After my little frustrated rant on Synfuels, I was struck by the variety of attitudes in play by environmentalists, climate scientists, anti-global warmists and the rest of the crowd trying to find labels. There are a lot of very smart people that seem to be clueless. While the arguments may sound intelligent (or not), there is little common sense involved.
Every issue is pigeon holed. The groups have these narrow little tunnels which make them oblivious to the broader picture. They can't or won't see common solutions, that while far from perfect, achieve progress toward common goals. Whether the climate is warming due to man or not, energy insecurity is a common problem. It seems a no brainer to me that progress can be made toward energy security that would have a positive impact on pollution would be an easy sell. Life is not so simple.
Synfuels, to me, are a perfect starting point. They can help resolve several problems with one effort. Thinking far into the future, there will always be a use for Synfuel products. Even if the transportation fuel of the future is something novel, lubricants, backup power, aviation fuels and small power applications can always make use of Synfuels. Properly designed, Synfuel plants can use nearly any fuel source to produce synfuels. It is all a matter of scale.
Scale matters with synfuel plants because the plant has to be large enough to cost effectively produce its product. Large plants, though not MEGA size, plants offer the options to produce meaningful quantities with a variety of feed stocks at high efficiency. This scale, along with uncertain commodity prices, tend to force government backing to be successful. Oil prices have such large potential variability, that big oil producers can easily squeeze Synfuels out of the market for the near term. That is why I think Synfuels are a perfect project for the military to address the main core of energy security. They can budget an average fuel cost over a decade or two to justify fairly large scale Synfuel production. Some large corporations can also the justify the long term investment.
The basic chemical building blocks that can be produced through Synfuel processes can produce more valuable oil based commodities with higher quality control. Synthetic lubricants, which are very expensive, is just one example. There are already examples where Fischer-Trope (F-T) Synfuel processes are being planned in India and China using South African designs.
Synfuel is opposed by the warmists since it does not cut the fossil fuel craving. "Cleaner" in terms of GHG pollution, is not an option they will consider, even though the F-T process can be used to convert CO2 to fuel and other products, albeit at a higher cost. For example, a standard F-T plant can produce gasoline at a cost of roughly $2.40 a gallon and CO2 converted gasoline at a cost of roughly $3.40 a gallon. That higher cost CO2 gasoline is not that attractive. It is close enough to being viable that it should justify some prototype plants to see if co-generation or other applications could make it more competitive. At $2.40 a gallon, the more standard F-T process is competitive as a co-generation process or waste disposal application. It is right at the ragged edge of being profitable as a stand alone application. Future oil commodity prices should only serve to be advantageous for F-T Synfuels.
Solar, the darling energy of the warmist's future, has applications, only on smaller scale. It is being incorporated in numerous communities of the future where it can produce a sizable portion of the community scale energy demand. In areas with high electrical rates, solar can be somewhat competitive, though subsidies are required in nearly all cases. The warmists can rationalize subsidies that match their agenda of course. While they complain about subsidies for other industries, often for research to meet their high demands to begin with, they have no problem with pork if it is in their trough. There are a few actually putting their money where their mouth is. Google has invested substantially in solar, Nanosolar is a main investment, that has promise. Active participation, instead of activist obstruction, is a positive sign that should be expanded.
James Annan, a British Climate Scientist, has been waxing technologically on Japan and solar following the Earthquake and nuclear situation. He does seem to "get" some of the scale issues, but still is a little on the warm and fuzzy side. One part of US government research into solar is the adaption of solar panels as an integral part of residential construction. If the solar panels can replace most of the typical roofing cost of a new home, that will considerably offset the initial cost of solar energy. Nanosolar received a 20 million dollar research grant for solar roofing integration. While that is not a lot of money, it has high potential return on investment. Solar in this case, has very good promise of becoming cost effective. With more improvement is efficiency and/or reduced production costs, solar could eventually be the savior envisioned by the environmental crowd. It is still not ready for prime time though. Active promotion of solar, with that realization, is healthy for pursuing part of the energy puzzle. It will not solve the transportation fuel problem or solve all energy problems. There will have to be a mix of options in the energy mix.
Nuclear, as I have mentioned, suffers from a problem of scale. Bigger is not necessarily better in nuclear as illustrated by Fukushima. The Generation IV technologies have promise, but just like solar, promise don't cut it. Nuclear co-generation is greatly limited with current technology. As I have also mentioned, off peak nuclear power production is well suited for the highly variable supply of energy from wind. You can't just start and stop a nuclear plant of any scale, but you can divert energy output to other processes to balance load. This is a key part of the energy puzzle that seems to be missed by the warm and fuzzy crowds all or nothing mentality. It is all about options and opportunities, which is lost on the negatively thinking crowd.
The same divert to other processes rather than trying to ramp down power on large power plants applies. Efficiency suffers with ramping down output. While not as critical in all cases, maintaining maximum efficiency offsets the less efficient processes of say producing hydrogen through electrolysis and/or F-T Synfuel production. Even if the hydrogen is not used most effectively as a stored fuel, enrichment of F-T or NatGas has promise of increasing overall energy efficiency.
There are logical steps to reducing energy insecurity that also reduce greenhouse gas and other pollution cost effectively. They are not the big bang solutions many dream about, but reality is not a dream. In the background, many governments and private enterprises are actively working on solutions. It would be nice if all the polarized groups would start throwing their support and money at action to solve the issues we face, rather than political actions that stymie progress. Then thinking is much easier than actually doing. Transportation fuels are the main issue and battery power golf carts are not that great a solution.
Showing posts with label energy general. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energy general. Show all posts
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
More Natural Gas Pains
The savior of our energy lifestyle, plentiful Natural Gas (NatGas), is being analyzed by everyone that even thinks they have a clue. I have written a bit about NatGas. How it is not all that "green" for transportation fuel and how the pipelines (infrastructure) needs some serious upgrading. NatGas (Ch4) is a greenhouse gas. It is short lived as Ch4, being converted over time to CO2 and water. With all the current buzz, I will once again step outside of my comfort zone and try to make sense of what is the whole deal.
According to Wikipedia,Ch4 last about 10 years in the lower atmosphere and should it make it through the lower atmosphere, it may last 12 years in the stratosphere. NatGas or methane, is about 20 time more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and is responsible for about 12% of the greenhouse effect. Most sources for atmospheric methane are natural, it is a by product of nearly every biological function. Vegetarians produce more methane than omnivores and carnivores. So cows, grazing animals and PETA members are primary natural animal sources :). Decay of vegetation, incomplete burning, etc. are all sources. The question is how much is due to NatGas production for energy leaking into the atmosphere?
During most of our petroleum production era, NatGas was not the main source of our drilling efforts. It has been "flared" off or burned until crude oil production from a well could be established. Since there is more NatGas than oil, when the oil wells were close enough to a NatGas customer, it was piped to areas for use. Fairly recently, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has been shipped to customers from more remote regions. Shipping LNG requires pretty solid contracts, because NatGas is so plentiful, a customer could shop providers and build a dedicated pipeline.
This is where the new shale deposits of NatGas enter the picture. Geology.com has a good article on Marcellus shale.
The map above borrowed from Geology.com, shows that Marcellus shale is perfectly located for use near high population areas of the East coast of the US. It also shows the depth of the shale formations. One thing I do not hear discussed by the talking heads is the proximity and depth of the NatGas to be produced by the Marcellus shale drilling operations. While there is bound to be some leakage, the short distance needed for transport and the depth of the formations will tend to reduce the percentage leakage. At the formation depths, Fracking, which is just tight formation fracturing as I have discussed before, leakage due to the process of "fracking" is about the stupidest conversation I have witnessed on the internet. If someone has a sensible, intelligent explanation of why fracking Marcellus shale is a problem, I would love to hear it. Now normal drilling practice, is something else. Is there excess leakage at the well head? Is there ground water pollution? Did the drillers get your cousin drunk? There is nothing unusual about Fracking, it has been used for decades both for oil and gas. So add, "Fracking is bad" to your bullshit detector.
So if shale formation gas production is bad for the environment boils down to just two things, is the top side drilling operation sufficiently tight and is the piping infrastructure up to the job? As for the infrastructure, most of the NatGas will be used for power generation. That means dedicated piping and demand use. Instead of storing the Natgas, it can be left in the formations and used as needed. That "greatly" reduces potential leakage. Greatly is in quotes because that is a bullshit detector trigger. I don't know how much "greatly" is in this case. I do know that new piping and less secondary storage will leak less than old crap. Also there have been some big leaks caused by trying to store gas in underground formations that the gas didn't come out of. So do your own research!
Anyway, the whole NatGas thing really is just normal stuff blown out of proportion. The 100 year old NatGas infrastructure sucks. The old infrastructure is not rated for modern pressures and is not designed for hydrogen enriched gas. That will be the next aw shit moment. And old equipment ain't as good as new equipment, most of the time. It is just normal engineering stuff. Don't kill the plentiful source, deal with the issues.
According to Wikipedia,Ch4 last about 10 years in the lower atmosphere and should it make it through the lower atmosphere, it may last 12 years in the stratosphere. NatGas or methane, is about 20 time more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and is responsible for about 12% of the greenhouse effect. Most sources for atmospheric methane are natural, it is a by product of nearly every biological function. Vegetarians produce more methane than omnivores and carnivores. So cows, grazing animals and PETA members are primary natural animal sources :). Decay of vegetation, incomplete burning, etc. are all sources. The question is how much is due to NatGas production for energy leaking into the atmosphere?
During most of our petroleum production era, NatGas was not the main source of our drilling efforts. It has been "flared" off or burned until crude oil production from a well could be established. Since there is more NatGas than oil, when the oil wells were close enough to a NatGas customer, it was piped to areas for use. Fairly recently, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has been shipped to customers from more remote regions. Shipping LNG requires pretty solid contracts, because NatGas is so plentiful, a customer could shop providers and build a dedicated pipeline.
This is where the new shale deposits of NatGas enter the picture. Geology.com has a good article on Marcellus shale.
The map above borrowed from Geology.com, shows that Marcellus shale is perfectly located for use near high population areas of the East coast of the US. It also shows the depth of the shale formations. One thing I do not hear discussed by the talking heads is the proximity and depth of the NatGas to be produced by the Marcellus shale drilling operations. While there is bound to be some leakage, the short distance needed for transport and the depth of the formations will tend to reduce the percentage leakage. At the formation depths, Fracking, which is just tight formation fracturing as I have discussed before, leakage due to the process of "fracking" is about the stupidest conversation I have witnessed on the internet. If someone has a sensible, intelligent explanation of why fracking Marcellus shale is a problem, I would love to hear it. Now normal drilling practice, is something else. Is there excess leakage at the well head? Is there ground water pollution? Did the drillers get your cousin drunk? There is nothing unusual about Fracking, it has been used for decades both for oil and gas. So add, "Fracking is bad" to your bullshit detector.
So if shale formation gas production is bad for the environment boils down to just two things, is the top side drilling operation sufficiently tight and is the piping infrastructure up to the job? As for the infrastructure, most of the NatGas will be used for power generation. That means dedicated piping and demand use. Instead of storing the Natgas, it can be left in the formations and used as needed. That "greatly" reduces potential leakage. Greatly is in quotes because that is a bullshit detector trigger. I don't know how much "greatly" is in this case. I do know that new piping and less secondary storage will leak less than old crap. Also there have been some big leaks caused by trying to store gas in underground formations that the gas didn't come out of. So do your own research!
Anyway, the whole NatGas thing really is just normal stuff blown out of proportion. The 100 year old NatGas infrastructure sucks. The old infrastructure is not rated for modern pressures and is not designed for hydrogen enriched gas. That will be the next aw shit moment. And old equipment ain't as good as new equipment, most of the time. It is just normal engineering stuff. Don't kill the plentiful source, deal with the issues.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
What the Frack! Now They Quibble About Natrual Gas
It amazes me how every thing has to be a big thing. Methane leakage from shale drilling is the new rage in the Climate Change debate. Eli, the Wacky Wabbit, has a typically cryptic post on his view of the "Churnalism" involved. Across the pond, the Bishop moves to check the media advances.
To me it is the typical much ado about nothing. Fracking or fracturing petroleum wells to increase flow of the product desired has been going on for a long time. Now, for some reason, the hyper aware are concerned with the practice. Do you know what the frack is going on?
Here is an animation of the typical shale fracking process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0kmskvJFt0&NR=1
The issues seems to be excessive mehtane, the main component of natural gas leaking into the air and into the ground water and "Chemicals" used for fracking. From the procedure, it looks like there is very little chance of gas getting into the ground water. The drill casing is sealed with concrete which not only prevents leakage into ground water, but increase production, because there is little leakage. I am sure the drilling companies are more concerned with profit, leakage kills profit both is lost product and potential environmental law suits. They ain't stupid.
So what about leakage during fracking? In the video you can see that first explosives are used deep underground to open the shale structure, then a mixture of water and sand are injected under high pressure to further open the fractures. The sand basically props open the fissures in the shale allowing the gas to flow more freely. The sand and water mixture is 99% sand and water. A small amount of "chemical" is added to keep the sand mixed in the water so that it will flow instead of just collecting on the bottom of the well bore hole. The chemicals used to suspend the sand are a trade secret, dish washing liquid would work, but there is something about secret and Haliburton that scares people. Fracking has been used for more than twenty years in the gas and oil industry. Now Cornell University issues a report on fracking which says, "Our data sucks, so we need better data, but it may be a problem." SHUT THE DRILLERS DOWN!
Other that one EPA report I saw that stated, "Chemicals in ground water "MAY" be due to fracking." I haven't seen that much from people that might have a clue. Now there are plenty ill informed putzes making videos that show they don't know what they are talking about, but "It has to be a problem." Amazing how clueless people can be so certain.
Let the pros get their data for shale wells and move along "after" we have a clue. There will be some leakage, there always has been, most in oil wells where the natural gas is not wanted and flared off. Shale gas wells are different, they "want" the gas, so it makes sense they would want to have as little leakage as possible.
Once the studies are done, I doubt there will be much of a big deal. Until then watch all the talking heads pontificate on subjects outside of their field of expertise.
To me it is the typical much ado about nothing. Fracking or fracturing petroleum wells to increase flow of the product desired has been going on for a long time. Now, for some reason, the hyper aware are concerned with the practice. Do you know what the frack is going on?
Here is an animation of the typical shale fracking process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0kmskvJFt0&NR=1
The issues seems to be excessive mehtane, the main component of natural gas leaking into the air and into the ground water and "Chemicals" used for fracking. From the procedure, it looks like there is very little chance of gas getting into the ground water. The drill casing is sealed with concrete which not only prevents leakage into ground water, but increase production, because there is little leakage. I am sure the drilling companies are more concerned with profit, leakage kills profit both is lost product and potential environmental law suits. They ain't stupid.
So what about leakage during fracking? In the video you can see that first explosives are used deep underground to open the shale structure, then a mixture of water and sand are injected under high pressure to further open the fractures. The sand basically props open the fissures in the shale allowing the gas to flow more freely. The sand and water mixture is 99% sand and water. A small amount of "chemical" is added to keep the sand mixed in the water so that it will flow instead of just collecting on the bottom of the well bore hole. The chemicals used to suspend the sand are a trade secret, dish washing liquid would work, but there is something about secret and Haliburton that scares people. Fracking has been used for more than twenty years in the gas and oil industry. Now Cornell University issues a report on fracking which says, "Our data sucks, so we need better data, but it may be a problem." SHUT THE DRILLERS DOWN!
Other that one EPA report I saw that stated, "Chemicals in ground water "MAY" be due to fracking." I haven't seen that much from people that might have a clue. Now there are plenty ill informed putzes making videos that show they don't know what they are talking about, but "It has to be a problem." Amazing how clueless people can be so certain.
Let the pros get their data for shale wells and move along "after" we have a clue. There will be some leakage, there always has been, most in oil wells where the natural gas is not wanted and flared off. Shale gas wells are different, they "want" the gas, so it makes sense they would want to have as little leakage as possible.
Once the studies are done, I doubt there will be much of a big deal. Until then watch all the talking heads pontificate on subjects outside of their field of expertise.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The Wind and the Pickens' Plan
Now that oil prices are high again, imagine that, there is more talk about "real" action. The Pickens' plan is more wind energy and natgas for over the road transportation fuel. T. Boone Pickens was on one of the news shows and mentioned that once more Natgas was used for semi-trucks delivering good across the nation that shipping cost would drop and natgas prices would climb. That is absolutely true.
As I have mentioned before, more Natgas for utility power plus transportation will drive natgas prices up, mainly because of the limits of the infrastructure. There is plenty of natural gas available from normal sources, the trans-canadian pipeline will so provide more and the vast shale gas deposits will eventually provide much more. But it ain't doing no good unless it gets distributed via pipeline to customers. The US natural gas pipeline system needs serious upgrading in volume, pressure and distribution. While they are at it, the powers at be might what to think about lining the new pipeline with plastics to extend their life if hydrogen is used to enrich the natural gas.
The down side of wind power is in the news again as well. In the UK, the John Muir Trust published some research on the goofy things that wind power does. Goofy as it it is unpredictable, erratic or whatever you wish to call it. Several years ago I published an article on the limits of wind power. Then I listed 20% of utility power by wind as a realistic maximum. Any more and it just plays hell with the baseload. The John Muir Trust just illustrates those points. The discussion has been picked up by Wattsupwiththat, Bishop Hill and other blogs, yet again. The difference this time is that the John Muir Trust is a megabucks "GREEN" player starting the conversation.
Interestingly, "wind Gas" is a part of the UK side of the discussion. Hydrogen generated by wind power through electrolysis is the "Wind Gas". I think I wrote about that a few years ago noting the different constraints hydrogen imposes on pipelines and storage systems. Hydrogen tends to degrade metal pipelines and tanks through embrittlement. The tiny molecules beat the hell out of the micro-structure of the metal. Hydrogen enriched natural gas is not a bad idea, but the pipeline has to be designed for the hydrogen. The Germans took the lead in hydrogen pipeline design years ago, so you might want to check out their hydrogen highway concepts mentioned in that report.
Shale gas and synfuels are renewing their buzz at Lucia's Blackboard in a post by Zeke. New estimates of shale gas mentioned at Bishop Hill and the Blackboard are pretty impressive. Still it would be nice for more of the gang to realize the potential impact of biogas, as in trash, synfuel production. I like killing a few birds with one stone, er shotgun.
So will all this new resolve generated by high gas prices lead to anything productive? Maybe, I am not holding my breath. It would be nice if the guys pooh poohing the ideas because of start up costs pulled their heads out of their asses. So I will say it one more time: Prices are only going to go up, building synfuel plants will temporarily drive fuel costs down weakening our resolve, which will lead to higher prices yet again. Somebody needs to plan more than ten years down the road if any real change is going to happen.
Note: While I personally think the odds of catastrophic global warming are pretty low, it never hurts to hedge a bet. Options that reduce that potential without breaking the bank are a good thing.
As I have mentioned before, more Natgas for utility power plus transportation will drive natgas prices up, mainly because of the limits of the infrastructure. There is plenty of natural gas available from normal sources, the trans-canadian pipeline will so provide more and the vast shale gas deposits will eventually provide much more. But it ain't doing no good unless it gets distributed via pipeline to customers. The US natural gas pipeline system needs serious upgrading in volume, pressure and distribution. While they are at it, the powers at be might what to think about lining the new pipeline with plastics to extend their life if hydrogen is used to enrich the natural gas.
The down side of wind power is in the news again as well. In the UK, the John Muir Trust published some research on the goofy things that wind power does. Goofy as it it is unpredictable, erratic or whatever you wish to call it. Several years ago I published an article on the limits of wind power. Then I listed 20% of utility power by wind as a realistic maximum. Any more and it just plays hell with the baseload. The John Muir Trust just illustrates those points. The discussion has been picked up by Wattsupwiththat, Bishop Hill and other blogs, yet again. The difference this time is that the John Muir Trust is a megabucks "GREEN" player starting the conversation.
Interestingly, "wind Gas" is a part of the UK side of the discussion. Hydrogen generated by wind power through electrolysis is the "Wind Gas". I think I wrote about that a few years ago noting the different constraints hydrogen imposes on pipelines and storage systems. Hydrogen tends to degrade metal pipelines and tanks through embrittlement. The tiny molecules beat the hell out of the micro-structure of the metal. Hydrogen enriched natural gas is not a bad idea, but the pipeline has to be designed for the hydrogen. The Germans took the lead in hydrogen pipeline design years ago, so you might want to check out their hydrogen highway concepts mentioned in that report.
Shale gas and synfuels are renewing their buzz at Lucia's Blackboard in a post by Zeke. New estimates of shale gas mentioned at Bishop Hill and the Blackboard are pretty impressive. Still it would be nice for more of the gang to realize the potential impact of biogas, as in trash, synfuel production. I like killing a few birds with one stone, er shotgun.
So will all this new resolve generated by high gas prices lead to anything productive? Maybe, I am not holding my breath. It would be nice if the guys pooh poohing the ideas because of start up costs pulled their heads out of their asses. So I will say it one more time: Prices are only going to go up, building synfuel plants will temporarily drive fuel costs down weakening our resolve, which will lead to higher prices yet again. Somebody needs to plan more than ten years down the road if any real change is going to happen.
Note: While I personally think the odds of catastrophic global warming are pretty low, it never hurts to hedge a bet. Options that reduce that potential without breaking the bank are a good thing.
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