Now, here’s a novel idea for legislators: how about some domestic oil development?
Last week a proposal to lift the moratorium on shale oil extraction was narrowly defeated in a Senate committee. The vote was along strictly party lines, Republicans for lifting the ban and Democrats against. What a surprise.
All of this despite the fact that everyone pays lip service to the idea that we need to get closer to that dream of energy independence. And this despite the fact that oil prices have gone through the roof and then some, raising the motivation (and cost-effectiveness) of developing our own reserves.
Many people have come to distrust oil companies, and think everything they do is suspect and perhaps even evil. And many people—especially of the Democrat persuasion—would like nothing better than to for us to go back to some golden age of low energy needs, although how this would happen without a huge culling of the present population I can’t quite imagine. Short of that, they would prefer us to do without oil entirely, to develop alternative energy sources that are clean and have the blessing of environmentalists, although none of these promise to be any more than slight adjuncts to the task of meeting our current and future energy demands (and why alternative energy companies, if successful, would be any less profit-motivated or venal in the end than the oil companies are perceived to be is anybody’s guess. Maybe because they’d be run by Democrats? [/sarcasm])
The idea that we can continue to use oil for many more years at a high rate if we develop are own reserves is anathema to these same people. And, granted, they have some points about shale oil extraction, although the depth of their fear of offshore drilling seems unfounded (see this).
The situation re shale is enticing: there seems to be enough oil in sparsely settled parts of Colorado and neighboring states to make us nearly energy independent for quite some time—at least theoretically. But it is very costly, the technology is unproven, and fears are that it will disrupt the environment unduly.
The oil companies say they have developed new technologies that will be more energy-efficient and relatively environmentally friendly. The environmentalists aren’t having any of it. The governor of Colorado defends the status quo. And most of us are ill-equipped to evaluate the dueling claims (although here’s someone who’s trying), which rest on complex scientific calculations in areas in which a great deal is unknown.
This is what we do know: each side has a dog in this fight, and both sides are capable of lies. Politicians have other overriding interests, which tend to boil down to one major one: protecting their own asses (i.e. staying in power).
The upshot? Stalemate, which means the environmentalists win, because doing nothing is a victory for them.
This could mean we all lose, because in the meantime our dependence on foreign oil, with all its terrible consequences, continues.
Our oil resources are not a unitary thing. There is a hierarchy of banned ways to get domestic oil. The most controversial area is shale development (and rightly so), with offshore drilling second, and then there are areas such as ANWR that are closed even to conventional drilling. As Robert J. Samuelson writes, that latter policy is a result of:
…exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both “energy independence” and cheap fuel. They deplore imports—who wants to pay foreigners?—but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a “no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality,” writes Robert Bryce in “Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence.”
How to get past the prejudice, deluded hopes, and stupidity? Hard to say; there are entrenched interests that seem dedicated to the perpetuation of these very things.
Entrenched, indeed. Remember Jimmy Carter’s famous 1979 “malaise” speech, which is recalled mainly for its unpopular idea that Americans were depressed and dispirited? The context, however is often forgotten; it was the energy crisis, and his notions on how to address it.
Carter got through the bulk of the speech, which consisted of weeping and wailing about the state of the American spirit, before getting to his more practical message: the specific energy proposals towards the end. Perhaps if he’d concentrated only on the latter, and skipped all that editorializing and preaching, he might have had a better chance for his suggestions to be heard. But then again, for him to have done that, he wouldn’t have been Carter. And Congress wouldn’t have been Congress.
What were his ideas on the subject? Carter did not propose a Manhattan Project of scientists to study the problem. But in addition to asking for conservation, import quotas, and a search for alternatives to oil, he did ask to cut through the resistance to developing our own oil resources, saying:
…I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the redtape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.
We will protect our environment. But when this Nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.
Carter even specifically mentioned the development of shale oil in his list of alternative sources of fuel. Why was this never successfully implemented?
The short answer is “market forces, plus Congressional shortsightedness.” Here’s a description of an earlier effort (scroll down about a fifth of the way to Appendix E: Shale Oil):
The most recent attempt at recovering oil from oil shales occurred in response to the Arab Oil Embargo in 1974. Congress responded with a Proposal for Northwest Colorado to be declared a ”˜”˜National Sacrifice Area,” including an Energy Mobilization Board with power to override federal, state and local environmental and land use laws (Committee on Resources 2005). This board never materialized. However, President Jimmy Carter did get Congress to establish the Synfuels Corp. with $15 Billion in price guarantees and incentives (Ibid). The goal for synthetic fuels was an industry that would convert coal, tar sands, and oil shale to liquid fuels at two million barrels per day by 1992, the majority of which would come from Western oil shale (Ibid). Costs were at an average of $2 billion (1980 USD) for each 50,000 BPD (barrels per day) plant (Ibid). In the end, the oil shale industry collapsed; specifically, due to the huge volumes of material that needed to be removed and processed, the drop in world petroleum prices with which it competed, and the lack of a consistent national vision for the development of the resource that could focus private capital investment (Ibid; Hirsch, Bezdek, and Wendling 2005; US DOE ONPOSR 2004). Congress then shut down virtually all oil shale research programs, despite recommendations from many sources that research and development activities continue. In 1991, the Unocal operation in Colorado was the last major oil shale project to suspend operations (Cleveland 2004). For many, the argument about energy was “let the market decide.”
Two things may be in the process of changing (hint: “Congressional shortsigntedness” is not one of them): the first is the technology involved, and the second is the rising price of competing sources of oil.
If you want to familiarize yourself with some of the details of the risks, benefits, and unknowns of shale oil production, read all of Appendix E. Right now it seems the costs are still so high that it doesn’t make much sense, though of course that could change.
But the same cannot be said of offshore drilling, which is also banned although more cost-effective and despite recent advances that make it more environmentally friendly. And I’ve never understood the continuing resistance to nuclear power in this country, which even our more liberal buddies in Europe seem to have decided is okay, considering the alternatives.
A few years ago, blogger Steven Den Beste wrote some posts on the dream of energy alternatives and/or conservation that remain well worth reading (see this, this, and more here). His conclusion: it’s a dream. He did write that one exception is nuclear power, which has a lot to recommend it, but dismissed it nevertheless as being “politically dead” in the US.
I suppose it still is, although this could change. But if it doesn’t, this would another example of (to paraphrase Samuelson) “exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against power companies, and sheer stupidity.”
I totally agree and have made a few posts on my site. Government is not the answer to the problem, it is the problem.
Neo:
In my younger days many years ago, my first post-doc project in industry was re-examining the German coal-to-crude oil research during WWII.
Back then in the sixties, crude was going for not more than ten bucks-per-barrel, IIRC. Technology then would produce crude from coal for around forty bucks a barrel.
The technology involved (hydrogenation of coal at high pressures and temperatures) had a series of primitive catalysts…we were looking for a catalyst that would exist and be active in solutions in contact with a powdered coal slurry.
Don’t know what happened in the meantime, but a patent search might yield interesting data.
The coal technology had a lot going for it, but at that time, could not compete with REALLY, REALLY cheap crude.
Today?? Who knows…
Another alternative motor fuel is natural gas. The technology is simple, any gasoline-fueled vechicle could be adjusted to this at very moderate cost. There are hundreds of gas stations in Moscow and and Moscow region, even trucks can use it. And gas fuel is really cheap.
Our energy problems come down to psychological blocks to effective action. We need one, two…many Sanity Squads.
conversion of the kerogen bearing shale deposits into significant quantities of oil is estimated to require the equivalent of 70-90 nuclear power plants and either most of the water of the colorado river or the ground water of a large portion of the state of utah.
using natural gas to replace gasoline is a not starter. we have little enough gas.
Shell Oil estimates that full develolpment of potential offshore oil and arctic resources woud add 2-3 mb/d to our oil supply, far, far short of what we currently import.
tracking all oil field development projects world wide which promise to produce at least 40 kb/d indicates we are essentially at peak of crude + condensate out to 2012. at sometime between 2012-16 a steep decline in production will occur.
you should do some research before you comment on this issue, but you are very right to be interested.
as King Abdullah recently said, “we are now using all the oil we will ever have. all of our lives will soon change, including mine.”
Great article!
An energy independent America should be a high priority program for all Republicans. This is a huge winning issue for the people and the Republican Party. It’s an issue that favorably differentiates the two parties on a key issue.
The Democrat’s try to paint oil companies as obscenely profitable, as if, our problems will be solved if we impose higher taxes on the greedy meanies.
The fact is that the real problem is the global population explosion and the emerging super economies of China and India. Global oil demand is getting closer and closer to global oil production capabilities. This may become a critical matter as global demand begins to surpass global production capabilities.
This is why we see the China actively negotiating with oil producers (e.g. Canadian pipeline for China) and meddling in third world countries that have oil and shaky governments.
This is a home run issue the Republicans need to talk and act on!
The problem is that the Democrats (and Republicans representing Suburban districts) are trapped by the do nothing syndrome coupled with a strong NIMBY effect. If we do anything someone feels disappointed or inconvenienced. Actual action leading to construction requires effort, committment and causes problems for somebody.
People who live in “Dirty Jobs” country may not trust the oil companies but they do see the projects as jobs and income for their communities and the country. People in the “Management/Finance/Retirement” areas see this as just environmental or scenic damage. They are also more susceptible to flattery from the greens/progressives on the correctness of their position.
The oil industry has contributed to this with extensive PR campaigns on how green they are not just in drilling but in developing those mythical alternatives. They need to start saying blunt things now about supply and the ability to produce.
I would like to see the citations for the shale deposit water usage and the whole offshore/arctic region have 2-3mb/d.
ANWR alone is usually estimated between 3-5mb/d and I have seen no estimates less than 2. So that has to be some mighty small offshore wells (and in most estimates they would have to drill for a net loss to get your numbers) or the whole industries estimates are WAY WAY WAY off.
Nor have I ever seen it said it would require that much water or energy – not even back in the 70’s when it was considered too expensive.
For claims that far off of even the worst case estimates given to congress or easily findable estimates with google you are going to have to produce the studies.
And many people–especially of the Democrat persuasion–would like nothing better than to for us to go back to some golden age of low energy needs, although how this would happen without a huge culling of the present population I can’t quite imagine.
That’s correct. Feminism and Abortion has culled the American population by over 52 million. Planned parenthoods original purpose was eugenics. Dr Planka thinks Ebola would do a good job eradicating 90% of humans (to standing ovation of scientists). And the food for fuel thing will create mass starvation.
There is also a new organization for the end of humans on earth! VHEMT
Wanna help planet? ‘Let’s all just die!’
Group pushes to improve Earth’s ecosystem by ensuring human species does not survive
“We aren’t born knowing we should go extinct; we have to learn it. We don’t need to create new humans in order to indoctrinate them from birth. All of us come from breeding couples, and yet we’ve decided not to breed.”
They have such cute graphics that look like Disney or sesame street characters with humans gone.
Heck, this has been long in the making. Watch the incredible mr limpet. You will find a line in it that would surprise you. it’s a scene where limpet (don knots), is talking to another girl and tells her that he used to be human. She mentions that she doesn’t care how evil he was.
Anyway… the getting back to your articles point.
Shale isnt the only sources available. And if greenies were really green and not a adjunct to the nazi party (go ahead, look up green libertarian party), they would want nuclear energy. Nuclear could in 5 years end the use of the most polluting things. however we haven’t built one since when? Same with refineries.
The planned economy has been working on this ‘plan’ for a long time. The idea was and is to create another economic disaster like the one in the last century, that nearly resulted in a wholesale change of America to a communist state. “to crush the middle class between the hammer and anvil of taxes and inflation”. Which is why they like Keynesian economics.
I don’t see the stalemate, but then again I know more about physics and whats been going on for 40 years.
New says: How to get past the prejudice, deluded hopes, and stupidity? Hard to say; there are entrenched interests that seem dedicated to the perpetuation of these very things.
You can’t since they are not founded in logic and merit. In fact this area if examined closely is one of the largest places where you will find the socialists games designed to make a huge crisis that only god or the state can solve.
The last refinery built in America was in 1976. Tighter government regulations are the main reason. That’s how unserious we are about our energy “crisis.” Robertson said there would be plenty of oil available to the United States if the oil companies were allowed to get it: “Eighty-five percent of offshore oil is off-limits.” Responding to objections to offshore drilling by environmentalists and their allies in Congress, Robertson noted that some of the strongest pro-environment nations in Europe — he mentions Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom — lease offshore locations for oil exploration. The technology has become so good, he said, that during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, “one thousand offshore wells were destroyed (in the Gulf of Mexico), but not one leaked.” Australia, he said, has allowed offshore drilling for 40 years without any environmental damage.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
U.S. oil companies have paid more than three times in taxes to the government than they have earned in profits over the last 25 years – higher taxes on profits will reduce production and increase prices. A higher tax on profits will mean fewer investments in producing oil and that in turn will mean less production in the future.
By the way… the end of oil has been a prediction about 4 times before now.. the 70s being the time last, but it happened before that too.
Carter even specifically mentioned the development of shale oil in his list of alternative sources of fuel. Why was this never successfully implemented?
One because Carters work with world communism, as told by his second in arms in his book (and is more clearly seen today).
And another is there was a great interview with the Saudis. They mentioned how this works and described that they do this shortage game to cause the Americans to waste lots of money on things that wont work.
The point being that they withhold (now more with coordination through russia, chavez, etc… BP created opec, but russia now runs it), and the US responds with all this money spending. Then as they start to move to a slightly different economy, all those businesses and efforts are destroyed by their releasing the reserves and driving the prices down till all the efforts go out of business.
So you put tons of mony in wind… they let you build huge farms, then they lower it again to 25 a barrel (remember when chavez came into office, it was seven dollars a barrel), and what happens to all the economics that makes wind competitive (with heavy subidies of about 24$ compared to about a few dollars for oil and nuclear)?
They then let this fall back for 10 or 20 years, and then do it again. the US democratic or rather US socialist party then helps russia and other along by prevening any REAL CHANGE that would cause a change in business later. Technically the oil companies in America don’t care whether they use Saudi oil or American oil (other than Saudi is cheaper to work with).
This is the advantage of the opec nations… their oil is pressurized and pumps up cheap and thin… shales are expensive and such and only are viable when oil is this expensive.
However, want to hear the kicker? The linchpin in the arguments against dems?
Bakken.
The truth is that we’re almost powerless to influence today’s prices. We are because we didn’t take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.
It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).
= = = = = = = = =
On environmental grounds, the alternatives to more drilling are usually worse. Subsidies for ethanol made from corn have increased food prices and used scarce water, with few benefits. If oil is imported, it’s vulnerable to tanker spills. By contrast, local production is probably safer. There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America’s Future Energy, an advocacy group.
They are going to drill in the bakken fields.
Bakken Formation oil field has up to 4.3 billion barrels
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080411/NEWS01/804110316
A new federal study estimates the Bakken Formation in Montana and North Dakota contains from 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, a figure 25 times greater than the 151 million barrels originally estimated in 1999.
= = = = = = = = =
The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The U.S. Geological Survey calls it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.
However, even the new estimate pales beside Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, which Columbia University geologists estimate has 25 billion barrels of oil, with 10 billion barrels already produced and 13 billion barrels classified as recoverable.
= = = = = = = = =
“This is great news,” Dorgan said. “This is 25 times the amount of the previous assessment.”
japate… you better do your research… better do that than listen to leftist lies.
the concept of peak oil is false… its actually been visited about 4 times from the early part of the alst century.
in fact the doom and gloomers are listened do, we spend the money, and give our freedoms, then they fade when their doom doesnt happen. meanwhile the doomers on the right are ignored when they say tigns like… dont link food and fuel or people will end up starving… but look how bad it makes america look for not funding the world.
well lets see some past preductions, including oil
At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.”
In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore’s hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and “in the 1970s … hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich’s predictions about England were gloomier: “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”
In 1972, a report was written for the Club of Rome warning the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987 and petroleum, copper, lead and natural gas by 1992.
Gordon Taylor, in his 1970 book “The Doomsday Book,” said Americans were using 50 percent of the world’s resources and “by 2000 they [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them.”
In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, “The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000.”
Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, “… civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” That was the same year that Sen. Gaylord Nelson warned, in Look Magazine, that by 1995 “… somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
and here is the facts that japate has no idea of… as he was hatched yesterday and believes everything his keepers tell him like a good useful idiot.
In 1885, the U.S. Geological Survey announced there was “little or no chance” of oil being discovered in California, and a few years later they said the same about Kansas and Texas. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last only another 13 years. In 1949, the Secretary of the Interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous claims, in 1974 the U.S. Geological Survey advised us that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. The fact of the matter, according to the American Gas Association, there’s a 1,000 to 2,500 year supply.
seems like you didnt know we had several thousand years of natural gas.. eh?
your walking believing you live in a world that doestn exist. in that world history is very different than here. here is a GREAT example…
http://www.youtube.com/v/1RRZWs4G3-4&hl=en
the anti war people live in a world where history is different, eh?
and here is what someone else asked, i would like to hear japate’s answer
In 1970, when environmentalists were making predictions of manmade global cooling and the threat of an ice age and millions of Americans starving to death, what kind of government policy should we have undertaken to prevent such a calamity? When Ehrlich predicted that England would not exist in the year 2000, what steps should the British Parliament have taken in 1970 to prevent such a dire outcome? In 1939, when the U.S. Department of the Interior warned that we only had oil supplies for another 13 years, what actions should President Roosevelt have taken? Finally, what makes us think that environmental alarmism is any more correct now that they have switched their tune to manmade global warming?
if your clever you will realize that if they actually did anything based on information that is not true, or history of anotehr world that doesnt exist, they would make a huge mess of it. their chances of reacting to a false disaster and taking the right action would lead to a real disaster.
check your facts sir… you are off by over a billion barrels and then some..
your also assuming that the leftists are tellign the truth.. i can show that from day 1, lenin and socialists have lied to get power… they ahve done what they claim the other side has done, but never has (to the degree and level they have)
check out obamas latest rally..
resembles the socailist mass movement rallies…
mass movements hve never ended well..
they usually start with murder and roits before and after the crucial moments.
and they are all foudned on lies as the peopel involved tend to write books years later on how they were tricked.
there is a huge list of them… and i recommended reading them… the journy of neo is a common one… what makes hers uncommon is that she didnt need the evil to be undenyable before she realized that something wasnt right.
Even the religiously-approved “green” technologies of wind and solar will still need transmission lines to carry the power to somewhere useful. (Except for rooftop solar, which has issues of its own.) And every single mile of every single transmission line will face a protracted battle for regulatory approval, followed by extensive litigation. No matter how “green” the energy it is intended to transmit.
Don’t expect the democrat politicians to take this issue seriously anytime soon. They’re still using this as a wedge issue this election season. I heard Hillary this morning on the radio talking about going after “big oil” and throwing the name “Enron” out to the crowd for that extra kick you get when you mention the hated enemy by name. Hillary vowed to remove the oilmen from office keeping you from reasonable yet responsible gas prices.
Obama, of course, says similar things. It isnt the facts that matter, its the votes, and if they have to create phantom menaces and incite a frenzy’d atmosphere of “us” v. “corporate America”, so be it.
Take note those not quite Republican among you: This is why character, convictions and leadership matter. Sure, every politician must pander to someone to get elected, you cant let your base run off with your common sense.
So endeth the lesson.
Of all the people I’ve never met… I think I love Thomas Sowell the most…
He recently had a series of opinion pieces titled Too “Complex” and he talked about this very issue you bring up… domestic oil (among other things). In the second of the three pieces, he says:
Here are the pieces:
Too Complex
Too Complex, Part II
Too Complex, Part III
This country and Canada are energy rich. We have a lot more oil to be found and we have a 500 year supply of coal. Beyond that we’ve got the oil shale in the Green River formation.
In the last two years there have been approximately 50 billion barrels of oil discovered outside the ME.
28 billion off shore Brazil.
15 billion in the Jack Field in the Gulf of Mex.
7 billion in Jidong Nanbao Field in China
This oil will start reaching markets in two more years and in four years will affect the supply figures in a big way. However, OPEC can cut production so demand will still outstrip supply, unless they have gotten used to living on all those petro dollars. That is one of the problems with having a cartel trying to control prices.
In addition we have a new natural gas find in the Marcellus Shale in Ohio and New York. This field could produce as much as 50 to 500 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Then there is the Bakken Formation in the Williston Basin of Montana, North Dakota, and Canada. It is a very rich formation but has poor porosity. The oil is becoming available because of new horizontal drilling techniques coupled with advanced fracturing techniques to increase the porosity. As mentioned by Artfldgr above, it could produce 2-4 billion barrels.
Then there are the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as well as the west coast of Florida. These areas, like ANWR, will eventually be drilled. It is only a matter of when. It depends on when we the people rise up and tell the Congress to “get er dun.”
The Germans produced diesel fuel from coal during WWII and the process has been improved. At $100/barrel the process is economic.
In addition the next generation of fuel efficient cars are probably the high mpg diesels. The technology is off the shelf and doesn’t require the disposal of batteries.
Our energy problems are self inflicted. The Greens have seized control of the legal system with the ESA, the most anti-democratic, special interest legislation ever written in the U.S. Congress. Until Congress changes it and gets us out from under all the legal challenges to man’s activities, our energy problems will continue.
.
Gore and his Man-Bear-Pig. The politicians on board with this food as bio-fuel scam must be simply out of their minds.
For one thing, there’s plenty of oil and NG, we just need to drill for it and refine it. Also expand nuclear, wind, hydro, solar and hemp fuel.
Can’t anybody talk some sense into McCain, Bush and Obama about how temperatures rise first, and THEN carbon-dioxide levels rise.
Carbon-dioxide doesn’t cause warming, sun activity does, warming causes CO2 levels to rise.
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
create food shortages
by mandating that food
be used to replace oil
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
keep people all worked up
about global warming
despite inconvenient facts
.
The Great Global Warming Scam Movie
USpace
🙂
.
Jimmy J:
Thanks for the cost update on deisel fuel. I think – I really should run the numbers myself (I have my old, old notes) and see where the cost comes out.
As you might know, there would be a minimum cost based on Thermodynamics and its First Law.
In the old days, I took figures for the production of hydrogen from a steam based process, assumed that the coal has a structure somewhat like graphite, and that there would be a penalty for high pressures (which we identified as an area for catalyst research: get the pressure requirement down and you save energy costs).
Once I issue the Bad News (grades) to my students, I’ll sit down with pencil, papers, Thermo Tables, and a unknown number of beers to run the numbers over again.
Stay tooned…
PS: BTW, I assign a similar calculation to my students that surprises them: they get to show that gallon for gallon ethanol is a lousy fuel compared with saturated alkane hydrocarbons…that’s gasoline for all you non-techie types out there.
Good Ole Charlie, your mistake was to not try to use “waste heat” from nuclear reactors.
those big chimineys are of steam… the steam that comes out is way way hot and has been used to gasify coal.. most of it though is wasted and given gasification, would be good way to recover and use some of it.
right now it just makes pretty clouds…
[and in the case of indian point, raises the temperature of the hudson river 3-5 degrees!]
oh charlie… since your technical, let me bounce this off of you.
i am more worried about moving to a methane type economy… mostly because waht i see is that gas/oil will be cracked down to methane for the money… and the hydrate fields are going to be played with..
given that we have so much natural gas… i would say that using that, and then improcing storage and distribution is the best thing.. (with an increase in nuclear topping it off).
ultimately, even these big fields will mean nothign as we havent made any new refineries and they are running at capacity..
One comment on the Bakken reserves. Some initial predictions for Bakken were in the order of 50 Billion BBL or more , but the posters on the Bakken reserves all cited the most recent study of ~ 3-4 Billion BBL. Good research!
Artfldgr:
Thanks for the question: in re – Methane.
Your problem is that it may be hard to liquefy a la LPG. There is a temperature known as the inversion temperature above which it is impossible to hold a gas as a liquid under ANY pressure above that temperature. The common examples are hydrogen and helium; on the other hand, nitrogen and oxygen can be liquefied.
I just tried Wikipedia but it only confirmed the above. I’ll get to it – checking out methane in a text in the home library – this evening, but right now I have a new car to pick up…see you later.
Oh yeah…it’s a Honda Hybrid. See you later.
Three things Neo. Good blog by the way.
1. Check out “gas hydrates” aka “fire ice”- its a carbon fuel we have not even begun to tap.
2. The state with the most wind generated electricity is now Texas.
3. Those oil fields pay blue collar workers a “living wage”- something the democrats always claim they are for. The Natural gas industry is booming here in East Texas. They drill inside the city limits around Dallas -Fort Worth.
Good points all.
The environmental movement was captured by the Left later on. Early environmentalism was about responsibility and conservation in order to leave Earth in a good condition for your family. Modern environmentalism is about fighting the man aka the USA and a pervasive hatred for normal Americans. How else to explain the blatant hypocrisy of an Al Gore, who has the carbon footprint of my entire block. The elite get to enjoy parks and wilderness, while the peasants live in squalor.
Here are the results for “permanent” gases.
The phenomenon was first noticed by Faraday in 1845. Theoretical analysis points to the Joule-Thomson coefficient as key: the coefficient measures the change in temperature with pressure as external pressure on the gas is released at constnat enthalpy (don’t ask about this). In any event, real gases have negative JT constants, meaning they can be liquified. If the coefficient is exactly zero, the gas is “Ideal” (which is what you deal with in high school science. If the coefficient is positive, the gas increases temperature on expansion and you can have a rapid explosion in the case of hydrogen.
Gases with positive coefficients include hydrogen, helium nitric oxide, and Ta-DUM methane. Liquefying methane is a bitch and the liquid must be keep “refrigerated” to survive as liquid.
REference: D.W.Ball: “Physical Chemistry”, Thomson, Brooks/Hall 2003
Enjoy!
thank you Good Ole Charlie!!
greatly appreciated.. 🙂
and Charlie, i hope you read this, but this came in this morning!!!
Halting methane squanderlust
The pipes that rise from oil fields, topped with burning flames of natural gas, waste fossil fuels and dump carbon dioxide into the air. In new work, researchers have identified the structure of a catalytic material that can turn methane into a safe and easy-to-transport liquid. The insight lays the foundation for converting excess methane into a variety of useful fuels and chemicals.
“There’s a big interest in doing something with this ‘stranded’ methane other than flaring it off,” said chemist Chuck Peden of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “An important thing researchers have struggled with is determining the structure of the active catalyst.”
That catalyst — molybdenum oxide sitting on a zeolite mineral — converts methane gas into the more tractable liquid benzene. But the process is not yet commercially viable. Scientists don’t understand enough about the molecular details to improve the catalyst. Now, researchers at PNNL and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in Dalian have worked out some of the details that will help researchers zoom in on an efficient catalyst.
They reported their results March 26 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This work is the first publication to come out of the International Consortium for Clean Energy, a collaboration between PNNL, the DICP and China’s Institute of Coal Chemistry.
To get these results, the chemists — led by Peden at PNNL and Xinhe Bao at DICP — used the world’s largest instrument of its kind — a 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer. The NMR is armed with one of the strongest magnets constructed and can be outfitted to investigate solid samples, a step above its smaller cousins.
The combination of molybdenum oxide and a zeolite mineral had been shown in 1993 to convert methane, but the catalyst has been difficult to analyse. Researchers know that the zeolite anchors molybdenum oxide in place so methane and molybdenum oxide can react chemically, either on or in the zeolite channels. But no one could tell which comprised the reactive form: a small nugget of one or two molecules, or a larger cluster of many molybdenum oxide molecules.
“This uncertainty has led to a controversy in the scientific literature about the active phase and reaction mechanism of methane activation on these promising catalyst materials,” said DICP’s Bao.
Enter the world’s largest NMR, uniquely capable of addressing this issue. The technological problem lay in the molybdenum oxide itself. To study this particular oxide with NMR, the chemists needed to pick up the signal from one variant of molybdenum, 95Mo; the ultra-high field of the NMR, housed at the DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on the PNNL campus, allowed them to do so.
“The higher magnetic field improves the signal to noise,” said Peden. “And its large sample volume allowed us to put enough catalyst into the spectrometer to overcome the poor sensitivity of 95Mo NMR.”
The researchers painstakingly prepared catalysts with increasing concentrations of molybdenum in the zeolite scaffold and focused the 900 MHz NMR on the samples. The data revealed two different forms of the catalyst, as expected. One form contained the smaller nugget and the other form comprised the much larger clusters. When the concentration of molybdenum rose, more of these large clusters formed.
Then the team added methane and measured how much got converted into benzene by the catalysts. They found that when more smaller nuggets were present, more benzene was made, indicating the variety of one or two molybdenum oxide molecules was the reactive one.
Now, said Peden, the challenge is to design and produce the active form of the catalyst that could be used for large-scale benzene production, research that Bao and his group are already working on.
“We need to figure out how to get that structure and keep it that way,” Bao said.
Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory