An Integrated Approach to Water-Energy Nexus in Shale-Gas Production

Fadhil Al-Aboosi,Mahmoud El-Halwagi

doi:10.3390/pr6050052

Fadhil Al-Aboosi, Mahmoud El-Halwagi

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/pr6050052

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Journal: Processes	Publication Date: May 8, 2018
Citations: 28	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Texas A&M University, University of Baghdad

Abstract

Shale gas production is associated with significant usage of fresh water and discharge of wastewater. Consequently, there is a necessity to create proper management strategies for water resources in shale gas production and to integrate conventional energy sources (e.g., shale gas) with renewables (e.g., solar energy). The objective of this study is to develop a design framework for integrating water and energy systems including multiple energy sources, the cogeneration process and desalination technologies in treating wastewater and providing fresh water for shale gas production. Solar energy is included to provide thermal power directly to a multi-effect distillation plant (MED) exclusively (to be more feasible economically) or indirect supply through a thermal energy storage system. Thus, MED is driven by direct or indirect solar energy and excess or direct cogeneration process heat. The proposed thermal energy storage along with the fossil fuel boiler will allow for the dual-purpose system to operate at steady-state by managing the dynamic variability of solar energy. Additionally, electric production is considered to supply a reverse osmosis plant (RO) without connecting to the local electric grid. A multi-period mixed integer nonlinear program (MINLP) is developed and applied to discretize the operation period to track the diurnal fluctuations of solar energy. The solution of the optimization program determines the optimal mix of solar energy, thermal storage and fossil fuel to attain the maximum annual profit of the entire system. A case study is solved for water treatment and energy management for Eagle Ford Basin in Texas.

Highlights

IntroductionMajor discoveries of shale gas reserves have led to substantial growth in production
Major discoveries of shale gas reserves have led to substantial growth in production.For instance, the U.S production of shale gas has increased from 2 trillion ft3 in 2007 to 17 trillion ft3 in 2016 with an estimated cumulative production of more than 400 trillion ft3 over the two decades [1]
The four months that have the lowest value of useful thermal power still have significant potential to provide thermal power to the system

Summary

Introduction

Major discoveries of shale gas reserves have led to substantial growth in production. The U.S production of shale gas has increased from 2 trillion ft in 2007 to 17 trillion ft in 2016 with an estimated cumulative production of more than 400 trillion ft over the two decades [1]. A major challenge to a more sustainable growth of shale gas production is the need to address natural resource, environmental] and safety issues [10,11]. Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling are the essential technologies to extract natural gas from shale rock. Water plays a significant role in shale gas production through mixing millions of gallons of water with sand, chemicals, corrosion inhibitors, surfactants, flow improvers, friction reducers and other constituents to produce fracturing fluid.

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