Posted on 02/11/2010 6:21:54 AM PST by shove_it
Natural gas is the fossil fuel du jour. At Davos, BP CEO Tony Hayward described unconventional natural gas as a 'complete game changer'. The rest of the panel agreed. In December Exxon Mobil (XOM) bought XTO Energy for $41bn to access its resource base of 45tcf (trillion cubic feet) of unconventional natty. Some see this as Exxon pivoting away from difficult to find oil into where the future fossil fuel growth will be. America is now apparently awash in a 100 year supply of nat gas. Why not use that for transport and stop the annual outflow of some $300bn out of the American economy, much of it to supposed enemies, all while creating those elusive green jobs?
Seeking Alpha author Michael Fitzsimmons has for a long time been passionately advocating natural gas as a panacea for the prospective peak oil problem. Many here agree, decrying Secretary Chu's "agnostic" stance towards its use for transport. T. Boone Pickens, in his Pickens' Plan redux, suggests that by transferring 18 wheelers and buses to natural by 2020 we could cut OPEC import dependence in half. I decided to take a quick look under the hood myself. My straw man will be that the US can stop all oil imports by 2035.
I find graphs are a powerful way to cut through the rhetoric and get down to the quantitative basics so I'll try to supply a few here.
[...]
The likely result of Pickens' plan being successful would be that by 2020 heating diesel and jet fuel would get cheaper (distillates are made with the same molecules) or else the diesel would be exported. The exposure to crude oil wouldn't change.
[...]
Are there any inaccuracies so far? Perhaps a refining expert could weigh in.
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
I’ve been thinking that IF electric vehicles will ever become usable, they will need to rely on distributed power generation. Meaning the power to run them must be produced somewhere near where the thing is parked. Solar and wind are not the answer to that issue yet - and may never be. It will be interesting to see if American ingenuity is still capable of solving this problem.
Btw, would you mind sending me a private message concerning where you live? I’m from nearby the place your user name suggests.
well there ya go.....
Right on.
Even down to the ladies’ beauty products.
To my mind, the solution revolves around numerous nuclear power plants and electric cars.
American ingenuity may have come up with a solution to that problem too. I make no claims as to the veracity of this info, but you will see that this company has partnered with P&G to develop the technology further. There may be something to it.
Do you mean miles per BTU or miles per pound, or miles per volume of gas tank.
Miles per BTU suggests that natural gas doesn’t convert to mechanical energy as efficiently as petroleum, which implies to me that a natural gas engine must have lower compression ratio than natural gas. I don’t think that is true.
Enough of this drivel about petroleum! Let’s just skip to cold water fusion and be done with it! You know we can do it! It’s just big oil and Halliburton standing in the way!!! /s
We need to stop looking at energy by itself. As the corn ethanol debacle should have shown people, you can’t just raid another sector without consequences.
Corn is better used as food, and natural gas is better used as chemical feedstock for industry. If we burn it faster, watch prices of other goods shoot up. Watch us eventually have to use alternatives to produce necessary industrial materials.
Only the Hollywood lefties are affected by that.
"How can you justify such a title when simple math shows running half the American car and truck fleet on natural gas would *reduce* oil consumption by around 6 million barrels a day? Let me recommend a better (yet long-winded) title which is much more accurate:
"Natural gas vehicles won't decrease oil consumption because American policymakers prevent NGVs, natural gas refueling stations, and the "Phill" home garage nat gas refueling appliance from being available to the American public."
There, that's about right.
Meanwhile, in 2009, the US: - Imported 4.35 billion barrels of oil - which was 63% of total oil consumption - for which we sent $265 Billion overseas
Apparently, the "policymakers" "solution" to this moronic US energy crisis is to print more fiat money in an wrong-headed attempt to address a commodity problem (oil) with financial tom-foolery. It simply won't work in the future (and isn't working now). America's dependence on foreign oil is its #1 economic problem from which all others emanate. Instead of addressing the root problem by switching transportation to American produced natural gas and thereby: 1) keeping hundreds of billions (and in the future trillions..) of dollars at home 2) creating millions of good paying jobs in the auto, energy, and infrastructure sectors 3) paying royalties to landowners and farmers instead of foreign oil producers (many whom don't like us too much) 4) removing the need to fight oil wars 5) prevent funding both sides of the "war on terror"
Oh, and just for a kicker, we reduce CO2 emissions 30% and particulate emissions by 100% (over gasoline powered cars and trucks). Yeah boy, that's alot of "rhetoric". But your charts are very fancy, i'll give ya that.
Here is the real solution - a long-term, comprehensive, strategic energy policy:
thefitzman.blogspot.co...
And I repeat: Energy Secretary Chu should resign or be fired. Any energy secretary who believes in the oxymoron of "clean coal" and is agnostic about America's cheapest, cleanest, and most abundant source of energy (natural gas) has obviously risen to the level of incompetence. Feb 07 11:21 AM !"
The amount of oil in those products is tiny compared to the amount burned for transportation.
“The manufacture of all plastics consumed approximately three percent of the total petroleum used in the US in 1997, and PS (polystyrene) production comprised approximately .002 percent of that amount. Comparatively, 71 percent of total petroleum used in the US is used for gasoline, jet, and diesel fuel, and 26 percent for the production of asphalt, oils
and lubricants.”
http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/doc_pfpg.asp?CID=1417&DID=5332
Present some numbers.
At some point, even CNG is going to be demonized - just wait.
You’re right that the use of crude oil won’t go down due to other needs for it. But I see theissue of propane of NG powered vehicles as legitimate. If the need for crude doesn’t decrease, we can reduce the increase in need. I see this as something large cities and organized fleets may do, if there’s a cost benefit. It’s impractical for you and I to drive a propane or NG powered vehicle - not so much for a city fleet, USPS, Utility, etc.
Perhaps if these users create a demand, then filling stations will get built to fill the demand. If so, then we might see this become practical for the consumer.
It will skyrocket due to the 0bama Greenie Policy of don't drill, don't dig coal, don't research nuclear.
The Petro Chemical industry gobbles up vast amounts of oil to use in their products.
Check any large oil company, national or international, for a division called Natural Gas Liquids also known in the oil industry as NGL for uses of natural gas and similar oil products.
Post #32
I think miles per BTU. But obviously the car uses the same engine for both fuels.
In any event- the car gets 20% better MPG on gas than it does in cng. When both are measured in gallons. That should be something that carries into a BTU measurement, since we are comparing two combustible fuels.
When it runs on CNG, I find it’s noticeably less responsive when pressing the floor pedal. ie..has to go down closer to the floor when on on cng than gas.
I dunno if your figures are correct, but if so it would seem that a substantial fraction of that 50% "loss" could be recovered in a turbine when the gas was used.Partial oxidation of natural gas to an alcohol would be more efficient than losing 50% of the energy to compress the gas . . .
I never saw an 18 turbine in an 18 wheeler. Natural gas is OK for stationary engines but I don’t think I would ride a bus powered with that much high pressure fuel. Propane is different. Both are more dangerous and flammable than Diesel.
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