T. Boone Pickens on the Future of U.S. Energy

[stjr]

Thanks, Bridgetoll, for the article.  I guess the "associated/non-associated" discussion covers it.

Not disagreeing at all stjr.  Pickens point... and mine... is that we need to use ALL the energy resources at our disposal.  Natural gas has been ignored and limited in its uses in the past and it is time to exploit and rethink the various ways we can use it.  At the same time... we have large reserves of oil that we have ignored because it is too deep or too difficult or too environmentally sensitive to pursue.

I hear you.  I think Pickens would support you, he just puts a greater emphasis on natural gas than oil for the most new potential at the present time.  He doesn't seem to dismiss other options, he makes it clear all are worth pursuing as long as it supports U.S. energy independence.  In the end, Pickens is pushing for a coherent and implemented national energy policy because we aren't really taking the problem head on and that is probably the worst thing of all.

[BridgeTroll]

In the end, Pickens is pushing for a coherent and implemented national energy policy because we aren't really taking the problem head on and that is probably the worst thing of all.

Exactly!

[stjr]

Interesting editorial in the NY Times today regarding natural gas production in NY state:

October 17, 2009
Editorial
Shale and Our Water

New York State’s environmental regulators have proposed rules to govern drilling in the Marcellus Shale â€" a subterranean layer of rock curving northward from West Virginia through Ohio and Pennsylvania to New York’s southern tier. The shale contains enormous deposits of natural gas that could add to the region’s energy supplies and lift New York’s upstate economy. If done carefully â€" and in carefully selected places â€" drilling should cause minimal environmental harm.

But regulators must amend the rules to bar drilling in the New York City watershed: a million acres of forests and farmlands whose streams supply the reservoirs that send drinking water to eight million people. Accidental leaks could threaten public health and require a filtration system the city can ill afford.

Natural gas is vital to the nation’s energy needs and can be an important bridge between dirty coal and renewable alternatives. The process of extracting it, however, is not risk-free. Known as hydraulic fracturing, it involves shooting a mix of water, sand and chemicals â€" many of them highly toxic â€" into the ground at very high pressure to break down the rock formations and free the gas.

The technique is used in 90 percent of the oil and gas operations in the United States. And while most drilling occurs without incident, “fracking” has been implicated in hundreds of cases of impaired or polluted drinking water supplies in states from Alabama to Wyoming.

The dangers are particularly acute in the Marcellus Shale, which, unlike the relatively shallow formations found elsewhere, lies miles underground. Getting the gas out will require far more water and heavy doses of chemicals. While the rules would require drillers to take special precautions in the watershed, there are too many points â€" from the delivery of the fluid to the drilling site to the removal of spent fluid after it surfaces â€" where poisoned water could escape into the water supplies.

Quarantining the watershed also makes economic sense. The shale contains only one-tenth of the gas in the southern tier. One big accident could undo everything the city and state have done â€" buying up property, creating buffer zones around the reservoirs â€" to protect the watershed from development and pollution.

State officials worry that if they deny landowners the right to lease the mineral resources under their property â€" 70 percent of the watershed is privately owned â€" they will face expensive “takings” claims. But the state has a right and responsibility to prevent drilling that poses a clear danger to public health.

The state insists it has made a good-faith effort to assess the hazards, and its 800-page report is replete with scientific analysis. But it is the state’s analysis. What the state has not done, and what it must do, is give those who have serious doubts about drilling in the watershed a fair chance to state their case.

New York City’s acting environmental commissioner, Steven Lawitts, has warned of “chronic and acute impacts to water quality.” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and the Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, have asked the state for extensive public hearings. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has commissioned an independent scientific study of the risks to the watershed.

A fair review will not be possible unless the state’s absurdly quick Nov. 30 deadline for public comment is extended. The mayor’s study will not even be completed until mid-December. It is dangerously irresponsible to rush this decision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/opinion/17sat1.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

[CS Foltz]

Yes..........it is obvious we need to do something now! Mr Pickens has the right idea but his is only one voice and where is the Federal Government? This is something that we should have initiated long before now and like usual won't until it hits the fan! Wind,solar,shale,NG all are viable energy alternatives and should be implemented now and not later! By the way, just for informations sake..........would you believe Kansas still has a host of producing wells, I have never seen such a small rig in my life but a heap load 5' high NG or diesel powered.....there were even some smaller than that pumping to a holding tank or tanks......land of OZ still going!

[buckethead]

I seem to remeber hearing that natural gas did not transport through pipelines well because it would "spoil".

Any insight?

[CS Foltz]

buckethead.........that's a new one to me! Any gas or fluid should be able to move through pipe lines with the proper amount of pumping stations. LNG is usually transported by container.........but that maybe due to its nature. Liquefied Natural Gas is transported by bulk shipping in ships that are designed specifically for that so I am not sure how it would go bad as you suggest. Petroleum products are bulk shipped usually by barge and that is pretty normal.....barge shows up, gets filled up with various products and then goes to a bulk holding facility or a tank farm. When it leaves from there, usually in a tanker truck and then out to the stations that have placed an order. Example........Standard Oil Pascagoula refines and holds till a barge shows up for receipt of product. Most barges have various tanks to accept various products and then goes from there to a specified location such as Murphy Oil below Tallahassee. Product from there goes out in tankers to where that facility services a general area. Everyone from Refinery down gets to add something to the cost and that's how the middle men make their money. One load could go through 10 people before it gets to the consumer which is why things cost what they do.

[buckethead]

There are essentially three major types of pipelines along the transportation route: the gathering system, the interstate pipeline, and the distribution system. The gathering system consists of low pressure, low diameter pipelines that transport raw natural gas from the wellhead to the processing plant. Should natural gas from a particular well have high sulfur and carbon dioxide contents (sour gas), a specialized sour gas gathering pipe must be installed. Sour gas is extremely corrosive and dangerous, thus its transportation from the wellhead to the sweetening plant must be done carefully. Review the treatment and processing of natural gas.

http://www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/transport.asp

Apparently I was either misremembering what I had read or I was reading disinformation.

I do have a PHD in Google. Still working on my Masters.

[stjr]

Courtesy of Time Magazine, here is another energy alternative with promise.  We sure have lots of wood chips around here!

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009
How Wood Chips Can Keep You Warm â€" and Green
By Pat Dawson / Moscow

The tall smokestack and the industrial clanking of conveyors in Moscow, Idaho may look ominously anti-ecological but, the visitors senses are quickly jolted by a fresh aroma reminiscent of a walk-in cedar closet. It is indeed red cedar: tons of chips discarded by a timber mill and trucked in to fuel the University of Idaho's steam plant in the town of Moscow (population roughly 23,000). Thermal biomass provides over 80% of heat and hot water to the campus of nearly 11,000 students. Wood-fueled steam also powers five of the eight chiller units that cool the campus buildings during warm weather. Plant Manager Mike Lyngholm says the process significantly reduces the school's net carbon emissions and saves $2 million a year over natural gas.

"It's pretty much a no-brainer," explains Lyngholm during a tour of the facility. He is an academically trained forester who worked for many years running Northwest lumber mills but now enjoys being perceived as "one of the good guys" for running such a green operation. Idaho's system was a pioneer, coming on-line in 1986, and has been evolving since 2002 under Lyngholm, whose innovations include erecting a large building for stockpiling wood chips for times of supply shortages. The plant also burns campus landscape trimmings and discarded wooden cargo pallets. (See new ways to boost energy efficiency.)

Idaho's central boiler is heated by burning wood to temperatures approaching 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, performing on a par with what is called Advanced Wood Combustion (AWC) technology developed in Europe. "AWC is so clean and safe that AWC systems are commonly deployed in the midst of picture-perfect European towns and villages," says Daniel Richter, Professor of Soils and Forest Ecology at Duke University. They are different from ordinary plants that generate electricity by burning wood. In a piece in the journal Science last March, Richter wrote that 90% of the solar energy stored in wood is transformed into heat and power by AWC technology compared to 20% to 40% by simply firing wood. Furthermore, AWC burns so efficiently that it is considered to be virtually carbon neutral. (See an interactive graphic of a green home.)

One-third of U.S. energy supplies goes towards heating, making useof electricity, natural gas, oil, coal, propane and some wood. Advocates of technology like AWC argue that one third of that could be provided by modern wood combustion which would eliminate significant outlays for imported oil and cut net contributions of carbon emissions.

Even though such power plants have very little political backing, they have been popping up from New England to the Pacific Northwest. The new technology does have support â€" for now. Fuels For Schools is a a six-state program funded by federal and state money that helps to retrofit school boilers, switching them from burning oil and gas to wood. Starting in Vermont, it spread westward, giving budget-strapped local districts huge savings, and a way to cut into buildups of forest deadfall that might otherwise fuel wildfires. However, it is now almost out of federal money. Even after the program helped retrofit heating systems in 10 Montana schools, the last state Legislature refused to renew appropriations.

The grade school in Deer Lodge, Montana, recently converted to burning sawmill wastes, allowing its heating gas bill to immediately drop from $6,600 a month to $1,100. Townsend, Montana, schools converted their boilers from propane and oil to wood pellets. The new system is expected to pay for itself in fuel savings, plus selling CO2 emission offsets through The Climate Trust. Meanwhile, Vermont's Middlebury College is completing a central thermal biomass system that will provide heating and cooling, saving $2 million a year on fuel-oil bills, plus generating one-fifth of campus electrical-power needs. Middlebury is planting fast-growing willow shrubs on ten acres hoping it will provide as much as half the woody fuels needed by the new system. Says Duke's Richter: "It's a technology whose time has come."

From: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1932099,00.html

[mtraininjax]

Biomass is already happening in our backyard:

In 2007, the Fernandina Mill designed and installed a $30 million boiler that virtually eliminates the use of fossil fuels by burning environmentally-friendly biomass fuels, including the mill's own wood waste byproducts. This project saves approximately 200,000 barrels of oil per year and reduces air emissions by almost 70 percent.

Got this from the Rayonier website. They are working on ways to develop a larger biomass plant with JEA. Pretty cool I say!

[buckethead]

How much yard waste do we send to a landfill every year?

How many tons of tree trimmings does JEA (via subcontractors) send to a landfill every year?

Can construction debris be used?

The numbers would be good to know, as well as the logistical feasibility of collecting and storing such resources.

It occurs to me that we already pay to collect and store such "waste products".

[mtraininjax]

In San Francisco, they have a mandatory recycling program of kitchen waste as well. You know, egg shells, coffeer grinds, etc, they end up selling this as compost to companies for a profit. All we need now are a few creative minds in government who want to do the right thing.

[fsu813]

San Fran is so far ahead of the rest of the US, it's like comparing Morgantown, WV to Chicago, Il.

I heard about the program on NPR the otherday. They hope to be near zero landfill waste with-in 10 years i believe.

[CS Foltz]

Well we do pay for a "Collection Fee" right now.....that was one of several our esteemed Mayor initiated in an effort to balance a Budget that had no waste in it. We also pay to have our recyclables picked up and I am sure that someone somewhere is making money of of our garbage..........why we don't burn it and produce electricity from it......I have no idea! Trail Ridge Landfill is supposed to be filled up in the next 10 years or so and we have an ongoing Law suit right that is still making it way through the courts, I wonder how much that will end up costing the taxpayers? Mr Pickens is correct..........we need to pursue other lines of energy now not later!

[mtraininjax]

we need to pursue other lines of energy now not later

Agreed, we need to clean house in the mayor and city council and replace them with progressive "Idea" people. They will have bad ideas, but hopefully, they will have more good than bad. Right now we have professional politicians and garbage is something we all have and COULD PUT PEOPLE to work in plants that work to turn it into energy.

I know we are in the deep south, but sometimes I feel we live in a place that is dead from the neck up.

[BridgeTroll]

we need to pursue other lines of energy now not later

Agreed... This should be done... but not at the expense or exclusion of traditional sources.