AAPG Explorer - American Association of Petroleum Geologists

ACE Students Recognized
Student winners have been
announced for oral presentations
at the recent AAPG Annual
Convention and Exhibition in Houston,
with the top prize going to an AAPG
Student member from the University of
Texas at Austin.
The top Student paper prize went
to Anjali Fernandes, for the paper “A
Three-Dimensional Geometric Analysis
of Bank-Attached Bar-Forms in Sinuous
Submarine Channels: A Tool for Inferring
the Relative Importance of Bedload and
Suspended Load Sedimentation.”
Other awards went to:
u Second place – AAPG Student
member Danica Dralus, of Stanford
Continued from previous page
States for more than 40 years since the
Environmental Protection Agency began
operations in December 1970,” Ambrose
said.
For example, from 1970 through 2003,
particulate emissions from coal-fired
power plants declined by 87 percent
and SOx emissions fell by 35 percent,
although electricity from coal increased
by almost 180 percent.
Successful CCT operations are
occurring in:
u Cranfield, Miss.
u Hastings, Texas.
u Decatur, Ill.
u The Barry Generating Plant near
Mount Vernon, Ala.
u The Weyburn Field in Saskatchewan,
Canada.
“These CCS projects are already
demonstrating the technical feasibility
of carbon capture and sequestration,”
Ambrose said.
And these projects, like the coal itself,
are embedded in the lives of a number of
states, including their politics.
“States such as Illinois, West
Virginia and Wyoming, with significant
coal resources, tend to lobby for coal
regardless of local party constituencies,”
Ambrose noted.
The feds, too, have a part to play,
and here Ambrose talks of FutureGen, a
$1 billion government challenge to the
states to build a clean coal re-powering
program and carbon dioxide (CO2)
storage network.
“These included Illinois (which was
awarded the prize), Texas, Kentucky,
North Dakota, Ohio, West Virginia and
Indiana,” he said.
And though the FutureGen initiative
was associated with the George W. Bush
administration,” Ambrose admits other
administrations also have shown interest
in clean coal – like the present one,
which actually awarded the prize.
The Competition
Whether they should be so active,
though, or how much, is open to some
debate, for there are many who believe
University, for “Kinetics of the Opal-CT to
Quartz Phase Transition Control Diagentic
Traps in Siliceous Shale Source Rock from
the San Joaquin Basin and Hokkaido.”
u Third place – AAPG Student member
Xavier Refunjol, of the University of
Oklahoma, for “Predicting Hydraulically
Induced Fractures Using Acoustic
Impedance Inversion Volumes: A Barnett
Shale Formation Example.”
u Fourth place – AAPG Student
member Justin MacDonald, of the
Australian School of Petroleum, for
“Application of Critical-Taper Wedge
Mechanics to Structural Style in Fossilized
and Active Late Cretaceous-Tertiary Delta
– Deepwater Fold-Thrust Belts.”
that natural gas, rather than coal, is
where the nation’s focus should be.
Ambrose understands the attraction.
“Natural gas continues to make
inroads at the expense of coal as a
source of electrical power generation,
owing to low gas prices,” he said.
“Moreover, natural gas is an extremely
versatile fuel, used in residential,
commercial, industrial and transport
sectors of the economy.
“Another advantage that natural gas
has over coal,” he added, “is that the
latter is the most carbon-intensive of
the fossil fuels.”
And that is, and always has been,
coal’s Achilles’ heel. It’s dirtier than
everything else out (or under) there.
Economically, though, the plus
side for coal is that these traditional
coal-fired power plants (referred to
as pulverized coal or “PC” plants)
in Texas, for example, are still
economically competitive with gas, he
noted.
“This is because the capital
investment in most PC plants is paid
off, and lignite plus Powder River
Basin coal is still cheaper on a BTU
basis,” he said.
Ultimately, though, Ambrose, who
is chair of the EMD Coal Committee,
knows there has to be a reconciliation
of sorts among not only the future
energy options of the country, but
among those fighting on behalf of
them.
Specifically, as for where CCT and
CCS stand right now, Ambrose says,
“CCT is struggling to move ahead in
today’s harsh project-financing climate
and in the context of current low gas
prices.”
He added both he and BEG Director
Scott Tinker understand the dynamic
of energy policy, which includes,
“ … what’s possible, the science
and technology; what’s doable, the
regulatory and legal concerns; and
most importantly, what’s sensible, the
economic and climate impact in time
frame needed.”
When it comes to supply America’s
future energy needs, the devil, it
seems, is everywhere. EXPLORER
Houseknecht Awarded Levorsen
David W. Houseknecht, a frequent
news source for the EXPLORER on
a variety of stories involving Alaska
geology, has won the A.I. Levorsen
Award for presenting the best paper at
the recent Pacific Section meeting in
Anchorage, Alaska.
Houseknecht is a research geologist
with the U.S. Geological Survey in
Reston, Va.
His winning paper was titled
“Tectonic Influences on Thermal
Maturation History of Arctic Alaska and
the Canada Basin.”
AAPG
EXPLORER
WWW.AAPG.ORG JULY 2011
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