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Science and Technology
科技
Solar heat for oil wells
用于油井的太陽熱
Mirrors in glasshouses can be used to heat stones
玻璃房里的鏡子.....可以用來加熱石頭
THERE is a lot of energy from ancient sunshine stored in the oil that sits below the deserts of Oman.
在Oman的沙漠下面埋藏著石油, 這些石油中儲存著來自遠古太陽光的豐富能量。
There is also a lot of sunshine hitting those deserts today.
在今天, 也還是有大量的太陽光照射在這篇沙漠上。
A new wrinkle to an established technology should allow some of that current sunshine to be employed to get at more of the ancient stuff.
一項已經成熟的科技的新應用能夠使用現在的太陽光來得到更多的古老東西。
Using heat-in the form of steam-to liberate disobligingly thick and gunky oil which would otherwise stay in the ground is nothing new.
利用熱--以蒸汽的形式--來釋放埋在地下的油膩的稠油已經被人們熟知。
Such enhanced-recovery techniques date back to the 1950s and 40% of California's oil production now depends on steaming subterranean rocks in this way.
這種強化開采技術可以追溯到20世紀50年代, 現在加利福尼亞40%的石油產出都是依靠這種方式來蒸餾地下巖石。
The steam, however, is made by burning other fossil fuels-normally natural gas-and because heating rock takes a lot of steam, making that steam takes a lot of money.
然而, 蒸汽是需要燃燒其他燃料來產生的--一般來說是天然氣--因為加熱巖石需要很多的蒸氣, 那么制造這些蒸汽的成本就會很高。
It also adds to the oil's climate footprint.
這也增加了石油的氣候足跡。
The amount of gas used means that a barrel of Californian heavy oil gives the stuff from Canada's tar sands a run for its money in terms of associated greenhouse-gas emissions.
就相關的溫室氣體排放來說, 所使用的燃氣的總量意味著一桶加利福尼亞重油和從加拿大油砂中提煉的油的排放不相上下。
GlassPoint, a small Californian company, thinks it can make steam for oil recovery more cleanly and cheaply by using sunshine to do the heating.
加利福尼亞一家小公司GlassPoint認為自己能夠利用太陽光加熱使蒸汽更清潔更便宜。
This sounds surprising.
這聽起來讓人吃驚。
Solar-thermal power stations, which employ mirrors to concentrate sunlight on boilers and thus raise steam to generate electricity by turning turbines, are far from cheap compared with gas-fired stations.
太陽熱發電站利用鏡子將太陽光集中到鍋爐上并因此產生蒸汽推動渦輪來發電, 這與燃氣發電站比起來一點也不便宜。
But solar-thermal electricity faces exacting challenges.
但是太陽熱發電正面臨著讓人興奮的挑戰。
To feed a turbine you need particularly pure steam, which can be a problem if you are in a desert.
為了能夠推動渦輪, 你需要特別純凈的蒸氣, 如果處于沙漠地帶那么這將是個問題。
And to get the most out of the system you need the steam to be both very hot indeed and available in copious amounts.
為了能夠充分的利用該系統, 你所需要的蒸氣溫度必須十分高并且可利用的數量十分充足。
Oil wells, GlassPoint's founders noticed, are far less demanding consumers in these respects.
GlassPoint的創建者們發現, 在這些方面, 油井就不是那么挑剔的消費者。
The steam used can be comparatively dirty. Nor does it have to be infernally hot.
其所使用的蒸氣可以很臟, 溫度也不需要達到非常高。
And even a small amount of it, added to an existing gas-based recovery process, can make a useful contribution.
而且哪怕是向已存在的基于燃氣的開采過程中添加一點蒸汽都會產生很大的效果。
There are, though, disadvantages to having to work in an oilfield.
但是, 在油田中利用太陽光加熱產生蒸汽還是有不利之處的。
People building solar-thermal power stations prefer sites low in dust.
建造太陽熱發電站需要位于灰塵密度較低的地方。
Those serving the oil industry must go where the rigs are, however dusty and mucky the air.
那些服務于石油工業的設備必須在鉆井平臺上, 但是那里空氣骯臟。
GlassPoint seems to have found a neat solution to this: it puts its mirrors indoors.
GlassPoint似乎找到了解決這一問題的有效方法: 將鏡子放在室內。
Greenhouses are easy to buy, quick to erect and, thanks to off-the-shelf kit designed for the purpose, simple to keep clean, too.
溫室容易購買, 并且由于是普遍的套件設計, 所以安裝快速, 保潔簡單。
Moreover, sheltering the mirrors from the wind allows those mirrors to be a lot lighter, making them both cheap to build and ship, and easier to turn in order to follow the sun.
另外, 由于鏡子避免了暴露在風中所以鏡子可以更輕便, 使得鏡子的生產和運輸成本更低并且也更容易隨著太陽的位置變動方向。
GlassPoint's boss, Rod MacGregor, thinks that taking capital costs and the lifetime of the plant into account his firm can produce steam at $3.78 per million British thermal units (btu), which is $3.58 a gigajoule.
GlassPoint的老板Rod MacGregor認為如果把資本成本和工廠的生命期算在內的話, 他的公司可以以每百萬英熱單位(btu)3.78美金的價格生產蒸汽, 即十億焦耳3.58美金。
Steam from gas comes in at $5.79 per million btu.
燃氣生產的蒸氣則達到每百萬英熱單位(btu)5.79美金。
A pilot project in California, he says, has been producing steam as intended since the beginning of the year.
Rod MacGregor說從今年年初的時候在加利福尼亞的實驗性工廠已將開始按計劃運行生產蒸汽。
And the company has now signed a deal with Petroleum Development Oman for 7 megawatts of plant-a 16,000-square-metre greenhouse providing some 57 billion btu of steam a year.
現在公司正在為Petroleum Development Oman設計一個年產7百萬瓦特的工廠--一個16000平方米溫室, 每年生產大概570億英熱單位的蒸氣。
If it pans out, the technology could spread fast.
如果該設計交易成功了, 那么這項技術將會快速傳播。
Mr MacGregor expects Oman to be using 200 trillion btu of steam a year for oil recovery by 2015.
MacGregor預計到2015年Oman每年用于采油的蒸氣將達到200萬億英熱單位蒸汽。
Not all of that steam could be solar, but a system which used high-pressure solar steam during the day and low-pressure gas-generated steam by night, to keep the pipes hot, might get 80% of its power from the sun.
盡管不是所有的蒸氣都是太陽能生產的, 但是白天使用高壓太陽能生產蒸汽, 晚上使用低壓燃氣生產蒸氣來維持管道高溫的系統可能其80%的能源都來自于太陽。
That would free up a lot of gas for export-or for turning into petrochemicals.
這樣可以節約出很多燃氣供出口--或者轉而應用到石油化工中。
Enhanced oil recovery currently uses a quite remarkable amount of energy: 1.7 quadrillion btu of gas around the world every year, according to GlassPoint.
當下驅油所使用的能源總量驚人: 根據GlassPoint統計, 每年全球在這方面使用的燃氣大約為1.7千兆英熱單位。
Not all of that is in sunny places, but there are many deserts besides Oman's that have oil beneath them.
雖然不是所有的油井都在陽光普照的地方, 但是除了Oman以外還有很多的存有油井的沙漠。
The paradoxical possibility, then, is that solar-thermal technology might end up producing a lot more oil than electricity in the years to come.
那么也許會有一個似是而非的可能--未來的某一天, 太陽熱技術開采的石油會比電開采的石油多很多。
