the Subtask 3.1 team gathered data related to fuel consumption associated with well drilling in the Uinta Basin. The data will be used to estimate costs and greenhouse gases associated with well drilling. A preliminary report was completed by Subtask 3.2 researchers and is included as an appendix to this report. For Subtasks 3.3 and 3.4, the project team is developing an overall framework for a Matlab-based systems dynamics model with the objective of predicting drilling frequency and production levels from oil and gas wells in the Uinta Basin given the forecast price for oil and gas, the marginal cost of producing, and other constraints such as the availability of permits, transportation, etc. The Task 4.0 projects focused on the Skyline 16 core (GR-1, GR-2, and GR-3) are synthesizing the data collected into a publication. Subtask 4.9 researchers are leading this effort. Subtask 4.3 researchers completed two project milestones related to analysis of products from Skyline 16 core samples and demineralized kerogen pyrolysis. The Subtask 4.7 team completed the first mechanical properties tests on White River oil shale samples. The testing included unconfined compression at ambient temperatures and thermal conductivity measurements. Tests on Skyline 16 core samples will follow. Subtask 4.9 researchers completed the final experimental work on this project, solution NMR on the tar sample from the pyrolysis of the GR-3 kerogen and solid state NMR on several additional chars from the GR-3 sample. The small angle X-ray scattering and the atomic pairwise distribution function data is currently being analyzed. In other Task 4.0 projects, the Subtask 4.1 team continues to develop their Star-CCM+ simulation tool with the addition of a properties model that accounts for spatial and temperature variability in density, thermal conductivity, and specific heat of oil shale at large (formation) or small (piece of shale) scales. The graduate student working on Subtask 4.2 (reservoir simulation) has accepted a position at Los Alamos National Laboratory and is working with the project PI to complete the final report. Researchers in Subtask 4.8 will be describing their last two cores in the next quarter. In the area of policy and legal analysis, Subtask 5.3 researchers performed the foundational research on the legal and policy framework for utilizing simulation science in the context of assessing environmental risks or harms. The final report for Subtask 6.2 will be submitted next quarter. The Market Assessment (Subtask 6.3) was finalized in this quarter in preparation for sending it out to reviewers in October 2012. Subtask 6.1, which provided much of the engineering analysis for the assessment, will be completed once the process models and data have been uploaded to a webpage on the ICSE website. All Task 7.0 projects were reviewed by a team from American Shale Oil (AMSO), Genie Energy, and TOTAL at a meeting in late September. Based on feedback from this meeting, Subtask 7.2 will be discontinued and its funds reallocated to Subtasks 7.1 and 7.3. The Subtask 7.1 team continued its development of methods for representing the matrix of experimental data that has been generated by AMSO. Additional data from Metarock triaxial testing has been fitted. The Subtask 7.3 team improved the computational representation of the AMSO process in their simulations and created a simulation tool that accounts for the depth- and temperature-varying properties of oil shale in the AMSO test bed. |
