Glossary for Energy Resources
- barrel:
- oil field:
an area that contains a significant amount of accessible oil underground.
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- oil reserve:
the known supply of oil held underground in an oil field.
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- source rock:
the rock (mostly sedimentary) in which oil and gas form
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- reservoir rock:
the rock (mostly sedimentary) into which oil and gas eventually migrate.
Oil companies drill into the reservoir rock to recover the oil (not the source rock!).
The reservoir rock typically has high porosity and high permeability so that oil
can migrate easily and accumulate.
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- seal rock:
impermeable rock above an oil trap. Prevents the oil from rising and escaping from the trap. Examples of seal rocks are shale, salt, unfractured limestone.
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- rock oil:
petroleum. From Latin "petra" for rock and "oleum" for oil.
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- to crack oil:
break the long hydrocarbon chains into shorter chains. This is necessary to make high-performance fuels, such as kerosene, gasoline, a.s.o.
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- peat:
compacted and partially decayed vegetation accumulating beneath a swamp.
Peat has about 50% Carbon and serves, in dry form, as energy source in many parts of the world. Current peat bog deposits formed from mosses and grasses during the past several thousands of years.
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- seep:
a place where oil naturally seeps from a reservoir rock to the surface, e.g. through cracks.
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- gusher:
oil suddenly escapes from an oil well in the form of a fountain. The first gusher
was Spindletop in Texas, in January 1901.
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- Oil Production in Alaska:
Alaska's oil reserves, off-shore in the Arctic Ocean, were discovered relatively late
(1968 at Prudhoe Bay) but is now the U.S.'s largest oil field (Gulf of Mexico is larger but shared with other countries). Alaskan oil started to flow after the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was finished in 1977. Oil is transported from the northern shore to the Prince William Sound in the south, and then shipped from there. Nowadays, Alaska oil makes up 20% of the domestic oil. At peak times its production contributed 2 Mio barrels/day and $10 Billion/year to the domestic economy that would have been spent otherwise on importing oil. The 1250-km long pipelines crosses ice-saturated permafrost regions and a major transform fault along which large earthquakes occur. Since oil has to be kept warm to flow, an installation below ground would thaw the ground and facilitate mass movements. The pipeline therefore sits on a frame above ground. The pipeline is built to withstand surface ruptures of 6m that could happen during a magnitude 8 earthquake. During the
Nov 3, 2002 Denali Earthquake, the pipeline was shaken off its ground but did not burst.
Some minor oil spill have occurred during its lifetime (e.g. 5,000 barrels in 1981 after a valve ruptured; 7,000 barrels in 2001 after a man fired a rifle bullet into the pipe) but the most tragic incident occurred when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, spilling 240,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the waters of P.W.S., causing the worst-ever oil spill in U.S. waters, before the 2011 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A 1972 environmental impact statement in 1972 had earlier singled out marine oil spills as being the greatest threat to the environment. The Alaskan pipeline and the drilling of the North Slope oil field has been producing decreasing amounts of oil. In recent years, it has been proposed to drill within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This has triggered a heated debate between backers and opponents. Apart from the threat to regional wildlife by possible oil contamination and expanding infrastructure, opponents also question the value of the expected oil. Recoverable oil is likely less than a year's worth of supply to cover the U.S.'s needs.
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- Catalytic Converters
Catalytic converters help to combust unburned hydrocarbons in car engines, outside
the engine combustion chamber (so fuel is burnt without gaining useful energy). A 3-way
catalytic converter uses/produces O2 and converts CO to CO2, NOx to O2 and N2, and CxHy to CO2
and H2O. Catalytic converters get clogged up by lead that used to be in the fuel as additive to prevent the valves from knocking. In unleaded fuel, MTBE replaced lead in 1979. It is water
soluble and labeled a "potential human carcinogen" by the ETA (Environmental Protection Agency). Because of its water solubility, MTBE can easily get into the ground water and raised levels of MTBE were first discovered in 1995 in water wells in Santa Monica, CA.
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- seam:
a sedimentary bed of coal inter-layered with other sedimentary rocks.
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- renewable energy resources
resources that nature can replace in a short time relative to the human life span
(e.g. solar, wind, hydro-electric).
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- non-renewable energy resources
resources that take long to replace relative to the human life span
(e.g. fossil fuels, nuclear power).
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