26 FEBRUARY 2024 DOE Invests in Treatment of Gas- and Oil-Produced Water Adapted from Information by the U.S. Department of Energy The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has selected four research and development (R&D) projects to receive nearly $10 million for the treatment and management of produced water - or wastewater associated with natural gas and oil development and production - and the management of legacy wastewater associated with coal-based thermal electric power generation facilities. The selected projects will advance technologies to manage the wastewater safely and effectively for beneficial end-uses, such as irrigation of nonedible crops, hydrogen generation, and aquifer recharge and recovery. These same energy production waste streams also contain recoverable critical minerals and materials, including rare earth elements, essential to manufacturing clean energy technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and hydrogen fuel cells. “From resource extraction, to transport and processing, to power generation - energy operations fueled by oil, gas, and coal produce large quantities of wastewater,” said Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. “Treatment of this water can be expensive, so [the] DOE is investing in R&D projects that will help reduce the cost of making this water safe for nonpotable uses - while also extracting rare earth elements and other critical minerals to reduce our reliance on foreign sources of these vital materials.” Here are the selected projects: Aris Water Solutions in Houston, Texas - Desalinated Produced Water as Irrigation Source for Non-Consumptive Agriculture and Adjacencies for Ammonia Mining and Carbon Sequestration Field Trials - The project plans to advance the beneficial reuse of produced water for nonconsumptive agriculture and industrial application. Ohio University in Athens, Ohio - Treatment of Produced Water for Beneficial Use with Concurrent Resource Recovery Utilizing Coal- and Waste Coal-derived Material - Includes plans to develop an economically feasible process to render treatment of gas- and oil-produced water for beneficial use outside of the gas and oil industries. The overall process consists of characterizing produced water, treated water, and concentrated brine resulting from produced water treatment throughout the treatment/resource recovery train, a multistep produced water treatment process, and a multistep resource recovery process. PVT Clean Energy in Poughkeepsie, New York - Produced Water Consortium for Ultralightweight Composite Manufacturing by Accelerated Carbon Mineralization - Funding will be used to form the Produced Water Consortium for Ultralightweight Composite Manufacturing to manage, treat, and/or beneficially reuse produced water from onshore gas and oil operations. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, Illinois - Advanced Characterization of Wastewaters with a Focus on the Environment & Economics - This project will advance the characterization of coal combustion residuals (CCR) effluents and illustrate the use of such characterization to determine environmental impact and resource recovery. The team also plans to determine the environmental impact of characterized CCR effluents on ground and surface water through modeling and examine design options for effluent treatment and resource recovery. Clean water is crucial to the health and economic prosperity of our nation, but while demand from the energy sector for this essential resource has grown, aquifers in arid and semiarid regions of the country have become depleted by drought conditions. By treating and reusing the large volumes of wastewater generated through fossil fuel production and use, the projects will help to make wastewater safe for the environment and a valuable resource for the American public, especially for waterstressed communities. More than 70% of the water Aris Water Solutions sold during 2022 was recycled produced water. Photo courtesy of Aris Water Solutions. WTR
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk4Mzk=