Another interesting technology. Amazing. Thanks for the link. This kerogen recovery is very different than the fracking recovery stuff I've been talking about. The heated wells would be so much better than pit mines. Hopefully they'll prove useful for the unconventional Canadian reserves. It could be huge. I've seen the Eagle Ford stuff called the biggest thing since Prudhoe Bay for US oil, but don't know how much of that is hyperbole.
What you're describing is not unrelated to the 'energy rebound' effect which is the idea that if you increase efficiency, resources aren't consumed more slowly, merely that more resources are freed up to allow more consumption per person. Cars may now be made of lighter materials etc., but people drive monstrous 4x4s that would not have been viable before, for example.
I agree that, theoretically, economic 'growth' does not have to mean energy growth. Economic growth could literally take place within the buying and selling of virtual goods in 'Second Life' with immobile consumers fed from vitamin drips. But our society has grown used to almost free energy bubbling out of the ground for a long time, and has constructed all its housing, workplaces and supply chains on the basis of low cost transport utterly dependent on oil. The economic system is mainly based on oil-derived activities and literally must have continual growth or it will collapse (it cannot degrade gracefully). So it seems to me that a plateauing of the supply of oil has just got to have 'interesting' effects!
Not true with oil... all one needs to do is build a pipeline to one of the gas planets... Uranus perhaps??
I used to analyze the oil operations of chemical companies, and they started talking shale in the 1970's.
When oil is over $40/bbl a lot of opportunities open up -- oil from what were perceived to be depleted reserves, exhausted coal mines in places like Poland and Germany become economic. In fact, Marathon Oil (from Findlay OH) is engaged in exploiting one such concession in Poland. I think it was Shell which stated that shale starts becoming economic over $70/bbl.
In Texas there are huge quantities of lignite which can be exploited. Probably time for the Brits to dig up Piltdown Man again.
The wheels of microeconomic justice grind (sometimes) slowly, but they grind extremely fine. I would rather have an NGL ethylene cracker in the US than a naptha cracker any place on earth right now.
The monstrous cars of the fifties and sixties were viable at the time and we were happy as clams to drive 'em. Today's SUVs and pickups are far more economical and when the price of fuel goes up folk drive them less and drive more slowly.
But it does mean increased energy consumption. There are millions of people who live miserably because they're not in a position to use modern sources of energy and they're all ambitious to improve their lives - they will consume more energy as they improve their situation.
Economic growth is created by adding value. Where's the added value in that? Nobody's going to pay for that sort of life, especially since there are far more attractive options open.
It was/is not free energy. A lot of investment and labour has into it. It cost a lot fifty/hundred years ago and it still costs plenty. There's no sign yet of a lack of oil and gas and looking at the latest news from the oil shale side it may be the low hanging fruit has not even been picked yet.
There is no such thing as an "economic system." Human beings are hard wired to create abundance and when they get a chance that's what they do - they add value to things and trade that extra value for other things that have had value added.
Why should we, why would we, allow this activity to "degrade" such that our lives are negatively affected?
Oil and gas give the best BTU for the effort in production and are likely to do so for several hundred more years as they they are plentiful and we're becoming more efficient in their use.
But it's not plateaued isn't likely to for a long time - there are trillions of bbls of oil under N America, alone. When, and if, it does plateau it seems likely to me humans will work up viable alternatives which won't include being on a drip.
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I think we see things 180 degrees opposite to each other!
I thought you were making a profound observation about economic growth not necessarily meaning increasing energy consumption.
We are even part way to the extreme 'Second Life' scenario, because youngsters, instead of cruising around in their T-Birds (we never had such monsters in Europe, but we certainly have the ridiculous 4x4s now!) running on virtually free gasoline like they did in the 60s, choose to spend their time, effort and money buying 'apps' then communicating with each other from their bedrooms. It still takes energy, but not as much as real (non-virtual) life. These people obviously think that this software has "added value" - whatever that phrase means.
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It seems we are.
That might be profound but certainly not correct. The millions of people in Asia, Africa and S America will increase energy consumption as they improve their standard of living. We certainly can not stop them from doing so, nor should we.
First, that 60's gas was not cheap. A good job paid $2 - 4 /hr. Even at 25 cents a gallon gas was a significant expense.
The kids I see are using their phones and apps everywhere - on buses, trains, in ques, at work, everywhere. My sense is the new tech is a social enabler the same way phones were, only far more flexible. How many of them never leave their bedrooms I have no idea about, but I can't imagine most young folk have suddenly changed to the degree that they no longer want to get out and press the flesh. They certainly seem to be doing so where I live.
But we're getting away from shale oil which appears to have the potential to maintain present, and even vastly increased, energy consumption for a very long time.
In the UK at the present time, a young person in their first job might be paid £7 per hour, and a gallon of petrol will cost them about £6! I think my perception of teenagers in the US in the 1960s enjoying almost free petrol for their gas guzzlers is not too far off the mark!
In the late 1960's, while in college, I drove a forklift during the 4pm to midnight shift in a die-casting plant and got paid $4.00/hr (there was a lot of over-time, and these shifts paid $0.10 to $0.30 more on an hourly basis). Gasoline was about $0.33/gal.
My suggestion to high gasoline prices in Euroland is to cut the taxes.
If you all'd like to see world-wide energy prices come down, get the US Administration to encourage compressed natural gas stations along the interstate highway system for long-haul trucking.
click this link -> Oil Shale Links
The Democratic Party has opposed ANWR exploration, coal-to-liquids technology, oil shale exploration, outer continental shelf (OCS) exploration and increasing refinery capacity
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/06/020696.php
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/news/economy/birger_shale.fortune/?postversion=2008060614
The Democratic Party has opposed ANWR exploration, coal-to-liquids technology, oil shale exploration, outer continental shelf (OCS) exploration and increasing refinery capacity
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/06/020696.php
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/news/economy/birger_shale.fortune/?postversion=2008060614
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I ran a conversion shop for LP and NG in the 90's, when govt. subsidies where still available.
While LP is a viable option due to the physical parametres, at present and sometime in the future NG is a non sensical fuel option. The tanks weighs several times more than the fuel it contains, the volume/weight to range ratio is atrocious, and the fueling stations are out of this world expensive due again to the nature of a highly (>2000psi) compressed gas.
Been there, done that, BS idea - unless there is a better and cheaper way to store the gas. In the early 90's already a single NG gascontainer for about 20l of NG cost several hundred dollars, made of about 1" spun aluminum.
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Isn't there another issue? It might not be a good idea to continue to put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the current rate, or even at an increasing rate.It seems to me that the arguments in favour of doing so are driven by an emotional and possibly irrational commitment to a particular lifestyle.Frankly, I'd like to believe that we can all continue to get richer and enjoy increasing freedom to expend energy as we personally see fit, but I think the systems we all depend on are becoming more fragile. We all just experienced a severe crisis in world economic systems which radically shifted the balance of power away from the US, and which many people seriously envisioned might have resulted in a widespread breakdown of supply systems resulting in civil disorder.I hope all you optimists are right, but I'm not as confident that mankind will make it to the planets, to say nothing of the stars, as I once was.
I'm not an engineer, but... if the energy density of CNG is 50% of diesel, but the price is 50% less, etc., etc...I've worked microeconomics my entire "sentient" life, and this is one of the most fascinating economic things to float past.
Compare this with EtOH from Illinois/Iowa corn...
The problem is the low energy density - 1000btuh/cu', the weight of the tank, the conversion cost etc.
In 1990 the actual cost with two 20l tanks (I think those were the biggest, they might even have carried less than that) was 2400$ w/o subsidies.
There was one gas station in our town (which is a major service centre for the gas industry, including shale gas in the Horn River Basin and the Chetwynd/Tumbler Ridge/Hudsons Hope area, also rich in coal) which has been closed now for almost 12 years. I remember them storing the gas in tanks that were exactly the same tanks as in the vehicles, but in a battery of about 100 or so.
There were actually trucks (tractor trailer units) driving in the '90s in our area, dual fueled as the net of supply station was even then rather thinly spread.
I don't think there was any progress made in the mean time as to tank, carburettor design etc, as the whole idea went bust in the late 90's.
Then the big idea was hydrogen, a derived fuel different from CNG, which at least is a primary fuel. That idea also went now where fast, with a few very expensive and lousy performing hybrid vehicles on the market.
The idea of biodiesel is also non viable if one looks closely at the economics, the best performance of 1/1 input vs. output or even worse. The industry likes to spin it differently, but adding up all the input cost reveals another no solution.
The idea of electric power is also a stillborn idea from the start, a short calculation reveals that about 60% of the current electrical generating power has to be added to the grid in order to convert all land transportation - public and private - to hydro power.
Can you imagine the cost of not only building the stations, but finding the necessary areas to build new dams, or the coal demand generated, or the nuclear facilities which regularly have huge construction and operating cost overruns, not even mentioning disposal of nuclear waste and the complete overhauls of the transmission system overland and in already teetering on the brink delivering systems in cities?
The only viable solution to address O2 output is an enhanced public transportation system using extremely fuel efficient systems.
The growing economies in Asia with their increased demand will likely make short shrift
of pushing peak oil a bit further into the future, despite unconventional resources, but those new found possibilities might buy us a bit time to come up with a solution to powering individual transportation.
Or we just again rest in our knowledge we have bought time, doing nothing till we have to pay 5$/l at the pump, and again all we do is whine.
In 1990 the actual cost with two 20l tanks (I think those were the biggest, they might even have carried less than that) was 2400$ w/o subsidies.
There was one gas station in our town (which is a major service centre for the gas industry, including shale gas in the Horn River Basin and the Chetwynd/Tumbler Ridge/Hudsons Hope area, also rich in coal) which has been closed now for almost 12 years. I remember them storing the gas in tanks that were exactly the same tanks as in the vehicles, but in a battery of about 100 or so.
There were actually trucks (tractor trailer units) driving in the '90s in our area, dual fueled as the net of supply station was even then rather thinly spread.
I don't think there was any progress made in the mean time as to tank, carburettor design etc, as the whole idea went bust in the late 90's.
Then the big idea was hydrogen, a derived fuel different from CNG, which at least is a primary fuel. That idea also went now where fast, with a few very expensive and lousy performing hybrid vehicles on the market.
The idea of biodiesel is also non viable if one looks closely at the economics, the best performance of 1/1 input vs. output or even worse. The industry likes to spin it differently, but adding up all the input cost reveals another no solution.
The idea of electric power is also a stillborn idea from the start, a short calculation reveals that about 60% of the current electrical generating power has to be added to the grid in order to convert all land transportation - public and private - to hydro power.
Can you imagine the cost of not only building the stations, but finding the necessary areas to build new dams, or the coal demand generated, or the nuclear facilities which regularly have huge construction and operating cost overruns, not even mentioning disposal of nuclear waste and the complete overhauls of the transmission system overland and in already teetering on the brink delivering systems in cities?
The only viable solution to address O2 output is an enhanced public transportation system using extremely fuel efficient systems.
The growing economies in Asia with their increased demand will likely make short shrift
of pushing peak oil a bit further into the future, despite unconventional resources, but those new found possibilities might buy us a bit time to come up with a solution to powering individual transportation.
Or we just again rest in our knowledge we have bought time, doing nothing till we have to pay 5$/l at the pump, and again all we do is whine.
Pete it may be the gasland folk are behind the curve:
Oil from a stone - Oct. 31, 2007
There were some very important lawsuits about 50 -60 years ago regarding the pollution of downstream waters on the Columbia River and I doubt very much oil companies want to be on the wrong side of a suit regarding aquifer damage. The precedent is actually not good for resource operators who pollute water supplies.
re: LP gas and diesel trucks
The obvious economic question for me is... if it is a viable alternative, why aren't more using it? About the only ones I know of that are are metropolitan transit, ie subsidized losers. Walmart could run their fleet of RDC-to-store (regional distribution center) trucks and only need a filling station at the warehouse. But they don't have any at all that I'm aware of, in the US at least.
The obvious economic question for me is... if it is a viable alternative, why aren't more using it? About the only ones I know of that are are metropolitan transit, ie subsidized losers. Walmart could run their fleet of RDC-to-store (regional distribution center) trucks and only need a filling station at the warehouse. But they don't have any at all that I'm aware of, in the US at least.
LP is actual a viable alternative - if you drive a pickup truck.
The problem is the expense of conversion, and when changing vehicles the only options are to pay good money to rip your system out and install it in to your new vehicle or sell it with the old truck and loose your investment. Nobody pays you extra for a system installed in a used vehicle.
I drove LP for year, without any problems.
I had originally a big tank in the box, later I purchased two bullet tanks to be mounted beside the frame at about 1800$ in 1987 money.
Selling the truck I left the system in, because I switched to diesel.
The fuel density is comparable to gasoline, as it is stored as a liquid and only gasified in the carburettor.
It also needs tanks that are round but have vastly superior weight to fuel ratio than CNG.
I never had a problem over the four years I drove LP and gasoline as a dual fuel option, and I drove in areas where the temp regularly goes to -40.
But then you do not shut off the vehicle if it is parked outside.
The cost of conversion scares off folks, and although the price of LPG is still lower than either diesel or gasoline, the ratio is not as good as it once was.
For business most folks up here in the oil and gas patch prefer diesel anyway - more torque, you can fill up almost anywhere in the patch and better mileage.
I learned to love diesel powered trucks, drove them in the service industry for 12 years. **** on gasoline vehicles.
The problem is the expense of conversion, and when changing vehicles the only options are to pay good money to rip your system out and install it in to your new vehicle or sell it with the old truck and loose your investment. Nobody pays you extra for a system installed in a used vehicle.
I drove LP for year, without any problems.
I had originally a big tank in the box, later I purchased two bullet tanks to be mounted beside the frame at about 1800$ in 1987 money.
Selling the truck I left the system in, because I switched to diesel.
The fuel density is comparable to gasoline, as it is stored as a liquid and only gasified in the carburettor.
It also needs tanks that are round but have vastly superior weight to fuel ratio than CNG.
I never had a problem over the four years I drove LP and gasoline as a dual fuel option, and I drove in areas where the temp regularly goes to -40.
But then you do not shut off the vehicle if it is parked outside.
The cost of conversion scares off folks, and although the price of LPG is still lower than either diesel or gasoline, the ratio is not as good as it once was.
For business most folks up here in the oil and gas patch prefer diesel anyway - more torque, you can fill up almost anywhere in the patch and better mileage.
I learned to love diesel powered trucks, drove them in the service industry for 12 years. **** on gasoline vehicles.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
thats about it. Nature survived worse - can we?
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/oceans-on-brink-of-catastrophe-2300272.ht
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110620183242.htm
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