Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technologies.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
As an end result, then, what kinds of savings in efficiency would we be looking at?
4:20 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
We would be able to save the industry somewhere in the area of about 8% carbon intensity on their overall production.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Thank you, Mr. Warawa.
Normally at this point we would proceed to a second round, which would start with Mr. Scarpaleggia, but given the fact that he's not here, I think we'll wait for him to come back. There are other questioners here who would like to have an opportunity.
We'll go with five-minute rounds.
May 12th, 2009 / 4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, the normal procedure is that no one gets a second question until everybody has had their first.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
I think that was the process that had previously been established.
Mr. Scarpaleggia has returned.
Francis, do you want to let somebody go here while you gather your thoughts? We're actually at your particular round of questions.
Mr. Braid, you can proceed, and then Mr. Scarpaleggia will assume the chair.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Gradek, thank you very much for your attendance here today and for all the work that you've put into this very exciting and promising technology. I'd like to continue the line of questioning of my colleague with respect to the process chart, if I could, just to understand the ultimate end process a little further.
I'm looking at the step here where the bitumen is washed from the coated beads. What happens with the dilbit or diluted bitumen? Where does it go after this step?
4:20 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
The dilbit goes into the pipeline up to the upgrader. All of our testing, with the collaboration of the oil sands industry partners, has been.... They want us to come in with a process that can be easily integrated into their present operations. We'll give you a feed stream, which is our tailings, you process it, and what we want back from you is a spec product that we can go ahead and tie into our pipeline going to the upgrader.
That's why we were obliged to come up with a dilbit and use the naphtha wash process. That was developed in order to comply with that request from the oil sands industry.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
It's quality dilbit that goes into their upgrader.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Okay. So it goes right into the process. Fantastic.
The naphtha that's required to wash the magic beads, if you will, is obviously a chemical. How are you protected from any adverse impacts of the naphtha on the environment?
4:20 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
It's a completely enclosed system. It's all under nitrogen purge, completely enclosed. It's enclosed, stainless steel, finished.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Okay. That's actually a good segue, then. Help me visualize what this process looks like on a grand actual operational scale.
4:20 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
Okay.
Our mixer is essentially off the shelf. It was patented in 1876. It's very robust, it's proven, and it does the job extremely well, and 100% mixing efficiency is obtained in less than 60 seconds. The company that manufactures it, the OEM, is over 485 years old, so they know what they're doing.
We've tested it on that unit, and essentially, you have very thorough mixing to ensure that you have many contacts between the beads and the clay particles or the fine particles that have the bitumen coating so that you have the migration of the bitumen onto the bead.
At the end of this mixer, it goes into a settling compartment. The beads are extremely buoyant and they float to the top. Your water and your solids sink to the bottom, so they come up from your settling compartment in the bottom. That can be sent to the tailings disposal pit for reclamation, and your water can go ahead and be recycled back into the primary extraction sector.
Your beads are transported into what we call the bead washer. The bead washer is essentially a bath which has dilbit on the top that come in and they are transported into a rotating, perforated drum, like a trommel. There's a shower head, and they get sprayed with naphtha and everything gets washed off. They come up to the top with a very fine film of naphtha, which is a hydrocarbon, and which displaced all of the bitumen because it dissolved it. And that goes into a dryer, which is under partial vacuum. Naphtha has a boiling point between 40° and 65° Celsius at one atmosphere. When it's under partial vacuum, the temperature is lower so you use less energy.
You recover and recycle that naphtha that was on the bead, so you have a dry bead that is back at its natural surface state. The surface energetics of the bead are not changed and they're able to refunction back in another cycle.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Very good.
Later on in your presentation, you indicate that this process, this technology, will help reduce and then ultimately eliminate the need for tailings ponds. Why is that an incremental process?
4:25 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
Tailings ponds are an accumulation of some 30 years of operation. You need a huge volume to ramp up to that scale of processing capacity. Because we want to blend the end-of-pipe tailing stream and cool it down with tailing-pond sludge, I have to measure both streams and ramp up. So I'm going to try to reach coverage of their end-of-pipe streams and then match that with tailing inventory.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Finally, have you had any discussions with oil companies about this technology and a partnership? But nothing stuck yet?
4:25 p.m.
President, Gradek Energy Inc.
As we said, at this stage we are undertaking to do a pilot project with an oil sands operator.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you, Mr. Braid. I'll just follow up on your line of questioning. This may have been covered while I was not here briefly.
This pilot project is with Syncrude?