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energyscholar
New Member
USA
39 Posts |
 Posted - 02/11/2013 : 12:57:47 [Permalink]
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| The U.S. has huge supplies of natural gas compared to our own use and exports |
While it is true that the resources of natural gas in the USA are huge (counting tight gas), it is probably not true that the available reserves of natural gas (counting economically available tight gas) are huge compared to USA use and exports.
If not for the recent large scale application of hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) technology, USA natural gas supply probably would not even be sufficient to keep pressure in the mains. Fracking technology was developed in the 1980s, but was not applied on a large scale until about 2004. Fracking is a mechanism to extract 'stranded' oil and gas where rock porosity is too low for ordinary extraction.
Be warned that there has been a pervasive and well funded propaganda campaign touting the virtues of fracking. This campaign has centered on the false meme of energy independence and 'the USA has more oil than Saudi Arabia'. This campaign has been very successful, in that lots of people now believe it is is true. Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it is true, but it's still a lie.
Fracking in the USA has been more about extracting investment money than about extracting oil and gas. Production potential has been drastically exaggerated and production costs played down. Indicators now seem to suggest there has been quite substantial chicanery and fraud within the fracking industry. The purpose seems to involve convincing institutional investors to invest in fracking operations, when such operations never quite yield the promised profits. My research on the topic indicates that fracking is mostly a Ponzi scheme, and that fracking provides only a very temporary source of fossil fuels. In other words, fracking for gas and oil is a way of scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The main problem with fracking is that the net energy return seems to be rather low. Initial extraction rates are very high, but decline sets in quickly. Fracked wells typically show a decline rate of ~80% after one year. This generally results in insufficient extraction of fossil fuels to justify the initial investment. Be warned that the above-mentioned chicanery and fraud was conducted largely for the purpose of obfuscating this result, so it is difficult to be certain. In order to maintain extraction rates via fracking the process must be repeated, preferably in a new location. The best locations (the low hanging fruit) are already showing signs of decline. This leads to the 'red queen' effect, where fracking operations must work faster and faster just to keep production constant.
The fracking boom in the USA probably has no more than five years (ten at most) left in it, and requires very large and ongoing financial investments to continue. After that, it is not clear where the USA will get most of its desired supply of natural gas.
I'll completely ignore the issue of carbon contribution from fracking, which is also a hot button topic with its own fraudulent evidence on all sides.
Some sources:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9622
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9821
I agree that coal is too abundant, but I also claim it is far less abundant than popular memes would have us believe.
While it is true that there is more than enough accessible coal to cook the planet, available coal seems to be drastically less abundant than commonly thought. The original (and still primary!) coal surveys of the 1950s and 1960s neglected to consider the energy cost of getting to coal. Those surveys showed that coal is super-abundant, with virtually unlimited supplies. That meme is still with us. However, when one considers the energy cost of extraction, only about 2% of global coal resources are worth getting. We seem to have have already extracted between 5% and 45% of energetically available coal.
As one example, Australia currently extracts about 40% of global coal exports. According to a recent study, one abundant source of Australian coal, New South Wales, will be exhausted in 2042. As another example, the USA seems to have already passed its peak of energetic extraction of coal, in 1998.
Limits to coal resources mostly become important when one considers substituting coal for other fossil fuels. For example, coal can be processed into a liquid fuel. However, if this became a standard practice as a substitute for oil, the world would quickly face coal extraction limits. So long as we keep using coal mostly for generating electricity, supplies will probably be sufficient for many years to come.
Some sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_coal
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5256
Historical: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8241
and for those who like video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3BYPihyRFE
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"It is Easier to get Forgiveness than Permission" - Rear Admiral Grace Hopper |
| Edited by - energyscholar on 02/11/2013 17:33:35 |
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Zero emission synfuel from seawater
