The world’s energy system is still dominated by fossil fuels. While there is a rapid reduction in the cost of renewable energy and the environmental costs of continued carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel recovery and use are well understood, current economic, infrastructure and political constraints sustain the fossil fuel enterprise as a dominant component of the energy system. Though routes to decarbonizing fossil fuel use, such as carbon capture and storage, have been proposed and have been demonstrated at commercial scale, current CCS CO₂ storage quantities are very small and no large-scale practical route to providing fossil fuel energy, without the CO₂ emissions attendant with fuel production and use has been proposed. Here we look at some of the boundary conditions and possible routes to production of emissions free energy from fossil fuels, and specifically petroleum reservoirs. Focusing on the production of electrical power we look at possible applications of microbially mediated hydrocarbon oxidation, coupled to a range of energy harvesting strategies, to the provision of electrical power at surface at a range of scales suitable for grid power provision, powering upstream oilfield facilities or for powering in situ sensing and exploration systems. We also ask the question, even if practical, would direct production of electrical power from oil and gas fields be a politically and economically sensible strategy as part of the energy transition away from traditional fossil fuel use.

世界能源体系仍然以化石燃料为主导。尽管可再生能源的成本正在迅速降低，而化石燃料的回收和使用带来的持续二氧化碳排放的环境成本已广为人知，但当前的经济，基础设施和政治限制仍然使化石燃料企业成为能源的主要组成部分系统。尽管已经提出了碳捕获和储存等化石燃料使用脱碳的途径，并且已经在商业规模上得到了证明，但是当前的CCS CO ₂储存量非常小，如果没有碳捕获和储存，则没有大规模的实际途径来提供化石燃料能源。一氧化碳₂已经提出了伴随燃料生产和使用的排放。在这里，我们研究了一些边界条件以及化石燃料（特别是石油储层）生产无排放能源的可能途径。我们将重点放在电力生产上，研究微生物介导的碳氢化合物氧化的可能应用，再结合一系列能量收集策略，以适合电网供电的一系列规模向地面提供电力，为上游油田设施提供动力或为原位传感和探测系统供电。我们还提出一个问题，即使可行，将石油和天然气田的直接电力生产作为一种政治和经济上明智的策略，作为从传统化石燃料使用转向能源转型的一部分。