Abstract:
Ensuring energy generation with environmental responsibility and cleaner processes is one of the most relevant challenges today, especially in view of the increasing energy demand forecast for the coming years. In this scenario, hydrogen represents an attractive complementary energy source, not just a new energy carrier. Despite the high operational, economic and environmental challenges that mature fields all over the world face, the O&G industry can potentially turn immense decommissioning liabilities into new energy production assets, by embracing hydrogen production from depleted and unproductive oil and gas reservoirs (gold hydrogen – H2Au). The high levels of residual hydrocarbons in such fields can be converted by autochthonous microorganisms into useful and high value-added compounds, such as methane, surfactants and polymers, but could be especially important as a source of clean hydrogen (H2Au). This presentation describes some state-of-the-art initiatives and proposals for H2Au production. A technical overview of H2Au production is provided for some of the key factors and mechanisms involved, such as the H2Au microbiota, their identification, selection, stimulation and bioaugmentation, key metabolic pathways, and the role and control of production conditions and coadjuvants.
Biography:
Prof. Cleveland M. Jones, DSc. holds a bachelor's degree in Physics and Economics (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, 1974), a postgraduate degree in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering (UERJ – 2007), and a master's degree (2009 – analysis of basins and mobile belts) and a doctorate (2014 – MEOR – Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery) in Geology from UERJ. He is currently a researcher at INOG (National Institute of Oil and Gas - INCT/CNPq). He is an independent international consultant, providing services in Brazil and abroad to Public Prosecutors' Offices and multinational and oil companies. He is a member of the Geosciences Advisory Board of NXT Energy Solutions Inc., Canada. He has experience in the areas of Energy, Sanitation, Sustainable Development, and Environmental Auditing and Assessment. He was the founder and director of several environmental and biotechnology companies, and Coordinator of the Postgraduate Course in Environmental Management (FUNCEFET-RJ). His main areas of expertise include: oil and energy geopolitics, energy resource assessment (yet-to-find-oil), applied biotechnology (bioaugmentation, bioremediation and MEOR), socio-environmental diagnostics, effluent and solid waste treatment, and shrimp farming. He is a frequent speaker and author of several articles on energy resources, the environment and applied biotechnology. He is fluent in Portuguese, English and Spanish. He is a member of several professional associations in Brazil and abroad, and a member of Mensa Brasil. He is currently involved in assessing the potential for new discoveries in the Brazilian pre-salt layer and in studies on oil geopolitics.
