Pitch
Inertia dynamics are designed to help reduce the climate impacts of hydraulic fracturing in natural gas well production.
Description
Summary
Last week in Oklahoma, where natural gas is a major money player, we had a small earthquake.
Today, Oklahomans, pro and against hydraulic fracturing (fracking), continue and will continue to debate this ongoing and overlapping issue until the proverbial cows come home.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not against vertical fracking if used in a responsible way!
In fact, I'm not TOTALLY against horizontal fracking, if long-range environmental impacts are neutralized by prudent contingencies!
Category of the action
Adaptation
What actions do you propose?
In a bold attempt to find common ground, everyone seems to agree that we all want to safely extract energy from Planet Earth and buy it at a fair price!
Because of the fact that safe extraction at a fair price seems to be moving to the forefront of discussion and discourse, I would like to share the following true story with you that contains a possible solution to help reduce the climate impacts of extracting natural gas energy from Planet Earth.
Around 1990, I was a 47 year old inventor associated with a man employed by a major natural gas production company. His job and title gave him the credibility and legal authority to safely use the exhaust gases of natural gas compressors to evaporate salt-water produced by Oklahoma gas wells.
While working on this project for almost 2 years, I watched in amazement as gas well sites would sometimes vent high volume gases to the atmosphere for extended lengths of time.
When I asked my associate about this, he explained that sometimes the water volume (hydrostatic pressure) in the well casing would cause the gas flow to become very slow and in some cases . . stopped.
In other words . . the water and gas in the well resisted acceleration where the tendency of a body at rest caused the body to remain at rest. (Inertia).
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Before we move on, I would like to give you a quick overview of gas well sites in Oklahoma in 1990.
(a) Most gas well sites were approximately 5,000+ feet deep.
(b) The gas well drillers would install a well casing pipe around 7 inches in diameter to seal off the producing formation from water aquifers.
(c) They usually installed tubing that was around 2 3/8 inches diameter inside the casing. This tubing carried the formation water and gas to the surface.
(d) The wellhead consisted of three components: the casing head, the tubing head, and the christmas tree (tree) with open and close hand valves which connected the casing to the tubing.
(e) The gas and water which moved up the tubing to the (tree) mounted on top of the well was piped to a gas well separator which sent the gas to a compressor and the water to a tank to be hauled to a water storage facility.
(f) These compressors on the well site pumped the gas into the main pipeline which connected the individual gas wells together.
(g) The main pipelines contained compressor stations designed to pump the gas at higher pressures farther down the line to be collected.
(h) When the gas well became slow (inertia), the men who checked on gas wells (pumpers) would drop formulated soap sticks down the tubing to the water, which would turn to foam and lighten the fluid column. Sometimes, this allowed the pressure differentials to help unload the fluid and gas from the well.
(i) If this failed to rectify the situation, someone would open all the valves on the (tree) designed to vent gas and methane directly to the atmosphere.
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I designed and illustrated a small scale model of my theory to show my associate how to disturb the down-hole inertia without venting gases to the atmosphere.
My associate quickly rejected the theory, because it was out of line with standard procedures that (according to him ) had been used for the last 30 to 35 years.
I firmly protested, and he reluctantly gave permission to proceed with caution.
(1) I added soap sticks to the well to make sure the water in the casing, tubing, and well would be foamed.
(2) I installed a pipe from the high pressure side of the compressor to one of the shut-off valves on the (tree) that was connected to the tubing.
(3) The objective was to disturb the inertia by reversing the normal sequence of operation which was to flow the gas from the formation up the tubing to the surface.
(4) I opened the valve on the (tree) that connected the casing to the separator.
(5) I very slowly opened the valve from the high pressure side of the compressor to the open tubing valve on the (tree) until the pressure of the gas in the tubing was slightly greater than the (hydrostatic pressure) at the bottom of the tubing.
(6) After several adjustments, the pressured gas eventually bubbled-up the foam/water/gas inside the casing to the surface.
(7) The separator collected the trapped gas and sent it to the compressor . . and sent the foamy water to the water tank.
(8) The inertia had been disturbed without venting to the atmosphere!
I demonstrated this to my associate and later to my welder and also, the pumper at the well site.
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I I then returned to finalize the R & D on the salt water evaporation project.
Everything was falling into place, until the evaporation patent (using the exhaust gases of the compressor) was issued in 1991 with only the name of my associate as the owner.
Under those circumstances . . we decided to go our separate ways.
We have not communicated with each other in over 21 years!
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I realize since 1991, there has probably been many technological advances to eliminate atmospheric venting (inertia).
However, if for some reason this technology is not available, I wanted to share this story with you and others who are concerned about the 4.6 million people who die each year due to air polluction.
I personally believe vertical drilling, responsible fracking, and the ability to tweak and over-ride down-hole hydrostatic pressure will bubble-up the industry a fair profit, the customer a fair price, and our grandchildren a better tomorrow.
CAUTION: All of the above procedures and operations should be performed by qualified personnel using industry safety standards.
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Who will take these actions?
Planetary gas well producers trying to disturb inertia by venting gases to the atmosphere!
Where will these actions be taken?
Hopefully all over the planet!
As an example; It was reported in 2009 that there were over 461,388 ptoducing gas wells in the U.S.A.
What are other key benefits?
If open venting could be slowed or stopped, this one move alone would benefit planetary economics and significantly reduce the death rates of the 4.6 million people who die each year as a result of air pollution.
What are the proposal’s costs?
Approximately . . ZERO !
Time line
If "Inertia Dynamics" is proven to help eliminate open venting today . . industry can begin implementation tomorrow!
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