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Archives for May 2019

Swapping water for CO2 could make fracking greener and more effective – Phys.org

May 31, 2019 by Zettan

Swapping water for CO2 could make fracking greener and more effective
A shale sample ready for fracturing with CO2. Credit: Xuehang Song

Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China University of Petroleum (Beijing) have demonstrated that CO2 may make a better hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluid than water. Their research, published May 30 in the journal Joule, could help pave the way for a more eco-friendly form of fracking that would double as a mechanism for storing captured atmospheric CO2.

Fracking is a technique used to extract resources from unconventional reservoirs in which fluid (usually water mixed with sand, foaming agents, biocides, and other chemicals) is injected into the rock, fracturing it to release the resources within. Of the approximately 7-15 million liters of fluid injected, 30%-50% remains in the rock formation after extraction ends. Its high water consumption, environmental risks, and frequent production issues have led to concerns about fracking among both industry experts and environmental advocates.

“Non-aqueous fracturing could be a potential solution to circumvent these issues,” says Nannan Sun, a researcher in the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “We chose CO2 fracturing from a range of options because the process includes multiple benefits. However, we were still lacking a fundamental understanding of the technology, which is greatly important for its further development and deployment.”

Benefits of CO2 fracturing include eliminating the need for a hefty water supply (which would make fracking viable in arid locations), reducing the risk of damage to reservoirs (as often happens when aqueous solutions create blockages in the rock formation), and providing an underground repository for captured CO2.

However, CO2 is not likely to become commonly used as a fracking fluid unless it is more effective than water at resource production. To investigate the differences between CO2 and water as fracturing fluids on a microscopic level, Sun and his team collected shale outcrops from Chongqing, China and fractured them with both fluids. They found that CO2 outperformed water, creating complex networks of fractures with significantly higher stimulated volumes.

“We demonstrated that CO2 has higher mobility than water, and, therefore, the injection pressure can be better delivered into the natural porosity of the formation,” says Sun. “This changes the mechanism by which the fractures are created, generating more complex fracture networks that result in more efficient shale gas production.”

While the researchers believe this hydraulic fracturing technology will be scalable, its large-scale development is currently limited by CO2 availability. The cost of CO2 captured from emission sources is still prohibitively expensive to make CO2 an industry-wide fracking fluid replacement.

The team also notes that once CO2 has been injected into the fracture, it acquires a low viscosity that inhibits it from effectively transporting sand to the fractures. Since the sand is intended to prop open the fractures while shale gas is harvested, it is critical that scientists learn to improve the fluid’s viscosity—but the team is not yet sure how to do so while keeping costs low and minimizing the environmental footprint.

As next steps, the researchers plan to study the limits of CO2 fracturing technology in order to better understand how it can be used. “Further investigations are needed to identify the effects of type of reservoirs, geomechanical properties and conditions, CO2 sensitivity of the formation, and so forth,” says Sun. “Additionally, cooperation with industries will be carried out to push forward the practical deployment of the technology.”



More information:
Joule, Song, Guo, and Zhang et al.: “Fracturing with Carbon Dioxide: From Microscopic Mechanism to Reservoir Application” https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30216-8 , DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2019.05.004

Journal information:
Joule





Citation:
Swapping water for CO2 could make fracking greener and more effective (2019, May 30)
retrieved 31 May 2019
from https://phys.org/news/2019-05-swapping-co2-fracking-greener-effective.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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Filed Under: Swapping, water Tagged With: Swapping, water

As trade war heats up, China threatens clampdown on “rare earths” – CBS News

May 30, 2019 by Zettan

“Rare earths” could help China in trade war

  • China state media reports suggest the country is considering limiting exports of “rare earths” as the trade war with the U.S. escalates.
  • Rare earths are a group of 17 elements used in everything from mobile phone cameras and automobile catalytic converters to wind turbines and MRI machines.
  • Rare earths aren’t rare per se, but their distribution in the planet’s crust makes processing them difficult.
  • China dominates the global supply of rare earths and accounted for almost 80% of exports to the U.S. last year.

As trade tensions between Washington and Beijing intensify, China’s state media on Wednesday suggested it may play a new card — restricting U.S. access to “rare earths,” the chemical elements that are widely used in everything from mobile phones and other consumer electronics to wind turbines, MRI machines and military hardware.

China dominates global exports of the 17 elements that constitute rare earths, accounting for almost 80 percent of America’s imports last year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts. Other countries that supply rare earths to the U.S. include Australia, Estonia, France and Japan.

Here’s a look at what rare earths are and why they could play an important role in the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China.

Rare earths aren’t that rare

The 17 elements defined as rare earths aren’t as rare as their moniker suggests — gold, copper and platinum are more abundant and easier to mine, for instance. By contrast, rare earths are ubiquitous in modern life, and their use is likely to spread as technology advances. 

Cerium, used in compounds for catalytic converters in automobiles, is the most abundant and is more common in the earth’s crust than copper or lead, according to the USGS.

The glass industry is the largest consumer of rare earths, which are used for polishing, additives for color and other special optical properties. One rare earth element, lanthanum, makes up as much as 50 percent of digital camera lenses, including cell phone cameras.

rare-earths.jpg

Irina Ivanova/CBS MoneyWatch


So where does the name come from? 

Rare earths don’t get their name because of their scarcity; rather, they got that label in the 18th and 19th centuries because of their relative imperviousness to heat compared with other mined materials.

Rare earths are found in such low concentrations around the world that they are harder to extract and refine, and not always found in commercially mineable quantities. As a result, a handful of countries account for the bulk of extraction, including China, Australia, Japan and Malaysia.

China, which has roughly 40 percent of the global reserves of rare earths, accounted for almost 80 percent of U.S. imports of the elements last year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. One reason China is the global leader — it’s been pulling rare earths out of the ground for a long time. The country spent a century perfecting the refining method for extracting and refining rare earths in large enough quantities to keep costs manageable. 

China’s not-so-veiled threat

Chinese president Xi Jinping last week visited the country’s biggest rare-earths producer in an appearance that was broadcast on Chinese national television. The visit followed a U.S. crackdown on technology giant Huawei by President Donald Trump’s administration earlier this month, and was interpreted by experts as a signal that the Chinese government is weighing restrictions on rare-earth exports.

Huawei steps up legal battle over U.S. ban in Texas court

China will try to meet global rare-earths demand as “long as they are used for legitimate purposes,” stated a commentary in the Xinhua news agency, a mouthpiece for Beijing. But later it added that “if necessary, China has plenty of cards to play.”  

Hu Xijin, editor in chief of China’s Global Times newspaper, was blunter, saying in a tweet on Tuesday that the country is “seriously considering restricting rare exports to the U.S.”

JJ Kinahan, chief marketing strategist at TD Ameritrade, said China’s threat to use rare earths as a weapon against the U.S. is worrisome. “What it shows to me is that there is a little bit of a worsening relationship here,” he said. “They went pretty deep in the bag to throw out something that would hurt.”    

A complete ban is impractical

Despite China’s dominance in producing rare earths, implementing a total ban on exports to the U.S. might not be in its favor. For one, cutting off supplies of a critical material used in products around the world could undermine Beijing’s efforts in recent years to portray itself as a responsible actor on the global stage — and make it harder to bash the Trump administration for its hardball stance on trade. 

Meanwhile, a Chinese ban risks inviting other countries to rev up rare-earths production. The last U.S. source for rare earths, the Mountain Pass Quarry in California, closed in 2015. The U.S. could shift demand for some metals to places like Malaysia or re-start domestic processing, although that could prove difficult because of regulations designed to prevent widespread environmental damage. 

China tariffs: Here’s how much more your shoes might cost

If China does clamp down, they are likely to be selective in which elements to target because the country wants to be seen as playing by World Trade Organization rules, said Arthur Kroeber, head of research at Gavekal Economics and editor-in-chief of China Economic Quarterly, on a call with clients this week. China’s goal is to paint the U.S. as a “lawless actor” that disrupts economic growth, he said.

“I really think that they have a problem [in] that none of the options are very good and all of them involve very significant costs to China,” Kroeber said. “So if they’re going to do any of them they have to do them extremely carefully, and I think quite selectively.”

The WTO would disapprove

Still, it wouldn’t be the first time China tried to use its dominance in rare earths as part of a trade conflict. China blocked some rare-earth exports to Japan after a maritime dispute in 2010. That led some countries to search for alternatives — and a protest by Japan with the WTO, which ruled in 2014 that the restrictions on rare-earth exports were illegal.

It also led some companies to cut their use of rare earths and to find alternatives for things like the element dysprosium, used in electric car magnets, the Bank of America analysts noted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Filed Under: heats, Trade Tagged With: heats, Trade

How 5G is the key to protecting US interests – C4ISRNet

May 30, 2019 by Zettan

One of the greatest assets to United States national security is our global dominance in the technology sector. For decades, the United States has led in the development of next-generation technology used by civilians and the military alike.

President Trump signed an executive order May 15 banning any company that poses “an unacceptable risk” to the security of our nation’s telecommunications networks from doing work in the United States. The Department of Commerce followed suit, preventing “American technology from being used by foreign-owned entities in ways that potentially undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.” These moves, while political in nature, were critically important to preserving America’s dominance in the tech sector and providing secure communications networks here at home and abroad in allied nations.

Wireless communications have revolutionized the way we do businesses, share intelligence and conduct military operations. The introduction of 4G brought with it the fastest wireless speeds commercially available. Coming on the market in 2010, it ushered in a new wave of technological innovations for both civilians and military powers. On deck is 5G, a network anticipated to be 100 times faster than 4G that will completely revolutionize the way we communicate.

5G will impact everything light touches — manufacturing, traffic, trade and, of course, intelligence and national security. That is why the 5G network here in the United States and with our Five Eyes partners — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — must be safe, secure and built by trusted vendors. President Trump’s move to ban Chinese telecommunications equipment ensures 5G in the United States will be the gold standard for performance and security. Now we must work with our allies in the Five Eyes to eliminate the risk China poses abroad.

The rise of Huawei and other Chinese tech firms like ZTE in global recognition is a part of a “Long March,” a well-coordinated effort by the Chinese government to become the world’s dominant economic superpower. Like most companies in China, Huawei is state-owned, receiving state-sponsored research and development grants that have taken the company from a small telecommunications company in 2009 to a global supplier today. These grants allow Huawei to offer their services at below-market costs, often at rates no other company can match.

Our allies have a complicated relationship with Huawei that is impacting how 5G will roll out abroad. Across Europe and other nations, Huawei equipment was used to build 4G networks, which has created a “lock-in” for 5G since the way networks have previously been designed. Only a Huawei 4G network can communicate with a Huawei 5G network. This relationship needs to change to stop Huawei’s global expansion into 5G.

Huawei’s biggest competitors are Ericsson and Nokia — trusted partners leading the way in secure networking absent backdoors and a state-sponsored overlord tied to an oppressive Communist regime. Now that the president has moved to ban Huawei and others here in the United States, we must work with our allies to force interoperability in Huawei 4G networks so nations can begin talks with Ericsson and Nokia to complete their 5G build out.

To push U.S. network manufacturers like Qualcomm and Cisco to the top of the heap the United States should provide grants and scholarships to accelerate research and development and further promote the global expansion of U.S. technology. Global policymakers in the telecommunications vertical must adopt standards such as interoperability that ensure that multiple vendors can compete and can be used in networks.

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Today, international standards bodies like the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) and Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) are working to ensure interoperability in 5G networks. The United States and our allies need to help foster continued conversations from these groups so that 5G is open to multiple vendors not just the Chinese.

While New Zealand and Australia have joined the United States in banning Huawei, nation’s such as the United Kingdom are still toying with the idea of letting them in. Prime Minister Teresa May has expressed interest in allowing Huawei in the “non-core” functions of the 5G network, permitting them at the Radio Access Level — antennas and transmitters. This would be a misstep, while the core is the central brain of the network, the Chinese would have a way into a network even if they are excluded from the core.

The Five Eyes have been a crucial part of stopping the global expansion of terrorism and cybercrime. The U.S. relationship with these countries is critical to protecting our citizens at home and our globally deployed service members. Our intelligence community will not be able to trust the information traveling on networks left open to Chinese state surveillance. No U.S. partner should be able to contract with a Chinese telecommunications company to build 5G. Among allies and partners, disagreement is healthy. We can not disagree here.

James “Spider” Marks is a retired U.S. Army major general and president of the Marks Collaborative corporate advisory firm.

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Filed Under: interests, protecting Tagged With: interests, protecting

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