
Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil - gerry_shaw
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bitumen-balls-pellets-pipelines-rail-train-transport-energy-alberta-technology-1.4277320
======
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.

~~~
dade_
Dilbit is diluted with chemicals that need to be imported from the US or
Middle East. These liquids also need to be transported and can result in their
own spills. This looks like an important development.

------
thereisnospork
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...

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _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.

~~~
sgt
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.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I understand the argument from the article is about flexibility - a pipeline
will be in place for a very long time, but it's not easy to move it around as
the economical landscape changes. Meanwhile, rail will let you move the stuff
to wherever it's currently better to have it.

------
cperciva
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?

~~~
Joe-Z
The article mentions that it's more environmentally friendly. The balls float
on water and apparently can't be poaked easily. That's a plus in my book.

~~~
Boothroid
I think we are in lipstick on a pig territory here. Tar sands are horrific in
environmental terms, one of the most carbon intensive fossil fuels in their
production and the cause of devastation of huge areas of wilderness. By the
time the stuff is made into balls or whatever the vast majority of possible
damage has already been done.

~~~
calgaryeng
You should be aware that there are a number of oil sources that are far more
carbon-intensive than the Canadian Oil Sands.

Many of which ship direct to the United States. One is even produced __IN
__the United States (Bakersfield, CA).

On a wells-to-wheels basis, Canadian oil sands are only 6-8% more carbon-
intensive than typical light crude (e.g. Saudi), and it comes from a
politically-friendly country that supports female rights, human rights in
general, and is not bombing their neighbours.

What you say regarding disruption of large areas of wilderness is true when it
comes to tailings ponds, but you should also be aware that the vast majority
of recent development (and probably most go-forward) is via in-situ extraction
that does not require those tailings ponds.

Source: I am a chemical engineer and work directly in this industry.

~~~
Boothroid
Alternative opinion:

'Strip-mining the boreal to extract the tar sands and processing the oil makes
the sands much more damaging to the climate than conventional oil.

“I believe the carbon intensity of extraction and processing for the oil sands
is about double that of conventional oil,” Homer-Dixon said.'

[http://grist.org/article/this-could-be-the-end-of-
canadian-t...](http://grist.org/article/this-could-be-the-end-of-canadian-tar-
sands/amp/)

I guess this is an inconvenient truth based on the downvoting.

~~~
ajarmst
Thankfully, neither petroleum extraction nor climate science need be faith-
based, so Homer-Dixon's personal beliefs aren't all that relevant. There are
multiple studies (not funded by petroleum companies) that document why he's
wrong
([http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/0140...](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/014005/meta)
is a good metastudy). Grist.org is hardly a neutral source on the issue.

By all means, advocate for wide-scale reduction and elimination of the use of
petroleum products. Demand that your representatives fight for carbon-neutral
energy production. But pretending that boycotting Canadian products and
instead consuming more coal, fracked shale oil and tanker-shipped crude from
corrupt autocratic regimes is somehow an important part of solving the problem
just makes you look like you're not paying attention. As does supporting
corrupt officials and corporate misbehavior in places like Saudi Arabia,
Nigeria and Venezuela over supporting an allied liberal democracy with a
strong (at least in comparison) record of environmental stewardship and
oversight on corporate activity.

~~~
Boothroid
Again the straw man, second time in this thread. And ask native Canadians
about their experience in tar sands areas.

~~~
ajarmst
I don't have to. They're pretty vocal about it, and it is widely reported in
the media (because liberal democracy with free press). Not all 'natives'
necessarily agree (quite a few work in the industry). There are also a wide
variety other Canadians who live and work in the area who have strong
opinions, on multiple sides of the argument. This is hardly surprising, as it
is a controversial issue, and it certainly won't stop being one.

I bet that if I asked people (native or otherwise) about local fracking
operations, coal mines, tailing ponds, power plants, refineries, offload and
storage facilities, etc, etc, in any country I will find a bunch who would
really rather they were somewhere else. I'm not sure why that's important to
the discussion.

As for the reported "straw man", you seem to be under the impression that I
argued that tar sands were wonderful and that Canadians truly enjoy living
near them. Which is, of course, a straw man. I made three points: (1) The
assertion that Alberta bitumen mining has twice the C02 impact of other
sources of petroleum is provably false and (2) If you do not change the demand
for petroleum products and do not want to source them in Canada, you have to
source them somewhere else. (3) Other sources aren't necessarily much more
palatable, especially if you include factors like support of the economy of
the country of origin and the source producer.

Where's the straw man?

~~~
Boothroid
Here: 'But pretending that boycotting Canadian products and instead consuming
more coal, fracked shale oil and tanker-shipped crude from corrupt autocratic
regimes is somehow an important part of solving the problem just makes you
look like you're not paying attention. As does supporting corrupt officials
and corporate misbehavior in places like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela'

I never said any of what you refute above. Also you set up a false dichotomy
by implying that we either choose to use tar sands or are forced to support
corrupt regimes - there are of course other alternatives scenarios - I note
you avoid mention of LNG.

Bottom line though: tar sands are generally accepted by those that do not have
a stake of some kind as being environmentally disastrous, far worse than the
alternatives, but I'm guessing that's not in your corporate refutation manual.

~~~
ajarmst
(1) The top 10 oil exporters: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Canada,
Nigeria, Kuwait, Angola, Venezuela, Kazakhstan. I don't think my assertion
that replacing Canada with another source might involve some political issues
runs contrary to the facts. You didn't say that was required, but it was
implied by what you did say.

(2) I did mention LNG. I just spelled it 'fracking'. Currently, two thirds of
US-produced natural gas is retrieved by hydraulic formation fracturing, and
that fraction has been steadily growing.

(3) Arguing that "tar sands are generally accepted by those that do not have a
stake of some kind..." is inaccurate and sloppy goal-post moving. I'm also not
claiming that petroleum production isn't a serious and global environmental
problem, I'm arguing that a belief that Canadian bitumen is the heart of the
problem is dangerously misinformed. I'd much rather we shut it down and
invested heavily in molten salt reactors, but until that happens the problem
isn't tar sands: it's global demand and dependence on burning petroleum.

(4) I don't even know why I'm writing this---when you implied I'm a corporate
shill and claimed that the only people who disagree with you are those who
have a stake of some kind in tar sands, you conceded the argument. Have a good
day.

~~~
Boothroid
Ever heard of Prelude? That'll be the world's largest floating structure, soon
to be parked off Australia producing LNG, and with no fracking involved.

Also I'm prepared to put up with some despotic regimes if it means we don't
boil the oceans.

------
gattilorenz
Nice, although I'm wondering which company will trade efficiency (using
spheres to transport a liquid means you have lots of "wasted" space) for
environmental safety... without a law imposing it, at least.

Maybe the economic incentive of balls just "rolling away" (thus remaining
recoverable) in the event of a pipeline/tanker/carriage leak could balance
this?

~~~
Joe-Z
They are not only trading it for environmental saftey. As mentioned in another
comment, using these balls you don't have to rely on specialized rail waggons
anymore. So, while you may lose some space due to inefficient packing, you
could easily make that up by using lots more of (assumedly) cheaper general-
purpose/coal waggons.

~~~
PeterisP
Specialized rail wagons aren't expensive compared to other parts of the
transportation costs - if you have the option of 5 specialized wagons or 6
"cheap" wagons, then using 5 wagons is cheaper.

~~~
lostlogin
Less true if you need 4000 specialised ones but have 48,000 idle standard
ones.

[http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/148771.aspx?PageIndex=3](http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/148771.aspx?PageIndex=3)

~~~
njarboe
This page is from 2009. Anything newer?

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

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's called "rail".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport)

~~~
ldite
So less this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYzuXJ0E4cA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYzuXJ0E4cA)

And more this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEekXRNztVI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEekXRNztVI)

?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yup.

------
micah_chatt
This is funny reversal in history: Rockefeller first built pipelines to cut
out the rail industry from distribution.

------
radicaldreamer
Canadian tar sands should not be turned into oil at all -- there's no clean
way to do so and the whole endeavor is based on continued government subsidies
for it to be cost effective. Canada has a rep for being progressive and
environmentally friendly but this is anything but.

------
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?

~~~
userbinator
_\- The obvious one - are the pebbles flammable?_

As much as coal, if not more.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I wonder if they burn better or worse than wood pellets.

------
btbuildem
The article mentions using rail cars to transport the bitumen balls -- but
given the nature of the material, would they not stick together into clumps /
semi-solid layers at the bottoms of rail cars? Coal is solid / brittle, almost
slippery. These things seem to be the opposite.

------
riffraff
so, you make pellets. Then you have to mix them with some "light" oil produced
during the production of pellets. So you still have to transport them
together.

I cannot really understand how this is better than carrying oil directly.

~~~
refurb
It's in the article. Easier to clean up a spill if it happens.

~~~
riffraff
not really, the bit where it mentions that you also need the oil byproduct to
reconstitute the heavy oil is at the end of the article, while the mention of
"easy to clean" is at the beginning, and (seems to?) only pertains to the
pellets.

------
osrec
Could the oil not be put in containers and transported by rail in its original
form anyway? I'm not sure if converting to pellets really makes the problem
easier to solve...

------
dbcooper
Slurries (mixture of particles and liquids) are reasonably easy to pump.
Australia pumps a coal/water slurry over its north-south axis.

------
SippinLean
>could be a pipeline-free way to transport oil

Oh, interesting title...

>I don't think it will replace pipelines

Ah, nevermind.

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

~~~
petraeus
You're right, we also need to ban, cars, milk, beef, beer, clothes, plastics,
.. oh crap we've now banned everything that underpins our modern technological
age.

~~~
devrandomguy
What makes you think that any of those things, including plastics, must by
made from fossil oil? So tired of being told that the only way to do things,
is the way we are currently doing them. Heck, we don't even have to make so
much stuff out of plastic at all, and considering where that plastic is
turning up in the food chain, it might be worth the expense to start finding
replacements. Aluminum recycles nicely, hemp makes some excellent fabrics,
cows will do just fine on a diet of grass.

------
xutopia
Does anyone see the irony in this? "We admit this is utterly dangerous for the
environment so instead of sending it out in liquid form we're now going to
send it out in small pellets so they can then be transformed and it can
pollute the world exactly where we want it to pollute."

~~~
shawnz
What's ironic about that? It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It's
dangerous, so we should take steps to minimize the danger.

