by Tanada » Sun 29 Oct 2017, 09:46:45
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', 'W')ell, perhaps I'm wrong on the fracked oil internationally part, re Tanada's post. I was relying on the estimates from my reading sources like "The Domino Effect" by Russell Braziel, which was certain that globally, a whole lot of fracked oil would be economical to drill. Plus I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed that the vast amount of globally economical fracked gas formations implied there would be a LOT of internationally "decent" fracked oil formations.
(I'm no expert and don't claim to be. But I do read and think about stuff and do a little math, and don't just make stuff up out of whole cloth like the fast crash doom crowd tends to).
But even so, natural gas supplies are apparently stupendous, which Tanada's post seemed to agree with. And I didn't say it, but I still think that TPTB will burn coal as a backup, if that proves necessary to keep the global economy going (and oil can be produced from coal, if needed).
I used to think natural gas could be used for cars once oil got too expensive, but with the likely progress and cost curve for EV's, it seems unnecessary, even if we go from a huge oil glut to $150ish a barrel within 20 years, the way progress should occur in EV's and green energy.
As long as there is enough breathing room to let EV's ramp up to become available in big volume at a reasonable price, that should be good enough.
Of course, unlike the fast crash doomers, I look at the history of oil prices and what it has actually done to the economy -- and see $150ish oil as an inconvenience and a minor drag on the global economy -- not a reason to raise the flag of doom. So the real question might be how long can the global economy live with escalating crude oil prices, while EV's and green energy ramp up.
If Tony Seba's estimates via the S-curve and pricing are any indication, the first world will be OK. The third world, of course, could be a very different story.
I agree with much of what you say in this post. Fracked natural gas is a really world changing volume of energy available to us and future generations putting a solid cap on prices for natural gas anywhere on the pipeline network for a long time to come in the future.
However I think it is a mistake to discount natural gas fueled cars and machinery so lightly. Burning NG directly in an internal combustion engine has some significant benefits over the EV model and is easily coupled with large battery hybrid applications. Picture something like the Chevy Volt that can do 50 miles on the battery and then seamlessly switches to running the onboard generator with NG fuel from the compressed carbon fiber tank. NG fueling stations are not common right now, but the infrastructure to install a compressor pump fueling unit at every gasoline station on the NG pipeline network already exists and could be rolled out within months of the decision to do so. Unlike batteries that need exotic expensive materials to survive rapid charges and deep draw down cycles NG can operate a number of different types of engines. Heck you can even co-fuel it with diesel or kerosene in a compression ignition engine, or you can convert any high compression engine to spark ignition. It will also fuel low compression ICE spark ignition engines which are the most common type in the USA.
Switching the vehicle fleet over to NG fuel is a very low hurdle, more like a step than a jump. Full scale EV roll out which encompasses a massive build up in electric generating capacity in a country that suffers from massive NIMBY issues is a much higher hurdle to surpass.
Now for the bonus round. Any car adapted or designed to operate on straight NG as fuel can also run on Ammonia or Town gas/(Water Gas/Producer Gas) made by burning coal with a mixture of steam and oxygen (ideally) or steam and air if you can't get the oxygen directly. This man made gas is a mix of CO and H2 if made with Oxygen and Steam with some methane and other light hydrocarbons mixed in. If made with steam and air it also has a large percentage of Nitrogen in the mix that lowers the calorific value by about half. In either case this is the gas that was used to fuel gas street lights and provide 'clean' cooking fuel in cities for gas stoves in kitchens across Europe and North America. It was displaced by natural gas because NG has a higher calorie rating by volume and it was originally an unwanted byproduct of oil production so it was a lot cheaper to use. The kind of manufactured gas with lots of Hydrogen and Nitrogen was the original source of components for making Ammonia fertilizer and was only displaced around 1975 in most of the EU/USA for making ammonia via NG. The bonus part is, manufactured gas is how you retrieve the energy from deep and ultra deep coal seams that are not economically minable for physical extraction. You drill into the coal seam just like you do a shale bed, frack it with the same technology, drill a vertical recover well at the far end of the long lateral furthest fracked coal point. Then you start a fire at the place where the first well enters the coal seam and control its combustion rate by the mix of steam and oxygen you feed it with. The resulting manufactured gas migrates through the long lateral and the fracked cracks in the formation to the vertical extraction well at the far end and is recovered as mixed gas. During the migration of the manufactured gas it heats the coal bed and drives off the light hydrocarbons from it much like a low temperature coking oven does so you get a mix of producer gas with methane, plus some ethane, propane and a little butane. Currently Russia uses this technique to extract gassified coal and burning it in a power station to generate electricity. There isn't a lot of interest in doing this in the USA because fracked NG is so cheap, but in the UK for example deep coal is abundant and NG is becoming increasingly expensive so there is a lot of interest in this technology.
As for Tony Seba I consider him a starry eyed optimist or a salesman depending on my mood. There have been literally hundreds of people advocating progress to a new technology over the last 50 years who turned out to be either mistaken, or charlatans trying to sell you on their program.
Progress that doesn't improve things is not progress in anything but name. EV technology is fine for certain applications but it is not the wonder deal of the future with nothing but an upside some people like to claim it is. For the typical commuter that travels 25 miles each way and can charge enough to make the daily round trip at home an EV is fine. But a hybrid that will do that same 50 mile round trip on battery plus go 400 miles with fill ups at the gas station for long trips gives you the kind of flexibility typical car owners, at least in North America, expect and demand. Given that this technology has already been proven over the last 15 years and does not require a big tech breakthrough and price drop like the EV revolution I think it is a heck of a lot more viable of a plan for the future. The fact of the matter is, we don't need a great leap forward in technology to do a broad switch over to plug in hybrid vehicles virtually overnight. That step alone would cut fuel demand by a huge percentage, and if it was the industry standard the economies of scale would cut the cost a bunch for low end cars. Even with a federal mandate that all new cars sold after say 2022 must be plug in hybrid designs there would still be the legacy of 200 million gas and diesel vehicles being used until they wear out 15 years further down the timeline. It would also provide the time necessary to build out electricity supplies to charge up that hybrid fleet which would be a slow changeover even if the mandate were for all cars and light trucks after date X.
