[JLK]

Natural gas is largely methane, and it is considered a desirable source of energy because it contains less carbon than other fossil fuels, meaning that it produces less carbon dioxide (about 14 kg C/GJ) per unit of released energy when it is burned than oil (about 19 kg C/GJ), and far fewer than coal (about 25 kg C/GJ for bituminous coal). It is widely used to generate electricity (most of the new electrical generating plants that have been built in the U.S. since the 1970s are fueled by natural gas), for industrial processes (e.g. steelmaking) and for commercial and residential heating. It is used as a chemical feedstock to make most of the world's agricultural fertilizers through the Haber-Bosch process, and is the most economical source of hydrogen, the supposed "fuel of the new economy."

As Julian Darley described so well in his recent book High Noon For Natural Gas, North America is now in the early stages of a continent-wide natural gas supply crisis. In 2003, for example, the natural gas pipeline system in North America came within a whisker of losing pressure. A decision was nearly made at the time to cut off supply to industrial users, in order that power generating plants and residential customers could continue to be supplied. In order to address the growing crisis, the Bush Administration's National Energy Plan anticipates a wholesale expansion of US facilities for receiving shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which must be obtained from generally the same countries that sell us oil, and for regasification of the LNG in order to maintain pressurization of the natural gas distribution pipeline. Clearly, natural gas is not the vehicle through which the United States is going to enhance its energy independence. Importation of LNG is not a long term solution for the addition reason that while the status of global production and reserves for natural gas are marginally better than they are for crude oil, global production of natural gas is also expected to peak within the next few decades.


The better longer term solution to the natural gas crisis, in my opinion, involves a combination of (1) taking measures to increase energy efficiency in the use of natural gas; (2) construction of a significant number of new nuclear power plants while phasing out gas-fired plants; and (3) encouraging commercial exploitation of what are termed non-conventional sources of natural gas. Non-conventional natural gas includes methane clathrates (also called methane hydrates), coal bed methane that is trapped in coal sedimentation, tight gas that is trapped in small reservoirs, and geopressurized brine methane that is suspended within water in geopressurized underground aquifers. Energy analyst P.R. Odell has predicted that the combined production from such non-conventional sources will overtake conventional natural gas production by about 2070.

Small amounts of coal bed methane have been in production in the U.S. since the 1950s, but efforts to produce it redoubled with the implementation of the Section 29 tax credits in the late 1970s. Once derisively termed "moonbeam gas," it is now economical to produce, although not as much so as conventional gas because it is contained in smaller, localized deposits. Coal bed methane figures to be an important source of natural gas in the future. Methane hydrates also exist in abundance beneath the Arctic permafrost and the ocean floor, but are difficult to harvest safely because they tend to be unstable. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and a mishap with a large methane hydrate deposit could have disastrous environmental effects. For these reasons, no commercial effort to produce methane hydrates is anticipated in the foreseeable future, although Japan, India and the U.S. all have active methane hydrate research programs. In the longer term, perhaps in twenty years, methane hydrate production is possible and perhaps even likely. Production of tight reservoir gas requires fracturing of the surrounding rock with explosives or other techniques. It has been a success story the past two decades, with wellhead recovery volume of some projects exceeding that of conventional wells, although like coal-bed methane the smaller size of the deposits limits recovery efficiency.

Geopressured reservoirs or aquifers exist deep underground, usually as a salty solution or brine, in locations throughout the world. The brine is typically saturated with methane, with between 30 to 80 cubic feet of methane gas contained in each barrel of fluid. Fluid pressures in such aquifers can be as much as twice the normal hydrostatic gradient, meaning that significant pressure will exist at the wellhead when the reservoir is tapped. The water is also often quite hot, with temperatures typically within the range of 90 °C - 200 °C. Three types of energy could potentially be derived from geopressurized brine: (1) Thermal energy from the temperature of the fluid; (2) mechanical energy from the fluid pressure; and (3) chemical energy from the methane that is suspended within the fluid.

Vaclav Smil, in his outstanding book Energy at The Crossroads relies upon the work of The IAEA's H.H. Rogner to estimate that total global resources of geopressurized brine gas could as much as 110 times the world's current proved natural gas reserves. Smil also mentioned that the Gulf of Mexico potentially contains more brine gas than the world's total natural gas reserves as estimated by Peak Oil experts Jean Leherrere and Colin Campbell. Small amounts of brine gas have already been commercially recovered in Italy, Japan and the U.S., although the commercial motivation for the production had more to do with recovering trace minerals from the brine that it did with the methane. However, large-scale production of brine gas is generally considered to be uneconomical at current prices by most energy experts.


In response to the energy crisis of the mid-1970s, the predecessor agency to the U.S. Department of Energy appropriated funds to study the feasibility of producing brine gas from the northern Gulf of Mexico. The Wells of Opportunity and Design Wells program provided for a preliminary study of the extent and the characteristics of the region's geopressurized aquifers, and the feasibility of producing brine gas. The Design Wells program culminated in the construction of a test well in Pleasant Bayou, Louisiana in 1979, and ultimately included five test wells that by the end of the 1980s had produced over 35 million barrels of hot, pressurized, methane saturated brine. The methane was stripped from the pressurized brine and the degassed brine was re-injected into shallow unconfined sands beneath the ground, with no apparent ill environmental effect.

The Design Wells program clearly demonstrated that it is feasible to produce significant amounts of thermal energy, mechanical energy and methane from geopressurized brine reservoirs. However, during the energy glut of the 1990s the technology was simply not economically competitive with other non-conventional natural gas production, let alone conventional projects. As a result, the DOE and the energy industry lost interest in the subject.

With present market conditions being significantly different than they were in the early 1990s, there have been a few indications of renewed interest in the industry for exploring geopressurized brine projects. A paper presented by Unocal's Jeremy Griggs at a workshop at Stanford University earlier this year made a strong case that brine gas can be economically produced under certain conditions, namely by producing brines of lower salinity from the larger bulk aquifers. Among Griggs' recommendations is that the DOE re-open the Wells of Opportunity program. Considering the limited expense of the program and enormous domestic reserves that could become available if this source of methane is eventually able to be successfully harnessed, I would think that the Bush Administration would leap at the chance to become less reliant on foreign sources of energy. With today's technology, the recovery of thermal energy (Griggs suggests high efficiency binary-cycle power plants be deployed) and the efficiency at which the methane can be extracted from the saturated brine (there is some evidence that use of heavier hydrocarbons would assist in extraction) would likely be far superior today than was possible 15 years ago.

[Tanada]

I remember reading about Geopressure gas way back in February 1982 when National Geographic did a special issue on the Energy Crisis.

Since Fracking arrived on the scene in the public perception you barely hear anything about Coal Bed gas or Permafrost Clathrate gas, though there are occasional articles.

This is one of the very rare Geopressure gas reminders I have seen in decades, Rockdoc123, whatever happened to Geopressure gas?

[Subjectivist]

http://geothermaldigest.net/blog/2010/0 ... ectricity/

An oil field co-produced resource makes use of wells already drilled by the oil and gas industry that are either deep enough to encounter hot water, or could be deepened into these hot zones. The company notes that a depth of 15,000 ft or more is preferred where pressures will be optimal. It also quotes scientists at Southern Methodist University as saying that producing energy from oil and gas fields in Texas alone could result in between 400 and 2200 MW of geothermal power.

The project now being implemented calls for developing a total of 200 geopressured wells – double the number from the original joint venture announcement – in Mississippi and Texas. The project is expected to ultimately generate baseload electrical power of at least 400 MW at a capital cost estimated at $280 million.

[Subjectivist]

Abstract
Development of the current approach to carbon capture and sequestration from coal-fired power plants has several technical, environmental and economic constraints. Production of brine while storing CO2 in the aquifer greatly mitigates some of the technical and environmental difficulties. In the case of geopressured-geothermal aquifers, brine production can yield methane and geothermal energy that exceeds the energy required for the capture and storage process. A reservoir simulation study was performed on a simple geopressured-geothermal aquifer model to investigate the amount of produced energy versus amount of stored CO2. The power requirements for CO2 capture and pressurization of injected CO2 and brine were compared to the power that could be achieved from produced energy.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0213003743



I am still waiting for someone to figure out a way to make money off of geopressured brines, I first learned about them in 1982 and they always sound like a sure fire way to make more Natural Gas abundant with pressurized water as a by product you can use for driving a water turbine generator.

[ROCKMAN]

sub- Yes...a very old story of "untold riches" from producing hot water. In the last 3 years I've plugged and abandoned several such deep wells in S La. A typical P&A cost is around $100k/well. These wells costs around $4 - $7 million by the time I got them down. I would have been willing to give them away for FREE to anyone that would take them over and be obligated to P&A them. And so would have other operators been willing to do the same with their dry holes. There you go: hundreds of $millions in wells that could be used to produce hot salt water with some methane mixed in with it...all for FREE!!! And guess what? No one took any of the free wells to use for thermal recovery. Without going into all the details of the economics behind such a project it pretty clear that if no one did it when they could get a 4+ million bore hole for free no one is going to go pay for one to do it.

Geothermal recovery, especially in S La., was a big buzz about 30 years ago. Nice fat tax credits, etc. were offered. And it didn't work. Just one more example of "technically recoverable" energy. Recoverable if you don't let losing money stand in your way. LOL.

[John_A]

As Julian Darley described so well in his recent book High Noon For Natural Gas, North America is now in the early stages of a continent-wide natural gas supply crisis.

Yes, the crisis was pretty bad wasn't it? New supplies brought online so hard it crashed the price, coal fired power plants being decommissioned to take advantage of the abundance, and folks even investing 100's of millions to take advantage of the BTU value spread between natural gas and crude.

http://pintogtl.com/pinto-energy-announ ... ids-plant/

Sometimes these old threads make the point so well...I almost don't even have to post!!

[ROCKMAN]

pstarr - "isn't $6/mcf tight-shale NG difficult to sell into a $4 market?". If I catch your drift: no, it isn't difficult to sell...you sell it for $4/mcf. LOL. In my career I've sold oil/NG for less than it cost me to find. It's rather simple math: the NG I'm producing cost me $6/mcf to find but when I sell it for $4/mcf I net a $3.50/mcf positive cash flow because my lease operating expense to produce is only $0.50/mcf. With the bust in NG prices back in '08 there were billions of cu ft of NG sold for less than it cost to find them. But it was still profitable to produce those wells even though they would never recover the initial investment.

This is the main reason it’s difficult to tell if a company has been profitable or not: Company A sells $500 million in oil/NG one year and spends $300 million drilling new wells that year. So they made a profit of $200 million that year…right? NO…you don’t know how much it cost that company to generate that cash flow. The $500 million in production might be from a number of wells that will never payout. If I were a public company I would know how much of each of my wells cost to drill and how much net income I made from each. So I know what my profit has been. But no one else has that data. All I report is my revenue and budget numbers…not details on each one of my wells. One of the time honored methods of increasing a public company’s net income is to reduce spending. A great way to boost dividends…in the short run.

[Subjectivist]

I was actually thinking of the pressure more than the heat. The video I saw some time ago showed the brine being released into a container foaming like a very shaken up warm beer. What I was thinking earlier was that you might be able to harvest the pressure release through an impellor to turn a water jet turbine like they do in micro hydro projects. You could harness the pressure, heat and methane, if that isn't a money making proposition than the geopressure methanated brine must be pretty hopeless.

[John_A]

As Julian Darley described so well in his recent book High Noon For Natural Gas, North America is now in the early stages of a continent-wide natural gas supply crisis.

Yes, the crisis was pretty bad wasn't it? New supplies brought online so hard it crashed the price, coal fired power plants being decommissioned to take advantage of the abundance, and folks even investing 100's of millions to take advantage of the BTU value spread between natural gas and crude.

http://pintogtl.com/pinto-energy-announ ... ids-plant/

Sometimes these old threads make the point so well...I almost don't even have to post!!

The point being your post is a distraction not remotely about the specific topic thread.

(As an aside (and Mods, pops, I promise I won't pursue this) isn't $6/mcf tight-shale NG difficult to sell into a $4 market?)

Interesting that you did not read the OP, because it didn't match the stated topic either. May I recommend reading and thinking prior to posting?

[ROCKMAN]

sub - The high pressure part of "geopressure" is the pressure in the reservoir...not when it gets to the surface. It might be 15,000 psi at 16,000' but by the time it gets to the surface the FTP (flowing tubing pressure) might just be 2,000 psi...or a lot less. That may still sound like a lot of pressure but remember now you're moving 10k to 20k bbls of water through the production equipment...that takes a lot of horse power. And then what do you do with all that nasty salt water? You pump it down deep and expensive disposal wells...and that takes more horse power.

So far the more economical geothermal projects I've seen described involve wells just a few hundred feet deep. Granted not a lot of heat content but a great deal cheaper per BTU. No methane but then no 100's of millions of bbls of salt water to deal with either. In the oil patch salt water disposal is huge black hole that capex goes in to never be seen again. LOL.

[Tanada]

sub - The high pressure part of "geopressure" is the pressure in the reservoir...not when it gets to the surface. It might be 15,000 psi at 16,000' but by the time it gets to the surface the FTP (flowing tubing pressure) might just be 2,000 psi...or a lot less. That may still sound like a lot of pressure but remember now you're moving 10k to 20k bbls of water through the production equipment...that takes a lot of horse power. And then what do you do with all that nasty salt water? You pump it down deep and expensive disposal wells...and that takes more horse power.

I know I know!!!! You put it in huge flat shallow ponds and let it evaporate, then you sell the salt to people as a wonder bath salt that will draw all the nasty modern life poisons out of their body if they use it 7 times a week, just like those absorbing foot pads you see on late night TV! You will be rich! Rich beyond dreams of avarice!

Actually why do they pump it into disposal wells? Why not disperse it into the Gulf of Mexico instead? There is already a huge dead spot off the coast, it isn't like salt water would destroy the balance of nature if they did that.

[Subjectivist]

sub - The high pressure part of "geopressure" is the pressure in the reservoir...not when it gets to the surface. It might be 15,000 psi at 16,000' but by the time it gets to the surface the FTP (flowing tubing pressure) might just be 2,000 psi...or a lot less. That may still sound like a lot of pressure but remember now you're moving 10k to 20k bbls of water through the production equipment...that takes a lot of horse power. And then what do you do with all that nasty salt water? You pump it down deep and expensive disposal wells...and that takes more horse power.

So far the more economical geothermal projects I've seen described involve wells just a few hundred feet deep. Granted not a lot of heat content but a great deal cheaper per BTU. No methane but then no 100's of millions of bbls of salt water to deal with either. In the oil patch salt water disposal is huge black hole that capex goes in to never be seen again. LOL.

Hey Rockman, if they were to suspend the environmental regulations requiring the deep brine get reinjected and let the drillers dump it someplace like out to sea or dilute it and dump it in the Mississippi River would this gas be profitable?

[ROCKMAN]

T – Out in the open GOM you can go overboard directly with your produce water once you clean out the oil to the max level allowed by the feds…which is very, very little. Used to be able to dump into state waters right along the coast but I think the states have stopped that.

Sub – Anything that can be done to reduce disposal costs will improve the economics by X% for any project. As I pointed out above dumping into the ocean is fine if your well is already out there. But if you have to pipeline it X miles to get to the coast and then Y miles of underwater pipelining the economic advantage slips away quickly.

With respect to oil, once you’ve already paid for the SWD (salt water disposal) well it isn’t that expensive. But getting to that point is. With the current high oil price I see companies making a nice avenue (granted by Mom & Pop company standards) producing 3 bopd and 300 bwpd. With the current low price of NG…not so easy.

Dumping into the Miss. River would upset the folks in my hometown…Nawlins. They have enough trouble with salt water flowing upstream during low flow periods on the Miss. R. You need to understand that the bottom of the MR at Nawlins is way below sea level so a wedge of salt water can make it up to the water plants. And remember what I’ve said a about the regs in La.: if I’m drilling in a designated ‘wetlands’ area I can’t pump rain water off my drill site. I have to truck it to a disposal company. You dump salt water on the ground in Texas or La and get caught you’re in for a world of hurt.

BTW: common sign in bathrooms in Baton Rouge: Please flush the toilet…New Orleans needs drinking water.

[Tanada]

T – Out in the open GOM you can go overboard directly with your produce water once you clean out the oil to the max level allowed by the feds…which is very, very little. Used to be able to dump into state waters right along the coast but I think the states have stopped that.

With respect to oil, once you’ve already paid for the SWD (salt water disposal) well it isn’t that expensive. But getting to that point is. With the current high oil price I see companies making a nice avenue (granted by Mom & Pop company standards) producing 3 bopd and 300 bwpd. With the current low price of NG…not so easy.

Dumping into the Miss. River would upset the folks in my hometown…Nawlins. They have enough trouble with salt water flowing upstream during low flow periods on the Miss. R. You need to understand that the bottom of the MR at Nawlins is way below sea level so a wedge of salt water can make it up to the water plants. And remember what I’ve said a about the regs in La.: if I’m drilling in a designated ‘wetlands’ area I can’t pump rain water off my drill site. I have to truck it to a disposal company. You dump salt water on the ground in Texas or La and get caught you’re in for a world of hurt.

BTW: common sign in bathrooms in Baton Rouge: Please flush the toilet…New Orleans needs drinking water.

Years ago back 2005ish I was strongly arguing that every sensitive drilling area like ANWR and National Parks should be drilled as soon as possible while environmental laws are strongly in effect because I fear as we start sliding down the energy curve from the peak the Congress will repeal the EPA or the President will give waivers for energy extraction to try and make up the shortfall. It would have been much better IMO to do as little damage as possible early on rather than have the damage be extreme when all the regulations and laws are waived or repealed in an attempt to replace the shortfall.

The town I went to school in had a river with a 10 foot dam to power an old closed down mill, the village next upstream did a very poor job of sewage treatment and every time it was 'laundry day' up stream we knew it, the laundry soap residue made a dam wide foam zone that lasted for hours as successive people went to the laundromat and did their weekly wash. If deep brine were dumped in the Mississippi north of the Louisiana border the river turbulence should dilute it to low concentration pretty quickly, otherwise all that road salt used in states on the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi would make the river very salty long before it reaches Louisiana in the winter time. Just saying, a certain level of use is within the capacity of the river to disperse.

[PrestonSturges]

I always wondered about Hawaii - they have active volcanoes of the well behaved variety and should have no trouble tapping geothermal energy only a couple hundred feet down, with the whole Pacific Ocean to use as a heat sink, but they are burning diesel to generate electricity.

[Tanada]

I always wondered about Hawaii - they have active volcanoes of the well behaved variety and should have no trouble tapping geothermal energy only a couple hundred feet down, with the whole Pacific Ocean to use as a heat sink, but they are burning diesel to generate electricity.

I have wondered the same thing but none of my research has ever turned up an answer.

[ROCKMAN]

T – I think you and many others greatly underestimate how state govts protect the environment. I’ve dealt with the feds, Texas and La on environmental issues for almost 40 years. The protection provided by the feds and their EPA is a joke compared how those state govts handle the environment. With the exception of dealing with the Corps of Engineers in some isolated instances in La. I don’t deal with the EPA ever...and never have. The fed govt doesn’t even have a clue what I’m doing operationally in either state. But the state regulators know exactly what I’m doing all the time. If the people of either state had depended upon the feds to protect the environment it might just be one wide patch of wasteland today.

I drilled wells in KY where the state had given 100% of oil field related environmental protection to the EPA. As best I could tell the EPA did not have a single person on the ground in KY watching over oil/NG drilling and production. But they were watching us from afar: I filed my paperwork with the EPA office in Atlanta. So all they knew was that I reported I never dumped salt water into a creek instead of properly disposing it. I could have dumped thousands of bbls of salt water into the creek and they wouldn’t have a clue.

And even when the states are in charge it doesn’t mean they are doing a good job. Remember what I reported a long time ago: much (if not most) of the frac fluid contamination in PA was coming from local community water treatment facilities that were charging companies to dispose of their frac fluids with them and then they would release is after it went through their systems (which had little or no capability of treating the frac fluids) into the streams. Both NY and PA had to pass laws to make it illegal for municipalities to continue to do this. Bet you didn’t see much in the MSM about this, eh? LOL. Like the guy in Illinois that was dumping oil field waste for years into the sewer system instead of properly disposing it. And did the EPA or local govt discover his crime? No…it was one of the oil patch companies that was paying him to get rid of their crap that ratted him out. Bet you didn’t see that part of the story on CNN. LOL.

[PrestonSturges]

Wellhead blowout triggers hot mud volcano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_m ... al_process

.....It is the biggest mud volcano in the world; responsibility for it was credited to the blowout of a natural gas well, although some scientists[2] and company officials contend it was caused by a distant earthquake.

[Tanada]

T – I think you and many others greatly underestimate how state govts protect the environment. I’ve dealt with the feds, Texas and La on environmental issues for almost 40 years. The protection provided by the feds and their EPA is a joke compared how those state govts handle the environment. With the exception of dealing with the Corps of Engineers in some isolated instances in La. I don’t deal with the EPA ever...and never have. The fed govt doesn’t even have a clue what I’m doing operationally in either state. But the state regulators know exactly what I’m doing all the time. If the people of either state had depended upon the feds to protect the environment it might just be one wide patch of wasteland today.

I drilled wells in KY where the state had given 100% of oil field related environmental protection to the EPA. As best I could tell the EPA did not have a single person on the ground in KY watching over oil/NG drilling and production. But they were watching us from afar: I filed my paperwork with the EPA office in Atlanta. So all they knew was that I reported I never dumped salt water into a creek instead of properly disposing it. I could have dumped thousands of bbls of salt water into the creek and they wouldn’t have a clue.

And even when the states are in charge it doesn’t mean they are doing a good job. Remember what I reported a long time ago: much (if not most) of the frac fluid contamination in PA was coming from local community water treatment facilities that were charging companies to dispose of their frac fluids with them and then they would release is after it went through their systems (which had little or no capability of treating the frac fluids) into the streams. Both NY and PA had to pass laws to make it illegal for municipalities to continue to do this. Bet you didn’t see much in the MSM about this, eh? LOL. Like the guy in Illinois that was dumping oil field waste for years into the sewer system instead of properly disposing it. And did the EPA or local govt discover his crime? No…it was one of the oil patch companies that was paying him to get rid of their crap that ratted him out. Bet you didn’t see that part of the story on CNN. LOL.

All i know is I have routinely seen small businesses do things I found appalling, like dumping used motor oil in sewer grates labeled 'drains to waterways'. I understand a drilling rig is a much more visible example and the DNR or EPA of whomever is more motivated, but a heck of a lot of contamination goes on routinely ignored because the agencies just don't care in many cases.