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90 comments on DrumBeat: June 28, 2009

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woodychuck on June 28, 2009 - 10:21am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

According to the Dallas Morning News, I guess we are saved !!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/rmiller/stori...

"UT Arlington researchers' work could lead to $35-a-barrel oil"

"After a year of trying, University of Texas at Arlington researchers say they have succeeded in producing Texas intermediate-quality crude oil out of lignite.

In a few years, the researchers predict, their discovery could lead to oil that costs $35 a barrel instead of the current $65 to $70."

Interesting article, and claims this is a cleaner process using lignite.

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westexas on June 28, 2009 - 10:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

http://knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Lignite/

Interesting, but according to the above website, US lignite averages about 13 mbtu (million btu's) per ton, and the UT Arlington professor is planning to get about 12 mbtu of oil energy per ton of lignite, which would be a 92% conversion rate, not counting energy used in the process, and not counting the energy used in mining and transporting the coal.

In any case, fossil fuels can be viewed as a continuum--from natural gas, to NGL's, to condensate, to light/sweet crude, to heavy/sour crude, to bitumen to various grades of coal. As we go from left to right, we go from a gas to liquid to a solid, and from mostly hydrogen (four atoms of hydrogen to one atom of carbon for methane) to mostly carbon. Also, if we want liquid transportation fuels (LTF's), we get the most refined product for the least energy and capital expenditure from refining light/sweet crude.

As we go to the endpoints--natural gas and coal--in search of LTF's, it takes more energy and capital to obtain liquid transportation fuels. Also, the producers of GTL & CTL based LTF's will be competing with other consumers of natural gas and coal.

But fundamentally, the problem facing us is the fact that fossil fuels are finite, while the conventional wisdom expectation is that a near-infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite fossil fuel resource base is quite possible.

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woodychuck on June 28, 2009 - 11:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Darn. And I thought we were saved. Thermodynamics will probably get in the way again.

Even if this is on a small scale, it shows that there is an available means for getting the fuel we will need on some level. I do not think this is scalable in enough time to keep the wolf from our door in the form of import shortages, so aptly expressed in your writings, WT. Another thing which they leave out is the transportation costs - conventional oil resources have pipelines, and coal is not so easily transportable. Thus, the little plants UTA envisions will have to rapidly populate the locales where coal is presently mined and then we can develop that conventional transportation infrastructure. I doubt that the large scale development of this technology will make a difference in my lifetime, but maybe for my two kids and three grandkids.

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xeroid on June 28, 2009 - 4:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The problem is not whether the energy source is available - there is still plenty of crude oil available, at least as much as we have used so far - the problem is whether it is affordable at the flow rates required for anything like BAU.

Most of the world's population can't afford any FF at current prices - if your country is already massively in debt and will only be able to afford FF by going even further into debt why do you assume you will be able to afford to buy adequate amounts of FF in the future?

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paal myrtvedt on June 28, 2009 - 6:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There is always a BAU and in the Stoneages the business circled around : 'Where the heck is my next stone'

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90 comments on DrumBeat: June 28, 2009

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