Energy Technology
Mechanics of Fluid Flow into a Vertical Wellbore»
Interactive animation allows you to affect fluid flow by manipulating well conditions.
Courtesy PFC Energy
Natural Gas Extraction
Hydraulic fracturing to yield more gas
Hydraulic fracturing, a process of creating breaks in rock by pumping fluid into the rock and holding the fracture open using a solid such as sand, has the potential to boost the productivity of natural gas wells. The fluid used could be nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water or any number of other possibilities. Although it has been used since the early 1900s, new techniques have allowed the industry to reach fuel in shale reserves cost-effectively.
In hydraulic fracturing, massive trucks pump thousands of gallons of fluid into the rock at very high pressures in order to force the rock to crack. These cracks are then propped open with sand to allow a highly conductive passage through which the oil or gas can flow. In shale fields, as many as 15 major fractures are placed along the horizontal wellbore, serving to connect all those small two-lane roads to wide boulevards and even larger, faster highways. Currently, the limits of this technology are being pushed every day in order to unleash giant gas resources across North America. Tomorrow, this technology will have to go even farther to allow more fractures and longer horizontal wells. Advances in this area will undoubtedly transform our energy landscape.
For more information on shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, see Modern Shale Gas: A Primer from the U.S. Department of Energy.
‘Clean Coal’ Technology
Meeting energy needs while reducing coal’s impact on environment
Coal is an extremely important energy source, providing 39% of the world’s electricity. But the burning of coal also has a huge impact on the environment—it releases about 9 billion tons of harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, contributing to global warming. The coal industry is developing new “clean coal” technologies that aim to cut down on these emissions while maintaining coal’s low cost.
Today, the coal industry is moving toward coal gasification that will produce a pressurized carbon dioxide stream that can be separated and stored geologically. This gasification process uses steam and oxygen to turn coal into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Other “clean coal” technologies have been used for a number of years and have improved as the world’s environmental concerns became more pronounced. Many coal plants use electrostatic precipitators (filtration devices that remove particles from flowing gas) and fabric filters to remove ash from the gases that are released by coal plants’ flues. The industry also uses flue gas desulfurization, which reduces the amount of sulfur dioxide released into the atmosphere.
Another key to creating cleaner coal is increasing the efficiency of current coal plants and using the latest technology to make newly built plants as environmentally friendly as possible.
