The Fossil Report ossil Report ossil Report

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Fossil Energy Program Summer 2001

Energy Technology for the Future...and for the World

IN THIS ISSUE

ORNL Proposal Winner in National

Laboratory Competition

Welcome to the Program

Inorganic Membranes to Benefit

Petroleum Refining

Legislation Introduced on Deep-Sea

Natural Gas and Petroleum

Exploration

COMING SOON

Aging Pipelines Call for More Intensive

Testing

The Fossil Report is published quarterly by

the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Fossil

Energy Program.

Send comments to:

Paul T. Carlson

Editor and Publisher

ORNL Proposal Winner

in National Laboratory

Competition

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory

proposal was one of the winners in

the recent DOE Laboratory solicitation for applied research for the Natural Gas Infrastructure Reliability Program.

The proposed work, New Acoustic

Wave Pipe Inspection System, was submitted by Venu Varma of ORNL’s Robotics and Process Systems Division.

The work has the objective to demonstrate a new waveguide pipe flaw detection technique.

It is envisioned that the new technique

will enable the detection of flaws in a

single pass, something not achievable with

current methodologies, Varma says.

The need for this work results from our aging pipeline transportation system. Aging

pipelines develop weak spots, which can

lead to leakages and failures.

Events within the past year, particularly

the tragedy in Carlsbad, New Mexico, where

12 people lost their lives and a recent death

in Knoxville, Tennessee, illustrate the urgency of having a reliable pipeline inspection system.

In each case, internal corrosion of an underground pipeline distribution system is

suspected to have been the cause of the leakage and rupture.

The currently-used method of detecting

corrosion damage through the application

of a magnetic field to the interior of a pipe

can not be utilized to detect flaws or cracks.

An efficient and reliable inspection system

is needed to prevent failures.

The new technology will enable pipeline

operators to detect defects, which are not

Venugopal (Venu) K. Varma received his B.Tech from I.I.T. Kharagpur, India in 1983, his

M.S. in 1986 from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, and his M.S. and Ph.D in 1989

and 1993 from University of Maryland, College Park.

Since 1993, he has been a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he has been involved in projects

related to manipulator kinematics, dynamics and control. He has numerous papers in the area of robot grasping, robot vision and other related areas.

His current area of interest is micro-actuation using smart

materials. Under a DARPA-funded program he is building an SMA actuator with higher efficiency of operation.

He is also working on other types of actuators using piezoelectric materials.

detectable by other means.

This work is supported DOE Office of Fossil

Energy, National Energy Technology

Laboratory.

For more information on this work, contact

Venu Varma, Oak Ridge National

Laboratory.

“The whole of science is

nothing more than a

refinement of everyday

thinking.”

Albert Einstein
2

THE FOSSI L REPORT SUMMER 2001

David DePaoli

David DePaoli is

Leader of the Separations and Materials Processing Research Group in the

Chemical Technology Division at

ORNL.

He is trained in

chemical engineering

(B.S., University of

Michigan; Ph.D., University of Tennessee),

and is also an adjunct professor of chemical engineering at the University of Tennessee.

David conducts and manages fundamental

and applied research, aimed at making advances in topics of national interest, including energy-efficient chemical processing,

carbon management, and nanotechnology.

His current work focuses on transport processes in separations and materials synthesis.

Topics include novel separations employing electric fields, ionic liquids, and

mesoporous sorbents; inorganic membranes for separations and reaction; formation and growth of inorganic materials in

waste-treatment systems; and assembly of

surfactants at interfaces and the impact on

aqueous cleaning.

David’s current work on the Fossil Energy

Program is the study of Efficient CleanFuel Processing Using Designer Solvents

Jeff Muhs

Jeff Muhs has over 10 years of experience in

fiber optics, photonics, and transportation

measurement systems. Jeff, who hold a B.S.

in Electro-Optical Sciences, is the author

of ten patents and 30 publications and was

named Oak Ridge National

Laboratory’s “1997 Engineer of the

Year.”

Jeff ’s major responsibilities are

to generate new

project ideas, develop those ideas

into funded programs, manage

selected projects,

and perform research and development.

 Jeff’s primary research

interests include fiber

optic sensors and hybrid solar lighting systems that use largecore optical fibers to

improve the energy efficiency of lighting in

buildings and photosynthetic-based

bioenergy systems.

Jeff currently is working on two projects on

the ORNL Fossil Energy Program—Enhanced Practical Photosynthesis Carbon Dioxide Mitigation and, jointly with

Bart Smith, Life Performance Monitoring

Using Fiber Optic Strain Sensors.

Lee Trowbridge

Lee Trowbridge received a B.S.

in Chemical Physics from

Michigan State University

(1970), an M.A. in Physics from

Harvard University (1971) and

(after a few years in the US

Army), a Ph.D. in Chemical

Physics from Harvard University (1978).

His 22 years of professional

experience in chemistry has

been largely in the areas of

uranium and fluorine chemDavid DePaoli

istry, particularly as applied to isotope separation applications and the uranium fuel

cycle.

Lee transferred from the Oak

Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant to

the Chemical Technology Division in August 1997, working primarily on the remediation of the

ORNL Molten Salt Reactor Experiment.

His various activities have utilized physical and chemical

process modeling, chemical kinetics and thermodynamics, and

related transport phenomena in

research, development, technical support to ongoing or future

operations.

Lee’s work for the Fossil Energy

Program, Application of Oak

Ridge Inorganic Membrane

Technology to Cat-Cracker Recycle Gas

Hydrogen Separation, involves investigating the application of Oak Ridge inorganic

membrane technology to hydrogen/hydrocarbon separation applications in the petroleum industry.

These membranes, developed by the Inorganic Membrane Technology Laboratory at

ETTP and redesigned for light gas separation, are the technological descendants of

the membranes used for decades

in gaseous diffusion plants.

Welcome to the Program

Jeff Muhs

Lee Trowbridge

“However beautiful the

strategy, you should

occasionally look at the

results.”

— Winston Churchill
3

THE FOSSI L REPORT SUMMER 2001

Inorganic Membranes to

Benefit Petroleum Refining

A new project, led by Lee Trowbridge of

ORNL’s Chemical Technology Division,

is intended to improve the economics of

petroleum and heavy oil upgrading and, as

a consequence, contribute to clean fuel development.

Refineries use high-pressure hydrogenation

to remove sulfur and reduce aromatic content in process streams. Typically, the excess hydrogen is burned. Rather than burning, recycling, purification, and reuse of the

excess hydrogen will not only conserve hydrogen, but will also contribute significantly to improving the economics of the

refining process.

Whereas organic membranes are attractive

as a means to separate and recover hydrogen from refinery gases, there are temperature, pressure and permeation rate limitations to these materials.

Delivery of purified hydrogen at temperatures and pressures, which are closer to process conditions, offers considerable energy

and economic savings in refinery operations.

The key to this work is the development

and application of inorganic membranes

for the separation of the hydrogen from the

high-pressure hydrogen and hydrocarbon

gas mixtures.

The inorganic membranes envisioned for

this specific application are those being designed by the Inorganic Membrane Testing Laboratory, Bechtel-Jacobs, LLC.

This inorganic membrane technology is

capable of customization for a variety of

separations. The membranes can be constructed of corrosion-resistant and hightemperature-tolerant materials, such as ceramics or metals, to meet the needs of a

wide variety of refinery applications.

Recently, for example, inorganic membranes have been designed to address the

problem of separation of hydrogen from

volatile organic compounds.

The objective of this work is to determine

the effectiveness of specialized custom inorganic membranes designed for the separation of hydrogen from similar to those

present in refinery gas streams.

This work is supported DOE Office of Fossil

Energy, National Petroleum Technology

Office.

This article was excerpted from a document

authored by Lee Trowbridge. For more information on this work, please contact Lee

Trowbridge.

Legislation Introduced on Deep-Sea Natural Gas and

Petroleum Exploration

Legislation introduced in the House on August 2 proposes to establish funding for

research, development, and demonstration activities related to ultra-deepwater

and unconventional natural gas and petroleum exploration and production technologies.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory and the United States Geological Survey have been designated as the lead organizations to pursue the research, should

the bill be signed into law.

Specifically, the activities which would be funded would be long-term research into

new gas and petroleum exploration and production technologies, in areas currently available for Outer Continental Shelf leasing.

The work would also include the development of environmental mitigation technologies, associated with production from ultra-deepwater resources.

Methane hydrates formations were specifically designated as the type of ultradeepwater resource toward which the bill is directed.

The legislation would also fund the development and demonstration of new technologies for the reduction of greenhouse gases from ultra-deepwater natural gas or

petroleum resources.

Included in the language was the specific mention of sub-seafloor carbon sequestration technologies.

The legislation was referred to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral

Resources on August 20.

COMING SOON

The Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference on Fossil Energy Materials is in preparation

and will be posted to the Fossil

Energy Program Web site in near

future.
4

THE FOSSI L REPORT SUMMER 2001

Aging Pipelines Call for More

Intensive Testing

Early on the morning of August 21, 2000, the

tranquil silence near a favorite camping site

in Carlsbad, New Mexico, along the Pecos

River was shattered by a deafening report,

when a natural gas pipeline ruptured.

The explosion and ensuing fireball killed

12 campers—men, women, and children—

as they slept under a bridge spanning the

Pecos River, within 600 feet of the explosion.

The explosion resulted in a crater 86 feet

long, 46 feet wide, and 20 feet deep. The heat

of the explosion was sufficiently intense to

melt sand into glass and concrete into powder. The fire burned for up to an hour and

was visible to residents of Carlsbad, 20 miles

to the north.

Federal regulators, after finding corrosion

and thinning of the walls on pipe fragments,

issued one of the strongest orders in the

history of gas pipelines. They stated that

extensive testing and repairs were mandatory before any of the affected lines could

be placed back in service.

The line which ruptured, a 30-inch, underground pipeline, owned by El Paso Energy

Company, was 50 years old. And, according

to the National Transportation Safety Board

chairman, it had not been properly tested

in 48 years.

Preliminary investigations by the NTSB indicated that significant internal corrosion

was visible and determined that internal

corrosion was potentially the cause of the

fatal explosion.

The NTSB further surmised that there was

valid concern that other portions of the

10,000-mile pipeline could have similar

problems.

The Department of Transportation Office

of Pipeline Safety mandated that El Paso

Energy develop a plan to assess the entire

10,000-mile pipeline system for potential

problems.

It was estimated that the accident investigation and subsequent pipeline testing

would not be completed for as long as up

to a year.

The ruptured pipeline segment was constructed in 1952 and had not been internally inspected or hydrostatically tested in

48 years.

The NTSB has stressed the need for mandatory testing, as well as pressure testing,

since 1987.

Federal regulations did not at the time of

its installation require such testing.

A similar tragedy occurred in July of this

year in Knoxville, Tennessee, when gas, seeping from a leak in a natural gas pipeline,

was ignited by a 16-year-old boy who had

unwittingly ignited a lighter.

The boy died from third-degree burns when

he was engulfed by the resulting fireball.

One week after the fatal eruption, another

leak was discovered in East Knoxville, but

this occurrence did not lead to injuries.

In both cases, it was determined that the

leaks were due to corrosion.

Congress has responded with the introduction of legislation by Senator John McCain

on January 22, 2001—the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2001.

The bill, in part, “requires the Secretary, as

part of the DOT research and development

program, to direct research attention to the

development of alternative technologies: (1)

to expand the defect detection capabilities

of internal inspection devices; (2) to inspect

pipelines that cannot accommodate internal inspection devices available on the date

of enactment; and (3) to develop innovative

techniques measuring the structural integrity of pipelines.”

With much-deserved attention on this problem, new work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has taken on a special significance.

[see story on Page 1].

It is hoped that this new work—to develop

a new pipe inspection system—will provide pipeline operators with the capability

to detect defects, which are not detectable

by other means.

Crater formed by the explosion