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`TitleGas Conversion Systems Reclaim Fuel for Industry
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`NASA Technology
`
`T o understand the connection between the
`
`development of Martian power systems and tech-
`nology that can pull oil from old wells or capture
`gases released during drilling, it helps to think of atoms—
`particularly carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms—like
`Tinkertoys. Different configurations have sometimes
`drastically different properties, particularly when an ele-
`ment is added or removed, and rearranging them is just a
`matter of using the right chemical reactions.
`Take this conversation with Robert Zubrin, founder
`and president of Pioneer Astronautics and Pioneer
`Energy, on the subject of making rocket propellant on
`Mars: “It can be done by combining hydrogen, perhaps
`from Earth, with Martian carbon dioxide—the atmo-
`sphere is 95 percent CO2—to produce methane and
`water. You can electrolyze the water and make oxygen,
`recycle the hydrogen off the electrolysis, and doing that
`will yield a lot of methane and oxygen, which is a good
`combination for rocket fuel. With that, you can return
`home to Earth,” he explains.
`“Later on, we did some work where we would be able
`to make methanol and oxygen on Mars, and then we did
`a system where we decomposed methanol and water into
`hydrogen and carbon dioxide to produce lifting gas for
`research balloons,” he continues, speaking as if it were as
`simple as making a little windmill from sticks and spools.
`Zubrin has what might be called a restless intellect.
`President of the Mars Society and a primary developer
`of an oft-referenced plan to put humans on Mars called
`Mars Direct, he has been championing colonization of
`the Red Planet—and working on the systems to make
`it happen—since the mid-1990s. Among the 10 books
`he’s published, though, are also a satirical science fiction
`novel lampooning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
`a five-act play portraying Benedict Arnold’s betrayal of
`the revolutionary army. He devised a three-player version
`of chess when he was 20 and patented it. And in 2010,
`
`Zubrin appeared in a viral Symphony of Science music
`video along with Carl Sagan and other famous science
`popularizers.
`In the course of its work, Pioneer Astronautics has
`won about 60 Small Business Innovation Research
`(SBIR) contracts, most of them with NASA. They have
`totaled more than $12.5 million, which Zubrin has used
`for projects as diverse as a Mars hopper vehicle that uses
`carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as the engine pro-
`pellant, a magnetic sail that would propel a spacecraft
`by using a magnetic field to deflect plasma winds, and
`a precision-landing parachute system designed for Mars’
`thin atmosphere.
`Some of the earliest contracts, dating to the mid- to
`late 1990s, were with Johnson Space Center and focused
`on creating rocket fuel on the surface of Mars through
`molecular mixing and matching. These followed work he
`had done as a NASA contractor with Lockheed Martin
`and Martin Marietta Astronautics Company, developing
`advanced space exploration strategies.
`“He started with Lockheed Martin and helped build
`one of the first prototypes for how to collect carbon diox-
`ide from the Mars atmosphere and turn it into oxygen
`and methane,” says Gerald Sanders, In-Situ Resource
`Utilization (ISRU) chief engineer with the Propulsion
`and Power Division at Johnson Space Center. He adds
`that Zubrin then went on to experiment with other
`chemical processes with Pioneer Astronautics, such as
`ways to make oxygen from carbon dioxide using a reverse
`water-gas shift process with water electrolysis—using
`electricity to separate water’s hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
`“A lot of his work, like the name of his company, was
`very pioneering, trying different things out that may be
`interesting to NASA for exploration,” Sanders says.
`He notes that much of this experimentation applies
`not just to his line of work—finding ways to collect and
`put to use the molecules available on Mars or the moon—
`but also to life support and power systems, the backbone
`of any space exploration mission.
`
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`Sanders’ group is still working out the logistics of
`tying all these systems together. Now that it’s known
`that there is water in the soil on Mars, he says, the best
`way forward appears to be processing that water to get
`hydrogen, which can be combined with carbon dioxide
`from the atmosphere to form methane for fuel, as well
`as oxygen, which is useful for both fuel and life support.
`All this would be powered by a small nuclear power plant
`and would require a soil processing plant and carrying
`rovers to excavate soil. The added equipment would total
`about 2,000 kilograms, which is significantly less than
`the 6,500 kilograms of methane that would be brought
`from Earth to get a rocket from Mars into space without
`processing soil.
`“So there’s still a drastic increase in performance and
`return on investment,” Sanders says. “And if you go to
`the poles, where the ice concentration increases signifi-
`cantly, it just gets better.”
`Zubrin’s work on this sort of molecular alchemy
`during his early work with NASA has more recently led
`him to two projects that are likely to have a dramatic
`effect on the oil industry back here on Earth.
`“Some of these SBIRs made me realize that we could
`take a form of this technology, run it backwards, and
`
` What we’re doing for Mars has a lot of
`applicability on Earth.”
`
`— Gerald Sanders, Johnson Space Center
`
`Background: The Martian landscape, as
`imaged by Curiosity. Future spacecraft
`visitng Mars, including crewed missions,
`will likely use resources on the Red Planet
`to manufacture fuel for the trip home.
`
`
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`we would have something we could use on Earth for oil
`recovery,” Zubrin says.
`In 2008, he created Pioneer Energy to put the theory
`to work.
`Technology Transfer
`
`On Mars, carbon dioxide would be combined with
`hydrogen to make methane and water, and the water
`would be electrolyzed to make oxygen and hydrogen.
`“On Earth, we’ve got methane in the form of natural
`gas, which right now is very cheap, and you can react
`it with water, which we also have a lot of, and produce
`carbon dioxide and hydrogen and then split them,”
`Zubrin explains. The hydrogen can be used to create
`carbon-free electricity, and the carbon dioxide can be
`used to pull oil out of defunct oil wells. “Basically, what
`we’re doing is running the Mars Direct field processing
`system in reverse.”
`Depending on its geology, only about 30 percent of
`the oil in a well is captured by the initial pumping. In the
`early 1900s, a technique was developed to then flood the
`well with water, which the oil floats on, and this method
`yields another 20 percent of the original oil store. Still,
`half of the oil remains in the ground. The 1980s saw
`the advent of “enhanced oil recovery” (EOR), in which
`carbon dioxide is pumped into the well, where it mixes
`with the oil, making it less viscous and pressurizing it,
`which allows another 20 percent or so of the original
`amount to be removed. In the process, the carbon dioxide
`can be sequestered.
`Only 4 percent of US oil is currently obtained this
`way, however. “The reason is that the only practical way
`to do this is with natural reservoirs of CO2 that already
`exist,” Zubrin explains, adding that there aren’t many
`places where oil wells and natural stores of carbon diox-
`ide coexist. While there has been much talk about using
`carbon dioxide expelled from power plants, he says, plant
`output is diluted, unpressurized, hard to separate, and
`probably produced far from any oil well. “It’s the wrong
`pressure, it’s the wrong mix, and it’s in the wrong place,
`and so it just doesn’t happen very much.”
`Alternatively, carbon dioxide can be piped to the site,
`but this would only be done for a large operation, and
`
`Pioneer Energy’s Mobile Alkane Gas Separator (MAGS) system separates flare gases that naturally occur at drilling sites into three
`streams: one can be captured in tanks and shipped off for sale, another powers generators that run the drilling operation, and a third
`powers MAGS itself. Pioneer sold its first MAGS unit in late 2014 to a company operating in North Dakota, where flare gases are
`most often simply burned onsite, the gases wasted.
`
`furthermore, most companies don’t want to invest in a
`carbon dioxide pipeline if the EOR method hasn’t been
`tested at the site with a pilot operation. “Right now, the
`only way they do that is to truck it in, which is enor-
`mously expensive,” Zubrin says. “And because it’s so
`expensive, the pilot doesn’t happen, and because the pilot
`doesn’t happen, the pipeline doesn’t happen, and because
`the pipeline doesn’t happen, nothing happens.”
`The Pioneer Portable Enhanced Recovery Technology
`(PERT) offers an attractive, inexpensive alternative
`capable of producing the carbon dioxide onsite from
`methane and water that are trucked in. “We’ve created
`a mobile system that can go right to the well, and you
`don’t need a pipeline,” Zubrin says. “That opens up CO2
`availability to the entire country—not just to west Texas
`and a couple other places—and to oil drillers of every size,
`including Farmer Brown’s strip well.”
`The company started testing its first full-scale model
`of the PERT in spring of 2014. By then, though, the
`company was also testing the first field unit of another,
`related system.
`
`While working on the carbon dioxide-producing
`system, Zubrin got another idea—a sort of spinoff of a
`spinoff. “Some of the subsystems involved in the research
`effort led us to an idea on how we could design a system
`that may seem unrelated but actually uses a lot of the
`same subsystems,” he says.
`During the early stages of oil drilling, long before
`carbon dioxide is necessary, large amounts of natural
`gases may be released from the earth. In the industry,
`these are known as “flare gas” because, being byproducts
`released in isolated locations that lack plants and pipelines
`for processing them, they’re often simply burned onsite
`in what are called gas flares. This has become a conten-
`tious practice, particularly in North Dakota, where there
`is much more interest in extracting oil than in capturing
`gas, which has a significantly lower market value.
`“They’re flaring it so much that North Dakota seen
`from space is now almost as bright as New York City,”
`Zubrin says. “It’s incredible. And it’s a massive waste
`of energy.”
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`Title
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`Currently, natural gases released during oil drilling operations are often simply burned off in gas flares. Pioneer Energy’s Mobile Alkane Gas Separator (MAGS) system would separate these gases into
`three streams, one to be captured in tanks and shipped off for sale, another to run a generator that would power the oil drilling rig, and one to power the MAGS system itself.
`
`Pioneer Energy’s Mobile Alkane Gas Separator
`(MAGS) system would separate these gases into three
`streams. One consists of propane, butane, and pentane,
`which can be captured in tanks and shipped off for sale.
`Methane can be used to run a generator that would
`replace the diesel generators powering the oil drilling rig.
`And ethane is used to power the MAGS system itself.
`“So that came out of the Pioneer Energy company
`work, which in turn came out of my NASA work,”
`Zubrin says.
`The first MAGS field unit was tested in the spring of
`2014, and units were sent to North Dakota later that fall.
`Benefits
`
`The advantages of the MAGS system are manifold.
`“We greatly reduce the flaring and the need for diesel
`
`fuel, and we produce liquid propane and butane for sale,”
`Zubrin says, adding that the system is also self-sufficient.
`Meanwhile, the PERT system can generate enough
`hydrogen for 1.3 megawatts of electricity while producing
`about 500,000 cubic feet of carbon dioxide per day. This
`is enough to run a small EOR operation, Zubrin says.
`For a large well, it’s sufficient for the pilot operation that
`would justify a carbon dioxide pipeline.
`“The United States has the oldest oil industry in the
`world,” he says. “There are huge numbers—thousands—
`of defunct oil wells all over the country. But more than
`half of all the oil that was ever in US wells is still there.”
`While carbon dioxide-enhanced removal isn’t feasible
`for all of them, Zubrin estimates the technology would
`allow access to an amount of oil equal to more than
`10 percent of all the oil ever drilled in the country. “In
`
`addition, of course, this technology could be used in
`other countries, so we’re also talking about significantly
`expanding the world’s oil resources.”
`“It’s obviously a different application, but the type of
`chemical processing and the type of work he’s doing, I
`could see a direct connection to the work he’s done for
`Mars ISRU,” says Sanders. “Those are the types of things
`we had been stating for years, that what we’re doing for
`Mars has a lot of applicability on Earth.”
`It just took a restless mind—one that could be said to
`be highly reactive to ideas and theories—to make those
`connections and turn those Red Planet concepts into blue
`planet realities. ❖
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`So much gas is being flared off at oil
`drilling sites over the subterranean Bakken
`formation in North Dakota that at night the
`oil fields can be seen from space, shining
`nearly as brightly as any metropolis.
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