Salt domes and salt caverns, storage solutions for petroleum and hydrogen
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Summary
In this episode of the Global Energy Show in Calgary, I chat with Julie Lemieux, President and CEO of Triple Point Resources, a company that is building a salt mine to store hydrogen in the form of a salt dome.
Transcript
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i'm here on the floor of the global energy show in calgary with julie lemieux
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she is the president and ceo of triple point resources uh that's a company it's based here
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in calgary right yes but it's uh but it's also active out east uh you're a native from quebec
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but uh like myself you've seen the light and uh become a convert to alberta exactly but you guys
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do business in alberta uh and out east you want to tell us a bit more about that yeah so the the
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office that we have here is in calgary but our project our flagship project is in newfoundland
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so we uh we were spent out from a company called atlas salt and they had uh part of their portfolio
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of asset they had the salt dome and they are focusing themselves on uh their salt mine for
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road salt and they wanted to maximize the value for the investor uh with the salt dome and they
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were starting to have phone calls from different company to see what they can uh if they can use
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the salt dome so we decide to spin that out uh and we created triple point at that time and now we want
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to maximize uh the value for not just for investor but what we can do with this asset and salt mines
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yeah uh the salt mine was on the atlas salt for us we want to store energy yeah so that that's a
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little bit different but salt cavern has been used in the oil and gas industry to store oil to store gas
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um since the 60s and it's very uh important in in in the oil and gas sector on the as midstreamer will
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will use it to stockpile to create reserve to trade commodities as well so in the hydrogen sector that
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is expanding now and for the expansion of renewable energy there's no better way of storing energy than
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building those salt caverns so using an oil and gas technique for renewable storing uh compressed air
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in hydrogen uh that's very unique and that salt dome is uh in newfoundland it's the only one uh that we
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have in canada so having a salt dome domal salt is very different than the type of salt you have here
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in in alberta as an example or in the sarnia area where the it's just a layer of salt for us it's it's
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domal salt so the the thickness of the the salt deposit we have is very important and you can build
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way larger cavern and you can store more easily hydrogen in it the smallest molecule having salt
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that is very tight uh that makes it very interesting and for us with the proven salt dome we've tested the
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salt from it we have a lot of core from from the past so we know it's a secure proven asset ready to
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to support the industry uh we're chatting a bit about our fondness for new fees before uh before we
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started rolling here um you know i was saying some of my favorite albertans tend to actually be
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newfoundlanders they have the faith of the convert because they've chosen alberta uh like you you came
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from quebec i came from ontario um uh what's the difference between your projects in say alberta
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and newfoundland newfoundland's offshore for all of this kind of thing what's what's what's the difference
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in the technology and the kind of caverns well it's it's not that different and the salt dome is
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in newfoundland uh just under the transcanada highway 30 kilometers from the ocean 30 kilometers
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south from uh the town of stephenville uh that that makes it onshore an onshore asset but the the main
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important aspect is it's one of the most prominent uh wind corridor in the world one of the best ones so
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there's a lot of massive wind farms that are coming uh to be in operation in newfoundland and the only
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way you can store uh the excess energy that we will have from the renewable that will will come online
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and and it's already uh the electricity out there is is with hydro so to gather and store somewhere
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all the access that you have on the grid there's no better way than using salt cavern and the power
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line is just above our head so it's it's even better and and i see you shaking your head on
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on this concept the the technology i mean it's it's uh okay without making this a science class
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uh as much as you can just explain it to me like so for i can understand it for our viewers uh how does
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this technology work yeah so so first i will go back to the salt deposit so it's a five kilometers
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um structure by 4.5 almost two kilometer deep and there's massive salt that is super tight so what
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you're going to use as technique to do the a cavern is you're going to drill on surface all the way to
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the base of the cavern you want to create and slowly you're going to inject water so you do you do
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solution mining and we'll create a cavity that's roughly 80 meters wide by two three 400 meters high
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depending of the project we want to attach and then you have an empty space that is ready to
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accommodate uh either a gas or in our case we believe we need to support the grid to start with
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so the best way there is uh is to use compressed air energy storage so those type of projects have been
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in around the world happening and basically it's it's just that you have compressor that activate
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when there's excess power on the grid and the more excess power the more you activate uh these pump
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pumps on the ground and it just pumps air and it compresses it on the ground once you release it
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uh that's where the beauty is and and you can imagine it's it's like pumping your tire so you
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pump your tire to a point that's energy and that's energy and then when you release it air is coming out
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that air will funnel through uh through a turbine again you can regenerate power and you will
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regenerate uh electricity for the grid when it needs it so it acts a little bit like a pacemaker if you
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want so you charge those caverns so it's massive uh kind of battery that you have available then once
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you have one cavern you can build another one and another one and we can build 20 30 of those caverns
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over time so it will be an asset you said they're like five kilometers yeah like how big are these
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things five kilometers by 4.5 kilometers two kilometers deep that's the deposit itself but the cavern
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inside it's like little uh candle that you will have inside oh so so there's a bunch of smaller
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caverns within it exactly okay so and there's a lot of rules and that seems to be important for safety
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i would imagine because that'd be a trip be like an atomic bomb stored up of compressed air well
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compressed air is just is just that it's compressed air so you will release it uh no matter what the
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the other thing is you can have electrolyzer uh as well so when there's excess power you can
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electrolyze it and store the hydrogen on the ground and what we believe is because of the wind corridor
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we can have a clean energy reserve for canada and we can have our own energy reserve that will be clean
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that's something that is different from uh like in in the u.s and germany and france they store
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reserve of oil on the ground in those salt cavern like the u.s they have enough oil in those cavern
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to be able to provide oil for the entire u.s for many months uh we can have exactly their strategic
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reserves so you have the same thing in different countries we don't have that here in canada
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but i think with uh the call that we have to bring project of national importance that brings another
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aspect of what else we can do to become a superpower this is it i think for atlantic canada having that
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reserve and that we can use for ourselves and i know some people believe in the hydrogen some
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other don't um and and on top of that you can have the export well the export is just above our heads
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you regenerate power and and put it on on the grid for for us canadian and bring more business
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in atlantic canada how many of these projects have you guys got going you've got one big one in new
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finland uh what about the or on the rest canada we are laser focused on on that one in in newfoundland
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that's that's the having a soul dome like i said it's very different here in alberta you have smaller
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cavern so we try to find the the right partner to develop this one and we we have a lot of people
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around there is a lot of projects that are very similar inside like aces delta in utah is a massive
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project where you need to do something with that excess energy like wind and solar it's it's great
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when there's a lot of wind and it's great when there's a lot of sun but what you do when it's not
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there you need to be able to harness that energy you you can use battery they will be depleted pretty
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quick but salt cavern bring the answer for really long-term storage when you decide when you want to
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release that power so you you create renewable on demand that's that's the magic with that would
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seem to be a game changer storage exactly getting that energy when it's needed uh that that's one of
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the big key weaknesses of a lot of those renewables so that would seem to be game changer if you're able
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to bring that exactly and that's that's something that we've been talking about for the last two years
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and now you see that there's a lot more traction and there's a lot more interest about atlantic canada with
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the wind resources they have there and yes we can have another cavern for natural gas or we can have
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another cavern for oil at this stage we want to to see and and continue to advance those clean energy
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projects and and they're all coming together so i think for canada it's it's another opportunity we have
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um on our super power uh side well thank you very much uh that's fascinating stuff uh i know you've
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talked to some of our reporters before and uh i'm sure we'll be talking again yeah i'm sure thank you thank