Energy Innovations for Today and Tommorrow

卡尔加里大学的科学战略将显著减少非常规资源开发的碳足迹。加拿大拥有巨大的重油、沥青和致密油和天然气资源，可以继续为国家经济福祉做出贡献；它们的发展不一定会对加拿大实现其气候目标不利。 卡尔加里大学在这些资源方面拥有世界领先的研究人员，并与中国、墨西哥和以色列的组织合作，解决了使这些资源的开采变得如此碳密集型的核心特征-即重油和沥青的高粘度，以及致密油气藏的极低渗透率。此外，该大学将通过在实地范围内开发和测试新的二氧化碳储存和转化途径来解决开采后的碳排放问题。 该大学研究的主要内容如下： 通过创新、中温、催化/生物途径，结合新材料、井结构和化学转化，减少用于降低石油粘度的能源和水的数量。 通过将新的和纳米材料增强的地球物理成像策略与油藏/井筒/流体化学监测和模拟相结合，更有效地开采稠油，创建下一代控制系统。 通过使用新的诊断方法、地球物理数据、材料和流体在该大学独特的现场研究地点展示，自适应地控制选择性目标储集层中的裂缝生长，从而减少水力压裂对环境的影响。 通过部署新的流体、材料组合和创新的压裂阶段，在相同的开发足迹内为致密油层开采更多石油。 通过从水库中提取替代能源载体并利用低温混合催化(金属、氧化物、地下微生物群落)、电化学和纳米材料实现就地能量转换，消除向大气的二氧化碳排放。 减少二氧化碳捕获和转化所需的能源和材料，方法是大幅提高最近展示的从二氧化碳到CO和燃料的催化、电化学和微生物路线的活性、寿命、经济性和可扩展性，并将它们与新材料和耦合捕获工艺相结合。

The University of Calgary’s scientific strategy will significantly reduce the carbon footprint of unconventional resource development. Canada’s enormous endowment of heavy oil, bitumen, and tight oil and gas can continue to contribute to national economic well-being; their development needs not be inimical to Canada meeting its climate goals. With world-leading researchers in these resources, collaborating with organizations in China, Mexico and Israel, the University of Calgary’s strategy tackles the core features that make extraction of these resources so carbon-intensive—namely, the high viscosity of heavy oil and bitumen, and the extremely low permeability of tight oil and gas reservoirs. Moreover, the university will address post-extraction carbon emissions by developing and testing, at field-scale, new CO2 storage and conversion pathways. The key elements of the university’s research are as follows: Reduce the amount of energy and water used to decrease oil viscosity by combining novel materials, well configurations, and chemical transformations, via innovative, moderate-temperature, catalytic/biological routes. Recover viscous oil more efficiently, by combining new and nanomaterial-enhanced geophysical imaging strategies with coupled reservoir/wellbore/fluid chemistry monitoring and simulation, to create next-generation control systems. Reduce the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing, by adaptively controlling fracture growth in selectively targeted reservoir interval—using novel diagnostics, geophysical data, materials and fluids demonstrated at the university’s unique field-research site. Recover more oil within the same development footprint for tight reservoirs, by deploying novel combinations of fluids, materials and innovative fracturing stages. Eliminate CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, by extracting alternative energy carriers from reservoirs and exploiting low-temperature mixed catalysis (metals, oxides, subsurface microbial communities), electrochemistry and nanomaterials to achieve in situ energy transformations. Reduce the amount of energy and materials needed for CO2 capture and conversion, by greatly increasing the activity, longevity, economy and scalability of recently demonstrated catalytic, electrochemical and microbial routes from CO2 to CO and fuels, and combining them with novel materials and coupled capture processes.