Bechtel International Corporation

Other

Charles T Draney

Charles A Lambly

Leon Awerbuch

Hydraulic mining of tar sands in a formation wherein water is introduced into a plurality of spaced cavities in the bottom of a tar sands formation and above a number of tunnels communicating with respective cavities by openings. In one embodiment of the method, water is sprayed onto exposed tar sands surfaces in the cavity and further creates a moist atmosphere in those regions of the cavity where the water is not directly sprayed on the surfaces. The moist atmosphere can be in the form of suspended water droplets or can be saturated water vapor at a temperature above the ambient temperature of the tar sands or a combination of both. The water on the exposed surfaces penetrates the formation along paths of preferential wetability, causing adjacent portions of the formation to separate and break loose from the formation itself in a direction in which the portions are free to expand. This separation enlarges each cavity and the separated tar sands portions eventually disintegrate and become loosened tar sands by the continued presence of the water spray and the moist atmosphere. Heat can be introduced in the form of steam or by heating the incoming water, and the heat accelerates the separation of the formation and the disintegration of the tar sands portions. The disintegrated tar sands are slurried in water with the aid of one or more water jets or by other suitable mechanical action, and are removed as a slurry by gravity flow from each cavity.

Method of removing tar sands from subterranean formations

A system and method for utilizing the heat energy of the effluent from a geothermal well. The system includes a surface evaporator which allows a preheated distillate, freed of impurities, to be vaporized by the heat energy of the steam and/or brine from the geothermal well. The resulting vapor is used to drive a power unit such as a multi-stage turbine. The vapor exhausted from the power unit is condensed by any of a number of conventional means. A portion of the condensate is then recycled through the system, wherein it becomes the direct contact condensing medium for the vapor produced by flashing hot geothermal brine in a multi-stage flash evaporator through which the brine and the condensate are passing countercurrently. The vapor thus condensed augments the aforesaid recycled condensate and, together, they constitute the aforementioned distillate entering the surface evaporator and carrying with it the heat energy extracted from the brine in the flash evaporator. The remainder of the condensate from the condenser may be withdrawn from the system and constitutes a product resulting from the practice of the desalination process of the invention. Residual brine is carried off from the multi-stage flash evaporator and contains retrievable salts and other valuable minerals.

Geothermal energy recovery process

Method for recovering bitumen from oil or tar sand using jets of hot water and/or steam introduced into the sand via raises connected to underlying spaced aprt tunnels. The jets are arcuately moved horizontally in overlapping patterns to slurry the sand. Caverns are formed by caving the tar sand and removal of the slurry into which the over burden is permitted to cave forming there above a surface depression usable as a tailing pond. Cavities are formed by other jets which connect with the priorly formed cavities so there is a continuous backward movement of interconnecting cavities.

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Hillsborough, CA, United States of America

Charles T Draney