According to a January 13th article in EE News’ Greenwire (subscription only), a handful of companies touted technologies capable of making fracking quieter, cleaner and more efficient at an unidentified industry conference recently.  Here is an extract of what EE News shared.

Fewer Trucks, Less Fuel, Lower Emissions Green Field Energy Services promoted a smaller pump engine that can be fueled by diesel , biofuels or natural gas.  ”You can cut the number of pump trucks in half” claims CEO Rick Fontova.  Today massive pump engines are diesel powered and take up an entire truck bed to transport.  Two Greenfield 4,000 horsepower pumps fit onto one flatbed.

Lower CO2 Emissions Carbon Sciences CEO Byron Elton said “”Our catalyst has given people the opportunity to take a second look at CO2, where we use CO2 as opposed to producing significant amounts of it.”

(The company) hopes shale oil and gas producers will adopt their technology to increase liquids production, taking advantage of high per-barrel prices while ending flaring at the same time.

Their process eliminates the need for oxygen in the gas-to-liquids process and uses carbon dioxide as a feedstock in converting natural gas products to synthetic petroleum.

Reduction of Toxic Chemicals Halliburton is promoting it’s CleanSuite product which aims to eliminate the nastier chemicals and rely on chemicals from the food industry.  The company is also experimenting with using ultraviolet light to control bacteria rather than potent biocide chemicals.

Recycling Another Halliburton product, CleanWave, is being sold as a way to treat frack waste water for recycling and reuse.  (This occurs to me as a bit ironic.  That’s rather like a liquor store hosting AA meetings.  But Hey, let’s not knock any effort to make fracking cleaner.)

Reduced Water and Sand Use Schlumberger is pushing its HIWAY fracturing technology which claims to use less water and sand and yield higher gas collection.

HiWAY uses equipment to deliver fluid and proppant, mixed with special fibers, to wells in short, high-frequency bursts….So far, Schlumberger representatives say HiWAY’s application has “increased 60-day cumulative oil production by 43 percent and 60-day cumulative gas production by 61 percent, while reducing water and proppant consumption per well by 58 percent and 35 percent, respectively.”

Whether or not this technology, which falls in the family of SuperFracks, will pose more environmental problems is an open question.  For more info on SuperFracks, which frack deeper and wider, click here.

Improved Seismic Imaging to Reduce Risk of fracturing into Groundwater Halliburton and MicroSeismic Inc are marketing more advanced imaging technologies they say will allow companies to ensure that groundwater sources are separated from the frack zone.  (I’m not sure I would buy stock in MicroSeismic if it is publicly traded.  After all, everyone knows that fracking does not contaminate groundwater.  At least that’s the industry story and their sticking to it.  They are fighting the EPA on the Pavillion,Wyo. report.  But that’s another story.)

Replace Water with Propane to Frack GASFRAC Energy Services Inc. of Calgary is actively marketing technology that uses liquefied petroleum gas — mainly propane — to break apart tight underground formations and free up oil and gas. The company says its method is safe, cheaper than using water and causes less damage to subsurface formations than can be caused by traditional fracking fluids.

However it was noted that drillers already have large amounts of flammable liquids to manage and that was a drawback to the employment of yet another flammable liquid, propane.

GASFRAC Energy Services Inc’s.  LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) proprietary Fracturing Process utilizes gelled LPG in place of conventional fracturing fluids. The LPG is primarily propane, C3H8. The unique properties of this process result in significant savings on material expenses and fracture clean up, as well as increased well productivity.

Still awaiting a patent in the U.S., the technique has been used about 1,000 times since 2008, mainly in gas wells in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and New Brunswick and a smaller handful of test wells in states that include Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico.  “We leave the nasties in the ground, where they belong,” said Robert Lestz, the Chief Technology Officer with GasFrac, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

David Burnett, a professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University, one of the nation’s premier petroleum engineering schools, said fracking with propane makes sense. “From a reservoir engineering perspective, there is no reason this would not be effective,” said Burnett, who runs the Environmentally Friendly Drilling Systems Program, a project of the university and the Houston Advanced Research Center, a not-for-profit academic and business consortium. Supported by some of the nation’s largest energy companies, as well as by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the drilling program seeks new technologies that develop gas and oil in a safe and environmentally friendly manner.  Burnett said using gas instead of water can serve two ends — protecting the environment and reducing costs to the drilling industry of handling and disposing of tainted water.

Dominion Resources is in the process of constructing a new gas separation plant at Natrium in southern Marshall county.  They have just applied to the WV-DEP (Application WVR105726) for a permit for the following activity: “This application is for the discharge of stormwater associated with the installation of approximately 58 miles of propane pipeline within a 90 foot limit of disturbance. The project also includes approximately 20 miles of access roads and 3 laydown areas.”  This pipeline is to extend northward thru Ohio county into Brooke county, in the northern panhandle of WV.  This is propane that might well be available for LPG fracking in WV, PA, and OH.

Dominion has had some clean up problems at a Tank Farm associated with their established gas separation plant at Hastings, on WV Route 20 in Wetzel county.  This appears to be related to gasoline blending operations that occured in earlier years.