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US DOI finalizes plan for oil shale and oil sands research, demonstration and development

Green Car Congress

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar last week announced the Department of the Interior’s final plan for encouraging research, development and demonstration (RD&D) of oil shale and oil sands resources on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Earlier post.).

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US BLM issues draft PEIS for oil shale and oil sands; significantly scales back public land available for commercial leasing

Green Car Congress

The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has published the Notice of Availability (NOA) of the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) and Possible Land Use Amendments for Allocation of Oil Shale and Tar Sands Resources on Lands Administered by the BLM in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

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Ionic Liquids Process Recovers Bitumen from Utah Oil Sands With Little Water Use

Green Car Congress

A team at Penn State University has demonstrated that a previously developed method employing ionic liquids (ILs) together with a nonpolar solvent such as toluene can effect a separation of bitumen from oil sands in the Western US at ambient temperatures (~25 °C), although with greater difficulty than Canadian oil sands.

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Study concludes permanent loss of peatlands in open-pit oil sands mining adds significantly to carbon burden of oil sands production

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Researchers at the University of Alberta (Canada) have quantified the transformation of the boreal landscape by open-pit oil sands mining in Alberta, Canada to evaluate its effect on carbon storage and sequestration. Oil sands mining and reclamation cause massive loss of peatland and stored carbon. —Rooney et al.

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ExxonMobil brings Kearl oil sands expansion online ahead of schedule; overall capacity doubling to 220K barrels per day

Green Car Congress

Exxon Mobil has started production at its Kearl oil sands expansion project in Alberta, Canada ahead of schedule; the expansion is expected to double overall capacity to 220,000 barrels of bitumen a day, with the expansion itself ultimately expected to reach 110,000 barrels per day. Kearl will access approximately 4.6 Earlier post.).

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MCW Energy Group: successful initial testing of extraction of up to 99.9% of hydrocarbon content from oil sands tailings pond samples

Green Car Congress

MCW Energy Group, a Canadian holding company involved in fuel distribution and the creation of oil sands extraction technology, announced successful results of processing random Alberta oil sands tailings ponds samples in a series of preliminary laboratory tests. of bitumen. Sale of hydrocarbons retrieved.

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Shell launches commercial operation of Quest carbon capture and storage in Alberta oil sands

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Using activated amine (ADIP-X), Quest will capture one-third of the CO 2 emissions from Shell’s Scotford Upgrader, which turns oil sands bitumen into synthetic crude that can be refined into fuel and other products. Te Storage zone is a formation called Basal Cambrian Sands (BCS).

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