The country has reluctantly realized that climate change is real and it’s only going to get worse—more fires, hurricanes, droughts and other woes.
One of the major climate change culprits is carbon dioxide along with methane gas. One effect of drought exacerbated by climate change is the Dust Bowl era that has plagued western Oklahoma and surrounding Kansas, New Mexico and Texas areas has further impacted agriculture negatively. Ground water level is still precipitously declining and rain is scarce. Potable water and, in some areas, aquifer irrigation water is stressed to the breaking point.
This article outlines a possible new direction for getting new potable water and creating a culture for a new generation of renewable and sustainable industries. The article references Oklahoma and Kansas, for example, but actions outlined herein can be deployed throughout the Midwest region.
Unlikely water resource
Northwestern Oklahoma and Panhandle and southern Kansas has numerous saltwater disposal wells to dispose of brines generated from oil and gas wells.
With the prospect of continuing CO2 enhanced oil recovery many of these former production wells may continue to be a longer-term source of brines. Some of these saline brine wells have the critical element, iodine, in commercial quantities.
Iodine as the commercial driver
Oklahoma is the leading United States producer of iodine. Oklahoma, after Chile and Japan, is the third world’s largest producer. Oklahoma has iodine concentrations of 20 to 400 parts per million. Iodine ranges around $40,000 a ton. Commercial levels of iodine are above 60 ppm.
Locally in Oklahoma KIVA (Leedy) and Iofina (Alva) use saltwater disposal wells to extract iodine. The two major Oklahoma iodine producers (Iochem in Vici and Woodward Iodine in Woodward) have dedicated wells augmented selectively by trucked-in or piped-in brines. The author of this article was a co-founder of Iochem, the largest U.S. iodine maker and has developed iodine recovery technologies.
Extracting iodine could further lead to treated, purified brackish or brine waters (salinity varying with wells and geography) which in turn can be looked at as a resource for desalinization (potable or agriculture quality water with some salt) or as a media for raising microalgae using recently developed algae production technology.
Microalgae
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy has spent billions in the field of bio-algae as a replacement for fossil fuels. Some of this algae production technology geared to specialty algal products could be adapted for northwestern Oklahoma and Kansas.
In the recent past the author interfaced with leading Israeli algae producers looking at pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. Oklahoma is near perfect for algae (sun, mild winters, inexpensive lands and saltwater via saltwater disposal and brines from the Anadarko). In this case, also carbon dioxide from the area could be used for enhancing algae productivity.
Potable water
Desalinization of brackish or saltwater disposal high saltwater treatment could lead to more city potable water using reverse osmosis, for example. Reverse osmosis is already used in Seiling, Oklahoma, removes sulfates from their gypsum laden (calcium sulfate) water.
Algae production, desalinization and iodine could combine to create a new industry—iodine, water, algae. Research support could be in conjunction with, for example, Langston University or Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
For more information, contact Terry Brix, BS/MS Chem. Eng., MBA, Chairman www. OCOChem.com, 541.556.3619 or [email protected]
