Despite the U.S. decision to end its oil-export ban, the country remains more dependent on foreign oil than when the exports were banned 40 years ago, which raises the issue of peak oil, Forbes writes.*
There go our chances of becoming independent of Mid-East oil. Looks like war until "hell freezes over." Also looks like we can kiss lowering carbon dioxide levels goodbye.
* http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrancer/2015/12/22/the-end-of-the-crude-oil-export-ban-offers-promise-and-peril/
Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil. Show all posts
Monday, December 28, 2015
Monday, April 29, 2013
PLENTY OF WIND POWER
There has been a lot of discussion about wind power not being constant and the difficulties of storing its power generation. There is also talk about subsidies being paid for wind power; however, with the subsidies, wind power is economic now. Contrast this with fusion power that always seems to be 20 or 30 yrs in the future with $18 billion spent on it as of 2008.* The U.S. expenditures on nuclear fusion power seem to be about $290 million/yr. And who knows how much oil would cost if you added in the cost of Middle Eastern wars (including the deaths and injuries, many injuries being life changing) and other subsidies to the cost of oil?
The point is that there is more than enough wind power to power everything we can think of, says a brief article in Carnegie Science.** Their finding is that about 400 terawatts could be extracted from near-ground winds and 1,800 terawatts from winds thoughout the atmosphere (meshing turbines with kites), whereas civilization uses only about 18 terawatts of electricity. High altitude winds are usually more constant and faster than near surface winds thus solving to some degree the constancy and increased amounts of the power generated. Think of the jet stream, for example.
It is true that if you cluster too many near-surface turbines you will change the local climate. "At the level of global energy demand, wind turbines might affect surface temperatures by about 0.1 degrees Celsius and affect precipitation by about 1%."
* http://www.polywellnuclearfusion.com/NuclearFusion/FusionReactors.html
** Caldiera, Ken, "More Than Enough Wind Power," Carnegie Science; the Newsletter of the Carnegie Institution, Spring 2013, p.5 The article is abstracted from the Journal Nature Climate Change by Kate Marvel, Ben Kraveta, & Ken Caldiera, "Geophysical Limits to Global Wind Power", 9 September 2012 (online) . The whole article may be purchased for $32.
The point is that there is more than enough wind power to power everything we can think of, says a brief article in Carnegie Science.** Their finding is that about 400 terawatts could be extracted from near-ground winds and 1,800 terawatts from winds thoughout the atmosphere (meshing turbines with kites), whereas civilization uses only about 18 terawatts of electricity. High altitude winds are usually more constant and faster than near surface winds thus solving to some degree the constancy and increased amounts of the power generated. Think of the jet stream, for example.
It is true that if you cluster too many near-surface turbines you will change the local climate. "At the level of global energy demand, wind turbines might affect surface temperatures by about 0.1 degrees Celsius and affect precipitation by about 1%."
* http://www.polywellnuclearfusion.com/NuclearFusion/FusionReactors.html
** Caldiera, Ken, "More Than Enough Wind Power," Carnegie Science; the Newsletter of the Carnegie Institution, Spring 2013, p.5 The article is abstracted from the Journal Nature Climate Change by Kate Marvel, Ben Kraveta, & Ken Caldiera, "Geophysical Limits to Global Wind Power", 9 September 2012 (online) . The whole article may be purchased for $32.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
SOMETIMES YOU GET ONLY ONE ACCIDENT
Just how many accidents will BP be permitted? Look, if you run your car into a telephone pole at 60 mph, you are probably permitted only one accident, in spite of air bags and seat belts. Or you might be driving safely on a interstate when a semi-truck trailer comes over the median strip smashing into you. Though it was not your fault, you were permitted only one accident.
But consider BP. Perhaps their worst "accident" was when they had their previous name of The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company which arranged for our CIA (Hard as that may be to believe.) to eliminate the duly elected Prime Minister of Iran. What did that Prime Minister (Mossadeq) want? He wanted the same deal that BP had signed with Egypt, i.e. 50% of the profits. Yes, at one time, within the lifetime of many of us, Iran had a democratic government. But BP (current name) managed to get us to do away with a democratic (parliamentarian) government and reinstitute the Shah and a regime more "amenable" to BP. Of course the rest is history. The Shah was eventually replaced by the ayatollahs and a government hostile to the U.S. with countless deaths and several times more serious injuries. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP for a more complete but still brief history.
I don't know just how many serious accidents BP has had, but another disastrous one was the 2005 Texas City refinery disaster in which 15 people were killed and 170 injured (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Refinery_explosion). This was at the third largest refinery in the U.S. Actually, the refinery was a part of Amoco before BP bought Amoco.
And then there are small accidents like the recent Trans Alaskan Pipeline accident that shut off oil transport for 10% of the U.S. oil consumption for more than 3 days. Well, no one lost their lives or were seriously injured in this accident. Though this is the longest accident to fix on the pipline, it is just one of a number of ongoing accidents.(http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-29-alaska-oil-spill_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclud e=Juno) But if spills of the Alaskan pipeline were the only problems BP faces, perhaps we could live with it, but they add to the list.
Then of course, there is the BIG ONE in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. This accident smells. Again there was loss of life (11 killed), a mounting and broad ecological disaster to both the sea food (shrimp, fish, crabs, etc.), tourist industry, and, last but not least, the loss of millions of barrels of oil. This disaster is still developing.
One has to think, hasn't BP had enough accidents? How many lives have to be lost? How many serious accidents have to be incurred? How much oil has to be wasted? How many global political problems are they to be permitted to create? Haven't they caused enough trouble? Isn't it time that BP be disbanded? It may be too bad that the BP Amoco deal didn't go the other way, i.e. Amoco acquiring BP. But it didn't. How much longer is BP going to be allowed to mess up society?
But consider BP. Perhaps their worst "accident" was when they had their previous name of The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company which arranged for our CIA (Hard as that may be to believe.) to eliminate the duly elected Prime Minister of Iran. What did that Prime Minister (Mossadeq) want? He wanted the same deal that BP had signed with Egypt, i.e. 50% of the profits. Yes, at one time, within the lifetime of many of us, Iran had a democratic government. But BP (current name) managed to get us to do away with a democratic (parliamentarian) government and reinstitute the Shah and a regime more "amenable" to BP. Of course the rest is history. The Shah was eventually replaced by the ayatollahs and a government hostile to the U.S. with countless deaths and several times more serious injuries. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP for a more complete but still brief history.
I don't know just how many serious accidents BP has had, but another disastrous one was the 2005 Texas City refinery disaster in which 15 people were killed and 170 injured (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Refinery_explosion). This was at the third largest refinery in the U.S. Actually, the refinery was a part of Amoco before BP bought Amoco.
And then there are small accidents like the recent Trans Alaskan Pipeline accident that shut off oil transport for 10% of the U.S. oil consumption for more than 3 days. Well, no one lost their lives or were seriously injured in this accident. Though this is the longest accident to fix on the pipline, it is just one of a number of ongoing accidents.(http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-29-alaska-oil-spill_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclud e=Juno) But if spills of the Alaskan pipeline were the only problems BP faces, perhaps we could live with it, but they add to the list.
Then of course, there is the BIG ONE in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. This accident smells. Again there was loss of life (11 killed), a mounting and broad ecological disaster to both the sea food (shrimp, fish, crabs, etc.), tourist industry, and, last but not least, the loss of millions of barrels of oil. This disaster is still developing.
One has to think, hasn't BP had enough accidents? How many lives have to be lost? How many serious accidents have to be incurred? How much oil has to be wasted? How many global political problems are they to be permitted to create? Haven't they caused enough trouble? Isn't it time that BP be disbanded? It may be too bad that the BP Amoco deal didn't go the other way, i.e. Amoco acquiring BP. But it didn't. How much longer is BP going to be allowed to mess up society?
THE OTHER OIL ACCIDENT
While focus has been on the huge Gulf BP oil "accident," there has been another one involving the Alaskan pipeline. News on this accident has been lost amongst the bigger "accident." The company managing the pipeline is majority owned (47%) by, who else, BP which has the largest interest. It was shut down for more than 3 days, shutting off around 10% of the U.S. oil supply for that period, but is up and running again, I guess. For some recent news see:(http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-29-alaska-oil-spill_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclud e=Juno)
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
BAKKEN FORMATION OIL
There are e-mails circulating writing about vast oil resources in the Bakken Formation in the Williston Basin that includes parts of North Dakota and Montana. There are implications that this resource has been kept secret and some say that environmentalists have stalled development of Bakken formation oil. Well, I am sure there are conspiracies around, but oil in the Bakken Formation is not one of them. There certainly is and will be oil production from the Bakken Formation, but it will not eliminate our increasing need for imported oil.
Bakken Formation oil has hardly been a secret. Interest in it started as long as 35 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation The article mentions Leigh Price, who I knew when I worked in Denver in the 1970s. The Bakken Shale (as it was known then) has always been his hobby horse. Too bad he did not live long enough to see all the hysteria on it today.
Although environmentalists (who are often blamed) might like to stop the drilling, they are notably unsuccessful. North Dakota, for example, has offered a tax break to anyone who will drill. Prior to the recession, there were hundreds of drill rigs operating on the Bakken, but I believe interest has dropped because of the economic conditions.
The e-mails have been carelessly put together. You don't drill 1,000 ft but more than 10,000 ft, Then you have to turn the drilling to horizontal and drill along a thin dolomitic unit between two shale units. Then you have to "frac" (fracture) the rock by some process such as putting water down the hole under very high-pressure pulses (hydrofracking). While all this is technologically possible, it is difficult and expensive. To the best of my knowledge, none of the major oil companies have been involved in this endeavor. They are more interested in deepwater drilling. The smaller Marathon Oil company has been involved, however, but a major - Conoco Phillips - entered the fray in 2010.
At the present time, the best producing field in the Bakken is in Montana (Elm Coulee Oil Field) which is actually producing (53,000 bbl/day in 2007).
But don't get too excited about the potential of Bakken oil because production from America's largest oil field - Prudhoe Bay - on the north slope of Alaska is declining rapidly so the first thing new oil production must do in the U.S. is to replace the declining production from Alaska. And the problem is worse than that because soon the production from Prudhoe Bay will decline to the point where the oil must be degraded (watered) to form sufficient volume to keep the Alaskan pipeline open. Fortunately, exploration is going on full tilt in the adjacent (to the West) National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (NPRA) that might help in Alaskan north slope production. If we could bring ourselves to explore the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR)* to the East of Prudhoe Bay, it would also help extend the life of north slope oil. But natural gas in the Prudhoe Bay deposits (formerly used to help drive out the oil) is now available for use and plans are afoot for a gas pipeline coming down through Alaska and Canada to the lower 48 states.
Incidentally, when I was a young geological engineering student back in the early 1950s, I saw a drill core from a producing limestone in the Williston basin and was amazed that it just looked like a solid rock. The word reservoir conjures up a vision of a cavern or something, but that is not the case. The reservoir is solid rock. Oil production from the Williston Basin has gone on for more than 50 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williston_Basin
*Actually there is a moderate-sized oil field adjacent to ANWR in Prudhoe Bay called the Sourdough Field. Two holes have been drilled with oil showings in sight of ANWR. Some of the oil drawn from this field would come from under ANWR. Development of this field has been held up, however, because of a dispute between Sarah Palin (when she was governor of Alaska) and George W. Bush (when he was President of the U.S.) over how the production profits would be divided between the state of Alaska and the U.S. government. Now with a new governor of Alaska and a new president of the U.S., perhaps the dispute can be solved.
Bakken Formation oil has hardly been a secret. Interest in it started as long as 35 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation The article mentions Leigh Price, who I knew when I worked in Denver in the 1970s. The Bakken Shale (as it was known then) has always been his hobby horse. Too bad he did not live long enough to see all the hysteria on it today.
Although environmentalists (who are often blamed) might like to stop the drilling, they are notably unsuccessful. North Dakota, for example, has offered a tax break to anyone who will drill. Prior to the recession, there were hundreds of drill rigs operating on the Bakken, but I believe interest has dropped because of the economic conditions.
The e-mails have been carelessly put together. You don't drill 1,000 ft but more than 10,000 ft, Then you have to turn the drilling to horizontal and drill along a thin dolomitic unit between two shale units. Then you have to "frac" (fracture) the rock by some process such as putting water down the hole under very high-pressure pulses (hydrofracking). While all this is technologically possible, it is difficult and expensive. To the best of my knowledge, none of the major oil companies have been involved in this endeavor. They are more interested in deepwater drilling. The smaller Marathon Oil company has been involved, however, but a major - Conoco Phillips - entered the fray in 2010.
At the present time, the best producing field in the Bakken is in Montana (Elm Coulee Oil Field) which is actually producing (53,000 bbl/day in 2007).
But don't get too excited about the potential of Bakken oil because production from America's largest oil field - Prudhoe Bay - on the north slope of Alaska is declining rapidly so the first thing new oil production must do in the U.S. is to replace the declining production from Alaska. And the problem is worse than that because soon the production from Prudhoe Bay will decline to the point where the oil must be degraded (watered) to form sufficient volume to keep the Alaskan pipeline open. Fortunately, exploration is going on full tilt in the adjacent (to the West) National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (NPRA) that might help in Alaskan north slope production. If we could bring ourselves to explore the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR)* to the East of Prudhoe Bay, it would also help extend the life of north slope oil. But natural gas in the Prudhoe Bay deposits (formerly used to help drive out the oil) is now available for use and plans are afoot for a gas pipeline coming down through Alaska and Canada to the lower 48 states.
Incidentally, when I was a young geological engineering student back in the early 1950s, I saw a drill core from a producing limestone in the Williston basin and was amazed that it just looked like a solid rock. The word reservoir conjures up a vision of a cavern or something, but that is not the case. The reservoir is solid rock. Oil production from the Williston Basin has gone on for more than 50 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williston_Basin
*Actually there is a moderate-sized oil field adjacent to ANWR in Prudhoe Bay called the Sourdough Field. Two holes have been drilled with oil showings in sight of ANWR. Some of the oil drawn from this field would come from under ANWR. Development of this field has been held up, however, because of a dispute between Sarah Palin (when she was governor of Alaska) and George W. Bush (when he was President of the U.S.) over how the production profits would be divided between the state of Alaska and the U.S. government. Now with a new governor of Alaska and a new president of the U.S., perhaps the dispute can be solved.
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