God’s Energy Technology Toxic Wastewater Solution for Texas

                                                                                               04-02-2025, researched by Wolfgang Kovacek

The Permian Basin, Texas’s crown jewel of oil production, has a toxic secret. Each day, oil wells in this region produce approximately 25 million barrels (about one billion gallons) of wastewater. This isn’t ordinary wastewater – it’s described by Inside Climate News as “practically the filthiest fluid to ever be contemplated for treatment” – seven times saltier than seawater and contaminated with drilling chemicals, hydrocarbons, ammonia, and radioactive elements from deep underground.

The Mounting Wastewater Crisis

How severe is the oilfield wastewater problem?

According to the Texas Produced Water Consortium, wastewater volumes in Texas’s Permian Basin have increased sharply in recent years to a staggering 25 million barrels, or about a billion gallons, per day. That’s enough to cover a square mile in five feet of toxic brine every single day.

The Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas has documented that oil wells in the Permian can spit up three barrels of wastewater for every barrel of crude oil produced. With Texas producing approximately 5 million barrels of oil daily according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the mathematics of the wastewater challenge become staggering.

What happens to this toxic water now?

Currently, almost all of this wastewater is pumped back underground at high pressure for disposal. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has linked this practice to “intensifying earthquakes, surface blowouts and other environmental disasters across the area.” In fact, the problem has become so severe that the Railroad Commission of Texas has already begun limiting injections in certain regions due to these environmental concerns.

According to Stanford University’s Stanford Earth research, from 2017 to 2023, the Permian Basin experienced more than a 10-fold increase in earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater, directly correlating with increased wastewater injection volumes.

Could wastewater treatment and reuse be the answer?

Treating this wastewater for beneficial reuse could potentially solve multiple problems simultaneously:

1. Reduce earthquake risks by decreasing underground injection
2. Create a new water source for water-scarce Texas
3. Prevent potential limitations on oil production due to disposal constraints

However, conventional treatment approaches face enormous obstacles:

Treatment Challenges

Why is oilfield wastewater so difficult to treat?

The Journal of Petroleum Technology has documented that Permian Basin wastewater contains extreme concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS) ranging from 80,000 to over 200,000 mg/L – far exceeding seawater’s approximately 35,000 mg/L. The water also contains proprietary drilling chemicals, naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), heavy metals, and hydrocarbons.

Inside Climate News reports that this wastewater “can’t be treated by the most common methods that use membrane filters, so companies are racing to apply other heat-based processes.”

What are the energy requirements for treatment?

According to research from the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium, current water treatment pilot projects in the Permian Basin target energy costs between five and 25 kilowatt hours per barrel of wastewater treated.

This compares with just 1.3 kilowatt hours per barrel to desalinate seawater and 0.3 kilowatt hours per barrel to treat municipal wastewater. At these rates, treating the daily wastewater output would require between 5 and 26 gigawatts of power – approximately the statewide generation capacities of Idaho and Indiana, respectively.

What happens to the waste products after treatment?

Conventional treatment methods face another significant challenge: dealing with the concentrated waste stream. Mike Hightower, director of the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium, notes that thermal processes for desalination typically yield about half the original volume in clean water – about 500 million gallons per day from the Permian Basin.

The other half that’s left behind is mostly salts and other contaminants – enough, by industry calculations, to fill more than 6,900 rail cars per day. With limited disposal options, this concentrated waste would most likely be injected back underground, continuing the cycle of environmental risk.

The Genergy Solution

How does Genergy propose to solve these challenges?

Genergy offers a revolutionary solution for the Permian Basin

1. Zero-Waste Treatment Process: Unlike conventional methods that still require underground disposal of waste products, Genergy’s system is designed to reuse and sell the waste products. The company states that oil and chemicals can be recycled or vaporized using Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) technology, resulting in ZERO underground disposal requirements.
2. Energy-Efficient Processing: By leveraging The WaterNet’s infrastructure, Genergy claims to reduce energy costs for evaporation technology by 50%, making it economically viable to use thermal treatment – generally considered more effective for highly contaminated wastewater but historically too expensive.
3. Complete Elimination of Injection Wells: By processing 100% of the wastewater with no residual waste stream requiring disposal, Genergy’s approach would theoretically eliminate the need for injection wells, thereby removing the primary cause of induced seismicity in the region.

Is a zero-waste process possible?

Yes. Zero Liquid Discharge is the start. After “ZLD” Genergy says; “Just Add Energy”.

Filtration & Separation Magazine (https://www.filtsep.com/) highlights thousands of different companies with millions of different products for filtering and separating different materials. The common thread for everything is energy.

The American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology journal has published numerous studies on resource recovery from wastewater. Recent advances in thermal decomposition processes, similar to the Electric Arc Furnace technology Genergy proposes to use, have shown promising results in breaking down complex contaminants while recovering valuable materials.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office has also funded research into high-temperature processing of waste streams to recover minerals, metals, and other valuable components while eliminating hazardous characteristics.

Economic Implications

Would this approach be economically viable?

Christine Guerrero, a career petroleum engineer quoted in the Inside Climate News article, stated that “companies won’t opt to treat their wastewater until the costs are lower than injection disposal.” Currently, injection is substantially cheaper than any treatment option.

The State of Texas is now making changes because of the environmental impact of the chemicals that is compounded by the problem of the water shortage.

However, the calculation changes when considering:

1. Regulatory Risk: The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission has noted that regulatory constraints on wastewater disposal are tightening across producing regions. If injection wells become more limited, production could be curtailed.
2. Resource Recovery: The Rocky Mountain Institute’s analysis of circular economy approaches in the oil and gas sector suggests that recovery of minerals, particularly lithium and other critical elements used in batteries, could transform wastewater from a liability into an asset.
3. Water Scarcity Value: The Texas Water Development Board has projected that by 2030, water shortages could cost Texas businesses and workers up to $151 billion in economic damages. Clean water recovered from oil field operations can offset these losses.

A Comprehensive Solution

Genergy’s approach claims to address both the immediate challenge of wastewater management and the longer-term issues of water scarcity and energy needs. By eliminating earthquake-causing injection wells while producing clean water and recovering valuable resources, the system could transform an environmental liability into an economic and resource opportunity.

As Texas evaluates solutions to its wastewater challenges, the words from Isaiah 43:19 offer a fitting perspective: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” The challenge of oilfield wastewater represents an opportunity to implement innovative approaches that could literally bring streams of clean water from what is currently treated as wasteland.

Sources:

• Inside Climate News: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24032025/texas-oilfield-wastewater-treatment-small-nuclear-reactors/
• Texas Produced Water Consortium: https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/texasprwc/
• Bureau of Economic Geology (University of Texas): https://www.beg.utexas.edu/
• U.S. Energy Information Administration: https://www.eia.gov/
• United States Geological Survey (USGS): https://www.usgs.gov/
• Railroad Commission of Texas: https://www.rrc.texas.gov/
• Stanford Earth (Stanford University): https://earth.stanford.edu/
• Journal of Petroleum Technology: https://jpt.spe.org/
• New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium: https://nmpwrc.nmsu.edu/
• American Chemical Society – Environmental Science & Technology: https://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag
• U.S. Department of Energy – Advanced Manufacturing Office: https://www.energy.gov/eere/amo
• Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission: https://iogcc.ok.gov/
• Rocky Mountain Institute: https://rmi.org/
• Texas Water Development Board: https://www.twdb.texas.gov/
• Genergy: www.gnrg.us
• The WaterNet: www.thewaternet.com