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Shell Canada Announces Efficiency Improvement in Oil Sands Processing
21 November 2006
Shell Canada has announced the first commercial application of a new high-temperature froth treatment processing technology—Shell Enhance—that it says will improve energy efficiency and reduce costs in oil sands production.
Developed by Shell Canada with the help of government scientists at Natural Resources Canada’s CANMET Energy Technology Centre facility in Devon, Alberta, Shell Enhance froth treatment technology is a process that removes sand, fine clay and water from oil sands froth to make clean bitumen suitable for upgrading via hydrogen addition, which is the upgrading method used at Shell Canada’s Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton. Shell Enhance will use higher temperatures to make the separation process happen at a faster and more efficient rate, utilizing less energy.
Froth is the mixture of oil, solids and water that results from the extraction process. By processing froth at a higher temperature, Shell Canada will be able to use smaller equipment, less water and less energy per barrel than conventional low temperature paraffinic processing. By saving energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with oil sands production are also reduced.
Compared to Shell Canada’s current paraffinic froth treatment processes, Shell Enhance offers the following benefits:
- Improves energy efficiency by 10 per cent (about 40,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year);
- Uses 10 per cent less water;
- Uses plot space 35% smaller and essential equipment 75% smaller; and
- Can be modularized, generating construction efficiencies and reducing costs.
Shell will apply its new froth treatment technology in the first expansion of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP), which was formally launched on November 1, 2006. (Earlier post.)
November 21, 2006 in Oil sands | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: yesplease | November 22, 2006 at 07:19 PM
The atmosphere is so complex that national labs simulate it with super computers. An analysis by a few people is not going to resolve anything. Some people on here act as if they set policy, you don't. A discussion backed by facts can be a good thing, but trying to win because you think you know more is pointless.
Posted by: SJC | November 22, 2006 at 08:22 PM
Richard Lindzen
cato.org
What a joke...
Posted by: pizmo | November 22, 2006 at 09:35 PM
“The inconvenient truth”:
SECOND hit in Google search for “Richard Lindsen”:
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability. His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other. He is currently studying the ways in which unstable eddies determine the pole to equator temperature difference, and the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribution of such instabilities to global heat transport. He has also been developing a new approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere. He has developed models for the Earth's climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate. In cooperation with colleagues and students, he is developing a sophisticated, but computationally simple, climate model to test whether the proper treatment of cumulus convection will significantly reduce climate sensitivity to the increase of greenhouse gases.
Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS's Meisinger, and Charney Awards, and AGU's Macelwane Medal. He is a corresponding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, a member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, and a Fellow of the AAAS1. He is a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., '64, S.M., '61, A.B., '60, Harvard University)
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm
This official page of MIT also contains link to his 216 scientific publications, most assessable in PDF.
Harvey:
I totally agree with you that active forest management, icloding for national parks, would be extremely beneficial for all, including wildlife.
Posted by: Andrey | November 22, 2006 at 10:50 PM
Denialists always flog Lindzen, as if he alone knows the world's answers.
Do you all understand the notion of an "outlier" and that there will never be universal agreement on anything?
No, of course not. It's very very important to stop the UN plot to take over the world and force us all into Matrix-like slavery, right?
Posted by: pizmo | November 23, 2006 at 07:52 AM
Interesting debate, but the palpable lack of charity of certain individual(s) makes their contributions hard to stomach. Gentleman: charity and professionalism and not adolescent name-calling please?
I will not pass myself off as very knowledgeable on this topic, but I do have questions hopefully someone here can answer. There has been talk of computer models that have failed catastrophically when they extrapilate back to certain points, or x number of years. What assumptions are at work when it comes to the timeframes involved here? What happens to these models, ie., what outcome to they point to, if they extrapolate only 7000 years back? 4000 years? 3000 years? Has anyone even bothered to work with those timeframes? I would be very curious to have an unbiased answer to this question for these time periods. (with links please, and the assumptions behind the answers given too).
One's apriori assumptions have the largest bearing on the outcome of such computer generated extrapolations and theories, not necessarily the facts we (think we) know with certainty at this point. Science and scientific study are awesome and valuable, but truly, the more you learn the less you know! Ha ha.
Posted by: John W. | November 23, 2006 at 09:05 AM
John:
Current state of climate science is not nearly advanced enough to have comprehensive PHISICAL models of how climate works. Since that, all computer models are in practice STATISTICAL models. As anyone having an experience to use such models (I did) know, these models are of “explain everything, predict anything” variety. For understandable reasons (funding, acceptance to publication, etc.) the most published and popularized are models tuned to predict dooms-day scenario. I do not mean to offend scientists who working in this extremely complicated field; my only desire is that such models and their predictions would be considered with big grain of salt, which is not the case.
To get the idea how terrible complicated climate interactions are, take a look at the middle of the Senate testimony of same R. Lindzen. I appeal to his opinion mostly because he become world’s leading scientist on the subject long before current GW movement was born:
http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/Testimony/Senate2001.pdf
As usual, I recommend to “dig in” into comprehensive compilation of AGW critique at:
http://personals.galaxyinternet.net/tunga/OSGWD.htm
You can find articles of any level, pure scientific or pure journalistic here.
Pizmo:
However ridiculous the idea of UN bureaucracy pushing GW agenda to control (or at least influence) the world is, looks like some of these soft-fingered clowns really trying to pull the trick:
Margot Wallstrom, the EU’s Environment Commisioner:
“Kyoto is about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.”
Jacques CHIRAC, speech at the Hague in November 2000:
“Kyoto agreement represents the first component of authentic global governance.”
Posted by: Andrey | November 23, 2006 at 03:25 PM
However ridiculous the idea of UN bureaucracy pushing GW agenda to control (or at least influence) the world is, looks like some of these soft-fingered clowns really trying to pull the trick
Yes, the black helicopters are on their way right now. Better go hide.
Posted by: pizmo | November 23, 2006 at 06:47 PM
Thank you Andrey.
Posted by: John W. | November 24, 2006 at 05:56 PM
Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are continuing to climb at an accelerating rate. Thousands of independent studies measuring historic CO2 concentrations from sediments, tree rings, ice cores, etc. show the current CO2 concentration to be as high or higher than at any time in the last 100,000+ years. Why risk taking the atmosphere to a composition not seen since the caveman? There is strong scientific consensus that high CO2 levels at the end of ice ages creates the warming necessary for the glaciers to retreat, allowing forests to regrow bringing CO2 levels back down.
While everyone focuses on global warming, there is little recognition that the higher CO2 levels are acidifying the worlds oceans and all other surface waters. The effect of dissolved CO2 on pH shouldn't be in dispute.
The scientific community needs to do a better job of informing the public on this complex issue. Shell Canada seems to be listening to the scientists, it is asking for a regulatory framework so it can take more agressive action to reduce its GHG emissions.
Posted by: mark | November 28, 2006 at 10:48 PM
please enroll me and forward me all necessary info regarding your program.
thank you,
solomon s sesay
Posted by: solomon s sesay | September 21, 2007 at 06:56 AM
please add me in your program and forward me all your programs regarding my application.
Thank you,
chris.
Posted by: chris | September 21, 2007 at 07:00 AM
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BioBanker, The problem with stating that CO2 is only responsible for 2% of the greenhouse effect because if we removed it water would account for 98% of the effect, is that water and CO2 have overlapping absorption bands. At the same time, we could claim correctly that if we removed water vapor from the picture, CO2 would account for 25% of the greenhouse effect. What we are interested in is the effect of various components with each other, not alone. Which, is widely viewed as 9% for CO2 and 62% for water (clouds + vapor).
More to the point, I searched for Lindzen via ISI, and found two papers published by him (only) in 1990. Neither includes any of the information you presented, which all seems to be from the opinion piece you linked, that was written in 1992 and is in no way a scientific, peer-reviewed paper. Now, if the prof feels like writing opinion pieces, that's fine and dandy, but these do not represent a break from scientific consensus, which is done via peer-reviewed articles.
If you have any of these to bring to the table, please do so, since I haven't seen anything published in the scientific community attacking, or contradicting the idea that humans are significantly influencing the Earth's climate.