Posted on 11/07/2014 8:12:13 AM PST by TurboZamboni
Even as it fills the railroads of the Upper Midwest with oil tank cars, the Bakken has allowed its natural gas riches to languish. Less profitable than oil and more difficult to transport, natural gas has been so secondary in North Dakota that drillers still burn off more than a fourth of what rises from the ground. In satellite pictures, the flames sprawl across the Williston basin, lighting it up like a giant suburb. A quiet transformation is underway, however, as the state bids to turn natural gas into a native business and drive down flaring. A growing network of pipelines and processing plants has made North Dakota a recent target for billions of dollars of investment toward factories that convert natural gas into other products like fertilizer and plastic.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Haha, I get it. Who seyz headline writers are ignorant of Science?
I remember in the first 70s “energy crisis” the city made my folks shut off their nat gas fueled front sidewalk light and Dad converted it to electric.
To solve the transport issue, we need someone to develop a cost effective NG to distillate conversion process that can be sited at the wellhead. NG comes up, gets converted to liquid and goes to the refinery or directly to the fuel supply chain from there.
This would solve both the transport issue and reduce wellhead cost by having liquid fuel at the site, thereby bypassing the cost of converting existing diesel pumps and generators to run on NG.
Another option would be to site NG electric generators right at the wellhead and tie these into the power grid. Hundreds of 10 - 20 KW generators would inject a ton of power into the grid 24/7.
Can’t they at least use the gas they flare to spin some kind of engine as it burns? Make some electricity, feed it into the grid. How hard is that?
Maybe no grid out at the well-head.
I absolutely agree with you, except for the generator part.
The person or company who comes up with the wellhead gas to liquid conversion not already covered under Fischer-Tropsch will be a billionaire in short order. There MUST be a way.
I do not agree that will be the solution. Raw Natural Gas needs processing. It typically contains a range of contaminants, some useful by-products, some wastes like CO, CO2, H2S, etc.
Each portion of the play can vary in ratios, wells can even vary of time with greater, later H2S production for example.
Americans know how to innovate. The Saudis, not having a clue what that means, have greatly underestimated us.
Am I reading this right,that propane is a by-product of NG that was selling for 5.99/gal here in Fla last year?
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