My posting/spiel on the Million Dollar Way blog.

REDRANT:  AH! THE STORY OF MY LIFE!  "INVENTING THINGS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN INVENTED.  ACTUALLY IT IS CALLED "REVERSE ENGINEERING".  BASICALLY IF YOU MIX NATURAL GAS WITH INTAKE AIR IN A DIESEL ENGINE YOU WILL NEED TO KEEP IT LOW ENOUGH SO YOU DON'T GET "KNOCK" OR PRE-IGNITION.  YOU CAN THEN SUPPLEMENT WITH

DIESEL BUT WOULD WILL NEED LESS BECAUSE HYDROCARBONS ARE HYDROCARBONS.  I WOULD GUESS THAT DIESEL FUEL CONSUMPTION WOULD DECREASE BY ONE QUARTER TO ONE THIRD.   IF YOU RAN OUT OF NATURAL GAS YOU COULD RUN ON STRAIGHT DIESEL.  GREG LANG

http://milliondollarway.blogspot.com/2011/10/encana-expands-compressed-natural-gas.html#comments

Greg Lang said...

Two ideas here: First off, if the government wants to promote vehicle natural gas they should focus on give a subsidy for public natural gas filling stations where they don't have them now.
(A couple of weeks back I checked and the Twin Cities,MN has only one nat gas public filling station at a nat gas equipment yard four miles south of downtown Minneapolis.This was installed in the mid 1970's. If we subsidize vehicles too much we can get a "cargo cult" mentality where people and companies wait for a bigger subsidy.
Utah is the only state with something of a network. A natural gas car only has half the range of a regular gasoline car.

The second "muse" is a posting here a couple of days back about using natural gas in oil rig diesel engines. Older oil fields have long used "gasoline type" engines running on natural gas.

With the far higher compression of diesel engines running them on natural gas, or better yet "convertible" seems problematic. A full nat-gas air mix would through the intake would have a horrible "knock" to it since diesels get compression through ignition.

A couple of theories: The first is a very lean nat-gas mixture to use as a "diesel fuel extender". Keep it lean enough to prevent "knock" and use a diesel "spritz". Same as the current injection but lower amounts. This would not require much modification of the modern computer controlled diesels. Basically knock sensors that adjusted the nat-gas to air ration.

The second method would involve direct injection of the nat-gas. Diesel injection involves hydraulics while nat-gas injection would involve pneumatics. With heat a diesel engine can compress to almost 1,000 PSI so you need to work against that. This is complicated, especially with the injection speed needed.

That said, I have not worked on diesels since the early 1970 when they were pre electronics and pre-EPA.

REDRANT:   "THIS IS PREMISED ON THE IDEA THAT CO2 LEVELS ARE "HARD WIRED" TO TEMPERATURE IF SOME YET UNEXPLAINED WAY.  ONE-HUNDRED PARTS PER MILLION IS ONE PENNY IF WE THINK OF THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE AS $100.  THUS, OUR ATMOSPHERE HAS GONE FROM AROUND THREE PENNIES TO FOUR PENNIES SINCE THE START OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.  ALSO, LAB TESTS SHOW THE HEATING OF C02 TO BE ALGORITHMIC MEANING DIMINISHING RETURNS AFTER 25 PPM OR A QUARTER PENNY PER $100.


THE MOST PLAUSIBLE THEORY ABOUT THE UNDETECTABLE "HEAT" THE "AL GORE SCIENCE" COMPUTER MODELS "COMPUTE" IS CONTAINED IN "CRAZED SEX POODLES".


PERHAPS AL GORE CAN EXPLAIN THAT!  GREG LANG

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/columbus-to-blame-for-little-ice-age.php

POSTED ON OCTOBER 17, 2011 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN CLIMATE

COLUMBUS TO BLAME FOR LITTLE ICE AGE?

That anthropocentric theory was presented a few days ago at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America:

By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and the other explorers who followed may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe’s climate for centuries.

The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, diminishing the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooling climate, says Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford University. …

Tying together many different lines of evidence, Nevle estimated how much carbon all those new trees would have consumed. He says it was enough to account for most or all of the sudden drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded in Antarctic ice during the 16th and 17th centuries. This depletion of a key greenhouse gas, in turn, may have kicked off Europe’s so-called Little Ice Age, centuries of cooler temperatures that followed the Middle Ages.

This is all about global warming, of course. One of the fundamental problems with global warming alarmism is that the Earth’s climate has constantly been changing for many millennia, often far more dramatically than anything we have witnessed recently, and generally for reasons that can’t possibly be associated with carbon dioxide. So if Columbus caused the Little Ice Age, it perhaps supports the plausibility of humans being responsible for the current mild changes in the climate.

Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President, Science and Environmental Policy Project, is skeptical of the Columbus theory:

According to Michael Mann, cited in the article, the Little Ice Age did not exist. Although not uniform throughout the world, significant research indicates the Little Ice Age may have started about 200 years before Columbus sailed; thus, the causal relationship is somewhat difficult to establish.

Lord Conrad Black: Global Warning: Trust Scientists, Not Shamans

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/conrad-black/global-warming-science_b_1007166.html

A couple of years after the academic and statistical skullduggery of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other promoters of the global warming scare, and the shabby attempt at a comeback by the eco-centimillionaire, Nobel laureate and Oscar-winner, Al "Settled Science" Gore, it should be possible to develop a consensus for a less hair-raising (and harebrained) notion of climatic developments.

In the first decade of the new millennium, carbon emissions rose by 28.5 per cent without any discernible change in world temperature. The main ingredient in the carbon emission increase was a 47 per cent jump in coal consumption, the chief source for electricity generation in the largest carbon-footprint country of all, China. (This did not deter the Chinese from po-facedly demanding compensation from the advanced countries at the farcical Copenhagen Environment Conference two years ago, as it took the chair of the G-77 of aggrieved developing countries, demanding that the West pay massive Danegeld for the effrontery of their prior economic progress.)

The whole cap-and-trade, tax-and-limit movement has collapsed, just four years after the now thoroughly discredited IPCC announced that "most" of the world's average temperature increase in the last 60 years was "very likely due" to "anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions." The increase in that time is one centigrade degree, and the evidence of the last decade, which is the period when the connection to such emissions has been sought, debunks the notions that there is any increase and that there is any relationship to human-generated carbon emissions.

The incontestable need for increased energy production has overwhelmed the brief and delusional consensus behind the deranged boondoggle of cardigan-clad builders of windmills and solar panels. (Both business administration and psychiatry faculties of the future will want to know what possessed T. Boone Pickens to bet $1 billion on windmills.)

The effort to turn ecological alarms into another club applied to the public policy cranium of the United States, including by such eminences of the Ecopraetorian Guard as Barack Obama and Tom Friedman, has also collapsed. In the past decade, American carbon emissions have declined by 1.7 per cent, (largely because of a heavy American transition from coal to shale-derived natural gas), while Chinese carbon emissions have risen by 123 per cent. The Chinese will be a good deal less indulgent of the eco-flagellators than the U.S. has been. One of the most delicious ironies of this turn of events has been the fact that Europe, despite all its self-regulation and Gadarene charge into the Kyoto environmental fantasy and its obsessive-compulsive fault-finding opposite, supposed American eco-insouciance, have earned substantially larger carbon footprints over the last decade.

The charlatans and zealots who promoted or allowed ecology to become the ultimate broad church gathering together everyone from the bird-watchers and butterfly collectors with their binoculars and nets, to the loopy militants chaining themselves to trees and trying to climb the anchor chains of visiting U.S. Navy vessels, should be allowed to subside without a sadistically prolonged stay in the pillory. (The amiable Tom Friedman can retrofit himself to redoubled agitation for the right of every newborn babe to an iPad.)

We can all agree that pollution is bad and must be curbed, that environmental vigilance is essential and must be made more scientifically rigorous, and that more abundant energy is desirable to create jobs and generalize prosperity and not just mindless consumption. The exposure of the IPCC excesses cannot be allowed to mask complacency, profligacy, and humbug.

In the aftermath of the gigantic meltdown of the international left in the 1990s, the environmental movement suddenly became the great shelter for all who wished to assault the triumphant West, including the domestic carriers of what Malcolm Muggeridge described prophetically as "The Great Liberal Death Wish." The pastoral, the faddish, the iconoclasts, all set up a cry like a mad scrum of fox-hunters, cockahoop. As they disperse, we should be on heightened alert against some new reassembly under new and deceptively false colors. The West should drill for oil, convert to natural gas, (including automobiles), and pursue energy efficiency and cleaner air and water in always that are not neurotic or sociopathic.

Powerlineblog.com: ENERGY FOR AMERICA Website.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/energy-for-america.php

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN ENERGY POLICY

ENERGY FOR AMERICA

A new web site called Energy For America has been launched. It is a joint project of Americans for Prosperity, Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance. The site’s purpose is to educate Americans about our plentiful energy resources and help to mobilize popular support for energy development. It looks to me like it is off to a good start. Among other things, you can sign a petition that reads as follows:

The United States has the largest energy reserves on Earth. Our supplies of natural gas, oil, coal, hydropower, wind, etc. can supply this Nation with all the energy we need for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, for years a handful of Administration officials, Congressmen, and unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC have prevented us from having access to our own energy resources, mostly because they want to make energy scarce and therefore expensive. Now, some of that same clique wants to make sure that energy consumers are punished by increasing the cost of the most affordable and reliable energy sources we have.

If citizens are allowed to explore for and produce the energy resources that they own, and if consumers are allowed to select the most affordable and reliable energy sources, we can grow the economy, immediately create opportunities and jobs, harvest more affordable and reliable energy, help heal communities that are suffering, and provide local, State, and even the federal governments with stable, growing sources of revenues.

Join AEA in this fight. Sign our petition below to President Obama and Congress. Tell Washington it’s time to get America working again; it’s time to allow us to explore for and produce our abundant, domestic energy resources.

This graphic shows how America’s utilization of its oil drilling rigs lags behind the rest of the world, running currently at just over 50%, and declining. Click to enlarge:

Energy For America looks like a valuable contribution to the movement to liberate America’s energy resources.

NY Times: The Depression: If Only Things Were That Good

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/sunday-review/the-depression-if-only-things-were-that-good.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


Redrant: "I just finished reading a HotAir.com linked New York Times article "
The Depression: If Only Things Were That Good"
(NO MENTION OF ENERGY IN THE ARTICLE!)  Greg Lang

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/the-new-hockey-stick.php

POSTED ON OCTOBER 6, 2011 BY STEVEN HAYWARD IN CLIMATE

THE NEW HOCKEY STICK?

Everyone who follows the climate change controversy even casually will know about the“hockey stick” controversy.  Well, Nature magazine this week offers a new graph of interest: the rising trend of retractions of scientific research papers (see blow).  Lo and behold, it looks like a hockey stick!  (Heh.)

The Nature story notes:

[B]ehind at least half of them lies some shocking tale of scientific misconduct — plagiarism, altered images or faked data — and the other half are admissions of embarrassing mistakes. But retraction notices are increasing rapidly. In the early 2000s, only about 30 retraction notices appeared annually. This year, the Web of Science is on track to index more than 400 — even though the total number of papers published has risen by only 44% over the past decade.

There’s a lot more here to ponder, such as the essentially hollow and meaningless nature of modern peer review, and the increasingly tribal and ideological drift of much of the academic scientific establishment.  Some other time perhaps I’ll get further into these matters.

Dan Sarewitz, always worth reading

Elsewhere in this week’s issue of Nature, Dan Sarewitz of Arizona State University, one of the truly honest brokers in the academic science and policy world, offers a terrific essay on what’s wrong with so-called “consensus” science reports.  (Dan is a pal, but hat tip to RH for bringing Dan’s piece to my attention.)  The article may be behind a subscriber firewall, so here’s a relevant excerpt:

When scientists wish to speak with one voice, they typically do so in a most unscientific way: the consensus report. The idea is to condense the knowledge of many experts into a single point of view that can settle disputes and aid policy-making. But the process of achieving such a consensus often acts against these goals, and can undermine the very authority it seeks to project. . .

The very idea that science best expresses its authority through consensus statements is at odds with a vibrant scientific enterprise. Consensus is for textbooks; real science depends for its progress on continual challenges to the current state of always-imperfect knowledge. Science would provide better value to politics if it articulated the broadest set of plausible interpretations, options and perspectives, imagined by the best experts, rather than forcing convergence to an allegedly unified voice.

Yet, as anyone who has served on a consensus committee knows, much of what is most interesting about a subject gets left out of the final report.

Bakken explained.

BASICALLY, FIRST SUCCESSFUL BAKKEN RANGE WELL IN 2000.  THE BAKKEN IS A MILE OR TWO DEEP, WHICH IS EASY FOR DRILLING BUT THE OIL BEARING LAYERS AVERAGE ONLY 125 FEET THICK.   THEY ALSO HAVE ONLY 5% PERMEABILITY (THINK OF CLAY SOIL LAND WITH POOR DRAINAGE, SAND IS EXCELLENT DRAINAGE) .  BAKKEN NEEDS $40 TO $50 BENCHMARK CRUDE OIL PRICES TO COVER COSTS. (CHECK!)  

THE NEXT IS HORIZONTAL DRILLING.  AFTER TWO YEARS THIS IS STILL "MAGIC' TO ME BUT IT WORKS.  A 90 DEGREE QUARTER TURN IS TYPICALLY A 600 FOOT RADIUS.  TO VISUALIZE THIN OF A FULL-SIZE FREEWAY "CLOVERLEAF WHERE YOU TAKE THE OUTSIDE 90 DEGREE TURN, LET'S SAY NORTH TO EAST.  THAT IS CLOSE TO OUR PIPE CURVE.   THEY CAN GO HORIZONTAL SOMETIMES WITH MULTIPLE HORIZONTAL PIPES.

THE THIRD FACTOR IS "FRACKING" WHICH IS BASICALLY LIKE CLEANING OUT CLOGGED DRAIN PIPES.  LIKE OUR DROUGHT AND FLOODED RIVERS THE ANCIENT INLAND SEAS IN THE BAKKEN GOT A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT FLOW RATES AND DIFFERENT SEDIMENTS.  EVERY 600,000 YEARS WHAT IS NOW YELLOWSTONE PARK WOULD EXPLODE SENDING AN AREA THE SIZE FOR THE TWIN CITIES METRO INTO THE AIR.  WILLISTON MIGHT GET SIX FEET OF ASH JUST FROM THE AIR.  EVERY TWO MILLION YEARS YELLOWSTONE WOULD HAVE A "BIG BANG".  THIS AIRBORN ASH MAKES MAKES A GOOD TOP SEAL CLAY (REMEMBER A LOT MORE OF IT ENTERS DUE TO EROSION).  IT DOES TEND TO PERMEATE INTO ROCK MUCH LIKE GREASE GETS INTO A DRAIN PIPE.  

BASICALLY HOT WATER AND SURFACENTS (BASICALLY SOAP) CAN SOFTEN AND REMOVE THE CLAY THAT GETS IN THIS OIL BEARING ROCK.  THAT AND SOME WATER PRESSURE OPENS GAPS IN THE OIL BEARING LAYERS.  IT'S RATHER LIKE USING THE HOSE AND EXPANDING BULB TO CLEAN YOUR DRAIN PIPES.  THIS IS REPLACE BY SAND OR AN ARTIFICIAL SAND CALLED 'PROPPANTS, WHICH ARE BASICALLY CERAMIC ARTIFICIAL SAND.

THE PROCESS IS COSTLY, ESPECIALLY WITH THE BOOM-TOWN SITUATION BUT IT IS GETTING MORE EFFICIENT WITH TIME AND EVERYTHING OVER $40-50 PER BARREL IS BASICALLY GRAVY.  THERE IS A "BALLPARK-NUMBER" THAT A BAKKEN WELL CAN RECOVER COSTS IN THREE YEARS.  IT CAN PRODUCE FOR THREE DECADES OR MORE SO THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR A LOT OF "GRAVY".  

AS TO TOTAL DEPOSITS JUST IN THE BAKKEN THEY COULD CONCEIVABLY BE FIVE TIMES SAUDI ARABIA.  SAUDI ARABIA IS IN DECLINE, WITH HIGHLY PERMEABLE SAND IN THE GWAR FIELD.  WHEN LIBYA WAS CUT OFF SAUDI ARABIA COULD NOT REPLACE THE "LIGHT SWEET CRUDE" THE POORLY UPDATED EUROPEAN REFINERIES RELIED ON.  I READ ALL THE LINKED TECHNICAL REPORTS AND SOME SINKS IN.  THE BAKKEN PROCESS IS APPLICABLE TO MUCH OF THE WORLD INCLUDING MY FAVORITE FOREIGN COUNTY ISRAEL.  IT CAN ATTONE FOR MOSES "FORGETTING" TO PUT OIL IN THE ONE PLACE THAT THE JEWS CHOSE AS "THE PROMISED LAND".

I TOOK ON THE SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY AND WITH THE HELP OF MANY WON THE FIGHT.  I HAVE THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT.  I STRONGLY BELIEVE THAT THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY.  WITH THE AID OF OUR CANADIAN ALLIES NORTH AMERICA CAN BE ENERGY INDEPENDENT IN A DECADE.  FOR TWO CENTURIES CANADA HAS ONLY DRAWN AMERICAN BLOOD IN COMBAT ON THE HOCKEY RINK.