Posted on 10/10/2009 9:04:41 PM PDT by neverdem
OKLAHOMA CITY — A new technique that tapped previously inaccessible supplies of natural gas in the United States is spreading to the rest of the world, raising hopes of a huge expansion in global reserves of the cleanest fossil fuel.
Italian and Norwegian oil engineers and geologists have arrived in Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania to learn how to extract gas from layers of a black rock called shale. Companies are leasing huge tracts of land across Europe for exploration. And oil executives are gathering rocks and scrutinizing Asian and North African geological maps in search of other fields.
The global drilling rush is still in its early stages. But energy analysts are already predicting that shale could reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas. They said they believed that gas reserves in many countries could increase over the next two decades, comparable with the 40 percent increase in the United States in recent years.
“It’s a breakout play that is going to identify gigantic resources around the world,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University. “That will change the geopolitics of natural gas.”
More extensive use of natural gas could aid in reducing global warming, because gas produces fewer emissions of greenhouse gases than either oil or coal. China and India, which have growing economies that rely heavily on coal for electricity, appear to have large potential for production of shale gas. Larger gas reserves would encourage developing countries to convert more of their transportation fleets to use natural gas rather than gasoline.
Shale is a sedimentary rock rich in organic material that is found in many parts of the world. It was of little use as a source of gas until about a decade ago, when American companies developed new techniques to fracture the rock and...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Since they all produce CO2, does anybody knows the basis of this claim?
What’s most important is that we forbid ourselves to use this method of tapping nat gas while showing the rest of the world how to do it. For the children.
(Units of energy usefully extracted) / (tons of CO2 emitted) sounds like one such measure.
“Italian and Norwegian oil engineers and geologists have arrived in Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania to learn how to extract gas from layers of a black rock called shale.”
And the idiots here in NY have a moratorium on it until “further environmental study”.
The envirolunatics will have us living in caves in the dark and lighting farts to keep warm.
New ways to tap dat gas?
The good news never seems to quit. I am happy that some elements of my energy-related talks from 3 years ago can be shelved for a long time to come — so long as politics doesn’t mess things up.
Natural gas produces far less carbon(CO2) per btu when burned than coal and less than #2 and #6 fuel oil.
Enviros won’t like this. Our future is in windmills and solar. We can’t explore for more fossil fuels. They are evil aren’t they? Al Gore said people should demonstrate to keep building coal fired power plants.
Whoops ND! I’m shot! Eyes are a bit bleary, addressed you as if you where NormsRevenge by accident. Apology offered.
” lighting farts to keep warm”
h
Hey I believe there will no flatulence in the future.
Dems are going to tax it out of existence
Different hydrocarbons have differing quantities of Carbon and Hydrogen relative to each other, and thus different reaction products with MORE or LESS CO2 in proportion.
Methane is CH4 for example, and burns to form one CO2 and two H2O plus 891kj
Butanol is C4H9OH and burns to form four CO2 plus five H2O plus 2670 kj
So ROUGHLY it supplies 3X more energy but 4X more CO2 and only 2.5X more H2O.
SO SOME IDIOTS might say natural gas makes less CO2 and thus is “better” and not as bad for “global warning aka ACC”
BUT -—> newsflash -—> Water Vapor H2O is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 is BY FAR!
But horrors how can pure water be bad compared to that ugly carbon...????
Oh wait a minute - after all, we ARE CARBON-based life forms according to space aliens.
So isn’t carbon a good thing? Carbon and Water (hydrogen and oxygen actually) are the essential elements of life.
OH it is all so confusing....
And it is cool today, snowing in Denver - where is MY warming warning when I need it.
I thought this was going to be about tapping the methane from cows!
Don’t you mean tipping the methane from cows?
Hey .. We have Plenty of GAS we can tap and it’s all coming out of Washington.
:)
Of any hydrocarbon fuel, methane has the highest ratio of hydrogen to carbon in its molecules.
Burning coal produces 100% CO2, burning liquid hydrocarbons produces slightly more H2O than CO2, while burning methane CH4 produces twice as much water as CO2 for roughly the same amount of energy.
Please ignore the fact that water vapor is a global warming gas too...
It is a continuation of the self-flagellation of Obama regarding the US. We must first die as a nation in every way so that others can be lifted up to show we care more about peace, blah, blah...GAG ME WITH A SPOON, already.
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