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Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

cbc.ca

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Re: Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

#11

Post by yborg »

cperciva wrote: post #2

This is weird. Pipelines are the cheapest, most efficient, and safest way to move large amounts of oil. How is something which renders oil impossible to transport via pipeline a step forward?

What they mine out of tar sands/shales is bitumen. You can't pump asphalt, so they actually have to add a solvent to make it pumpable, usually naptha, which they then have to ship to the head end - meaning you end up with 2 pipelines. This idea makes the petroleum product more like coal, which has an extensive and cost-effective rail infrastructure for transport.

Re: Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

#14

Post by TeMPOraL »

thereisnospork wrote: post #10

As a rule, it is far easier* to transport/handle liquids in large quantity than solids. Even ignoring the effort to convert/deconvert the oil at each end, I'm not seeing this as a step forward that will improve the bulk of crude-oil transport -- baring a more detailed analysis than what reads to me as 'pipelines bad.' *Cheaper, safer, more efficient, requiring less maintenance, etc...

> As a rule, it is far easier to transport/handle liquids in large quantity than solids.*

Is it?

For liquids, at all times you need a sealed container that doesn't leak. For solids, it's enough for the holes to be no larger than the individual solid object. This makes containers cheaper and requiring much less maintenance.

As for this specific case, the article makes at least two points:

- transporting solids can reuse existing infrastructure (rail + coal wagons), giving you flexibility - as opposed to requiring you to ship from only where the pipeline ends (or to build new pipelines);

- with "one weird trick" (injecting some extra gas into the bubble) they can make each pellet buoyant, and it seems they also don't dissolve easily - the result is something that's potentially much easier to collect if you happened to spill it into an ocean.

Re: Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

#16

Post by TeMPOraL »

Two questions I'm wondering about:

- How solid are those pebbles? I assume they're not like soft blobs that can easily split and merge together? But then how much abuse they can take? E.g. if they crack easily, you can't really stack them together very high.

- The obvious one - are the pebbles flammable?

Re: Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

#17

Post by ldite »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #15
tiku wrote: post #12

We can now make huge rube goldberg machines to transport those balls.

It's called "rail". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport

So less this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYzuXJ0E4cA

And more this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEekXRNztVI

?

Re: Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

#18

Post by sgt »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #14
thereisnospork wrote: post #10

As a rule, it is far easier* to transport/handle liquids in large quantity than solids. Even ignoring the effort to convert/deconvert the oil at each end, I'm not seeing this as a step forward that will improve the bulk of crude-oil transport -- baring a more detailed analysis than what reads to me as 'pipelines bad.' *Cheaper, safer, more efficient, requiring less maintenance, etc...

> As a rule, it is far easier to transport/handle liquids in large quantity than solids.* Is it? For liquids, at all times you need a sealed container that doesn't leak. For solids, it's enough for the holes to be no larger than the individual solid object. This makes containers cheaper and requiring much less maintenance. As for this specific case, the article makes at least two points: - transporting solids can reu…

They wouldn't build pipelines in the first place if it didn't make business sense to do so. These pipes will be in place for a very long time (relatively speaking). I would also think that railroad or road for transporting a solid liquid is also less environmentally friendly than sending via pipelines. Of course, if you are assuming that the pipeline will burst, then it may not be, but one has to ensure that the pipeline is a safe option. Government oversight is needed in those cases.

Re: Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

#19

Post by andriesm »

Boothroid wrote: post #5

Anything that facilitates increased use of tar sands hydrocarbons is terrible news for the environment. We should ban this miserable trade.

This misreable trade is all that stands between many people and poverty. Green energy alternatives have years to decades before completely making hydrocaebons irrelevant. Electric cars certainly a big step, but only in beginning stages of market penetration.

Re: Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil

#20

Post by pjc50 »

People are missing a couple of details in this: the Canadian "oil" in question is not a liquid from a well to start with, it's tar sands that have been dug up. The first step of processing is melting it to filter out the sand. This leaves you with viscous bitumen that cannot be pumped efficiently down a pipeline. So normally it's processed again to make "dilbit", diluted bitumen, in order to ship it to an oil refinery for cracking to produce actually useful petrol.
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