Recently in Environmental Engineering Category

We have been diverting our attention from the collection of rising oil/gas and the diversion of the "plume" to our collector(s) to thinking about the stopping of the flow.  The government panel has finally caught up with the rest of us, including Prof. Steve Wereley of Purdue; we have been assisting in his excellent estimates that show the flow of gas/oil to be something north of 70,000 barrels/day.  The new government estimates are consistent with that when allowance for high, uncertain gas content is factored in.  As the media circus unfolds, and it becomes more possible that August and hurricanes will both arrive before the flow is stopped, we believe we have an answer and we know how to build this answer.

BP's High Risk Solution

Inserting a pipe into the BP/Horizon riser would be in the right direction to stopping oil flow.   Failing that, we fear that BP is being forced to cut all the debris away from the top of the BOP and install another BOP atop the first, with suitable transition.  Frankly, we believe that should have been done much sooner, but the risk is that to do so would actually increase oil flow.  Only a Monday morning quarterback would second-guess BP in this decision.

The Geometry is the Problem, Stupid!

For the idea of diverting the flow using the riser, the problem is that the riser is a tortuous 20 inch (i.d.) pipe with 1" walls.  Worse, the 7" production pipe is still in the riser for its whole length and well beyond.  A very small flow of oil/gas through the 7" pipe was stopped earlier by having ROVs install a block valve on the end of that pipe.  Now, the best BP has been able to do is to insert a smaller 4" line into the riser with flexible collars or diaphragms attached, but this "siphon" has produced a fraction of the leaking oil/gas, probably a bigger share of gas than of the noxious oil.  Simple hydraulics shows that the siphon is very limited because it cannot seal against the wall of the riser, with our pesky 7" pipe in the way.  Where is Kafka when we need him?



Back at the top of the BOP, the riser is twisted so badly near where it sits on top of the BOP that several leaks occurred (it looks like as many as 4, now).  This part of the riser is weakened.  If we succeeded in inserting a new pipe tightly into the "top" end of the riser, we would be concerned that these cracks would widen under any increase in differential pressure.  Even the use of somewhat abrasive drilling mud in the "top kill" runs the risk of widening these cracks and increasing the rate of leakage.  Our idea has that covered.

But the best bet of stopping flow before August seems to us to be to wrap or weld over the 4 upstream leaks, either before or after we solve the geometry problem at the top end of the riser, and either stop the flow at the top end with a block valve or (preferably) insert a sealed "pipe" and direct the well product to the surface through any of many ways available to BP.  The latter is the clear winner since it does not run the risk of rupture of the riser, creating very little extra back-pressure on the weakened walls.

Inserting a Flexible Pipe with Wall Sealing

There are 3 principals which we will employ which allow this system to work.  First, we have developed various ideas about making deep water piping systems out of very high performance braided fiber (we call it superfiber) cylinders, coated with polymeric systems which protect and seal the resultant tubes.  Second, we use adhesives and stitching of fabric-to-fabric to create seams which work very well at pressures encountered in deep water E&P operations.  Third, we employ clever design and the principals of Judo to actually use the power of the high pressures in the well to fight the leak.

Our plan is in stages.

Reinforce or even stop the 4 leaks near the BOP (can be done later)

Cut the 7' line near the end of the riser: reinstall block valve (optional)



The two images below shows how we build and install an expandable pipe to grip the riser's inner surface and transition to either a block valve or the surface. We braid a pair of cylinders of super-fiber like Kevlar® and coat them with marine-grade, flexible urethane such as used on marine hawsers.  Outer cylinder is (say) 30 feet long and diameter sized to fit against the 20" inside diameter of riser. Outer surface should have embedded grit or even "thumbtacks" through the fabric to provide grip to inner surface of riser.



The inner cylinder is slightly smaller ... gap is not important ... and we use stitching and adhesive to connect inner cylinder to the outer cylinder at each end.  Here's an important innovation: we glue and stitch the two cylinders together longitudinally at several points around the circumference. This forms an elongated torus with space enough between the inner and outer walls.  And there are several longitudinal pressure chambers between the plies.   Install a flange around the upstream end to protect this double-walled pipe as we thread it into the riser around the pesky 7' pipe.   There is a bigger flange around the downstream end, where it will hook to a block valve.  In the annular space between the pipe layers, we install some small diameter plastic rods or pipes to make the flexible pipe rigid in the longitudinal direction without preventing it expanding to fit within the riser. This allows the ROVs to thread the flexible, double-walled pipe as far as possible into the riser, surrounding the 7" pipe.



How Does This Work?

Pressure at this level is approximately 151 atmospheres.  Inside the riser is somewhat higher. Pressure relieve valves (PRVs) are installed in the inner cylinder walls, set to open at pressures above (say) 155 atmospheres. This will allow material and pressure to enter the annular chamber.  When in place, we use a moderate head seawater pump to increase the pressure insider the annulus to (say) 200 atmospheres, which will increase the outer diameter because we have designed the braided, coated cylinder to expand under such differential pressures.  The grit or high tech thumbtacks will try to enter the walls of the riser, thereby increasing the friction required to displace the pipe from the riser.  Remember, our pesky 7" pipe is actually inside the annular pipe.  When expanded to meet the walls, our pipe will divert all flow into itself.

At the other end of our annular pipe is a traditional metal flange; we have invented proprietary means of transitioning securely from the flexible pipe to the flange.  Next comes a suitable block valve--preferably low pressure drop.  Then the pipe can connect to BP's various ways to pipe to the surface.

Here is where we draw upon the principals of judo, allowing the flowing well pressure to help us defeat the well flow.  With PRVs installed in the inner wall of our annular tube, any higher pressure inside the riser will allow gas or oil (or even drilling mud or water) to enter the annular space, equilibrating the pressure. The flexible tube will try to expand even further.  The higher pressure will act to push our designer thumbtacks through the wall of the super fiber tube, assuring that the pipe is not displaced.  Thus, the higher the internal pressure provided by the oil/gas formation, the better our seal.

While BP cannot be accused of being overly informative, we have heard that measured well pressures like 10 or 11 Kpounds/SqIn existed before the accident.  If true, we know that if we closed our block valve without any more pressure reduction from drilling mud (top kill is under way as this is written), the worst case scenario is for the pressure in the riser to approach 10,500 psi (about 715 atmospheres).  With 151 atm outside, the differential pressure across the riser would approach 564 atmospheres in this case.  Once the 20" diameter flexible pipe was outside the riser, it would experience that same differential pressure; we can design for this but would rather not, as it will increase the lead time greatly.  Therefore, we have allowed for using this approach and the block valve to shut off flow and do a top kill.  With no net flow of oil/gas upward, this would be  a relatively easy proposition.  But we do not like the risk/reward ratio.

How Would We Use the Product to Stop the Leak Soonest?

Our preferred method is to design the flexible pipe for much lower differential pressure, install it with an open block valve, prebolted to a line to the surface, with extra long flange bolts, allowing a gap after the block valve.  When the expandable flex-pipe is snaked into the riser by the ROV, the oil gas flow will be mostly diverted through the tube, through to low delta P block valve and leak out around the still open flange.  Once the tube has been inserted as far as feasible and the high head seawater pump pressures it up to seal and hold, our ROVs would torque down the flange bolts downstream of the open block valve and virtually all flow would be diverted to the waiting surface ships without putting any great strain on the rise from added pressure.

At that point, BP and the Feds are back in the driver's seat with the ability to evaluate the risk/reward of closing the block valve and doing a top kill vs. continuing to route the oil/gas to the surface normally while continuing the relief well.  Our instinct says that if the flow can be diverted with little risk of reverting before August, BP will elect to continue to relief well (do they still need 2?) and not risk a top kill which could damage the somewhat fragile riser.  Isn't it ironic that a 20 inch diameter seamless tube with 1 inch walls is considered fragile?

Ability to Execute

We believe that our affiliates can design and braid the tubes we describe.  Materials are readily available from DuPont and generic competitors.  While some of this design work has been done, some remains.  Most of the rest of this design is off-shelf and proven.

We have not even SWAGed a cost, but know that it would be among the least expensive of actions facing BP.  My German craftsman grandfather, who would be amazed by the audacity of this idea, always taught me to spend my attention on getting the right tool for every job.  This is the right tool.

Now, let's demand that some of this same kind of thinking be applied to how to prevent a mess like this from recurring.

While BP has tried to convince every one of its capability and competence to handle the crisis, we are now 36 days into the deep sea oil leak. Oil continues to gush out unabated from the damaged riser as can be seen here. Some of the problems which have been encountered in collecting the oil before it can cause environment damage have been:

• Remoteness (the accident site is 50 miles offshore and 5,000 ft underwater)
• Extreme pressure (150 atmospheres) and temperatures at the depth of leak causing engineering difficulty
• Formation of Methane Hydrate (ice) crystals
• Debris getting in the way of collection
• Dispersion of oil before it can be collected at the ocean surface because of surface turbulence

Yet the solution seems pretty obvious to me. (1) We need a collection dome of the right size, (2) placed at the right area and depth, and (3) connected to the right collection device. While BP has seemingly got part three right, it is still struggling with parts one and two.

Townsend Solutions solves these problems using a collection dome that can be scaled to the required width and cross section area depending up on the size of spilled area. This "dome"--and it's called a tent, by the way--can be bought off-the-shelf and suitably modified for anchorage. This then inverted tent made of high performance fabric can be placed at a suitable depth that collects the oil below the "turbulent zone" but above the "Methane Hydrate" zone.

Because of its light weight the tent can be airlifted to the remote site and located right over the rising oil and gas plume. It can then be dropped to any desired depth by filling its anchoring cylinders at its edges with right amount and mix of seawater and air. It can then be fully extended to cover the entire area of the rising plume. Vertical and horizontal position in the water will be controlled with lines/hawsers and adjusting the buoyancy of seawater/air cylinders. (See picture below)



As a stratified plume of oil and gas bubble rises into the sections of the tent, it forms lighter gas/liquid phases in the peak of the tent which are collected along with a considerable volume of (contaminated) seawater by rigid pipes connected on top. After conventional separation of gas, liquid, and seawater phases on surface barge, we envision pumping seawater back down to the tent for recycling through the system.

An important design element is the need to minimize ocean pollution from the heavier and more damaging portions of the leak. Methane, Ethane, Propane and other hydrocarbons will invariably saturate surrounding seawater and be left behind in noticeable quantities. But heavier hydrocarbons are much less soluble in seawater and, therefore, a very large part the heavier hydrocarbons will be recovered by this system. Furthermore, crude oil will be concentrated in the down-current portion of the plume, so we expect 99% recovery of the crude portion of the leak. However, only tests will allow accurate estimation of the recovery for lighter fractions.

A famous quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle says "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

My version of the same for BP would go something like "When you have tried the bold and the bountiful, whatever remains, however simple, must be the answer." Anyone listening...??

As we learn more about the events in the Gulf, we learn more about BP's failures. Not just technical failure, but managerial and leadership failure as well.  While President Obama puts together an independent commission to look into what actually happened, we can start the discussion as follows:

Subject: The whole world needs offshore oil, so it's time we gave everyone enough insight to help solve the BP/Horizon accident and make sure there are no repeats anywhere in the world.

• The whole world needs offshore oil from areas which are not a part of OPEC, to bridge to a post-OPEC world and hold down oil prices. Some countries such as Brazil, Angola, China, Australia, India, and others will produce offshore oil no matter how the BP/Horizon accident is resolved.  We need them to have a disaster prevention and recovery tool kit to make offshore oil clean and safe.
  
  
• It took 40 years to get over the Santa Barbara accident in 1969.  I worked for Shell at the time; in 1970, Shell had their own platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.  In 2010,  the USA government briefly considered drilling off of the Pacific coast of North America.  Whoops.  After the BP/Horizon experience, however resolved, offshore drilling is set back by N years.  N may be approaching infinity this time, unless new management and technical tools are developed.
  
  
• BP is nearly the worst major company to lead that effort.  The current top management of BP have been playing catch up and trying to change a slipshod culture since the Texas City refinery accident.  In the real world, the Amoco component wrecked the Amoco Cadiz tanker in the Bay of Biscay long before that.  It becomes apparent that a safety culture would have: 1) not hired the Horizon rig without changes, and 2) would have established a management system and culture which made good long term decisions about safety and environmental protection.  Management should have responded to anomalous pressure readings from an exploratory well by ceasing everything out of the ordinary until the condition of the well was understood.  Murphy was the first recorded safety engineer.
  
  
• Those of us who have tried to help BP solve this problem have learned that BP is a closed system whose communication with the outside world is in a coma, induced by their lawyers.  A whole succession of other bright people have found the same.  Those silly engineering solutions tried so far are demonstrably off target, but who is listening?
  
  
• For the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar to announce that BP has all the smartest people included in looking for solutions is sublimely naïve.  Did BP offer him Kool Aid?  Why did he drink it?
  
  
• The offshore technology community has a lot of smart people, but it becomes apparent that the best work for someone other than BP, Transocean or Halliburton.  Are they being listened to?  We get from others that there are 500 engineers and scientists from 160 companies working at the Houston war rooms of BP.  So why is BP not dispensing needed information to smart people elsewhere to work on this unprecedented problem?  Why did a Purdue professor have so much trouble getting their videos so he could assist by estimating how much oil was spewing? This is no longer "confidential information"; it now falls into the domain of public interest. Measurements show the flow from the well to be closer to 70,000 barrels each day, not 5,000 as BP has been repeating, all the while incorrectly saying the flow cannot be measured. BP has even had the audacity to say that they have not embraced better estimates because it does not matter enough.  To whom?  If you don't know how to measure the flow, how do you design a solution?
   
• This circus is proof positive of a leadership crisis at BP.  Over the weekend, we learn that not only was this the first well drilled into the same formation by Horizon, but that the first well was a dud.  A shouting match broke out between BP and Transocean over how to seal this second, troublesome well with anomalous pressure readings.  Now, I am as skeptical of TV journalism as the next thinking person, but look into the eyes of one of the coolest, bravest people I have watched being interviewed and see what you think about how this accident came about.If you wish to get the facts in writing, see this.
  
  
• The worst strategic mistake that BP has made is not being an open system to the many bright scientists and engineers who are eager to help.  There will never be a "safety culture" or an "ecofriendly culture" at BP until the very top management creates and supports it.  And that culture requires that BP embrace help where it is clearly needed.
  
  
• Here's the most frustrating part: clowns from BP, Transocean, and Halliburton being grilled by other clowns in Congress (and a couple of very good public servants) is great theatre.  But refer back to point 1 above.  The world needs safe, clean offshore oil as a bridge.  Almost the whole world suspects that getting offshore oil cannot be clean and safe.  Everyone loses if we leave the world with that impression, which must be corrected.  At the very least, BP is part of the problem and a very much smaller part of the solution.
  
  
• I had hoped that with 400 or 500 engineers reported to be working on the problem at BP war rooms, the flow would be drastically reduced by now.  I believe that management of the solution tool kit must be wrestled away from BP.  President Obama has begun that process by recruiting the O-Team, but they are not (yet) in charge. This team includes brains and experience from NASA ventures into space and decades of US work on atomic weapons, energy and research.  Why have these creative, skilled people waited until now to learn what they need to know about the accident and the aftermath?   Why wasn't that conveyed widely? Why was there no contingency plan? Or why is the current state being called a "contingency plan that is working"?  Why does it take a global scale disaster and an act of God/the President to bring together a team of experts to look at ways to solve this problem after the fact?
  
  
• The world needs all offshore-interested parties to participate in one or more open collaboratives to fix the problems highlighted by the BP/Horizon accident; more importantly, the collaboratives must create a priori technology and management systems to prevent or fix the next offshore accidents, without regard to who is running the show.  Finally, these collaboratives must truly embrace anyone who can help with solutions - they must be open and transparent.

Let me leave you with a visual.  If we believe BP, they said the spill is at 5,000 barrels a day. That's 210,000 gallons per day.



A typical tank truck holds 8000 gallons, Then, BP's claim looks like this:



However, if we are to believe the worst-case scenario, it looks more like this:

Yesterday we posted an idea that involved using an altogether different collection device than what BP is trying to use. Today we discuss an improvement to BP's idea that could solve the methane hydrate clogging problem.  It is possible to build a device which channels the hydrocarbon plume to near the surface without 1) permanently forming methane hydrates or 2) allowing the contents of the plume to diffuse into the ocean.  It is also possible to resist stronger currents without increased dissipation of the hydrocarbons.  And we believe this is possible with the same off-the-shelf approach as mentioned in my last post.

Bringing the Plume Up with a Draft Tube

The image below is a schematic of a "draft tube" device for raising the leaking plume to near the surface for collection.  By doing this, we can routinely prevent the formation of methane hydrates by surrounding the plume with much warmer water.  We can constrain the flow of the plume into a tube. Then, we can collect the hydrocarbon with the inverted tent idea mentioned earlier, or with other collection devices, well above the hydrate zone.


As with all elegant ideas, this idea is simple once you know of it.  If a fluid rises from buoyancy in a tube, it creates a lower pressure at the bottom of the tube.  In old furnace design, this was a "draft."  If we locate the first tube concentrically inside a second, outer tube, the working fluid will flow downward in the annular chamber between the 2 tubes.  In this design with hydrocarbons and seawater flowing upward, as in all hydraulic systems, the flows and pressures will come to an equilibrium, with upflow of our "plume" in the central tube and downflow of seawater in the annular channel.  The steady leaking of the plume into the central tube will continuously pull warm seawater down the annulus to join with the plume.

With the correct ratio of areas for the 2 tubes, this system will guarantee that we never have low temperature, methane and water at the same place, at least not for long.  Hence, no methane hydrates.  By having the top of this tube just below the collection tent, the buoyant oil droplets and the very buoyant gas bubbles will leave the top of the tube and be collected.  At that depth, water is a relatively warm 50 or 60 degrees F., and a sizeable flow of seawater to the bottom of the tube will assure that any hydrates are temporary.  We envision a conical bottom on each of our tubes, which should be located just above the leak to capture the plume.

Using Off-the-shelf Gear

Again, the only problems in accomplishing this are mechanical.  We believe that lightweight, ocean-resistant materials and the correct design will make this practical using available material.  The concentric tubes should be of either PVC or fiberglass-reinforced resin (FRP in the USA) pipe, preferably with bell ends.  Both are widely available.  Ocean-resistant bolts can be used to maintain the concentricity of either standard 20 foot or 40 foot sections, whatever is available.  Existing marine hawsers of "superfiber" are readily available and sufficient to hold the weight with attachments at each knuckle (perhaps with eye-bolts put thru-and-thru).  Each joint of double pipe is supported by bolts through the top joint, with all weight and tension borne by the hawser to the flotation collar at the top.  Since these same hawsers are strong enough to tow supertankers, the design allows most weight to be suspended from the hawsers.

Picking the Right Tubes and Protecting Them

It is important to use outer tubes of low pressure rating to drastically reduce the weight.  Pressure inside and outside of each tube should be maintained within the strength rating of tubes by installing plastic pressure relief valves (PRVs) liberally throughout the concentric tubes.  External pressure leaking into annulus will be no problem: extra fresh seawater would enter, slightly lowering temperature of the downflow.

The central tube should be of much heavier material to resist high differential pressures.  Annular pressure leaking into the center tube might be important, since too low a central pressure (i.e. extra gas bubbles could cause this) could cause the tubing to collapse under the differential pressure.  In the short term, the off-shelf availability of sufficient 14 to 18 inch diameter tubes  with sufficient wall strength is not assured.  Later, such tubes can be ordered.

Changing the thickness or diameter of the central tube is not feasible once in place.  It is desirable to vary the diameter of the central tube as depth increases, but a combination of operating experience and test runs will be required to learn how to pick the right diameter.   In the meantime, installing butterfly valves at the top and near the bottom of the central tube will allow choking the flow and prevent tubing collapse.

Another advantage of low-pressure-drop valves at both ends of the central tube will be to allow the entire tube assembly to be floated by filling the central tube with any gas.  We envision the assembly being transported by floating and towing, with suitable end caps.

Once at site, the rig should be assembled in a vertical position near the leaking plume but up-current and anchored to the bottom.  Siphon flow can be started by priming with a flow of any gas: nitrogen would be the safest and most available.  Once the flow of warm seawater to the bottom is established, the rig can be floated over the plume by letting out the anchor line.  As hydrocarbon enters the cone and draft tube, nitrogen flow is ceased to maintain measured pressure differentials.  We envision this transition to flowing methane as happening into a steady stream of relatively warm seawater.  Starting up is critical: this is where the BP team ran into a roadblock.

Adjusting to Field Conditions

Having PRVs set for below the pressure rating of the central tube is a much better way of protecting the tube, since it adapts automatically to any surge in pressure by opening the valves, allowing seawater to enter, and slowing the flow.   Whether the problem happens at the bottom or at the top of the draft tube, having PRVs and using the bottom butterfly valve solves the problem safely.

Also, if the draft tube is constructed in standard lengths, we can correct for problems in days, not weeks, by simply pulling up the tubes with the hawsers, and replacing anything that is broken or not performing as and when needed.

By the way, the draft tube idea works with the inverted box used by BP as Stab #1.  If the box and collection system is placed above the height where hydrates do not form, with a draft tube is inserted above the leak and below the box, the plume will be channeled  into the box above the "hydrate zone."

As always, we are open to suggestions.

We have been imagining and roughly engineering improved solutions to the "BP Oil Spill" with hopes of creating solutions which can be implemented quickly from existing equipment and materials.  See our last posting.

Over the 6 - 8 May period, BP discovered that at the 5,000 foot depth of the leaks (now down to 2 leaks with 1600 feet between the 4,200 Barrels/D and 800 B/D contributors), their inverted box of steel and concrete allowed methane hydrates to form and fill up the box.  Methane hydrates form at these ambient temperatures (0 to 5 degrees C.) and about 150 BAR (atmospheres) forming a slush and some larger crystals adhere to the box. Adherence is severe since the interior surface of concrete probably promotes crystal growth.  Since the methane hydrates are less dense than seawater, the box is not only plugged up, but will tend to float as hydrates are formed.  Whoops.

There is nothing new about methane hydrates: the ocean floor is teeming with them, mostly buried beneath softer surfaces. Anywhere methane and water get together at low temperatures and high pressures, you get the dreaded hydrates.  So how can this method be improved to either not allow hydrates to form or to raise temperatures (and lower pressures) and both melt and prevent hydrates?

We recommend raising the altitude of the collection device ... get close to the surface, but well below wave depth.  Capture the oil droplets and gas (at that altitude) bubbles where hydrates cannot form.  Our "inverted tent" from the previous posting needs to be positioned in the sea at a depth of 100 meters or even less, where the rising plume of oil and gas can be captured in the tent.  Rising to the top of our tent, the hydrocarbons will be drawn upward through large holes at the crown of the tent, along with a much larger volume of seawater.  On surface work/tank barges, positioned by tugs, the stream will be phase separated into 3 phases.  Gases will be flared until compression/collection shipping can be affected.  Hydrocarbon liquids will float on the surface of a seawater phase, to be collected and tanked to shore facilities.  Seawater, maybe saturated with hydrocarbons and perhaps with some fine hydrocarbon droplets, will be drawn from the lower phase, and pumped at low head for return under the sea to the bottom of the inverted tent.

Thus, we 1) establish a large flow of seawater upward with the hydrocarbon phases and 2) allow contaminated seawater to be re-exposed and re-equilibrated with hydrocarbons.  If need be, we can haul off barges of contaminated seawater for treatment.  More efficiently, we can install electrostatic/ chemical means of cleaning the seawater before it is recycled.  The net result is to cut the pollution, with the goal that anything that floats to the surface in the plume will tend to be captured and used or treated.

The only problems we see in this approach are mechanical, to adapt to the laws of hydraulics and fluid flow.  We have chosen ocean-friendly materials.  There may be a current, which would tend to drag and distort our tent.  The tent must have a large enough open mouth (viewed from the bottom) to capture the width of the hydrocarbon plume at this distance far above the bottom leaks (We don't have but someone knows the width and shape of the plume at 50 to 100 meter depth.)  We expect that a rectangular tent or tents of between 120 and 200 feet per side will capture a great deal of the hydrocarbon plume.  Reinforced, "rip-proof" nylon which has been coated by PVC seems to us to be an ideal off-the-shelf choice and is available in such sizes (e.g. revival tents or circus tents).  Fabric construction allows easy modification and reinforcement.

We know of ways to adapt sea-water-powered cylinders made of coated fabric to holding the shape of the tents under the forces we anticipate.  With a tent, these power cylinders can be stitched to the reinforced tent and recoated with coatings to provide a leak proof tent (perfection is not needed).  The forces seem capable of handling with this construction.

See the attached artist rendering of one such configuration for our inverted tent collector.  We welcome ideas for how to improve on this approach.



The tents, collection piping and supports for such a collector will not be under major wall stress, as the internal seawater and the external seawater have virtually the same hydraulic head.  Pressure drops will be designed to be low.  With surface tank barges fitted with working decks, the collector can be constrained between barges, which are rigidly attached to each other.  This will help the collector maintain its horizontal location over the oil plume as tugs maintain the position of the 2 barges.  We would envision flexible connectors between the barges and the riser or descender piping, so that the collector would be stable in the vertical dimension as the wave action caused the barges to rise and fall.
 

• The fabrication of this rig would be facilitated by using goods and methods readily available on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
• Off-shelf "revival" tents of rip-resistant nylon fabric coated with PVC, reinforced by stitching industrial straps and power cylinders to the inside or outside surface of the te
• We believe that high strength tubing is available, since pressures will be low.
• Piping is low head, either PVC pressure pipe or glass-resin composite piping is widely available.
• Typical ocean-going tank barges for support/receiving/work can be used; cranes, pumps, compressors, and other equipment can be located on a steel deck
• Underwater work can be either robotic or human divers, as appropriate, if depth is small enough.

Not that cost of a fix is the top consideration, but this approach is not capital equipment intensive.  As we envision this component-based approach being built and stockpiled near all potential leaks, or installed on structures for deployment, low capital cost will become much more important.

Since this BP accident is 50 miles offshore from Louisiana, and the next accident is Zeus-knows-where, we have given thought to transporting this rig from where major fabrication is to occur.  We would fabricate the reinforced tents and truck to a nearby boatyard.  We would assemble the subsea piping around the tents.  All piping would be sealed, all reinforcing cylinders would be sealed, and both would be filled with low pressure (say 1 BAR) nitrogen, making the subsea assembly float.  Once in the water (built on inflated rollers, say, and pulled into the water) the assembly would be towed to the site and connected to the other equipment delivered on 2 barges, all away from the plume.  Seawater under pressure would displace the transport nitrogen, allowing the rig to sink to desired depth.  Flows would be established using seawater only.  Then 2 or more tugs would reposition the entire rig with the tent over the plume, where oil and gas would begin to accumulate. Voila!

That will work for Phase I: if we are correct about the horizontal extent of the plume, we can establish 95+% recovery of floating crude hydrocarbons.  If the plume is wider, use more tents, since everything else expands linearly.  If needed, we can increase the re-circulating flow of crude oil, since this will reduce the forces on our piping and our tent.  At some difficulty, the rig could be lower in the water if that worked better.

When BP succeeds in stopping the leak, we can disassemble the parts, float the rig back to shore and await the next time we need to catch a deep bottom leak of oil or gas.

Did you notice that we had no problem with hydrates?

Did you notice that we did not use one of the worlds most sophisticated and expensive drill ships for several months?

Did you also notice that we did not purposely (or porpoisely?) disperse toxins into the ocean?

So there you have it.  We wonder how long it will take to hear from someone at BP!  Did someone copy Bill Maher on this?

 

 

 

 

The recent oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico has been devastating and has once again brought to center stage the battle between the environmentalists and the offshore oil industry. Even though the responsible oil company, BP, along with federal and state agencies, are trying to contain the damage, it seems to me that there is room to improve the technology of the response.  There is room, but there is scarcely any time!

This issue appeals to me because I am a confirmed optimist about human potential.   With all the smart engineers in the world, I do not believe there are any issues about offshore drilling that cannot be made compatible with the environment.  I was struck this weekend while watching jokester Bill Maher blather on about how Brazil had "gotten off of oil" so it was easy for the USA to move to renewable energy.  Maher overlooks that Brazil's Petrobras is a world leader in offshore technology and production; which just proves that (very) little knowledge is a dangerous thing. 

Bob Fryar, a senior VP in  BP's Exploration and Production division was brought in from heading offshore drilling in Angola and is now handling the crisis.  He says five different possible solutions are being pursued concurrently. These are:

- Disperse the oil by spraying chemicals;
- Make the existing BlowOut Preventer (BOP) work to shut off all wells;
- Add another seal off valve on one well;
- Put a container (box) above the leak to catch and collect and collect the spilled oil; and
- Drill two relief wells and plug the well bore well below the surface.

BP will also welcome any other approaches and consider them.

The first option has had limited and bittersweet results; consequences of all those hydrocarbons in the oceans are yet to be fully understood.

The second option hasn't worked, at least not yet.  A variant to remove debris and bolt a second BOP on top of the non-functioning BOP seems very risky, as it this action may cause even greater leakage and might fail to stop flow.

The third option requires testing the pressure before it can be tried. Even then, Option 3 stops only one of three leak sources.

The fourth option--expected to be deployed in about a week's time--is BP's best bet, which we hope to improve below. 

The fifth solution is the ultimate solution, needed unless the BOP can be made to work.  Oh yeah, it will take almost three months.

However, even the fourth option has its challenges. The caisson system--the steel box--being created will be heavy; carrying it to the site and placing it accurately will be a challenge.  There are 3 leaks, which may be reduced to 2 leaks in the meantime, which will require 2 box-based capture systems with pipelines to the surface vessels.  I am hopeful that this method will work, with great effort.

Can we improve on this solution?

It might have been better to catch the oil and gas "plume" as it rises in a pyramid-shaped flexible "hood" made from super fabric.  Fabrics can be stitched to any shape, then fixed by coating with marine- and oil- resistance polymeric coatings.  By using coated fabric of relatively light weight, the hood could be as wide as need be to fully cover the leak site, while being lightweight and easily handled.  The existing boxes have a mouth of 14 feet by 24 feet and are 40 feet tall.  Imagine replacing that box with a triangular pyramid whose edge is 100 or even 150 feet on the triangular mouth.  And the pyramid might be 200 feet tall, if needed to provide ample storage and phase separation height.  Any of these are feasible.  The edges of the hood's rim would be literally stitched and glued to cylinders of similar fabric.  Inflating these "power cylinders" with a modest head seawater pump would hold the mouth of the hood open wide to catch the goop.  A rigid pipe to the surface is similar to the existing proposal.

Beyond that, rather than rely entirely on the buoyancy of crude oil and natural gas liquids to raise the goop to the surface (though a pipe of course), we can improve the system by forcing some seawater to flow upward (with an induction pump at the surface if need be).  
Using a two pipe system, one for the upward flow of the three phase oil/gas/seawater and the other to recycle the somewhat dirty water back down into the pyramid,  will help keep the negative impact localized.  Dirty seawater would be caught in a loop where its hydrocarbon contaminants would reach an equilibrium with the oil, minimizing the need to haul away and treat contaminated seawater.

A coated super fabric pyramid is lightweight, tougher than steel, gives with any blows rather than being dented or worse, and is easily transported by inflation and towing.  If needed far away, air transport is conceivable.  And with proper polymers and additives, the service life would be very long.

Here is a simplified diagram of what it would look like:

When Bill Joy said: "There are always more smart people outside your company than within it," he wasn't trying to be a smart-alec.  Instead, he was urging companies to leverage ideas from outside to solve some of their most challenging problems.
 
Now, in a world of frozen financial markets with justified discouragement about returns to investors in conventional venture capital models, how can needed innovations be funded in relatively mature, but suddenly stressed,  industries such as plastics, electric power delivery, alternative energy, and energy delivery?

I think the answer is to form Solution Collaboratives.



A while back I blogged about Opening up Reverse Innovation in which I tried to make the case for another business model where solutions become the focus of "open collaboratives,"  Let's call this a solution collaborative:

Companies with a strategic interest in solving a problem or a class of problems can participate by funneling resources (money, labs, information, smart people, etc.) through the collaborative; by participating in direction; and by contact with analysis and expertise. Information from a collaborative world would logically lead to new entities which make problem-solving investment, but also could be individually exploited by strategic players.

How to Organize a Solution Collaborative

A solution collaborative is created in 2 stages, just as a proprietary venture might be formed. The first stage is to collaborate in researching and analyzing the solution to a technoeconomic problem of general interest across an industry or industries.  The result of this stage is a stream of information and consultations which flow back to all participants.   The collaboration brings technical expertise and knowledge of market needs to bear on any feasible solutions to this need, together with actionable information for individual collaborators to pursue.

The second stage is conditional.  If demanded by participants, the collaboration can even evolve to creating an organization to bring about the solution, to the mutual benefit of collaborators.   Since the collaboration is organized and has access to the "best and the brightest" from everywhere, and especially  benefits from having excellent feedback about market needs, a collaboration removes most of the risks which attend venture capital firms or the use of a proprietary R&D effort.


Why Collaborate?

Others have talked about the anecdotal benefits of a collaboration curve.  We can assure you that the benefits of collaboration are not anecdotal - but quantifiable, economic benefits.

Studies have shown that too many firms mistakenly applied an "outsourcing" mindset to collaboration efforts. This fatal mindset leads to three critical errors:

1. they focus solely on lower costs, failing to consider the broader strategic role of collaboration.  
2. they don't organize effectively for collaboration, believing instead that innovation could be managed much like production and partners treated like "suppliers."
   
3. they don't invest in building collaborative capabilities, assuming that their existing people and processes are already equipped for the challenge.

To be successful requires you developed an explicit strategy for collaboration and make appropriate organizational changes to aid performance in these efforts.

Collaboration is a new and important source of competitive advantage. Speaking from experience, one of my companies - PTAI - has been doing collaboratives among industry competitors since 1972.  Back in the day, we called them "multiclient studies."  We acted as if we were a corporate staff group but with better access, studied the heck out of an issue, wrote a detailed analysis and sold it to the many interested parties.  Those in the plastics, automotive, paper, packaging  and other industries bought them widely on a variety of technoeconomic  issues.

Then, in the 1990s, PTAI innovated a method to benchmark performance among competitors in an industry, allowing any participant to quantitatively place its performance among competitors along hundreds of variables.  We continue to execute this method to the advantage of hundreds of global businesses in 55 specific industries and both numbers continue to grow.

Now we're turning our attention to solution collaboratives through another one of my companies - Townsend Solutions- to address some of the most pressing problems faced by some of the mature industries.

A recent New York Times article - “China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy” by Keith Bradsher - reminded me to write down some thoughts about industry progress in reducing carbon dioxide emissions—a road less traveled.

The Times has finally discovered that the Chinese will dominate the clean energy world by using cheap labor, a huge and hungry domestic market, governmental uber-subsidies and hordes of trained technologists.   By clean energy, the author means wind and solar, with hydro and new nukes thrown in for good measure though not really discussed. Ironically, a raft of other, recent articles make the same point, and although the brevity of their treatment makes them worth reading, it leaves one wondering how much of this (“The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming!!!”) is truth and how much hyperbole.

So what should we do as patriotic Americans?  Fortunately, a young Ms. Miley Cyrus is on the case, so we can all breath a little easier. Incidentally, her song “…Wake up America. Tomorrow becomes a new day. And everything you do matters. Yeah, everything you do matters… Oh, it’s easy to look away, but it’s getting harder day by day…” was more popular in Europe than in the US.

We Have Already Lost the Race for Wind Turbines and Solar Panels
Let’s concede this point.  It is now practically impossible for European or U.S. industry to catch up with the Chinese in building and installing equipment such as advanced wind turbines and piezoelectric solar cells.  So we can expect that wind and solar equipment manufactured in China will be at least cost-competitive if not dominant.   Our response should be to buy those components from China and install them wherever they make economic sense.

But even in China, these clean energy sources will not necessarily be economically competitive with other traditional energy sources.  All of these innovations are necessary. But they do not preclude in any way the need to innovate in the conventional energy sector, which will still be around and important in the year 2030 and beyond.

Even if the Chinese win this race, so what?   

This still leaves plenty of room for new technological innovation in other areas. The question is: where does it make sense for us to innovate?

Here are some suggestions:

- radically better wind turbines or solar cells
- storage of off-peak clean energy
- better long distance high voltage transmission of clean power
- new methods for CO2 capture and sequestration
- geo-engineering (see previous post on Nathan Myhrvold’s Stratoshield and Salter Sink)

The Chinese are also beginning to lead the world at long distance, high voltage transmission as well. However, installation and maintenance is another ballgame. We could innovate in areas that are part of this ecosystem where we already have an established lead and huge expertise.

Let’s Not Ignore the Biggest Clean Energy Contributor
This brings me to the original purpose of this blog entry. We must not overlook the ways to do Carbon Capture and Sequestration (or Storage), which we’ll abbreviate as CCS.  Conventional power generation stations, either those already in place or the newer generation of coal-and-gas-fueled thermal power stations being rapidly installed in China, India and elsewhere are between half and 80% of capacity in many places.  The huge stock of sunk costs in coal-and gas-burning thermal power units will not be replaced by the best Chinese wind and solar equipment. unless their carbon emissions cannot be economically reduced. 

So the biggest opportunity is to create clean, economical fixes to the world’s stock of existing electric stations.

The owners of these coal facilities have the lowest variable power cost in many areas of the world.  In areas like the Middle East, gas is provided at such low value that this is the least cost producer of power. So most big utilities would like to continue to operate these sunk costs.

Refitting existing plants with proven CCS technology, especially ethanolamine absorption and desorption, is difficult at many existing plants; is capital intensive; uses from 15 to 30 per cent of the capacity of the power station to remove CO2 and other pollutants; and seems to add about 3 to 4 US cents per KWH ($30 to 40 per MWH) to costs of generation of power.  A good, concise treatment of the technology and cost for this approach is in Energy Procedia 1 (2009), 1289-1295.

Yet the mega-utilities seem to be betting politically on this retrofitting plus transporting, pressurizing and injecting of relative clean CO2 streams to subsurface storage sites.  Once again, many environmentalists don’t like this solution either (go figure!).

Of course, for a sizable fraction of coal/thermal power facilities, a shutdown will be preferred to refitting.  Yet coal is forecasted to be so much cheaper than other primary energy sources that massive refitting is still seen by utilities as the best answer.

Enter Shale Gas—The New Kid in the Block
In North America and soon elsewhere, new discoveries of shale gas deposits will make natural gas competitive with coal for most new facilities equipped with CCS.  This is because gas generates about half as much CO2 and because gas-fired plants are cheaper to build than coal-fired ones.  Existing wind and solar technology will not be competitive with shale gas using new CCS technologies.

China Needs Coal CCS, but Someone Must Lead in Innovating
Despite news to the contrary, this is where the U.S. and Europe have an innovation window!   There must be some way to climb off of the experience curve for this mature CCS technology and develop a better, even radical improvement which has its own, lower experience curve. 

So here’s my nomination: instead of pure CCS, as currently envisioned, we need to develop Crud-O2 (explained below) as our CCS. 

Let me explain: in the conventional coal power scheme, the flue gases are sequentially treated to remove nitrogen oxides (NOx), fly ash and particulates (including some heavy metals), sulfur oxides (SOx) and then subjected to CO2 capture. The emitted flue gas contains nitrogen, water and tails of each pollutant.  Each processing stage adds costs for chemical and energy and subtracts net, available energy from the plant.  Each pollutant needs separate handling and disposal and creates additional environmental exposure.  NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) always rears its ugly head.  So instead of doing this sequentially in a multi-stage, muti-handled operation, we need to develop means of recovering these streams as essentially one liquid stream, rich in CO2 but containing solids, metals, SOx, NOx, and perhaps some water: let’s call it Crud-O2.

This recovery is similar to proposed schemes, where relatively clean CO2  having been absorped and desorped in an amine plant, must be compressed to a liquid for transportation.  We propose that the entire flue gas stream, probably with solids filtered out, be compressed in multiple stages with intercooling, probably taking 4 or 5 stages.  All components heavier than CO2 will condense, some in the intercooling step, some at the end of the train.

As an alternative design, refrigeration loops can lower the temperature of the Crud-O2 until it forms a liquid at lower system pressure.  Optimizing the use of compression or refrigeration, including the draining of liquids from the intercooling steps, is a design process very familiar to chemical and power plant engineers.  As an end result, our Crud-O2 storage vessel will contain all (or most) of our bad actors.  Energy still contained in the flue gas, resembling the existing flue gases from a coal-fired plant with amine-CCS added, can be recovered back into the system, reducing net energy consumption.

With Oxygen Combustion, Crud-O2 May Be Even Better
There is much R&D being done on replacing combustion air with oxygen, either partially (let’s call it enrichment) or completely.  Current materials of construction will not withstand the temperatures generated with pure oxygen combustion, so designs use a recycle of cooled flue gases into the combustion chamber to limit the maximum temperatures.  This approach makes a flue gas with progressive reduction of nitrogen content, hence more easily captured by compression/refrigeration into Crud-O2.  At the limit, it approaches zero flue discharge.  Obviously, the energy for producing oxygen from air must be netted out of the net energy production, and the capital for an air separation plant must be added to the capital costs of such a scheme.  Optimization is required, but the net result is the same, with all of the bad actors in our Crud-O2 and ready for transport.

Crud-O2 Spends Eternity Under the Sea
But where in blazes do we take this Crud-O2?  Here, we enter Wonderland.  As proposed for pure CO2 over several years by many creative types, we propose putting the Crude-O2 in some appropriate place on the bottom of the ocean. 

Depending on the properties of the Crud-O2 and the temperature at the bottom of the ocean, it requires over 1000 meters of ocean depth, and some sources (here and here) suggest 3,500 meters of ocean depth. It’s easy to find out and scout unlimited places which fit, all over the world.  The ocean has many square miles of such places.

Shades of Captain Nemo 
At this depth, there is virtually no solar radiation, the population is mostly primitive worms, the bottom is covered with debris and plant/animal material which drifted down over the millennia, currents are rare or slow, and (importantly) CO2 or Crud-O2 are denser than the water overhead.  A quiescent layer of CO2 on that bottom would slowly diffuse into the water above at the interface, which environmentalists do not like.  We don’t see why they don’t like it, since the oceans of the world already contain gajillions of tons of CO2.  Better the deep oceans than our lungs?  But there is an easy answer to how to keep the Crud-O2 components from leaving this dark, underwater tomb.

We suggest that a membrane made of fibers, coated with polymeric material to be relatively impermeable and permanent, be installed at the bottom of said ocean before Crud-O2 is injected beneath the membrane.  Hydrodynamics virtually guarantees that the membrane, as it slowly rises atop the lake of Crud-O2, is under very minor net forces.  The membrane prevents diffusion of Crud-O2 components up into the water (and the obverse, of course).  but since they are acting on both top and bottom of the membrane, they cancel each other out.  We envision rolls of coated fabric, with Velcro or other connectors at all margins, dispensed and connected by remote vehicles.  A trench would be an ideal location, so that as the reservoir is filled, the membrane rises at the virtually flat water/Crud-O2 interface.

Using a protective membrane at such depths suggest several advantages to a good design engineer.  Polymer science knows how to design the membrane for a lifetime of centuries, given the cold, dark, quiescence in ocean trenches.  Resisting any corrosive effects of the Crud-O2 components is relatively easy for a polymer chemist, but the lack of light, temperature or cathodic currents makes this an ideal environment for long life. Also, the Crud-O2 can be delivered down to the bottom with minimal pumping pressure, enough to overcome flow pressure drop, as the head in a standpipe will be approximately the same as or slightly larger than the head in the surrounding water.  The same consideration means that a standpipe from the surface down to the membrane can be light gauge pipe, as internal pressures and external pressures are virtually identical.  Hydraulics also makes a “blowout” very unlikely and of minimal impact.  A “blowdown” would be much more likely.

In each of these cases, contrast the situation with high pressure pumping into depleted oil or gas formations, where high pump costs and high energy usage are the norm.  Blowouts are possible.  Safety is problematical.   With Crud-O2, you need only liquefy the stream and more energy use is not major.  This is an elegant solution.

And in the worst case, someone in the year 2050 or 2150 or 3010 can easily fix any unforeseen developments. 

Transporting Crud-O2
We envision towable, multiwall pressure vessels coated on the inside to resist Crud-O2 components.  Think giant kielbasa with double casing, having buoyancy and stiffness between the two walls.  Crud-O2 can be shipped either at high pressure at ambient temperatures; insulated/refrigerated to low temperature and modest pressure; or somewhere in between.  Unloading would not require any change of conditions to all injection to the bottom.  These tanks can be rolled into a stream or river near the source; towed by virtually any tow boat to join more tanks; be towed as a “train” out to sea; stationed by a platform above the storage site; unloaded by low head pumps in good weather only; sent back with a “heel” of Crud-O2 or else inflated with nitrogen (say); and eventually show up at some other Crud-O2 source for refilling.  Repeat over and over.

Of course, we could design to deliver the Crud-O2 by pipeline in those cases where this is preferable.  A subsea pipeline could be made of flexible material and would be almost neutrally buoyant, since liquid CO2 and water are close in density.

Bonus Clean-up Opportunity: Bunker Fuel
Once the elements of the Crud-O2 system are in place, we would find other uses beyond stationary power stations and industrial plant furnaces.  The International Maritime Organization (IMO) of the UN is trying to reach final rules governing the quality of bunker fuel used by the great majority of the world’s largest ships. Closer to home, the  Environmental Protection Agency is targeting an 80% cut in nitrogen oxide, or NOx, emissions by 2016.


Bunker fuel is literally the bottom of the barrel in the world’s refineries, blessed with several percent sulfur and scads of heavy metals.  Only petroleum coke is somewhat heavier (a solid) and bunker fuel has roughly the same consistency as road asphalt.  The proposed IMO rules will limit the allowable sulfur in bunker fuel from the current levels of 3.5% to 0.5% by 2025.  Oil refiners are skeptical about whether they can meet this new spec at any  reasonable cost, which begs the question, since bunker is used only because it is cheap.  Really cheap, compared to any alternative liquid fuel.

We envision multistage compression on the ships, with seawater heat exchangers, to create Crud-O2 from the stack gases.  Multi-wall, cylindrical tanks would be ideal repositories, as these could be stowed with freedom anywhere on these large ships.  When near a port or a Crud-O2 repository, the ship could let the tank overboard … it could even be towed … for pickup by a sea train of CO2.  Thus equipped, the ship would be able to burn whatever bunker was available with pollution of the air as is occurring today. 

There are approximately 50,000 ships over 5,000 DWTons which rely on bunker fuel. 

The largest bunker burners - the largest container ships - burn 75 to 125 tons/day of bunker fuel when under way.  Even larger tankers and bulk carriers actually burn less as they move at slower speeds.  But at 2.5 T/day of CO2/Bunker, and assuming only 50 T/day for 50,000 ships sailing 250 days per year each, the annual CO2 load is over 1.5 billion tons.  And this CO2 recovery would happen all over the world.  In the case of bunker fuel, the recovery of the sulfur is the driving force, not CO2 reduction.

Even under IMO’s proposed regulations, these ships would still be allowed to emit CO2 without limit, and be carbon taxed.  There are probably 400 significant oil refineries in the world which produce bunker.  These will be required to invest to improve their bunker fuel and produce less of it, given the proposed IMO regulations. 

The scope of this is enormous. 

What we need to compete with the Chinese, is not so much incentive, but imagination.  Our existing industrial solutions won’t cut it.  We can and must innovate our way out, or learn to live with the smog, the pollution, the global warming, and the global insecurity it produces.

NEXT: More fun clean-up applications for Crud-O2! You betcha.

In my last post, Beyond Copenhagen: Thomas Friedman’s “Earth Race”,  I proposed dividing the problem of global warming into three specific approaches:

1. Mitigation: ways to minimize the effects of greenhouse gases.
2. Reduction: ways to reduce the current production of greenhouse gases.
3. Substitution: ways to substitute cleaner alternatives which minimize the expanding  production of greenhouse gases.

In this entry, we look at mitigation - specifically at two ideas proposed by Nathan Myhrvold and his team at Intellectual Ventures.

Here’s the first of these remediation schemes - ladies and gents, the Stratoshield.  The Intellectual Ventures team says:

We’ve been working on some ideas related to climate change, as a kind of backup plan in case human effort to curb emissions don’t succeed fast enough to prevent devastating ecological damage. One of the ideas that has captured our imagination is replicating the way volcanoes have at times brought down the temperature of the planet by erupting sulfur dioxide particles up into the stratosphere. We’ve invented a hose to the sky we call the Stratoshield, which is a comparatively cost effective way to do this.

Take a look:

My view is that we do need to try something like this before it’s too late. If you thought the CO2 impact is bad, wait till the methane gets going. Actually, it already has. More to the point, we can’t even afford the risk that the alarmists are right.

My perspective (1) as an earth-based carbon-leased life form; (2) as a pretty good scientist; and (3) as a lifelong business manager working under uncertainty, tells me as do all my instincts: we must not let our primeval biases about ideas keep the world from running all experiments which show even a long-shot chance of helping solve global warming in the worst cases. Intellectual Ventures has hit on one such tool…and we need to push for its experimentation so we’ll know if it works.

We can fight later with the “Gore-ites” over the morality, but we need to find out enough economic incentives so that we can find someone who will be ready to pay for it.

The question I have is about the delivery mechanism.

With 100 mph winds in the upper atmosphere, the hose as suggested by Nathan, won’t easily stay up. And that first step, from no stratoshield to one stratoshield is a doozie. A better way would be to adapt the freighters such as UPS and FedEx planes with a sulfur-dispensing module which they use while they fly, scattering sulfur particles on each flight.  This module can be safely engineered to burn liquid sulfur using ambient air. It would resemble a turbine engine that is not mission critical, as propulsion turbines are. This will enable us to test the impact of the sulfur delivery over time, and will provide for a far wider range of distribution than would a single point source.

A second way to run tests or to supplement the stratoshield is to use the airships already being built by the military for their intelligence gathering tasks. There are patents on a new generation of lifting airships which can use helium to lift multiple tons of cargo to heights needed for the stratoshield. By either lifting sulfur and a burner designed to utilize the jet stream for mixing, or alternatively, by lifting liquid SO2 and “spritizing” it, a 21st century airship could be a cost competitive way to “SO2-ize” the atmosphere. And we can sell photos or videos to anyone who is interested—mostly intelligence agencies—to pay for mission. Did I mention that this would be an unmanned vehicle?

And here’s mitigation idea #2: Use over-ocean clouds to reflect sunlight back to space, reducing net sunlight to reach the surface just as the CO2 clusters reduce the heat leaving earth. Numerous people have suggested ways to put more clouds up over the oceans, but Intellectual Ventures has checked in with ideas on this too. More clouds mean lower ocean temperatures, countering the adverse effect of CO2 or methane.

Both of these ideas are easily reversible. Even if Intellectual Ventures is wrong…though I do think they are not. So as we work to lower CO2 (and methane) we can get to work learning to counteract; and we can always change our minds later, as and when we learn magical new ways to reduce or mitigate CO2. This is so simple that both Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh can understand and support it.

Then there is the Salter Sink concept. This Intellectual Ventures idea from Stephen Salter aims to take energy out of hurricanes/typhoons by lowering ocean surface temperature in zones where such storms get their “oomph”. Here, let Nathan and company tell you about it:

The Salter Sink works as a wave powered pump. Waves push hot water into the top of the cylinder, which pumps the water inside down. It comes out the bottom (around 200 meters below) and mixes with colder water. This brings the temperature on the surface down over time. A Salter Sink can move about a gigawatt of thermal energy! It may take thousands of these to protect Americas Gulf region (for example) but we estimate the cost would be much lower than the damage caused by one of these storms.

What’s intriguing about these ideas is not that they seem rather farfetched but their sheer audacity and, here’s the thing, their sheer simplicity. They may actually work. And so we may be able to sell them politically, since they are both (1) incremental and (2) reversible.

Again, what’s more interesting is, however, their marketing and economics. Who will pay for them?

Martin Varsavsky suggests we get the Saudis to fund these experiments, which may work, but, as an economist,  I have my doubts. We want to become less dependent on the Middle East, not more. I think a sure way to make the Salter Sink idea succeed is to give the locals a way to profit from it.

Let me explain:

If we have thousands of these floating cylinders pumping hot surface water to the colder depths, I agree, the storm intensity will be diminished. And that’s mostly good, although we need to test the idea to find all the consequences for ocean life, currents, and navigation…whatever. And we may have also helped counter global warming by bringing cold water to the surface. As a bonus, each Salter Sink collects warm, oxygenated surface water containing plankton and other fish food and pumps it 200 meters down over several hours.

Does that sound like a good place to raise fish? It does to me! And lo and behold, we have a potential natural fish farm that once appropriately designed raises some of the most healthy and fresh exotic sea fish ready to be supplied all over the world.

I suggest we find also ways to charge those who gain from lower storm intensity—insurance service providers, coastal town or cities’ real estate developers, states and federal agencies responsible for disaster management, electric utilities, and off shore oil operators.

Eventually, unless we learn from the economic theory of commons and build it into our model, we may have a great idea but no takers!

With Copenhagen around the corner, let’s begin with a statement for the deniers of global-warming: despite a few overzealous scientists who have fudged their data, the science does overwhelmingly point to the burning of carbon-containing fuels as being partially responsible for increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 - and causing global warming. 

Instead of getting caught in this silly, finger-pointing, pointless debate, let’s look for real solutions. 

Here are the sources of greenhouse gases by industry sector (via BBC):



And let’s look at the breakdown of greenhouse gases:




We know that we have to deal with the carbon dioxide problem, and to do so, let’s look at carbon capture & sequestration.

Wikipedia descibes carbon sequestration as a “geoengineering technique for the long-term storage of carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon, for the mitigation of global warming. Carbon dioxide is usually captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical or physical processes.”
 
Across the globe, we are seeing the rise of “carbon storage” projects, often at unsustainable costs, and sometimes with an accompanying set of issues. 



In my view, for any process which accomplishes carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), to remain sustaining, it would also need to be financially rewarding. This reward might flow either through the markets or directly by politically-powered subsidies. And second, rural areas and agriculture use more fossil fuels and generate more CO2, both directly and indirectly, than do urban areas and services, CCS processes would, therefore, ideally be located in such rural areas.

But most importantly, we must treat carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as a business process, as a core competence for sustainable industry.

Capturing carbon from CO2 and storing it for a century or longer (CCS) needs to be treated as a separate business process practiced all over the world. Developed areas will need to develop improvements on the schemes being proposed today, such as the CO2 absorption and deep earth injection that is being put forward as “clean coal.” The components of this technology are relatively mature, yet the process is still capital- and energy-intensive, which suggests that only massive scale can drive down the cost.  With a mature technology, we cannot expect that this economics will change with foreseeable experience gains. Therefore, the CCS business will not be profitable at carbon taxes of $20 to $50 per ton, the range usually projected. So far, all such projects are dependent on heavy government subsidies and we do not expect this to change in the near future. We conclude that a new approach, descending a new experience curve, is the only way that the CCS business will ever be viable. Therefore, a lot more work needs to be done in this area to address the questions being raised.

A possible and sustainable solution is Bio-CCS. Interestingly, there are islands of scientific enquiry suggesting that Mother Nature has already provided us with the elements for this new CCS approach.

For instance, there is a global cottage industry to enable production of “bio-char” (smallish particles of carbon produced from plant material by pyrolysis a process involving burning in an oxygen deficient environment). Refer to Dr. Johannes Lehmann’s work at Cornell University, Ithaca, for example:



This bio-char industry has studied the soil productivity effect of dispersed bio-char, emphasizing that since microbes do not decompose bio-char that the projected half life of this carbon in soil is probably in the centuries. Apparently, water and nutrients are absorbed into the carbon, dispersed in the soil, serving a similar function to plant matter (hummus). This makes bio-char a perfect form of fertilizer since nutrients are released over an extended period of time.

Fuel gas or liquid can be a co-product, useful for generating electricity or as a chemical feedstock. This bio-char is capable of upgrading secondary or distressed land to higher productivity, therefore, adding real value to the land. Thus, growing plant material by absorbing CO2 combines with pyrolysis to bio-char, creating a BioCCS process with side benefits.

In our next post, we examine this BioCCS process in detail, and address both environmental and business issues simultaneously. 

We must explore these alternatives with open minds. That much we owe to our children and grandchildren - whose future we have changed by our inconsiderate use of the Earth. 

And being distracted by ethical lapses in studies - that’s treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease!