http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2008sep27_g.html
SCIENCE: Global-warming - myth, threat or opportunity? by Walter Starck
The most critical problem we face is not global warming, or how to make fuel more expensive so we will use less, but providing enough at affordable prices to keep our economy going until alternatives can become reality, writes scientist Dr Walter Starck. The Lucky Country has the choice between disaster and a unique opportunity.Climate change looks more and more like becoming a catastrophe we inflict upon ourselves in trying to avoid one we have only imagined.The theory of catastrophic global warming due to CO2 emissions rests on two fundamental elements. One is that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. The other is that interactive computer models of climate have been constructed to show increased warming with increased CO2. However, a couple of dozen different climate models all produce differing results in accord with the assumptions and estimates they each incorporate.While the absorption of infrared by CO2 is undisputed, the amount of such heating on global climate is highly uncertain. There is good reason to think it has been greatly overestimated. The current understanding on which the climate models are based is very incomplete. As for the widely publicised catastrophic consequences of warming, these are not even predicted by the models but are only speculations regarding such warming.Lack of verificationComplex interactive models can be constructed and adjusted to produce any desired result. Without verification they reflect only the ideas on which they are based.The famed mathematical physicist and father of cybernetics, John von Neumann, once said: "If you allow me four free parameters I can build a mathematical model that describes exactly everything that an elephant can do. If you allow me a fifth free parameter, the model I build will forecast that the elephant will fly."Those who claim a high degree of scientific certainty regarding global warming can only be woefully uninformed, overly impressed with themselves or less than honest. There are serious doubts and uncertainties about every aspect.The fundamental radiative physics involved in the complex and variable mix of gases and conditions that comprise the global atmosphere is far from clear. The distribution of heat through the myriad pathways of atmospheric and oceanic circulation is only poorly understood. The innumerable interactions and feedbacks involved in this immensely complex system have only barely begun to be recognised, much less understood well enough to be accurately modelled.In contrast to the virtual world of computer simulations, real world evidence presents a very different picture. To list but a few key facts:• Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies from all over the world indicate a Medieval Warm Period as warm or warmer than present temperatures. Recent warming is not unprecedented.• Numerous studies of extreme weather incidences indicate that recent occurrences are also not unprecedented, nor even unusual.• The tropical mid-tropospheric warming predicted by the models as a prominent signature of CO2-induced global warming has not occurred. The models are wrong about the dominant area of warming.• Most of the warming predicted by the models comes from increased relative humidity acting as a positive feedback to amplify CO2-induced warming. This too has not occurred. The models are thus also wrong about the major source of warming.• Contrary to greenhouse warming expectations, southern hemisphere trends have shown negligible warming.• The global temperature trend has been flat for a decade despite increasing CO2.• Most important of all, global temperatures have declined markedly in both hemispheres over the past two years, with widespread record and near record lows.The current cooling was unpredicted by any models. Although warming advocates have tried to dismiss it as only natural internal variability, they have previously strongly denied any such possibility in connection with warming.Even if one accepts some natural variability, widespread record cold clearly refutes the degree of warming that has been attributed to the Greenhouse (GH) effect. Moreover, such cooling is fully in accord with well-established correlations of temperatures and solar activity as well as the major multi-decadal shift in oceanic conditions known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which has just recently switched into its cool phase.However, if we accept these influences to explain current cooling, then we must also accept their likely responsibility for most or all of the preceding warming.The claim that the threat of global warming is 90 per cent (or often 99 per cent) certain is simply a figure of speech reflecting the speaker's commitment to a belief. It has no mathematical basis, and should be seen as comparable to the 100 per cent certainty professed by religious devotees that theirs is the one true faith.Although one might expect that evidence that a serious threat may not really exist would be greeted with hopeful interest by anyone professing concern about it, the opposite is true. That global warming is no longer just a theory, but has become a belief is reflected in the reaction to any suggestion of doubt.No matter how well founded and clearly presented, this provokes only anger and rejection, not interest, in believers. As contrary evidence mounts and climate cools, defence of the belief only becomes more desperate and the claimed threats are ratcheted up still further. One might be forgiven the impression that the threats are not so much feared as they are fervently being hoped for.The oil supplyMeanwhile, however, the obsession with global warming has blinded us to a far more real and imminent danger. The oil supply on which our entire economy is based is not keeping up with increasing demand, and we are doing nothing effective in response. Consider just a few important facts:• Production has already peaked and is in decline in some 50 nations.• Despite major advances in exploration technology and effort, the rate of discovery of significant new reserves has steadily declined for several decades and is far below depletion rates.• Exports are decreasing in most exporting nations as their own domestic demand increases.• Refining capacity has not kept pace with demand, due to environmental restrictions and concerns over future supply of crude.• Most existing refineries are designed for light sweet crude, the supply of which is rapidly declining.• Future oil will increasingly be heavy sour crude which only a minority of existing refineries can use.• The major oil-producing nations have no incentive for massive investment to increase production, accelerate depletion, reduce their earnings and end up with huge expensive infrastructure which would soon be surplus to dwindling supply.The price increases over recent years are primarily the result of near static supply in the face of increasing demand. Ongoing growth in demand, shortages, significant further price rises and a dampening effect on the global economy are almost certain to continue for the foreseeable future.While speculation may have contributed to accelerating the increases, it cannot sustain them. Their persistence and ongoing rise indicate a firm basis in underlying tightness in supply. Further price increases will only cease when cost suppresses demand.SynfuelAffordable liquid fuel for transport and mobile machinery is essential to the functioning of our whole economy. Viable alternative energy is still decades away and we are doing nothing to prepare to get from here to there.Synfuel from coal and gas could supply all our needs here in Australia at less than half the current price of oil. This can be done using commercially-proven technology which can be implemented now with no uncertainties.Companies are ready, willing and able to implement the technology. Only emission restrictions on CO2 are holding them back. All focus by government is on "clean" renewable technology that is totally inadequate now and decades from becoming commercial.Despite the resources boom, the Australian economy is in a highly vulnerable position. Manufacturing is in decline and, at 13 per cent of GDP, is among the lowest in the developed world. The trade balance remains in chronic deficit with no foreseeable improvement. Foreign debt is growing at twice the rate of the economy. At over $600 billion it is now about 60 per cent of GDP, the highest in the developed world.The current boom rests on high commodity prices; but commodity booms normally last only a few years before increased production, spurred by high prices, brings prices down again.With or without any added influence from a global economic slowdown, an end to the boom is inevitable. This will result in a fall in the exchange rate of the Australian dollar and a blow-out in foreign debt.In the almost certain event of fuel shortages leading to substantial widespread price increases and a global recession, a large debt obligation which could not be met would result in a collapse of the $AUD.Dependence on imports for most manufactured goods will exacerbate the problem. Having an economy that is independent of world markets for our own energy needs would be a huge advantage.Australia's contribution to global CO2 emissions is about 1.4 per cent. This is equal to only six months' growth in China's emissions. Natural uptakes of CO2 over Australia's land and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) area absorb half again more than this. Our net contribution to global CO2 emissions is already negative. Whatever we do or don't do will be trivial to the global situation, either in quantity or even as an example.The opportunityGlobal warming is a distant and uncertain possibility of a problem that most likely does not even exist. It can only be meaningfully addressed by developments that will require decades and which, in any event, must be undertaken even without the threat of warming.Severe economic hardship, however, is an imminent probability. This could be greatly alleviated, if not avoided altogether, by development of our own liquid-fuel supplies.It would be far easier to do this now in a time of prosperity than trying to do so in a recession. Having such capacity already in place might well even avert a recession here altogether. Being energy-independent would be a huge competitive advantage in a time of high energy costs and shortages everywhere else.Precaution in the face of uncertainty may sound sensible, but the realm of hypothetical risk is without limit. Many perceived risks turn out to have no reality. Remember the Y2K millennium-bug scare?We cannot build fortresses against every shadow of doubt. Precaution too is not without risk. Any proposed precautionary measure must be weighed against alternatives as well as consideration of its own consequences.Obsessing over distant uncertain risks, while ignoring immediate consequences, is poor precaution. For Australia, drastic cuts to carbon emissions to prevent global warming is to climate what anorexia is to obesity.Economic declineThe proposed carbon taxes will only result in a vast new windfall for government, large cost/price increases and economic recession. Emission-trading is set to become a huge new non-productive industry of wealth redistribution with little or no actual reduction in emission beyond what is effected by economic decline.The world is headed for an energy crisis with consequences we have not even begun to appreciate. Australia is better positioned to cope than any other nation. The only thing holding us back is blind adherence to an ill-founded belief that daily becomes more hysterical, in denial of conflicting evidence, contrary to sound science and detached from climate itself.The choice is unambiguous. We can either adhere to the dogma of the eco-cult and suffer immense self-inflicted hardship, or risk an increasingly dubious prophecy to take a clear path to the future.Seldom is the way forward so obvious. One path goes down easy street; the other takes a detour through Jonestown. The political leaders who recognise this and present it to the electorate will be the next government.- Walter Starck is one of the pioneers in the scientific investigation of coral reefs. He grew up in the Florida Keys and received a PhD in marine science from the University of Miami in 1964. This article is reproduced from National Observer (Council for the National Interest, Australia), No. 77, Winter 2008.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
I filled my gas tank up for the first time in a month
$3.45.9 per gallon, I later saw $3.43.9 but what the heck. I last filled up on August 07 for $3.49.9. Under 225 miles driven for the month but it's summer and I have been using the bicycle a lot. I may have to go out in the country, a 225 miles round trip.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
CNBC.com on the McCain VP pick.
Try watching this first.http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=836384597&play=1
Flipping channels on the kitchen TV I caught the interview less than 10 minutes into the hour. They filled in with more footage and background so it make for a full hour show with commercials. The CNBC "filler' seems useful so it made for a very good one hour show. This is a common, they don't trash the footage after the "first cut" of a shorter feature story.
CNBC repeats their one hour "special reports" frequently so it should be easy for catch. I haven't seem the 12 minute version yet but that should have the essence of it.
From the one hour TV CNBC special. She looks great on TV. She helps on the family Alaskan fishing boat (look like a line net rig) It's not quite "Deadliest Catch" but it is physically demanding work. I'm Sure Sarah Palin could actually "tune up" and engine or do other mechanical repairs. This is necessary on the fishing boats.
Next off, in interviews she seemed "sharp as a tack" and gave good answers in a second. She seemed an excellent public speaker who knows her subjects in depth.
For me, the important thing is that she seemed, in the CNBC interview to have an extremely good knowledge of energy, especially, the production side. Before this I felt that the major party political candidates were oblivious to the effects of higher energy costs. They mentioned them but they seemed small in the scale of their lives. Sarah Palen noted that in Alaska Gasoline and other fuels cost $5 in Urban centers and often $10 or more per gallon in more remote areas so Alaskans are way ahead on cost motivated conservation. Basicaly, she "feels our pain" on high energy costs.
This is important. As a personal example I now use under three gallons of gasoline per week so higher gas prices only cost me ten or twenty dollars a month. Obviously I can afford this (so what's the problem?) The problem is of course that many people drive a lot more starters and I constantly hear them say how it's "killing them". I must also heat http://searshouse.com this winter. It's pretty "tight" with and ultra high efficiency furnace but I figure my natural gas bills will be 50% higher. Also, prices for basics are up. My "must have" food is http://aldi.com oat bran bread. The one and price loaves are up 25%. Again at Aldi's I notice that canned tuna in oil is a dime more than canned tuna in water. Corn oil now costs more than Canola Oil even with Canola being a "poor persons Olive Oil" nutritionally. Let's not even mention meat costs!
I can afford it but I'm "street" enough to see how this is affecting people. Sarah Palin seems to comprehend this (IE the diesel for the family fishing boat is obviously getting far more costly in the last few years.)
Finally, a candidate who understand this and "feels our pain". (at the "pump"!) Sometimes instead of the "forest" you need to see the "trees".
I'll admit I knew little of Sarah Palin before this. I recall that beauty contest picture (which, for some reason reminds me of the TV show "Happy Days" though I can't find an internet reference). I was rooting for our Minnesota Governor Tim Palenty. I still think he would have made a fine choice. He is a known local who I have strong support for. (root for the home team!)
If John McCain anticipated the energy price situation when he started to considering Sarah Palen in February as the mainstream media now reports it was brilliant!
Cross posted to my http://excel08.com http://fourfiftygas.com and my http://fifthestate.net
Flipping channels on the kitchen TV I caught the interview less than 10 minutes into the hour. They filled in with more footage and background so it make for a full hour show with commercials. The CNBC "filler' seems useful so it made for a very good one hour show. This is a common, they don't trash the footage after the "first cut" of a shorter feature story.
CNBC repeats their one hour "special reports" frequently so it should be easy for catch. I haven't seem the 12 minute version yet but that should have the essence of it.
From the one hour TV CNBC special. She looks great on TV. She helps on the family Alaskan fishing boat (look like a line net rig) It's not quite "Deadliest Catch" but it is physically demanding work. I'm Sure Sarah Palin could actually "tune up" and engine
Next off, in interviews she seemed "sharp as a tack" and gave good answers in a second. She seemed an excellent public speaker who knows her subjects in depth.
For me, the important thing is that she seemed, in the CNBC interview to have an extremely good knowledge of energy, especially, the production side. Before this I felt that the major party political candidates were oblivious to the effects of higher energy costs. They mentioned them but they seemed small in the scale of their lives. Sarah Palen noted that in Alaska Gasoline and other fuels cost $5 in Urban centers and often $10 or more per gallon in more remote areas so Alaskans are way ahead on cost motivated conservation. Basicaly, she "feels our pain" on high energy costs.
This is important. As a personal example I now use under three gallons of gasoline per week so higher gas prices only cost me ten or twenty dollars a month. Obviously I can afford this (so what's the problem?) The problem is of course that many people drive a lot more starters and I constantly hear them say how it's "killing them". I must also heat http://searshouse.com this winter. It's pretty "tight" with and ultra high efficiency furnace but I figure my natural gas bills will be 50% higher. Also, prices for basics are up. My "must have" food is http://aldi.com oat bran bread. The one and price loaves are up 25%. Again at Aldi's I notice that canned tuna in oil is a dime more than canned tuna in water. Corn oil now costs more than Canola Oil even with Canola being a "poor persons Olive Oil" nutritionally. Let's not even mention meat costs!
I can afford it but I'm "street" enough to see how this is affecting people. Sarah Palin seems to comprehend this (IE the diesel for the family fishing boat is obviously getting far more costly in the last few years.)
Finally, a candidate who understand this and "feels our pain". (at the "pump"!) Sometimes instead of the "forest" you need to see the "trees".
I'll admit I knew little of Sarah Palin before this. I recall that beauty contest picture (which, for some reason reminds me of the TV show "Happy Days" though I can't find an internet reference). I was rooting for our Minnesota Governor Tim Palenty. I still think he would have made a fine choice. He is a known local who I have strong support for. (root for the home team!)
If John McCain anticipated the energy price situation when he started to considering Sarah Palen in February as the mainstream media now reports it was brilliant!
Cross posted to my http://excel08.com http://fourfiftygas.com and my http://fifthestate.net
Friday, August 29, 2008
Looks like my electric utility "wussed" out" and made money for the ambulance chaser lawers working the "global warming" beat.
Redrant: My pension fund which has resisted the "Ceres" pressures" has had a historic return of investment of 11% plus over 25 years. Taxpayers will bail out these "social activism" retirment funds if they under perform. 11% ofMNPERA is the benchmark.
The State of Minnesota had to recently bail out the Minneapolis Schools Pension which was very heavily into elimintating potential intestments for "divestment reasons" They got 2% return on the pension fund investment versus 11% for PERA. Do the math. This political activism will cost Minnesaota taxpayers a half a billion dollars or more that $1000 per resident. Other school districts are in the smae bind so the ultimate cost could be catastrophic.
Xcel to Disclose Global Warming Risks By NICHOLAS CONFESSOREALBANY — One of the country’s largest builders of coal-fired power plants will give investors detailed warnings about the risks that global warming poses to its business under a deal with New York’s attorney general.
The agreement Wednesday between the attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, and the company, Xcel Energy of Minneapolis, is the first of its kind in the country. It could open a broad new front in efforts by environmental groups to pressure the energy industry into reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Until now, advocates have largely relied on shareholder resolutions as a way of pushing the companies to reduce their carbon dioxide output and invest more aggressively in renewable energy sources like wind or solar power.
That effort has picked up pace, according to Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups, with dozens of shareholder resolutions filed during the 2008 financial reporting season.
“This really takes it another step, by making it a settlement agreement that should have an impact across the industry,” said Dan Bakal, the director of electric power programs at Ceres.
Mr. Cuomo subpoenaed Xcel and four other companies last September, seeking to determine whether their efforts to build new coal-fired power plants posed risks not disclosed to investors, like future lawsuits or higher costs to comply with possible regulations restricting carbon emissions.
The attorney general’s office is still negotiating with the four other companies — the AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy and Peabody Energy. But Mr. Cuomo hopes that the agreement will help persuade other companies to follow in the footsteps of Xcel, which supplies natural gas and electricity to customers in eight states. Among utilities, Xcel is one of the nation’s largest producers of greenhouse gases and a major provider of wind energy.
Many coal-fired power plants have been proposed or are under construction across the country and environmental advocates have made it a priority to reduce their impact.
“This landmark agreement sets a new industrywide precedent that will force companies to disclose the true financial risks that climate change poses to their investors,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “Coal-fired power plants can significantly contribute to global warming, and investors have the right to know all the associated risks.”
The agreement represents another novel use by Mr. Cuomo of the Martin Act, a powerful tool that allows the attorney general to bring criminal as well as civil charges. Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, used the law to vastly expand the office’s investigations of suspected Wall Street malfeasance.
Now Mr. Cuomo has turned it into a de facto form of environmental enforcement, too. For energy companies, including those based far from New York, he is able to claim jurisdiction because they issue securities on Wall Street.
The agreement with Xcel requires the company to analyze the likely effects on its business of current and future legislation or regulations in the states and countries where it operates and to disclose that information in its investor filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Congress and many states are considering global warming legislation. Ten states stretching from Maryland to Maine, including New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, have struck a deal to cap emissions and allow trading of pollution allotments among producers.
Under the agreement with Mr. Cuomo, Xcel will disclose the financial risks of lawsuits and of federal or state court decisions that would affect its business. The company will also analyze and disclosed the “material financial risks” to itself associated with global warming, like drought — coal plants are prodigious users of water — or rising sea levels.In a statement, the chairman of Xcel, Richard C. Kelly, said the company had already voluntarily reduced carbon emissions and planned to continue to do so.
“We previously provided detailed information concerning the expected impact of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions regulations on our operations, and under this agreement we will make even more detailed disclosures,” Mr. Kelly said. “This agreement will enhance our already aggressive efforts to be responsible environmental stewards.”
Xcel officials said their reductions of greenhouse gases had totaled 18 million tons since 2003. They added that the company planned to build an additional 6,000 megawatts of renewable energy generation by the end of the next decade.
Justin McCann, an energy analyst at Standard & Poor’s, said that the company had included more detailed information on climate change risks in its most recent filing, since Mr. Cuomo’s investigation began. But the new agreement will require even more disclosure, he said, and probably encourage other companies to follow suit.
“Utility lobbies are very strong, but they have read the writing on the wall in terms of greenhouse gas reductions,” Mr. McCann said. “They know it is extremely popular with the public, and so they have wanted to get ahead of the curve, so they can have some input.”
But some of the companies that Mr. Cuomo scrutinized might be less amenable to adopting the new requirements than others. When Mr. Cuomo issued his subpoenas last year, Vic Svec, a spokesman for Peabody Energy, described the attorney general’s inquiry as “outrageous” and suggested that Mr. Cuomo’s use of the Martin Act was a form of legal harassment.
Reached Wednesday, Mr. Svec said: “We’re confident that our disclosures around CO2” — carbon dioxide — “have been and continue to be adequate.”
The State of Minnesota had to recently bail out the Minneapolis Schools Pension which was very heavily into elimintating potential intestments for "divestment reasons" They got 2% return on the pension fund investment versus 11% for PERA. Do the math. This political activism will cost Minnesaota taxpayers a half a billion dollars or more that $1000 per resident. Other school districts are in the smae bind so the ultimate cost could be catastrophic.
Xcel to Disclose Global Warming Risks By NICHOLAS CONFESSOREALBANY — One of the country’s largest builders of coal-fired power plants will give investors detailed warnings about the risks that global warming poses to its business under a deal with New York’s attorney general.
The agreement Wednesday between the attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, and the company, Xcel Energy of Minneapolis, is the first of its kind in the country. It could open a broad new front in efforts by environmental groups to pressure the energy industry into reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Until now, advocates have largely relied on shareholder resolutions as a way of pushing the companies to reduce their carbon dioxide output and invest more aggressively in renewable energy sources like wind or solar power.
That effort has picked up pace, according to Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups, with dozens of shareholder resolutions filed during the 2008 financial reporting season.
“This really takes it another step, by making it a settlement agreement that should have an impact across the industry,” said Dan Bakal, the director of electric power programs at Ceres.
Mr. Cuomo subpoenaed Xcel and four other companies last September, seeking to determine whether their efforts to build new coal-fired power plants posed risks not disclosed to investors, like future lawsuits or higher costs to comply with possible regulations restricting carbon emissions.
The attorney general’s office is still negotiating with the four other companies — the AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy and Peabody Energy. But Mr. Cuomo hopes that the agreement will help persuade other companies to follow in the footsteps of Xcel, which supplies natural gas and electricity to customers in eight states. Among utilities, Xcel is one of the nation’s largest producers of greenhouse gases and a major provider of wind energy.
Many coal-fired power plants have been proposed or are under construction across the country and environmental advocates have made it a priority to reduce their impact.
“This landmark agreement sets a new industrywide precedent that will force companies to disclose the true financial risks that climate change poses to their investors,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “Coal-fired power plants can significantly contribute to global warming, and investors have the right to know all the associated risks.”
The agreement represents another novel use by Mr. Cuomo of the Martin Act, a powerful tool that allows the attorney general to bring criminal as well as civil charges. Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, used the law to vastly expand the office’s investigations of suspected Wall Street malfeasance.
Now Mr. Cuomo has turned it into a de facto form of environmental enforcement, too. For energy companies, including those based far from New York, he is able to claim jurisdiction because they issue securities on Wall Street.
The agreement with Xcel requires the company to analyze the likely effects on its business of current and future legislation or regulations in the states and countries where it operates and to disclose that information in its investor filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Congress and many states are considering global warming legislation. Ten states stretching from Maryland to Maine, including New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, have struck a deal to cap emissions and allow trading of pollution allotments among producers.
Under the agreement with Mr. Cuomo, Xcel will disclose the financial risks of lawsuits and of federal or state court decisions that would affect its business. The company will also analyze and disclosed the “material financial risks” to itself associated with global warming, like drought — coal plants are prodigious users of water — or rising sea levels.In a statement, the chairman of Xcel, Richard C. Kelly, said the company had already voluntarily reduced carbon emissions and planned to continue to do so.
“We previously provided detailed information concerning the expected impact of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions regulations on our operations, and under this agreement we will make even more detailed disclosures,” Mr. Kelly said. “This agreement will enhance our already aggressive efforts to be responsible environmental stewards.”
Xcel officials said their reductions of greenhouse gases had totaled 18 million tons since 2003. They added that the company planned to build an additional 6,000 megawatts of renewable energy generation by the end of the next decade.
Justin McCann, an energy analyst at Standard & Poor’s, said that the company had included more detailed information on climate change risks in its most recent filing, since Mr. Cuomo’s investigation began. But the new agreement will require even more disclosure, he said, and probably encourage other companies to follow suit.
“Utility lobbies are very strong, but they have read the writing on the wall in terms of greenhouse gas reductions,” Mr. McCann said. “They know it is extremely popular with the public, and so they have wanted to get ahead of the curve, so they can have some input.”
But some of the companies that Mr. Cuomo scrutinized might be less amenable to adopting the new requirements than others. When Mr. Cuomo issued his subpoenas last year, Vic Svec, a spokesman for Peabody Energy, described the attorney general’s inquiry as “outrageous” and suggested that Mr. Cuomo’s use of the Martin Act was a form of legal harassment.
Reached Wednesday, Mr. Svec said: “We’re confident that our disclosures around CO2” — carbon dioxide — “have been and continue to be adequate.”
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Quick propane/natural gas primer:
Quick propane/natural gas primer: Propane, the stuff in you gas grill tank is basically refinery "flare gas" from the oil refining process that is recovered and processed. It liquefies at minus 70 farenheight and stays liquid at around 200 PSI.
Natural gas is a "lighter" gas found during oil drilling and increasingly from very deep wells where pressure and heat have "cooked" the oil deposits into natural gas. If you get a new gas appliance you have to specify propane or natural gas. The regulators and burners are a bit different but not by a lot.
In North Dakota there is a plant that converts coal to "natural gas". We probably consume some of this here in Minnesota.
I heard a figure that in the US 3% of the natural gas is brought in by LNG tanker ships. Basically the LNG ships are giant cryogenic containers where natural gas is chilled to a liquid at around minus 300 degrees F. It is used primarily in coastal area, notably the US Northeast and Southern California. Obviously, the LNG tanker is far more complex and costly than a pipeline. The remainder of natural gas "imports" in the US come from Canada and Mexico via pipeline.
For a common application of propane look for propane tanks on forklifts with engines. Both fuels burn cleaner than gasoline.
I just saw a commercial for natural gas as a vehicle fuel. It was http://cleanskies.org The commercial claimed natural gas costs "half of other fuels" which I assume means gasoline or diesel. I haven't checked out the website yet.
I'll cross post this at my http://fourfiftygas.com
Natural gas is a "lighter" gas found during oil drilling and increasingly from very deep wells where pressure and heat have "cooked" the oil deposits into natural gas. If you get a new gas appliance you have to specify propane or natural gas. The regulators and burners are a bit different but not by a lot.
In North Dakota there is a plant that converts coal to "natural gas". We probably consume some of this here in Minnesota.
I heard a figure that in the US 3% of the natural gas is brought in by LNG tanker ships. Basically the LNG ships are giant cryogenic containers where natural gas is chilled to a liquid at around minus 300 degrees F. It is used primarily in coastal area, notably the US Northeast and Southern California. Obviously, the LNG tanker is far more complex and costly than a pipeline. The remainder of natural gas "imports" in the US come from Canada and Mexico via pipeline.
For a common application of propane look for propane tanks on forklifts with engines. Both fuels burn cleaner than gasoline.
I just saw a commercial for natural gas as a vehicle fuel. It was http://cleanskies.org The commercial claimed natural gas costs "half of other fuels" which I assume means gasoline or diesel. I haven't checked out the website yet.
I'll cross post this at my http://fourfiftygas.com
Monday, August 25, 2008
Drilling Boom Revives Hopes for Natural Gas
This could be important with heating bills this winter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/business/25gas.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnlx=1219662757-jOejdAlB0K51cRO6CtOI0A&pagewanted=print
August 25, 2008
Drilling Boom Revives Hopes for Natural Gas
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
HOUSTON — American natural gas production is rising at a clip not seen in half a century, pushing down prices of the fuel and reversing conventional wisdom that domestic gas fields were in irreversible decline.
The new drilling boom uses advanced technology to release gas trapped in huge shale beds found throughout North America — gas long believed to be out of reach. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, releasing less of the emissions that cause global warming than coal or oil.
Rising production of natural gas has significant long-range implications for American consumers and businesses. A sustained increase in gas supplies over the next decade could slow the rise of utility bills, obviate the need to import gas and make energy-intensive industries more competitive.
While the recent production increase is indisputable, not everyone is convinced the additional supplies can last for decades. “The jury is still out how big shale is going to be,” said Robert Ineson, a natural gas analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.
Still, many people in the natural-gas industry believe a new era is at hand, and a rising chorus of Wall Street analysts and Congressional lawmakers supports that notion. Competition among companies for rights to the new gas has set off a frenzy of leasing and drilling.
“It’s almost divine intervention,” said Aubrey K. McClendon, chairman and chief executive of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers. “Right at the time oil prices are skyrocketing, we’re struggling with the economy, we’re concerned about global warming, and national security threats remain intense, we wake up and we’ve got this abundance of natural gas around us.”
Senior Democrats in Congress are getting behind natural gas, portraying it as an alternative fuel for transportation that can serve as a stopgap until renewable sources of energy, like solar and wind power, become economical on a broad scale.
“You can have a transition with natural gas that is cheap, abundant and clean,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC.
She also said that an investment she and her husband had made in a company that produces natural gas for use in automobiles, revealed last week by The Wall Street Journal, was not a conflict of interest because “I’m investing in something I believe in.”
Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, has introduced legislation to offer more tax credits to producers and consumers of natural gas and mandate the installation of natural gas pumps in some service stations.
Domestic gas production was up 8.8 percent in the first five months of this year compared with the period a year earlier, a rate of increase last seen in 1959, during the great drilling boom that followed World War II.
Most of the gain is coming from shale, particularly the Barnett Shale region around Fort Worth, which has been under development for several years. The increase in gas production stands in sharp contrast to the trend in domestic oil production, which has been declining steadily since 1970 and dropped 21 percent in the last decade alone.
The Barnett region proved that, using new technology, shale gas could be extracted on a large scale. But lately, companies have set their sights on shale formations that could produce far more gas than the Barnett.
Testing to determine the productivity of fields has been completed on just a tiny fraction of the potential acreage. According to a new report by Navigant Consulting, paid for by a foundation allied with the gas industry, there could be as much as 842 trillion cubic feet of retrievable gas in shales around the country, enough to supply about 40 years’ worth of natural gas, at today’s consumption rate. But thousands of wells need to be drilled before the exact reserves will be known.
Domestic natural gas prices have already plunged 42 percent since early July, an even faster drop in price than oil or most other commodities, in part because the rapid supply growth has begun to influence the market. Price spikes remain possible, of course, but throughout the industry the shale discoveries are causing a shift in thinking about the long-term outlook.
Black or brown shales are a type of sedimentary rock, high in organic matter, found beneath millions of acres in at least 23 states, including New York. The rock has been known for more than a century to contain gas, but it was considered virtually worthless until a decade ago because typical wells on such sites would produce gas briefly and then die.
Now, companies are drilling long, horizontal wells and pumping in water to fracture the rock, releasing vastly more gas than could the vertical wells of old.
The Barnett was the first shale field to undergo major development, and gas production has gone up tenfold since 2001, so that it now produces 7 percent of the nation’s supply of natural gas. At least two other shale formations, the Haynesville in Louisiana and Texas and the Marcellus in Appalachia, are believed to be even larger, though substantial production in those will take another two to five years.
Prospectors have identified at least two dozen shale beds in North America that could contain large amounts of gas.
“Production is clearly growing, and the growth is sustainable,” said Michael Zenker, a natural gas analyst at Barclays Capital.
A Deutsche Bank report, by the analyst Shannon Nome, recently estimated that production from the eight largest shale fields was likely to hit 6.6 billion cubic feet a day this year, or 11.8 percent of national gas production, and then rise to 14.5 billion cubic feet a day by 2011 — almost a quarter of domestic production.
“Shale is the most significant domestic natural gas find in 50 years,” said Chris Ruppel, an analyst at the institutional brokerage firm Execution, “which means the United States will become gas independent, and more industrially competitive versus Europe for gas-intensive industries such as chemicals, fertilizer, smelting iron and aluminum.”
Shale gas could ultimately be important beyond North America. The rest of the world has shale formations on an immense scale. Many of them are known to contain gas, but exploration and assessment of those fields with the new production techniques have barely started.
Several large shale fields are being explored in Canada. In the United States, real estate speculators are becoming overnight millionaires in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Texas by buying up parcels of land and flipping them to companies that drill for natural gas. Wildcatters are ordering every rig they can get their hands on, and paying signing bonuses of $25,000 an acre to drill below houses, schools and churches. Pipeline companies are building as fast as they can to get the new gas to market.
As the frenzy unfolds, some energy experts urge caution in projecting how big the new supplies will be and whether they will alleviate the loss in productivity of conventional wells, particularly those in the Gulf of Mexico.
“It’s hard for me to believe we will have more domestic gas production in six years than we have now,” said Chip Johnson, president and chief executive of Carrizo Oil and Gas, a Houston company involved in several of the shale fields.
The Energy Department’s 2008 estimates for shale gas reserves that may one day be economically produced stand at 125 trillion cubic feet, about a seventh of the most optimistic industry estimates. Jeffrey Little, a department gas analyst, said the government estimate was based on 2006 data and could increase after further testing.
“The larger reserves could very well be out there, but their magnitude is uncertain,” he said.
Some industry experts warn that shortages of engineers and rigs, scarcity of pipelines near some shale fields and fights over land and water use could slow development in some states.
In the Marcellus field, drilling and pipeline work must be done over woody and hilly terrain, and enormous amounts of water are needed to fracture the shale. Drilling has been halted in places after local regulators caught companies drawing water from streams without permits.
“We see natural gas as potentially a very important transitional fuel, but we can’t use it at the expense of our natural resources,” said Kate Sinding, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who warned that water-intensive drilling in shale could threaten local water supplies and aquifers.
Domestic gas production was in decline from the early 1990s to 2005, before production from shale beds and some lesser unconventional fields led to increases beginning in 2006. In the meantime, consumption increased by more than 15 percent, satisfied largely by rising imports.
Prices in recent years soared from less than $2 per thousand cubic feet in 1999 to more than $13 as recently as last month, before a precipitous decline in recent weeks. Natural gas closed Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange at $7.84 per thousand cubic feet, the lowest price since Feb. 1.
With the growth of power generation from natural gas, the Energy Department estimates that gas consumption will increase 3 percent this year and an additional 1.7 percent in 2009. But that is well below expected supply increases.
Such increases carry risks. Some in the gas industry fear that if prices fall too much, producers will pull back on their investments in drilling and development. “If prices drop much more,” said Mr. Johnson of Carrizo Oil and Gas, “producers will slow down or at least not be as aggressive.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/business/25gas.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnlx=1219662757-jOejdAlB0K51cRO6CtOI0A&pagewanted=print
August 25, 2008
Drilling Boom Revives Hopes for Natural Gas
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
HOUSTON — American natural gas production is rising at a clip not seen in half a century, pushing down prices of the fuel and reversing conventional wisdom that domestic gas fields were in irreversible decline.
The new drilling boom uses advanced technology to release gas trapped in huge shale beds found throughout North America — gas long believed to be out of reach. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, releasing less of the emissions that cause global warming than coal or oil.
Rising production of natural gas has significant long-range implications for American consumers and businesses. A sustained increase in gas supplies over the next decade could slow the rise of utility bills, obviate the need to import gas and make energy-intensive industries more competitive.
While the recent production increase is indisputable, not everyone is convinced the additional supplies can last for decades. “The jury is still out how big shale is going to be,” said Robert Ineson, a natural gas analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.
Still, many people in the natural-gas industry believe a new era is at hand, and a rising chorus of Wall Street analysts and Congressional lawmakers supports that notion. Competition among companies for rights to the new gas has set off a frenzy of leasing and drilling.
“It’s almost divine intervention,” said Aubrey K. McClendon, chairman and chief executive of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers. “Right at the time oil prices are skyrocketing, we’re struggling with the economy, we’re concerned about global warming, and national security threats remain intense, we wake up and we’ve got this abundance of natural gas around us.”
Senior Democrats in Congress are getting behind natural gas, portraying it as an alternative fuel for transportation that can serve as a stopgap until renewable sources of energy, like solar and wind power, become economical on a broad scale.
“You can have a transition with natural gas that is cheap, abundant and clean,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC.
She also said that an investment she and her husband had made in a company that produces natural gas for use in automobiles, revealed last week by The Wall Street Journal, was not a conflict of interest because “I’m investing in something I believe in.”
Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, has introduced legislation to offer more tax credits to producers and consumers of natural gas and mandate the installation of natural gas pumps in some service stations.
Domestic gas production was up 8.8 percent in the first five months of this year compared with the period a year earlier, a rate of increase last seen in 1959, during the great drilling boom that followed World War II.
Most of the gain is coming from shale, particularly the Barnett Shale region around Fort Worth, which has been under development for several years. The increase in gas production stands in sharp contrast to the trend in domestic oil production, which has been declining steadily since 1970 and dropped 21 percent in the last decade alone.
The Barnett region proved that, using new technology, shale gas could be extracted on a large scale. But lately, companies have set their sights on shale formations that could produce far more gas than the Barnett.
Testing to determine the productivity of fields has been completed on just a tiny fraction of the potential acreage. According to a new report by Navigant Consulting, paid for by a foundation allied with the gas industry, there could be as much as 842 trillion cubic feet of retrievable gas in shales around the country, enough to supply about 40 years’ worth of natural gas, at today’s consumption rate. But thousands of wells need to be drilled before the exact reserves will be known.
Domestic natural gas prices have already plunged 42 percent since early July, an even faster drop in price than oil or most other commodities, in part because the rapid supply growth has begun to influence the market. Price spikes remain possible, of course, but throughout the industry the shale discoveries are causing a shift in thinking about the long-term outlook.
Black or brown shales are a type of sedimentary rock, high in organic matter, found beneath millions of acres in at least 23 states, including New York. The rock has been known for more than a century to contain gas, but it was considered virtually worthless until a decade ago because typical wells on such sites would produce gas briefly and then die.
Now, companies are drilling long, horizontal wells and pumping in water to fracture the rock, releasing vastly more gas than could the vertical wells of old.
The Barnett was the first shale field to undergo major development, and gas production has gone up tenfold since 2001, so that it now produces 7 percent of the nation’s supply of natural gas. At least two other shale formations, the Haynesville in Louisiana and Texas and the Marcellus in Appalachia, are believed to be even larger, though substantial production in those will take another two to five years.
Prospectors have identified at least two dozen shale beds in North America that could contain large amounts of gas.
“Production is clearly growing, and the growth is sustainable,” said Michael Zenker, a natural gas analyst at Barclays Capital.
A Deutsche Bank report, by the analyst Shannon Nome, recently estimated that production from the eight largest shale fields was likely to hit 6.6 billion cubic feet a day this year, or 11.8 percent of national gas production, and then rise to 14.5 billion cubic feet a day by 2011 — almost a quarter of domestic production.
“Shale is the most significant domestic natural gas find in 50 years,” said Chris Ruppel, an analyst at the institutional brokerage firm Execution, “which means the United States will become gas independent, and more industrially competitive versus Europe for gas-intensive industries such as chemicals, fertilizer, smelting iron and aluminum.”
Shale gas could ultimately be important beyond North America. The rest of the world has shale formations on an immense scale. Many of them are known to contain gas, but exploration and assessment of those fields with the new production techniques have barely started.
Several large shale fields are being explored in Canada. In the United States, real estate speculators are becoming overnight millionaires in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Texas by buying up parcels of land and flipping them to companies that drill for natural gas. Wildcatters are ordering every rig they can get their hands on, and paying signing bonuses of $25,000 an acre to drill below houses, schools and churches. Pipeline companies are building as fast as they can to get the new gas to market.
As the frenzy unfolds, some energy experts urge caution in projecting how big the new supplies will be and whether they will alleviate the loss in productivity of conventional wells, particularly those in the Gulf of Mexico.
“It’s hard for me to believe we will have more domestic gas production in six years than we have now,” said Chip Johnson, president and chief executive of Carrizo Oil and Gas, a Houston company involved in several of the shale fields.
The Energy Department’s 2008 estimates for shale gas reserves that may one day be economically produced stand at 125 trillion cubic feet, about a seventh of the most optimistic industry estimates. Jeffrey Little, a department gas analyst, said the government estimate was based on 2006 data and could increase after further testing.
“The larger reserves could very well be out there, but their magnitude is uncertain,” he said.
Some industry experts warn that shortages of engineers and rigs, scarcity of pipelines near some shale fields and fights over land and water use could slow development in some states.
In the Marcellus field, drilling and pipeline work must be done over woody and hilly terrain, and enormous amounts of water are needed to fracture the shale. Drilling has been halted in places after local regulators caught companies drawing water from streams without permits.
“We see natural gas as potentially a very important transitional fuel, but we can’t use it at the expense of our natural resources,” said Kate Sinding, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who warned that water-intensive drilling in shale could threaten local water supplies and aquifers.
Domestic gas production was in decline from the early 1990s to 2005, before production from shale beds and some lesser unconventional fields led to increases beginning in 2006. In the meantime, consumption increased by more than 15 percent, satisfied largely by rising imports.
Prices in recent years soared from less than $2 per thousand cubic feet in 1999 to more than $13 as recently as last month, before a precipitous decline in recent weeks. Natural gas closed Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange at $7.84 per thousand cubic feet, the lowest price since Feb. 1.
With the growth of power generation from natural gas, the Energy Department estimates that gas consumption will increase 3 percent this year and an additional 1.7 percent in 2009. But that is well below expected supply increases.
Such increases carry risks. Some in the gas industry fear that if prices fall too much, producers will pull back on their investments in drilling and development. “If prices drop much more,” said Mr. Johnson of Carrizo Oil and Gas, “producers will slow down or at least not be as aggressive.”
Sunday, August 10, 2008
US Shale oil reserves that the Democratic Congress will not allow to be utilised.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021214.phpAugust 10, 2008
Shale Oil To Be Developed, But Not Here
We've written about the fact that the United States has by far the largest known oil shale deposits in the world. In fact our Rocky Mountain oil shale is believed to amount to as much as two trillion barrels, far more than the entire world has consumed since oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in the 19th century. This chart, from the Institute for Energy Research, shows how our oil shale reserves dwarf the petroleum controlled by other countries:
Unfortunately, the Democrats have been able to place these vast reserves off-limits. Now, one country has announced plans to develop its shale oil resources, but it isn't the United States, it's Jordan:
Energy-poor Jordan said on Sunday it was in talks with Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell on an agreement to extract oil from the desert kingdom's 40-billion-tonne oil shale reserves.
"Negotiations with Shell to sign a deal to process oil shale in Jordan are nearing an end," said Maher Hjazin, head of the state-run Natural Resources Authority. "If our plans succeed, it would be one of the country's largest projects to help the Jordan become energy self-sufficient, with a possibility to export oil in the future." ...
JEA president Wael Saqqa said exploiting the 40-billion-tonne oil shale reserves in 26 areas of Jordan "would provide the kingdom with oil for the coming 700 years."
Under the leadership of the Democratic Party, the United States continues to be the only country in the world that is deliberately devastating its own economy by refusing to develop its energy resources.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)