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DrumBeat: November 18, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 18, 2006 - 9:30am
Topic: Miscellaneous
[Update by Leanan on 11/18/06 at 10:27 AM EDT]
Gas producers' operating costs are rising fast. Today they stand at $6 per 1,000 cu m, having almost tripled since the late 1990s. On the Yamal Peninsula, which lies in the Arctic and has 26 gas fields, they will exceed $20 per 1,000 cu m because of extremely severe conditions. A geologist told me that Yamal is "a piece of something unknown frozen together over millions of years, and it is unclear how it will be possible to build or produce anything there."
Peak Oil Passnotes: Crack Gets High, Oil Gets Sexy Again
At the time of writing the gasoline crack between it and a tonne of crude oil has widened to its biggest since the price collapse of September. Whilst we have been witnessing some received wisdom from the mass media telling us about soaring inventories, as normal, they are about a month behind the game.Inventories of gasoline have been dragged in the opposite direction to what many people thought. Despite imports from Europe the amount of draw down in the stocks in the U.S. has increased week after week.
A band of idealists in the mountains of North Carolina is trying to build a low-energy lifestyle. But must we all live like hippies in the woods to make a difference?
Turning the World with David Korten
On the positive side of pending peak oil, climate change, water and food shortages, and the inevitable fall of Empire, Korten envisions a metamorphosis from the domination model to a cooperative one. He believes this is a choice we will have to make in our lifetime, or face the consequences of having it made for us. The cooperative choice is "Earth Community." In every aspect, it is the complete opposite of Empire. Earth Community nourishes, empowers, feeds, educates, develops, shares, restores, frees, respects, and provides equality, health and wellness to a global society without the use of violence.
Bacteria may hold the secrets to clean renewable sources of energy
"Imagine the future of energy. The future might look like a new power plant on the edge of town - an inconspicuous bioreactor that takes in yard waste and locally-grown crops like corn and woodchips, and churns out electricity to area homes and businesses," said Judy Wall of the University of Missouri - Columbia, one of the authors of the new report, Microbial Energy Conversion, released by the American Academy of Microbiology.
Study: Up to 100 million acres needed for renewable energy crops
As many as 100 million acres of cropland and pastures would have to be dedicated to cultivating biomass fuels like switchgrass to support a national goal of 25 percent renewable energy use by 2025, a University of Tennessee study says.
The hydrogen economy's nitty-gritty details explained by the DOE
We can expect clusters of hydrogen fueling stations to be installed and in use for the general public in the New York City and Los Angeles areas first, followed by broader dispersion along the West Coast and the Northeast. We're talking 2015 before anything resembling an infrastructure is even a possibility, and 2025 is a more likely date for these areas to be running a lot of hydrogen cars.
U.N. climate pact unlikely until after Bush
This week's U.N. climate talks kept a plan for fighting global warming on track for expansion beyond 2012, but breakthroughs look unlikely before U.S. President George W. Bush steps down, experts said on Saturday."Everyone is waiting for the United States. I think the whole process will be on ice until 2009," when Bush's second term expires, said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
Stern's headlined conclusions are intellectual fictions. They're essentially fabrications to justify an aggressive anti-global-warming agenda. The danger of that is we'd end up with the worst of both worlds: a program that harms the economy without much cutting of greenhouse gases.
Inhofe: Don’t Worry About Global Warming Because 'God’s Still Up There'
Raymond J. Learsy: An Energy Agenda For a New Age and Newly Energized Congress, Part 1
Beginning with this post, I will lay out a series of suggestions that we as citizens and consumers might do well to ponder and pursue. Taken together, these suggestions will, I would hope, be helpful in shaping dialogue in Washington and point us toward a rational energy future.
Public slow to plug into renewable energy
If attendance on the opening morning of Switzerland's first renewable energy fair is anything to go by, the planet is truly doomed.
More than a billion cars to hit the road
An economic assessment predicts that the number of private cars on the world's roads will skyrocket from today's figure of just over 600 million to between 1.4 and 2.7 billion by 2050, doubling or quadrupling their carbon dioxide emissions.
OPEC must cut again, $60 oil "moderate"
TOKYO - Qatar Oil Minister Abdullah Al Attiyah said on Saturday that OPEC would have to cut oil production further when it meets in Nigeria next month, and that a $60 US crude oil price was “moderate”.
IMF chief says demand set to keep oil price high
A decline in oil prices, which have soared over the past two years, is not "a visible scenario right now", IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato said at a news briefing before addressing a meeting of the Group of 20 financial leaders.
Feeding frenzy for Africa oil fields gathers pace
Africa accounts for only around 10 percent of world oil reserves but the continent is the focus of a feeding frenzy among energy companies that is just beginning in countries like Libya and Angola.
An interview with John Bellamy Foster, author of Naked Imperialism: The U.S. Pursuit of Global Dominance:
It is clear that the geopolitics of oil have changed, and this is a point made in Naked Imperialism. In the chapter "U.S. Imperial Ambitions and Iraq" there is a bar graph superimposed on a map of the world showing very visibly the extent to which the oil reserves of the world are concentrated in the Middle East. There is a lot of discussion today about whether the world has reached or even passed "peak oil" production. No one really knows the answer; there are still too many unknowns, though the peak oil hypothesis is a plausible one. What we do know for certain is what the oil industry calls reserve/production ratios (or simply r/p ratios), which give you the number of years before reserves are likely to be exhausted for various oil-producing countries in the world, based on current production levels. This tells us that with each passing year a larger percentage of the world reserves will be located in the Middle East, since the reserves to production ratios there are far higher. It is obvious then that control of the Middle East reserves becomes more critical each year if world oil supplies are to be secured.
The Chinese seduction of Africa
In contrast to Americans and Europeans, they take more risks and set no conditions on aid and trade
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Just some rough noodling with numbers to see what happens:
From here: Anthracite coal is 1506 kg/m^3
From a brief look around I'll assume an average coal seam to be approximately 4.57 meters
Which means that for every 1 m^2 of surface area, there are 4.57 m^3 of coal beneath, or 6882 kg of coal beneath for every square meter above.
From google: 1 acre = 4,046.85642 m^2
(4046 m^2/1 acre) X (6882kg/m^2) = (27844572 kg/acre)
or (61,386,773.3 lbs/acre) or (30,693 short tons/acre)
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Now this is probably where you think the numbers are bogus, but I'll use them for now anyway... "A 1,400 MW generating plant near here burns 550 tons an hour and would burn up a mile-long train load of coal in a bit over 15 hours."
So let's say 1,400 MW consumes 13,200 tons of coal per day (550 X 24) or 4,818,000 tons per year. That 1,400 MW plant would "destroy" roughly 157 acres per year. (Using the aforementioned assumptions. My feeling is that I was optimistic on my assumptions. If someone else would like to take the torch and punch out some more accurate numbers/correct any mistakes, please do so)
In addition, the company that manufactured the SEGS plant claims that its latest-generation technology is 50 percent more efficient than the SEGS technology. That would imply a proportional reduction in the acreage requirement for an equal amount of electricity generation.
Anthracite is now a quite small portion of the coal industry, and its primary deposit in eastern Pennsylvania has been mostly depleted.
Mountaintop mining often doesn't glean anywhere near that much - I seem to recall a National Geographic caption about removing a hundred feet of rock for an 18 inche thick seam.
-- -- -- -- -- --
18 inches = 0.4572 meters
1 m^2 of surface area, yields 0.4572 m^3 of coal beneath, or 689 kg of coal beneath for every square meter above.
1 acre = 4,046.85642 m^2
(4046 m^2/1 acre) X (689 kg/m^2) = (2,787,694 kg/acre)
or (6,145,813 lbs/acre) or (3,073 short tons/acre)
1,400 MW consumes 4,818,000 tons per year.
So... 1,568 acres per year assuming a 0.4572 meter thick seam. Ten times as much - ouch. (That, I imagine, should set the worst case boundry)
Here's a record of some BLM sales that puts the coal/land ratio in Wyoming around 110 tons/acre. If your 30 tons/acre is true for 58% of the U.S., and 110 acres is true for 42% of the U.S., then the national average might be around 64 tons/acre.
Underground - 368,612 (thousand short tons)
Surface - 762,190 (thousand short tons)
I'm guessing "surface" means strip mining?
Gotta go I'll take a closer look at this later
... BLM sales that puts the coal/land ratio in Wyoming around 110,000 tons/acre. If your 30,000 tons/acre is true for 58% of the U.S., and 110,000 tons/acre is true for 42% of the U.S., then the national average might be around 64,000 tons/acre.
Note, however, that the Kentucky Geological Survey says that bituminous coal will yield 1,800 tons/acre foot. At a five foot coalbed thickness, that's 9000 tons/acre. Quite a range of estimates! I'm hoping someone with expertise in this field can weigh in.
Coal is ~50% of the mix. So 1,946,000,000,000,000 Wh attributed to Coal.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/table4.html
68% of mines appear to be "surface" mines, so 1,323,280,000,000,000 Wh attributable to surface mined coal.
If a 1,400 MW (continuous duty plant) consumes roughly 13,200 tons of coal per day, which is (33,600 mWh/13,200 tons) or (2.54 mWh/ton).
(1,323,280,000,000,000 Wh) X (tons/2,540,000 Wh) = 520,976,378 tons of coal per year for "surface mined" coal.
Which best case 110,000 tons/acre: (520,976,378tons)X(acre/110,000tons)= 4,736 acres/year
Worst case 3,000 tons/acre (18" seam): (520,976,378tons)X(acre/3,000tons)= 173,659 acres/year
Best case it would take 1,250 years to destroy a Vermont
Worst case it would take 34 years to destroy a Vermont
This is great thought and an interesting idea. Thanks for bringing it up! I hope my criticisms helped clarify your thinking, not throw cold water on a good idea.
Anthracite: 2,000 tons/acre foot
Bituminous: 1,800 tons/acre foot
Subbituminous: 1,770 tons/acre foot
Lignite: 1,750 tons/acre foot
Most lignite that is mined & burned is typically conveyer belted to a nearby power plant.
Alan
To foster a desire in people to conserve electricity: at some carefully predetermined and constantly readjusted billing rate--money will not be accepted anymore, but physical labor will be required. You pay your bill by helping shovel spilled coal, working at a recycling center or community food bank, picking up trash along a road, weeding in a community garden, helping insulate homes for the elderly and poor, mentoring at a school, etc.
If someone wants to burn alot of juice to heat their pool or power their McMansion, then they can plan ahead on required community service of some kind. No exceptions or substitutions allowed! Just another wild and crazy idea of mine-- I am full of them.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The typical real-world availability of solar power plant is 10-15% of the rated otput. At 15% you need to compare the SEGS solar plant to 0.15 x 1400 = 210 MW thermal power plant.
In addition, thermal storage may be used to extend the solar thermal plant capacity. An example is the molten salt system being installed for the Solar Tres project in Spain. In that case, trough system capacity factors can increase to around 55%.
Here's a DOE presentation that gives the capacity factor figures, see especially slides 31, 33 and 41. The DOE Sandia Sun Lab states without qualification that solar thermal has the same footprint as a fossil-fired plant when mining is considered; I'll have to do some investigating to find out how they came to that conclusion.
Thermal/PV solar plants will be mostly built in desert areas where the ecological impact will be miniscule, and may be even positive.
OTOH coal miners reclaim the land (enforced by law AFAIK) after the coal seam has been exhausted, allowing for its recovery in the long term. But still the polution from the tailings remains, potentially contaminating the ground water etc.
Either way looks like comparing apples to oranges to me.
Either way looks like comparing apples to oranges to me. "
Complicated, of course. The way that strip mines are reclaimed now is by the "cheap ass" approach...which basically means the land is devastated. The topsoil is pushed off into the valley and buried, and when the land is "reclaimed" there is only a rocky, sandy surface such that they use a special grass that manages to survive on it when nothing else does. You're then talking about geologic time for the land to recover. If they'd save the topsoil somewhere else, and replace it when they were done, it'd be a much less tragic thing. But the way it's done now, you might as well consider the whole area toxic to life. They can't even build homes or businesses on the reclaimed areas because they're too unstable.
And the valley's full of fill are unstable for a century or so, but one build on the "flat top" mountain.
Alan
They actually say less. Which, technically it should since coal will continue to use land, whereas solar will occupy fixed space for eternity. That's really impossible to argue, but what we've been doing here is trying to figure out where the break even point is...that's a little trickier.
Solar Tres
Impressive. This technology has always held the most promise to me.
There's a lot of assuming going on...it's what happens when you're not entirely sure where to begin. Also, the TOD faeries haven't magically appeared with lots of data, so that's kind of a bummer. I'd try over at www.TheCoalScuttle.com but it doesn't seem to exist.
Seriously though, that was an oversight. On that note, coal fired plants don't operate 100% all of the time either. They also lose efficiency as they reach their rated capacity. Lots of real world contraints to deal with beyond the assumed steady state power delivery. I would love to get some reliable numbers on all of this, or at least something in the ballpark...but for not seeing the forest due to all the trees getting in our way, the thing to take home at the end of the day is that coal will continue to devestate land as it operates, solar will take a big chunk and then stop. For PV it can take already taken land (i.e. rooftops)
It dawns on me that PV peaking power could be grid-coupled with solar thermal to form a theoretically steady electricty supply (i.e. when PV is at full song, solar thermal plants can be devoting all gains to storage for the night)
Anthracite: 22 to 28 million Btu per ton - United States averages 25 million Btu per ton
Bituminous: 21 to 30 million Btu per ton - United States averages 24 million Btu per ton, on the as-received basis
Subbituminous: 17 to 24 million Btu per ton - United States averages 17 to 18 million Btu per ton, on the as-received basis
Lignite: 9 to 17 million - United States averages 13 million Btu per ton
The logical error was that you were comparing a 1400MW solar plant with a hypothetical 100% loaded 1400MW coal power plant which you feed 24/7 with that coal trains. If the real world CPP is 80% utilised, this would mean the coal inputs will alse be 20% down. Anyway, no big deal.
I agree with your bottom line but I don't think you are using the correct arguments. Coal is not worse because it uses more land, it is worse because of the way it uses the land - this is the thing we need to concentrate.
Personally I am cautiously "for" solar power. What really concerns me are those capital costs and how much from them are predicated on cheap fossil fuels. If the end-to-end EROEI is as low as I think, any attempts to scale them up will look like a threadmill - running as hard as possible just to stay in place. PV looks like a better bet for potentially lower EREOEI in future than thermal, but both have a lot to prove yet.
"Pius" hybrid says it all.
Notice how Toyota points out the cooked up numbers US'ians believe in because TV Told Them So, and points out the much more likely to be objective numbers from MIT and the Argonne labs, then notice how the very next post is from a brainwashed US'ian grabbing onto and quoting, the bogus numbers!
Let's see if I can come up an anology US'ians can understand....... Some Russian Guy On TV says something like, "The US's insistance that a moon rocket can be powered off of teenager's snot is sheer wishful thinking. In reality, you need a high-energy fuel source with a quick burn rate, like hydrazine or any of the proven rocket fuel combinations. Teenager's snot, while indeed plentiful, does not have the energy to weight ratio needed." and the brainwashed US'ians clustering around the feeding stations during their lunch-15-minutes the next day all nodding and smiling and saying to each other, "See? 'A moon rocket can be powered off of teenager's snot'! Those God Damn russkis are a buncha idiots and we're gonna beat 'em back to the Moon!".
original article:
http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/new33_1118200620412.asp
I wonder how quickly some those 6.9 million acres can be converted back to farmland if yeilds start dropping after the peak? Many of them, no doubt, are suburban housing developments around Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Bill Tackett, 74, of Fleming, farms 150 acres of grain crops and hay. He said development is a concern but science is helping.
"I do have concerns about farmland being taken up by industry and residential," he said. "But I also have the opinion that farmers are becoming more productive."
Tackett said because of science and technology, he believes farmers are able to produce more on less land. He said he has seen yields more than double in his lifetime.
Does anyone know what happens to the fertile soil once a place gets 'developed', is it sold or are houses just build on top of it.
How big a problem is soil erosion in Ohio.
Suburbs kill.
I mean, a suburb, any modern human settlement, is a death zone for probably 99% of the life that was there. The earth is alive, it's full of worms and nematodes and roots and things, and of course nothing makes a better foundation for a suburban house and yard than good inert dead soil/clay, for the house to rest on and the imported sods of lawn to be laid down on.
An Indian wikiup for instance, was only used for part of the year, and the settlements were moved, both seasonally and gradually over the years. Worms and things were inconvenienced at worst. And the Indians spilled a lot of stuff, from a bit of Mom's deer broth to Dad's late-night piss after a long night of storytelling to the time Baby threw up a bit of her corn mush.
Compare a good, God-fearing Amurrikan suburb. The oldest of them are about 100 years old now, I have lived in ones that are 50-30 years old, and the new ones being built will, unless things drastically change, stand for 50+ years. These are permanent death zones. No more worms, undersoil fungus (once the once-plentiful rain of organic matter from above is used up) small plants and beetles and ..... thingies, just dead soil, for decades and decades and decades and counting.
Now, European cities are dead zones underneath too, but in the low-energy past, they were small, centralized, and people did not build more than they absolutely had to.
We are in the business of taking large, very large, areas of prime land for small farming and turning it into dead zones. Other than a few trees, and a few foreign and chemically-fed shrubs and lawns, the preference is for nothing to grow in them at all.
"I WENT BACK TO OHIO
BUT MY PRETTY COUNTRYSIDE
HAD BEEN PAVED DOWN THE MIDDLE
BY A GOVERNMENT THAT HAD NO PRIDE
THE FARMS OF OHIO
HAD BEEN REPLACED BY SHOPPING MALLS
AND MUZAK FILLED THE AIR
FROM SENECA TO CUYAHOGA FALLS
SAID, A, O, OH WAY TO GO OHIO"
Best solution is to take free fill from the Bonne Carre spillway (1930s flood relief valve that is opened up every 10 or so years. Mississippi River silt is deposited and US Army Corps of Engineers gives it away so that it does not build up) and add about four to six inches to the soil, and work in some mulch for organic matter.
River silt to topsoil is an easy transition by adding organic matter and we are built on silt.
Best Hopes,
Alan
This wasn't the case in the old days. This is one reason why Lester Brown suggests the downtowns of old cities as good places to settle. The best areas were settled first, it's true. But also, they didn't remove the topsoil before building in the old days. There's very rich soil in the backyards of those old houses...unlike in the average modern subdivision.
It was not until after I had moved into my modern subdivision home, built on an old soybean farm, that I discovered that the drainage is lousy all across the site. Why? Mainly because the topsoil was completely stripped off, probably by many feet deep, and this activity lowered the new ground surface closer to a clay horizon. So after every heavy rain, the water cannot drain properly in a vertical sense, and "sits" on the clay layer with less ability to absorb into what soil was left in place. Growing a garden also becomes more difficult since the best topsoil was essentially stolen from your property, and what you now get is soil very high in clay content.
From what I understand, this is now "standard practice" among housing developers. And with the full blessing of the local township officials, no doubt. Everyone needs to know about this running scam.