Please Pass the Salt: Using Oil Fields for the Disposal of Concentrate from Desalination Plants. Desalination and Water Purification Research and Development Program No. 112

摘要

Desalination is becoming a much more viable alternative for freshwater supply. However, desalination plants need a place to put their concentrate. One promising possibility is injecting concentrate into oil and gas fields where formation pressures have been greatly lowered due to past oil production. Oil and gas fields are promising in Texas because they occur in many parts of the State, oil- and gas-field operators have considerable experience injecting oil field brines into these fields in more than 30,000 wells, and the impact to the environment is negligible to non-existent. The cost of concentrate disposal could be reduced even more if communities could dispose of concentrate down the same or similarly equipped wells that accept oil field brines. Unfortunately, the current permitting environment does not allow this option. Instead, desalination plant operators would be expected to apply for a Class I permit (millions of dollars and years) instead of using a Class II permitted well (which only requires thousands of dollars and months for a permit). The purpose of this study was to show that oil fields could accept injected concentrate from desalination plants and to recommend changes to statutes and rules that would allow the disposal of concentrate in oil fields.