***Alternative Energy Forecasts*** 21

[deltawhy]

Hello, so I know everyone here has at least an opinion on this subject. I would like to see what the industry experienced members think of alternative energy and the forecast for the near future.

Within the next 5, 10, and 15 years, what do you think will become dominant in North America, Europe, and Australia?

One of the main issues plaguing alternative energy is the method of energy storage. What do you think will become dominant? New types of chemical batteries, flywheel storage, compressed air, water pumping, etc.

How about less known about methods, like plasma gasification and MSW energy?

Will micorgeneration become a major player, with the addition of hybrid and electric vehicles putting massive amounts of stress on the already stressed grid?

Any thoughts?

Regards

 

[moltenmetal]

We can have prosperity without wasting energy. In fact, exporting enormous amounts of money to people who did nothing more than win the geological lottery is not good for prosperity.

We're not "hiding" the energy efficiency discussion in the AGW context. Rather, yuo and I disagree about the AGW context and are unlikely to change each other's minds. I'm merely making the point that it makes sense to wean ourselves off fossil fuels irrespective of AGW.

 

[TGS4]

Well, I think that we agree to disagree on several aspects, and agree to agree on several more.

Didn't we get to this point several years ago???

 

[jmw]

Couple of articles about Shale gas.... (is this the "tight Gas" they said was coming through?) including this one:

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/gas-against-wind

But what interests me is the poll in The Engineer (down there on the left on the home page) 33% oppose developing shale gas?


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[zdas04]

We've known that there was gas in shale for a very long time. The problem has been that the shale matrix is very resistant to flow. We needed very accurate directional drilling to allow very long "laterals" (i.e., they drill down to the shale and then turn horizontal and drill into the shale for great distances) to contact a lot of pay. Once you've contacted a lot of pay, you have to break a lot of shale to establish flow paths from the shale matrix into the wellbore. You do this with hydraulic fracturing.

The industry has been doing hydraulic fracture stimulation since WWII. The shale-gas fracs are big, but not outrageously bigger than other formations. The problem is that several water wells were contaminated during the drilling and completion process in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Best I've been able to tell there is no proof that the frac was to blame for the problem (most people in the industry think it was shoddy cement jobs that were to blame), but our fine news media and rabid environmentalists grabbed onto the idea that fracing was a new, untested process that ran amuck and have vilified this standard, safe, and thoroughly tested process and made hydraulic fracture stimulation into the rallying point for the world's wackos. There was even a CSI television show about evil oil companies killing innocent, hard working farm folk with their vile chemicals and irresponsible processes.

The propaganda campaign has been so successful that many bills have been introduced in eastern legislatures to ban the process. Further, the media and environment NGO's have turned public opinion against the process. Shale gas has the potential (through the Gas to Liquids technology that is starting to be applied to the shale gas) to reverse the U.S. balance of payments deficit by manufacturing liquid motor fuel (indistinguishable from refinery output except for significantly reduced contaminants) from shale gas. One company has applied for permits to build a GTL plant in the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana. They should be building one in PA, but the frac frenzy makes it a high risk venture. This process can be profitable with natural gas (feedstock) prices 3 times todays levels and motor fuel prices 30% less expensive than today. What an amazing win-win for the nation and the consumer. But it is in jeopardy because of a successful propaganda campaign by a few rabid anti-human, anti-technology, anti-life fanatics. I feel really bad for the people who were injured by inept and irresponsibile operators, but I really wish that the media frenzy had focused on the culprits rather than the wrong bit of technology.

The 33% opposition is proof that propaganda works, not that hydraulic fracture stimulation is unsafe.

David

 

[moltenmetal]

David: we agree that the shale gas frac’ing has been turned into a NIMBY hobby horse similar to the response we’ve seen to wind turbines. Disgraceful

Shale gas is a wonderful addition to the supply mix which will allow us to keep much more coal in the ground. That’s good for the environment in every possible way, regardless what you use the gas for. But it too is finite- and worth conserving.

Gas to liquids technology (i.e. Fisher Tropsch) is just another way to waste huge amounts of both capital AND the raw gas. Compressing natural gas to LNG for use as a motor fuel is far more energy efficient than wasting ¾ of the source gas in a F-T plant. FT plants make wax, quite a bit of NGL-range small parrafins, and water. The latter two are not all that much more useful than the source gas. You need to crack the wax to useable-sized molecules, which wastes yet more hydrogen and hence more of the source fuel. Want to make less wax? Then you make more NGL- you can’t win. And those plants are so capital intensive they barely make sense even when the gas is “free”. This is an established technology and gains will very likely be incremental rather than step-changes.

 

[zdas04]

Interesting. I taught a class at a company that holds one of the current FT patents and we talked about it a bunch during breaks (I was interested in the subject because the shale gas is driving the price of natural gas down far enough to curtail drilling). These guys were really enthusiastic about what they were getting out of the plant. There was recently an Oil & Gas Journal article about their LA plant that had numbers that were really positive (in the range of $6/MCF gas becoming gasoline that could sell profitably at under $3/gallon). That would be a huge win.

I just don't know enough about the process to have an opinion.

I do have an opinion about the reservoir. Original Marcellus Shale estimates of original gas in place (OGIP) were 550 TCF. The EIA estimated 30% recoverable because that is what they always say when the correct answer is "we haven't a clue". I developed processes to recover over 95% of the OGIP in the CBM plays. Most of those techniques are proving to be effective in the Antrim and Barnett Shales, so I expect the ultimate recovery from the Marcellus to be closer to 500 TCF than 165 TCF. Same with the other big shale plays.

As I said in my first post in this thread, I think that the most effective renewable energy source is methane. With just baby steps (relative to hydrogen, solar, wind, or wave), we could get to a stable, sustainable long term energy source. The big hurdle is delivery. LNG has the energy density of fuels that are liquid at room temperature, which is a really good thing (that you can't say of CNG). The problem with LNG is the same as the problems with hydrogen--storage and delivery require specialized equipment and specialized training. When my mother was alive there is no way I'd let her close to an LNG nozzle for her car. There are just too many ways that really bad things can happen (JT cooling, improper make-up, etc.)

We need to develop a way to provide motor fuel that is liquid at room temperature. If Fisher Tropsche is not the way then one of the inventors that John Baker is talking about in another thread needs to think of something.

David

 

[jmw]

And while they are claiming, without proof, that fracturing caused the Blackpool Earthquakes, minor even by UK standards so even if true, so what?, what they neglect is that coal mining produced far worse effects.

Never mind the spoil heaps, in lots of areas there is a continuing risk of subsidence.

It may not be as dramatic as a really good earthquake but the damage is just as real. We once tolerated far worse than a couple of minor trembles hardly anyone without a seismograph can detect.

Now, why would we want to conserve fossil fuels?
By conserve I don't mean use as efficiently as we can, I mean leave locked in the ground so no one ever uses them.
What's the point? these are fuels that are economically accessible one time only.
Abandoned mines are the effective way to lock off these reserves from everyone in the future unless fuel poverty is so dire that almost any risk and cost is justified.

Fossil fuels are capital to invest an an economic mechanism hat delivers a market with enough impetus and enough value to fund the massive investments needed for the next fuel source... fusion, maybe. They also buy us time to get to that next big transition.

Squandering resources on wind turbines, and locking ourselves out of the fossil fuel bank is a good way to bankrupt the human race.
There is no in between. There is either progression and we use our brains and our resources to move forward or we are back to a hunter gatherer existence in the very near future.

Now would be one heck of a time to find we can't get at our fossil fuels and can't in future either, and that our wind farms are all deep under the snow drifts, stalled out because of too much or too little wind, inaccessible to service repair men whose electric vans can't get them to the wind farms because instead of runaway warming we are, after all, entering a minor downturn and it will take a while for sunspot activity to build back up and the effects to filter through.

Sooner or later the public will wake up to the big con that has been played on them and blood will be spilt.





JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[owg]

The "would you let your mother use it" argument is false. It would have precluded the use fire then town gas and then elecricity in the home. Forget Fisher Tropsch.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[zdas04]

OWG,
I'm sure that there is a reason that you feel that you have right to be a jerk. I can't see what it is. Don't really give a crap. I said what I said, and I truly couldn't care less that you think it is "false". Far as I can tell the only thing your post added to is to my blood pressure. Have a fine evening.

David

 

[owg]

David - Please accept my apologies, no offence was intended. I have no vested interest in LNG as an automotive fuel, but I do think it can be safely dispensed. Also I should not have condemned FT out of hand.
I came across the following video showing what can happen with our current system. It is posted for interest only.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpuzl_staticelecpetrol_auto

Clicking on X will bypass the ad.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[moltenmetal]

FT makes much better diesel than it does gasoline. Ultra-low sulphur, because you remove it all in the reformer.

LNG has a hope as a motor fuel, unlike hydrogen. Even CNG can give you enough range for a commuter vehicle, with much less hazard.

 

[zdas04]

I have seen demonstration fueling equipment for LNG, and I've used CNG fueling equipment. Both processes required that the fuel tank be a pressure vessel (a bunch of added weight), and the LNG process that I saw required the LNG to be transferred as a liquid (VERY cold) and there were all kinds of warnings not to touch metal parts. As the very cold liquid reached ambient temperature, the pressure in the tank got really high in order to stay saturated. The guy that was demonstrating the LNG fueling, messed up a little on the "fool proof" connection (I didn't see how, or what mistake overrode the safeties) and had a minor leak. By the time the process was shut off the nozzle was frozen to the tank and we had a significant area of explosive atmosphere. The demo I saw simply wasn't ready for prime time.

The CNG we used in a fleet in the Rockies had the energy density about equal to Peat. When the tank got below about 600 psig, we couldn't get enough fuel to the engine for an unloaded truck to pull away from a stop sign. I had a newly filled tank (3,200 psig) and tried to pull a 2,000 lbm trailer up an insignificant hill--I made it about 100 yards before I was in 1st gear with the differential in low range and the vehicle would not go forward. I changed to gasoline at that point and finished the job.

I don't believe that methane as methane has a chance in the world of becoming a mainstream motor fuel.

David

 

[SnTMan]

Semi-interesting aside(s): (1) The city where I live has gotten some new CNG transit buses, funding courtesy of Uncle Sugar. They have some more money from the same source that, as I understand it, can only be used to convert existing buses to CNG.

Because the existing (diesel) transit buses are of a design that keeps the floor close to the ground (for easy entry / exit) they could only accomodate CNG fuel tanks on the roof, which structure is not sufficient.

Prohibitively expensive to convert. Can't spend the money on anything else. What is a govenrment to do?

(2) The contract for waste-hauling is up for renewal. The waste authority is requiring that the successful bidder's fleet be CNG, with a phase-in period permitted.

The existing consortium of private haulers that have served the city for 30 yrs with a 90+% satisfaction rate can't bid low enough to win the contract as compared to the large companies.

Who knows how many small business people losing their jobs. Who knows how many exisiting trucks no longer usable in the area. What to do with them?

This is how we "go green".

Regards,

Mike

 

[cranky108]

Is that those green jobs?

Does anyone have an idea on the differences in ranges for CNG and LNG?

On a dumb idea side, I saw an idea of storing HCL, or was it H2S, as a fuel. Just add Fe, and you release H2.
I don't support this, but it makes hydrogen less explocive.

 

[zdas04]

Cranky,
There are just too many variables to answer that. If I run a CNG system at 30,000 psig and have a tank with a volume of 20 liquid gallons then the range is really long. Of course putting a 30,000 psig vessel in a car is a lot of pressure energy that you don't want explosively releasing. Realistic limits are under 3,500 psig. In the system that I familiar with, when the switch was on Gasoline the truck could go about 250 miles on a full tank. When it was on CNG the range was under 180 miles with the truck moderately loaded and not pulling a trailer. Put a 2,000 lbm trailer behind the truck and the gasoline range dropped to around 200 miles and the CNG range dropped to around 50 miles.

LNG should see numbers consistent with gasoline--if you put a 20 gallon LNG tank you should get about the same number of miles as a 20 gallon gasoline tank.

Mike,
Your example of inappropriate government activity missed one crucial point--CNG (and LNG) has an autoignition temperature that is too high for diesel engines (unless you go to impossible compression ratios). So even if the buses could have found a place for the tanks they need their engines replaced with something with spark plugs.

David

 

[SnTMan]

zdas04, thanks for that info, I was not aware, thought it was more of a straight swap than that.

The info in my post came from the local paper, over the last week or two. Kind of going from memory, but that facet of conversions was definitely not in the articles.

Regards,

Mike