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Forging our fuel future
THE INSIDER
Forging our fuel future The oil and gas industry need fresh faces and innovation to clean up their energy from the inside and meet an ever-increasing demand, finds Simon Roach IT’S no secret that the oil and gas industry is an money has poured into the industry. established pillar of the UK economy. Not only Investment in oil and gas has risen from has the industry weathered the 2008 financial £11.4 billion in 2012, to more than £13 billion crisis, but recovery in output helped the UK in 2013, and is set to rise again next year. avoid a triple-dip recession earlier this year. The knock-on effect is that the demand Investment is surging, and job opportunities for engineers is on the up and average are doing the same. This is creating some salaries in the sector have increased from exciting prospects for new recruits, either cleaning up current practices or changing the “The biggest opportunity of working in the energy industry is being way we extract energy altogether. involved in climate change solutions” The UK runs on oil and gas. Together, the two fuels accounted for 73 per cent of the country’s energy in 2012 and the ever-rising £64,000 to nearly £74,000 this year alone. needs of a growing population mean this But it’s not all about the money. In a figure is unlikely to change any time soon. The warming climate, perhaps the greatest appeal UK Oil and Gas Industry Association predicts of a career in the oil and gas industry is the that in the 2040s, 70 per cent of our energy chance to transform the way we generate and will still come from these sources. As a result, use energy. Lyle Andrews, UK head of graduate
Case Study Explosions at sea Energy companies extracting oil and gas at sea need to make sure they are not disturbing fragile underwater ecosystems – or unexploded bombs. It is up to environmental specialists, like Michelle Horsfield at BP, to remind companies of their responsibility. “In many ways, my job involves holding up a mirror to my colleagues and saying, ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ Acting as a sort of internal conscience, if you like.” One day, Horsfield’s team might be assessing the impact on marine life of a proposed offshore rig; another, they might be decommissioning an oil platform the size of Canary Wharf. “There’s no such thing as a typical day,” she says. And some days are more challenging than others. Horsfield and her colleagues were once conducting a routine assessment of an oil pipeline in the North Sea, when they came across an unusual object. “We found this huge, 3-metre-long metal lump banging up against the pipeline with a clunk-clunk,” she recalls. “It turned out
50 | NewScientist | 9 November 2013
to be a second world war German naval mine.” When the team called the Ministry of Defence for advice, they were surprised to find themselves lumped with the responsibility of detonating the mine. “The MoD’s response was: ‘You guys know best about how to keep your pipeline safe, so off you go’,” says Horsfield. “For me, that demonstrates the quality of the engineers that I work with – the marine scientists, the naval architects, lifting specialists and the huge teams of financial advisers and lawyers.” It was up to Horsfield to ensure that marine mammals nearby would be minimally affected. “I did a lot of modelling to work out how far we needed to move the mine before detonating it – for the protection of both the pipeline and the animals that we know live in that area.” The mine was dragged 6 kilometres away from pipelines and marine hotspots before it was detonated, but the explosion was still huge. “We had a vessel 2 kilometres away and we shouldn’t have felt it, because it was detonated below the surface,” says Horsfield. “But everyone on the boat was knocked off their feet.”
recruitment at energy giant BP, thinks there has never been a more exciting time for engineers to get involved. “There’s demand for energy going up but also a lot of innovation going on across the energy sector, with new sources of hydrocarbons as well as alternatives,” he says. John MacArthur, vice president of gas technology at Shell, believes this innovation will be especially important given recent research. According to a report from Imperial College London, we are going to have to halve our carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 if we want avoid dangerous levels of climate change. Engineers and researchers in the oil and gas industry can play an important role here: “One of the biggest opportunities of working in the energy industry is being involved in the solutions,” says MacArthur. “By the middle of this century, 65 per cent of our energy mix will still be fossil fuels. If we want to keep under 2 °C of global warming, then they need to be clean.” MacArthur and his colleagues are working on ways to reduce the CO2 emissions associated with burning fossil fuels. One key technique involves capturing the CO2 released and storing it underground, in a process known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). Although environmental groups believe investing in renewables is a better idea, “carbon abatement” techniques such as CCS could reduce fossil fuel emissions by up to 90 per cent, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The CO2 Capture Project – a partnership between several major energy companies – is exploring how CCS can be implemented on an industrial scale, and MacArthur is a board member. The efforts are still largely at the research stage, tackling the huge engineering challenges involved in constructing appropriate pipelines and storing CO2 below the ground. But this is where the expertise of oil and gas specialists will be vital, says Mike Stephenson, director of science and
Joachim Ladefoged/VII
To search for career opportunities go to newscientistjobs.com
technology at the British Geological Survey. Stephenson says a career in the energy industry gives new engineers a chance to make an impact on fossil fuel emissions. “My advice would be to go into big companies that are forward looking... companies that might be doing oil and gas now, but have got an idea about enhanced oil recovery or CCS in the future,” he says.
Oceans of opportunity Whatever size company new recruits join, there are a huge variety of engineering roles to choose from. Petroleum engineers, for example, monitor the flow of oil and gas from reservoirs and through pipelines to ensure a steady fuel supply. Reservoir engineers are responsible for maximising oil or gas recovery, and advise on how best to extract these fuels. Above ground, civil engineers help
design, build and maintain huge offshore structures, seeing them through from an initial concept to operations and eventually to decommissioning. Environmental specialists are in charge of keeping things clean, and monitor and minimise the impacts of operations on wildlife (see Case Study: Explosions at sea). Whether you’re interested in an industry position or an academic career, an engineering degree is a good place to start: there are plenty of academic institutions investigating ways to manage the environmental impacts of fossil fuels. As a petroleum geoscientist at Imperial College London, Alastair Fraser’s interests lie in the Arctic – a region thought to contain around one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas resources. Fraser and his colleagues are investigating ways to exploit these resources without damaging the region’s
Engineers working in the oil and gas industry can revolutionise the way we extract energy
fragile ecosystem. “It’s about looking for ways to do this sensibly, to build [extraction] structures that can withstand the harsh conditions up there, and to understand first and foremost where the oil and gas is,” he says. The future of arctic drilling, along with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract shale gas, remains highly controversial and many protest that the resulting environmental damage cannot be justified. But Fraser believes the best way to make a difference is to change the industry from the inside. “With smart people in oil companies, things will get done well,” says Fraser. “And the lights won’t go out.” Simon Roach is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland 9 November 2013 | NewScientist | 51
Forging our fuel future The oil and gas industry need fresh faces and innovation to clean up their energy from the inside and meet an ever-increasing demand, finds Simon Roach IT’S no secret that the oil and gas industry is an money has poured into the industry. established pillar of the UK economy. Not only Investment in oil and gas has risen from has the industry weathered the 2008 financial £11.4 billion in 2012, to more than £13 billion crisis, but recovery in output helped the UK in 2013, and is set to rise again next year. avoid a triple-dip recession earlier this year. The knock-on effect is that the demand Investment is surging, and job opportunities for engineers is on the up and average are doing the same. This is creating some salaries in the sector have increased from exciting prospects for new recruits, either cleaning up current practices or changing the “The biggest opportunity of working in the energy industry is being way we extract energy altogether. involved in climate change solutions” The UK runs on oil and gas. Together, the two fuels accounted for 73 per cent of the country’s energy in 2012 and the ever-rising £64,000 to nearly £74,000 this year alone. needs of a growing population mean this But it’s not all about the money. In a figure is unlikely to change any time soon. The warming climate, perhaps the greatest appeal UK Oil and Gas Industry Association predicts of a career in the oil and gas industry is the that in the 2040s, 70 per cent of our energy chance to transform the way we generate and will still come from these sources. As a result, use energy. Lyle Andrews, UK head of graduate
Case Study Explosions at sea Energy companies extracting oil and gas at sea need to make sure they are not disturbing fragile underwater ecosystems – or unexploded bombs. It is up to environmental specialists, like Michelle Horsfield at BP, to remind companies of their responsibility. “In many ways, my job involves holding up a mirror to my colleagues and saying, ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ Acting as a sort of internal conscience, if you like.” One day, Horsfield’s team might be assessing the impact on marine life of a proposed offshore rig; another, they might be decommissioning an oil platform the size of Canary Wharf. “There’s no such thing as a typical day,” she says. And some days are more challenging than others. Horsfield and her colleagues were once conducting a routine assessment of an oil pipeline in the North Sea, when they came across an unusual object. “We found this huge, 3-metre-long metal lump banging up against the pipeline with a clunk-clunk,” she recalls. “It turned out
50 | NewScientist | 9 November 2013
to be a second world war German naval mine.” When the team called the Ministry of Defence for advice, they were surprised to find themselves lumped with the responsibility of detonating the mine. “The MoD’s response was: ‘You guys know best about how to keep your pipeline safe, so off you go’,” says Horsfield. “For me, that demonstrates the quality of the engineers that I work with – the marine scientists, the naval architects, lifting specialists and the huge teams of financial advisers and lawyers.” It was up to Horsfield to ensure that marine mammals nearby would be minimally affected. “I did a lot of modelling to work out how far we needed to move the mine before detonating it – for the protection of both the pipeline and the animals that we know live in that area.” The mine was dragged 6 kilometres away from pipelines and marine hotspots before it was detonated, but the explosion was still huge. “We had a vessel 2 kilometres away and we shouldn’t have felt it, because it was detonated below the surface,” says Horsfield. “But everyone on the boat was knocked off their feet.”
recruitment at energy giant BP, thinks there has never been a more exciting time for engineers to get involved. “There’s demand for energy going up but also a lot of innovation going on across the energy sector, with new sources of hydrocarbons as well as alternatives,” he says. John MacArthur, vice president of gas technology at Shell, believes this innovation will be especially important given recent research. According to a report from Imperial College London, we are going to have to halve our carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 if we want avoid dangerous levels of climate change. Engineers and researchers in the oil and gas industry can play an important role here: “One of the biggest opportunities of working in the energy industry is being involved in the solutions,” says MacArthur. “By the middle of this century, 65 per cent of our energy mix will still be fossil fuels. If we want to keep under 2 °C of global warming, then they need to be clean.” MacArthur and his colleagues are working on ways to reduce the CO2 emissions associated with burning fossil fuels. One key technique involves capturing the CO2 released and storing it underground, in a process known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). Although environmental groups believe investing in renewables is a better idea, “carbon abatement” techniques such as CCS could reduce fossil fuel emissions by up to 90 per cent, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The CO2 Capture Project – a partnership between several major energy companies – is exploring how CCS can be implemented on an industrial scale, and MacArthur is a board member. The efforts are still largely at the research stage, tackling the huge engineering challenges involved in constructing appropriate pipelines and storing CO2 below the ground. But this is where the expertise of oil and gas specialists will be vital, says Mike Stephenson, director of science and
Joachim Ladefoged/VII
To search for career opportunities go to newscientistjobs.com
technology at the British Geological Survey. Stephenson says a career in the energy industry gives new engineers a chance to make an impact on fossil fuel emissions. “My advice would be to go into big companies that are forward looking... companies that might be doing oil and gas now, but have got an idea about enhanced oil recovery or CCS in the future,” he says.
Oceans of opportunity Whatever size company new recruits join, there are a huge variety of engineering roles to choose from. Petroleum engineers, for example, monitor the flow of oil and gas from reservoirs and through pipelines to ensure a steady fuel supply. Reservoir engineers are responsible for maximising oil or gas recovery, and advise on how best to extract these fuels. Above ground, civil engineers help
design, build and maintain huge offshore structures, seeing them through from an initial concept to operations and eventually to decommissioning. Environmental specialists are in charge of keeping things clean, and monitor and minimise the impacts of operations on wildlife (see Case Study: Explosions at sea). Whether you’re interested in an industry position or an academic career, an engineering degree is a good place to start: there are plenty of academic institutions investigating ways to manage the environmental impacts of fossil fuels. As a petroleum geoscientist at Imperial College London, Alastair Fraser’s interests lie in the Arctic – a region thought to contain around one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas resources. Fraser and his colleagues are investigating ways to exploit these resources without damaging the region’s
Engineers working in the oil and gas industry can revolutionise the way we extract energy
fragile ecosystem. “It’s about looking for ways to do this sensibly, to build [extraction] structures that can withstand the harsh conditions up there, and to understand first and foremost where the oil and gas is,” he says. The future of arctic drilling, along with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract shale gas, remains highly controversial and many protest that the resulting environmental damage cannot be justified. But Fraser believes the best way to make a difference is to change the industry from the inside. “With smart people in oil companies, things will get done well,” says Fraser. “And the lights won’t go out.” Simon Roach is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland 9 November 2013 | NewScientist | 51