Posts Tagged by natural gas
Energy Videos for Newcomers
| October 13, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
I’ve been preparing to make a few videos for newcomers to the subject of clean energy that answer basic questions on renewable energy, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and the energy-related challenges we face. I’ll be recording a series of short talks, aided by graphics, that point out that all our energy sources go back to the Big Bang, and come forward through time to us as follows:
Solar power is nuclear, of course, as all that hydrogen that became our sun billions of years ago undergoes fusion and emits enormous amounts of energy. That which we accumulated over hundreds of millions of years as fossil fuels (ancient biomass) we extract and burn as oil, coal, and natural gas. That which we receive right now, or in the very recent past, we have the potential to harvest as renewables: photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, wind, new biomass, run-of-river hydro, ocean current, and wave. Read More
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A Few Sobering Truths About Energy Consumption in the US
| June 28, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
Here’s a piece from Kentucky-based consulting engineer and frequent commenter John Robbins, who provides some sobering remarks on the truth behind our current push for renewables.
Last week, I was one of 3 teaching a professional seminar about Passivhaus. In case you don’t know, that program (from Germany) actually sets serious (aka “difficult to achieve”) limits on heating, cooling and overall annual energy, also on how much HVAC heating and cooling capacity which can be installed. All that WITHOUT offsets from RE grid-tied storage-free energy. Only main negative about Passivhaus is that it gives certification based on design and construction, like LEED and EnergyStar. None of these popular programs actually require post-occupancy data to verify that designs work as estimated.
The best part of Passivhaus is it separates “reducing demand and use” from achieving net-zero by offsets like grid-tied storage-free RE as is permitted in LEED. I’ve seen new LEED homes in Cincinnati which are merely minimum-code designs with PV on the roof for offsets. With Cincinnati now offering a 15-yr property tax abatement for LEED structures and the local electric utility paying sRECs for grid-tied RE, homebuyers, their designers and builders are pretty much avoiding energy reductions and heading straight to RE offsets. There’s even new “creative” marketing lingo to describe the economics, “net-zero energy cost” – net-zero cost achieved by offsetting actual energy costs with sRECs and tax abatements. None of this would fly in Passivhaus. More importantly, these situations do not represent much reduction in demand for conventional energy, since Cincinnati is a 50% cloudy location, with windy winters but stagnant-air summers. Solar and wind can work here, but certainly not full-time, so structures with grid-tied RE have their un-reduced energy loads carried by conventional energy much of the time, maybe as much as 80% of the time.
We are seeing so much morphing of RE advocacy into marketing. I guess the 1st wave was for/by us who were educated and motivated prior to or away from the current subsidy hoopla. The massive current subsidies seem to attract folks who aren’t really much interested in the traditional movement (aka “less coal, oil and nuke”) but instead need heavy financial incentives to act. Regardless of why or what, as a very aware member of Assn of Energy Engineers where real energy matters are known and discussed regularly, I worry we are seeing so much money, marketing and reporting about nonrealities in our energy world. Even tracking %RE is the wrong thing to track.
As I wrote in an op-ed in SOLAR TODAY a half-dozen years ago, implementers should be tracking how much less conventional energy they demand and use, not how much of what solutions we buy or apply. I wish we tracked how much energy use and when it is used, separately from how much and when we have RE. The net-energy approach has simplified the process for consumers but made the education process more complicated. A utility company rep whose company was co-sponsoring a workshop I taught last year in south-central KY took offense when I told my students about this. All my students rated my class very good to excellent, but the utility rated it poor to very poor, adding that it would never sponsor any of my events in the future. Similarly, a solar installer I know in central KY told me last year that when he mentions efficiency to his callers interested in a solar bid, the most common result is a lost sale or lost opportunity to bid. So while my message is correct, very similar indeed to what we’ve heard for decades from Amory Lovins, it is a message very unpopular with many consumers and utilities, also many of our governments.
I include governments because of an experience I had in Ohio where I proposed how to cut residential energy use by a whopping %, but got no positive responses from the panel representing Ohio government. A professor of economics from Miami University of Ohio pulled me aside after my presentation and told me that Ohio historically forms energy policies not as much based on consumers or energy as how much potential for tax collection. Like most states, Ohio collects a lot of taxes on conventional energy. Also like most states, Ohio’s income tax rates are progressive, going up as incomes rise. The professor said insulators’, caulkers’ and window installers’ wages are tiny compared to union coal miners, utility workers, geothermal and solar installers. He said this is why Ohio incentive plans subsidize the most expensive (higher sales taxes) and most high-wage energy systems. He said this is also why we never see energy-use reduction targets and timelines.
So we cannot be naive and think we are currently implementing or describing THE ENERGY SOLUTIONS which will substantially cut coal and nuke reliance. The current round of RE seems most abt promoting and expanding the RE retail and manufacturing sectors, which is certainly needed. But that is not the same as solving our reliance on conventional energies, especially coal, oil and nuke. As said before, I and my most committed 1st-wave customers and contacts are focused mostly on reducing reliance on coal, oil and nuke. The failure of RE’s “new wave” to understand and address this, especially to accomplish any real conventional reductions, will one day come back to haunt, maybe to backlash.
I asked a colleague attending the midwest USGBC conference last week in Cincinnati how many coal and nuke powerplants will be running if all homes and buildings are net-zero by 2030? He did not respond quickly. So I said, maybe most that are running right now, maybe even more. Nobody really knows, but what we know for sure is that net-zero is a merely a marketing term applied usually to part-time intermittent mostly-daytime RE surpluses applied as offsets against full-time 24-hr-per-day power use. Baseload powerplants like nukes and large coal-fired generators cannot be turned on and off quickly. Even coal-fired needs 10 hrs or more to shutdown and restart. Nukes need days. That’s why they are used for baseloads. To reduce baseload generation, we need aggressive full-time load reduction.
The positive thing is this is possible, already demonstrated, even well written about. We just need leadership and education to keep the information in front of governments, consumers and businesses as they consider the issues and options. As a once-home-designer who now has very little design work in this continuing recession, I’m developing new workshops and writings to educate consumers, designers, contractors, teachers and anybody else who is interested. However, I must report that I do not get or hear much interest from younger people and companies in the RE sector. I suspect that’s because they are busy. After all, there are huge amounts of subsidies in my region going to RE retailers and contractors. That sector is certainly not in recession.
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[The Vector] Natural Gas Transition to Renewables – Another Corporate View
| June 22, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Fossil Fuels |
John Rowe, CEO at the Exelon Corporation, gave a presentation this spring at the American Enterprise Institute called “Energy Policy: Above All, Do No Harm”. Exelon is one of the largest electric and gas utility companies in the U.S, and they are one of the largest nuclear power plant operators (with 17 reactors) but also a large generator of hydropower, wind and some solar. Rowe said that Exelon has committed to reducing, offsetting or displacing their carbon footprint by 2020 and they are halfway there.
Obviously, every company has their own slant on issues and their own business to protect. Read More
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Chrysler’s Alternative Fuel Vehicle
| April 15, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I just came across this article on Chrysler’s plan to offer a natural gas-based car in 2017.
I know this sounds like a strange reaction, but personally, this cheeses me off. I see it is an attempt to confuse and distract the consumer from alternate fuel vehicles, so Big Auto can sell more internal combusion engines and Big Oil can pump more gasoline for a few more years while the market scratches its head and tries to sort this out.
Of course, Chrysler is free to choose whatever product marketing strategy it cares to. But the net of this decision will be only two things:
a) An ultimate failure for Chrysler (and the tax-payers who bailed them out after their last many decades of failure). There is no way in the universe that CNG (even though it’s cheap now) will become a viable fuel for the US long-term. How much more will they need from us to cover this fiasco?
and
b) A short-term confusion and turn-off for the consumer, as it will serve to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the evolution to EVs.
As always, not everyone sees it the way I do. I just spoke with Plug-in America co-founder and heavy-duty EV advocate Paul Scott. Paul welcomes Chrysler’s idea, and (though he didn’t say it) clearly thought I was half crazy for my reaction to the news.
But hey — it’s a difference of opinion that makes horseraces.
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New York Times: Let’s Pretend Renewable Energy Doesn’t Even Exist
| March 26, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Nuclear |
I just learned something quite valuable. To my astonishment, it’s possible for credible journalists to discuss the dangers of nuclear power and the relative safety of natural gas, going on at length about the world energy situation, without once mentioning solar, wind, and biomass. Until I read the above-linked article in the New York Times, I would have said that simply couldn’t happen in the year 2011.
Of course, one question is how safe natural gas actually is, given that its extraction relies on hydraulic fracturing of the bedrock in the Earth’s crust. As journalist Marie Baca notes in her response to the Times article: “What about the concerns that hydraulic fracturing can mobilize radioactive material in bedrock? Or the documented cases of methane migration? Or the San Bruno disaster, anyone? Any of these worth mentioning, maybe?”
But again, the most shocking thing about the piece is its blatent ignoring of the alternatives that truly are safe. Most of the rest of the world is moving quickly toward clean energy. Not only are we refusing to play a leadership (or even an effective followership) role here, some of us, apparently, would like to pretend it doesn’t exist.
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Fossil Fuels: Let's Not Lose Sight of Dangers
| September 2, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Readers here know that I generally refrain from taking cheap shots at the oil and gas industry. I try to keep in mind that, whether we like it or not, fossil fuels make up the vast majority of the world’s energy supply, and that until we can come together as a civilization and make them obsolete, we rely on them every days of our lives.
Having said that, I think it’s imperative to ensure we never lose sight of the dangers. To that end, I call attention to the fact that the federal government is warning residents in a small Wyoming town with extensive natural gas development not to drink their water, and to use fans and ventilation when showering or washing clothes in order to avoid the risk of an explosion. It seems that EPA researchers found benzene, metals, naphthalene, phenols and methane in wells and in groundwater.
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US Policy on Clean Energy – The Road Not Taken?
| June 29, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
A friend from the UK asked for my take on a new Swiss movie on Jimmy Carter’s efforts to reduce the United States’ dependence on oil at the end of the 1970s. He points out, “I am sure it will not be well known in the States. Perhaps it should be.”
The movie in question, “The Road Not Taken,” is a documentary centering around President Jimmy Carter’s having a series of solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. At the time, he told the crowd gathered to mark the installation of the new units:
“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people – harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”
A few years later, President Ronald Reagan famously had the solar panels removed.
I wrote back:
In my mind, there is no doubt that the conversation, mute as it is in the US, has already added luster to Carter’s star and, I suppose, some tarnish to Reagan’s. But I’m more interested to know what this means in terms of the future. We’re still subsidizing fossil fuels. There are still 7000 lobbyists cruising around the Beltway influencing lawmakers to ensure that that oil, coal, and gas remain at the core of our energy future until the last drop of crude is sucked out of the Earth, we’ve ripped the top off the last mountain, and fracked the planet’s crust to smithereens.
Having said that, there are hundreds of lively discussions in the blogosphere every day about the R&D for clean energy. Bill Gates’ 2010 TED talk is getting some very good distribution. Perhaps this stark dichotomy between these two US presidents and the concept of the “road not taken” will be viewed as an iconic piece of US history — and perhaps it can be spun into the idea that “it’s not too late to get back on the right road.”
We can hope.
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NOW on PBS – Fracking, Natural Gas, and Renewable Energy
| March 28, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
If you happen to be home on a Friday night, you’ll find it a great time to watch PBS, with its weekly programs: Washington Week, NOW, and Bill Moyers Journal. Generally, I think these programs depict the world fairly, and make an honest attempt to inform viewers in an objective and unbiased manner.
Yet I took exception to David Brancaccio’s NOW this week, in its gross oversimplication of the migration to renewables. In an attempt to inflame the viewer about the dangers of fracking (hydraulic fracturing, injecting water and chemicals deep underground to pry out gas locked away in tight spaces), the show told its views flatly, “We have renewable energy technology right now.”
At a certain level, this, of course, is true; there are a dozen or so clean energy technologies that are quite functional. But without context, this statement is horribly misleading. Sure we have the technology now, but there are hundreds of issues that many thousands of people are diligently working on — that will ultimately enable renewables to be deployed in an economically, legally, and ecologically sound way. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, “There’s plenty of clean energy if you don’t care how much you pay for it.”
If you want to stir up viewers, David, I would urge you to find a way to do so without feeding them a load of half-truths. I would say that to anyone — but especially to a man with a well-educated audience that can deal quite ably with the complete set of facts.
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Shale Natural Gas vs. Renewable Energy — Guest Blogger Anil
| March 15, 2010 | Posted by Anil under Renewables - Business |
Whether it is head scratching politicians in Copenhagen or industry analysts predicting that peak oil has already happened in one of the past decades, the pointers aim towards a fundamental shift – the process of doing away with carbon-based fuels and looking for renewable sources of energy. The changes are partly triggered by environment concerns and largely by fear of all industrial progress achieved so far coming to a grinding halt.
Needless to say, renewables aren’t trouble-free. Two of the major renewable sources, wind and solar both cost more than gas or coal. Prices are coming down with advances in technology, but intermittent nature of the energy production from renewable sources adds another dimension to the problem and puts the total cost of generating one unit of energy way compared with the fossil fuels. Wind speed becomes optimum for operating turbines at the height of around 800 meters, but creating a tower that high isn’t feasible. Furthermore, current wind turbine installations require around ten times concrete and steel that is required for generating the same amount of nuclear power.
Similarly, solar energy isn’t always available and the solar energy to electricity conversion ratio is just around 25 percent in most efficient crystalline silicon technology. Thus, instead of just focusing on renewables, options including a blend of fossil fuels with renewable sources or less polluting fossil fuels are being considered.
And good-old fossils aren’t letting us down. Although considered most benign of the pack, natural gas only emits around half as much as coal. On a grid level, probably it makes more sense to promote natural gas instead of counting on renewable as instruments to knock coal. Natural gas turbines can accommodate round the clock electricity generation unlike renewable thus helping in bridging the supply and demand gaps.
Last year witnessed a rare confluence of triggers resulting in a year with one of the lowest economic activity since Second World War. Quite predictably (in the hindsight), manufacturers ran high inventory levels with significantly less demand. As it turned out, Solar panel prices nosedived and so did the prices of natural gas. Natural gas prices are still depressed with futures currently trading at around 60 percent below last year’s high in US.
However, looks like the sector is in for a makeover. Apparently, ExxonMobil is betting big on natural gas. The oil giant has made a US$31 billion bid to acquire US natural gas player XTO Energy in an all stock deal. In addition, the company will assume debts amounting to US$10 billion. XTO Energy is an unconventional natural gas play. XTO has rights to large reserves of natural gas in shale, coal bed methane and tightly compressed sands. Shale gas is natural gas contained in shales, a type of sedimentary rock with low porosities and permeability.
But the extraction of gas is both difficult and costly. The extraction process includes drilling of several thousand feet and horizontally drilling through the shale. The process also involves large quantities of water up to 2 -4 million gallon along with sand and chemicals to break open the rock and release the gas.
However, technological advancements such as formation fracturing and horizontal drilling have made it possible to extract gas in an economic manner. The market’s first brush with new technology came in 2004 when natural gas giant Range Resources drilled the first modern well in the Marcellus Shale, spread across Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
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Quasi-Green Products
| December 27, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
I have to admit that I find myself in a quandary about products that are not strictly speaking environmentally sustainable but that offer considerable benefits compared to those that they would replace. Obviously, the world would be a cleaner place if we’d stop burning hydrocarbons, but the truth is we can’t – or we won’t – and thus it makes sense to understand the nature of certain compromises that are available.
Natural gas (vs. oil) is probably the most obvious example – and this topic has jumped into the news in a big way, with burgeoning supply brought about by breakthroughs in exploration technologies. Yet there are literally hundreds of others – and I enjoy reading the numerous business plans that I receive from companies wishing to go in these directions.
Here’s another good example: wood pellet stoves. Some consider this solution to be “CO2 neutral” (i.e., even though they do produce CO2 when burned, the material was once part of a tree that lived on CO2, so the two factors cancel each other out). This seems fallacious to me, since the tree (that otherwise would still be alive) was killed in the process of making the pellets. Having said that, this form of heat is obviously far cleaner than oil or coal. Here’s an excellent summary from GreenDaily.com.
I have to admit that I’ve been a heavy user of the standard wood burning fireplace. Sitting around the fire after dinner on a cold night, helping the kids with their homework — there are few things that I enjoy more. But I’m headed in the direction of wood pellets myself. While we’re running as fast as possible in the direction of solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and the like, it’s a trade-off I feel good about.
