(Press-News.org) Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
Natural soil bacteria pump new life into exhausted oil wells
NEW ORLEANS, April 8, 2013 — Technology that enlists natural soil bacteria as 21st century roughnecks now is commercially available and poised to recover precious oil remaining in thousands of exhausted oil wells, according to a scientist who spoke here today. His report on a process termed microbially enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) was part of the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
"The idea of using microbes to bring spent oil wells back to life dates to the early 1900s," said Brian Clement, Ph.D. "That was the era of 'easy-to-recover' oil, and when a well played out, you just moved on and drilled another — knowing that 60-70 percent of the oil in that first reservoir remained untouched. We're in a different era now. Oil is scarcer, and it makes sense to use MEOR. It can put about 10 percent of the oil in exhausted wells into barrels with low capital investment, low operating costs and little environmental impact."
Clement is a senior scientist at Glori Energy, which is deploying its MEOR technology known as
AEROTM, for Activated Environment for Recovery of Oil. Other companies that have moved the technology to market include DuPont, which offers its MATRxTM MEOR technology and Titan Oil Recovery, Inc., which offers its Titan Process®. Clement's talk was part of the symposium titled "The Interconnected World of Energy, Food and Water."
Conventional oil production techniques rely on pressure that exists naturally in an underground reservoir to push oil to the surface, much like the pressure in a bottle of carbonated beverage. Clement explained that the pressure in a reservoir declines over time, and eventually it is too low to force oil to the surface. At that point, as much as 60 to 70 percent of the reservoir's oil often remains in the ground.
MEOR can retrieve that oil by fostering various changes in the reservoir. Clement explained that the AEROTM System, for instance, piggybacks on waterflooding, a widely used process in which water is injected into the reservoir to force oil out of the well and to the surface. The system adds a customized formula of nutrients to the injection water to optimize its quality and stimulate the growth of native reservoir bacteria.
With the AERO System, microbes thrive and grow to increase oil production using two main mechanisms. First, they break down and metabolize oil at the oil-water interface, allowing the oil to flow more freely. Second, the microbes block existing water channels within the reservoir's soil, forcing the water into new channels and driving more oil to the surface.
With the AERO System's MEOR technology, oil field owners and operators can increase production from declining wells without having to invest in expensive, new infrastructure. Clement described tests in which the technology helped produce an additional 9-12 percent of the total oil remaining in reservoirs. The number may sound small, but translates into an additional $10 billion of oil from wells in the United States and more than $165 billion worldwide.
INFORMATION:
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society contact newsroom@acs.org.
Note to journalists: Please report that this research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Follow us: Twitter | Facebook
Abstract
A reliable and predictable energy supply is a requirement for the continued development of our society. Current infrastructure is based on energy supplied from extracted hydrocarbons, and there is no indication of this changing significantly within the foreseeable future. Therefore, the extraction and consumption of available hydrocarbon resources is extremely important to establishing a secure energy supply.
Traditional production of crude oil typically leaves 60-70% of discovered oil behind, making mature oil fields a prime target for the application of novel technologies aiming to improve oil recovery.
This presentation will review technologies for enhanced oil recovery with a focus on a biotechnology-based approach targeting reservoir microbiology. When successfully implemented, this technology offers a viable option to recover trapped oil with minimal new footprint or investment.
END
Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
Understanding climate science: A scientist's responsibility to communicate with the public
NEW ORLEANS, April 8, 2013 — With global climate change and the prospect of another record-hot summer on the minds of millions of people, experts have gathered here today to encourage scientists to take a more active role in communicating the topic to the public, policy makers and others. The symposium, "Understanding Climate Science: A Scientist's ...
Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
Global leaders of $3.5 trillion enterprise gathering for 2 days of talks
NEW ORLEANS, April 8, 2013 — Top leaders in chemistry — a $760 billion annual enterprise in the United States and $3.5 trillion worldwide — are gathering here today to consider a formula for ensuring the future success of the scientists whose work touches 96 percent of all the world's manufactured goods.
The special symposium titled "Vision 2025: How to Succeed in ...
Michael Woods
m_woods@acs.org
504-670-4707 (New Orleans Press Center, April 5-10)
202-872-6293
American Chemical Society
Egyptian wedding certificate key to authenticating controversial Biblical text
NEW ORLEANS, April 8, 2013 — A scientist who helped verify authenticity of the fabled Gospel of Judas today revealed how an ancient Egyptian marriage certificate played a pivotal role in confirming the veracity of inks used in the controversial text. The disclosure, which sheds new light on the intensive scientific efforts to validate the gospel, was made here ...
Protecting against aging at the molecular level
High fidelity DNA replication during each cycle of cell division is required to maintain genomic stability and prevent chromosomal mutations and rearrangements that can cause disease and aging. Mutations in ATRX, a gene that encodes a protein that participates in DNA replication, are associated with X-linked mental retardation, various cancers, and developmental disorders, but the cellular functions of ATRX are still unclear. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Nathalie Bérubé at the ...
High fidelity DNA replication during each cycle of cell division is required to maintain genomic stability and prevent chromosomal mutations and rearrangements that can cause disease and aging. Mutations in ATRX, a gene that encodes a protein that participates in DNA replication, are associated with X-linked mental retardation, various cancers, and developmental disorders, but the cellular functions of ATRX are still unclear. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Nathalie Bérubé at the University of Western Ontario report on the effects ...
The retina is a highly vascularized tissue, but too much or too little vascularization can lead to visual impairment and diseases such as familial exudative vitreoretinopathy or macular degeneration. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Alfred Nordheim and colleagues at Tuebingen University in Tuebingen, Germany, identified the DNA transcription factor SRF and its cofactors MRTF-A and MRTF-B as critical regulators of vascularization in the postnatal mouse eye. Loss of vascular Srf in adult mice led to the formation of microaneurysms and excess blood vessel ...
When a child with autism copies the actions of an adult, he or she is likely to omit anything "silly" about what they've just seen. In contrast, typically developing children will go out of their way to repeat each and every element of the behavior even as they may realize that parts of it don't make any sense.
The findings, reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 8, are the first to show that the social nature of imitation is very important and challenging for children with autism, the researchers say. They also emphasize just how important it is ...
VIDEO:
The vocal lip-smacks that geladas use in friendly encounters have surprising similarities to human speech, according to a study reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 8th....
Click here for more information.
The vocal lip-smacks that geladas use in friendly encounters have surprising similarities to human speech, according to a study reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 8th. The geladas, which live only in the remote mountains ...
The rate of stillbirths in British Columbia, Canada, increased by 31% over a decade, although the rate of spontaneous stillbirths did not increase, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
Stillbirth rates, which had been declining for decades, have increased or plateaued in several industrialized countries. For example, rates in Australia have increased from 7.0 per 1000 total births in 2000 to 7.8 per 1000 in 2009 and in Canada, rates have increased from 6.0 per 1000 total births in 2000 to 7.1 per 1000 in 2009. The United States, ...
There is a direct, positive link between physicians' preventive health practices and those of their patients, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
Researchers looked at the screening and vaccination practices of 1488 physicians and their 1 886 791 adult patients in Israel's largest health maintenance organization, Clalit Health Services (CHS). These practices included age appropriate mammography, blood pressure measurement, colorectal screening, annual influenza vaccinations and others. For example, among patients whose physicians had ...
