Harvesting Hydrogen by Igniting Underground Oil

[Mike]

Underground coal fires are a huge problem, what could possibly go wrong with intentionally igniting oil underground?

This month, on the frozen plains of Saskatchewan in Canada, workers began to inject steam and air into the Superb field, a layer of sand 700 meters down that holds 200 million barrels of thick, viscous oil. Their goal was not to pump out the oil, but to set it on fire—spurring underground chemical reactions that churn out hydrogen gas, along with carbon dioxide (CO2). Eventually the company conducting the $3 million field test plans to plug its wells with membranes that would allow only the clean-burning hydrogen to reach the surface. The CO2, and all of its power to warm the climate, would remain sequestered deep in the earth.

SOURCE

[Dave Grubb]

Scary stuff. We live in close proximity to some of those coal fires. They are not controllable---period! The closest one to use is in Centralia . In my younger years, my brother and I ran a hill climb there every year. The road progressively got worse with great dips and sways from the mine shafts collapsing below. Eventually they dropped that hill climb from the schedule. Some years after that and tremendous failures at stopping the fire the state bought up all the houses and moved the people out. As is usually the case some didn't want to go---but when the houses started collapsing they became a bit more negotiable. Today there is almost no sign of a town ever having been there.

[CactusCurt]

That is a cool article. I forwarded it to my son who is a petroleum engr major.

The stuff the oil industry does is amazing. I live in a CO2 producing area developed by Shell originally and now owned by Kinder Morgan. I don't care for the rape and pillage of the landscape, but the resources they deploy and their enthusiasm for doing it is remarkable.

While nothing like offshore stuff, the wells here that tap into the CO2 reservoir are 8000' deep and 16" in diameter. Wrap your head around that. Those rigs look like something you would launch a rocket with.