[shortonsense]

This is because natural gas is not liquid petroleum and never will be. Schemes to export and control this wealth are doomed to fail because of a simple physical fact. Like information on the internet. . . gas wants to be free. Just as the hydrogen economy is a figment of the techtopian imagination so to is a natural gas substitute. Petroleum is a liquid and benefits from that property--it sinks to the ground and stays in place, yet flows by itself without much resistance. You can not say the same about coal or natural gas.

I mean seriously, do you deliberately plan out for maximum effect the appearance of nonsense, or just stumble into it naturally?

First, the obvious ( and another warning for high school seniors, pick your college carefully before you invest 6 years only to discover that they just wanted a paying seat )

http://www.qp.com.qa/qp.nsf/web/bc_new_projects_gtl

And now, lets run through a basic math exercise.

It takes 1000 standard cubic feet of natural gas to make 1 mcf. Natural gas being primarily composed of various carbon and hydrogen combinations, a lengthy explanation of which will not help those already critically limited by their education.

The few GTL projects I looked up are creating liquids from natural gas at the ratio of approximately 10 mcf = 1 bbl liquids, tailored for maximum efficiency of the feedstock stream I imagine. The EROEI is less than 1 of course, so undoubtedly the people investing money to make this happen should stop immediately.

Natural gas is selling at about $3.80/mcf today, oil in various shapes and sizes for September delivery is about $68/bbl today.

Now for the math part...PStarr, round up a 3rd grader to help you out here.

I take 10 mcf at $3.8/mcf and I make one barrel of liquids for a cost of infrastructure + $38.00 of feedstock + operating costs. I sell the resulting liquid for approximately $68 ( yeah, I know it isn't WTI but its good, good stuff when you can design the liquids and anyone here who has taken an organic chem course knows it ).

So now for the tricky question, now that we are completing a <1 EROEI process with quite a reasonable chance of a profit, how much of the thousands of years of methane and natural gas should we convert to liquid fuels to comtinue BAU? Enough for another few decades of happy motoring? A century perhaps? Maybe 2?

[DantesPeak]

The US experienced a nationwide US natural gas shortage in 1975. While its causes are still being debated, I believe it had much to do with overwhelming the NG distribution system in a time of suddenly increased demand.

I am not predicting that will happen again soon, but any conversion to NG vehicles or other uses would have to be well measured. Most likely this would involve a great investment in infrastructure, quite possibly resulting in increased vehicle operating costs in the short run - when adding in the costs of all investment in NG distributions systems needed.

[shortonsense]

Short, did you even bother to pursue your press releases? These GTL plants are barely operational at best.

I'll take "barely operational at best" as an admission that someone invested the capital, built the facility, which has, is, and will continue to convert natural gas into liquid fuels, something local "experts" have decided can't be done because that tricky gas stuff just wants to evaporate when us stupid humans ain't watchin!

The other two, Pearl GTL and Sasol Chevron, remain pipe dreams.

Economics trumps all. It took the Mossel Bay plant what, 3 years to overcome teething problems? Of course, its only been commercial and running for 3 or 4 years now?

Pipedreams as well? Or a physical liquid which I would probably have to douse you in before you can ever find the intellectual honesty to stop trumpeting the same old "its all impossible because I say it is!!" routine?

And your cavalier dismissal of EROEI clearly demonstrates you do not understand the inverse relationship (mediated by eroei) between reserves and production capacity. You still don't understand basic amortized recursive life-cycle energy analysis. Too bad. Come back when you have something interesting to say.

I demonstrated both the viability of gas to liquids through the presence of actual ongoing projects, as well as actual functioning plants, the lack of EROEI of this process, and the approximate size of the margin in which to pay back infrastructure cost and to profit...and the best you can do after saying "never will be", when it already IS, is to pretend that I'M the one who doesn't understand?

Wow...and here I thought you had already demonstrated in as fine a way as possible why to attend an actual college with a curriculum not based in "those who can, do, those who can't, come here and give us money and we promise you'll be able to fake it once you leave"?

[shortonsense]

The US experienced a nationwide US natural gas shortage in 1975. While its causes are still being debated, I believe it had much to do with overwhelming the NG distribution system in a time of suddenly increased demand.

check out the 1954 to 1978 section. Interstate transportation had alot to do with it, but Jimmy freaked out and tried to use it as a scare tactic later. Then got whipsawed by the resulting bubble after claiming that there wasn't any left, when all that was required was the ability to get better pricing across state lines.

http://www.naturalgas.org/regulation/hi ... sp#effects

[Tyler_JC]

It can't replace, but it can supplement.

There are millions of natural gas cars already on the road. Argentina's fleet is already 15% natural gas, Brazil's is 5%. Hundreds of thousands of American buses already burn natural gas instead of diesel.

Moreover, natural gas is a great feedstock for the petrochemical industry. That nitrogen fertilizer that the scaremongers keep saying is oil-dependent is actually a product of the natural gas industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

There are lots of uses for natural gas and not all of them are a waste of time.

The most important thing to consider is the relationship between the price of natural gas and the price of crude oil. If one becomes seriously out of whack relative to the other, it makes sense to substitute gas for oil (or vice versa).

People substitute goods all the time. Look at sugar and corn syrup or butter and margarine. One can't be used as a perfect replacement for the other but for most cases, it works.

[shortonsense]

This contains nothing interesting or new.

ad hom deleted

[eastbay]

Quick fact:

About 10 million NG powered cars on Earth. That's around 1%.

[TheAntiDoomer]

Quick fact:

About 10 million NG powered cars on Earth. That's around 1%.

And I wouldn't be surprised if they were all used in cities for short haul work. I don't see how a retrofit would even be useful in the US where commutes and truck hauls are far.

Ad hom deleted per COC 2.1.4

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/08/22/mercedes-unveils-econic-ngt-hybrid-truck-concept/

http://www.allbusiness.com/manufacturing/food-manufacturing/486957-1.html

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-176373564.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS110273+11-Jun-2009+MW20090611

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pickens-wants-natural-gas-fueled-big-rigs-5568/
and so forth and so forth........

[Maddog78]

a signature quote from a guy who happens to be a laborer in an oil camp.

Yeah, I'm in the 22nd floor, one away from the corner office, of that camp.

[Maddog78]

Sounds like you are an "expert" on oil camps, too.





How about I get you a roughneck job when things turn around?
Maybe if you start pulling in 80K a year you won't be in such a bad mood all the time.

[eastbay]

Sounds like you are an "expert" on oil camps, too.





How about I get you a roughneck job when things turn around?
Maybe if you start pulling in 80K a year you won't be in such a bad mood all the time.

Oh I'm certain that would cheer him up nicely!!

[Starvid]

Lots of gas around, lots of gas which is not stranded and can fuel cars, even more stranded gas that can become unstranded all over the place, millions of cars already fueled by gas, lots of uses of gas can be replaced by other things than gas hence freeing that gas up for use in cars.

Gas is not THE solution, but it's certainly part of the solution. Just like nuclear, wind, coal, tar sands, sugarcane ethanol, electrification and most important of all: efficiency.

[Maddog78]

Sounds like you are an "expert" on oil camps, too.





How about I get you a roughneck job when things turn around?
Maybe if you start pulling in 80K a year you won't be in such a bad mood all the time.

Oh I'm certain that would cheer him up nicely!!

You think?
I somehow doubt it.


Kind of off topic but here's something some of you may find interesting.
We now are up to 28 wells drilled and cased that we have not even fracced and put into production.
Just sealed them off for now waiting for the n. gas glut to end.

[outcast]

Schemes to export and control this wealth are doomed to fail because of a simple physical fact. Like information on the internet. . . gas wants to be free.

Yet we magically use and transport tens of millions of tons of that stuff every year. Care to explain that?

I'd rather hear your ideas and opinions, instead of angry childish language, questionable links,

No you don't, you'll either totally ignore it, or use angry childish language and questionable links. This is very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Outcast_Searcher]

http://www.qp.com.qa/qp.nsf/web/bc_new_projects_gtl

. . .

The few GTL projects I looked up are creating liquids from natural gas at the ratio of approximately 10 mcf = 1 bbl liquids, tailored for maximum efficiency of the feedstock stream I imagine. The EROEI is less than 1 of course, so undoubtedly the people investing money to make this happen should stop immediately.

Short, I appreciate your side of the argument, and the pointer to the new technology (I'm a newb at this - but I keep reading books to fill in a background as I learn about new energy ideas/technologies).

I think the reason the doomers get so frustrated is you cornucopians tend to present start-up scale technologies like this that have real problems and MAY OR MAY NOT SCALE UP EFFECTIVELY in the next decade(s) as a fait accompli. Like PSTARR, I couldn't find any links pointing to well documented high volume commercially viable examples of this. (I did find PDF's for sale about proposed medium scale OPEC projects in 2005, but no follow-ups). Most web pages, like your link, seemed to be outdated propoganda promising great things down the road. The fact that they didn't bother to update them (from context, yours appears to have been written in 2004), it makes one doubt how well this is going.

Also, I kept finding lots of discussions and some reports pointing out that the GHG problem from both GTL and CTL processes throw serious doubt on the wisdom (long term) of scaling these up to massive size - even if they become commercially viable.

Are you seriously saying the GTL processes with NG as a feedstock to produce gasoline (presumably via methonol?) are more likely to produce a VIABLE solution in the short run (within say a decade), compared to using CNG in cars with (for example) 50 KG tanks and a range of roughly 120 miles? (To replace say half the US auto fleet, once the CNG infrastructure gets cranked up).

If so, I'd love to see the major assumptions, including NGL conversion production estimates, costs, and pollution estimates that would get it there.

Thanks again.

[outcast]

LNG represent 5% of the international natural gas trade and is not predicted to grow enough to counter oil depletion (even if GTL was economical) because the process eats into net energy and is expensive and dangerous. Most import/export occurs through pipelines that can not cross oceans. Future significant gas production increases on the North/South American continent is unlikely to spike enough USA import to counter oil depletion.

Prove it.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Most import/export occurs through pipelines that can not cross oceans. Future significant gas production increases on the North/South American continent is unlikely to spike enough USA import to counter oil depletion.

PSTARR, as you can see from my post above, I sometimes agree with your points, (I have the same concerns about the large scale NGL claims), but you seem as stridently negative as the cornies seem endlessly positive.

1). You don't have to replace ALL the oil, or even close to that to provide significant intermediate term mitigation via NG (i.e. CNG in cars).

2). Despite the range issues, CNG CAN provide a viable car to make roughly 100+ mile trips, which is fine for the normal daily use of a HUGE proportion of drivers. (50 KG tanks and 200 km range is cited as a reasonable compromise). As I said, folks can rent cars for long trips. Or folks could just replace one gasoline car. And as I said, it would be inconvenient.

3). Geez - how much NG do you want before you consider it viable for exploitation? The 2007 EIA proved reserves annual report shows US dry NG reserves at over 237.7 TCF. And these reserves have increased every year for the last decade and the trend is accelerating. With all the good supply news from shale and horizontal drilling, etc. I think you protest way too much. report link:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natu ... able01.pdf

4). The NG reserves in the middle east are astounding - dwarfing the proven reserves (so far) in the US. If we have to use LNG and a fleet of tankers for part of the supply - so be it, if it buys us a meaningful way to mitigate the problem at a moderate cost.

Do you have actual reasons CNG cars CAN'T work AS AN INTERMEDIATE TERM SOLUTION within say 10 years TO MITIGATE (not fix) the problem for a significant percentage of the US auto fleet at a very competitive cost once gasoline averages say $6 and above?

Or are you just opposed to any positive partial solution like this from a philosophical standpoint as a die-hard doomer?

[shortonsense]

insult me. I give a shit?

Hard for us to decide if you don't know.

Sometimes you appear to, other times you spout information directly contradicted by reality and then appear to think its the rest of us with mental issues because we notice.

Maybe another peak oil or two and you'll get it all figured out?

[TheAntiDoomer]

nextbigfuture did a great writeup on the natural gas situation and remember he's talking only about "unconventional" natural gas, there is still a ton of conventional as well:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/unconventional-natural-gas-reserves.html

Most of this increase resulted from development of a technique known as “hydraulic fracturing” where water is injected via special “wells” to shatter underground shale formations and release trapped gas.

Not included in the committee’s “reserves” are the discoveries in “unconventional resources” that are becoming technologically practical to tap. One of these is the presence of “geopressurized zones” with gas at depths on the order of 25,000 feet found on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Experts put these reserves at 5,000 to 49,000 Tcf. Beyond that are the methane hydrates on the seafloor, which if not banned to the United States by a Law of the Sea Treaty, could provide an estimated at 7,000 to 73,000 Tcf.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Or are you just opposed to any positive partial solution like this from a philosophical standpoint as a die-hard doomer?

expletive deleted

Um, sorry you're so thin skinned PSTARR. I meant no insult or offense. I was trying to determine if you're willing to look at solutions in an unbiased manner, or are so wedded to your doomer point of view that you will reject less than perfect solutions out-of-hand. (For example, I'm a libertarian and about 99% of folks don't consider that a reasonable philosophy in America given the political realities - I disagree with them but I don't get my feelings hurt just because they have a different philosophy, and point out their perceived flaws in mine).


It's becoming clear to me that your doomer outlook is dominant, when you reject any solution that isn't a silver bullet. That kind of precludes a productive exchange of views, unfortunately, but you have lots of company.

Peace, and good luck to you.

Those of us who see there is a real problem but aren't quite ready to give up and lay down and die will continue to hunt for viable alternatives, imperfect and incomplete though they may be.