Canada Excellence Research Chair in Materials Engineering for Unconventional Oil Reservoirs

霍布森的选择--从可用的燃料中满足能源需求，还是大幅减少社会的环境足迹--构成了人类在21世纪面临的最大技术挑战。在接下来的几十年里，艾伯塔省的油砂将是一个熔炉：世界级的石油资源，其开采在地表和地下留下了越来越多的环境问题。目前的开采方法需要投入大量的能源、水和二氧化碳排放。随着社会/政治参与的消退，市场准入的不确定性增加，以及颠覆性的发展使竞争的燃料和/或替代交通方式成为可能，未来的开采在“一切照旧”的心态下处于危险之中。为了应对这一挑战，CERC提议在油砂创新和技术开发方面进行一场革命，无论是短期问题还是长期机会。它从100个原子的小范围开始，在那里开始中尺度科学，纳米材料的显著特性出现，但达到整个油砂地区100公里的跨度。尽管处于初级阶段，但中尺度科学在这一应用方面拥有巨大的潜力：能够实现能量转换、材料操纵和远程激活的新型纳米材料--所有这些都具有前所未有的部署能力。我们将发明和使用这些纳米材料来开发新的平台，并最大限度地减少工艺足迹，例如通过提高蒸汽符合效率来减少SAGD的二氧化碳和水足迹，控制/控制/监测现场工艺，以及切实快速停用尾矿库和产出水。我们将创造改变游戏规则的过程，将现场重油的巨大化学还原潜力转化为低排放的替代能源载体(甲烷、氢气、电力)。该计划将不仅仅是技术上的，而且将通过技术团队建设和管理合作，为定向设计和低成本合成纳米材料提供科学基础。我们将培养新一代的学生，将这些进步带到这个领域，并开启一个创新能源生产的时代。

A Hobson’s choice – meeting energy demand from available fuels or reducing drastically society’s environmental footprint – constitutes humankind’s greatest technical challenge in the 21st century. In the next few decades Alberta’s oil sands will be a crucible: a world-class petroleum resource, whose exploitation has left a legacy of environmental problems on surface and increasingly in the subsurface. Current exploitation methods require large invested energy, water use and CO2 emissions. Future exploitation is imperilled under a “business as usual” mindset, as social/political engagement ebbs, uncertainty in market access grows, and disruptive developments enable competing fuels and/or alternative transportation modes.To address this challenge, this CERC proposes a revolution in oil sands innovation and technology development, both for near-term problems and long-term opportunities. It starts small, at the scale of 100 atoms, where mesoscale science begins and remarkable properties of nanomaterials emerge, but reaches the 100 km span of an entire oil sands region. Though in its infancy, mesoscale science holds tremendous potential for this application: new nanomaterials that enable energy conversion, materials manipulation, and remote activation -- all with unprecedented deployment capabilities. We will invent and use such nanomaterials to develop new platforms and minimize process footprint, e.g. by increasing steam-conformance efficiency to reduce SAGD’s CO2 and water footprints, controlling/containing/monitoring in-situ processes and practical rapid decommissioning of tailing ponds and produced water. We will create game-changing processes that convert the enormous chemical reductive potential of in-situ heavy oil into low emission, alternative energy vectors (methane, hydrogen, electricity).The program will not be merely technical but will, through technology team building and managed collaboration, advance the scientific basis for directed design and low-cost synthesis of nanomaterials. We will train a new breed of students to bring these advances to the field and usher in an era of innovative energy production.