From Narrative of Promise to Rhetoric of Sustainability: A Genealogy of Oil Sands

Since its conception, “oil sands” has been the name of a pro-development narrative seeking to convince skeptics that bitumen saturating the sandstone of Alberta’s Athabasca region ought to be extracted and chemically altered into Synthetic Crude Oil (SCO). Over the decades, the nature of skepticism has changed, and thus oil sands (along with its meanings and claims) has been continually reproduced so as to placate new criticisms. This paper offers a discursive genealogy of the oil sands narrative, demonstrating how it has been transformed from what was throughout the twentieth century a materially situated “narrative of promise” aiming to prove that SCO production was physically possible and that it could be commercially profitable, into what by 2015 was at its core a largely reactive “rhetoric of sustainability” aiming to convince a new class of critics that, contrary to their claims, SCO was in fact being produced in an environmentally responsible manner.     

Solvent extraction for heavy crude oil removal from contaminated soils

A new strategy of heavy crude oil removal from contaminated soils was studied. The hexane-acetone solvent mixture was used to investigate the ability of solvent extraction technique for cleaning up soils under various extraction conditions. The mixtures of hexane and acetone (25 vol%) were demonstrated to be the most effective in removing petroleum hydrocarbons from contaminated soils and approx 90% of saturates, naphthene aromatics, polar aromatics, and 60% of nC₇-asphaltenes were removed. Kinetic experiments demonstrated that the equilibrium was reached in 5 min and the majority of the oil pollutants were removed within 0.5 min. The effect of the ratio between solvent and soil on the extraction efficiency was also studied and results showed that the efficiency would increase following the higher solvent soil ratio. Then the multistage continuous extraction was considered to enhance the removal efficiency of oil pollutants. Three stages crosscurrent and countercurrent solvent extraction with the solvent soil ratio 6:1 removed 97% oil contaminants from soil. Clearly the results showed that the mixed-solvent of hexane and acetone (25 vol%) with character of low-toxic, acceptable cost and high efficiency was promising in solvent extraction to remove heavy oil fractions as well as petroleum hydrocarbons from contaminated soils.     

Assessment of the radiological impact of oil refining industry

The field of radiation protection and corresponding national and international regulations has evolved to ensure safety in the use of radioactive materials. Oil and gas production processing operations have been known to cause naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) to accumulate at elevated concentrations as by-product waste streams. A comprehensive radiological study on the oil refining industry in Egypt was carried out to assess the radiological impact of this industry on the workers. Scales, sludge, water and crude oil samples were collected at each stage of the refining process. The activity concentration of ²²⁶Ra, ²³²Th and ⁴⁰K were determined using high-resolution gamma spectrometry. The average activity concentrations of the determined isotopes are lower than the IAEA exempt activity levels for NORM isotopes. Different exposure scenarios were studied. The average annual effective dose for workers due to direct exposure to gamma radiation and dust inhalation found to be 0.6 μSv and 3.2 mSv, respectively. Based on the ALARA principle, the results indicate that special care must be taken during cleaning operations in order to reduce the personnel's exposure due to maintenance as well as to avoid contamination of the environment.     

Oil spill vulnerability assessment integrating physical, biological and socio-economical aspects: Application to the Cantabrian coast (Bay of Biscay, Spain)

A methodology has been developed to carry out an integrated oil spill vulnerability index, V, for coastal environments. This index takes into account the main physical, biological and socio-economical characteristics by means of three intermediate indexes. Three different integration methods (worst-case, average and survey-based) along with ESI-based vulnerability scores, V_ESI, proposed for the Cantabrian coast during the Prestige oil spill, have been analyzed and compared in terms of agreement between the classifications obtained with each one for this coastal area. Results of this study indicate that the use of the worst-case index, V_R, leads to a conservative ranking, with a very poor discrimination which is not helpful in coastal oil spill risk management. Due to the homogeneity of this coastal stretch, the rest of the methods, V_I, V_M and V_ESI, provide similar classifications. However, V_M and V_I give more flexibility allowing three indexes for each coastal segment and including socio-economic aspects. Finally, the V_I procedure is proposed here as the more advisable as using this index promotes the public participation that is a key element in the implementation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (IZCM).     

海洋石油污染处理方法优化配置

溢油是石油进入海洋的主要方式之一,如何对溢油事故进行有效的预防和处理成为有效预防海洋污染、保护海洋环境的重要举措。文章从三个方面介绍了如何进行溢油防治,并对溢油处理措施进行了详细说明,论证了不同海面状况下各种处理方法的优化组合,并以辽河油田浅海石油开发公司导管架平台溢油事故为例进行了说明。     

混凝-电凝聚法处理三次采油废水的研究

进行了混凝-电凝聚法处理大庆油田三次采油废水的实验研究,考察了极板材料、混凝剂加量、电流密度、pH值、转速、反应时间对COD去除率的影响,并对去除机理进行了初步探讨。结果表明:COD去除率达到80%,达到国家回注标准。     

HBY—3—100型自动油水分离器在污水处理上的应用

ＨＢＹ－３－１００型自动油水分离器在乙烯加氢装置的应用，解决了原有隔油池收油不好，油气散发污染环境危害安全等隐串。经过１年多的运转证明效果良好，所收的油当年可回收人武部投资。环境效益、社会效益和经济和均起到较好的效果。