Self-sustaining on-site production of electricity and/or steam for use in the in situ processing of oil shale and/or oil sands
a technology of oil shale and in situ processing, which is applied in the direction of steam generation using hot heat carriers, insulation, borehole/well accessories, etc., can solve the problems of ineffective modification prohibitively high cost of energy production, and inability to achieve true in situ combustion technique, etc., to achieve the effect of reducing the energy requirement of the “freeze wall”
Inactive Publication Date: 2013-08-01
HENDERSHOT WILLIAM B
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Benefits of technology
The invention relates to a process for extracting energy from oil shale / sands. The invention involves using a ground burn container to generate electricity in a perimeter trench around the oil shale / sands deposit. This not only provides the energy to drive the process, but also helps to minimize the energy requirement for the in situ conversion process. The technical effect of this invention is to efficiently and economically extract energy from oil shale / sands deposits.
Problems solved by technology
The reason that only a very small amount of this oil is currently extracted from these deposits for use in producing energy is the prohibitively high cost, in terms of both economics and environmental impact, associated with extracting the oil from the oil shale.
Similar issues apply to the vast oil sands deposits that exist in North America, primarily in Canada.
Unfortunately, the true in situ combustion technique was not successful.
However, the modified in situ combustion technique also proved to be ineffective in larger shale oil deposits, where yields were only around 30% of theoretical.
The open pit mining technique is clearly environmentally insensitive and energy inefficient.
While, as indicated above, numerous attempts have been made to effectively capture oil from oil shale and / or oil sands deposits over the years, no technique has yet been developed that provides a commercially-viable and environmentally-sensitive production level technique for recovering energy from these huge deposits.
Method used
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[0065]Compare oil / dollars out of one square mile of an oil shale / sands deposit using on-site generated steam versus on-site generated electricity in the in situ conversion process in accordance with the invention as described above.
[0066]Electricity
[0067]At 36% efficiency, it takes 446,400 MegW per square mile, or 1,240,00 MW heat into the boiler to drive the in situ process using on-site generated electricity.
[0068]Steam
[0069]At 50% efficiency, it takes 892,800 MegW heat into the boiler to drive the in situ process using exit steam from the on-site turbine generator.
[0070]That is, the steam alternative is 28% more efficient than the electricity alternative and the generator still produces 446,400 MegW electricity that can be used on or off site. This 446,400 MegW of electricity is equivalent to 274,000,000 barrels of oil from the deposit. Thus, in the recycled steam embodiment of the invention, the overall output of 1 square mile of the oil shale / sands deposit is the equivalent of ...
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Oil shale and / or oil sands are utilized to generate electricity and / or steam at the site of the oil shale / sands deposit in an in situ process for recovering oil from the deposit. Bulk shale / sands material is removed from the deposit and combusted to generate thermal energy. The thermal energy is utilized to heat water to generate steam. The steam can be used directly in the in situ process or utilized to drive a steam turbine power generator located in close proximity to the deposit to generate electricity. The electricity generated on-site may be utilized to drive an in situ conversion process that recovers oil from the oil shale / sands deposit. Also, the exit steam generated by the on-site turbine generator can be used on-site to drive the in-situ conversion process.
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 819,601, filed on Jul. 10, 2006, by William B. Hendershot and titled “Self-Sustaining On-Site Production of Electricity for Use in the In Situ processing of Oil Shale and / or Oil Sands.” U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 819,601, filed Jul. 10, 2006, is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.[0002]This patent application is a Continuation-In-Part of co-pending application Ser. No. 11 / 429,907, filed on May 8, 2006, by William B. Hendershot, titled “Self-Sustaining On-Site Production of Electricity Utilizing Oil Shale and / or Oil Sands Deposits”, which is a Continuation-In-Part of application Ser. No. 11 / 093,690, filed on Mar. 30, 2005, by William B. Hendershot, titled “Self-Sustaining On-Site Production of Electricity Utilizing Oil Shale”, which (1) is a Continuation-In-Part of application Ser. No. 10 / 618,948, filed on Jul. 14, 2003, by William B. Hendershot, titled “...
Claims
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IPC IPC(8): E21B43/16E21B43/24
CPCF01K13/00F03G6/065E21B43/24Y02E10/46E21B43/16F22B1/18
InventorHENDERSHOT, WILLIAM B.
OwnerHENDERSHOT WILLIAM B