Economically and Environmentally Sustainable Enhanced Oil Recovery. M. R. Islam

apparatus is most noteworthy (Waines, 2010).

      Today, such distillation processes are all be eliminated. Perhaps the closest to retaining the original sustainable refining technologies is the perfume industry, for which extracting essential oils from plants is the biggest technological challenge. The advantage of distillation is that the volatile components can be distilled at temperatures lower than the boiling points of their individual constituents and are easily separated from the condensed water. For the perfume industry, the use of water is desirable as water is the most ubiquitous material and does not alter the original aroma. Such fascination for water is absent in the chemical industry, particularly the ones dealing with petroleum fluids. In fact, in considering petroleum waste disposal, water is considered to be an undesirable by-product of the petroleum operation that need to be removed in order to ensure proper functioning of the refining process.

Similarly, the process of expression, also referred to as cold pressing, is popular in the perfume industry. Numerous essential oils are routinely extracted through cold pressing. In particular, citrus essential oils, such as tangerine, lemon, bergamot, sweet orange, and lime employ the process of expression. In older times, expression was done in the form of sponge pressing. The zest or rind of the citrus would first be soaked in warm water to make the rind more receptive to the pressing process. A sponge would then be used to press the rind, thus breaking the essential oil cavities, and absorb the essential oil. Once the sponge was filled with the extraction, it would then be pressed over a collecting container, and there it would stand to allow for the separation of the essential oil and water/juice. The essential oil would finally be siphoned off. Centuries ago, less labor-intensive processes have been employed. One such process, termed the Écuelle à piquer, involves a prodding, pricking, sticking action to release the essential oil. During this process, the rind of the fruit is placed in a container having spikes that will puncture the peel while the device is rotated. The puncturing of the rind will release the essential oil that is then collected in a small area below the container. While it is not commonly understood, the material used in those puncturing spikes would affect both the quality of the essential oil and the sustainability of the process (Khan and Islam, 2016). Today, the majority of modern expression techniques are accomplished by using machines using centrifugal force. The spinning in a centrifuge separates the majority of essential oil from the fruit juice.

2.3 Beginning of the Petroleum Culture

      Captain Edwin L. Drake, a career railroad conductor who devised a way to drill a practical oil well, is usually credited to have drilled the first-ever oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. Curiously, initial “thirst” for oil was for seeking a replacement of natural oils (e.g. from whales) as a lubricating agent. Recall the need for such oil owing to a surge of mechanical devices in mid 1800s. Even if one discards the notion that petroleum was in use for thousands of years, there is credible evidence that the first well in modern age was drilled in Canada. Canadian, Charles Nelson Tripp, a foreman of a stove foundry, was the first in North America to have recovered commercial petroleum products. The drilling was completed in 1851 at Enniskillen Township, near Sarnia, in present-day Ontario, which was known as Canada West at that time. Soon after the “mysterious” “gum bed” was discovered, first oil company was incorporated in Canada through a parliamentary charter. Unlike Captain Drake’s project, this particular project was a refining endeavor in order to extract fuel from bitumen. Tripp became the president of this company on December 18, 1854. The charter empowered the company to explore for asphalt beds and oil and salt springs, and to manufacture oils, naphtha paints, burning fluids. Even though this company (International Mining and Manufacturing) was not a financial success, the petroleum products received an honorable mention for excellence at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1855. Failure of the company can be attributed to several factors contributed to the downfall of the operation. Lack of roads in the area made the movement of machinery and equipment to the site extremely difficult. And after every heavy rain the area turned into a swamp and the gum beds made drainage extremely slow. This added to the difficulty of distributing finished products. It was at that time that need for processing petroleum products in order to make it more fluid surfaced.

In 1855, James Miller Williams took over the business of refining petroleum in Lambton County from Charles Nelson Tripp. At that time, it was a small operation, with 150 gallon/day asphalt production. Williams set out during a drought in September 1858 to dig a drinking water well down-slope from it but struck free oil instead, thereby becoming the first person to produce a commercial oil well in North America, one year before Edwin Drake. Also of significance the fact that he set up Canada’s first refinery of crude oil to produce kerosene, based on the laboratory work of Abraham Gesner. Interestingly, Gesner was a medical doctor by training (from London) but took special interest in geology. He is the one credited to have invented kerosene to take over the previous market, saturated with whale oil - a wholly natural product. It was this Gesner, who in 1850 created the Kerosene Gas Light Company and began installing lighting in the streets in Halifax and other cities. By 1854, he had expanded to the United States where he created the North American Kerosene Gas Light Company at Long Island, New York. Demand grew to where his company’s capacity to produce became a problem, but the discovery of petroleum, from which kerosene could be more easily produced, solved the supply problem. This was the first time in recorded history artificial processing technique was introduced in refining petroleum products. Gesner did not use the term “refined” but made fortune out of the sale of this artificial processing. In 1861, he published a book titled: A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum and Other Distilled Oils, which became a standard reference in the field. As Gesner’s company was absorbed into the petroleum monopoly, Standard Oil, he returned to Halifax, where he was appointed a professor of natural history at Dalhousie University. It is this university that was founded on pirated money while other pirates continued to be hanged by the Royal Navy at Point Pleasant Park’s Black Rock Beach as late as 1844.⁶

Going back to Williams story, his well, called Williams No. 1 well at Oil Springs, Ontario was the first commercial oil well in North America.

      The Sarnia Observer and Lambton Advertiser, quoting from the Woodstock Sentinel, published on page two on August 5, 1858:

      An important discovery has just been made in the Township of Enniskillen.

      A short time since, a party, in digging a well at the edge of the bed of Bitumen, struck upon a vein of oil, which combining with the earth forms the Bitumen.

      Some historians challenge Canada’s claim to North America’s first oil field, arguing that Pennsylvania’s famous Drake Well was the continent’s first. But there is evidence to support Williams, not least of which is that the Drake well did not come into production until August 28, 1859. The controversial point might be that Williams found oil above bedrock while “Colonel” Edwin Drake’s well located oil within a bedrock reservoir. History is not clear as to when Williams abandoned his Oil Springs refinery and transferred his operations to Hamilton. However, he was certainly operating there by 1860.

      Historically, the ability of oil to flow freely has fascinated developers and at the same time ability of gas to leak and go out of control has intimidated them. Such fascination and intimidation continues today while nuclear electricity is considered to be benign while natural gas considered to be the source of global warming, all because it contains carbon - the very component nature needs for creating an organic product. Scientifically, however, the need for refining stems from the necessity of producing clean flame. Historically, Arabs were reportedly the first ones to use refined olive oil. They used exclusively natural chemicals in order to refine oil (Islam et al., 2010). We have seen in the previous sections, the onset of unsustainable technologies is marked by the introduction of electricity and other inventions of the plastic era.

For its part, natural gas seeps in Ontario County, New York were first reported in 1669 by the French explorer, M. de La Salle, and a French missionary, M. de Galinee, who were shown the springs by local Native Americans. This is the debut of natural gas industry in North America. Subsequently, William Hart, a local gunsmith, drilled the first commercial natural gas well in the United States in 1821 in Fredonia, Chautauqua County. He drilled a 27-foot deep well in an effort