“This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.” -- Harry S Truman (American 33rd President of the United States, 1884-1972)
This is a report worth reading, especially if you are designing or administering a research program.
Bitumen & Very Heavy Crude Upgrading Technology-A Review Of Long Term R&D Opportunities
“The Focus of this Review: This review has focused on the identification of emerging and developing technologies that can, when fully developed, either be applied directly to upgrade bitumen and very heavy crudes, or are integral to new approaches to upgrading. Although very heavy crudes do not have the same reserve potential as the oil sands … they are included in this report as they might also gain from upgrading to lighter crudes using similar upgrading technology.”
The report examines R&D needs in a detailed and comprehensive manner. For example, it mentions the need to consider how to handle the sulfur that is produced as a consequence of increased desulfurization activity. To quote …
“Bitumen contains on average close to 5% by weight sulphur. The removal of sulphur (desulphurization) occurs through various upgrading processes, and is recovered via hydrogen sulphide gas scrubbing. Recovered sulphur is either stockpiled or shipped to markets, but the land-locked location of much of the oil sands industry makes this difficult, with the current worldwide glut in sulphur, and consequent low prices at the closest western export port, Vancouver … New technologies to use the sulphur by-product in non-traditional ways, such as in cement, sulphur enhanced road asphalt, as well as growing agricultural soil nutrient demand growth all offer ways to mitigate the world supply-demand imbalance in the log term.”
The section labeled TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT NEEDS IN BITUMEN & HEAVY CRUDE UPGRADNG states …
“The main intent in this study is to identify areas for pre-competitive (basic and early applied research) that should be the main focus for government-industry jointly funded R&D. This is expected to cover a wide variety of technology options, at the scouting level, where technical or scientific uncertainty is also higher.”
The report was produced in 2004, a long time ago in the technology arena. But the goals identified in the report are so well organized that it is still worth the time required to browse its contents.
View the full text of the report at:
www.ptac.org/links/dl/osdfnlreport.pdf
Pass this on to your colleagues … and let them know about the Desulfurization Blog (http://www.desulf.blogspot.com/)
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