May

3

A Big Boost For US Oil Reserves

May 3, 2013 | Leave a Comment

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) released the newest oil and gas resource assessment of the Williston Basin for the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana.  The new reserve in the Williston is an assessment for the Three Forks Formation in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana.  Together it’s a two-fold increase in the [...]

Apr

12

Raising the Energy Value of Natural Gas by 25%

April 12, 2013 | 2 Comments

The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has announced a system that converts natural gas using sunlight into the more energy-rich fuel called syngas.  The new system offers a 25% increase in available energy. Making the syngas uses concentrated solar power. Solar energy comes to a reflecting surface that concentrates the sun’s rays [...]

Apr

9

Lots More Oil Where It Already Came From

April 9, 2013 | 1 Comment

Technology using natural soil bacteria for enhanced oil recovery now is commercially available and poised to recover the crude oil remaining in thousands of exhausted oil wells. Brian Clement, Ph.D. spoke in New Orleans yesterday April 8, with his report on a process termed microbially enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) that is part of the 245th [...]

Apr

5

Ready to Make Natural Gas

April 5, 2013 | 4 Comments

Methanogenic bacteria have been found in coal beds here in the U.S. and companies are working to start natural gas production.  For now the natural gas prices are forcing adverse market conditions on the firms, but the chance that some liquefied natural gas for export may be allowed could well spark more action. San Diego [...]

Feb

7

Energy From Coal Without the Burning

February 7, 2013 | 6 Comments

Ohio State University engineers are testing a clean coal technology that harnesses the energy of coal producing heat while capturing 99% of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.  The test combustion unit reaction ran 203 continuous hours. The new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone with the successful operation of a [...]

Dec

20

A Lower Cost Method to Capture Sulfur From Fuels

December 20, 2012 | 1 Comment

University of Illinois (UI) researchers have developed mats of metal oxide nanofibers that more effectively scrub sulfur from petroleum-based fuels than traditional materials. Sulfur is the chemical element that made acid rain such a nasty event downwind from coal and oil burning facilities.  When burned sulfur is reformed into toxic acids that persist a short [...]

Dec

11

Simultaneously Get Oil and Gas and Produce Electricity

December 11, 2012 | 3 Comments

Last night Al Fin posted about Marshall Savage whose idea is utilizing solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) placed within rocks at strategic locations. This approach would produce oil, gas, and electricity using an ‘in situ process’, without significant mining or rock removal. The idea is a brilliant connection of existing technologies harnessed in a different [...]

Oct

11

Huge Oil Strike in Oklahoma

October 11, 2012 | 4 Comments

Continental Resources Inc. unveiled its newest oil field with a reservoir rock of an oil-rich portion of the Woodford Shale that lies beneath oil fields tapped long ago by some of the state’s biggest oil names, including Phillips Petroleum, Noble, Hefner and Skelly Oil. The new field is in an area of southern Oklahoma that [...]

keep looking »