An “Olympic” framework for a green decommissioning of an offshore oil platform

Oil and gas offshore platform and installations have a limited life of operations. When oil runs out, many terms are used to describe the situation: abandonment, removal, disposal, decommissioning, etc. Even the issue of decommissioning is now at the forefront of deep water oil drilling for many reason (the enormous costs required for disposal, the increasing number of rigs which required removal, the need to protect the marine environment, legal frameworks), there are very few published researchers studying the problem according to its different facets (legal, environmental, economical etc.). In this paper, we apply the concept of “Olympic” supply chain developed by Lakhal et al. Lakhal, SY, H'Mida S, Islam R. Green Supply Chain parameters for a Canadian Petroleum Refinery Company. International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, IJETM 2007:7;56–67. to provide feedback for life-cycle offshore platforms. Our approach starts from platform development projects environmentally, exploit it in the respect of the environment and have an efficient decommissioning project.     

Feature extraction from solar images using wavelet transform: image cleaning for applications to solar astrolabe experiment

Good edge extraction from temporal series of solar images is fundamental in the solar astrolabe experiment. Noise and spots in images cause however, difficulties to extract an accurate solar edge. We present in this paper a new image-processing method which solves this problem and thus improves the characteristics of the solar astrolabe experiment. The method is based upon the use of wavelet transform in the solar image analysis. It is developed to remove image defects (parasite spots) and noise without reducing image resolution. Solar images obtained at Calern Observatory astrolabe (France) are then processed using this method. Solar edges of these images are extracted and trajectories reconstructed.