Aceshardware

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 419

martinw wrote:

P-M wrote:

When will there be a replacement that is as free as oil and as energetic?

Hard to see what it could be.

Gas seems like a logical replacement to oil for our energy needs:

Oil is much too useful to be burnt.

martinw · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 106

P4man wrote:

Gas seems like a logical replacement to oil for our energy needs:

I'm not sure replacing one nonrenewable fossil fuel with another is necessarily the best solution. Gas itself will peak at some point, probably not that long after oil. Of course gas is already used for a lot of energy needs, so I assume you are talking about using it more for transportation in place of oil? The problem with that is that gas is not as efficient as diesel for example, so needs larger tanks and gives a shorter range. So it's good for large vehicles that don't go far, like buses, but is not an obvious "better" replacement for petrol/diesel in general. There were actually more natural gas vehicles in North America 20 years ago than there are today. Having said that, Iran is converting a lot of vehicles over to gas, but then they have lots of gas.

You also trade one set of dependencies on foreign suppliers for an even worse one. Gas production is highly concentrated, the worlds top two producers generate over 40% of world supplies. Those countries are Russia and Iran, probably not the places you would really want to depend on so heavily. Europe is already facing challenging geopolitical realities from it's dependence on Russian gas, and that will only increase as its own supplies diminish. If you start switching from oil to gas for transportation in a big way, that will increase even more.

Meanwhile in North America gas production is flat as demand grows, so there is an increasing trend to importing natural gas by tanker. But gas is much harder to transport than oil, as it has to be liquified, a very expensive and energy consuming process, using about 30% of the energy contained in the gas itself just to liquify, transport and regasify. Finally, there is the ultimate madness that huge amounts of Natural Gas are burned in Alberta to generate steam which is used to extract oil from the tar sands. At the moment nearly all US gas imports come via pipeline from Canada, but Canadian gas production is in decline, and as the tar sands continue to increase, exports to the US are going to decrease dramatically and the US will become increasingly dependent on long distance imports:

I believe most of these scenarios are with business as usual, but if there were a large scale switch from oil to gas, that just increases the pressure in all these areas even more. I just see exponentials all over the place, and any attempt at substitution of one rapidly depleting nonrenewable resource with another just increases those exponents.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 419

I agree with most of what you say, but fact remains gas is quite a good replacement for many of our current (energy) uses for oil, and compared to oil, we have ample reserves.

Of course those won't last forever, and Im certainly not against developing renewable energy as much as possible, but that is going to take a while under the best of circumstances, and gas will help tide us over. Also gas can pretty much only be used to generate power (afaik), whereas oil has countless applications. It makes sense to use oil for different purposes where it is much harder to replace.

BTW, I've been driving on gas for 6 years now. Its very much cheaper here (though largely due to taxes I think) and the disadvantages are minimal. Consumption is slightly higher (10-15%, but its like 60% cheaper I think), I have no spare tire (tank in its place) and I have to refuel more often if I want to avoid driving on petrol because the tank is smaller since I have both the original petrol tank, and the gas tank. I can use both though, and switch between, giving me much more range in fact, and flexibility. Oh, and refuelling takes a bit longer. All in all pretty painless though. Certainly more feasible in the short term than switching to electro cars, fuelcells or waiting for fusion.

martinw · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 106

P4man wrote:

Also gas can pretty much only be used to generate power (afaik), whereas oil has countless applications.

Making fertilizer via the Haber-Bosch process would probably be the most important non-power generating use for gas. That is a pretty essential one. Natural gas is also the only commercial source of Helium. Extraction of Helium from gas is an expensive process and so is often not done. Although the gas is still available after the Helium has been extracted, it might be considered a bad idea to just burn gas that has not had the Helium extracted since the Helium will just be lost into the atmosphere and once there it can no longer be recovered economically. Running low on Helium is a serious concern, google "Peak Helium".

Only around 5% of gas is used to make fertilizer, but I think only around 5% of oil is used for non-energy purposes like making plastics.

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BTW, I've been driving on gas for 6 years now. Its very much cheaper here (though largely due to taxes I think) and the disadvantages are minimal.

Interesting. Why do you think it isn't more commonly used where you are? What percentage of vehicles run on gas?

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 419

[quote="martinw"]

P4man wrote:

Interesting. Why do you think it isn't more commonly used where you are? What percentage of vehicles run on gas?

I don't know the numbers, but its fairly small.. 5% would be my guess. Most people here drive diesel cars (75% or so). That used to be almost as cheap as gas if you take into account the lower fuel consumption, and didn't have the inconveniences. Also a lot of prejudices also still exist against gas, caused by early/bad installations which often made the engine difficult to start, would cause more wear etc. Warranty used to be a problem, and years ago it was also prohibited to park cars with a gas tank in underground garages. Those concerns are pretty much non existent today but the myth lives on. What is still true however, is that a good installation is not cheap. You're talking €2500 or so. You earn it back quickly, but its still a high barrier for many. Another somewhat real hurdle is a rather sparse network of gas stations with.. well, gas :). For some reason, gas stations have to be manned by someone if they are to sell gas, unmanned "automatic" stations are not allowed to sell it. As a result, you can't find it everywhere, and you can't refill in most places much outside office hours.

But with the price delta between diesel and pretrol (again, due to taxes mostly) decreasing rapidly, you can bet more people will switch to gas. You see more and more car manufacturers advertising cars with gas installations factory installed.

P-M · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 68

In Sweden we have to corps making diesel fuel from LNG. GTL it is called or FT diesel.
I think you could convert gas to any liquid fuel depending on how much energy you are prepare to waste..

FT diesel is much cleaner than fossile diesel fuel. Next step they want to take is BTL, biogas to liquid..But I get the feeling this is far away in time and is hard to make affordable. Maybe with an oil price about $200 all these alternatives get more attractive?

Paranoid · Joined: 02 Aug 2007 Posts: 193

I hope all of you understand that there are about 100 billion barrels of oil in the gulf of Mexico that are off limits to US oil companies and drilling ANWR would have increased US oil production by 20%. The reason for this? 90% of democrats voted down new drilling while 90% of republicans voted to expand drilling during the past ten years. Clinton vetoed drilling ANWR in 1995. It is almost funny to see democrat leaders trying to blame republicans for the current crisis. The problem is that there are enough dumb people to actually believe it however. The useful idiots are many!

martinw · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 106

Paranoid wrote:

I hope all of you understand that there are about 100 billion barrels of oil in the gulf of Mexico that are off limits to US oil companies

Care to provide a link to back that up? As far as I know the only part of the Gulf off limits to US oil companies are around Florida, and I think we already covered that was at the request of Jeb Bush and granted by his brother the president. And I'm pretty sure current estimates are nowhere near 100 billion barrels there.

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and drilling ANWR would have increased US oil production by 20%.

We were talking worldwide, not US. Since oil is a fungible commodity, it makes sense to treat it as a worldwide issue, not limit it to one country. But if you want to get local, ok. In terms of ANWR the more significant number is that it would only meet 5% of US oil demand. Further, US demand grows by 1-2% per year while domestic production falls by 2% per year as existing wells are exhausted. That means the gap that has to be filled by imports grows by around 300,000 barrels per day every year. ANWR will give 1 million bpd 10 years after exploration begins. If current trends continue, in 10 years there will be around 3 million barrels per day of extra oil required, so drilling ANWR isn't even going to be able to reduce imports, it will just slow it down a little. And the best it will do is keep US production at the same level as it is today.

Note also that it will have very little effect on prices, around $1/barrel according to best estimates. Again this is because price is set by worldwide supply and demand, not local numbers.

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It is almost funny to see democrat leaders trying to blame republicans for the current crisis.

If you want to politicize everything, then blame could equally be attached to the Republicans who continually blocked fuel efficiency requirements and allowed the US to develop the most inefficient vehicle fleet in any oil importing country in the world. One good quote I've heard - the biggest oilfield in the US is under Detroit. Building and requiring more efficient vehicles would save more oil than could ever be produced by drilling everywhere, and is more importantly a longer term fix - sucking out the last few reserves from US soil to keep the current dinosaur gas guzzlers running for a few more years is like the junkie going for one last fix rather than trying to reform their unsustainable lifestyle.

But to treat it as a political issue is to think too narrowly. I know for some people everything would be fine if there was a one party state with their party in charge, but in this case the problem is much bigger than politics, it is to a large extent down to geology. There just is not enough cheap easily accessible oil in accessible places to meet world demand.

Paranoid · Joined: 02 Aug 2007 Posts: 193

"Despite Reality, Belief in Peak Oil Persists"
http://www.dailytech.com/Despite+Reality+Belief+in+Peak+Oil+Persists/article12119.htm

The current supply/demand imbalance is a result of the environmental wacko movement. Hundreds of billions of barrels of oil are sitting in the ground off limits to drilling. Will $135/barrel oil be enough to convince public opinion that it is time to stop this nonsense?

Wierdo · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 124

Paranoid wrote:

"Despite Reality, Belief in Peak Oil Persists"
http://www.dailytech.com/Despite+Reality+Belief+in+Peak+Oil+Persists/article12119.htm

The current supply/demand imbalance is a result of the environmental wacko movement. Hundreds of billions of barrels of oil are sitting in the ground off limits to drilling. Will $135/barrel oil be enough to convince public opinion that it is time to stop this nonsense?

Ok.... so why the hell aren't the oil barons utilizing the sixty eight frickin MILLION acres of land already given to them by the government first? I understand they could easily double our production of oil if they didn't just sit on it, so it sounds to me like the problem is actually greed and laziness on their behalf.

http://menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=299305&

Paranoid · Joined: 02 Aug 2007 Posts: 193

Quote:

Ok.... so why the hell aren't the oil barons utilizing the sixty eight frickin MILLION acres of land already given to them by the government first? I understand they could easily double our production of oil if they didn't just sit on it, so it sounds to me like the problem is actually greed and laziness on their behalf.

LOL, Turban Durbin. That article is so distorted from reality. The vast majority of large reserves are in the gulf and are off limits. ANWR would have increased US production by 20% alone. If these idiots that you reference don't believe that the oil companies would even use the ANWR tundra if it was open for lease then why don't they vote to drill there? All the federal land in the US has already been developed and is tapped out. What good are 68 million ares if there is no significant oil reserves on them? There has not been a refinery built in the US since 1976! The last half dozen times congress has voted to allow off shore drilling 90% of democrats voted it down while 90% of republicans voted for it. There is a congressional ban in the gulf. Bush is trying to have that removed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/washington/18drill.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

martinw · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 106

Paranoid wrote:

The vast majority of large reserves are in the gulf and are off limits.

Again, can you provide a link for that? You keep repeating it and I have never read anything that supports this claim. Most of the reserves ARE in the gulf, but nearly all the reserves are NOT off limits. The main part that is off limits is Florida. And that is a relatively small amount of oil. Total off limits reserves in the gulf are around 3 billion barrels, off Florida. And you accuse others of distorting reality?

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There has not been a refinery built in the US since 1976!

But many refineries have been expanded since then. It is much cheaper to expand an existing refinery than build a new one. What matters is overall capacity, not number of units. Note also refinery utilization has been dropping, they are not running flat out. That is not the current bottleneck.

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There is a congressional ban in the gulf. Bush is trying to have that removed.

Bush enabled the ban in gulf around Florida at the request of his brother. I am pretty sure that the rest of the gulf is open for business, but again, please provide a link to back up your claim.

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Hundreds of billions of barrels of oil are sitting in the ground off limits to drilling.

Whoa, the tale grows in the telling. Accoring to the article YOU linked to here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/washington/18drill.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

the federal Energy Information Administration estimates that roughly 75 billion barrels of oil in the United States are off-limits for development, and that 21 percent of this oil — or 16 billion barrels — is covered by the offshore moratorium.

Those numbers are really not that big. All the offshore oil off limits is only 2 years supply for the US. For reference, the US has already produced over 230 billion barrels of oil, so it is mostly gone.

You seem to believe that the reason price is so high is because these resources are off limits, and if they were drilled the price would come way down. But oil is fungible, and price is determined by world supply and demand. The world consumes 30 billion barrels a year. Thus all the US oil off limits is equivalent to 2 1/2 years of world supply, and less than 10% of world oil reserves. Also the world needs to find 5 million barrels per day every year to meet increasing demand and replace depleting wells. That is equal to the entire US oil production. So the off limits reserves numbers sound big, but in the overall scheme of things they are not, and they will not significantly affect the price of oil if they were produced. Studies estimate opening ANWR will have a very minor effect on oil prices for example.

It's a huge complex problem, and there are no simple easy solutions, much as you would like for that to be the case. Conservation and major push into alternatives is a much better strategy than sucking out the last few drops to maintain an increasingly unsustainable lifestyle, otherwise you are just pressing the accelerator while heading towards the wall to get a few more years of the status quo.

foo · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 116

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/opinion/22friedman.html?hp