Posted on 07/30/2006 10:04:42 PM PDT by GeronL
This week we’re going to refine the argument for natural gas as a comprehensive solution to high energy prices, energy pollution, and energy dependence upon foreign producers outlined in What Bush Can Do To Get Cheaper Gas. To summarize: the solution is for Bush to allow oil & gas companies to extract the vast amounts of NG we have within American boundaries, cut state residents in on the royalties, provide tax credits for folks to run NG in their cars, and before his presidency is over the equivalent cost of driving a car will be less than $1 a gallon.Now for the refinement — of the argument, not NG, which unlike crude oil requires no refining. Seen those full page newspaper ads placed by Chevron trying to frighten you with the claim that the US only has three measly percent of the world’s natural gas supply? Whatever the Chevron’s agenda is, it’s not about telling you the truth.
The SEC makes it a federal felony for an energy company to claim gas reserves as assets if they’re not determined by obsolete technology, i.e., you have to drill a hole. Modern 3D seismic methods get a far better picture of an NG reservoir — but since you don't have to drill a hole, whatever reserves are found by 3DS, the SEC won’t allow it.
The government screws things up more — much more — by not allowing gas exploration companies to survey the offshore continental shelf of over 90 per cent of the US coastline excluding Alaska. They can survey along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana — but not Washington, Oregon, California, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and New England.
There’s likely as much gas off the mouth of the Columbia River as the Mississippi, possibly the same with Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River. The gas companies know there are fantastic amounts of gas off California, Florida, and much of the eastern seaboard — but the government won’t let them have it.
Gas exploration is not allowed on much of federal land — and one third of the US is owned by the Feds. On what little land they can explore, with 3DS they are discovering huge amounts in “low-permeability reservoirs” — some 460 tcf (trillion cubic feet), tripling alone current US gas reserves.
Put this all together and you have US gas reserves ten to twenty times as greater as the 150 tcf or “3 percent” of world reserves. This is enough to last the US for decades to come, even if we double or triple NG use (which we will with the Natural Gas Solution — the US currently uses some 22 tcf a year).
It's also enough to provide a lot of mailbox money for residents of states producing NG on federal land or offshore. A one-third cut of all federal royalties will overcome state residents' NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) objections (1/3 to Feds, 1/3 to states/ 1/3 to state residents).
What NG we produce, we consume. Crude oil is different. However much more we produce, it will bid for by the world market, such as China and India, because oil is cheaply shipped by ocean tanker. (Japan buys a lot of our Alaska oil, for example).
NG has to liquefied to be shipped over oceans, a costly and dangerous procedure. The only cost-effective way to transport NG is by pipeline. NG extracted offshore just needs a few miles of pipe laid on fairly level ocean floor to hook it up to the existing pipeline network in any US coastal state. Neither the Chinese nor Indians nor other global folks will bid against it. NG is the way to achieve American energy independence.
And do so as an environmentalist’s dream, for NG burns so cleanly, reducing both CO2 emissions and air pollution. That’s because NG is 80 percent hydrogen. There are 4 atoms of hydrogen for every one atom of carbon in NG. There are only 2 atoms of hydrogen for every one atom of carbon in regular gas. Thus NG emits much less carbon in the atmosphere.
There’s a lot of futuristic talk about the “hydrogen economy,” hydrogen as an ultimate energy source. Given the same size/weight of the pressure tank, NG delivers far more energy than hydrogen: 16 pounds of NG take up the same space as 2 pounds of hydrogen. Your car's trunk isn’t big enough to handle a hydrogen tank capable of driving a few hundred miles — but it can do so with an NG tank.
What really nixes hydrogen is a feature called “embrittlement.” Hydrogen atoms ooze their way into grains of steel and make it as brittle as glass. So you need special high-nickel steel pressure tanks and pipelines. You can’t transport hydrogen in existing NG pipelines — you’d have to build an impossibly costly additional pipeline system, or lug it in special trucks and railroad tank cars like ethanol.
Which brings me to the ludicrous rip-off of ethanol. Ethanol is carcinogenic (cancer-producing). It releases known carcinogens into the atmosphere: acetyl-eldehyde, and peroxy-acetyl-nitrate/nitrite/nitrile, three powerful eye and lung irritants.
Ethanol has only 2/3 the energy of regular gas, so you get 1/3 less energy per gallon, which means it adds 33 percent to the gas-per-mile cost of driving. But there’s also the cost of ethanol transport, which is by truckload or railroad, much higher than by oil pipeline (which ethanol can’t use because it can’t handle any water seepage like oil can).
The argument that ethanol reduces emissions is a fraud. With a modern car engine’s oxygen sensors and computer-controlled fuel injection, there’s no difference in CO (carbon monoxide) coming out your tailpipe with regular gas or ethanol.
(Ever see the 1960s anti-war movie On The Beach? Remember when Fred Astaire kills himself by breathing the fumes of his prized sports car in his closed garage? A modern car doesn't emit enough CO for this to work anymore.)
The reason I’m discussing the ethanol fraud is that Archer-Daniels-Midland and the corn farmer lobby will go nuts in objecting to the Natural Gas Solution. Hell hath no fury than folks threatened with the elimination of their government subsidy. The question to ask the corn farmers is: if ethanol is so great, how come you don’t run your tractors with it and use (far more economical) diesel instead?
That's why I love that car. Not only is it easy, it's fun to work on!
The tank is far more expensive, I would imagine.
I have an old physics book that contains a table on the percentages of other constituent gases in natural gas by location; a field near Titusville, Pa. where oil was first exploited commercially is over 85% propane and the appliances have to have proportionately sized orifices for proper operation in the servicing area.
No, they have different meters and boost pumps for filling.
Propane vs gasoline is around 90-95% BTU rating.
NG is even less.
The only way it can be uphill in every direction is if you never go home again.
Boy, you just took the shine off his valve stem. :)
My friend, the water of which your antagonist speaks condenses in the upper regions of the engine, namely the valve cover area and is allowed to drain immediately back to the crankcase through the oil return holes in the cylinder heads else all the oil would collect there in the first minute of operation and the engine would melt from welded bearing surfaces.
You may have a PHD or even higher but it is safe to say you have never been a mechanic.
The natural algae can cause havoc on fuel tank filters when water is allowed to condense under the fuel in storage and it grows at the boundary line and then gets pumped into the fuel lines.
Bullshit. There is NO PATH from the combustion chamber into "the valve cover area". You ever heard of VALVE SEALS???
The oil drainage paths from the upper valve area are totally separate from the combustion chamber and exhaust manifold.
"You may have a PHD or even higher but it is safe to say you have never been a mechanic."
LOL--I was brought up on a farm, and have repaired every kind of engine, from two-cycle chainsaws, lawn mowers, tractors, bulldozers, and (when I was younger) my own automobiles--many of these full-bore engine rebuilds.
There's definitely someone lacking in mechanical knowledge here, but it's not me.
You need to read closer, "old boy". The algae under discussion are bio-engineered organisms to be used to GROW biodiesel when fed nutrients in an industrial process--they have nothing to do with "algae growing in the fuel tank".
FISH, POGUE, whatever, still no vast conspiracy, and Digital F.I. still works better than any possible carburetor.
No Carbon?
If that's correct perhaps you can tell us what IS being burned?
I do not have the original article at hand, but there certainly is a catalyst available to concentrate Alcohol into Gasoline.
I think the "energy farm*" at Stanford may have a demonstration unit.
*The "energy farm" at Stanford appears to be where innovation is sent to die.
It's a virtual museum of new technology that ceased to be pursued on arrival.
"Bullshit. There is NO PATH from the combustion chamber into "the valve cover area". You ever heard of VALVE SEALS???"
Hold the fertilizer and stay with me here for a bit; the intake manifold distributes the air/fuel charge to the cylinders via runners which extend into the area beneath the valve covers which are ventilated by the PCV valve on normally aspirated engines and often by a "gulp valve" on blown engines which runs from the valve cover to the exhaust purging the crankcase due to the negative pressure pulses present.
The runners are ports to the intake valves and operate much cooler than the exhaust runners or the combustion chamber and can easily cause sweating of the ambient air being drawn into this area betweeen the head and the cover; when the engine is shut down this area heats up by soaking and then can cool down again to ambient temperature which allows condensation that could fall through the oil drainback holes that must be there to allow the oil that feeds the upper valve train to return to the crankcase.
No argument is being made that water is condensing in the combustion chamber although gobs of water is being produced in the exhaust by combustion and it is not this water that contaminates the oil.
On methanol engines it is critical that the engine oil operate above 225F but below the smoke point in order to prevent excess wear to the iron components and absent an oil heater a good deal of moisture could likely form in the engine oil.
"Alcohol has a certain percentage of carbon molecules per volume.
Gasoline has a higher concentration of carbon molecules for the same volume."
Atoms vs molecules.
I didn't say there was no carbon.
Sorry about that. I'm no ignoramus about this stuff either.
That being said, most of my experience involves small blocks running on dirt ovals and longer ago in go karts in the days of my early misspent youth. It's really really hard to even get a decent water temperature sometimes in this application, and it can REALLY be a problem when it's a 50 degree night with 95% humidity.
Electronic fuel injection is the only hope for widespread application of methanol in daily transportation. The trouble is with the injectors themselves, as about the only materials (excluding noble metals) having a decent lifespan in constant contact with methanol are the 300 series stainless steels and Teflon. "True" stainless steels are not magnetic, and this presents a real problem for activating the injector pintle via electromagnetic force.
Separating the fuel from the throttle body is essential to stop throttle icing/sticking problems.
Again, sorry for insulting your education and experience. I don't care for it much when it's aimed at me either.
Whatever. When you catalyze a substance, it is no longer the same substance.
What is the data for the specific energy content difference of the catalyzed product?
Where do we get these extra carbon atoms being stuck in the molecular structure? Catalysts enhance a chemical reaction, so what else is being thrown into the mix?
If this really works and can get methanol up over about 11,000 BTU/lb from it's current 8,000 or so, I'm going to be cheating at the racetrack....again.
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