A Calgary engineer thinks an invention he stumbled upon in the laboratory could transform the way Alberta gets its heavy oil to market.
Ian Gates was researching ways to upgrade bitumen when he and his team accidentally found a way to degrade it, making it even more viscous — which, in turn, led to a discovery that they could envelope the oil in self-sealing pellets, with a liquid core and super-viscous skin.
These tough little balls of bitumen could be a pipeline-free way of getting Alberta oil to markets cheaply, sustainably and with less risk of environmental harm, said a release from the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering, where Gates is a professor.
"We've taken heavy oil, or bitumen, either one, and we've discovered a process to convert them rapidly and reproducibly into pellets," Gates told CBC News.
With this, we can put it in a standard rail car. It can go to any port where a rail car goes, which is an immense number of them, to get product out from North America."
Gates says the pellets could be put in the thousands of rail cars built for coal that are now sitting idle.
Gates and his team of researchers have developed the technology to the point where they can make pellets of various sizes right at the wellhead, using about the same amount of energy as it takes to add diluent to the bitumen to liquefy it for shipping via pipelines.
"Think Advil," Gates said. "You have the chemical material ... we're then exposing that material, on the outside, to a set of heat, pressure conditions, that then yield a asphaltine-rich coating. So, really just a coating that bounds the inner material."
video
Balls of bitumen: Calgary breakthrough will make oil pipelines unnecessary, researcher claims - Calgary - CBC News
Ian Gates was researching ways to upgrade bitumen when he and his team accidentally found a way to degrade it, making it even more viscous — which, in turn, led to a discovery that they could envelope the oil in self-sealing pellets, with a liquid core and super-viscous skin.
These tough little balls of bitumen could be a pipeline-free way of getting Alberta oil to markets cheaply, sustainably and with less risk of environmental harm, said a release from the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering, where Gates is a professor.
"We've taken heavy oil, or bitumen, either one, and we've discovered a process to convert them rapidly and reproducibly into pellets," Gates told CBC News.
With this, we can put it in a standard rail car. It can go to any port where a rail car goes, which is an immense number of them, to get product out from North America."
Gates says the pellets could be put in the thousands of rail cars built for coal that are now sitting idle.
Gates and his team of researchers have developed the technology to the point where they can make pellets of various sizes right at the wellhead, using about the same amount of energy as it takes to add diluent to the bitumen to liquefy it for shipping via pipelines.
"Think Advil," Gates said. "You have the chemical material ... we're then exposing that material, on the outside, to a set of heat, pressure conditions, that then yield a asphaltine-rich coating. So, really just a coating that bounds the inner material."
video
Balls of bitumen: Calgary breakthrough will make oil pipelines unnecessary, researcher claims - Calgary - CBC News
