Of Talking Roads And Fracking Modes — This Company Says It Aims To Wear Many Hats And All Of Them Are Green

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People have long held a fascination for inanimate objects coming to life — in the Stephen King film “Maximum Overdrive,” for example, Army trucks rise up against humans. Sci-fi has always held people in thrall. 

But what if the road were to come alive and talk to drivers, alerting them of accidents and weather conditions or sending immediate notifications when a vehicle crashes?

One clean energy technology company, Vivakor Inc. VIVK, reports it has achieved just that. Through its self-powered roadway sensors, the company has begun to prototype instruments that collect temperature data to better direct salting and plowing operations, send notifications about roadway wear that assist repair crews and disseminate traffic data to provide clearer pictures of the edge of the highway to drivers.

But Vivakor says it has a much loftier focus — that of being a pioneer in the circular carbon economy.

The global oil and gas market is already massive and is expected to grow even more from $4.6 trillion in 2020 to $5.8 trillion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.5%.

Soil Is As Important As Oil And Gas?

One of the adverse fallouts of the process of extraction of oil and gas is the seepage of petroleum hydrocarbons into the ground, causing carbonization of the soil and adversely impacting the environment and human health.

Major companies in the oil and gas industry — including Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM, Chevron Corp. CVX and BP plc BP — use artificial intelligence to gather the raw data necessary for quickly reacting to oil spillage. 

Vivakor says its energy technologies enable the successful remediation and recovery of hydrocarbons from both wet and dry contamination sources without waste and upgrade the waste to produce marketable fuel products such as performance-grade asphaltic cement.

The Soil Remediation Process

Vivakor’s Remediation Processing Centers (RPCs) use a proprietary liquid for extraction instead of precious water resources, and the soil is processed in fully contained, closed loops with no harmful emissions released, the company reports.

The remediated bitumen from the oil sands of its main site in Utah, for example, is refined and transformed into asphaltic cement, which the company says creates a significant revenue stream rather than harmful byproducts that must be stored or transported to a landfill. 

In March, Vivakor reached an agreement with Tar Sands Holdings II LLC that is expected to provide it with multiple years of rich oil sands supply in Utah, along with access to its operational services.

"Locking in a reliable supply of rich, raw oil sands was an important step in preparation to execute long-term sales contracts and prepare for the continual production and sale of asphalt at our Vernal, Utah, facility," CEO Matt Nicosia said. “Working with Greenfield as the mine operator, we have secured the necessary materials and expertise to scale production to expected levels of around 1,000 barrels per day of oil or 200 tons of our performance-grade asphalt product.”

Also in March, Vivakor entered into a collaboration with TBT Group Inc. and the Center for Research and Education in Advanced Transportation Systems (CREATEs) at Rowan University for its self-powered road sensors. The deal allows Vivakor to license TBT's energy harvesting and sensor technology to support infrastructure needed for use by autonomous vehicles. 

The company says this development adds value for its existing customers for whom it offers environmentally friendly asphalt — reclaimed from remediated hydrocarbons — by providing them with an embedded smart sensor technology that will make the roads safer.

Apart from its RPC technology, Vivakor has reported curating technologies in the following areas: 

• An exclusive license to use a highly thermally conductive nano-sponge technology to convert recovered hydrocarbons into petroleum or gasoline

• An adaptation of its RPC to process bottom-of-the-barrel petroleum sludge using cavitation technologies to recover the heavy crude and turn it into asphalt
• A wastewater-management system that can effectively remove grease, oil and suspended solids from the wastewater for up to 99.99% of waste, enabling the cleaned water to be reused or discharged without any further filtration or treatment

If you are interested in learning more about Vivakor, visit: https://vivakor.com/

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.

Photo by Maria Lupan on Unsplash