Media Coverage

Article excerpt from The BAKKEN magazine written by Patrick C. Miller 12/2/15:

When it comes to getting gas flaring under control in the Bakken, the idea that opposites attract might provide the best solution to what has become a constant issue for the oil and gas industry. An unlikely coalition of organizations has completed a successful test of a waste-heat-to-energy system that marries an old technology with a new one.

In mid-November, a demonstration project conducted by Environmentally Friendly Drilling—a Texas-based organization that includes major oil producers, research entities and environmental groups—was completed at a Hess Corp. well site in McKenzie County. The test system combined a low-tech industrial boiler with a high-tech generator that used produced gas to generate electricity.

The system was developed by ElectraTherm Inc. of Reno, Nevada. The equipment was set up at the North Dakota well site and operated by Gulf Coast Green Energy, an ElectraTherm distributor headquartered in Bay City, Texas. Project funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America program and the Houston Advanced Research Center through its EFD program.

Although the concept of using well-site gas to generate electricity isn’t new, ElectraTherm’s approach of using an industrial boiler paired with its Power-plus Generator is unique and has helped other industries such as landfills and waste water treatment facilities deal with their waste-gas problems. John Fox, ElectraTherm CEO, says the North Dakota test was the first time the company’s system was used in a gas-flaring operation.

“Lots of businesses have this same problem,” he says. “They don’t know what to do with waste methane gas. We can do something that’s not capital intensive by using industrial boilers to handle untreated gas. If there are fluctuations in the gas content or flow, the boiler doesn’t care.”

Article Highlights:

• In addition, Fox says, “The emissions profile of the site is greatly improved, the power is consumed on site and the equipment is easy to install and maintain.”
• Richard Haut, HARC program director for energy production, considers the demonstration a complete success.
  “I’m amazed at how well it’s gone,” he says. “The little amount of downtime we’ve had, for this being a pilot project and how well it’s functioned, it’s been first-class all the way through.”
• Loy Sneary, CEO of GCGE, says that from his company’s perspective, the demonstration of ElectraTherm’s technology proved that it could work with Bakken gas with few problems and minimal involvement by the well-site operator…..Sneary “What surprised us is how little we needed to learn about what we’re doing,” he explains. “It’s not a complicated process; it’s fairly straightforward. The good news is that we didn’t find any issues that we weren’t able to remedy very quickly.”
• The research project took place at a Hess well site in the Blue Buttes area on the south side of the Missouri River, northwest of Mandaree and east of Watford City. The remote location was in the heart of the Bakken where it makes the most economic sense to drill during the low-oil-price environment.

Click here to view the full report prepared by Texas A&M/Institute of Renewable Natural Resources under HARC/EFD.

Watch a 5 min video on the highlights of the project and the ease of installation:

Article from Bakken Magazine written by Patrick C. Miller 10/28/15:

Officials with the Iraq Ministry of Oil and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) were in western North Dakota this week to study gas capture technologies and gas-powered electrical generation facilities.

Hamed Younis Saleh, Iraq’s deputy minister of gas affairs, and Hillal Ali Ismaeel Mushtaq, director of the general studies directorate, arrived in Bismarck on Monday. Accompanying them were Friedmann, Josh McKearin—a DOE international affairs specialist—and an American capital investor living in Iraq.

According to Julio Friedmann, DOE principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy, Iraq flares 1.2 billion cubic feet annually of associated gas from oil production because the country lacks the infrastructure to gather the gas and transport it to central power stations.

“They are developing the infrastructure, but it’s going to take time,” he said. “They’re seeking ways to bring their gas to market through power production. That will help their industry, their economy and it will help their government.”

On Wednesday, the group toured a gas capture research project at a Hess Corp. well site in the Blue Buttes area of McKenzie County being conducted by the Environmentally Friendly Drilling (EFD) Program run by the Houston Advance Research Center (HARC). Funding for the project was provided by DOE’s Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (REPSEA) program and HARC.

The demonstration project uses a waste heat-to-power technology developed by ElectraTherm Inc. of Reno, Nevada. The company is collaborating on the project with Gulf Coast Green Energy (GCGE), an ElectraTherm distributor headquartered in Bay City, Texas.

Excerpt from Diesel & Gas Turbine Worldwide in their October 2014 publication.

Continuous duty gen-sets provide base-load power generation in diverse applications around the globe. However, high fuel costs and engine maintenance are pain points felt by operators. A low-maintenance path to significant fuel savings and lower emissions is what the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) had in mind when they approached ElectraTherm to integrate the company’s Green Machine waste heat to power (WHP) generator with a 1.1 MW Cummins KTA-50 generator.

ElectraTherm’s Green Machine generator operates using a closed-loop ORC, where hot water is the fuel. Hot water from the engine enters a heat exchanger to excite (pressurize) the nonflammable, nontoxic working fluid, driving the twin-screw expander and generator to create electricity.  The company said its twin-screw expander is unique in its configuration, lubrication and specifications, but the core technology is based on decades of proven compressor technology. The twin-screw expander has a rotational speed of 1800 to 4900 r/min, considerably less than turboexpanders, according to ElectraTherm.  Unlike high-speed turboexpanders, screw expanders are robust units that tolerate “wet” dual-phase flow.

“This allows a very robust and cost-effective design for the Green Machine that can tolerate perturbations in both temperature and flow with turn down ratios of 6:1 available on demand,” said John Fox, CEO of ElectraTherm, Inc. “This is particularly advantageous in low temperature waste heat streams such as engine jacket water. Our Green Machine design is simplified and eliminates lubrication reservoirs, oil coolers, pumps and land filters, creating a simple, robust and efficient system with fewer parasitic loads and maintenance requirements.”

The Green Machine acts as the engine’s radiator, so the engine-driven radiator fans can actually be disconnected (or eliminated completely for a new installation), allowing more work to be performed by the engine to generate additional electricity. In effect, the engine’s waste heat becomes a source of cost savings by displacing the radiator’s capital cost and parasitic load.

Between the DOD project and the machines currently running in the field, ElectraTherm said it increases fuel efficiency up to 12%, depending on engine size and configuration, and site conditions while featuring simple installation, mobility and low maintenance.

To read the article in its entirety, visit this site: http://electratherm.com/docs/DGTW%20reprint%20-%20Electratherm.pdf

or click on this icon for the PDF: