pickens plan 3yrs later

[Ianab]

How do thin-walled propane tanks hold up in vehicular accidents?  For all the fake explosions we see in car crashes on TV, we don't have too many explosions with gas powered vehicles in real life. (Remember the Pinto!)

The "thin walled" tanks are still 10X stronger than a petrol tank.

Locally some have been in accidents and caught fire. The tanks have "burst disks" that vent the gas if the tank starts cooking, and so only feeds a relatively normal sort of fire. No worse than a leaking petrol tank really.

Yes there is a fire risk, but a normal car is carrying around a similar amount of potentially explosive fuel.

Ian

[Al_Smith]

Al ... when were the shortages? Prior to 2008 I'm guessing when every Natural Gas Shale play in the world came out of the woodworks? We've got hundreds of years worth with just what we have in the USA.

Judging by the age you listed you were just a little fellow in say 1978 .Supposidely gas was in short supply .The powers to be suggested every one turn their home heating to 65 degrees during the day .That was also about the time when woodburners enjoyed somewhat of a rebirth for want of a better word .

Companys came out of the woodwork,Buck Stove ,Earth stove and a hundred others .

Now in say 1987-88 or so after the price was deregulated and the cost per MCF jumped at least 5 fold they all of the sudden had all kinds of gas .Funny how that worked .There seems to be a connection ,doesn't there .

You know the little first home I had in 1971 could be heated for 15 bucks a month .I'd say it would take about 225 now in January . It's doubtfull it uses any more gas though .

[LOGDOG]

Glad I could help out with the reminder Submarinesailor. 

Yep Al, I would have been 3 years old. Now I know why my dad kept the thermostat on 65 up in WI in the winter and we burned wood primarily. Used to hate splitting that wood every night after school and wheeling 2-3 wheelbarrow loads in every night. I was skinny so it was a real push for me. I remember my little brother used to hold the wedge and I'd swing. I had the better end of the deal let me tell ya'!  I wasn't a real good shot with a splitting mall back then. ....My poor little brother. Wow, that brings back memories.

[Mooseherder]

I hope all or most of the current energy suppliers get locked out and shut out of any new streams of energy.
That would create some competition for your energy dollar.  If the current players harvest the next line of solutions there won't be any relief.  This is probably most unlikely to happen.

[LOGDOG]

Yep, too late. In fact, were it not for them driving advancements in those fields and investing in infrastructure it wouldn't be happening any other way right now.

[Ianab]

This is true.

The oil companies are the ones with the cash to invest in different forms of energy.

Of course they are doing it for their own financial reason, not from the kindness of their hearts. But if everyone starts switching to solar panels and battery cars, they want to be the ones selling the panels and the batteries, even if their oil becomes worthless.

It's called free enterprise. 

Ian

[Al_Smith]

Oh no doubt it's all coming out of the same pot so to speak . The big boys have a lot of irons in their fires .

[SPIKER]

T Boone is heavy vested in Clean Energy Fuels stock ticker (CLNE).  (So am I )  I have 200 shares is all now I picked up last week, it jumped 4 bucks this week with Chesapeake Energy (CHK) shelling out 150 million this year (10 billion over ten years) to them to build LNG stations (and to use gas from them CHK natural gas that is.)   I dont have any CHK stock anymore sold out a while back.   They CHK has a estimated natural gas reserves to last 100+ years at today's current usage just themselves.  They have more gas holdings than EXXON (XOM) (or did as of a few months back but they CHK did sell a bunch off to CHINA and XOM bought a 5th or 6th place player so I think as of very recent times CHK is now 2nd place for total proven reserves of Nat Gas.   

Anyhow ask a question & I can probably answer about either of these companies as I done a lot of work & invested my own $ into them ...

The CNG stations also are coming to different places all over mostly so far on Interstates with Flying J and near Trash/Muni Bus lines and UPS is also putting in stations at many of the distribution hubs...   

LNG (Propane) is a Oil Process by product so you need to be pulling oil out of the ground and converting it to liquid fuel and you will get methane/propane off as byproducts of the cooking process I believe.   Nat Gas comes out in a mostly 100% usable state as is.   LNG will foul oil pretty bad as it contains a lot of moisture and has no "Lead" MBT to seal up rings when running so you do have long term damage when no additives are used in it.   Most propane does not contain the motor fuel additives to help it and the use in Winter can be a problem as the engine needs to heat up to vaporize the LPG liquid into gas form with a little water to air convertor (forget its name but used to have to fix em on fork trucks) that once the engine warms up it will be able to pull more off the tank & run better.   I'm not sure if this is needed with Nat Gas conversions but I would imagine something similar is needed even though Nat Gas is still gas only at higher pressure and not turned into liquid that I know of...

Mark

[LOGDOG]

Good to have another fan of NG around SPIKER.

Actually our own Pineywoods has a good bit of experience on this topic. Maybe when he gets back from the EAA fly in we can have him chime in with his two cents. He and I had talked about starting a thread on this subject. That's actually why I went and took those pictures I posted in this thread.

Submarinesailor ... do you happen to have a link to that piece you were reading about the 450 TCF and 705 TCF of NG? I'd like to have that around for reference in other conversations at my office.

[Gary_C]

I find it hard to believe that the long haul truckers will ever convert to CNG because you cannot carry enough volume of fuel. Most heavy over the road trucks carry 300 gallons of diesel and from these numbers that would require 37.5 MCF of CNG and compressed to 3600 psi it would take the equivalent of two 2 foot diameter high pressure tanks of 24 feet long each tank. And those are some seriously big, heavy, and expensive tanks.

On the other hand, you could put nozzles on the back of those tanks and light them off when going up hills and get a boost.   

[Peach James]

As far as fuel density is concerned, the truckers will burn whatever makes most sense economically.  If it makes more sense to stop every 200 miles and fuel up for 15 min, then that's what they will do.  If it makes more sense to burn liquid vs gas, then that's what they will do.  Same reason why the railroads are not burning CNG in diesel engines, because somewhere the numbers become lopsided.  (I'd guess, here, that it might be in the form of road tax, which railways don't pay on fuel).  It's the same reason why classic coal fired steam doesn't make economic sense, even when coal is far cheaper than CNG, or basically, anything else on a $/BTU basis, save nuclear/hydro & perhaps wind.  If it made sense for railways to electrify, Canadian Pacific Railway has the rights for a bunch of water in the Rockies, and would have done so.  I'm sure they have someone who has done the study to prove at what point it is worth electrifying.  If it made sense for them to invest in building new steam locos, they'd be in on the ground floor.  It doesnt make $$$ sense, on a return on capital basis.

I'm saying that, as someone who works with oil fired steam on a daily basis, and plays with coal fired steam on an as I find time basis.  I know, probably better than most, what the trade offs for running "cheap" fueled vehicles are, and they don't make sense at the current fuel cost vs labour costs. 

Ultimately, both Coal and Oil have fed a huge amount of development of our world, via the reduced input cost of energy they have provided.  If there truely is 100 years of NG reserves in Canada/USA, then that will take us a long way from here.  I'd like to think that we can come up with something over the next 100 years that will take the place of the majority of fossel fuel use, but we're on year 300 or so of burning them, and haven't got much better yet.  I do apprecate driving my van @ 12.1 L/100 km, vs my truck at 25 or so...so, I think we are moving in the right directions.

James

[SwampDonkey]

I think it will remain cheaper than gas/diesel as long as it is a second option. If everyone switches over, in a short time it will put a hurt on supply and drive up prices. But, that being said we have to move forward to advance research in other energy options.

[Ianab]

LNG (Propane) is a Oil Process by product so you need to be pulling oil out of the ground and converting it to liquid fuel and you will get methane/propane off as byproducts of the cooking process I believe.   Nat Gas comes out in a mostly 100% usable state as is.

Depends on the actual well.

Some structures produce just gas, others gas / propane, some that + heavier crude oil.

You are probably right that a pure gas well is pretty clean, and any water / CO2 can easily be removed, leaving a clean burning gas.

If a well produces heavier hydrocarbons it will get more technical to separate out, and you tend to get hydrates and all sorts of weird stuff in there. But on the Maui B FPSO they were recovering a gas/lpg/oil mix. On the floating station they used centrifuges to separate gas / oil / water. The water was cleaned up and dumped overboard. The oil went into the tankers storage for later offloading, the the methane thru butane mix went by pipeline to a shore station where the natural gas and lpg were separated and purified.

I'm not a petrochemical engineer, but I did fix computers for them for a while, and on the platforms / FPSO and shore based processing plants. In the "waiting for Windows too..." times you got to look at the maps and diagrams on the wall, and got to work out how the places worked.

Ian

[Kansas]

A few thoughts.

I know we have a plentiful supply of natural gas. But what would happen if most trucks and even cars did switch over? Just because you have a 100+ year supply does not mean that you can extract it all at once. That is, you would be replacing a huge amount of fuel on a daily basis. Wonder if anyone has done studies regarding how many could switch with what capacity we have to take it out of the ground.

I think railroads would shy away from coal simply from a  regulation standpoint plus a pr standpoint regarding pollution, plus a water infrastructure problem. There is a set of tracks right behind our mill. Once every year or two, an old steamer comes through. People line up along the tracks to take pictures. You can see it coming from a long ways away. If I am not mistaken,they use fire trucks to replenish the water supply as needed along the way. Its really neat to see, just from a historical perspective.

 Natural gas however, would be clean burning. And if volume was a problem, I would think they could always have a car right behind the engine with it, just swap out a mostly empty tank with a full one.

We won't find one magic bullet to end our dependence on foreign oil. I still think algae to oil holds tremendous promise. Plug in electric and/or electric hybrids do so as well. Just wish we had an energy policy in this country committed to putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. We could wipe out 2/3 of our trade deficit if we could.

[Ianab]

With trains it's probably more efficient to use electric trains, even if they are powered by a "combined cycle" natural gas power plant.  The efficiency of those is pretty good as they use gas turbines (jet engines) to generate, then put the hot exhaust gas through a heat exchanger, to make steam and generate another 20% more power from the same gas.

Then with a train, it uses power going uphill, but downhill they can use regenerative braking to pump power back into the grid while slowing the train down. Was talking to a local railway engineer and he said they that with a train between Wellington and Auckland, they got 1/2 the power back on the downhill parts of the track. Solves the problem of having to carry the fuel, AND you get much better efficiency. As modern Locos are diesel / electric anyway, you move the generating part off the train, meaning it can have more powerful electric motors, powered from 100s of miles away.

Ian

[Al_Smith]

I think if one were to look at sources of fuel or motive power it would just depend on the area and sources available .Propane might work real well in the southern part of the US might  not be  so good in Indiana ,certainly not on Alaska .

Electric plug ins would be great for short commutes in say Washington DC but not worth a hoot in New Mexico where the nearest town might be 90 miles away .

Low pressure natural gas works just fine to power home standby generaters but would present a problem powering a big semi because they'd have to have about 3 times the engine size and have a pressure  can tanker following them .So it's all in the application  the way I see it .

As far as trains ,portions of the eastern seabord run fully electric trains fed from overhead trolley systems ,works fine .Not so good going across Kansas though .

Steam consumed so much coal and water they had to have three times the work force back in the day just to keep them fueled .Those big steamers would eat up like a ton of coal per mile and use huge amounts of water .The one thing you don't want to do is run a steamer out of water,not good .

Besides that they tore up the tracks .When General Motors started selling the diesel electrics they often used the monatary  figure of what the diesel would save in just track maintainance as a selling point over steamers .My friends father was a GM man ,pretty high up too .I got the whole history of the diesel  electrics right from the source over many cans of beer BTW . We'd often compair the drive systems of same to the diesel subs I served on . Old Joe is gone now but never forgotten .

[LOGDOG]

Speculation on the subject is interesting for sure. One thing we have to remember though, is that even though "we" may think that it's not viable to use a NG variable for over the road heavy trucks ... the fact is, it's getting ready to happen. You have a company like Westport that's fully prepared to supply the motors and systems for the trucks. You have a companies like Chesapeake spending $155 Million near term and a $1 Billion over the next ten years building infrastructure to support this shift. Add to it companies like the Flying J adding CNG pumps in every state in the lower 48. It's happening. We need to at some point let go of what didn't work years ago, and come to grips with the idea that somewhere along the line, engineers in these companies have addressed some of these concerns right? Surely these companies wouldn't go off half-cocked and spend Billions of dollars pre-maturely without having a viable plan.

You know and I know that we will not see a 100% change over with the snap of a finger. We all drive the cars we drive. Those will need to wear out. The segment of the population that can't afford new technology will drive the older cars until they're flat worn out ...just like they do today. However, there will be those that switch. I'll be one of the first. I'm actually considering it now. I was going to convert my F350 but I've got that 6.0 in there and I'm thinking about just trading it and ordering a new vehicle that's set up for CNG. We's still have the Tahoe as a back up in case we needed to go very far where there wasn't a CNG fueling option for my vehicle.

My point is, it has to start somewhere. If not now, when? Between the U.S. and Canada, we're sitting on a mecca of fuel sources. I'd much rather spend money with our peace loving Canadian neighbors than the hateful dictators of the Middle East. Wouldn't you guys?

News Bulletin:

In this morning's news Petrohawk is bought for $12.1 Billion dollars in cash by BHP BILLITON!!! The stock is up 63.35% overnight to $38.37/share.

See below:
BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s largest mining company, agreed to acquire Petrohawk Energy Corp. for $12.1 billion in cash to extend its shale oil production in the U.S.
Melbourne-based BHP will pay Petrohawk $38.75 a share, the two companies said today in a statement. That’s 65 percent more than the Houston-based company’s closing price on July 14.
The acquisition gives BHP three assets across about one million net acres in Texas and Louisiana. BHP agreed to pay $4.75 billion in cash in February for Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Arkansas shale gas assets to tap growth in the U.S. gas market, the world’s biggest.
“Petrohawk has a focused portfolio of three world class onshore natural gas and liquids rich shale assets,” BHP Petroleum Chief Executive J. Michael Yeager said in the statement.
Petrohawk fell 1.8 percent to close yesterday at $23.49 at in New York. BHP fell 0.1 percent to A$43.60 at the 4:10 p.m. close of Sydney trading yesterday.
The purchase would be the largest acquisition of a U.S. exploration and production company since Exxon Mobil Corp. bought XTO Energy Inc. for $34.9 billion in 2009, according to Bloomberg data.

[Kansas]

I agree that a lot of vehicles won't change for a long time. But... you take the national chain trucking companies, once the infrastructure is in place to fuel them, they will change fast. I don't know how often national chains like Schnieder, J B Hunt, Fed Ex and others replace their trucks. But if they can get fuel for not much more than half price of diesel, they will change quickly. If they have the clout to contract natural gas for whatever length of time to depreciate out the trucks, and I imagine they would, bean counters in the companies will change over fast. And they really won't worry if the drivers have to spend more time fueling up. After all, log books dictate resting times.  And with all the GPS systems in trucks now, they will know when and where to fuel, and how often. Those companies operate on really thin margins. Lowering the price of fuel that much will mandate it simply to compete with the others.

[Al_Smith]

Pickens might have an idea for a portion of the energy crunch but it's not the whole plan, nothng in itself is .Collectively between coal,wind power ,hydro ,natural gas and the like it could make a dent in it though .

It just depends on what you have on hand as to what to use . For example the Hoge lumber company of New Knoxville Ohio has a wood scrap burning electrical generation plant that has proven cost effective .Due to the fact they are the largest supplier of bowling alley hard maple in the world they are just burning  refuse that would otherwise just be a waste product .That wouldn't work too well in parts of the great plains where just a single tree is rare to find .

[LOGDOG]

You're right Kansas. The heavy trucks will change quickly. Especially if the $64,000.00 tax credit for the NG powered trucks is approved. It'll be awesome. I'd rather pay for that through tax-spending vs. a war in the Middle East. Americans will be building these trucks and if we're smart ... we won't buy these vehicles from overseas. Put our people to work building them and infrastructure.

Al ...one thing different about the scrap wood burning electrical generation from NG is that the pipeline network is outstanding in the USA. Costs very little to move NG vs. say loading wood scrap and shipping it to an area where there is none either by rail or heavy truck. Here's a link to the NG pipeline network. http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publications/ngpipeline/ngpipeline_maps.html

For the most part, pipelines are present wherever there is much population in the USA. We'd probably need to build more as demand comes online but that's great ...more American Jobs.