News Release from GE

14 March 2012

GE to Supply Water Recycling Technology for SAGD Project in Alberta Oil Sands

 

GE’s Evaporation System to Help Boost Production, Reduce Liquid Waste Requiring Disposal

TREVOSE, PA.—March 14, 2012—GE’s (NYSE: GE) wastewater evaporation technologies have been selected to improve wastewater recovery at an existing oil sands project near Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. The facility utilizes once through steam generators (OTSGs) to produce steam, which drives the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process for the production of bitumen, which is a heavy crude oil produced from oil sands.

GE’s system will recycle a portion of the OTSG blowdown, thereby decreasing the volume of liquid waste from the facility and increasing the volume of boiler feed water available for generation of steam and production of bitumen. The use of GE’s evaporation technologies for the recovery of OTSG blowdown is gaining traction in the Alberta oil sands, where producers are seeking sustainable production processes that satisfy increasingly stringent environmental regulations. This project is the fifth to utilize GE’s evaporation technologies for OTSG blowdown treatment. To date, 14 SAGD projects have selected GE evaporation technologies, including six over the past 19 months, for their produced water and OTSG blowdown treatment applications.

“We are aligning our businesses to best meet the needs of Canada’s oil sands industry by offering more energy and water efficient products and services,“ said Jeff Connelly, vice president, engineered systems—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water.

For example, in December 2011, GE opened a new oil sands support center in Fort McMurray to provide greater local support to customers as they experience significant growth in this important sector. In 2012, GE also is scheduled to open a new Heavy Oil Centre of Excellence in Calgary, further building on a strong commitment and presence in the province of Alberta.

News release from DOE's Office of Environmental Management:

Savannah River Site Contractor Achieves Tank Waste Milestone

AIKEN, S.C. – The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor recently achieved a contract milestone by processing 500,000 gallons of salt waste in underground tanks for disposition since October last year.

“I congratulate Savannah River Remediation (SRR) for reaching this initial milestone,” said Terrel Spears, Assistant Manager for Waste Disposition Project, DOE Savannah River Operations. “Processing salt waste is essential for us and our mission to close tanks. The salt processing technologies utilized have proven very effective in removing the radioactive constituents from salt waste and the processing rates being achieved are encouraging.”

A second SRR contract milestone calls for an additional 450,000 gallons of salt waste to be processed by the end of September this year. SRR has processed more than 2.5 million gallons of salt waste for disposition since 2008.

---

Pictured here is a component of the Interim Salt Disposition Process — known as Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU) — that helped Savannah River Remediation process more than 500,000 gallons of salt waste since October last year, a contract milestone.

---

SRR operates the Interim Salt Disposition Process (ISDP) to prepare the salt waste for disposition. The ISDP is being used temporarily until that work can be completed by the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which is being constructed.

In the ISDP, radioactive isotopes are removed from the salt waste solutions in the tanks. The chemical isotopes removed include cesium, plutonium and strontium. Those isotopes are transferred to the Defense Waste Processing Facility, where they are mixed with molten glass and placed in stainless steel canisters for permanent storage. The remaining low-level salt solution is converted into a grout-cement mixture at the Saltstone facilities and pumped into concrete vaults for permanent disposal. 

Dave Olson, SRR President and Project Manager, said salt waste constitutes 90 percent of the total waste inventory stored in SRS’s two tank farms, and the removal and processing of the salt waste is key to SRR achieving its mission to close the tanks.

“The milestone demonstrates the safe and continuous operations of a key component in the waste removal process at SRS,” Olson said.

Los Alamos National Laboratory and Zero Wastewater Discharge

News Release from Los Alamos National Laboratory:

LANL achieves milestone on path to zero wastewater discharge

Improved compliance while recycling millions of gallons of industrial wastewater

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, January 20, 2012—Millions of gallons of industrial wastewater will be recycled at Los Alamos National Laboratory as the result of a long-term strategy to treat wastewater rather than discharging it into the environment.

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, which issues permits for industrial and sanitary wastewater discharges, recently approved the removal of four more outfalls from the Laboratory’s permit. (An outfall is where wastewater from Lab operations is discharged down canyons.)  Only 11 outfalls remain, down from 141 in 1993. 

"One of the objectives of our Environmental Management System is to reduce liquid discharges to a single outfall by the end of 2012," said Dennis Hjeresen, Division Leader of the Environmental Protection Division at the Lab. "Removing four more facilities from our permit is an important step toward reaching that goal."

The wastewater comes from many places at the Laboratory and does many things.  It cools the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), one of the Lab’s premier science research facilities, and the Strategic Computing Complex, which creates world-class high-performance computing systems. The water also cools the Lab’s power plant and comes out of the sanitary plant that treats water from toilets and sinks.

The treated sanitary wastewater and water flushed from cooling towers is transported to the Lab’s Sanitary Effluent Reclamation Facility (SERF). It then can be reused in cooling towers around the Lab.
"The SERF should be recycling up to 300,000 gallons per day by the summer of 2012," Hjeresen said.


About Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

LANL news media contact: Colleen Curran, (505) 664-0344, colleen_curran@lanl.gov