Coal - What are the ramifications?

keroking · Coal Joined: Jul 25, 2006 Posts: 3

there is no HC with poorer reserve estimates than natural gas. when the shale gas reserve contribution is understood in 10 years the impact will be far more favorable than known today. The estimates of recoverable oil and natural gas are calculated within the parameters and techniques of the conventional boom of the 1970's. There is nobody who is in the unconventional gas plays that accepts Jimmy Carter vintage techniques
for what will be possible once self hate environmentalism and raw material ignorance is ovecome.

MonteQuest

keroking · Coal Joined: Jul 25, 2006 Posts: 3

It would be impossible to be correct you conclusion without sorting the differences in the opportunities for the supplemental sources you co-mingle and confuse. First, oil shale is not going to be a major new source in the next 50 years if ever. Second, LNG is primarily an option for countries without the vast resources and reserves like those found in Russia, central Europe and the US. Hence the 30 Billion USD investment deal by gas-deficient China into Australia for the LNG infrastructure it will need to export back to the fourth leading economy of the world. and no, I do not believe that the Chinese economy is sustainable and certainly will not surpass ours. The companies you mention are not market leaders in LNG infrastructure and will likely never be, so it does not surprise me to learn that they are in the dust in terms of market share for this work.

So that leaves us with shale gas, not a silver bullet, but just the important difference between an acute collapse scenario and a bridge to the next era of energy. go ahead and learn about it.

MonteQuest

nth · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Feb 24, 2005 Posts: 1973

You guys reading all the new CTL plants being built?
It won't solve our liquid needs, but it sure will pollute US air even more!

rdsaltpower · Tar Sands Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 91

I just read today about the ctl plant in Gilberton, Pa. They were supposed to start clearing the property for the plant monday aug.28. Guess who showed up monday morning, complete with translator? A Chinese delagation checking out the plans for the plant! Seems they have two ctl plants under construction in China now. the genie is already out of the bottle, I vote coal done as cleanly as possible.

eclipse

I absolutely agree with the concerns over coal increasing CO2 emissions, but you see... my problem is I live in Australia under John Howard. He's not the most rational man regarding the environment at the moment. Evil or Very Mad

So, my question is....

if the Hirsch report says it takes 20 years for a smooth oil to coal liquids transition for the USA, and the USA uses about 20 million barrels a day, then surely Australia will be OK after about a year of coal investment?

USA = 20 mbd = 20 years (hirsch)
Australia = less than 1mbd = 1 year?

Australia has a lot of coal. I don't want us to do this, I will campaign against us doing this, but after 2 years of peak oil campaiging I've realized people don't get peak oil or global warming. People don't WANT to give up their SUV even if living in a Richard Register Eco-city or Kunstler New Urbanism village means walking past your favourite friends and shops and coffee houses on the way to work intead of struggling in peak hour traffic. People just don't like change, and don't like being "sold" something by a mad raving greenie. (Sorry, I get a little passionate sometimes.)

But with the figures above, I'm just SURE Australia are going to get into that coal to keep our SUV's as long as possible. Oh well.
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MonteQuest · Last edited by MonteQuest on Wed Dec 06, 2006 8:31 pm; edited 1 time in total

eclipse

Thanks, but I guess my point was that Hirsch said 20 years of a massive effort to mitigate the US, Australia only uses 881 thousand barrels / day compared to the American 20 mbd!

We have regions that are massively exposed and isolated.
But again, we also have lots more gas / capita than the US, and our coal reserves are not insignificant.

So.... on a per capita basis we have as much exurbia to undo as the USA I guess. Melbourne has enormous sprawl, Sydney's west has enormous sprawl.

But we still only consume under 1 mbd.

We will ramp up coal and gas to liquids programs here in Australia, and have the capacity to do so. (I'll be ranting on talkback radio against this, but hey? What's that going to achieve.) Hopefully, this will give us the energy to adapt and cushion our landing a little more than America's. Poor America hitting peak oil and gas at the same time! Sad

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Free peak oil posters to download, print out, and put up at your local shops and library.

MonteQuest

MonteQuest

MonteQuest

And finally, the Hirsch report is about mitigating the world peaking of oil, not mitigating the US impact, but the world impact , including Australia.

5. Mitigation Efforts Will Require Substantial Time
Mitigation will require an intense effort over decades. This inescapable
conclusion is based on the time required to replace vast numbers of liquid
fuel consuming vehicles and the time required to build a substantial number
of substitute fuel production facilities. Our scenarios analysis shows:
• Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program
action would leave the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more
than two decades.
• Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking
helps considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade
after the time that oil would have peaked.
• Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking appears to
offer the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast
period.
The obvious conclusion from this analysis is that with adequate, timely
mitigation, the economic costs to the world can be minimized. If mitigation
were to be too little, too late, world supply/demand balance will be achieved
through massive demand destruction (shortages), which would translate to
significant economic hardship.
There will be no quick fixes. Even crash programs will require more than a
decade to yield substantial relief.
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eclipse

OK, thanks for your input on this. I appreciate it, and know how time consuming being a moderator can be.

If the Hirsch report was about world mitigation (rather than US mitigation) that means that various wedges and alternatives and efficiency programs have to scale up to 80mbd or so.

Australia, like the rest of the world, will bumble along in denial until the crisis wipes the stock-market out overnight. I'm no lawyer, but what guarantees or pledges have Australia signed to guarantee that we'll sell our resources on the world open market?

I think that many nations will go into an emergency mindset of wanting to look after our own first, and if that means Autarky, then so be it. It will be a crisis of unimaginable scale and economic fallout, and I wouldn't be ruling anything out.

Australia only uses 1% of world daily oil, yet we have quite a bit of gas and coal. I think I can see a rather ominous trend towards coal, bring peak coal forwards as well.

Anyway, I did not mean to sound "silver bulletish". The Australian Senate concluded there was no silver bullet and that it would require the redesigning of our cities. If a bunch of Senators can conclude that in one year of study pre-peak, then hopefully post peak, when the scramble is on, people will not be as against big changes towards New Urbanism as I fear. We will see.
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Free peak oil posters to download, print out, and put up at your local shops and library.

kaktus

Morning! playing the diplomat it's obvious you're both right, from your different perspectives. from the perspective of what will the course of international events look like further on I think eclipse is on to something important. from my Swedish perspective, for example, production of ethanol is now being built up. the prod capacity that is now decided and will be in effect in a few years will as a coincident consume as much agricultural products as is now net exported annually the average year. this (and other countries efforts) will likely increase starvation. would these investments not have been decided if Swedish decisionmakers were more aware of these effects? not likely. people starve today, will starve tomorrow and only rarely the "news" make it to the tvscreens. rich countries will look after their own interests and so the hardships of energy scarcity will be passed on to the weakest as much as possible. Peak Energy will not be a matter of everyone being 42% worse off.

I supose Australia will likely be a winner?, relatively speaking, in ever stronger bargaining position, especially if the plans for nuke power get through the resistance soon of todays public opinion.