Technology draws bead on hydraulic fracturing

Fuel Fix ^ | January 14, 2013 | Jeannie Kever

[spokeshave]

Ha...they all missed the boat....

GASFRAC baby...existing technology and implemented on a number of wells.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Kitty litter ?

[thackney]

I don’t think anybody wants something that clumps, swells and absorbs pumped down their well.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Most drillers still use sand, especially in shallow or low-pressure wells. But a growing number of companies have formed to produce tiny ceramic beads, known as ceramic proppant, for use in the wells, based on research showing the beads can penetrate farther into the rock and hold up better under pressure, increasing the productivity of wells."

Hmmm....small round beads of uniform size penetrate further than irregularly-shaped sand particles.....

This sounds like a D'OH moment to me.

[thackney]

Gas fracturing also requires proppant, regarless if made from sand, resin-coated sand or ceramic.

The gas would replace the water used to move the proppant, but it still requires something to hold the cracks open after the fluid is removed.

They are not competing technologies, they are complementary, or independent.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Kitty litter is calcined clay. I think with a little more calcining, it could be made harder and with a little additive, could be made more like a ceramic.

(The company was one of my former heavy oil customers before nat gas blew out.)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Canadian Fracmaster used CO2...

[thackney]

To replace the water, not the sand.

[thackney]

Sorry, forgot to include the link:

Analysis of Production Response to CO2/Sand Fracturing: A Case Study
http://www.onepetro.org/mslib/servlet/onepetropreview?id=00029191

[Eric in the Ozarks]

They used a +3 API oil cut from a heavy oil fractionator with the CO2. Ditto Unocal for their off shore well stimulation program.

[thackney]

Interesting, thanks

[mosesdapoet]

I find Jeannie Kever’s reference to the material being pumped out in the Fuel Fix article as “fossil fuel” “interesting” and perhaps disturbing.

[thackney]

Do you understand what a sedimentary basin is? And that all commercial oil production is sourced from a sedimentary basin?

Biotic oil geology has lead to the production of oil for over a century.

Abiotic oil theory has lead to the production of cash from gullible investors and occasional goverments, but never commercial oil facilities.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Coming off the unit, the oil was free flowing, clear with a slight gold tint. One afternoon in a beaker exposed to sunlight would turn it dark green, then black.
As sales increased, we discovered the product had several issues possibly related to skin injury so it was withdrawn and routed into the 2 oil pool.

[mosesdapoet]

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Technology draws bead on hydraulic fracturing, thackney wrote:
Do you understand what a sedimentary basin is? And that all commercial oil production is sourced from a sedimentary basin?

Do you understand the difference between fossil and biotic ? Didn’t know T Rexes were found several thousands of feet down but oil has. Some oil make come from “fossil” decomposition but not todays oil. We still don’t know the processes involved. But there is a hint, where radon gas is pleantiful we also find natural gas and oil.

[thackney]

Didn’t know T Rexes were found several thousands of feet down but oil has. Some oil make come from “fossil” decomposition but not todays oil. We still don’t know the processes involved. But there is a hint, where radon gas is pleantiful we also find natural gas and oil.

I'll go back to the first question again. A Sedimentary Basin can be tens of thousands of feet deep. It is material laid down from the surface involving lakes or oceans. The world didn't always look like it did today. Depositing a couple of centimeters of sediment every thousand of years adds up to quite a bit over a few hundred million years.

The T-Rex joke is for cartoons and very young children. We get oil today from squeezing fresh algae. Trap algae, plankton and the like in an oxygen depleted environment, warm and pressurize for millions of years, oil and gas.

We still don’t know the processes involved.

Perhaps you didn't, but plenty of others involved in finding and producing these energy sources do.

You might try to answer the questions how multiple layers of oil/gas exist in the same vertical formation sealed by multiple layers of impermeable cap rock exist if brought up from the bottom instead of laid down from the top with the same sediment.

[mosesdapoet]

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Technology draws bead on hydraulic fracturing, thackney wrote responding to this
Didn’t know T Rexes were found several thousands of feet down but oil has. Some oil make come from “fossil” decomposition but not todays oil. We still don’t know the processes involved. But there is a hint, where radon gas is pleantiful we also find natural gas and oil.
“I’ll go back to the first question again. A Sedimentary Basin can be tens of thousands of feet deep. It is material laid down from the surface involving lakes or oceans. The world didn’t always look like it did today. Depositing a couple of centimeters of sediment every thousand of years adds up to quite a bit over a few hundred million years.”

Yea and Antartica was once in the tropics, Everest was once below or at sea level and present day Chicago is built upon sea shells. What your offering is an interesting but unproven assertion and does not explain oil and natural gas “plays” found all over the place. Nor is that view generally accepted but may explain some oil and natural gas fields but not all.

[thackney]

Nor is that view generally accepted but may explain some oil and natural gas fields but not all.

Name a single oil field not in a sedimentary basin. Just name one.

Name a single oil field found in Igneous Rock and not sourced to Sedimentary Sources.

[houeto]

Ok, I’ve popped the popcorn. Think I’ll sit on the sidelines for a while and enjoy. Wish I was on a ‘thackney’ ping list. Your articles and graphs fascinate me. Thanks.