Is There Enough Natural Gas? 119 comments
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Recently I published an article recommending US Energy Secretary Steven Chu be fired for comments he made to reporters at a Washington energy conference sponsored by the EIA. Referring to natural gas transportation, Chu said “I am agnostic about it.” Chu said it was important to look at alternatives such as advanced biofuels and went on to express concerns about natural gas as a transportation fuel saying it could strain supplies for industrial uses, home heating, and electricity generation. “So again, it is a complicated issue.”
In my next article, I made a case for a natural gas centric energy policy. User283977 posted a comment to this article and said hey Fitzman, nice article, but your case (for a US natural gas centric energy policy) would be even stronger if you quantified the amount of natural gas supply needed to meet the natural gas transportation and electricity generation goals of such a policy. Considering that I called for Energy Secretary Chu to be fired because of his statements suggesting there is not enough natural gas to power transportation in the US, this was excellent feedback indeed. Previously, I have been relying on others to prove this point - as Robert Hefner did in his awesome book The Grand Energy Transition. However, I had never been through the exercise myself and I am going to walk through the numbers now. These calculations are more to satisfy my own curiosity and the wishes of my readers than to cast doubt about Mr. Hefner or any other energy expert’s work in this field.
Barack Obama has spoken of “restoring scientific integrity to government.” From now on, he said, scientists will be “free from manipulation or coercion,” and the government will “[listen] to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient.” Unlike a recent ex-president, Obama says he will ensure “that scientific data [are] never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda.”
However, is it possible this is simply scientific rhetoric from Obama? He mentions “clean coal” every chance he gets and we know that’s a myth and an oxymoron. Is it possible that Energy Secretary Chu is also being lax with science? Energy experts are saying the US has enough natural gas reserves to power the US economy for the next 60-100 years. So, who is right – Secretary Chu, the Noble Prize winner in Physics who says there is not enough natural gas or the energy experts who say there is? If you are a believer of peak oil, and if you also believe natural gas is the key bridge fuel to see the US through it, quantifying the natural gas supply and demand numbers is very critical indeed. That is what this article intends to do.
How Much NatGas is Required to Fuel 50% of US Cars & Trucks?
Let’s begin with some basic facts, all of which are found on the EIA’s website:
- The US uses 390,000,000 gallons of gasoline per day
- 1 Gallon gasoline = 124,000 Btu
- 1 cubic foot of natural gas = 1028 Btu
The Honda Civic GX (HMC) is the only NGV for sale to US consumers. For the sake of this analysis, I will assume every car and truck in the US that is converted to run on natural gas will mimic the 2009 Honda Civic GX’s specifications:
- Mileage: 28 mpg (combined)
- Tank capacity: 8.03 GGE @ 3600 psi (GGE=gallons of gasoline equivalent)
As a starting point, let’s assume replacing half the cars and trucks in America with NGVs will halve US gasoline consumption. Let’s further assume average gasoline vehicle mileage in the US is 25 mpg and that these miles will be converted directly to NGV miles. So, for the number of miles to be converted from gasoline to natural gas we have:
(390,000,000/2 gal/day)*(25miles/gal) = 4,875,000,000 miles/day
Now, for the Honda Civic GX we have:
(28miles/gal)*(8.03 GGE/tank) = 225 miles/tank
However, I have heard a more realistic range for the GX is 200 miles per tank. This is because the pressure in the natural gas tank falls as it becomes closer to empty and therefore it is wise to refuel sooner rather than later. So, I’ll use the 200 miles/tank number to figure out how many GX tanks would need to be refueled every day to replace 50% of America’s gasoline powered cars and trucks:
(4,875,000,000 mi/day)/200 mi/GX tank = 24,375,000 GX tanks/day
But how much natural gas is contained in one GX full tank? Here’s where it gets a bit messy. We know from the EIA website what the energy content is for a gallon of gasoline and for a cubic foot of natural gas, and we know the tank capacity of the GX is 8.03 GGE, so we can figure out how much natural gas there is in one GX tankful as follows:
(8.03 GGE/GX tank)*(124,000Btu/gal gas)/(1028 Btu/cuft natgas)
= 968 cubic ft natural gas/GX tank
Before you ask, remember that natural gas in the GX is compressed natural gas (CNG) at a pressure of 3,600 psi, which is why the gas tanks don’t need to actually be 968 cubic feet in size. Now we know how many GX tanks we need to fill every day, and we know how much natural gas is contained in each tank, so it’s easy to compute the amount of natural gas needed to power one half the cars in trucks in America for one year:
(24,375,000 GX tanks/day)*(968 cuft/GX tank)*(365days/year)
= 8,612,175,000,000 cubic feet natural gas
= 8.6 TCF (trillion cubic feet) natural gas
Zow-eee, that sounds like a lot of natural gas! Now let’s look at the EIA website
and find out what the natural gas reserve estimates are. This website is a bit confusing. “Dry Natural Gas”, “Wet after Lease Separation”, “Associated” and “Nonassociated&r... I’m just going to add all the 2007 columns together and come up with a “total” US natural gas reserve estimate of 742,447 billion cubic feet, or, 742.4 TCF.
So, according to official EIA natural gas reserve estimates, there are enough natural gas reserves in the US to power half the cars and trucks in the US for:
(742.4 TCF)/(8.6 TCF)/year = 86.3 years
However, natural gas is also used for home heating, electricity generation, and industrial uses. So, we need to add in the 8.6 TCF/yr needed for natural gas transportation to the current natural gas yearly demand and see how we look. But before doing that, let’s see how much natural gas it would take to replace coal-fired electric generation.
How Much NatGas is Required to Replace US Coal-Fired Electric Generation?
The following table lists the top three sources of US electrical power generation. Renewables is also added to the table as a reference point.
Table 1: Net Generation by Energy Source
Thousand MegaWatt Hours (T-MWHr):
Year | Coal | Natural Gas | Nuclear | Renewables | &nbs... Total US |
|
|
|
|
|
|
2006 | 1,990,511 | 816,441 | 787,219 | 96,525 | 4,064,702 |
% Total | 50% | 20% | 20% | 3<% |
|
Coal accounted for 50% of US electrical power generation in 2006 whereas natural gas was 20% of the total. In 3rd place is nuclear power at 19%. Hydroelectric was 7% and all renewables combined (wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, wood, agricultural, etc) were less than 3%.
I maintained in my strategic long-term comprehensive energy policy (previous SA article) that primary objectives in future US electrical power generation policy should be to:
- Never build another coal-fired electrical generation plant.
- Replace existing coal-fired power generation with natgas.
- Increase natgas, renewable, and nuclear power generation.
I consider these logical policies based on environmental and economic perspectives. Now, let’s realistically consider the magnitude of the problem here: coal generation is more than 20 times the renewable total. Considering how many wind turbines or solar arrays would need to be added to make up such a huge difference, the length of time it is taking to buildout these infrastructures, and the amount of CO2 and toxic particulate emissions that could be saved in the meantime by deploying natural gas generation (NG is also the best choice for backup power source for wind and solar intermittency), it seems logical to replace a large hunk of coal generation capacity with cleaner and cheaper natural gas. Now, before everyone jumps on my head, I fully support continued wind and solar investment and deployment. I also fully support licensing and construction of nuclear power. But nuclear plants take a long time to build, and meanwhile coal is spewing CO2 and toxic particulates. We need to be pragmatic when considering the magnitude of this problem and so too its realistic solutions.
So, how much natural gas would it take to cut coal consumption by 50%? By 100%? Table 2 below shows the amount of coal and natural gas it took, in 2006, to produce the power totals shown in Table 1. This data is again from the EIA website.
Table 2: Electric Power Generation by Fuel Source
Year: 2006 | Consumption | Units of Consumption | Power Generated (T-MWhr) |
Coal | 1,030,556 | Thousand Tons | 1,990,511 |
Natural Gas | 6,222,100 | Million Cubic Feet | 816,411 |
With the figures in Table 2, it is easy to figure out how much natural gas would be needed to replace 50% or 100% of coal-fired power generation in the US:
50% replacement of coal with natural gas:
= (1,990,511/2)* (6,221,100)/816,411
= 7,585,121 Million Cubic Feet Nat Gas
= 7.6 TCF/year
100% replacement of coal with natural gas:
= 15.2 TCF/year
Summary and Conclusions
Table 3 summarizes the findings.
Table 3: Natural Gas Replacement Supply Needed
Natural Gas Total Consumption (2006) | 21.7 TCF |
Natural Gas Required to Fuel ½ US Cars & Trucks for 1 year | 8.6 TCF |
Natural Gas Required to Replace 50% of US Coal Power Generation | 7.6 TCF |
Natural Gas Required to Replace 100% of US Coal Power Generation | 15.2 TCF |
Total US Natural Gas Reserves (2007) | 742.4 TCF |
OK, so now we have the raw data to make some conclusions and policy decisions. My energy policy suggests fueling half of all American cars and trucks with natural gas. Further, I suggest we immediately begin swapping out 50% of coal fired plants with natural gas electric generators. Given the data in Table 3, how long would US natural gas supplies last? The amount of natural gas needed to supply the US with its existing consumption (21.7 TCF) plus fueling half the US car and truck fleet (8.6 TCF) plus replacing 50% of the coal-fired plants (7.6 TCF) is equal to 37.9 TCF/year. US reserves would then last:
= 742.4 TCF/ 37.9 TCF/year
= 19.6 years
Hmmm…not very long. I can hear all of you now: “Ohhhh Fitzman! Secretary Chu was right, you are wrong!” Not so fast boys and girls. The natural gas reserve number quoted (742.4 TCF) was EIA data as of 2007. This total US reserves figure has not been updated to include some of the newer shale fields. Consider that Chesapeake Energy (CHK) predicts the Haynesville Field (east TX / northwest LA) will become America’s largest natural gas field and the fourth largest gas field in the world. It is estimated to contain 700 TCF with recoverable reserves of 250+ TCF. This means that the Haynesville Field by itself could supply all the natural gas needed for US existing use, 50% car & truck fuel, and 50% replacement of coal-fired plants for 6.6 years! One field alone! Remember too, big oil has been prioritizing crude oil exploration, not natural gas. Imagine if natural gas became a priority.
The US Geological Survey estimates total global natural gas hydrate reserves in “the range of 100,000 to 300,000,000 TCF”. To put these numbers in perspective, that equals about 10,000 times the world’s estimated coal reserves and 15 to 40,000 times the world’s remaining oil reserves. That is, the world’s natural gas reserves have more energy content than the world’s coal and oil reserves combined. [The GET, Robert Hefner, III.]
Focusing back on US reserves, the most recent independent review of America’s natural gas supply was estimated to be 2,247 TCF (Navigant Consulting Inc., July 2008). Robert Hefner estimates 3,000 TCF. Let’s take the average of these two estimates and call it 2,550 TCF and further assume this number is 50% optimistic: so the real reserve number is 1,225 TCF. Using his very conservative estimate, we have:
= 1,225/37.9 TCF/year
= 32.3 years
And if Hefner is right:
= 3000/37.9
= 79.1 years.
Based on Hefner’s over 30 year track record, I would hate to bet against him. Regardless, the US alone has enough natural gas reserves to power home heating, industrial demand, 50% of its cars and trucks, and to replace 50% of the coal-fired plants with natural gas generation! This is, indeed, wonderful news. So, I stand by my recommendation that Energy Secretary Chu step down, or, be fired.
Now, 32 years (or 79 years) is not forever, but it is certainly much longer than peak oil predictions say oil is going to hold out (remember, it’s not just oil supply, it’s oil supply AND demand). One should also consider that the conversion of 50% of the nation’s cars and trucks over to natural gas will not happen overnight, nor will conversion of 50% of the coal-fired electric generators. So, 32 years could realistically be stretched to 40-45 years. This is plenty of time to build out significant wind, solar, and nuclear power as well as deploy a formidable EV fleet.
Natural gas can truly be the “bridge” fuel to see America through the age of peak oil and into the age of renewable energy and onto a hydrogen based future. We can do it, but we need policymakers who will stop saying “clean coal” every chance they get and an Energy Secretary who is not “agnostic” about natural gas. We also need TV shows like 60 Minutes to invite natural gas knowledgeable folks on to debate Duke Energy CEO James Rogers when he says there is no alternative to building more coal plants (Duke Energy is currently building two more). Mr. Rogers: can you hear me? There is a very viable alternative – and it’s called NATURAL GAS.
DISCLAIMER:
This is my first attempt at independently quantifying the natural gas supply and demand requirements based on my natural gas centric energy policy. I used the EIA website for all base data, which was taken from 2006 (the most up-to-date year all data was available). I had to make some assumptions, and while those assumptions are debatable, overall, I don’t think they meaningfully influenced the big picture. I am most concerned that I may have made an arithmetic or other miscue that influenced the results in a material way. If so, please respond with comments to the article in a constructive way. Any error was not intentional in order to support my own outspoken policy suggestions. I certainly encourage all readers to go through the numbers, verify their accuracy, or enjoy the pleasure of giving me a hard time if there are indeed errors. Thank you.
Investment Suggestions:
I continue to pound the table for oil producers COP, CVX, XOM, PBR, and BP. The natural gas group may take longer to come around, but there I like CHK, RRC, DNR, and KWK.
Disclosure: The author is long COP and PBR.
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This article has 119 comments:
The gov't is in every decision of our lifes. Do you really want Barney Frank deciding these issues?
The US govt is out of control
- a 20-30 year supply (for all uses) on the shorter end doesn't sound like much help, but balanced against the marginal outflow of wealth to some global rivals like Iran, SA, etc. it would be well worth pursuing.
- long before the eventual end of NG supplies and "peak gas", lower yields and more difficult exploration may drive up prices for all uses
- what will the distribution map look like for NG as motor fuel, vs. industrial and home heating uses?
- a far more complex problem will be to estimate the impact of motor fuel use on NG prices (still better to spend some of the wealth internally than send it to foreign oil suppliers).
- it appears that NG is not 'the' answer to our energy needs, but could be an important part of the overall answer for the relatively short to intermediate term
Thanks also for focusing on facts and numbers in search of constructive solutions rather than whine about big government and bad luck. When time allows I look forward to pouring through your article in greater depth.
- R
what is the weight of this tank? i'm assuming it will be filament wound, not iron.
> jack
However, gas is much more expensive than coal - for a number of reasons that are unlikely to change. A typical coal deposit measures has 10s of millions to 10s of billions of tons, will produce for 10-100 years, transport costs are very low, doesn't cost much to change the routing scheme, and stockpiling at a utility plant is minimal.
A typical gas well has a less than 1 BCF, a lifespan of 3-10 years (producing most in the first 1-3 years), huge drill costs ($1-$5M/well), requires a significant infrastructure and significant delay to build between wells and consumption points, and is expensive to stockpile.
Delivered to a utility plant in the US, coal is ~$40 /ton, and gas is ~$6 /MCF, assuming that gas is available everywhere at that cost (and it isn’t) and that the gas supply is not subject to interruption. No matter how, when, or where it is sliced in the US, gas is at least 7x more expensive than coal .
There also is a huge difference in the costs between a coal-fired and a gas-fired utility plant. The cost to operate and sustain a gas-turbine can be ~3-10 higher than a coal plant, which explains why gas-plants are used for peak-loads (and why peak load billing is at the top of the list on energy conservation measures).
You have also not considered what happens when politics and stupidity (I’m sorry, that’s redundant) interfere with reality. (1) Do not be quick to add methane hydrates under the seas as reserves – there are no proven methods to recover those yet. (2) All the talk of ‘sequestering ’ huge amounts of C02 is… talk. There is NO PROVEN NOR ECONOMICAL way to do that, and NOT in the quanties that are proposed. There is more talk and little action of injecting CO2 to rejuvenate old gas & oil wells (to get some form of payback… but then the same idiots want to place even higher taxes on oil & gas). From a realistic point, the pipeline systems for CO2 cost the same as existing gas pipelines… which took 30+ years to build… and has been paid and sustained by the gas industry.
Run your calculations again to find out what a ‘carbon tax’ will add to the cost of electricity, and you will conclude that doubling the cost of coal essentially will double the cost of your electric bill. Oh, ‘poor people can’t afford’ that ? Not a problem for the same politicians proposing carbon taxes - your utility bills will increase to cover that, too. So, your ‘new’ utility bill will cost you 3x what is costs now.
What would help? Power plants in Germany are located near and in the large cities…. the reject heat from the utility plant is piped as hot water for heating large housing buildings and industrial plants. There is a huge infrastructure cost of the underground pipelines – but they are paid for by LOWER utility bills to the consumers. Not only does it simplify home heating, but it dramatically cuts down on the costs of winter heating and hot water…
Why isn’t that being proposed in the US? Only because the proposed carbon tax has everything to do with grabbing more tax money from your pocket and nothing to do with ‘global warming.’
Al Nieder, P.E.
alvin.nieder@us.army.mil
All I see are reserve figures....and we know that reserves do not equal flow rates.
You are basically doing what everyone has been doing....they look at the reserves and not the flow rates.
The government should not be doing anything about any of this. They are probably the worst at doing just about anything......our system of a true free market works.....but we do not have a free market. A free market regulates by putting the incompetant out of business and having the strong survive.
We have the exact opposite of that right now....and even under the government. Step back and take a look at things these days.
We tax the strongest the most....we help the weakest the most.....but this in itself is socialism......and the least efficient on how to distribute capital. I hear a lot about how CEO's are overpaid and all this "stuff" but you look at the people saying it...and the actions those people take.....which directly support the companies they complain about.
Our government basically doesn't follow the constitution....and we know that socialism fails absolutely. Capitalism may also fail...since it might not take into consideration the environment...or an economy that requires to grow exponentially forever...which is impossible in my view with a finite world.
I would even go the length to say that we don't know that we are ruining the environment by burning fossil fuels. Most predictions in the 70's would have us already dead by the year 2000.....yet nothing has happened.....it is possible that the predictions today are completly wrong........but what if they are right? right. I am in the camp of no one knows......and everytime the government steps in....we just walk away with less rights....and less freedom. We need less government and more individual rights.....we need more free thought...and more free market answers.......the answers will come to our problems when the problems arise. We underestimate the capacity of ourselves. If we put the brightest and smartest on this problem.....and really focus energy on it...it will get solved......
When I was 16 years old and delivering newpapers by car in 1958, a fellow lady carrier 1950 Studebaker car that had been converted to propane. She drove over 100 miles per day and got great mileage. She drove that car to save money and she did save money. I was paying 23 cents a gallon back in those days for gasoline and I considered gasoline to be a major expense of the job, but I'm getting away from the topic.
As far as distribution of natural gas, there are numerous pipelines used today to transport gasoline around the country that could be converted for natural gas use. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners is a large owner of some of these pipelines.
Installing new storage tanks and refueling facilities, building transport trucks for local distribution, converting existing vehicles and building new cars to use natural gas would be a better stimulus and longer lasting for the economy than the one's presently being presented.
We only need to convince certain boneheads in Washington.
There are lots of sources of energy. The marketplace makes these decisions. If natural gas is truly cheaper then coal then people will build natural gas fired boilers. If we have learned nothing in the last century we have learned at least this: the market does a far better job of allocating resources and picking technology then does a central government bueracract. This is true whether the bueracrat is in Moscow or Washington, DC.
The government will continue to back things like shale oil, ethanol, windmills, solar cells, etc. All of these are sinks for taxpayer money. And, when they are no longer trendy, they will be shut down one by one.
You did not mention NG imports from Canada. We import not an insignificant amount now, I believe. We also import LNG. This would add life and availability to the equation.
Al Neider's comments were interesting. Are you going to investigate?
Then why don't I produce some numbers which show that it is wrong. Well, as a Canadian billionaire once said, we are living in the most dishonest period in history, and so I belong on the sidelines. But I will say that ANDY has the right idea: flow rates and possible flow rates tell a very different story from inventory values. And by the way Mr Nieder, Germany had some of the highest electric prices in Europe, and given their grotesque belief in wind I doubt whether it has decreased.
1. I don't think that Big Oil is much interested in looking for oil onshore the lower 48 any more. Their main interest within the US is potential fields offshore or in Alaska. Virtually all of the smaller E & P companies are already focused on gas.
2. There's lots of gas out there. The issue is cost. You have to go deeper, into deeper water, or use new technology fracturing to get it out of the shale formations.
3. Let the market decide, yes, but we do need tax incentives and/or disincentives to steer usage away from energy sources that pollute, contribute to global warming, or lack security of supply. A carbon tax (or cap and trade) would solve a lot of problems. A) It would encourage conservation in the use of transportation fuels, B) it would push more power plants toward natural gas, C) it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, D) it would push demand toward domestic natural gas and other domestic sources (including wind and solar), and would reduce reliance on imported oil, including from countries such as Venezuela, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia, E) it would improve the US trade balance, and, F) it would reduce the US federal budget deficit.
4. SemiFinal Comments: I don't think it is feasible to switch over to natural gas in the time frame proposed. It would take enormous amounts of capital for drilling and infra-structure. And there are so-called "environmentalists" who oppose everything that does not conform to their "ideal". Environmental opposition will slow down any solution.
Final Comment: I don't see any point if firing Chu. I think the Obama administration has as good a grasp of the situation as any administration could. In fact, they will push science as part of the solution, in contrast to the prior administration, who were anti-science.
respirate: thanks for the kind words. it is due to users such as yourself that i get the motivation to investigate and write this stuff. wrt NG, you said 20-30 years, but if hefner is right, it's more like 70 years. NG supplies continue to surprise on the upside, and i wouldn't bet against hef - he's been proved right so many times, and his life's work has been dedicated to this issue. there is no doubt the price of NG would rise as a result of such a policy, but after 2008, i think we all know what is in store for oil prices in a peak oil world. also, remember that LNG terminals will help protect and even out world NG prices. there are HUGE nat gas fields overseas. obviously i am not suggesting we trade oil import for NG import, but the fact that there are plentiful worldside NG supplies (as opposed to oil) means i'd rather back NG than oil. distribution map? not sure what you mean. the existing NG pipeline grid is easy to find on the net, and i am not so sure it would be substantially different as a result of this policy. i am sure some points of the grid would need expansion, but the refueling stations would be a bigger expense. perhaps NG is not "the" answer long term, but as far as i am concerned it is "the" answer to protect us from peak oil's adverse economic impact (next 5-20 years). if it is not, i wish someone could explain to me what is. thanks for commenting.
Freya: i don't say who or what utilities should run on what fuel - the article simply quantifies what demand and supplies would be required to implement such a policy and that we do have the NG supplies to implement it. as far as coal industry employment goes, i guess my preference would be that these people work on building natural gas turbines, refueling stations, making and installing auto and truck conversion kits, and work in the energy patch exploration and production businesses instead of in the coal business. not sure what you meant about infrastruture...the gasoline is obviously already there, obviously the CNG needs to be built. you bring up a good point about CNG storage, and obviously such a large increase in NG demand would require more NG storage...but i'd rather store clean NG than the sludge produced by the combustion process of coal-fired coal plants.
jack gordon: the Civic GX has a kevlar and carbon-fiber-wrapped fuel tank. depsite all the supposed dangers of CNG tanks in autos/trucks, i have yet to see one single study that says NGVs are appreciably more dangerous than gasoline cars and trucks. neither california (one of the most consumer safety minded of all states), utah, oklahoma or any foreign country where CNG is much more widely used has published such a report (to my knowledge). if you find such a study (by a reliable independent organization), i'd love to read it. there are some articles out there about the "dangers" of NGV, but when i track them down, they are lobbyists paid for by the oil industry and the "investigative journalism" is a joke.
AlNider: you are correct in that i did not quantify the costs of coal vs natural gas. it is not an easy calculation to make if you take "total cost": for instance: what is the economic cost of destroying 80% of America's fresh water lakes, rivers, streams and creeks? what is the economic cost of putting mercury isotopes (with a half-life of hundreds of years) into the US water table? what is the economic impact of the 1.1 billion gallon coal ash spill in Kingston, TN that ended up in the emory, clinch, and tennesee rivers? you can read about that spill, one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the country, here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
if you are a person suffering with health care costs, i think the cost of burning coal would be "prohibitive". if you are a person that has a body full of mercury or cancer from eating seafood and fresh water fish, i think you'd find the costs "prohibitive". so sure, i will agree with you that from a utlity companies point of view, yeah, let's go coal. however, part of the reason the costs are better for coal is because:
1) US gov policy has subsidized coal
2) EPA emissions restrictions on coal are comical
3) we ignore the health care costs
4) we ignore the enivornmental costs
5) US gov policy discourages natural gas
6) US EPA regulations discourage NGVs.
i suggest you read hefner's book for a more complete discussion on this issue. you point out german strategies, yet hasn't germany decided to concentrate on wind and other renewables and to reduce coal-fired electrical generation? i think we also disagree about the affect of coal burning on global warming, which you seem to minimize. i think it is very real, and very dangerous not only in the short term, but for our kids and those to come.
Andy1234: again, you like so many others say the gov shouldnt get involved in energy policy. rather than to repeat myself, please read above my response to user "bfras". on an socialist/capitalist level, you seem to want to adopt the laissez faire attitude of the bush administration, yet look what that got us: nationalization of the mortgage, insurance, banking, and financial services industry paid for by the middle class taxpayer! what more damning results and evidence could you possibly want to see as proof that government "hands off" policy can have disastrous effects and cause wealth distribution to funnel straight to the upper 0.01% of the already most wealthy well connected and corrupt government and industry "officials"? as far as global warming goes, i respectfully disagree, and again i don't know what more evidence you need to see to convince you to change your opinion.
thetruthhurts: thanks for the comments. wow, $0.23 gasoline...i remember $0.40 cents/gallon back when i was in grade school and mowed yards to make money. glad you brought up Kinder Morgan because it reminds me (again) that i continue to neglect mentioning pipeline operators as investment vehicles. some of these operators make their money on volumes and are somewhat dissassociated from price movement of NG itself. i agree with your comments on benefits of building a nat gas industrial infrastrucure. thanks.
epeon: you say the concept of my article is terribly wrong. ok, what is your suggested solution on how we can get off foreign oil addiction? you say, like so many others, the gov shouldnt be involved in energy policy. please scroll up and read my response to user "bfras". after you read that response, please dont forget to send me your suggested solution to the peak oil and foreign oil addiction problems, ok?
JohnWeiler: impressed that you got your 1954 ford working on propane. boy, do i miss the day of auto engine simplicity. i had a 1972 toyota corona that was the simplest car in the world to work on. knew every bolt on that engine. of course they were dirty, and now we have engines run by microprocessors that 40 years ago would have rivaled the more powerful computer available. i guess what i am saying is that retrofitting my toyota tacoma truck to run on nat gas would be "involved". i'd probably have to rewrite the entire engine control software dealing with ignition, fuel regulation, and emissions. not saying that you suggested that, just talking out loud. long term, my hope is that hydrogen fusion becomes a reality. thx for the post.
KkipOlinger: thanks. according to the EIA, the US imported 3.56 TCF of natural gas from canada in 2008. we had total LNG imports of 0.35 TCF, trinidad being the largest supplier at 0.26 TCF. the investors in US LNG are probably taking a bath due to the huge shale supplies, falling demand, and subsequent price of NG falling off a cliff.
Ferdinand: ok, so you don't like the concept of having half US cars and trucks running on nat gas. please send me your suggestions on how the US should deal with peak oil and its 60% addiction to foreign oil. thanks.
charliezap: i agree the issue of gas is cost: NG is **cheaper**, not to mention cleaner and produced in the US. wrt the market deciding, again please scroll up and read my previous response to user "bfras". you think the obama adminstration has a good grasp on energy? "clean coal" and an energy secretary that says he is "agnostic" about natural gas transportation? sorry, this is more the same that will keep us addicted to foreign oil....america can do *much* better. obama is a huge dissapointment to me with respect to energy policy. it is effectively same as bush in that he has done nothing to *signficantly reduce foreign oil imports*. nothing. at least not yet. further, he apparently is bought, paid for, and controlled by coal interests. this is terrible. his "clean coal" mantra is a myth and an oxymoron.
poytrops: yes, i didnt mention canada (see my response to skipO above). i was trying to determine if the US alone could supply enough NG to meet our needs. with the huge trade deficits the US is running, i dont think we can afford to keep sending our energy dollars out of the country. we need the JOBS this policy will create, we need to reduce US fiscal and trade deficits, we need to reindustrialize the US and improve our long term competitiveness. these things can't wait (in my opinion). we have been neglecting them for decades. time is up. we need to get to WORK. thanks for the comments.
When looking at fossil fuel replacement over the past years through to today, a few things repeatedly jump to mind.
1) There is no obvious, coherent, overarching energy policy that is being articulated to the public, passes a pedestrian sniff test, and which fires the public zeal of middle Americans. CAT has all the appearances of a political chimera whether that is its intention or not, and "sniffs" badly. Hardly anyone in flyover country (where I live) does not feel that Washington adheres to the old saw, "the masses are asses".
2) I do not like Washington directing energy solutions via bureaucrats, but a "jolt" is need to redirect the ship of energy in America.
Let's keep the wealth in America and develop the alternate sources we need with it. We need a national goal similar to putting a man on the moon to get this done.
Our biggest detractors will be the oil nations that own us, I can see nothing but pain ahead.
www.cbsnews.com/storie...
I'm looking forward to reading Hefner to gain greater insight into gas supplies. The USGS oil estimates always tend toward the optimistic side on reserves so I'm quite interested on his data on the subject.
One point often mentioned is that building a nuclear plant is a decade or longer proposition. This is true under our current one off design method and lack of urgency. Using a standard one (or several) design and making it a priority would shorten this cycle and once we realize the need this could be accomplished in substantially less time.
Your biggest challenges are political, as the investor community will never set a foot into this plan with the current administration, which is soo overly negative on fossil fuels. These fuels are the life blood of America and will stay so for decades, but the overly negative talk, think last week when Al Gore had the Congressional "leadership" on their knees, what investor would risk capital to move to such a brilliant plan, as yours is.
Yes, Fritz, you are constructing a plan for America, which in the right political environment would invigorate the American economy for decades, but sadly sits on the wrong side of the current political fence.
If you want a political supporter, try Newt Gingrich and his American Solutions site for a starter. It is a conservative site so you will be thoroughly challenged. But Newt is very opened minded and a brilliant debator.
Best of luck Fritz, how can we all help?
Natural gas production can easily be ramped up to take the strain as oil supplies become increasingly tight. In case anyone thinks oil will remain at $50, let's remember there were more cars sold in China in Q1 2009 than in the USA and global oil out put has been flat for several years with increasing reliance on unreliable suppliers. Bio-fuels are largely unproven and expensive and will take many years to start significantly replacing oil - if ever.
It requires a government kick-start to put the necessary refueling infrastructure in place and to provide automanufacturers with incentives to provide more NGV capable vehicles. This is technically much easier than plug-in hybrid.
I am puzzled why Hinda selected the Civic as the only model for NGV. A Civic has such good gas mileage that the fuel is almost irrelevant. It would make much more sense to have natural gas powered heavy-duty pick-ups and large SUVSs - not to mention FEDEX and UPS trucks, garbage trucks, all buses, etc. Many cities have converted urban bus fleets to natural gas to avoid noxious diesel fumes.
Dr. Chu need to pursue all sensible avenues, which includes Natural Gas. Clean coal was just a convenient Bush era red herring like hydrogen fuel-cell cars - designed to put off and delay practical near-term decisions until the mythical, magical, wonderful technology of 15 years hence becomes 'available'.
Solutions such as more long distance trains and government financing (not paid for) assistance in installation of home solar electric and water heating in sunny states, water recycling plants, reform of agricultural irrigation methods and crops (stop wasting resources on corn for biofuel) and a million other things can be done without cursing each other out and demanding an immediate return to the stone age. Stop arguing and start working before China takes over the world and the point will be moot.
On Apr 27 10:33 AM charliezap wrote:
> Comments from the top of my head, which could be disproved by research
> or facts.
>
> 1. I don't think that Big Oil is much interested in looking for oil
> onshore the lower 48 any more. Their main interest within the US
> is potential fields offshore or in Alaska. Virtually all of the smaller
> E & P companies are already focused on gas.
>
> 2. There's lots of gas out there. The issue is cost. You have to
> go deeper, into deeper water, or use new technology fracturing to
> get it out of the shale formations.
>
> 3. Let the market decide, yes, but we do need tax incentives and/or
> disincentives to steer usage away from energy sources that pollute,
> contribute to global warming, or lack security of supply. A carbon
> tax (or cap and trade) would solve a lot of problems. A) It would
> encourage conservation in the use of transportation fuels, B) it
> would push more power plants toward natural gas, C) it would reduce
> carbon dioxide emissions, D) it would push demand toward domestic
> natural gas and other domestic sources (including wind and solar),
> and would reduce reliance on imported oil, including from countries
> such as Venezuela, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia, E) it would improve
> the US trade balance, and, F) it would reduce the US federal budget
> deficit.
>
> 4. SemiFinal Comments: I don't think it is feasible to switch over
> to natural gas in the time frame proposed. It would take enormous
> amounts of capital for drilling and infra-structure. And there are
> so-called "environmentalists" who oppose everything that does not
> conform to their "ideal". Environmental opposition will slow down
> any solution.
>
> Final Comment: I don't see any point if firing Chu. I think the Obama
> administration has as good a grasp of the situation as any administration
> could. In fact, they will push science as part of the solution, in
> contrast to the prior administration, who were anti-science.
Because there are a limited number of natural gas outlets for CPN vehicles, one would first want to look at practical applications, such as fleet use in a local area. Certainly under that limited alternative, the supply of natural gas would be more than adequate, and the cost, even if natural gas prices rise to twice their current level, would still be less than gasoline or diesel fuel.
As to continued use of coal, there is at least one process (developed by SASOL) that converts coal to gas at sufficiently low prices to make such an alternative worthwhile. Sasol has several CTG plants outside the U.S. Whether these plants are low enough in CO2 emissions to please everyone is a question I can't answer, but CTG gets rid of most of the pollution problems associated with coal.
One would think that with all this stimulus money being thrown at infrastructure projects, a compressed natural gas infrastructure could reasonably be added to the list of cost effective projects. I make these comments on the basis of my past research in energy alternatives and my current position as director of the oldest online investment advisory service.
On Apr 27 10:51 AM Michael Fitzsimmons wrote:
> bfras: unfortunately, the gov got involved in the 1970's and passed
> legislation which effectively restricted natural gas use and subsidized
> coal and oil. today the gov is still subsidizing coal and oil. the
> gov will *always* be involved in energy policy, just like every gov
> the world over. therefore your wish that the gov not be involved
> is simply unrealistic. the real question is what fuel(s) and energy
> sources should gov incourage, and which fuel(s) and energy sources
> should gov discourage. right now, in my opinion, the gov is backing
> the wrong fuels to the detriment of the America's economic, environmental,
> and national security interests.
>
> respirate: thanks for the kind words. it is due to users such as
> yourself that i get the motivation to investigate and write this
> stuff. wrt NG, you said 20-30 years, but if hefner is right, it's
> more like 70 years. NG supplies continue to surprise on the upside,
> and i wouldn't bet against hef - he's been proved right so many times,
> and his life's work has been dedicated to this issue. there is no
> doubt the price of NG would rise as a result of such a policy, but
> after 2008, i think we all know what is in store for oil prices in
> a peak oil world. also, remember that LNG terminals will help protect
> and even out world NG prices. there are HUGE nat gas fields overseas.
> obviously i am not suggesting we trade oil import for NG import,
> but the fact that there are plentiful worldside NG supplies (as opposed
> to oil) means i'd rather back NG than oil. distribution map? not
> sure what you mean. the existing NG pipeline grid is easy to find
> on the net, and i am not so sure it would be substantially different
> as a result of this policy. i am sure some points of the grid would
> need expansion, but the refueling stations would be a bigger expense.
> perhaps NG is not "the" answer long term, but as far as i am concerned
> it is "the" answer to protect us from peak oil's adverse economic
> impact (next 5-20 years). if it is not, i wish someone could explain
> to me what is. thanks for commenting.
>
> Freya: i don't say who or what utilities should run on what fuel
> - the article simply quantifies what demand and supplies would be
> required to implement such a policy and that we do have the NG supplies
> to implement it. as far as coal industry employment goes, i guess
> my preference would be that these people work on building natural
> gas turbines, refueling stations, making and installing auto and
> truck conversion kits, and work in the energy patch exploration and
> production businesses instead of in the coal business. not sure what
> you meant about infrastruture...the gasoline is obviously already
> there, obviously the CNG needs to be built. you bring up a good point
> about CNG storage, and obviously such a large increase in NG demand
> would require more NG storage...but i'd rather store clean NG than
> the sludge produced by the combustion process of coal-fired coal
> plants.
>
> jack gordon: the Civic GX has a kevlar and carbon-fiber-wrapped fuel
> tank. depsite all the supposed dangers of CNG tanks in autos/trucks,
> i have yet to see one single study that says NGVs are appreciably
> more dangerous than gasoline cars and trucks. neither california
> (one of the most consumer safety minded of all states), utah, oklahoma
> or any foreign country where CNG is much more widely used has published
> such a report (to my knowledge). if you find such a study (by a
> reliable independent organization), i'd love to read it. there are
> some articles out there about the "dangers" of NGV, but when i track
> them down, they are lobbyists paid for by the oil industry and the
> "investigative journalism" is a joke.
>
> AlNider: you are correct in that i did not quantify the costs of
> coal vs natural gas. it is not an easy calculation to make if you
> take "total cost": for instance: what is the economic cost of destroying
> 80% of America's fresh water lakes, rivers, streams and creeks? what
> is the economic cost of putting mercury isotopes (with a half-life
> of hundreds of years) into the US water table? what is the economic
> impact of the 1.1 billion gallon coal ash spill in Kingston, TN that
> ended up in the emory, clinch, and tennesee rivers? you can read
> about that spill, one of the worst environmental disasters in the
> history of the country, here:
>
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
>
>
> if you are a person suffering with health care costs, i think the
> cost of burning coal would be "prohibitive". if you are a person
> that has a body full of mercury or cancer from eating seafood and
> fresh water fish, i think you'd find the costs "prohibitive". so
> sure, i will agree with you that from a utlity companies point of
> view, yeah, let's go coal. however, part of the reason the costs
> are better for coal is because:
>
> 1) US gov policy has subsidized coal
> 2) EPA emissions restrictions on coal are comical
> 3) we ignore the health care costs
> 4) we ignore the enivornmental costs
> 5) US gov policy discourages natural gas
> 6) US EPA regulations discourage NGVs.
>
> i suggest you read hefner's book for a more complete discussion on
> this issue. you point out german strategies, yet hasn't germany decided
> to concentrate on wind and other renewables and to reduce coal-fired
> electrical generation? i think we also disagree about the affect
> of coal burning on global warming, which you seem to minimize. i
> think it is very real, and very dangerous not only in the short term,
> but for our kids and those to come.
>
> Andy1234: again, you like so many others say the gov shouldnt get
> involved in energy policy. rather than to repeat myself, please read
> above my response to user "bfras". on an socialist/capitalist level,
> you seem to want to adopt the laissez faire attitude of the bush
> administration, yet look what that got us: nationalization of the
> mortgage, insurance, banking, and financial services industry paid
> for by the middle class taxpayer! what more damning results and evidence
> could you possibly want to see as proof that government "hands off"
> policy can have disastrous effects and cause wealth distribution
> to funnel straight to the upper 0.01% of the already most wealthy
> well connected and corrupt government and industry "officials"? as
> far as global warming goes, i respectfully disagree, and again i
> don't know what more evidence you need to see to convince you to
> change your opinion.
>
> thetruthhurts: thanks for the comments. wow, $0.23 gasoline...i remember
> $0.40 cents/gallon back when i was in grade school and mowed yards
> to make money. glad you brought up Kinder Morgan because it reminds
> me (again) that i continue to neglect mentioning pipeline operators
> as investment vehicles. some of these operators make their money
> on volumes and are somewhat dissassociated from price movement of
> NG itself. i agree with your comments on benefits of building a nat
> gas industrial infrastrucure. thanks.
>
> epeon: you say the concept of my article is terribly wrong. ok, what
> is your suggested solution on how we can get off foreign oil addiction?
> you say, like so many others, the gov shouldnt be involved in energy
> policy. please scroll up and read my response to user "bfras". after
> you read that response, please dont forget to send me your suggested
> solution to the peak oil and foreign oil addiction problems, ok?
>
>
> JohnWeiler: impressed that you got your 1954 ford working on propane.
> boy, do i miss the day of auto engine simplicity. i had a 1972 toyota
> corona that was the simplest car in the world to work on. knew every
> bolt on that engine. of course they were dirty, and now we have engines
> run by microprocessors that 40 years ago would have rivaled the more
> powerful computer available. i guess what i am saying is that retrofitting
> my toyota tacoma truck to run on nat gas would be "involved". i'd
> probably have to rewrite the entire engine control software dealing
> with ignition, fuel regulation, and emissions. not saying that you
> suggested that, just talking out loud. long term, my hope is that
> hydrogen fusion becomes a reality. thx for the post.
kly84g: sounds like you have already done the math for me. i like your analysis of rig count, but i don't agree with your conclusions. are you saying the US energy industry cannot either afford or get headcount to drill? i dont believe this. the money will come from the same place it has always come from: the price of natural gas. are you saying that US petroleum engineering capability is not up to the task? are you saying we should let our greatest energy resource sit idle because you are worried we cannot find the people or resources to bring it to market? i know the US has become incompetent in many areas, but the day we don't even try to become industrial in order to obtain domestic energy reserves is the day we might as well close up shop, close our petroleum engineering departments, roll over and play dead.
old wizard: although the 25 mpg number i used is indeed too high, it actually increases the amount of NG necessary to replace those miles with NGVs, so in that sense i was being conversative in the estimate, which is why i chose it. oil fired electrical generation is in the noise compared with the others, and i was focused on reducing foreign oil imports and coal usage, so that's why that's not there. i didnt break out the home heating number separately, it is merely one category included in US total nat gas consumption. that breakdown is easy to find on the EIA website if you are interested. the reason i brought coal into this conversation is, as you said, because obama and team apparently think EVs is the way to go (at the expense of NGVs). so, where is the electicity going to come from? mainly, his ridiculously assinine "clean coal" initiative. i can't believe "environmental purists" are backing the "clean coal" myth. btw, i didn't say this administration was pro-science, i said they have alot of rhetoric about it but at the end of the day, with respect to reducing foreign oil imports, they haven't done a damn thing and its effectively the same as bush & company. i also asked for obama to fire energy secretary chu and that chu's conclusions weren't based on science...something else..that was kind of the point of the article.
svkoho: where would the money come from? well, good question and the answer is the same gov that has been subsidizing coal and oil for the last 40 years. tax gasoline, tax coal. give tax credits to NGVs and to build natgas refueling infrastructure. the energy guys will deliver the nat gas. the gov gives billions of dollar to the already uber-wealthy banker, insurance, and financial executives and we can't get $500 billion for an effort like this that will not only pay for itself in 3 years by saving foreign oil imports, but will pay americans dividends for decades. amazing. you "never see me addressing transportation as the issue"? man, that is all i have been writing about for months now, haha, i guess i must really suck at it. "reserves from formations that are not economic"...are you referring to the barnett shale formation? the haynesville shale? the marcelus shale? pin me down, then i can show you the actual production data that says the reserves are REAL and are producible. gosh, why do you think nat gas reserves are 35% above normal and the bottom fallen out of the price? you say it would be better to use electricity: where are the EVs? where is the electricity coming from, more coal-fired plants? i cannot agree to that strategy, it simply keeps us addicted to foreign oil even longer. you say a natgas switched solution is no solution, but you don't explain why..further, you don't explain the alternative (you try, but EVs and coal doesnt do it for me). if you are the bright big picture guy illuminating my brain, all i can say is i am quite content to be a little picture guy. your solutions are more of the same: unrealistic unpragmatic dogma that doesn reduce foreign oil imports nor the CO2 and toxic particulates of oil and coal. if that is " bright big picture" thinking, i'll eat my hat.
IndianaOracle: my last article on SA articulated such an energy policy :) but you are right in that the US gov and media completely drop the ball as to the importance of it and articulating it. it;s all about CONTROL over the middle class. that is why natgas transportation is being blocked...because the gov and powers that control the media WANT us to run out of oil and gasoline so they can have complete control over us. that is why the "Phill" is a symbol of freedom to me, and Fuelmaker going bankrupt is a very very bad omen for the American middle class. wrt washington being involved in energy policy, please read my earlier response to user "bfras".
long_on_oil: thanks and you are exactly right about creating dollars out of thin air only to send it to foreign oil producers. spot on!! it is a completely failed strategy from the start, and any first year economics student understands that. i just wish there were more people like you who do....you can tell from some of these comments to my article that many still dont get it.
ripskii: yes, i mentioned the 60 minutes show in my article. it was so bogus. no nat gas person at the table to discuss it. "clean coal" and "coal sequestration" are myths and jokes. how you pump tons of CO2 into the earth? come on. USGS oil estimates may have always been on the high side, but US nat gas reserves have always been very much on the low end (you can tell who runs much of the DOE and USGS then, eh?). i agree with you that we need more nukes, but only enough to reduce the coal burning such that wind and solar and nat gas cannot. long term, i still hope for hydrogen fusion.
jackkreg: thank you. and of course you are correct in that writing on this investor site really does nothing but give me a place to vent. the power to fix this mess is in washington and they are bought off and paid for - this apparently this includes obama too. sad, very sad. i'll check out newt's site, but i just can't get excited by so-called "conservative republicans" since they changed the definition of what that is (i considered bush a radical fascist). i also intensely dislike mixing religion with government. just more mythology like "clean coal". how can you help? write (letters, not email), call, and badger the heck out of your elected officials. anyhow, thanks for reading and commenting.
User321716: great first paragraph, and nat gas *is* way below $2/gallon ($0.88 cents in utah last i checked). great second paragraph, you are on a roll...and 3rd..keep it up...honda probably did a study and found out that most folks that buy SUVs couldn't care less about natural gas or driving a vehicle run on it. "clean coal" wasn't just bush era - obama says it waaay more than bush ever did! unfortunately. but you are right about red herrings like hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles merely distracting us (and keeping us addicated to foreign oil). good post!
realold: yeah, you're right..i wish i could calm down ;) overall good post, except i would say i believe the scientific evidence supporting CO2 and particulates cause global warming is in, and it is most convincing. thx.
On Apr 27 11:21 AM kly84g wrote:
> Now do your math on the number of drilling rigs needed for this transformation.
> About 50% of natural gas production comes from wells drilled within
> the last three years. The number of rigs drilling for natural gas
> has dropped by 50% in the last six months. Your proposal for expanding
> the use of natural gas requires increasing production by about 75%.
> It's hard to pin down exactly how many rigs are need to sustain current
> production, but it's probably substantially more than the 750 or
> so currently drilling. The peak number was about 1500 last year.
> If we assume 1000 are needed for current consumption, adding 75%
> increases the numbers to 1750. But currently only the best prospects
> are being drilled. So to increase output we'd need a larger percentage
> increase in wells than the increase in production. Perhaps 2000.
> Where will the money come from for these rigs? For the actual rigs,
> for the operation of them, etc. More importantly, where will the
> skilled crews to operate them come from? Where will the experienced
> engineers to design the wells come from? Where will the experienced
> geoscientists to develop the prospects come from?
I propose we do as you suggest and rapidly adopt gas as a transportation fuel to substantially reduce our dependence on foreign oil while improving our air quality (and reducing carbon dioxide emissions). At the same time we build some of the latest version nuclear power generators to replace any new planned coal fired plants and provide zero carbon electricity during the transition. Simultaneously we rapidly develop commercial scale IFR reactors and build them as quickly as possible. They will easily consume all our accumulated nuclear waste eliminating the need for Yucca Mountain nuclear storage. The long term goal is to replace all coal fired power generation with IFR reactors. Gas powered generation will only be needed as peakers for solar and wind generated electricity, both of which will be expanded as quickly as possible. Eventually the bulk of our base load electricity will be supplied from IFR reactors with enough extra power for plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles. Remember that IFR reactors will consume old nuclear waste, excess weapons grade nuclear material and depleted uranium, so no additional uranium will be needed for much more than anorher century. We end up in control of all our own clean and sustainable energy requirements.
BTW coal burning generates quite a lot of radioactive waste and makes modern nuclear power look quite clean by comparison.
www.ornl.gov/info/ornl....
I see many problems with the current society....granted...I am just one person with one view point...and I am fine with people who disagree.
1) Money printing. This in itself controls our economy...the expansion and contraction of the money supply dictates a lot in this world. Expansion decreases the value of each dollar....the way its issued and interest tied to that issuance. Nothing to back it....etc. Currency values fluctuating....the print off race in order to devalue ones currency for exports....if its an export driven economy...its all a big mess. but one thing for sure has proven in history...all currencies will eventually end up at their intrinsic value of 0.
Problems arise from loose monetary expansion....policies also increase the money supply via who qualifies for loans. The funny thing about this one is the government in 1999 had a Urban Development act passed which made lower qualified people be able to obtain loans. This in essence made housing more UNAFFORDABLE for most....and sparked a huge drunk fest of speculation on housing....that combined with low interest rates. All policies and interest rates set by the government and/or entities closely tied with the gov (fed reserve).
2) Back in the day only white male land owners could vote. They all had a stake in society.....the system was designed around this fact that only these people could vote. Our system IMO cannot accomodate every single person being able to vote....regardless of them having NO STAKE in that society. How could one who has no stake have a vote? Perhaps the amount of taxes paid into the system by an individual should have that as their voting power. That way people who pay enormous amounts of taxes would have the largest influence.....remember I am saying TAX DOLLORS...people who avoid paying taxes would have less voting power or none if they avoid them all together. Perhaps only landowners should have voting power? I don't know the answer to this....but right now...voting for money will ruin this system....as quoted by ben franklin "When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
3) The only thing government should be responsible for is protection of its citizens and the rights and liberties of them, Right now they are shitting all over them. They have no rights for most of the taxes, redistribution of wealth (poor allocation of money), taking taxpayer money...increasing size of government...a federal reserve, etc, etc, etc.
I got to run...will post more.
1. Chesapeake Energy CEO McClellan doesn't just say the Haynesville shale will eventually produce 250 TCF of gas, he's actually guessing the thing will eventually churn out 1.5 quadrillion cubic feet;
www.rigzone.com/news/a...
>> "We think in time it will become the largest gas field in the world at 1.5 quadrillion cubic feet," he added. <<
I have reason to believe that. Somewhere recently I saw a log of a well drilled all the way down in southern Mississippi or Southern Alabama (I forget which) which encountered the Haynesville formation. It was quite deep down there (IIRC it was around 18k feet down), and there's no guarantee it will be as gas-prone as the area in NW Louisiana and NE Texas. Nonetheless, the fact that this thing extends much farther to the south and east than everyone is currently assuming tells me its reserve sizes are likely to get bigger over time.
2. There will be other Haynesville shales. Petrohawk is now telling us the Eagleford (or Eagle Ford) shale in southern Texas is looking as good as the Haynesville:
www.ogj.com/display_ar.../
And like the Haynesville, the Eagleford extends a lot farther than these localized areas these companies are talking about. In Louisiana this shale - an Upper Cretaceous shale - is also called the Eutaw shale. Yes that's correct, this shale goes all the way over to Louisiana, and Mississippi too. My evidence can be found on the stratigraphic chart of page 4 of the following document:
www.lgs.lsu.edu/deploy...
3. Forget about the methane (natural gas) hydrates. While nice, what's more interesting is what's *below* the methane hydrates - usually lots of methane (natural gas) and often oil too. Methane hydrates are often formed by methane gases in undersea formations seeping to the surface where they solidify upon encountering cold waters. There is a large collection of methane hydrates in an area off the coast of the Carolinas:
marine.usgs.gov/fact-s...
^
"A pair of relatively small areas, each about the size of the State of Rhode Island, shows intense concentrations of gas hydrates. USGS scientists estimate that these areas contain more than 1,300 trillion cubic feet of methane gas, an amount representing more than 70 times the 1989 gas consumption of the United States. Some of the gas was formed by bacteria in the sediments, but some may be derived from deep strata of the Carolina Trough. The Carolina Trough is a significant offshore oil and gas frontier area where no wells have been drilled. It is a very large basin, about the size of the State of South Carolina, that has accumulated a great thickness of sediment, perhaps more than 13 kilometers. Salt diapirs, reefs, and faults, in addition to hydrate gas, may provide greater potential for conventional oil and gas traps than is present in other east coast basins."
Keep your fingers crossed that Obama and Salizer allow drilling off the coast of the Carolinas. I bet there's lots of goodies down there.
4. Finally, in addition to the Haynesville and Eagleford shales, there will be other large shales discovered that no one has poked any holes into yet. This is not just true of the US but also Canada, Mexico and the rest of the world for that matter. I have this one shale in mind in Utah and Nevada which, according to one thing I read, is a huge, thick shale with a very high organic content in parts. I'd be willing to bet this is another Haynesville, but no one's tested it yet.
There should be little if any safety nets for individuals...it should be the responsibility of the individuals or families to take care of oneself/themselves....... any other law would in fact violate the rights and freedom of another.
"Today's mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble, the flawed, the suffering, the guilty, is a cover for the profoundly Kantian hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able, the successful, the virtuous, the confident, the happy. A philosophy out to destroy man's mind is necessarily a philosophy of hatred for man, for man's life, and for every human value. Hatred of the good for being the good, is the hallmark of the twentieth century."
Ayn Rand
Since reason is "man's basic tool of survival," Rand held that an individual has a natural moral right to act as the judgment of his or her own mind directs and to keep the product of this effort. In Rand's view, this requires that the unprovoked initiation of physical force and the acquisition of property by fraud be banned. She agreed with America's Founding Fathers that the sole legitimate function of government is the protection of individual rights, including property rights. The purpose of objective criminal and civil law is to protect the individual from the coercion of others, while the purpose of a constitution and Bill of Rights is to protect the individual from the coercion of the state (historically the greatest violator of individual rights in Rand's estimation). Government may use force, that is its essence, but to do so legitimately it must never act as the aggressor––it may use force only in response to an unprovoked initiation of force, e.g. theft, murder, foreign aggression. Rand did not believe that a free society, one in which all interaction was thus rendered voluntary, would make anyone rational––rationality cannot be compelled and is an exclusive capacity of the individual––but freedom does allow those who are rational and productive to achieve at their highest capacity.
Ayn rand
The free market works....its just we don't have a free market...we haven't for a long time. We have idiots in government who think they are god like....and can solve problems. The problem is them. They are the ones who think that alternative energy is the answer....and subsidize specific energies.....but who says those are the best to have? Why subsidize anything? If they are truely better.....why aren't they surviving on their own? Where did these subsides come from to go to these technologies? What authority do they have to subsidize ANYTHING?
How is energy tied into this?
If we actually had a dollar tied to some value....all this energy would cost us the same.....it would be all the others moving up and down...everything is a game on expansion and contraction of money supply. Very little price movements in energy actually come/came from production supply issues....especially when we are supposed to be the reserve currency. Right now credit/leverage is being destroyed....and money is not being loaned out....hence deflation of the money supply.
energy is the economy....and the free market has answers if energy becomes a large problem.....the problem is we don't have a free market.....and we have a corrupt system not following the constitution.
What we need fear is when our economy becomes so corrupt....what return would one have for coming up with a grand energy plan if the government is going to distribute all the rewards for coming up with the plan?
in the end, our civilization knows very little about what commodity limitations we face. e.g., energy[oil,uranium,coa... all have economic interdependencies on many other commodities, the existence of and costs to obtain are not known into the future. all we can be certain of is that the cost of a useable unit must be equal to or less than the cost of its benefit of use[ eg, a bbl oil must have a positive EROEI [ bringing into play the existence of and acceptable cost of many other interdependent commodities]. this subject regards our long term capacity to provision ourselves, given the future exponential growth in world population, is a compete unknown; has had little study in our history[beyond the exercise by CLUB OF ROME in the early 1970s].
a very basic introduction to this potential dilemma for world nations and their survival is contained in recent book by stephen leeb, "GAME OVER", 2009 publication. it merits reading for those receptive to the concept of resource limits in our world. it may answer recent geo political/geo economic actions by china and others.
this comment by me is not to counter or discredit your work/conclusion; but to use as springboard for further thought on the energy/commodity interdependency topic. it merits broader thought/understanding.
the recent action by California--re, air quality vs CO2 should add more arrows to the NG advocacy. continued success on your efforts.
The main article quoted a number "300,000,000 TCF" as global natural gas reserve. Do you know what kind of astronomical number it is? That is a volume of a cube of 2040 kilograms on each side! You get the number exagerated by many many orders of magnitude.
www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oi...
But for the exercise you're doing here the "proven reserves" don't really matter much.
300,000,000,000,000,00... CF.
or
2,038,071,834 Cubic Miles of NG. each leg of a cube being roughly 1,275 miles in length. or 2053 Kilometers
the earth is 260,000,000,000 cubic miles roughly.
He is saying that .78% of the earths total volume is NG.
I don't know if this is or isn't correct....no one does.
But I assure you that each leg isn't a measurement of mass...but rather a measurement of distance:)
I find it hard to believe that every passing year NG will become more difficult to extract.......that we could meet future demand with such an increase in demand. a 3% compound rate means we have a doubling factor of roughly 24-25 yrs........which means every 25 yrs we will consume more energy than all the years added up preceeding it.
energy saved will be energy used for growth...surplus energy is the name of the game for all economies......
According to the geologist who's calculated the amount of natural gas in the Marcellus shale, he says the Marcellus could ultimately produce 363 TCF:
www.philly.com/philly/...
So, using the 8.6 TCF figure calculated by Fitz to power 1/2 of all US vehicles, the Marcellus alone could power those vehicles for 42 years.
pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs021...
^
"Estimates of the global resources of natural gas hydrate range from 100,000 to almost 300,000,000 trillion cubic feet (TCF)—to put these quantities in context, estimates of the remaining global reserves and undiscovered resources of conventional natural gas total about 13,000 TCF."
Even the smaller number is immense - that's 100 quadrillion cubic feet. Given this information and the info I've provided on the resources in some of these shale plays, it should by now be obvious that natural gas (in its various forms) is abundant.
The author did quote the number correctly from the USGS document you mentioned. But "from 100,000 to almost 300,000,000 TCF" is hardly a legitimate estimate, as the upper bound is 3000 times higher than the lower bound. I think it's probably a typo in the USGS document. It probably meat to say "100,000 to 300,000 TCF". That's more like it.
In any case, now is time to buy UNG regardless of the size of the potential reserve. The current natural gas price is simply way below production cost and hence is unsustainable. For any commodity, a price far below marginal production cost is always unsustainable.
I am sorry that the author confused the methane hydrate reserve with natural gas reserve. The later is MUCH MUCH smaller.
When you have a resource which has not yet been harvested in commercial quantities and about which relatively little is known, it is not uncommon to have wide variations in estimates of resource sizes. 300,000,000 TCF might be a typo, but then, it might not.
experienced: i assume you meant "CNG" or NGVs? well, of course people have looked at fleets for years - municipal fleets, pickens' work, and thats obvious and necessary. however, NG fleets alone aren't going to **significantly reduce foreign oil imports**, which is or at least should be, the real goal here. wrt CTL, why do all that work when you have a fuel (natural gas) that can power cars and trucks with no expensive processing? i like your last paragraph.
MarkitWacha: would you please refrain from copying and pasting my comments (or anyone elses) completely over again? it makes this comment section overly long, increases SA's memory requirements, make browsers slower..etc. etc. just refer to the commentor by username, or, cut n paste a signficant quote or two. thanks.
John Weiler: i agree.
ripskii: then what? well, if anything about human evolution is certain is that whatever happens in 50-100 years won't be what we expect or can imagine today. that said, i do expect more efficient solar and wind designs. i do hope that hydrogen fuel cell technology is viable. i hope that hydrogen fusion is a reality. one thing i firmly believe: if we don't deal with peak oil and foreign oil addiction in the next 5-10 years, the US as we know it won't be participating 50-100 years from now...at least not in any way shape or form as the "U.S.A". i agree we need to license and build state-of-the-art nuclear plants. honestly, i am not knowledgable at the current moment on what the perfect nuke technology or plant looks like or the waste handling. i intend to learn soon. as far as coal combustion generating radioactive waste - you are correct. i talked to a woman who viewed the emory river the night after the disaster at Kingston, TN and she said it glowed in the dark a very weird green color. scary stuff!
Andy: "pretty corrupt"? heh heh, well, i think that's an understatement considering the last few years, dont you? it's fascism is what it is. anyhow, point by point:
1) agree, printing money with nothing to back it up (as we have been doing and now it is on hemroids...errr..stero...
2) every citizen can't vote? not a fan of democracy huh? zoweee
3) what about building interstate hwy system? railroads? telegraph lines? gov has a role..and since it created this oil/coal nightmare, they need to play a role in fixing it (imho).
Oilfiner: wow, i hadn't seen that quote from mcclendon. glad you mentioned methane hydrates - i kept thinking i would get criticized for the way i simply added all the different forms of nat gas listed on the EIA website, yet you are the first to mention it. regardless, i am in agreement with you about vast shale and unknown natural gas reserves in the US. after having read hefner's book (have you? if not, you would really enjoy it by the sound of your comments), his logic is hard to refute, and the recent shale discoveries and production results vindicated his testimony to congress back in the 1970's when he called "bs" on exxon's opinion that nat gas had or would soon peak.
Andy1234: yeah, we saw what "unregulated" government has accomplished over the last 8 years: the nationalization of the banking, insurance, financial, and mortgage markets paid for by the middle class taxpayers. this fraudulent call for "laissez faire" economics should be called what it really is in this "modern" world of doublespeak: fascism. no sir, government created this oil/coal mess, and the problem is now of such massive magnitude and criticality it is going to take the government to help get us out of the mess. in other words, our solution to foreign oil addiction, like all the friggin banks they are shoveling money at, is "too big to fail".
fran: long time no see, i still remember your "now what"? comment from months ago. yes, stephen leeb's oil factor should be read by every american. now, after what has happened, that book appears to be a history book written prior to the history, it is amazingly accurate at predicting oil price movement, geopolitical strategy, what incompetent US policymakers would do, and the housing bubble. i have not read his GAME OVER, but the title sounds like he thinks its too late to effectively deal with peak oil. he may be right. certainly obama and chu aren't going to help if their first 100 days is any indication.
jackkreg: well, NG aleady IS around: there is a 2.2 million mile pipeline grid going to every major metropolitan area and connects to 63,000,000 homes...this grid and vast US natgas reserves are the best weapon against foreign oil imports that the US has! we just need the NGVs and CNG refueling devices (chicken-n-egg).
MarkAnthony: the author didn't just "throw in an astronomical number", that is the ***USGS*** estimate (100,000-300,000,000TCF). should i believe you rather than the USGS? where are your numbers? note that this estimate is a *range* ..from 100,000 to 300,000,000....conside... the US alone could have 3,000 TCF, and considering the vast reserves of countries in the middle east and elsewhere and that many regions of the world have not been explored or mapped, the USGS estimate looks quite rational to me, whereas your response looks a bit irrational and full of emotion: you say a "cube of 2040 kilograms on each side". my friend, kilogram is a unit of *weight* not a unit of *length*. you are clearly out of your area of expertise.
oilfinder: now THAT is some good feedback. i need to research this a bit and get back to you. meantime, why are the other forms of nat gas not counted as reserves?
Andy1234: good luck educating cleopatra. as far as your growth rate is concerned, it would take the US years simply to convert cars and trucks and power generation over to natural gas. so, it is not so simply as you describe to figure out how long the reserves would last. secondly, i think US nat gas reserves will be much closer to hefner's estimate (3,000 TCF) than the 742 quoted here. regardless, when you do cyphering on issues such as this, please do the same for foreign oil and let me know what your answer comes to for 25 years out. now THAT is some scary math...
OilFinder: good action! keep that data coming! thank you.
markanthony: you don't seem to understand what the USGS estimate is about. just calm down for a second and think about what the USGS is attempting to do: estimate the planet's total nat gas reserves. that is why there is a huge range - imagine trying to estimate the entire planet's reserves when the US alone has been way off (way too low) at estimating the most intensely explored and mapped and geologically understand land on the face of the earth. you say the author is confused, but i can tell you this much: unlike yourself, the author fully understands that the sides of a cube are not measured in kilograms. perhaps you can get the editors at seeking alpha to remove that comment of yours, because it documents just which one of us is "confused".
oldwizard: i actually figured as much (you commenting on someone else), i just wanted to clarify. i get misquoted (or misunderstood) so often perhaps i am a bit thin-skinned :) and your last statement is right on. i was shocked when i read what chu said. this article proves he has an agenda....and liberation from foreign oil addiction is not part of it. when will middle class americans figure out that obama is just like bush when it comes to the critical issue: how do we reduce foreign oil imports over the next 5-10 years? my energy policy shows not only how to do it, but how to reduce CO2 and particulate emissions at the same time as well as to put americans to WORK by building an infrastructure that will balance our huge trade deficits, strengthen the US dollar, and pay dividends to all americans for decades. yet, washington sleeps....what a pathetic state of affairs for what was once a great and powerful nation.
I think you should give Chu a break. He's new to the job and I doubt he's yet aware just how abundant natural gas is. I'm sure he got an earful from the US natural gas industry after he said that. ;-) Maybe you should email him that rigzone.com article on the Haynesville shale and throw in your CNG vehicle calculations for comparison. :-)
Interesting disconnect, treating the problem as an engineering job of putting together nuts and bolts. The other laughable disconnect is to rely on USGS, academics, or sell side hoopla. Their "proved and possible" reserves are probablistic, which means a resource exactly as good as those AAA subprime MBS that ended up in a bucket that no one wants to mark-to-market.
The financial question is pertinent. Gas is in surplus, gas drillers are up to their ears in debt. But the greatest challenge is where to find exploration geologists and geophysicists when the old guys retire or lose interest? There's no shortage of engineers. A typical project team consists of one seismic interpreter and 20 engineers, who ignore whatever the "deterministic" methodology concludes. Reservoir engineers can't deal with anything except polygons and probabilities.
I'm sure you remember the salad days, a whole decade of throwing money around? McMansions for the masses. New car every year if you felt like it and a home equity ATM to remodel the kitchen. PBR announced 30 billion boe of new light sweet crude and associated gas reserves. The USGS Bakken blue sky was 100 billion more.
The party is over. How much new production? At what cost? And what kind of "science" were these nuts-and-bolts engineers doing, for who, and why? If an independent valuation uses client data and client Monte Carlo assumptions, what good is it?
The energy IPO and private placement bull had Merrill's fingerprints all over it. Guess who's bulling commodities again? -- BankofMerrill.
On Apr 27 06:36 PM Mark Anthony wrote:
> The main article quoted a number "300,000,000 TCF" as global natural
> gas reserve. Do you know what kind of astronomical number it is?
> That is a volume of a cube of 2040 kilograms on each side! You get
> the number exagerated by many many orders of magnitude.
www.simmonsco-intl.com...
www.simmonsco-intl.com...
Trouble is the Sasol process produces a LOT of CO2, before even counting the CO2 produced when gasoline and diesel made by Sasol is used in cars and trucks. I've heard it said that Sasol is the largest single CO2 emitter in the Southern hemisphere. Sasol likely will have to consider CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) in the future, when and if it becomes feasible, and legally necessary.
www.sasol.com/
As to gasification, there are already such plants in the US, most notably the Great Plains plant owned by Dakota Gasification Company. Gas produced by this plant goes into the natural gas pipeline network for distribution and sale, while the CO2 is pipelined to Canada, where it is injected into the ground for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
www.dakotagas.com/Comp...
On Apr 27 02:12 PM experienced wrote:
> As to continued use of coal, there is at least one process (developed
> by SASOL) that converts coal to gas at sufficiently low prices to
> make such an alternative worthwhile. Sasol has several CTG plants
> outside the U.S. Whether these plants are low enough in CO2 emissions
> to please everyone is a question I can't answer, but CTG gets rid
> of most of the pollution problems associated with coal.
>
> One would think that with all this stimulus money being thrown at
> infrastructure projects, a compressed natural gas infrastructure
> could reasonably be added to the list of cost effective projects.
alanvonaltendorf: if engineering doesnt get the natural gas out of the ground, please explain to me what does. if you are unhappy with the USGS estimate, please provide facts and figures to refute it. criticizing something is easy - constructive criticism is a bit harder but much more valuable. you've posted twice now on the USGS estimate but added absolutely nothing to the conversation except "believe me, not them". why should we believe you when you've shown no data to back up your position?
markanthony: i respect simmons, and he has been correctly warning the world about peak oil. however, when it comes to natural gas, who am i going to believe? hefner, CHK, COP, or simmons? i'll go with hef. he's been drilling, exploring, and producing nat gas for over 50 years. he's been completely vindicated on the far reaching estimates he gave back in the 1970s to refute exxon mobil's congressional testimony. ultimately hefner's genius was his ability to disassociate nat gas from the simplistic "fossil fuel" category - that nat gas has a non-biologic origin and is therefore vastly more abundant that historical and traditional petroleum analysis would indicate. simple as that concept is, it was an absolute eye-opening revelation to me. after reading in his book the logic behind his conclusion, i find it hard to debate and believe he is absolutely correct.
charliezap: i wish someone could explain to me why the US would want to use expensive and dirty coal-to-liquids technology when we have abundant reserves of clean and cheap natural gas. it's the same problem i have with "clean coal": if we want to sequestor CO2, why not start with a fuel that has 50% less CO2 to begin with (natural gas) and none of the toxic particulates!!
On Apr 27 05:39 PM OilFinder wrote:
> Nice job, Fitz. Some additional information to support your analysis:
>
>
> 1. Chesapeake Energy CEO McClellan doesn't just say the Haynesville
> shale will eventually produce 250 TCF of gas, he's actually guessing
> the thing will eventually churn out 1.5 quadrillion cubic feet;<br/>www.rigzone.com/news/a...
On Apr 27 03:56 PM John Weiler wrote:
> You question where will the engineers come from to design drill rigs,
> design drilling schemes etc and where will the money come from to
> drill "all" these gas wells.....Oh this is so simple.....allow the
> free market to work. I can assure you within 12 months of a positive
> political envirnoment for the natural gas business you will have
> 1500 rigs working and within 24 months 2000 working. ....more as
> needed will appear.(There are already 1000 rigs setting ideal around
> the US and Canada right now). It will create dozens of new companies
> with indepedent (non government) investors, and a million plus new
> jobs....The USA will be energy independent within 5 years! I'll be
> one of the first investors!!
>
> markanthony: i respect simmons, and he has been correctly warning
> the world about peak oil. however, when it comes to natural gas,
> who am i going to believe? hefner, CHK, COP, or simmons? i'll go
> with hef. he's been drilling, exploring, and producing nat gas for
> over 50 years. he's been completely vindicated on the far reaching
> estimates he gave back in the 1970s to refute exxon mobil's congressional
> testimony. ultimately hefner's genius was his ability to disassociate
> nat gas from the simplistic "fossil fuel" category - that nat gas
> has a non-biologic origin and is therefore vastly more abundant that
> historical and traditional petroleum analysis would indicate. simple
> as that concept is, it was an absolute eye-opening revelation to
> me. after reading in his book the logic behind his conclusion, i
> find it hard to debate and believe he is absolutely correct.
Interesting theory. But it can not stand up to scrutiny. There is methane of astronomical origin, like the methane on uranus. However the earth is too small and its gravity pull too weak to trap methane in its atmosphere, let alone allow it to condense in the earth crust. I have thought about the abiotic origin of natural gas but I am not convinced.
But the origin doesn't even matter. The fact of the matter is natural gas wells are becoming increasingly expensive to drill, and each well starts to decline rapidly after just one or two years of production. Natural gas price must raise to reflect this reality of ever costly natural gas production.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
> jack
Please look at page 24 of your Matt Simmons natural gas document - which I note is from 2003. He claims: "The Root of the Problem: Natural Gas Has Peaked."
To demonstrate how wrong he was, check out the chart of US natural gas production from the EIA:
tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav...
This is your very best argument for your position yet, and it's because your writing is so much better.
As a trained editor, I would merely cut a few paragraphs down, ask you to change "big oil" (because it's a pejorative that's shows your inherent bias against oil and oil companies) to "large oil companies" and to delete the "unlike a recent ex-president" phrase (which again shows your more leftist politics; besides, do you think Bush really needs anymore knocks against him?), and that's about it.
Your sentences are better, shorter, and more concise. And you stuck to one subject, which is a first.
This is a huge improvement, Fitzy. Well done!
As far as content, however, I would say that to complete your argument that C02 is a pollutant and that something must be done about it, you should write an article showing many of the scientists who disagree with you that C02 indeed is a pollutant.
Here are two, e.g., who disagree with your position on C02:
"Our research shows that natural factors dominate climate—not CO2. The panic in the US to spend billions to control C02 has me deeply concerned." (Climatologist and paloeclimate researcher Dr. Diane Douglas, author of over 200 technical reports on climate; Douglas spoke out against global warming in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on March 10, 2009; she also presented a huge scientific paper against global warming at a UNESCO Conference in Ghent, Belgium on March 20, `09)
"I am appalled at the state of discord in the field of climate science…There is no observational evidence that the addition of anthropogenic [manmade] greenhouse gas emissions (C02) have caused any temperature perturbations in the atmosphere." (Award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. George T. Wolff, a former member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, who served on a committee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] and has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed studies)
Fitzy, if you want to win this debate, you can't simply belittle such people and laugh them off as "extremists" and "bought off by big oil," as leftists tend to do. You've got to convince them with facts and a solid, well-written argument.
Neither will you be able to convince them by pointing out a particular book condemning C02. You must present a proper argument to move such skeptics.
As far as switching to natural gas for the time being, you've certainly made that point well; but as far as C02 being the killer you imply it is, your writing is preaching to the choir, because you simply take for granted that your readers agree with you.
And indeed, most do on this site. But there's a whole host of scientists and people in Congress who don't.
You now have to aim your writing at them.
As always, I wish you well. AD
Energy production has always been impacted by demand and supply costs. In most cases, a play can be left in the ground until the economics are appropriate. The Barnett shale is a classic example; it was known for many years, but until recently the economics (price, technology, governmental constraints) made the production prohibitive.
Even now, with a significant investment in production and infrastructure, there isn't sufficient feeder pipeline to all areas. So I think that the recent discoveries will contribute many years to help U.S. energy independence.
Whether we should actively mothball coal plants before the logical end of their economic life if another topic. Energy supply wise AND financially, it doesn't make any sense.
Why do we spend most of our energy moving vehicles that weight 3000-4000lbs when the load is only 200-300lbs most of the time.
talk about inefficient.
There are so many things we can do to cut our energy use its insane..........
However, if you're comparing this to peak oil predictions, you need to build in the same energy demand growth rates. After 30 (especially after 80) years, compound growth of even 3-5% makes a HUGE difference in absolute demand.
I understand you have to make certain simplifications to make it understandable, but this one is may be big enough to affect your conclusions.
Engineers can't pick drilling locations.
Vibrosig: we certainly don't want to exchange our foreign oil import addiction for foreign LNG import addiction.
mark anthony: i disagree: they have found CH4 in granite as well as other non-sedimentary rock. explain how this CH4 was of a fossil fuel origin. you also say "the earth is too small and its gravity pull too weak to trap methane in its atmosphere, let alone allow it to condense in the earth crust". with that kind of logic, no wonder you are not convinced: who cares about the atmosphere? what is the pressure at the bottom of the ocean? what is the pressure at a depth of 5,000 ft? 20,000 ft?? and it *does* matter if natural gas is "only" a fossil fuel, or, if hefner is right (and i believe his logic is powerful) and it also has non-biologic origin. that small fact dramatically increases the area of earth likely to contain natural gas! you really should read hefner's book if you want to debate this issue further. i dont have room nor time to repeat his entire logical case in this forum. that said, it is a powerful case. i can't find fault with it, and i tried to do so.
ripskii: yes, there certainly is alot of nat gas in the world! however, look how much japan pays to import its LNG. this is a USA balance of payments (trade deficit) issue. it's nice to know there is lots of nat gas in the world, but the US needs to get back to WORK and produce its own energy. if we just trade foreign oil imports for foreign nat gas imports we are kissing our sister (ie. not getting any where...)
AD: i own "big oil" stocks, and have for decades. wrt CO2, i am not going to waste my time trying to convince skeptics. if they haven't been convinced by the independent scienfific data and their own observations of the drastic changes the earth is going through, nobody of my stature is going to change their minds one iota. my goal here is not to address the environment, my goal on seeking alpha is to protect the US from the peak oil bullet which is aimed directly between our eyes. to do so, and to reduce CO2 and particulate emissions at the same time is why nat gas is a no brainer.
HenryButtal: i disagree and think it is very logical to close coal plants: they are destroying our water table, our seafood, our environment, and if the disaster at Kingston, TN doesn't prove it is "logical" to close these toxic sludge producers, what would it take? as far as economic sense, take away all the coal subsidies, include the astronomic environmental and health care costs, and natural gas economics will kick coal's butt into the ground where it should stay.
pragmatist: all i know is that a president that repeats "clean coal" as much as obama does, and with secretary of energy chu saying he is "agnostic" about america's largest energy resource, this country is in serious ka-ka....
Andy1234: did you read the article i linked to in a previous article about china's adoption of two-wheeled electric vehicles? if not, you might enjoy it. i'd repost the link but i am short of time at the moment.
iconoclast: all i know is:
1) the natural gas is abundant in the US
2) US engineers have the technology to produce this gas
3) the US is going bankrupt on foreign oil addiction
4) the US environment is deteriorating rapidly
5) the national security risks are critical
6) the cost of oil wars and securing oil transportation is bankrupting the county
if you don't like natural gas transportation, please, tell me your solution to the problems brought about by US foreign oil addition. my energy policy (see website) is the best i can come up with, and i have been working steadily on this for some years now. perhaps i am just ignorant. in that case, show me the way (but please be very specific or i won't be impressed). thanks.
bcncv: thanks for the compliment. i don't need to build in the same energy demand growth rates because my belief is that there is more natural gas than there is oil, and, the same growth rates apply to oil as well. so, if both fuels' consumptions are growing at some rate, then why would we simply not chose the fuel source which there is more of to begin with. that may be a simplistic way to look at it, but see my previous answer to iconoclast: if not nat gas, what? if not now, when? besides, i dont even want to see the growth rates of oil when:
1) we import 60% of it
2) we are in an era of peak oil and worldwide supply is not going to keep pace with worldwide demand (in a functioning economy).
6000 TCF for the world?? hell, iran, russia, and the US probably have more than 6000 TCF. if the oil and gas journal are publishing this number (and it would not surprise me), you can tell why "oil" is the first word of the journal's title. perhaps a "natural gas journal" would publish more realistic numbers. i saw the EIA webpate that has has that number, and they still have the US at under 250TCF .....total...that number merely covers haynesville. what about all the other shale formations? what about alaska? that number is a joke, and i don't know how they can publish it with a straight face. but, thank you for posting. it just proves how much work it is going to take to change people (and organiation's) mindsets.
If there is so much "independent scientific data," then why not present it?
All you would have to do is paste it over or provide a site URL.
I would love to see exactly how this evil C02 attacks the planet and the atmosphere and what it entangles itself with that destroys the who ecosystem.
Truth is, Fitzy, the knock on C02 began as a theory, and yet with no further supply of evidence against it has been convicted.
But go ahead, it ought not take you but a couple of seconds to send us to loads of "independent scientific data."
Don't forget Fitzy, there were loads of "independent scientific data" for the Y2K-Con that had you running to the hills, too.
No matter, either you had a very good editor, or you worked like the dickens to improve your writing.
What if Congress authorized the Transportation Department to
create a brand and contract the design and production of 50 million
natural gas plug-in hybrids over 10 years. A contract like that would
make the automakers solvent overnight.
The brand, "Ami", could be the people's car much like Germany's
people's car in 1933, the Volkswagen. It was massed produced to make it affordable. If the automakers can produce 50 million of such a people's car for $20,000 + inflation, the Transportation Department could use the existing dealerships to sell its brand to the public and even export the brand. The automakers could then own the brand after 10 years. That commits the Transportation Department to $1T over 10 years, but also costs nothing in the end if all cars are sold.
The Germans already call Americans by that name, "Ami", and so the brand would resonate with them. The Latin languages would also associate the brand "Ami" with love and friendship. All the BRICs have a huge natural gas supply waiting to be maximized as well. The brand would be successful because it would bring Americans and the world together on one project, CO2 reduction, and it would be more fun than buying war bonds.
But, the main motivation for such a concept would be the overnight
energy storage of 50 million natural gas plug-in hybrids. There is
always underutilized electricity at night and the cars would charge
their batteries at the period of lowest demand. This is energy storage in a big way for our brand new smart energy grid.
user385444: my belief is that the "laissez faire" attitude comes from misconceptions and people like kudlow and limbaugh. most americans simply don't understand the extent to which gov is already involved in subsidies to coal and oil, while simultaneously discouraging natural gas. since this has been going on for over 30 years, it is no longer sufficient just to level the playing field: the gov now needs to reverse its subsidies to coal and oil and tax them, and now to support natural gas with incentives and policy measures. as far as "unregulated" and "hands off", i agree with you: just look at what that accomplished in the financial markets: we had federalization of the nation's mortgage, financial, banking, and insurance markets. this happened a supposedly "conservative republican", and was the biggest move toward socialism (actually, fascism...) in the over 200 years history of the country. and i believe the big reason why wasn't only repealing financial regulations (under bill clinton btw), but because of the huge distortions in the US balance of trade due to decades of foreign oil imports. so, yeah, you are correct - to believe the problem of foreign oil addiction can be solved without gov involvement, given the magnitude of the crisis, is an ideological pipe dream. meantime, you have tools like kudlow and limbaugh playing on american policy ignorance and pushing "less government" and distracting them with gay marriage, gun control, etc. etc while the gov robs us blind and funnels money to the 0.01% of already richest americans. that is why limbaugh make $1 million a day, because he helps to funnel billions to the well connected. it's fascism, pure and simply. i lump most of the "tools" on CNBC in that same category. consider pre-WW2 germany: militaristic, control of the media, concentration of wealth, control of the banking system: sound familiar?
Yes, those LONG oil and any petroleum products. Inventories released today at all time highs, demand at all time lows. Not enough tankers for the banks, traders, and crooks to fill.
12:44 EST Oil 50.72 +0.80 up 1.60% today.
there is no reason for oil to be at 50.72...NONE.
so yes your right. ""there are obviously some very powerful people who feel otherwise....""
oldwizard: i think our minds met long ago. here are the words straight from my SA profile:
"Peak oil, and not global warming, is the most immediate threat to the human race. Although the solutions generally address both issues, the distinction is one of urgency."
all my research over the last 4 years leads me to the solution of natural gas transportation. since this NG solution also conveniently addresses so many environmental issues, i fully embrace that discussion as well. although i support wind and solar electric generation (and nuclear as well), US produced natural gas is the only fuel that can be scaled up over the next 5 years to
** significantly reduce foreign oil imports **
so, this NG centric strategy wins on all fronts: economically, environmentally, and also from a national security perspective. the key is solving the NGV/refueling chicken-n-egg problem. it would appear obama and chu dont understand this yet, hopefully they will and enable the gov to be, if not part of the solution, at least stop getting in the way. regardless, it is becoming obvious that the nat gas producers and distributors, in partnership with the automotive manufacturers will have to drive (pun intended) this solution by providing economical NG transportation and refueling solutions for middle class americans.
Plus, of course, I am betting big that pragmattism wins. :>)
As for EIA estimates of NG, I am certain that the estimate is way below the actual amount simply because we have had no reason to really look for more Ng. Also, Canada has a lot of NG and very few people.
Price wise, compared to gasoline, NG is a heck of a deal. Considiring that 1 m BTUs of energy from NG typically costs (delivered) $7 to $15, and that It takes 7 gallons of gasoline to produce 1M BTUS.
However, as for replacing coal in power plants, that would be enormously expensive. 1 m BTUs from coal cost less than $2.00, while that same energy from NG would cost $7 to $15. If the goal is to reduce overall CO2, the smartest thing to do IMHO would be to focus on replacing as much petroleum with NG as possible first because that would both reduce CO2 and move us toward energy independance. I personally do not think that man made CO2, now at only 1 part per 10,000 parts of atmosphere, is or can ever be a problem. But, if you are concerned primarily about CO2, I say convert transportation first and second, use NG in power plants to supplement coal burning. Many power plants already have the abiltity to switch between the two. If we strive for an electric infrastructure system which uses both fuels in every power plant, the competition between those fuels would serve to hold a lid on the price of both.
Also realize that niether China nor India have significant supplies of NG to rely on NG to provide electricity and heat. Niether of those countries are going to stop using coal. Since 90% of all ""future CO2 from coal"" over the next 20 years (EIA numbers) will come from developing countries, eliminating America's use of coal will accomplish little in the way of world wide CO2 reduction. Do some more research into CO2, and I think you'll find that the issue is but a red herring. Water vapor is the greenhouse gas which is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect. The steam being emitted from power plants will do more damage than will the CO2. Total atmosperic CO2 is now only 4 parts in 10,000 and three of those were put there by mother nature. www.petitionproject.org/
i was first exposed to the historical record of secular CO2 rise in the atmosphere (mauna loa observatory) in 1974. we have all been exposed to pictures of the vanishing glaciers over the last 35 yrs. now one of the principles of good science is, correlation does not prove causality - but - what al gore and others have been saying is that we really can't take the chance that we are on an irreversible one-way trip to global climate change.
while we are beating up on coal, let's also go after cow-farts in india. i was told that the infrared trapping efficiency of methane is about 20x that of CO2 on an equimolar basis.
> jack
john gordon: yeah, the proof for me about CO2 levels creating global warming was the time-dating of the ice-core samples showing exponential growth in CO2 levels starting at roughly the beginning of the industrial revolution. the levels and growth were without historical precendence. the data was confirmed by multiple independent and international scientific organizations. further data clearly showed the effects of these man made emissions on climate. on these two points, the vast majority of reputable scientists around the world are in agreement. unfortunately, rush limbaugh and others keep producing bogus "scientific experts" who are likely getting paid by the same people who pay him to pontificate how its all a big ruse by the "greenies". meanwhile, the polar caps melt, glacier national park is considering a new name, the oceans rise, the hurricanes spawn, and the droughts continue. you'd have to be deaf dumb and blind not to observe the environmental changes just in the past 20 years. the naysayers say simply "it's cyclical". of course weather is cyclical, but they don't seem to understand you can have a cyclical wave around an exponentially increasing base curve....
"as far as CO2 being a red herring, i simply disagree. the scientific data is in, and i dont even like wasting time on that issue any more..."
Stalin said that if you repeat a thing enough times, whether the statement has the slightest bit of veracity to it or not, hoi polloi will eventually believe it.
Fitzy, if that's the line you want to follow in your passionate mission to save the planet, then you're not going to get very far with the people you're going to need on your side.
online.wsj.com/article...
Putin says 'cheap gas era' ending
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/eu......
It's all about plans for world domination
www.istockanalyst.com/......
LNG - Russia's New Energy Blackmail Tool
www.jamestown.org/sing......
Gazprom sold $ 2 1/4 billion 10 year bonds
www.istockanalyst.com/......
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/eu...
www.istockanalyst.com/...
www.jamestown.org/sing...
www.istockanalyst.com/...