Innovation Anthology #159: Interim CEO
Before oil sands can be processed into oil, lumps of ore have to be crushed on their way through the plant.
Some of those lumps are as big as cars. And especially when they’re frozen, they can jam the crushers. Syncrude loses over 300 hours a year in downtime because of these lumps.
Through a research partnership with the University of Alberta, NSERC, iCORE, and Matrikon, the company has developed a new computerized sensing program.
It analyzes real time images of the moving ore, and forewarns the crusher operators of any huge lumps coming their way.
Syncrude scientist Dr. Ron Kube calls this technology Dirt TV.
DR. RON KUBE: We’re using images to measure the size information with a system we call “Dirt TV”, where you transport images from the oil sand process. You bring it back to a location, in this case we’re doing it at the University of Alberta which is 450-500 kilometers away from the plant. The computers are processing those images and making those size calculations and then writing that information back into the databases that are located in Fort McMurray – all using internet communications technology.
Thanks today to Syncrude Canada
Learn more at InnovationAnthology.com
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
Steve MacDonald,
ERA – Emissions Reduction Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
Sponsor
Syncrude
Program Date: 2008-08-12