As many know the DOT recently issued it’s final rule on LNG transport in approved DOT-113 Cryo Tank Cars. This might just be the remedy to gas flaring. According to this reuters article last year alone(for more info on gas flaring check this link out). We vented 493.2 bcf of gas to the atmosphere. Flaring while expensive makes sense for mutliple reasons; lack of pipeline capcity, pressure relief, and maintenance procedures. Yet could this usher in a new traffic source? Imagine instead of flaring waste NG it could be recovered, then piped to a nearby liquificaton facilty for transport to any market… Food for thought. Coal is dwindling and NG could just be the next boon for the rails.
As I understand it, based on my limited knowledge, liquified natural gas is gas that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport.
When it is being transported in a railway tank car, what steps are required to keep it in its liquid state?
Sounds like a great idea. But as your linked story points out, the well operators often consider it “uneconomic” to do the right thing.
So my guess is, so long as we allow “Harvey Hustlebuck” to make that decision, the real creativity will be expended in finding excuses and exemptions.
Wonder if you could get reasonable capacity out or a recovery system that is completely rail borne? Making such a system that is semi portable would no doubt lessen the start up costs?
DOT-113 tank cars like other vessels that carry, or store LNG, are heavily jacketed and insulated to keep the temp roughly -260F. Here’s more detailed information. In addition to that here’s a study on implementing a simple efficient form of transporting LNG stateside based on Japan’s current LNG system of storage, and transport by rail.
Note that the two ‘preferred’ alternatives being researched at the time were multifunctional catalytic conversion of the flared gas and what is presumably using some if the ‘wasted’ energy of flaring to perform pyrolysis to higher-value (presumably storable liquid in most cases) products.
I see little opportunity for a rail-borne solution to work effectively in almost any current flaring situation, even in initial delivery of self-contained rigs to the points needed. Likewise periodic collection of ‘recovery’ products is much better suited to trucks than trains in almost all cases, certainly well past where any manufacturer looking at economies of scale would consider it unless heavily or wholly subsidized, probably moreover for a guaranteed time. I do not expect to see that happening.
Brings two things to mind. All the mindless waste back in the days of the Indiana Gas Boom,… and those science fiction movies where aliens, after having depleted the resources of their own planets, come looking here for their needs.
At least Indiana got a couple of nice glass bottle and jar plants out of the bargain.[W]
I knew nothing about this until I first read Middletown (which for the uninitiated is a sociology treatment of Muncie, IN) in the '70s. In those pre-fracking days natural gas was an expen$ive premium fuel, so the accounts of the flaring and waste were much more striking.
This problem is solved by it not making it the well operators that would have to do the work, make it the refiners, were a lot of flaring takes place as already.
If I was a well operator I’d invest in storage facilities, a lot of storage facilities at the well farms. Enough to not have to flare excess NG, but that’s just me(if you need a reason, simple, with storage you always have NG available for spikes in demand and can then fill in for those that don’t have the capacity).
LNG containers exist, if this traffic would not prefer a tank car. We do have an exisiting IM system that could easily accomodate LNG cans. Though when domestic NG production increases I see the devisement of a system to capture and make economical use of waste NG. Micro-Scale Liquification could be that enabler to make it cost effective.
This is interesting to me as it has comparable footprint to reverse-Brayton liquefiers (and has the same modular design for easy ‘containerized’ transport and pad setup). I have no firsthand knowledge whether the Micro-Scale system is cheaper to buy or maintain or has better uptime or reliability, and would be interested to learn.
I think, though, that the smaller-scale recovery option of choice is going to involve a variant of BOG management with LN2 (which is relatively easily generated and can itself be boiled off with neither emissions nor carbon penalty from heat exchangers). Similar small-scale traps perhaps with modern-generation reliquefiers for the nitrogen are probably the best solution for LNG tank cars when those become fully ‘homologated’ in this country – I don’t really know why such a good idea has seen so much Government foot-dragging.
Another possible solution is to convert the energy to something more useful, at the site.
Our local regional landfill used to flare off the methane generated by the waste. There are still signs along the road warning of same.
Now they use the methane to fuel gensets, and sell the electricity to the local utility. I know of at least one other such arrangement, and I know of an ambulance squad that gets their gas from a nearby landfill (to them) as well.
In addition, one landfill uses the waste heat from the gensets to heat and cool greenhouses in which are grown some one fifth of the tomatoes consumed in NY state. Our local landfill considered that, but has not moved forward with it.
The only issue the local facility encountered was that the existing power transmission lines could not handle the power they would be generating. Once that was remedied, it was a go.
That sounds to me like an elegant solution. …but then I really like tomatoes.
Well, you’ve got my vote.
Wonder if it makes any sense for these well operators to diversify with energy intensive subsidiary industries? Perhaps an adjacent aluminum recycling plant, or a glass recycling plant?
Instead of going to all the trouble to supercool and containerize it, just pump it into a nearby gasometer, and pull process gas from that?
I’ve been following this tech since it’s announcement. It’s called Tri-Gen check out the video. This would be perfect for landfill gas.
Micro-Scale lead times are roughly 60-80 minutes. After setup LNG can begin the process of liquification within 20-30 min. Expected unit output depending on capacity is looking about 10,000-30,000 Gal. per day. Here’s another unit on the market by Galileo which uses the BOG system you mentioned above.
Any way to use the gas to make electricity?
Widespread flaring has done a number on my home state of North Dakota. That whole problem could have been avoided from the get-go if the governor had had the courage to tell the oil companies at the very beginning of the Bakken play–when oil prices were sky-high–that they could not extract a single drop of oil until the gas byproduct issue was solved. They would have found a way.
See my post about the landfill.
I see that now. Our landfill pipes the methane to a nearby ethanol plant.
Many more problems could have been avoided from the get-go if the governor had had the courage to tell the oil companies at the very beginning of the Bakken play–when oil prices were sky-high–that they could not send a single drop of oil by rail until full degassing was performed. This would relatively easily have been expanded to likely solution of the actual gas byproduct issue requiring the flaring.
And yes, they would have found a way.