Heffalumps and Woozles

Once again. Astute observation. But, I guess the question is "Will the redefining of energy, defocusing on the middle east and its oil along with the evoking of a sense of solidarity as a people SELL?" I guess we need an "agent" or "spin doctor" for this.

Wcbiv:

First we need to get the attention of the "movie/sports star" loving population. Then we need to "convince" the media that it would "help" to provoke thought rather than just "ratings". Last, we need to get the public's attention to what is happening to their economy, future and freedom!

How do you propose we get away from our oil problem?

Baring some breakthrough on the automotive scale of Relativity, we're at least 20 years from a truly viable alternative.

Big oil and the manufacturers have sunk huge amounts of money into the research.

The American auto makers have been churning out E85 (Capable of running on a gas/85% ethanol) vehicles for almost 10 years. (Partial list thru 2005)

Hybrids don't sell well because they simply are not up to snuff for most American drivers. That's despite improvements in recent years and huge tax breaks. Despite what some believe, they are not significantly more ecofriendly than traditional vehicles. Not only do they not get better mileage than some diesel vehicles but they have their own problems with battery creation and disposal,

Hydrogen has its own set of problems. Not the least of them being it takes more energy to create hydrogen that you get back from the fuel.

Unless you want a nuke plant in your back yard and have the solution to waste products, coal is actually the current most likely alternative fuel.

Towards that end, you might want to look up the 1.5 Billion dollar FutureGen project. One of the byproducts will be hydrogen. Won't make up for using more energy to produce than it returns but because the hydrogen is a byproduct, it should be affordable.

Oh, and while farmers are getting more for their convertible-to-ethanol crops, we're already paying more at the butcher shop for beef and other grain fed critters. Third world countries are complaining price increases fro grains are making it harder if not impossible to continue feeding their poor.

Voters may want to believe in some alternative but it's not here yet. Not because of some conspiracy but because the technology simply has not been discovered - despite huge expenditures by governments, auto manufacturers, and energy companies.

Well if you guys are interested in seeing what the major energy companies really think of the long range outlook on global energy needs, managing greenhouse gas emissions and alternative fuels development it's published on the net. The majors pretty much have similar views and all have various programs actively researching and, in some cases, developing alternatives. They would also be involved in any large scale CO2 sequestration efforts because the technology is already in place and in use in some parts of the world (CO2 recovery and reinjection is used to maintain reservoir pressure in some fields).

I know it's easiest to blame the 'evil empire' for providing us with the energy we so eagerly demand but it won't do much good. A concerted conservation effort would be by far the best thing we could possibly do but I see how fast everyone is running to sell their Hummers as we speak. Given the realities of projected energy consumption (especially in China and India) and available fuels that can actually/realistically meet those needs, we would be far better off well first conserving but then lobbying our representatives to support development of alternatives that make more sense than diverting food/feedstock to inefficient fuel. Hydrogen as a fuel isn't as efficient as gasoline but there is current research that looks promising for greatly improving that efficiency and at least it won't deplete critical food and water supplies.

if you're interested here's the link to ExxonMobil's energy outlook through 2030. I gave you that one because I work for them and know that the projects and research mentioned in the report are valid. I've been involved in a few and have friends working with others.

http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Files/Corporate/tomorrows_energy.pdf

Thanks GatorGal.

I'm adding your link to my list of resources on energy.

Found some information on where and how much research on alternative fuels is going on.

On the money, from 2000 to 2005, there was at least $135 Billion spent.

http://www.factsonfuel.org/images/API_Emerging_Energy_Report.pdf

wcbiv: You'll get no argument from me on that but Fromz is right too. The energy companies aren't the only game in town when it comes to people and institutions actively chasing alternatives. I mean, lets be real here, this has been identified as a critical issue and for various reasons, including pure old capitalistic gain, there is currently a tremendous amount of money and effort being expended to address it. We may not all agree on the primary reason for the urgency, choices range from environmental meltdown scenarios to energy dependence on countries we'd rather not have to depend upon (I'd throw my hat in that ring personally but I'm open to other ideas), but I think we agree the problem is urgent. At least philosophically. I think the majority of Americans have yet to really internalize it and realize that a real solution will require some personal sacrifice. I was counting economical vehicles vs gas hogs at my sons school when I picked him up. The ratio is still running 3 to 1 in favor of the gas hogs even at $90+/barrel oil prices. We'll eventually have to face the fact that, like it or not, China and India can't adequately address the problem at this point though they will continue to be increasingly greater contributors. We will have to take some personal responsibility here and think conservation.

now for the hard question lol

Fromz: natural gas reserves calculation is actually a difficult thing to pin down in a way. Yes, the definition of reserves is quite specific and usually when we see reported reserves estimates it usually includes only proved (it has a well in it so we're sure it's there)reserves. It can include some probable reserves depending upon the basis but that gets pretty complicated and you have to be able to defend it in court so most companies don't go there. After that things get a bit sticky. Most of the energy companies have had to do some reserves adjustments the last few years because of inconsistencies in how proved reserves were calculated. This is above and beyond the usual yearly adjustments made to account for depletion and new discoveries. It wasn't deliberate, it's just the nature of the beast. Reserves estimates are highly dependent upon recovery efficiency. You can never recover 100% of the gas or oil in a reservoir and the amount you will recover depends heavily on the methods used. The calculations were also heavily influenced by reservoir performance estimates based on parameters like fluid flow, water cut, permeability, etc that are made using reservoir simulation software or, in small companies, the back of an envelope if that's all you have. Either way it's all modeling and heavily dependent on the initial parameters and the properties you assume. Some can be directly measured but most have to be inferred away from the actual borehole and you don't always get it right. Anyway, suffice it to say that recalculations have been ongoing as some of these inconsistencies came to light. (We didn't notice it before because noone gave a rats ass about the associated gas in an oil reservoir and didn't even calculate the volume except as a way to estimate pressure maintenance requirements). All of a sudden natural gas was worth something so we all scrambled to quantify what we had with predictably mixed results. Even the nonassociated dry gas (reservoirs that contain essentially nothing but methane, no liquids except maybe a bit of condensate) weren't really given the same strict treatment oil reservoirs were. We knew it was there and kind of tried to keep track of what we had but it was mostly ignored because we had no good way to do anything with it.

Ok, that said, (yeah I know-easy for her to say lol) current government estimates of world natural gas reserves are a little over 6,000 tcf (trillion cubic feet, of which North America (incl Canada) has only 280 tcf. To the best of my knowledge this estimate would NOT include most clathrates (oceanic methane ice) which are actually found in many places in the world at a certain depth below sea level. They follow a particular thermocline and show up on seismic as 'bottom simulating reflections' or in other words they look like an echo of the sea floor reflection because they always occur at the same temperature/depth. I don't think most are included in reserves estimates because they are really difficult to quantify that specifically and tough to figure out how to produce. There's lots of work being done on it and all the companies recognize them as a potential resource but most haven't gotten to the point of tossing clathrates into the reserves estimates yet. I could go on but by now I know you're all saying 'will she puleease shut up'. So I will. LOL

Oh wait! Before I do here's a link to a great site for the numbers and a whole lot more:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/nat_gas.html

The chances of getting everyone on-board are nil.

Blame it on the screaming chickens, the end-of-the-world (oil) prognosticators. They've been with us almost since oil became a saleable commodity. When did we reach peak oil production? Was it the 70s, 80, 90s? It's been predicted in each decade yet technology keeps adding to our available oil supplies.

Blame it on known oil resources.

GatorGal can speak more directly to the issue but the recent introduction of improved shale oil and new sand oil recovery technology added huge numbers of bbls to the inventory.

How much? Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado alone are estimated to have 1,500 billion barrels of shale oil.

Add about another 600 billion bbls for sand oil in Canada and South America.

Worldwide, another 500 year or so supply at 2000 production rates.

No point in wasting time explaining with reality when it seems you've already decided it is a conspiracy.

Ok, finally stole the comp back from my son LOL.

LMAO wmas. You bet I'll be retired to my cabin in the mountains not woods way before we really make the switch but it wouldn't matter anyway. I'd be perfectly happy working in the hydrogen division too. The most economic and efficient way to produce the hydrogen is going to be from methane you know. Or maybe you didn't but it's true. Much cheaper than gettin it from water because the C-H bonds in methane are weaker than the O-H bonds in water.

Or the hydroelectric for that matter. Not sure what I might find to do but that's most of what we do in China at the moment is hydroelectric power generation. It's an energy company. It's not going down the tubes because we switch to a different fuel source. One of the senior VPs actually said that about 8 years ago when someone asked in a meeting what we were doing about alternatives. He said "We're an energy company not just an oil company. We'll provide energy of course. The type may change but the demand won't go away." I thought it was a good answer.

Actually I think it would be really cool to work on some of the carbon sequestration projects. The energy companies will take the lead in that if we decide to tackle the problem in that manner because the knowledge, technology and infrastructure are already there. We do it on a small scale now. It would simply require the decision to spend the money (or pass laws requiring it)to do it. It costs quite a bit to capture the CO2 for transport and injection into deep reservoirs instead of just releasing it to the atmosphere. Plants would have to install the equipment and most won't do it voluntarily (most of our CO2 pollution is coming from power generation, here and in the developing third world). There is some interesting new technology coming down the pike I heard about that would help with this too but it's still experimental. Has to do with carbon nanotubes used as scrubbers to strip off the carbon. Again, gotta force the plants to spend the money to implement it though and probably have to subsidize the developing countries. China can't enforce the laws they have now and it's not likely to change in the near future. They're simply developing faster than the central government can keep up.

Oops, gotta get my son to bed. It's a school night and he's taking advantage of my not paying attention to the fact that he's still goofing off. LOL

be back shortly...I have a couple comments on the shale oil too (fair warning, run now while you can). Actually it's not an area I've worked so I don't know a bunch but a couple things. Ok, maybe 3. LOL brb

Oh what I'd give for that cabin about now...

Ok I'm back (for the moment anyway, this thing is hanging up pretty bad so I may get booted). Now where was I? Oh yeah! heh heh Oil shale!

One thing I should say to start is about the numbers Fromz. Those numbers are the current estimates of what we have in the US (and we do have the lion share of the world's oil shale) but, and this is a big but: those numbers are referring to in-place resource not recoverable reserves. Back to semantics with the numbers I know but there is a huge difference between the words resources and reserves. Reserves are what you estimate you can actually recover and resource is what you estimate is in the ground. Most literature doesn't really make that distinction very clearly when they start throwing numbers around.

Ok, that said. There are a couple of different ways to go about producing or recovering the oil from oil shales. The method that has traditionally been used (we've actually used this stuff on a small scale for quite awhile) is to mine it. Then you have to heat it to pretty high temps to convert the solid hydrocarbon (kerogen, waxes, asphaltenes, etc)in the shale to liquid oil. Using this method you can end up with about a 50% recovery efficiency. But jeez, that's still one heck of a lot of oil, maybe 700 or 800 billion barrels right here in the good ol US of A. Until now it has been a lot more expensive to get oil from oil shales than to simply pump it from reservoirs that already contain liquid oil so no one really pursued it or invested in improving the method. The cost is actually pretty comparable nowadays and all the companies are rushing to get in on the action.

The other method to recover the oil from oil shales is a new one Shell has been working on. It's similar to the method Exxon (ok we're called Imperial in Canada, same thing)is using to get the oil out of the Canadian Athabasco tar sands, they heat it up right there in place and pump it out from where the liquid collects. This gets rid of a whole lot of the problems associated with having to mine the shale but it isn't as efficient. You'd be lucky to recover 25 or maybe 30% using this method. Probably not even that much but I don't know for sure because Shell isn't saying yet. I'm basing my guess on the fact that typical oil recovery from a regular oil reservoir using simple pressure depletion (think artesion well) is about 25%. You have to go to secondary recovery methods like injecting gas or water to keep the pressure up in the reservoir to get recoveries up to maybe 50% or a little better. Depends on your reservoir properties (really good porosity-big pore spaces between the sand grains, gives you better recovery). But those won't help you with oil shales because they have such low porosity to start with. You're essentially heating it up and waiting for the oil to leak out into a cavity you create to collect it and then pumping it up. You gain some from the pumping lift but probably only enough to get recovery up to maybe 30% if you're really good. Still, in my humble opinion I'd rather leave more in the ground than tear up half of the Western US and some of the most gorgeous, and somewhat pristine wilderness we have mining for it. Talk about environmental impact. So sorry wcbiv, if you want shale you might be best off with Shell right now. lol And that's still a whole lotta oil-maybe 300 or 400 billion barrels give or take.

Ok so we decide that's the way to go (and from what I've seen everyone is busy working on it already) there's still a big problem, getting access to the land. Most of the land in question is federally owned or at least managed so could be leased but there's no procedure already in place for them to do it like there is with say the offshore Gulf of Mexico acreage where oil and gas are drilled. Or the onshore drilling where there is a process in place that governs land leases and methods for negotiating with and compensating land owners. It doesn't sound like a big deal but it is and the process is tightly controlled. It can be done but things like that take time to put in place, especially when you consider all the conflicting interests involved. A lot of this land is federally owned because it's protected. Anybody wanna go drill up or mine a national park? Not me!

So yeah, we have gobs and gobs of oil here in those oil shales but one huge headache and an environmental nightmare to deal with if we actually want to use most of it. Think ANWAR times 1000. After all, there aren't that many people actually living right around where we'd want to drill in ANWAR (and no one is suggesting carving up the countryside), unlike say Colorado or Wyoming.

Ok, to close the book I've written AGAIN: wmans is right too. The only way we could reasonably pursue this if we chose to in lieu of Middle Eastern, Venezuelan, Nigerian, etc oil would be to combine the effort with mandated! carbon sequestration. If we're gonna keep producing it we have to come up with viable disposal methods and force companies to comply. We can't keep playing the shell game of 'carbon credits' either. Our atmosphere can't take it forever. It's gettin full and so is the ocean.

PS: coal bed methane is another biggie everyone is chasing right now too and it's a lot cleaner to use than oil.