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Page added on February 28, 2018
The Shale Wonderland
The world was taken aback when oil prices fell dramatically early this year. We had grown used to oil at over US$100/barrel. To drop to about half was unprecedented. Many in the oil production business are desperately revising their budgets; the rest of us are starting to enjoy an improved cash flow. Of course, what happened was that the United States had started to produce oil and gas at an unforeseen rate.
Prof Philip Lloyd’s response originally appeared in Issue 1/2015 of our print magazine. The digital version of the full magazine can be read online or downloaded free of charge.
Today it is producing nearly 10 million barrels of oil a day and Saudi Arabia is increasing its output in an attempt to put the US producers out of business and so drive a price increase. Today the US is producing nearly 70 billion cubic feet of natural gas, 40% more than it was a decade ago. Believers in peak oil/peak gas have turned far quieter.
The change is the result of a huge technological shift. It has been found that the coal-black shales which underlie much of North America can be persuaded to yield oil and gas in economic quantities. All that it takes is a long hole more or less horizontally through the shale, and a bit of pressure to hydraulically lift the strata above the hole. Imagine a flat book with a balloon between two pages. Blow up the balloon, and the pages will be forced apart. In the shale, the fractures stretching out from the hole provide the oil or gas with a short path to freedom, and it can flow at a far higher rate than it can from the unbroken rock.
The shale is deep – typically about 2km deep – so it takes a high pressure to lift the rock. There is a fear that the high pressure will cause the hole to leak – but if it leaks, then you can’t create a high pressure! So the people trying to fracture the rock go to great lengths to make certain that the hole doesn’t leak – the fears of leakage are largely unfounded. We know this because over one million holes have been stimulated hydraulically during the past 20 years, and there has been precisely one documented leak – when there was an uncharted hole close to the one which the drillers were trying to pressurise. The damage the spill caused was minimal, for the simple reason that the drillers stopped pumping the moment they realised they were wasting their time.
The drillers have found that it helps to add a bit of sand to the water used to fracture the rock. The sand particles get carried into the fractures, and hold them open when the pressure is released. In order to make sure the sand gets carried along, the water usually contains a thickening agent rather like a gel, and a couple of other chemicals to make certain there is no corrosion of the pipes and similar effects. The total additives are less than 1%, but that is sufficient to make the water undrinkable. So the water coming out of the hole when the pressure is released has to be treated to remove the additives. It can be restored to full drinkability, but often it is only taken as far as being suitable for agriculture, for which there is usually a demand close at hand.
There is a fear that the additives could be toxic – and indeed, they often are, but it depends on what you mean when you say ‘toxic’. For instance, the acidity of the water is often adjusted with a dash of hydrochloric acid. Neat hydrochloric acid is indeed nasty stuff; but our stomachs are full of dilute hydrochloric, so once diluted it is essentially harmless. There is an idea that the drillers add benzene, which is indeed toxic. However, there is no evidence that drillers have actually used benzene as an additive, and it is a mystery why they would ever want to. It does not dissolve in water, and is flammable, so it could not do anything to improve the process. The fear of toxic chemicals has largely gone away since the drillers agreed to tell the world precisely what they add.
There is also a fear of gas getting into the water. Famously, the activist documentary Gaslands showed water coming out of a tap burning. However, that particular phenomenon was first observed in the 1930s, and a government enquiry in the 1950s had shown that the water was coming from a peat layer quite close to surface. It had nothing whatever to do with hydraulic fracturing of shale. And the other side of the story is that people have been drinking that water for around 80 years, proving that a dash of methane in your drink is not the end of the world!
115 Comments on "The Shale Wonderland"
CAM on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 8:01 am
Well then, I guess everything is alright. Nothing to see here, just keep moving along.
I imagine we can now close down this site as all is well with the world!
Jef on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 8:38 am
I just want to take this moment to introduce my new invention. It is called The OzmoOro.
It produces fresh water from sea water and about one once of gold per Billion-Ls so it pays for its self.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 8:41 am
v
Sissyfuss on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 9:24 am
” The drillers agreed to tell the world precisely what they add.” Except for the 10% that the EPA says they refuse to reveal the contents of. It’s probably a combination of unicorn piss and cotton candy to make the medicine of BAU go down easier.
Outcast_Searcher on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 9:36 am
So the consensus of the initial comments is that any news must be bad news, since all is doom, so let’s pretend that the oil fracking revolution must be all bad?
Not exactly credible.
More likely, BAU continues apace, with oil fracking just another technology that helps it along for awhile.
Globally, perhaps for decades.
Meanwhile burning it causes more AGW, so all it’s doing is “solving” one problem now while it makes another one much worse. But BAU is often about kicking the can down the road, so this isn’t surprising.
My question is: “How bad do things have to get re climate change before the masses wake up and seriously demand a significant and quick move from FF’s toward green energy, even if it is expensive”?
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 9:40 am
The End of the Oil Age is Imminent!
Recently, the HSBC oil report stated that 80% of conventional oil fields were declining at a rate of 5-7% per year. This means that there will be an oil shortage of ~30 million barrels per day by 2030 and ~40 million barrels per day by 2040.
http://www.scribd.com/document/367688629/HSBC-Peak-Oil-Report-2017
What is mentioned far less often is that annual oil discoveries have lagged annual production since the 1980s.
https://imgur.com/a/6dEDt
Now, this problem has nothing to do with the recent decline in the oil price, which started in 2014. This has been an on-going problem for the past 30 years. Now, the IEA is predicting oil shortages by ~2020 due to declining exploration.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/iea-says-global-oil-discoveries-at-record-low-in-2016-1493244000
Here, the IEA blames this problem on the low oil price. But, this problem started in the 1980s. The problem is geological: we are running out of conventional cheap oil. Shale and tar sands are not the answer, either. Those resources are far too expensive, compared to conventional oil, because the global economy is based on cheap conventional oil. Expensive oil is not a replacement for cheap oil.
Based upon the HSBC report and the IEA, the End of Oil Age will start around ~2020: there will be a dramatic economic depression due to exhaustion of cheap oil. This will cause a global economic collapse.
Davy on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 9:57 am
OS, green energy is just green can kicking. The math and physics don’t add up. I agree with you on shale. It has been a godsend for buying us some time. Those that whine about it would whine about something good or bad it doesn’t matter. A segment of the doomer and prepped population are extreme just like you techno optimist cornucopians who are all chipper no matter the news.
rockman on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:00 am
“The change is the result of a huge technological shift.” And once again such an early bullshit statement allows me to not pay much attention to this article.
Sissy – The are no “secret” chemicals in anyone’s frac fluid. Anyone (the EPA, the TRRC, you, etc.) can buy a drum of any company’s frac fluid and analyze the contents to their heart’s content. For instance every maker of frac fluids knows exactly what’s in their competitors frac fluid. It’s not like they keep fluids in a sealed vault. LOL.
rockman on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:08 am
Davy – “It has been a godsend for buying us some time.” I would say yes and no. Producible in the Eagle Ford and Bakken has been known for more then half a century. What has “bought us some time are oil price 2X to 3X the historic average. Do those high oil prices make you feel blessed? LOL
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:13 am
Military takeover in Rio de Janeiro sparks fears of police brutality
https://apnews.com/04bc31349e4847409435d74ba13bbb19?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
Rio is collapsing!
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:15 am
Rockman
Great point. And thanks to the those high oil prices we got the great recession and the current depression we are living in now!
Antius on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:16 am
Zombie shale oil: Why oil and gas companies are eating themselves alive.
https://www.marketslant.com/article/zombie-shale-oil-killing-itself-survive
Davy on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:23 am
Rock any new sources of oil make me feel bless when you consider we are part of a civilization without a plan B and fiddling while the planet self-destructs…and you?
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:23 am
World Scientists “Warning to Humanity” Signed by 15,000 Scientists from 184 Countries Including the Majority of all Nobel Prize Winners
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171113111127.htm
Scientific American: Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apocalypse-soon-has-civilization-passed-the-environmental-point-of-no-return/
Peer Reviewed Study: Society Could Collapse In A Decade, Predicts Historian (Turchin, 2010)
https://www.nature.com/articles/463608a
NASA Peer Reviewed Study: Industrial Civilization is Headed for Irreversible Collapse (Motesharrei, 2014)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615
The Royal Society: Peer Reviewed Study, Now for the First Time A Global Collapse Appears Likely (Ehrlich, 2013)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574335/
Peer Reviewed Study: Limits to Growth was Right. Research Shows We’re Nearing Global Collapse (Turner, 2014)
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
Peer Reviewed Study: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: Global Systemic Collapse (Korowicz, 2012)
http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Trade-Off1.pdf
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:25 am
Chevron CEO warns US shale oil alone cannot meet the world’s growing demand for crude
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/01/us-shale-cannot-meet-the-worlds-growing-oil-demand-chevron-ceo-warns.html
2020s To Be A Decade of Disorder For Oil
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/2020s-To-Be-A-Decade-of-Disorder-For-Oil.html
Cloggie on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:29 am
“OS, green energy is just green can kicking. The math and physics don’t add up.”
But of course you are not going to give us the data to back up your assertions.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/28/wind-solar-meet-four-fifths-us-electricity-demand/
“Wind & Solar Could Meet 80% Of US Electricity Demand”
“These are the key findings from a new study published this week in the journal Energy & Environmental Science by scientists from the California Institute of Technology, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and the University of California Irvine.”
Somehow I have more confidence in these folks than in our resident super doomers dave and millimind.
Davy on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 10:51 am
I would expect that out of you neder. You are one of the extremist I was referring to. You live in a multiple fantasies past, present, and future. You are a contingent science denied/follower as needed per your message. This is true likewise with history and economics. In fact I would say you are the epitome of extremism. You would have made a perfect Goebbels assistant.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 11:30 am
Clogg
Never going to happen! And peak oil is a liquid fuels problem. Not an electricity problem.
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 12:02 pm
“And peak oil is a liquid fuels problem.”
Unless one takes into consideration the damage being inflicted on the Earth’s natural biosphere, peak oil isn’t a problem at all. It’s what comes after the peak that will be problematic. Easily solved however, with much lower standards of living. Forget about the drive shop consume lifestyle, it’s eventually going to come to an end. Position yourself accordingly. Collapse now and avoid the rush.
Antius on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:01 pm
It would appear that large scale oil shortages could appear relatively soon and appear inevitable by the early 2020s.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/2020s-To-Be-A-Decade-of-Disorder-For-Oil.html
Unlike last time (2008), this will be occurring when the world is already in recession, with no opportunity for heavy new investments due to the burden of existing debt and declining tax revenues.
This will make it very difficult to dig our way out of crisis, as we won’t have the spare resources to make investments in alternative energy infrastructure. If oil prices increase, we will be facing stagflation.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:05 pm
Antius
I agree..These oil shortages are going to cause an economic collapse. The question is how long will it take to happen? I think in the worst case a few months and the best case ten years. That is why I keep arguing our collapse will come within ten years.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:09 pm
Greg
Easily solved with a much lower standard of living?
BWWWWAAA! A smooth regression is hard to imagine!
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:11 pm
Antius Natural gas shortage coming as well..
Shell: Beware Natural Gas Shortage Coming
https://www.investing.com/analysis/beware-natural-gas-shortage-200294607
The Shale Gas Revolution Is A Media Myth
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/The-Shale-Gas-Revolution-Is-A-Media-Myth.html
Antius on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:11 pm
“Wind & Solar Could Meet 80% Of US Electricity Demand”
To achieve this over the next few decades, with anything like the abundance we have today, would require increasing the rate of investment several times over what it is right now. Can we realistically do that, as fossil fuel net energy declines? I think it very unlikely, because it would mean diverting energy away from increasingly desperate dat-to-day living.
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:13 pm
“That is why I keep arguing our collapse will come within ten years.”
The collapse of the current system is highly likely, but that system has only be around for several decades. Mankind survived just fine for hundreds of thousands of years without globalism, and will survive just fine without it in the future. Those who are most dependant on that system, will suffer the most when it comes crashing down. Those who are already disconnected from that system, will notice little difference in their lives after it is gone.
Cloggie on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:29 pm
“I would expect that out of you neder. You are one of the extremist I was referring to. You live in a multiple fantasies past, present, and future. You are a contingent science denied/follower as needed per your message. This is true likewise with history and economics. In fact I would say you are the epitome of extremism. You would have made a perfect Goebbels assistant.”
Even when fine US institutions like CalTech investigate that 80% renewable is doable, davy manages to bring up Goebbels. I don’t know what I ever saw in you. Like millimind you personify American decline. You are a depressed, leftist nihilist, who can’t carry his own weight, let alone that of high civilization. For you collapse means salvation. From life.
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 1:31 pm
“Easily solved with a much lower standard of living?
BWWWWAAA! A smooth regression is hard to imagine!”
Smooth or not, a much lower standard of living is the future. Human beings survived just fine without all of the unnecessary consumer crap that they consume today, and they will survive just fine again after the Walmarts have closed their doors.
Cloggie on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 2:10 pm
To achieve this over the next few decades, with anything like the abundance we have today, would require increasing the rate of investment several times over what it is right now. Can we realistically do that, as fossil fuel net energy declines? I think it very unlikely, because it would mean diverting energy away from increasingly desperate dat-to-day living.
Apparently there are energy professionals who are less pessimistic. The offshore wind turbine installation ship the Aeolus…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV9PykR5bHo
…is being upgraded to handle a new generation of wind turbines of 8-15 MW with a new 1600 ton crane.
It is significant that this adaption is already necessary after merely 3 of operations. The Aeolus is able to install a single offshore wind turbine per 24 hours.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2018/02/28/thialf-equips-aeolus-with-new-1600t-crane/
It is indicative for the stormy development of the offshore wind industry, pun intended.
The ship will play an important role in the construction of large Dutch and British offshore wind parks in the very near future. The British for instance are surging ahead with newly planned parks Creyke Beck A and B and Teeside A and B (4 x 1.2 GW) near Doggersbank. The Dutch are about to begin with the construction of Borssele I, II, II and IV (4 x 700 MW).
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windpark_Borssele
Anonymous on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 2:19 pm
This is a 2015 article.
Cloggie on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 2:33 pm
This is a 2015 article.
That’s brand new according to your fossilized standards, millimind.lol
Back from doom to real life: video of the construction of the Walney Extension wind farm in the Irish Sea:
https://vimeo.com/229838123
This is standard procedure and gives an impression of how in the North Sea, Irish Sea and Baltic, Europe is busy setting up its intended 100% renewable energy base. Europe meanwhile has tens of these jackup vessels…
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/the-giants-of-a-new-energy-age/
… that should be able to complete the job in the coming 2-3 decades. One or more artificial energy islands are planned in the middle of the North Sea to connect Danish, German, Dutch, British and Norwegian projects and create the possibility to connect to large scale hydro storage facilities in either Norway or Scotland:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/gasunie-joining-north-sea-wind-power-hub-consortium/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/norned/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/green-light-for-british-norwegian-interconnector/
Storage will be a mixture of pumped hydro and most of all power-to-gas:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/700-mw-renewable-hydrogen-plant-to-be-built-in-france/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/09/16/blueprint-100-renewable-energy-base-for-germany/
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 3:00 pm
Greg
The post-collapse lifestyle awaiting the few who survive will, under the best of circumstances, share many attributes with pre-Columbian America. Unfortunately, the realities associated with subsistence level existence bear little semblance to the Hollywood accounts. Those who anxiously await our post-collapse world will be disappointed, assuming they live to experience it. The fact that nobody is opting to jettison the amenities afforded by an industrialized way of life in favor of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle today should be sufficient proof that our future way of life is not something to be anticipated.
bobinget on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 3:08 pm
Temps N. Pole 32 F
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 3:19 pm
Clogg
Who has a higher IQ white people or jews? LOL
Cloggie on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 3:35 pm
Who has a higher IQ white people or jews? LOL
Who has much more fists? LOL
https://www.biblebelievers.org.au/expelled.htm
Besides there are far more whites than your tribalists, so we have an enormous excess of IQ-points, completely compensating for higher average verbal IQ (read: talent for bullshitting).
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 3:44 pm
Clogg
Citing a bible source now? Real sophisticated stuff! lol
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 3:59 pm
“The post-collapse lifestyle awaiting the few who survive will, under the best of circumstances, share many attributes with pre-Columbian America.”
Collapse is a process MM, not a moment in time. The process of collapse that we find ourselves in, has been ongoing since at least the 1970s. The process will continue to affect people differently, depending on location and social status.
Your binary view of the world is overly simplistic MM. There are far too many variables to take into consideration.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 4:14 pm
Greg
When the markets and financial system collapses. That will be the tipping point! It will be a moment in time when that happens! You wait and see! You are prepared for a regression not a collapse. There is no way possible to prepare for the collapse.
Cloggie on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 4:19 pm
Talking about biblical times… Hard-core climate change, 13,000 years ago, when Britain was physically connected to Europe:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5445551/13-000-year-old-skull-oldest-Dutchwoman-found.html
Sea-level 100m below current levels.
#IceAge
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 4:29 pm
Holy Shit!
https://imgur.com/a/cWEzz
What a fucking nut job! people on the right have gone totally insane!
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 4:38 pm
“people on the right have gone totally insane!”
More overly simplistic binary thinking on your part MM. Just because you are only capable of thinking in right or left, does not mean that everybody else is.
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 4:45 pm
“When the markets and financial system collapses. That will be the tipping point!”
Then perhaps now would be a good time to figure out a way to separate yourself from the financial system and the markets MM. Billions around the world never had access to financial instruments or the markets already, unless you would be referring to the local farmer’s markets. We have one of those down the road here every Saturday morning, and people prefer the barter system to cash. No taxes.
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 5:04 pm
“Citing a bible source now? Real sophisticated stuff!”
I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
one Nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
“In God We Trust“
rockman on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 5:21 pm
MM – So true. Always been true: what’s good for the oil patch is typically not good news for the general economy.
Davy – So true. As I said yes and no with respect to being good news: for economies that can handle the higher prices it provided the additional energy needed for growth. For those economies barely getting along the increased oil production is of little value because they can’t take advantage of it.
Same old joke about the bear chasing you and your friend.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 6:26 pm
Greg
God was not originally included in the pledge. And in God we trust was added during the 1950’s . Therefore I do not consider them to be valid.
Antius on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 6:28 pm
World electric power consumption in 2016 was 22,000TWh, equivalent to a continuous generation of 2500GW. If we convert all non-electric loads to renewable electricity, power consumption will roughly double to 5000GW.
In 2017, the world installed 52GW of wind power, which was down slightly from 2016. Assuming capacity factor of 30%, that is equivalent to a continuous generating capacity of 15.6GW. In 2017, some 100GWp of solar power was installed. If average capacity factor is 20% (insolation 1750kWh/m2 per year) that is 20GW continuous power. Total wind and solar = 35.6GW/year.
To meet a 5000GW electricity consumption, this level of investment must be maintained for 140 years. And that is ignoring energy losses in storage and the inevitable fact that wind and solar devices wear out on a timescale of 20 years or so.
To convert the entire world to renewable energy sources over the next few decades, would require that we build renewable electricity sources at a rate roughly 10 times greater than we are now, along with an entirely new storage infrastructure and end use infrastructure to absorb intermittent power. We would need to do this during a global economic crisis in which surplus energy is shrinking.
The sensible conclusion to draw is that whilst renewable energy may provide a means of reducing fossil fuel consumption when integrated into a fossil power grid, there is no possibility of a 100% renewable energy economy within any of our lifetimes.
Davy on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 6:40 pm
Antius, those facts fly straight through neder’s head. He is expecting this to all take place in 15-20 years. He
Is positive of it. In his mind it already has happened. There is no talking to people like neder. His mind is made up. This is only partly bad becuase we need all the renewable power we can get. The problem arises when poor decisions are made based upon a 80-100% renewable world in 15-20 years. There are consequences and unintended consequences to such huge policies efforts.
GregT on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 6:56 pm
“God was not originally included in the pledge. And in God we trust was added during the 1950’s . Therefore I do not consider them to be valid.”
I hate to break the bad news to you MM, but it doesn’t matter what you think. They are valid.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 7:27 pm
Why U.S. GDP Hasn’t Really Increased Since 2000
https://srsroccoreport.com/u-s-gdp-hasnt-really-increased-since-2000/#comment-59411
Another excellent article by Steve!
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 9:35 pm
Shell forecasts global Natural Gas supply shortage in mid-2020s
https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/oil-and-gas/oil-and-gas-major-shell-forecasts-global-lng-supply-shortage-in-mid-2020s/63089603
MASTERMIND on Wed, 28th Feb 2018 9:45 pm
Oil and gas shortages coming soon! This world will burn!