sustainability during resource stresses

Sustainability During Resource

StressesBlack Gold vs Green Gold

For thousands of years,CANDLESServed as the only illumination during the night.

But in the Mid 1800’s, the method

to make kerosene

sparked the advent of oil.

100 years later, Petroleum would be named as

“BLACK GOLD”

Fast forward hundreds of year

later, we’d be here.

The United Arab Emirates

UAE has the 7th largest oil reserve in

the world.

77% of UAE’s economy runs

on oil-related activities.

UAE exports oil with:

How does UAE get its oil?

Geologists use seismic surveys to search for

geological structures that may form oil reservoirs.

The "classic" method includes making an underground explosion nearby and observing the seismic response that provides information about the geological structures under the ground

However, "passive" methods that extract information from naturally-occurring seismic waves are also known

Locating the oil field

The oil well is created by drilling a long hole into

the earth with an oil rig. A steel pipe (casing) is placed in the hole, to

provide structural integrity to the newly drilled well bore.

Holes are then made in the base of the well to enable oil to pass into the bore.

Finally a collection of valves called a "Christmas Tree" is fitted to the top, the valves regulate pressures and control flow.

Drilling

During the primary recovery stage, reservoir

drive comes from a number of natural mechanisms.

These include: natural water displacing oil downward into the well, expansion of the natural gas at the top of the reservoir, expansion of gas initially dissolved in the crude oil, and gravity drainage resulting from the movement of oil within the reservoir from the upper to the lower parts where the wells are located.

Oil extraction and recovery

Over the lifetime of the well the pressure will fall, and at some point there will be insufficient underground pressure to force the oil to the surface.

After natural reservoir drive diminishes, secondary recovery methods are applied. They rely on the supply of external energy into the reservoir in the form of injecting fluids to increase reservoir pressure, hence replacing or increasing the natural reservoir drive with an artificial drive.

Secondary recovery techniques increase the reservoir's pressure by water injection, natural gas reinjection and gas lift, which injects air, carbon dioxide or some other gas into the bottom of an active well, reducing the overall density of fluid in the wellbore.

Secondary recovery

Enhanced, or Tertiary oil recovery methods

increase the mobility of the oil in order to increase extraction.

Tertiary recovery allows another 5% to 15% of the reservoir's oil to be recovered.

Enhanced recovery

It is expected to last for 93 years.

UAE’s oil is certainly amazing.

But what happens then? After 93

years?

the hypothetical point in time when the global

production of oil reaches its maximum rate, after which production will gradually decline.

Peak Oil

Solar Power Electricity Hydropower Geothermal

There are alternatives.

But there is a problem!

Biofuel or Green Gold

It is a safer, more greener alternative. It produces oil from biological sources.It can be a bacteria that digests biomass. It can be corn or other plants. It can be an algae.

Trucks collect waste from around— from public

toilets, homes, hotels and businesses. Half is unloaded into holding tanks at

Sunesson’s site, the rest is dumped into the ocean at Lavender Hill. Sunesson’s containers act as sieves, separating the solid garbage that people flush down toilets from the liquid waste.

Biofuel Production

The liquid waste is sent through a pump

containing five litres of polymer for every 9,995 litres of water. The polymer “dewaters” the waste. Like a magnet, it separates the feces from the fluid.

Biofuel Production

The filtered water is recycled back into the

ocean, although potential partners are now testing it for fish farming and drinking water conversion.

The sludge is composted in drying beds and used as fertilizer on crops. Or it is put into an industrial oven and dried almost completely. “It’s like slow-cooking a chicken,” says Sunesson.

The waste breaks into small pellets, which emit less carbon when burned as biofuel.

Biofuel Production

Gasification is a process that converts organic or fossil fuel

based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This is achieved by reacting the material at high temperatures (>700 °C), without combustion, with a controlled amount of oxygenand/or steam.

The resulting gas mixture is called syngas (from synthesis gas or synthetic gas) or producer gas and is itself a fuel. The power derived from gasification and combustion of the resultant gas is considered to be a source of renewable energy if the gasified compounds were obtained from biomass

Syngas, or synthesis gas, is a fuel gas mixture consisting primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and very often some carbon dioxide.

Biofuel Production