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New Perspectives for Fossil Fuels: Hydrocarbons in “Unconventional” Settings

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Book cover Global Change, Energy Issues and Regulation Policies

Part of the book series: Integrated Science & Technology Program ((ISTP,volume 2))

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Abstract

Due to the current concern regarding the remaining reserve of oil and gas, there is a strong incentive for the innovative exploitation of fossil fuels occurring in unconventional situations. The latter include a wide variety of resources, some of them known for a long time, but set aside in deference to the profit of the more conventional oil and gas; others rely on more recent identification or on new production technologies; and some are already in the operational stage, with others in the pilot stage or even only prospective.

In this respect this chapter first briefly reviews the concept of the petroleum system and then tentatively extends this concept to the definition of the different hydrocarbon occurrences associated with “nonconventional” settings. These settings include: coal, oil shale, heavy oils and bitumens, primary and secondary biogenic gas, methane hydrate, shale gas, coal bed methane, tight oil/oil producing shale, tight gas, aquifer gas, and so on.

It does not pretend to address exhaustively all aspects of nonconventional hydrocarbons, but to provide a synthetic overview of the geological meaning of these new players in the energy domain.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Crust is the outermost solid shell of the earth. Together with the upper mantle they form the lithosphere.

  2. 2.

    Metamorphisized sediments are sediments that have been transformed into crystalline rocks by high temperature and high pressure.

  3. 3.

    Evaporites are sediments made of salts deposited following the evaporation of saltwater bodies (i.e., sea water); examples are halite (NaCl) and calcium sulfate (Ca SO4).

  4. 4.

    Thermal cracking is the cleavage of chemical bonds as a result of thermal energy action.

  5. 5.

    Low energy water is the water energy controlled by water agitation and movement induced by currents, waves, storms.

  6. 6.

    Salt diapirs are the salt structures formed as a consequence of the high buoyancy of salt when compared to other sediments. As a result, when buried the salt flows upward intruding on sediments and forming bodies of different shapes such as domes, pillars, and sheets, called diapirs.

  7. 7.

    Buoyancy is the upward force that a fluid exerts on a body (here a stringer of hydrocarbon) with a lower volumetric mass than itself.

  8. 8.

    Hydrodynamics is the flow of the formation water that can be “positive” when moving in the direction of the hydrocarbon movement and consequently facilitating the migration, for instance, water derived from the compaction of sediments, or negative when moving in the opposite direction and consequently interfering with the migration, for instance, meteoric water.

  9. 9.

    Humic coal: Coal refers to sediment made almost entirely of organic matter; humic means that this organic matter derives from land plants. Other coal exists, less abundant, composed of, for example, algal remains: algal coal.

  10. 10.

    Retorting or pyrolyzing oil shale consists in heating the rock in the absence of oxygen (this is not combustion). Heat is the only driver of the reaction.

  11. 11.

    Methane hydrate is a solid in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water (up to 180 m3 of methane for 1 m3 of hydrate), forming a solid similar to ice.

Abbreviations

bcf:

billion cubic feet (= 109 ft3)

bcm:

billion cubic meters (= 109 m3) 1 bcm = 35.31 billion cubic feet

BTU:

British Thermal Unit, English unit of energy (1 BTU = 1,055 J)

CBM:

Coalbed methane

cP:

Centipoise unit of dynamic viscosity (1 cP = 1 mPa s)

CCS:

Carbon capture and sequestration

CTL:

Coal to liquid

EOR:

Enhanced oil recovery

GTL:

Gas to liquid

IEA:

International Energy Agency

IFPEN:

IFP Energies Nouvelles

MBTU:

Mega BTU (= 106 BTU)

SAGD:

Steam-assisted gravity drainage

tcf:

Trillion cubic feet (= 1012 ft3)

tcm:

Trillion cubic metres (= 1012 m3) 1 tcm = 35.31 trillion cubic feet

Tm3 :

Tera m3 (= 1012 m3 = 1 tcm)

UCG:

Underground coal gasification

US LLNL:

US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

USGS:

US Geological Survey

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Acknowledgments

We thank I. Moretti, R. Eschard, and J. B. Saulnier for providing constructive remarks that greatly improved the initial manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geology, Geochemistry, Geophysics Division, IFP Energies Nouvelles, 1 and 4 avenue de Bois Préau, 92852, Rueil-Malamaison, France

    Alain-Yves Huc & Roland Vially

Authors
  1. Alain-Yves Huc
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  2. Roland Vially
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Correspondence to Alain-Yves Huc .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pprime/ENSMA, BP 40109, Chasseneuil Cedex, 86961, France

    Jean Bernard Saulnier

  2. , Campus do UniCEUB, University Center of Brasilia, SEPN 707/907, Brasilia, DF, 70790-075, Brazil

    Marcelo D. Varella

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Huc, AY., Vially, R. (2013). New Perspectives for Fossil Fuels: Hydrocarbons in “Unconventional” Settings. In: Saulnier, J., Varella, M. (eds) Global Change, Energy Issues and Regulation Policies. Integrated Science & Technology Program, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6661-7_3

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