Turning Water into Oil
November 2, 2011 by Totally Integrated Automation Admin+
Filed under Articles, Engineering, Featured, Renewable Energy, Software
HydroWatch system monitors water used in oil shale drilling
America’s need for energy continues to cause concerns for politicians and consumers as well as those who pull oil and gas from the earth. Demand for these natural resources continues to rise while prices fluctuate wildly and the uninterrupted availability of foreign oil remains uncertain.
Fluctuations in supply and rising prices have driven oil and gas suppliers in the U.S. to focus more on domestic supplies. That’s prompted dramatic increase in hydraulic fracturing, often called fracking.
Water is one of the key requirements for fracking. Millions of gallons of water are pumped into wells drilled in shale fields, breaking the shale so oil and gas can be extracted. Fracturing was once a costly technique, but improvements in fracking have lowered costs while prices for oil and gas have risen
That’s led more drillers to mine America’s vast resources. For example, the Marcellus Shale Formation in the eastern U.S. has well over 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Some researchers say that’s enough to satisfy as much as two years of America’s total consumption. Getting this gas out of the earth takes a lot of water.
“Fracturing takes five to six million gallons of water per well. We’re working on one site that has six wells on one pad, so you’re talking about a lot of water,” says Len Crawford III, president of Crawford Technical Services.
CTS provides these drillers with HydroWatch, a system that keeps track of the water drillers use. The Hershey, Pa.-based company works with more than 20 major firms that do oil shale drilling and fracturing in the Marcellus Shale region.
Many of the drilling sites are in Pennsylvania. When water gets to those worksites, it is mixed with sand and chemicals before it’s injected into the earth.
Much of the water comes from wells, streams, and lakes. The latter two are monitored by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission. The SBRC constantly monitor water quality, and the EPA also checks environmental issues for many of the sties associated with fracking.
Some of this water is carried to oil and gas wells by pipelines. HydroWatch is monitoring several pipelines, some as long as 50 miles. Sensors monitor pressure in the pipeline, letting operators know when there are problems with pumps or leaks in the line, among other things.
When pipelines aren’t feasible, water is carried by trucks that carry 4,500 to 5,000 gallons of water. When drivers bring trucks into the facility, they must log in to say who they are and how much water they are moving.
“Truck drivers go to the HMI and tell it who they’re hauling for, the truck number and the number of gallons they’re handling,” Crawford says. When they finish, they enter the time and other tracking data.
This system also has a backup that helps make sure drivers are logging in correctly. The security cameras provide a foolproof backup when drivers enter their identification numbers to carry water out. They capture images of the truck’s license plate and mark them with a time stamp.
Though most of the water comes from three main founts, wells, lakes and streams, HydroWatch is also used to monitor water from an unusual source. The Sugar Hollow Trout Hatchery in Tunkhannock, Penn., sells millions of gallons of overflow water to one of the oil and gas companies. Previously, this water was discharged into area streams. With HydroWatch, plant managers and owners can readily check operations and make sure all temperatures and pressures are correct in the hatchery tanks. The system also checks the amount of water that’s being sold and monitors pressure of all lines to make sure equipment is working correctly.
HydroWatch is based on Siemens Step 7 hardware, coupled with a full color graphical user interface. WinCC SCADA software is the basis of the software offerings. It’s augmented by a Web navigator that provides remote access. Other programs from a range of suppliers provide full functionality for full system monitoring.
“The thing about this software is that we can integrate any third party software,” Crawford says. “We’ve integrated a security suite and we’ve got software that monitors sensors. Whenever anything happens in security or the areas monitored by these sensors, alarms can immediately be sent out to the proper systems and people.”
Security is an important issue since fracking has been criticized by some environmentalists. Cameras located around water sources and pipelines help prevent intruders from damaging equipment or polluting the water.
After water has been pumped into the earth to create fractures and free up gas or oil, it’s reclaimed and treated. Though most of it is reused for further fracking, some of it is filtered before it’s pumped back underground where it undergoes natural filtering with other groundwater.
“I wouldn’t drink water straight out of the Susquehanna. But I would drink the treated water,” Crawford says.
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No one know what these “chemicals” are that are in the fracking water. We need to remember that water is NOT a limitless resource and people need to stop deliberately polluting it. We should be able to drink directly from streams and rivers. If you don’t feel it’s safe for you to drink, think about the birds, fish and animals who don’t have a choice! Industry as a whole needs to clean up it’s act, stop polluting and start funding the efforts to improve water quality world wide.
Would the underground fracturing process work as well if seawater were to be used? Freshwater is much more valuable a resource, while seawater is available in much larger quantities. How isolated is the water in the working areas from the freshwater tables being used for drinking water? Is the isolation adequate to allow the fracturing to be done with “dirty” wastewater? If we were able to dispose of waste in a safe manner that would also serve a useful purpose it would seem like an idea worth following, but are there clear reasons why that would be a poor choice?
In regards to both comments, there always should be an emphasis on keeping water clean. Industry can be a major contributor to dirty water but not in this case. We do not release “dirty” water back into the environment, and anyone that says we do is either a liar or uniformed. Drinking straight out of the rivers and creeks also is never a good idea, it sounds like a utopia of lions laying down with sheep, but the truth is that aside from industry there are many reasons not to do this. First of all is natural sources of polutants: Ducks, geese, along with amoebas and other natural causes. Roads being salted in the winter with chemicals that leach into the water systems, highways with cars. Simply drinking water from the creeks, rivers, and streams is a bad idea.
In regards to sea water. The first obstacle that comes to mind is the logistics. How do we get water from the ocean to a multiple points that are 200 miles inland? The permits, licensing, and bureaucrats would never let this happen. Then then governments of the states would want taxes for each mile in the state, and then the public outcry of persons that don’t want natural gas in the United States would dig in against a pipeline… Just too much red tape.
When you consider that Pennsylvania has more rivers, creeks, streams, ponds, and lakes than just about every other state in the union, fresh water sources are not a problem. In fact, I see so many water conscious initiatives, when water is not typically an issue for eastern PA. Of course, in drout conditions this is different, however no one is permitted to pump water at that time and water saving measures are put into place. I am simply trying to show a difference between eastern PA and some western states, ie: Las Vegas, NV.
If you have questions/thoughts, please feel free to contact me:
len@crawford-tech.com