{"id":31173,"date":"2018-02-18T14:41:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-18T19:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31173"},"modified":"2018-02-18T14:41:47","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T19:41:47","slug":"is-this-new-tar-sands-technology-a-game-changer-for-exporting-canadas-bitumen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31173","title":{"rendered":"Is This New Tar Sands Technology a Game Changer for Exporting Canada&#8217;s Bitumen?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2018\/02\/18\/tar-sands-oil-technology-pellets-game-changer-export-bitumen\">Is This New Tar Sands Technology a Game Changer for Exporting Canada&#8217;s Bitumen?<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-12622 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/hockey-puck-608582_1920%20%281%29.jpg?itok=qQu00q_U\" alt=\"Hockey pucks\" width=\"826\" height=\"620\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix\">\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-share-wrapper new-horizontal-email-wrapper clearfix last\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>A new technology has the potential to transform the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/calgary\/bitumen-balls-pellets-pipelines-rail-train-transport-energy-alberta-technology-1.4277320\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">transportation of tars sands oil.<\/a>\u00a0Right now, the\u00a0already thick and slow-flowing oil, known as bitumen, has to be diluted with a super-light petroleum product, usually natural gas condensate, in order for it to flow through a pipeline or into a rail tank\u00a0car.<\/p>\n<p>However, scientists at the University of Calgary&#8217;s Schulich School of Engineering inadvertently found a way to make\u00a0tar sands oil even more viscous,\u00a0turning it into \u201cself-sealing pellets\u201d that could potentially simplify\u00a0its\u00a0transport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ve taken heavy oil, or bitumen, either one, and we&#8217;ve discovered a process to convert them rapidly and reproducibly into pellets,\u201d Ian Gates, the professor leading the research, told <span class=\"caps\">CBC<\/span> News in September\u00a02017.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the initial description of this product, it appears that it could alleviate many of the risks involved with moving tar sands oil by rail. The research teams says this product\u00a0floats in water, does\u00a0not pose a fire and explosion risk like the diluted bitumen currently moved in rail tank cars, and would eliminate air quality issues related to the volatile components of diluted\u00a0bitumen.<\/p>\n<p>If true, this technology would appear to reduce potential risks to people and the environment, in comparision with\u00a0moving diluted bitumen by rail or in\u00a0pipelines.<\/p>\n<p>Gates also suggests that the solidified bitumen can be moved in the type of open rail\u00a0cars used for\u00a0coal. That would be welcome news to railroads, which\u00a0have been losing business transporting coal as demand has dwindled. Gates did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this\u00a0article.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Canadian National Working to Commercialize Similar\u00a0Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, similar research and development has been happening not within\u00a0the Canadian oil industry, but instead,\u00a0a Canadian\u00a0railroad, which has patented another method of solidifying tar sands for\u00a0transport.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is This New Tar Sands Technology a Game Changer for Exporting Canada&#8217;s Bitumen? A new technology has the potential to transform the transportation of tars sands oil.\u00a0Right now, the\u00a0already thick and slow-flowing oil, known as bitumen, has to be diluted with a super-light petroleum product, usually natural gas condensate, in order for it to flow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1642,103,18661,13356,5317,11782,781],"class_list":["post-31173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-bitumen","tag-canada","tag-canadian-national","tag-canadian-oil-industry","tag-desmog-blog","tag-justin-mikulka","tag-tar-sands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31174,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31173\/revisions\/31174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}