[Graeme]

Perhaps the previous survey missed the higher emissions. The recent one notes that high emissions were detected over 7 wells. Why won't you accept that? Is it because you don't want it to be true?

[ragged]

Ragged,

As I said. Magic Pixie Dust. Beware of the snake oil salesman. The claims are not necessarily supported by the facts. The yield is no better than existing and why produce bulk fuels when you could produce higher value ethylene. If it worked they would not have to pump on YT. Believe me, they would have ethylene producers beating a track to licence it.

I get that you know more about this stuff than I do. At the same time, some of the stuff you're saying doesn't add up. Especially, "if it worked they would not have to pump it on YT". If you had watched any of the video you would know that she was talking to the MIT Club of Northern California and the video has 124 views. It's not some attempt at viral marketing to lure in unsuspecting investors. It gets to me that people suggest that because something is on youtube, it is BS (weak ad hominem attack).

Also, they are producing ethylene, but they also claim to have a proprietary ethylene to liquid technology that is unique: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/siluria-technologies-unveils-innovative-technology-convert-natural-gas-liquid-fuels-1891157.htm

I'm not saying it's going to work out, but I don't smell a scam going on here. From what I can tell, this is all going on under the radar. The sense I get is that they're hoping to make this tech work on their own so that they can monopolize the market. Seriously, watch the video.

[rockdoc123]

The recent one notes that high emissions were detected over 7 wells. Why won't you accept that? Is it because you don't want it to be true?

its an aerial flyover which means the readings are instantaneous. Why did the other 143 wells the EPA measured over periods of days and weeks (not the time it takes to fly an airplane over them) show the same response?

It's not even ballpark measuring the same thing. Controlled environment versus uncontrolled.

And for those of us who have worked out on well sites and been there when integrity tests are done for this specific reason it isn't surprising that the emissions from well sites would not be high in general.

[Graeme]

One point that is abundantly clear is that these recent higher measurements were taken during the drilling phase. I don't know why they were not detected earlier coz I don't have complete access to either article.

[Carnot]

Ragged, We had a team of chemists and engineers review this. It was not interesting enough to pursue any further. Many had looked at OCM and spent millions on research. It is a very difficult reaction to control and yields are not that great.
Do not be fooled by YT claims. Many of these processes may not be scams as such but as Rockman says a lot of people have made a career and a healthy living from research projects, most of which do not deliver.
As I also said, why would anyone want to turn ethylene into fuels. Ethylene carries a premium over fuels and to produce fuels from ethylene would be destroying value. It does not make sense.
I am always open to be convinced but as I get older I get wiser and I have seen this all before. It is not new technology, they have just added the Pixie Dust and in our view it does not solve the main issue which is selectivity. The key point is the yield of ethylene, not producing fuels form ethylene. That is not the difficult bit- it just does not make sense.

[ragged]

Here is the video again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70BaIBp6hDg

Try watching just from 17:00 to 25:00 or so. Come back and tell me that what she's talking about has been done before. I have about 14 fruit trees planted and just bought another 200 lbs. of rice and beans two weeks ago. It's not like I think PO is dead. At the same time, I feel like I'm pretty good at spotting BS and this lady sounds to me like she knows what she's talking about. Maybe it won't work out.

[Graeme]

Study: “plumes” of methane released into the atmosphere by a few super-emitting shale gas wells

Methane emissions from some shale gas wells could be up to a thousand times higher than official estimates - meaning they have a warming effect orders of magnitude higher than previously thought. But the finding only refers to a few 'super-emitter' sites, a tiny proportion of the total number of drilling locations, according to a recent study.

The government argues that the UK could burn gas instead of coal as a way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy system. That includes domestically produced shale gas.

But some academics argue that gas leaks during the process of extracting shale gas from rock - known as fracking - could make the fuel far more climate-polluting than its supporters claim.

The evidence is contested, and other researchers disagree. But a new study from researchers at a number of American universities appears to support the idea that 'fugitive' or unplanned emissions from shale gas wells could be substantial. The study identifies a small number of sites where drilling for shale gas has released large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.



In order to answer the question, researchers from Purdue University and the University of California went up in a specially equipped aeroplane to measure methane levels in the atmosphere above shale gas drilling sites.

Out of the many shale gas wells in the area it assessed in south-west Pennsylvania, some appeared to be releasing anomalously high levels of methane. In two areas, researchers observed "multiple high concentration methane plumes". Zoning in on the areas, they identified seven well pads releasing very high levels of methane.

These shale gas wells - where companies were still drilling for the gas, and not yet extracting it - were releasing 100 to 1,000 times more methane into the atmosphere than official estimates suggest, the researchers concluded.

A few super-emitter sites

These results lend support to another recent study, which concluded that natural gas operations are leaking more gas than officially recognised - but that just a few so-called 'super-emitter' sites are largely responsible.

In the latest study, just one per cent of sites - seven well pads, or about 40 shale gas wells - accounted for somewhere between four and 30 per cent of the methane emissions the researchers measured.

The researchers suggest "underbalanced drilling methods" may be responsible at the sites in question. This is where lower pressure in the well allows fluids and gas from the various geological formations - for example coal deposits - to seep out during the drilling phase, and ultimately escape into the atmosphere.

carbonbrief

[Carnot]

Ragged,

I watched what you suggested but it does not change my basic concerns. I am sure Prof Belcher has good intentions but to me they are a little too "pie in the sky". It sounds to good to be true, which means it probably is. Advances in the chemical and petroleum industry is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Breakthroughs are rare. There are no magic bullets. Advancement comes after research and testing. Engine technology is a good example. Essentially we are making ethylene today, exactly the same way as when the first steam cracker was developed 60 years ago. The plants have gotten better the the fundamentals are the same. The same applies for refinery catalytic crackers which have evolved. There have been no revolution. Likewise the manufacture of fuels has evolved as specifications has changed but the technologies are essentially the same.
Many so called breakthroughs have failed miserably. GTL has not really taken off and the number of plants and the capacities are minuscule. Methanol to gasoline has proven to be uneconomic. In my own company we have many abandoned products. They worked but commercially they we a failure, or would have been a failure. We are not alone; every company will have any number of interesting but non commercial products.
OCM has been the holy grail for ethylene for decades. It has not be possible to tweak the process, so far, to improve the yield to the point that it can compete against the traditional routes. The oil and chemical industry uses the routes that are the most competitive. If we did not we would go out of business. That means that potentially good processes remain on the shelf because they are not competitive.
The weakness I constantly see is that too many researchers have no clue on the commercial aspects of the oil and chemical industry. We have hurdle rates for investment and only the best projects showing attractive IRR's (internal rates of return) get the funds. Nice to have projects are not affordable. Many of the cost estimates I have seen are pie in the sky. When I hear of "We can make gasoline for $2 per gallon", I cringe. It usually means that the company does not have a clue, and they throw out these numbers to snare gullible investors. Why would anyone want to sell gasoline at $2 per galling when they could sell it for $3.50. The probability is though, that they probably could not even sell it for $30 gallon and make a PROFIT. It is easy to sell something competitively if you are prepared to accept a loss. The balance sheets of all the so called breakthrough companies are dismal reading. Look at Solazyme, Kior and Choren. Solazyme has and never will perform and make a profit, Kior is on life support and Choren went bust as soon as they we cut of from the teat of Shell.

[Graeme]

Natural Gas In New York Marcellus Shale Costs More To Get It Out Than The Gas Is Worth

For years, the shale industry has touted the economic benefits it can provide. An overflowing supply of domestic natural gas will help keep heating and electric bills low for American consumers, they argue, while drilling jobs and astounding royalty windfalls for landowners will reinvigorate local economies. These tantalizing promises have caught the attention of politicians in Washington, D.C. who argue that the rewards of relying on shale gas outweigh the risks, especially because harm can be minimized by the industry or by regulators.

But across the U.S., communities where drilling has taken place have found that the process brings along higher costs than advertised. Even when properly done, drilling carries with it major impacts — including air pollution, truck traffic, and plunging property values — and when drillers make mistakes, water contamination has left residents without drinking water or cleaning up from disastrous well blow-outs.

And as the shale drilling boom moves into its 12th year, the most crucial benefit claimed by drillers — cheap and abundant domestic fuel supplies — has come increasingly into question. The gas is there, no doubt, but most of it costs more to get it out than the gas is worth.

A new report from New York state, where a de facto shale drilling moratorium has persisted since 2008, concludes that unless natural gas prices double, much of the shale gas in the state cannot be profitably accessed by oil and gas companies.

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Oil CEO Says Obama Is Wrong On Natural Gas-- Go Green Instead

Since the amount of gas coming up in an oil well often comprises only 10 or 20 percent of the overall hydrocarbons, and the profit margins are very low compared to crude, many operators would prefer just to blast it into the environment, versus capturing and shipping it, and it is said that 25 billion dollars per year worldwide literally go up in smoke this way.

A worse expression yet of oil company laziness is the practice of venting pure methane, unburned, into the air. Methane is one of the most potent and dangerous greenhouse gases known to man, and it can hang around for 100 years or more in the atmosphere, hampering the climate all the while. According to our industry correspondents, this raw venting occurs because operators, once again, are too, quote, “lazy” to even purchase, haul, and install a flare tower to burn the gas on site, let alone capture and transport it.

With the virtually unanimous and sobering, accredited, scientific, impending, climate-doom-imminence warnings emanating from nearly all known science academies worldwide, it leaves one to wonder if these simply huge oil oligarchs have even a shred of concern for the future well-being of our planet.

To top it off, the CEO told our reporter off camera that practically every single well in operation across North America is off-gassing methane directly from their tank (storage) batteries. This is in addition to the multitude of other small leaks encountered on virtually every pump jack, and when it comes to raw methane, no other greenhouse gas can touch its sheer caustic power for exacerbating climate change.

popularresistance

[Graeme]

ARPA-E ANNOUNCES $60 MILLION FOR DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES TO CUT EMISSIONS, BOOST ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Today, at the Advanced Energy Conference in Albany, New York, Acting ARPA-E Director Cheryl Martin announced up to $60 million for two new programs to detect and measure methane emissions and develop innovative localized thermal management systems that cut the energy needed to heat and cool buildings. The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, encourages America’s top scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new projects teams for applications that leverage interdisciplinary and cross-organizational collaboration.

“Developing a broad range of technology options to reduce energy emissions and consumption is critical for a secure, affordable, and sustainable American energy future,” said Acting ARPA-E Director Cheryl Martin. “The disruptive technologies that ARPA-E will fund through these two new programs will fill critical gaps in energy research and development and push the boundaries of emissions reduction and energy efficient technologies.”

Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Obtain Reductions (MONITOR)

In the United States, methane emissions make up nearly nine percent of all greenhouse gas emitted as result of human activity, and methane pollution is projected to increase to a level equivalent to over 620 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution in 2030 absent additional action to reduce emissions.

ARPA-E’s new MONITOR program will help the oil and gas sector reduce methane emissions and build a more sustainable energy future. The program will make up to $30 million available to help U.S. teams develop low-cost, highly-sensitive systems that detect and measure methane associated with the production and transportation of oil and natural gas. If successful, MONITOR's technologies could accurately and cost-effectively measure methane emissions and provide a detection network to mitigate the release of this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

arpa-e

[Graeme]

Is the shale boom already over?

Lower natural gas prices drove down U.S. proved reserves in 2012, despite notable gains in the Marcellus and Eagle Ford shale gas plays. The decline stopped a 14-year trend of consecutive increases in natural gas reserves, according to newly published estimates in EIA's U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves 2012.

Proved reserves are volumes of natural gas that geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions.

Natural gas proved reserves, estimated as wet natural gas that includes natural gas plant liquids, decreased 7% in 2012 to 323 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), as operators revised the proved reserves of their existing natural gas fields downward in response to lower natural gas prices (the natural gas spot price at the Henry Hub dropped below $2.00 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in April 2012, a relatively low price level not experienced since December 2001).

At the state level, Pennsylvania and West Virginia reported the largest net increases (9.8 Tcf and 4.3 Tcf, respectively) in natural gas proved reserves in 2012, driven by the continued development of the Marcellus Shale play. The Marcellus Shale play became the largest shale play (ranked by proved reserves) in the United States in 2012. Proved reserves in shale gas plays accounted for 40% (129.4 Tcf) of U.S. wet natural gas proved reserves in 2012. However, gains in the Marcellus (10.9 Tcf) and Eagle Ford (7.8 Tcf) shale plays were more than offset by price-driven reductions in more mature shale plays (the Barnett and the Haynesville declined a combined 20.7 Tcf) in 2012.

businessspectator

[Graeme]

Airborne measurements confirm leaks from oil and gas operations

During two days of intensive airborne measurements, oil and gas operations in Colorado's Front Range leaked nearly three times as much methane, a greenhouse gas, as predicted based on inventory estimates, and seven times as much benzene, a regulated air toxic. Emissions of other chemicals that contribute to summertime ozone pollution were about twice as high as estimates, according to the new article.


Oil-and-gas-related emissions for a subset of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, were about 25 metric tons per hour, compared to the state inventory, which amounts to 13.1 tons. Ozone at high levels can harm people's lungs and damage crops and other plants; the northern Front Range of Colorado has been out of compliance with federal health-based 8-hour ozone standards since 2007, according to the EPA. Another CIRES- and NOAA-led paper published last year showed that oil and natural gas activities were responsible for about half of the contributions of VOCs to ozone formation in northeastern Colorado.

This summer, dozens of atmospheric scientists from NASA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NOAA, CIRES and other will gather in the Front Range, to participate in an intensive study of the region's atmosphere, said NCAR scientist Gabriele Pfister. With research aircraft, balloon-borne measurements, mobile laboratories and other ground-based equipment, the scientists plan to further characterize the emissions of many possible sources, including motor vehicles, power plants, industrial activities, agriculture, wildfires and transported pollution.

sciencedaily

[Graeme]

Plant, I'm not entirely against ng because as I've mentioned before it is OK as a transition fuel especially for US but as the IPCC have advised it must be phased out next decade (gone by following?). The reason; 20-50% saving on fuel costs for trucks (video).

More discussion on standardisation here.

[Graeme]

Forget oil shortages: 'There's enough methane in the sea for 1,000 years'

"There's enough methane at the bottom of the sea to meet the world's energy needs for 1,000 years, at current energy usage," asserts Brian Rosen, a post-doctorate at Tel Aviv University's Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

That sounds like good news, given reports about the world having passed peak oil – most projections put global reserves at 40 or 50 years. The rub is that this methane locked in gas pockets beneath the seabed is expensive to access and tricky to get back to shore where it can be refined and utilized as fuel, says Rosen, who will be starting as a senior assistant professor at the beginning of 2015.


Rosen, a chemical engineer who made aliyah from Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, in the spring of 2013, is working on a different, win-win solution: developing new catalysts to take carbon dioxide and combine it with methane, creating a liquid fuel precursor at low cost. "His idea is original at both the academic and international levels," says Prof. Noam Eliaz, head of the Materials department.


"Oil may be running out," Rosen says. "Big companies like Shell and Sasol are investing billions in gas-to-liquid plants, projecting this will be the technology that replaces oil drilling. Our hope as scientists is to develop new technologies to support these projects."

haaretz

[Graeme]

Turning natural gas to gasoline — at $1 per gallon

Bay Area startup Siluria Technologies has developed a way to make gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from natural gas — not crude oil.

And the oil industry has noticed.

Today, the 6-old-company will announce that its latest $30 million financing round was led by Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company.

“Their business isn’t just oil,” said Ed Dineen, Siluria’s chief executive officer. “It’s oil and gas and petrochemicals and power. And when they look across that spectrum, they have a strong interest in increasing the value of their gas. This will allow them to do that.”

Aramco has also put together a team studying ways to deploy the technology in Saudi Arabia. Based in San Francisco, Siluria has now raised $99 million from such investors as Bright Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Lux Capital.

sfgate

[Pops]

Compare to:

Facebook, market capitalization: $195 billion
Amazon, market Cap $155B - and NO profit

Kinda makes you wonder why investors aren't knocking their door down.

[ROCKMAN]

FYI Mobil Oil was doing this in New Zealand 40 years ago. The problem then was that even with almost free NG it still wasn’t economical. Also you have to be careful how you interpret what “I can make X for $Y per gallon”. It might cost me $5/bbl to produce oil out of my well. But it cost me $5 million to drill the well. So at $1/gallon is that the cost of the process to make the gasoline NOT including what you have to pay for the NG and NOT amortizing in the cost to build the plant?

And given they apparently haven't built a full scale pilot plant left so I would even take the estimated ops cost with a grain of salt.

[mikey123]

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Start-up-hopes-to-show-fuel-breakthrough-at-5701784.php#/0

Startup hopes to show fuel breakthrough at Houston-area plant

Siluria Technologies, which is developing a way to convert methane - the main component of natural gas - into ethylene and motor fuel will install a demonstration unit at a La Porte petrochemical plant owned and operated by Braskem America.

The modular demonstration unit, which is under construction in Canada and will be shipped to La Porte in sections, is slated to come online in November or December, Siluria CEO Ed Dineen said.

According to this article from August their demonstration unit should be online by now. There hasn't been much press on them in the past few months though. They have some big investors behind them including Saudi Aramco and Paul Allen.

If this technology proves out I wonder what the implications would be. If they truly can produce gasoline as cheaply as they claim wouldn't that crash the price of oil? The Saudis would be the first to know the potential since they are a primary investor so how would that affect their oil policy? Wouldn't it raise the price of natural gas while lowering the price of oil considerably until they are at parity. I know it's speculation but it is still fun to play the "what if" game.

[mikey123]

This is a good summary from the same article explaining how their process differs from previous efforts to covert methane through oxidative coupling

In the 1970s and 1980s, there was much research on oxidative coupling, the technique Siluria uses. But research stalled in subsequent decades, said Lance Lobban, a professor at the University of Oklahoma's school of chemical, biological and materials engineering.

The process works by combining methane with oxygen - which usually results in combustion, but produces ethylene and water when a catalyst is added to precise measures of oxygen and methane.

Interest waned after the earlier research because the process required a great deal of heat and the catalysts proved unstable. The energy needs made oxidative coupling uneconomic.

"If you could improve the catalyst so the reaction would take place at lower and lower temperatures," Lobban said, "that's sort of an economic breakthrough."

That's what Dineen says his company has achieved, largely because it has used techniques that didn't exist before to develop its catalyst. The company tried out more than 75,000 different catalysts before settling on the right one.

Additionally, Siluria says it's developed a method to convert that ethylene into transportation fuels like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel with the help of a different catalyst. It says the process is more efficient than the current gas-to-liquids standard, called the Fischer–Tropsch technique.

Zaziski said applying Siluria's technology to an existing gas plant would allow it to produce gasoline from natural gas for $1 per gallon, about half the cost it takes to produce it from crude. The resulting products are "chemically indistinguishable" from petroleum-based fuels, he said, so they can be used in existing vehicles and infrastructure.

The company has produced ethylene and liquid fuels at pilot facilities in California. The new La Porte plant will be capable of producing about a ton of ethylene daily.

Siluria hopes to deploy its technology on a commercial scale in 2017 or 2018, Dineen said. If that happens, and the technology is widely adopted, the implications could be significant.

Natural gas priced so low it wasn't worth producing might become more attractive to energy companies. That could prompt other countries to pursue the shale drilling that has produced the U.S. gas bounty.

Still, Dineen acknowledged that his company faces a challenge in convincing the world of its results. "Because of prior efforts - and we're a small company - yes, there's skepticism," he said. But he expects Saudi Aramco and other major partners to lend credence to his company's work.

Chang, the IHS analyst, said Siluria still has a way to go before its results can be considered conclusive.

"Going from the advanced pilot stage to the commercial stage is still a big step they need to demonstrate," he said.