Archives de catégorie : energy and fields

better to know...?, energy and fields

Energy Returned On Energy Invested: Real(ish)Things That Don’t Matter, Part Trois

by David Middleton, April 24, 2019 in WUWT

In Part One of this series, we looked at Peak Oil and its irrelevance to energy production and also discussed the relevance of Seinfeld. In Part Deux, we looked at “abiotic oil,” a real(ish) thing that really doesn’t matter outside of academic discussions and SyFy blogs.

Part Trois will explore perhaps the most meaningless notion to ever come out of academia: Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI or EROI depending on spelling skill). EROEI is like what Seinfeld would have been if it was written by Douglas Adams.

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energy and fields

Abiotic Oil: Real(ish)Things That Don’t Matter, Part Deux

by David Middleton, April 16, 2019 in WUWT

In part one of this series, we looked at Peak Oil and its irrelevance to energy production. In Part Deux, we will look at “abiotic oil,” a real(ish) thing that really doesn’t matter outside of academic discussions and SyFy blogs.

A note on terminology

Some refer to this as “abiogenic oil.” This is not a useful term because all oil is abiogenic. The generally accepted theory of petroleum formation doesn’t state that it is a biogenic process. I discussed this in detail in a 2017 post. I don’t intend to restate it here.

In this post, “abiotic oil” refers to petroleum formed by processes that do not rely on biological source material. The carbon in “abiotic oil” must be inorganic.

A real example of abiotic “oil”

The Lost City Hydrothermal Field is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, about 15 km (~9 mi) west of the spreading center, in water depths ranging from 750-900 m (~2,500-3,000′) (Kelley et al., 2005).

Figure 1. Lost City location map. (University of Washington)

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energy and fields

Peak Oil, Abiotic Oil & EROEI: Real(ish) Things That Don’t Matter, Part One: Peak Oil

by David Middleton, April 22, 2019 in WUWT

The plots of the Seinfeld TV show often revolved around trivializing important things and blowing trivial things out of proportion. While not a Seinfeld fanatic (I’m more of a Frasierfanatic), I thought the comedy routines were generally brilliant and quite effective.

Peak Oil, abiotic oil and EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) are largely academic concepts. They are the subject of books, academic publications and Internet “debates” The “debates” about Peak Oil, abiotic oil and EROEI are a lot like the Seinfeld show. They magnify the trivial and trivialize things that actually matter. The “debates” often divide into two camps:

  1. It’s the end of the world (Peak Oil, EROEI).
  2. It’s our salvation from the end of the world (Abiotic oil).

While all three of these energy-related topics are, at least to some extent, real, none of them have the slightest relevance to energy production… except for Peak Oil… But the relevance is generally missed by both sides in Internet “debates.”

I had originally intended on combining Peak Oil, abiotic oil and EROEI into one post; but realized that it would have been longer than Tolstoy’s War and Peace. So, this post will be limited to Peak Oil. Part Deux will deal briefly with abiotic oil and Part Trois will deal more extensively with EROEI.

Peak Oil: A Real Thing That Doesn’t Matter

What is Peak Oil?

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Figure 4. Generalized oil & gas reservoir. (Petropedia)

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better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

Biofuels: a long-standing illusion

by Prof. S. Furfari, April 4, 2019 in EuropeanScientist

The idea of replacing petroleum products with alternative fuels produced from agriculture dates back to the 1973 and 1979 oil crises. But apart from the development of bioethanol from cane sugar in Brazil, the idea had not come to fruition because it was not economically viable. It was the frenzy for some kind of sustainable development in the mid-2000s, combined with a perfect storm of realities, that led to the emergence of a political interest in biofuels.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Peak Ghawar: A Peak Oiler’s Nightmare

by David Middleton, April 10, 2019 in WUWT

Alternate title:

No… “The biggest Saudi oil field is [NOT] fading faster than anyone guessed”… Part Trois: Why Peak Oil Is Irrelevant and the Perpetually Refilling Abiotic Oil Field Is Abject Nonsense

 

Saudi Aramco’s recent bond prospectus has generated a lot of media buzz, particularly regarding the production from Ghawar, the largest oil field in the world. Reaction has ranged from “The biggest Saudi oil field is fading faster than anyone guessed,” (not even wrong) to more subdued reactions from Ellen Wald and Robert Rapier, that the prospectus doesn’t really tell us much Ghawar’s decline rate. One thing that the bond prospectus did do, is to paint a picture of the most profitable company in the world and one that is serious when it says it will produce the last barrel of oil ever produced on Earth.

How big is Ghawar? Has it peaked? Is it “fading faster than anyone guessed”? The answer to the first question is: FRACKING YUGE. The answer to the second question was not easily answerable before Saudi Aramco began the process of becoming a publicly traded company. The answer to the third question is: Of course not.

As Saudi Aramco proceeds towards a 2021 IPO, it has had to embrace transparency. This involved an audit of the proved reserves in their largest fields, comprising about 80% of the company’s value. The audit was conducted by the highly respected DeGolyer and MacNaughton firm (D&M). The audit actually determined that the proved reserves are slightly larger than Aramco’s internal estimate.

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energy and fields

Global Energy & CO2 Status Report

by IEA, March 2019 (.pdf)

Key Findings 2018

Global energy consumption in 2018 increased at nearly twice the average rate of growth since 2010, driven by a robust global economy and higher heating and cooling needs in some parts of the world. Demand for all fuels increased, led by natural gas, even as solar and wind posted double-digit growth. Higher electricity demand was responsible for over half of the growth in energy needs. Energy efficiency saw lacklustre improvement.

Energy-related CO2 emissions rose 1.7% to a historic high of 33.1 Gt CO2. While emissions from all fossil fuels increased, the power sector accounted for nearly two-thirds of emissions growth. Coal use in power alone surpassed 10 Gt CO2, mostly in Asia. China, India, and the United States accounted for 85% of the net increase in emissions, while emissions declined for Germany, Japan, Mexico, France and the United Kingdom.

Oil demand rose by 1.3% in 2018, led by strong growth in the United States. The start-up of large petrochemical projects drove product demand, which partially offset a slowdown in growth in gasoline demand. The United States and China showed the largest overall growth, while demand fell in Japan and Korea and was stagnant in Europe.

Natural gas consumption grew by an estimated 4.6%, its largest increase since 2010 when gas demand bounced back from the global financial crisis. This second consecutive year of strong growth, following a 3% rise in 2017, was driven by growing energy demand and substitution from coal. The switch from coal to gas accounted for over one-fifth of the rise in gas demand. The United States led the growth followed by China.

Coal demand grew for a second year, but its role in the global mix continued to decline. Last year’s 0.7% increase was significantly slower than the 4.5% annual growth rate seen in the period 2000- 10. But while the share of coal in primary energy demand and in electricity generation slowly continues to decrease, it still remains the largest source of electricity and the second-largest source of primary energy.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Nuclear Power Can Save the World

by J.S. Goldstein et al., April 6, 2019

As young people rightly demand real solutions to climate change, the question is not what to do — eliminate fossil fuels by 2050 — but how. Beyond decarbonizing today’s electric grid, we must use clean electricity to replace fossil fuels in transportation, industry and heating. We must provide for the fast-growing energy needs of poorer countries and extend the grid to a billion people who now lack electricity. And still more electricity will be needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by midcentury.

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energy and fields

To Peak or Not to Peak? That is the question.

by Mike Jonas, April 8, 2019 in WUWT

A lot has been written about Peak Oil recently – perhaps more in comments than in WUWT articles themselves – and the “Not to Peak”-ers seem to be in the ascendancy. In other words, the opinions that “Peak Oil” is a fantasy and/or oil production will keep increasing for a century or more seem to be dominant.

But just how realistic are the “Not to Peak”-ers?

I had a look back at my article of 4 years ago (Peak Oil Re-visited), and I’m pretty comfortable with what I said back then. NB. I defined “Peak Oil” as When the rate of oil production reaches its maximum. With this definition, Peak Oil is not when we run out of oil, and it is not when we can’t increase the rate of oil production. If you want to use one of those other definitions then different rules apply. And I’m only talking about oil, not about oil and gas, and not about fossil fuels generally.

What I said in 2015 was:

  • The reason for oil production reaching its maximum is not specified.
  • Peak Oil is not necessarily a disaster, it could even be a positive.
  • One idea which surely is not open to argument is the fact that oil production will peak.
  • Predicting Peak Oil has always been an unrewarding exercise. People have predicted Peak Oil for over a century and have been wrong every time.
  • The principal factors affecting oil supply are: Geology, Politics, Demand, Price, Technology.
  • In spite of economic booms and busts, oil demand has been relatively inelastic.
  • Although Peak Oil may occur after say 2040, it could well be much earlier.

The third bullet above (oil production will peak) was justified by this graph, which looked at past and likely future oil production on a scale of thousands of years:

 

The shale revolution (as BP calls it) has made a difference, but it still can’t dramatically alter the shape of the graph in Figure 1. Basically, it can push the peak up, and it can elongate the tail, but it can’t move the peak very far to the right.

Figure 1. World Total Fossil Fuel Consumption, past and predicted – the long view.

climate-debate, energy and fields

Higher energy demand drove up global CO2 emissions in 2018

by IEA, April 7, 2019

Higher energy demand drove up global CO2 emissions in 2018
We released our second annual report on global energy trends last week, highlighting that energy demand worldwide grew by 2.3% in 2018, its fastest pace this decade, thanks to a strong global economy and higher demand for heating and cooling.
Natural gas emerged as the fuel of choice, posting the biggest gains and accounting for 45% of the rise in energy consumption. Solar and wind generation grew at double-digit pace, with solar alone increasing by 31%. Still, that was not fast enough to meet higher electricity demand around the world that also drove up coal use.

As a result, global energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7% to 33 Gigatonnes (Gt) with coal use in power generation alone surpassing 10 Gt and accounting for a third of total emissions. The majority of that was from coal-fired generation capacity in Asia, with a fleet of young power plants that are decades short of average lifetimes of around 50 years.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

What would life be like without fossil fuels such as gas and oil?

by Anthony Watts, April 6, 2019 in WUWT

Leftists like Bill McKibben of 350.org suffer from irrational fantasies that lead them to believe that we can move society forward without all the benefits that petroleum brings to our modern society.

They’re dead wrong of course, and this short humorous video illustrates just what life might be like without the many products and energy sources that are derived from petroleum. My favorite is ink, which if we didn’t get from petroleum, we wouldn’t have to see print editions of NYT, WaPo, and the Lost Angeles Times, to name a few.

You also wouldn’t be able to read this article, because the very keyboard I am typing this on is made from plastic, which you guessed it, is derived from petroleum.

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According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), this is a list of petroleum products and their share of total US petroleum consumption in 2013.

  • Gasoline 46%

  • Heating Oil / Diesel Fuel 20%

  • Jet Fuel ( kerosene) 8%

  • Propane / Propylene 7%

  • NGL / LRG 6%

  • Still Gas 4%

  • Petrochemical Feedstocks 2%

  • Petroleum Coke 2%

  • Residual / Heavy Fuel Oil 2%

  • Asphalt / Road Oil 2%

  • Lubricants 1%

  • Miscellaneous Products / Special Naphthas 0.4%

  • Other Liquids 1%

  • Aviation Gasoline 0.1%

  • Waxes 0.04%

  • Kerosene 0.02%

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better to know...?, energy and fields, renewable energy

Nuclear power excluded from EU’s green investment label

by C. Stam & A. Prager, April 3, 2019 in EurActiv

The text voted in Parliament also excludes fossil fuels and gas infrastructure from the EU’s proposed green finance taxonomy, which aims to divert investments away from polluting industries into clean technologies.

In a bid to prevent “green-washing”, the Parliament text also requires investors to disclose whether their financial products have sustainability objectives, and if they do, whether the product is consistent with the EU’s green assets classification, or taxonomy.

While activists applauded the move, they said the classification voted by the European Parliament was too narrow and applies only to a limited set of recognisable green assets, such as wind and solar power companies.

“Brown list” rejected

An amendment to publish a “brown list” to name and shame investments seen as damaging for the environment was rejected by Parliament.

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energy and fields

‘L’impossible équation des écologistes’

by Prof. Ch. Leclercq-Willain, 5 avril 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie

Depuis plusieurs années un des combats mené par les écologistes dans différents pays européens (Allemagne, France, Belgique, ..) fut et reste celui du nucléaire mené actuellement en parallèle avec celui de la réduction des gaz à effet de serre (GES). Les « verts » allemands ont obtenu la fermeture de presque toutes les centrales nucléaires et l’Allemagne a toujours une exploitation importante de centrales gaz-charbon. L’Allemagne est ainsi le plus grand émetteur de CO2 en Europe. Il en est de même des pays de l’Est et de la Russie qui exploitent essentiellement des centrales gaz-charbon. En Belgique, la fermeture définitive des centrales nucléaires est prévue pour 2025.

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energy and fields

U.S. Arctic Oil & Gas Exploration: A Sense of Urgency

by D. Middleton, April 3, 2019 in WUWT

I ran across a very lucid and informative article on Real Clear Energy today. The author is Robert Dillon, “a senior adviser on energy security at the American Council for Capital Formation and the former communications director of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.” The article includes numerous links to supporting information, particularly the National Petroleum Council’s (NPC) 2015 report on U.S. Arctic oil & gas resource potential.

The key findings of the 2015 NPC report were:

  1. Arctic oil and gas resources are large and can contribute significantly to meeting future U.S. and global energy needs.
  2. The arctic environment poses some different challenges relative to other oil and gas production areas, but is generally well understood.
  3. The oil and gas industry has a long history of successful operations in arctic conditions enabled by continuing technology and operational advances.
  4. Most of the U.S. Arctic offshore conventional oil and gas potential can be developed using existing field-proven technology.
  5. The economic viability of U.S. Arctic development is challenged by operating conditions and the need for updated regulations that reflect arctic conditions.
  6. Realizing the promise of Arctic oil and gas requires securing public confidence.
  7. There have been substantial recent technology and regulatory advancements to reduce the potential for and consequences of a spill.

Figure 1-1. Arctic exploration wells by country and time period. (NPC)

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energy and fields

China-built nuclear reactors may enjoy home advantage as delays and costs stymie foreign competitors

by Bloomberg, April 2, 2019 in SouthChinaMorningPost

China’s home-grown nuclear technology is gaining favour in the battle for the nation’s next generation of reactors, according to a state-owned developer, as it sought to recover from delays and cost blowouts from imported designs.

China’s reactor, known as the Hualong One, will be faster and easier to repair and maintain than competing foreign designs because it will be made at home, according to Chen Hua, chief executive officer of China National Nuclear Power company (CNNP), which builds and operates nuclear power projects.

“We prefer the Hualong One,” Chen said on Monday at a nuclear energy conference in Beijing.

The global nuclear industry has been awaiting a revival in China after cost overruns and stricter regulation after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan stalled the approval and construction of more units.

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energy and fields

New Coal Power Projects Declining In India?

by P. Homewood, March 30, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

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Anybody expecting that retirements will start outstripping new builds soon will be severely disappointed however.

As we know, the UK has already shut many coal plants, and the ones left are generating very little power. Other EU nations are following suit, so there will soon be little scope for further retirements.

Meanwhile Germany and several eastern European countries, such as Poland have no intention of moving away from coal for many years to come.

In the US, coal power generation has fallen by 39% in the last decade, principally due to low gas prices. It now only accounts for 13% of global coal generation.

Worldwide, there is 574 GW of coal power in the pipeline, including 281 GW outside of China and India. Whatever the US and EU do will scarcely make a dent in that lot.

 

energy and fields, renewable energy

La transition électrique européenne, une impasse?

by J.P. Schaeken Willemaers, 29 mars 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie

La transition énergétique est abondamment traitée dans les médias, souvent de manière univoque (ce que d’aucuns appellent le débat confisqué) en ignorant les conséquences socio-économiques. Dans ce papier, nous nous limiterons à sa composante électrique.
Rappelons tout d’abord que la finalité première d’un système électrique est d’assurer l’adéquation entre la production et la consommation d’électricité.


Il va de soi, quoique ce ne soit pas évident pour tout le monde, qu’il faut anticiper les adaptations nécessaires du système avant de procéder à la mise en œuvre du changement. Dans ce processus, l’analyse de l’impact sur la transmission et la distribution d’électricité et sur la continuité des services ainsi que la réalisation des travaux correspondants requis, sont prioritaires. Or aucun gouvernement ayant décidé de réduire drastiquement les émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES), ne s’est soucié des conséquences de leurs décisions. Ceci explique les déboires des pays qui se sont précipités dans une stratégie de pénétration accélérée de production d’électricité renouvelable intermittente.

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energy and fields, press and newspapers

China boosts coal mining capacity despite climate pledges

by M. Xu  & D. Patton, March 26, 2019 in Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) – China added 194 million tonnes of coal mining capacity in 2018, data from the energy bureau showed on Tuesday, despite vows to eliminate excess capacity in the sector and to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

Total coal mining capacity in the country was at 3.53 billion tonnes per year by the end of 2018, according to a statement from the National Energy Administration (NEA). That compares to 3.34 billion tonnes at the end of 2017.

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climate-debate, energy and fields, renewable energy

Report : The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking

by Mark P. Mills, March 26, 2019 in ManhattanInstitute

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A movement has been growing for decades to replace hydrocarbons, which collectively supply 84% of the world’s energy. It began with the fear that we were running out of oil. That fear has since migrated to the belief that, because of climate change and other environmental concerns, society can no longer tolerate burning oil, natural gas, and coal—all of which have turned out to be abundant.

So far, wind, solar, and batteries—the favored alternatives to hydrocarbons—provide about 2% of the world’s energy and 3% of America’s. Nonetheless, a bold new claim has gained popularity: that we’re on the cusp of a tech-driven energy revolution that not only can, but inevitably will, rapidly replace all hydrocarbons.

This “new energy economy” rests on the belief—a centerpiece of the Green New Deal and other similar proposals both here and in Europe—that the technologies of wind and solar power and battery storage are undergoing the kind of disruption experienced in computing and communications, dramatically lowering costs and increasing efficiency. But this core analogy glosses over profound differences, grounded in physics, between systems that produce energy and those that produce information.

In the world of people, cars, planes, and factories, increases in consumption, speed, or carrying capacity cause hardware to expand, not shrink. The energy needed to move a ton of people, heat a ton of steel or silicon, or grow a ton of food is determined by properties of nature whose boundaries are set by laws of gravity, inertia, friction, mass, and thermodynamics—not clever software.

This paper highlights the physics of energy to illustrate why there is no possibility that the world is undergoing—or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.”

Among the reasons:

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energy and fields

In 2018, U.S. coal exports were the highest in five years

by EIA, March 27, 2019

While U.S. coal consumption has generally declined since its 2008 peak, EIA expects that U.S. coal exports reached 116 million short tons (MMst) in 2018, the highest level in five years, based on foreign trade data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Exports of coal from the United States have increased since 2016 as international prices have made it more economic for U.S. producers to sell coal overseas.

In 2018, the United States exported 15% of its coal, and the remaining 85% was sold to end-use markets, primarily power sector and industrial customers. Coal exports have increased during the past two years, driven by increasing international coal demand, and in 2018 accounted for the largest share of total U.S. coal disposition on record. The United States exported 54 MMst of steam coal and 62 MMst of metallurgical coal in 2018, based on export data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.

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better to know...?, energy and fields, renewable energy

REPORT: GREEN ENERGY ECONOMY IS SIMPLY ‘IMPOSSIBLE’

by Mark P. Mills, March 23, 2019 in GWPF

Hydrocarbons—oil, natural gas, and coal—are the world’s principal energy resource today and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. Wind turbines, solar arrays, and batteries, meanwhile, constitute a small source of energy, and physics dictates that they will remain so. Meanwhile, there is simply no possibility that the world is undergoing—or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.”

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see the .pdf

energy and fields

GlobalData: Global coal production set to grow to 2022, despite major players scaling down capacities

GlobalData, March 6, 2019 in GreenCarCongress

Although Germany, the UK, US, Canada and Ukraine are phasing out domestic coal production capacity, expansion of production capacity in countries such as India and Indonesia is predicted to generate modest annual growth of 1.3% in coal production over the next four years, with output reaching 7.6 billion tonnes in 2022, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

 

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energy and fields

Eni makes gas discovery in Nour prospect offshore Egypt

by Umar Ali, March 15, 2019 in OffshoreTechnology

Italian oil and gas company Eni has announced a new gas discovery under evaluation in the Nour exploration prospect offshore Egypt.

The prospect is located in the Nour North Sinai Concession in the Eastern Egyptian Mediterranean, 50km north of the Sinai Peninsula. The concession covers a total area of 739km2, with water depths ranging from 50-400m.

This latest discovery was made at the Nour-1 New Field Wildcat (NFW) exploratory well, which was drilled by the Scarabeo 9 semi-submersible unit in a water depth of 295m, reaching a total depth of 5,914m.

The well has not yet been tested, but Eni said it had carried out an “intense and accurate” data acquisition.

The NFW well found 33m of gross sandstone pay in the Tineh formation of Oligocene age with “good petrophysical properties” according to Eni, as well as an estimated gas column of 90m.

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energy and fields

China Says Massive Shale Oil Reserves Found In North

by Tsvetana Paraskova, March 1, 2019 in OilPrice

China has found massive shale oil reserves in its northern Tianjin municipality, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.

Two wells at a field have been flowing for more than 260 days, according to Dagang Oilfield, a subsidiary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

The newly found shale reserves will help boost China’s national energy security and economic development, Xinhua quoted CNPC as saying.

According to EIA estimates, China ranks third in the world in terms of technically recoverable shale oil resources, behind Russia and the United States

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energy and fields

America is set to surpass Saudi Arabia in a ‘remarkable’ oil milestone

by Charles the moderator, March 11, 2019 in WUWT

From CNN Business

New York (CNN Business)Move over, Saudi Arabia. America is about to steal the kingdom’s energy exporting crown.

The United States will surpass Saudi Arabia later this year in exports of oil, natural gas liquids and petroleum products, like gasoline, according to energy research firm Rystad Energy.

That milestone, driven by the transformative shale boom, would make the United States the world’s leading exporter of oil and liquids. That has never happened since Saudi Arabia began selling oil overseas in the 1950s, Rystad said in a report Thursday.

“It’s nothing short of remarkable,” said Ryan Fitzmaurice, energy strategist at Rabobank. “Ten years ago, no one thought it could happen.”

The expected breakthrough reflects how technology has reshaped the global energy landscape. Drilling innovations have opened up huge swaths of oil and natural gas resources that had been trapped in shale oilfields in Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere.

Led by shale, US oil production has more than doubled over the past decade to all-time highs. The United States now pumps more oil than any other country, including Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“The shale boom has driven incredible increases in production,” said Fitzmaurice. “US production is off the charts.”

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