I really thought of 3D printing as a fringe/novelty thing or a perk. As in … maybe one day, my husband and I would get a 3D printer so we could print off small figurines to spoil our kids even more, or maybe society would one day use it to build houses (wide spectrum there, I know). But no! In this newsletter, I talk about how the tech is being used as an essential for science!

I also share a little about the carbon credit market and whether soil is being given its due credit (pun intended), and I continue the NAWI series by talking about their goals and focus areas. So, grab your favorite beverage, settle down in front of your screen, and enjoy getting Enspired today!

Sarah Compton

Editor, Enspired

Water Innovation Series, Pt 3: NAWI Goals

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Last Tuesday, we tried to get our arms around the many facets of the water-use topic. It’s a daunting problem!

Geos are used to hard things: I liken horizontal drilling to taking a straw, extending its length, and trying to put it in a (beer) can in your neighbor’s house two blocks down…blindfolded. If we can do that, surely we can tackle this water problem, and NAWI has some goals it’s set as a guide.

GOOOOOOOOAAALLLLLLLL!

Yes, you were supposed to read that as if it’s screamed from an enthusiastic soccer announcer. Here are some of NAWI’s goals for the new funding it has received:

1. Pipe-parity: NAWI wants to make marginal water sources competitive with traditional water resources. Marginal water sources include recycled water and brackish groundwater while traditional water sources include surface and freshwater sources.

2. Round and round she goes: Another goal is to expand the use of nontraditional source waters, so as to shift from a linear to a circular water economy.

3. Where she stops, no one knows: Instead of a start and finish for water use, it’ll be more like start, finish, clean, and reuse. There will be no beginning and no end, just a constant cycle and recycling of water.

Getting there: To get nontraditional water sources up to snuff and generate a circular water economy, desalination and reuse technologies will need to be advanced in six key areas, outlined here under the acronym APRIME:

• A-utonomous: Robust sensor networks coupled with analytics and secure control systems. If this rings a bell, it’s because many oil and gas folks are interested in bringing more autonomy to industry processes, too.

• P-recise: We don’t want a shotgun approach to water cleaning. We need targeted treatments with precise removal or transformation of contaminants and treatment-limiting constituents.

• R-esilient: Treatment processes will need to be adaptable and water supply networks need to be strong.

• I-ntensified: We’re here to pump (chest puff) YOU up! This area focuses on using process innovation and intensification for brine concentration and crystallization. Improving their management could lead to residuals with better value prospects (read: one man’s trash is another’s treasure).

• M-odular: This means stuff needs to fit on the back of a semi! It needs to be flexible, scalable, and portable but still effective and not stupidly expensive.

• E-lectrified: Electrifying the process (e.g. through electromagnetic fields, electrocoagulation, etc.) reduces chemical use and associated transportation logistics/costs.

Coming together: Understanding where we’re going is key to figuring out how we’ll get there. Next week will focus on even more of the fun stuff: solutions!

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Turning the Sand Tables with 3D Printing

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Understanding the real world often requires models, and geoscience is good at navigating that. 3D printing is taking our expertise to the next level.

Model masters: Most geoscientists have used or seen various kinds of mini-models.

• Sand tables are a fan favorite and combine many things geoscientists love: dirt, fluid flow, and data.

• Interactive topographic maps incorporate digital projections onto a movable surface to demonstrate how topographic lines project a 3D object on a 2D page.

• Fluid tanks demonstrate Reynold’s numbers or other mechanisms of sediment transport in different flow regimes.

• Some fancy-schmancy places have entire rooms where seismic can be projected on all four walls, giving the feeling of moving through the stacks and data.

Why it matters: These models provide qualitative and quantitative examples of processes we’re often working to understand at scale. Improving their approximation of the real-world improves our understanding of it.

The new kid on the block: A gap in fracture modeling exists when it comes to the strain caused by shear stress on two-phase flow through fractures. A recent study tackled this gap using 3D printed fractures.

What they did:

• Researchers implemented the Perlin noise algorithm through Blender to create fracture topographies with different roughness degrees.

• Clear material was used to create the fractures, so a CCD camera could capture the experiments on film.

• Not one, but ten miniature fiber optic sensors with a resolution of less than roughly 103 Pa measured local pressure in the fractures.

Considerations:

• Material type likely matters in these experiments, and VeroClear was used here.

• Contact angles in the model indicate a hydrophobic material with an affinity to oil that could impact fluid behavior differently in the model than how fluid would interact with fracture boundaries in reservoirs with different water/oil affinities.

Taking it home: Control of a model with 3D printing is not limitless, and they’ll have their shortcomings similar to any model, but the ability to generate a model space—on demand—to your specifications is powerful stuff!

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The Dirt on Carbon Credits

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One way oil companies can offset their impact on local and global environments is through carbon credits, but to do that accurately, we need to dig deep—literally and figuratively.

Beneath the surface: Measurements that are too shallow are under-estimating the true carbon capture potential of soil.

• Many measurements have a maximum depth of one foot, while most crop root systems run much deeper and are natural carbon suckers due to photosynthesis.

• A West Texas initiative, in conjunction with Permian Basin asset development operations, indicated soil-based carbon sequestration levels could be 25 times higher per acre than those previously recorded.

• Oilfield tech brought agricultural measurements into the sub-atomic and nano-laser realm to help improve measurements. These include things us geoscientists are well-versed in: TOC, inorganic content, density, porosity, and particle size, among other measurements.

Soil and oil: Soils are a legit sink. They’re behind only the ocean as the world’s largest carbon storage tank.

• Agricultural assessments pegged acreage as having the capacity to sequester 650 million metric tons of CO2/yr. In light of new data indicating underestimation, that number might be much higher.

• Factors affecting soil effectiveness as a carbon sink include, but are not limited to, SOC (soil organic content), soil type, hydric content, rainfall, slope/grade, soil erosion, root system depth, and specific land usage.

• Regenerative agriculture and managed grasslands are generally said to have higher carbon storage capacity.

Carbon markets: Carbon credits are colloquially known as “permission slips” that enable companies to offset their estimated emissions.

• It’s like a bank account for your CO2 emissions.

• Our operations are thought to take our money out.

• Paying for/supporting carbon sinks and storage puts money into our carbon bank accounts.

• Accurately accounting for how much CO2 soil can store basically ensures we’re accurately counting the deposit we’re making so we’re not short-selling ourselves.

The bottom line: Like it or not, carbon markets are a thing, and they do hold sway over our real and social licenses to operate. The best bet is to maximize our monopoly money and ensure we can continue our good work by accurately assessing the carbon storage potential available. Dig deeper into carbon credits with the full story here.

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