Energy Innovations for Today and Tommorrow

卡尔加里大学的科学战略将大大减少非常规资源开发的碳足迹。加拿大拥有大量的重油、沥青、致密油和天然气资源，可以继续为国家经济福祉做出贡献;它们的发展不一定不利于加拿大实现其气候目标。 卡尔加里大学的战略与这些资源领域的世界领先研究人员合作，与中国、墨西哥和以色列的组织合作，解决了这些资源开采的核心特征，即重油和沥青的高粘度，以及致密油气藏的极低渗透性。此外，该大学将通过开发和测试新的CO2储存和转换途径来解决提取后的碳排放问题。 大学研究的关键要素如下： 通过创新的中温催化/生物途径，将新型材料、井身结构和化学转化相结合，减少用于降低原油粘度的能源和水的用量。 通过将新的纳米材料增强地球物理成像策略与耦合的储层/井筒/流体化学监测和模拟相结合，更有效地开采粘性油，以创建下一代控制系统。 减少水力压裂的环境影响，通过适应性地控制选择性目标储层间隔的裂缝生长-使用在该大学独特的实地研究地点展示的新诊断，地球物理数据，材料和流体。 通过部署流体、材料和创新压裂阶段的新型组合，在致密储层的相同开发足迹内开采更多石油。 通过从储层中提取替代能源载体和利用低温混合催化（金属、氧化物、地下微生物群落）、电化学和纳米材料实现原位能源转化，消除向大气排放的二氧化碳。 减少二氧化碳捕获和转化所需的能量和材料数量，方法是大大提高最近证明的从二氧化碳到二氧化碳和燃料的催化、电化学和微生物途径的活性、寿命、经济性和可扩展性，并将它们与新材料和耦合捕获过程相结合。

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.