[E&E seminars] Imaging Fractures: Exploring & Developing Tight Gas Reservoirs w/Seismic Methods

[Karen Gibson]

LFEE Seminar on Energy and Environment


Please join us for the final two seminars of the year:

“Imaging Fractures: Exploring and Developing Tight Gas Reservoirs  
with Seismic Methods”

Dan Burns
MIT Earth Resources Lab

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
12:00 - 1:30 pm
E40-496

Natural gas is a growing part of the US energy mix and, because  
natural gas is also more environmentally friendly, the demand will  
continue to grow. The US currently has approximately 200 TCF of known  
conventional reserves (EIA, 2006a), with annual domestic production  
(2004) of approximately 19 TCF (EIA, 2006b).  The US also has an  
enormous potential source of new natural gas reserves in  
unconventional reservoirs including tight gas sands, gas shales,  
ultradeep water reservoirs, and methane hydrates.  In total such  
reserves could provide energy independence for the US if they could  
be economically produced.  Tight gas sand reservoirs are estimated to  
contain 200-1000 TCF of reserves, depending on the technology  
available to find and produce them (RPSEA. 2005). These reserves,  
however, are produced through fractures (both natural and induced)  
and can only be brought on stream through improved technology for the  
remote sensing and characterization of these fractures. A brief  
overview of passive and active seismic methods used to image and  
characterize such fractures will be shown, along with some promising  
new methods based on scattered wave analysis.


And next week:

"Near Term Technologies for Improving Ethanol Use and Production:
Ethanol Boosted  Gasoline  Engines and Plasma Waste Conversion"

Daniel R. Cohn
Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Laboratory For Energy and the  
Environment

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
12:00 - 1:30 pm
E40-496

Near term , economically attractive technologies are needed to reduce  
oil dependence.  Use of a small amount of  directly injected ethanol  
in gasoline engines can enable high efficiency at low cost.  Direct  
ethanol injection  essentially removes the knock limit on  engine  
power density thereby allowing the replacment of large engines with  
much smaller and more efficienct turbocharged engines which provide  
the same or better peformance.  Plasma waste conversion  can be used  
to produce ethanol and methanol  from municipal and industrial waste.  
Waste material  is an attractive feedstock because of its negative  
cost. Municipal and industrial waste in the United States  could  
potentially  provide a renewable source of more than 30 billion  
gallons of alcohol fuel per year.


Bring your lunch - dessert will be provided.


___________________________________________________

If you would like to be added or removed from this mailing list,  
please contact Karen Gibson, kgibson at mit.edu




Karen  L. Gibson
Program Assistant
MIT Laboratory For Energy and the Environment
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E40-469
(1 Amherst St., E40-469 - for DHL and FedEx)
Cambridge, MA 02139  USA
Tel:  1 (617) 258-6368; Fax:  1 (617) 258-6590




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