RenuWell, an Alberta team comprising oil industry and renewable energy industry experts allied with partner firms, aboriginal groups and “relying on the resources of key institutions,” has a proposal for Alberta’s orphaned oil and gas well sites. Alberta has some 90,000 wells that are already abandoned but not reclaimed, the group says, making them immediately suitable as brownfield sites for solar, wind, and/or geothermal development.
“Our model solves the growing challenge of legacy oil and gas infrastructure with a proactive clean-energy, community-oriented solution that turns liabilities into assets,” the group says. “This approach could simultaneously preserve approximately 14,000 hectares of land that would otherwise be required to develop Alberta’s goal of 5,000 MW of renewable energy generation.”
They propose a RenuWell project that can reduce the high up-front costs of renewable energy development by utilizing disturbed land and existing infrastructure such as access roads, graded well pads and electrical infrastructure. The developers say it would also reduce the high overhead costs associated with smaller-scale networked projects and enable a rapid transition to a cost-competitive distributed system where generation capacity is closer to the energy consumer.
“The RenuWell Project will demonstrate value to oil and gas producers by providing low-cost electricity for ongoing production while improving the overall carbon intensity of their operations. Lease liabilities would also be reduced because the risk to the landowners is reduced. In addition to the natural economic and environmental gains, advantages include providing local skills training and employment initiatives for oil and gas workers and indigenous communities.
Credit: Wikimedia.com
“Many of the conventional oil and gas fields in Western Canada have reached the end of their economic lifespan and this has left a legacy of inactive and abandoned wells. In Alberta alone there are approximately 200,000 inactive wells and the corresponding surface leases account for more than 1,600 square kilometres of disturbed and potentially contaminated land. There is a moral and economic responsibility to clean up the existing inventory of abandoned well sites and facilities, while preventing further adverse effects to watersheds, agricultural lands and rural communities.”