Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas Needs New Analytical and Processing Methods/Seminar and Book Signing
Energy Center
November 18, 2016
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
MRGN 121
Description
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Co-sponsored by Energy Center, Discovery Park, and Chemical Engineering
Discovery Park Distinguished Lecture Series
SUSTAINABLE SHALE OIL AND GAS NEEDS NEW ANALYTICAL
AND PROCESSING METHODS
Vikram Rao
Executive Director, Research Triangle Energy Consortium, Advisor to the Chief Operating Officer
RTI International, North Carolina
10:30 am, November 18, 2016
MRGN 121
*[First thirty students will have an opportunity to receive free book with author signature]
ABSTRACT: Sustainable production has three tenets: profitability, without which there is no enterprise, and minimal harm to the environment and to the public proximal to the activity. Analytical methods are a key to all of these. That which cannot be measured, cannot be regulated or exploited. Only about 5% of the shale oil in place is currently being recovered. The recovery methods have risks to the environment and the potential for societal impact. New analytical chemistry, geochemistry and biochemistry methods are described to address many of these issues.
Shale oil production has associated gas. When the volumes are too low, the gas is flared. The same applies to gas from landfills and animal waste impoundments. Small scale processing to liquids could address these, but is hampered by economies of scale. We will discuss how these may be overcome. Described is a portable gas to methanol convertor, in late stage development, designed to address the market of low volume stranded gas. The generic idea of distributed processing also applies to small volume markets such as DME as a diesel substitute for trucks and trains.
BIO: Vikram Rao is Executive Director, Research Triangle Energy Consortium www.rtec-rtp.org , a non-profit in energy founded by Duke University, North Carolina State University, RTI International and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Its mission is to illuminate national energy priorities, and those of the world by extension, and to catalyze research to address these priorities.
Dr. Rao advises the non-profit RTI International, venture capitalist Energy Ventures AS, and firms BioLargo Inc., Global Energy Talent Ltd., Biota Technology Inc., Melior Innovations Inc. and Eastman Chemicals Company. He retired as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Halliburton Company in 2008 and followed his wife to Chapel Hill, NC, where she is on the UNC faculty. Later that year he took his current position. He also is past Chairman of the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission.
Dr. Rao’s book Shale Gas: the Promise and the Peril was released in 2012 by RTI Press and can be found at www.rti.org/shalegasbook . It is written for general audiences and is intended to inform on the heated debate on fracturing for shale gas. The Revised Edition with six new chapters and extensive revision was released on August 8, 2015 http://www.rti.org/shaleoilandgas. His forthcoming book with Dr. Rob Knight, Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas: Analytical Chemistry, Geochemistry and Biochemistry Methods, is scheduled for release by Elsevier Press in October, 2016.
Dr. Rao holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India, along with a master’s degree and a doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University. He is the author of more than 30 publications and has been awarded 40 US patents and foreign analogs.
Contact Details
- Pankaj Sharma
- sharma@purdue.edu
