Energy usage in the USA. And 5 years out

[Kansas]

Just read an interesting article on natural gas and buses. Seems the LA metro buses are on it. The guy running it is judged on tailpipe emissions. So its much better for the smog that they fight all the time. Thing is, he is running the buses at 1/3 the fuel cost as before. Article also stated that storage for natural gas may well run out this summer. Just too much coming on to the market. But I figure, if you can run buses for 1/3 the cost on fuel, it won't be long that first regional trucks, then coast to coast trucks will be running on it. Actually, for the regional trucks, its already started in a big way.

[Al_Smith]

Here's another thought .In the nuke game the players change .Could be GE ,could be Westinghouse .Was Foster -Wheeler ,Babcock -Wilcox ,Delaval.

Westinghouse built roaster ovens .GE sold light bulbs ,Delaval sold automatic milking machines .How in the world did they get in the nuke biz .Then again what did an oilfield exploration company like Haliburton have to do with feeding the troups in the middle east ?

The common thread with all of this is called politics ,who  you know .Who's arm can be twisted and who you caught in a comprimising situation with a goat and have a film with same .

This guy who built a controlled bomb in his garage could build them as tiny as a match book but if his politics aren't right they'll never fly .

Sure it's a great dream like a trash burning reactor in the movie back to the future.Too much money at stake for the big dawgs to ever let it fly .That's the name of that tune in one note .

[Al_Smith]

  The turbines had to be shipped back to Scotland to be refurbished and the "tubes" had to be taken back out and reinstalled right.  ;D

Let me tell you a little incident I saw first hand a few years back .

Great big huge turbide assembley,covered two railroad flat cars .Set up on a special device to keep the load centered on curves .Shipped south on the grand trunk railroad then part of the Canadian national ,once part of the DT and I .

Going through one curve ,slowly carefully ,dang  the cross ties broke ,split a rail and dumped the whole apple cart .It took them nearly three weeks to get that thing back on the tracks and sent back north .Saw it with my own eyes .

As they say sh-- er things happen . ;)

[Silver_Eagle]

Technology: Boeing's 'Ginormous, Hydrogen-Powered Uber-Drone' Takes First Flight

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/readyboeings-ginormous-hydrogen-powered-uber-drone-takes-first-flight/

[Kansas]

They sent back a shaft out of a coal fired unit to be refurbished near me. They needed a couple of big oak blocks carved out to cradle the shaft. I forget how many tons it was, but it was a bunch. I did get to go up into the top part of the plant to look at it. That was quite the tour.  I know we did it once before for one sent back to Germany.

Read this morning that 30 airlines are now either testing or have gone into full mode for using blended biofuels. These are all over the world. A variety of sources are being used. Much of the driving force is Europe's carbon credit laws. They have some pretty steep charges for those. As in billions, at least a few,  not millions. No one knows for sure how all that will shake out. Some are using or testing with used vegetable oil. Some with fuel made from woody biomass. Some plant based. Some algae based.

[Silver_Eagle]

Here is another article I found that has some cool video's, a little off topic but some good information shown anyway. One link in there concerning cat also Kansas, I thought you might find interesting. I have been looking at some of these growing system's for a few month's to put on the place. 

http://www.aquaponicsearth.com/Aquaponics_Earth_Videos.html

[Kansas]

This one may well be of interest to us in the forest and timber business, although I would not expect it to be within 5 years. Purdue has found a way to manufacture crude biofuel with mobile units. And fast. Real fast. The biggest problem with cellulostic fuel is transportation costs. Kind of like that its a lot cheaper to move lumber down the road than logs. They actually talk about having a unit on a truck that moves in tandem with a combine, very quickly processing all the stalks and such into the oil. I have a bit of a problem with that. If there is something to return to the soil for organic material, that might be fine. Not sure how all that works. I am not a farmer, but I know how proud the professional ones around here are of their organic material in the soil.

But for our industry, its the wood chips. It would be a lot cheaper to pull the crude biofuel out at the timber, then haul the crude to a pipeline. Beats trying to haul chips to a processing plant 100 miles away. Its the transportation that kills you.

Here is the article if anyone is interested. And no, I don't understand any of the technical stuff.

http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2012/06/06/mill-baby-mill/

[SwampDonkey]

Irving Oil, having ownership of a rail road themselves, is now talking about shipping oil by rail from Montana to St John. It's Alberta oil and it's over $20/barrel cheaper than other oil on the market. By another decade Canada will have doubled production and be 3rd in the world for petroleum production.

[Kansas]

Had an interesting conversation from an engineer that owns his own company this afternoon. I think this guy is on the level; usually I can tell when someone is trying to bull their way thru and telling me lies. I quizzed him on a number of fronts.

He stopped by to see the availability of wood chips for a project he is working on for a school about 22 miles from me. He sells operations that deal with things from a smaller standpoint. He was wanting to know our output. The plan is apparently to heat water to heat the school with. That school was built maybe 20 or so years ago. Would have thought they would have used natural gas or electric, but who knows. I talked with him about possibly something for us for small scale generation of electricity. He suggested we look at something called ORC. Has to do with heating water and using refrigerant to turn a turbine, and generator. That is a new one on me.

[Paul_H]

http://youtu.be/_UGYTE1oojA

[Kansas]

Thanks, Paul. Interesting. Need to do some research on this one.

[Crappiekeith]

Kansas, I admire your courage in making these predictions, but would like to remind you of this. Just a few years ago fuel cells were the darling of the future energy sources and where are they now?

Will Algae Biofuels Hit the Highway?

Here are two troubling paragraphs from that article with my emphasis on the bold statements.

"If it cost you more energy to make it, then what is the point," says Nick Donowitz, director of corporate development for Heliae. "Based on the work we've done, we are charging on a path toward an energy neutral or energy positive system."

Algae, today, is a blip on the radar. But, tomorrow, it may become a full-scale blimp. According to Pike Research, it could be a 61 million barrels a year commodity with a market value of $1.3 billion by 2020. That's a compound growth rate of 72 percent, it adds. To put that in context, 83 million barrels of oil are consumed each day around the world. Of that, the United States uses about 18 million a day.



So this new darling of energy production that may be energy neutral is predicted to replace less than 1/365 of the worlds needs in 8 years. And that's from the promoters to potential investors.

A few comments about other energy sources:

Nuclear energy is far from dead. Right now it produces about 20 % of the worlds electricity and the US Navy relies on it for propulsion for their ships. I can't even imagine how many oil tankers it would take to follow one of those massive super carriers to keep it running. And even though the Japan disaster was another setback, nuclear power is still the future for electricity generation, save the political problems. And who knows what the political environment will do to that. I have a nephew that is a shift operator in a nuclear power plant and he is not worried about his job in any way. Nuclear energy is still the cheapest, least poluting, and best for the environment.

Coal will always be a huge factor in energy production, but is being held back by the location of those large investor owned coal fired power plants in the east. Coal plants need to be located at the source for their coal. It's cheaper to transport electricity than coal.

Certainly there is hope that small energy sources can supplement the large utilities, but they will never be a major factor. Any utility needs a large base load to function efficiently and grow with the demand.

Wind power is doing well and growing here.

I agree...in fact I've netted 36,000$ that I would have,should have paid to the oil company over the last 16 years by using a quality wood burning furnace for heating in northern Mn.
My furnace..
http://www.yukon-eagle.com/FURNACES/BIGJACKADDONWOODFURNACE/tabid/169/Default.aspx

[Al_Smith]

Again collectively there are a lot of options of fuels and ways to use them .

Bio mass or conversion of same into a more easily transportable form is one of many .The fly in the ointment so to speak is making it affordable to do so.

Although it's been alluded to that conversion of heat to electrical power is thought by some as being inefficient it is in reality about one if not the most efficient means of doing so .It isn't like you can bottle up energy in some form like beer in a can to use at a later date ya know .

Conversations about small usages in remote areas are interesting and enlighting and show ingenious methods .However concerning same with the over all big picture in mind globally is about like peeing in the Atlantic ocean to try and raise the water level .Wouldn't even make a drop in a bucket so to speak .

[submarinesailor]

Hey guys - I just read a news release from the EIA that stated electricity production from coal dropped to 34% of USA production and natural gas moved up to 30%

Bruce

[Kansas]

Coal has a bad rap with the carbon, plus its my understanding its a lot easier to bring natural gas on line. A power company wanted to put a coal fired electrical in extreme southwest Kansas. A lot of that power would have been shipped out of state. When Kathleen Sebelius was Governor, she nixed it. When she left for Washington, the new governor okayed it, on a scaled down basis. They are still fighting to get it built. A bunch of the enviromentalists from here in Eastern Kansas have been throwing every roadblock in their way. Never mind that they get their power from coal fired plants here.

If there is continued success over in Australia from taking the carbon out of coal fired plants and using that to feed algae to oil, and they get completely scaled up, that will be coal's best bet for long term survival. So far, its looking good over there.

The power company had agreed to buy many thousands of trees from the Kansas Forest Service to negate the carbon. Think they were just going to donate them to anyone that wanted to plant them. I don't remember all the details of that meeting, but I remember it was a bunch.

[Al_Smith]

For years the "peaker units" were all natural gas .

As just some info, generators are the most efficient if ran at full capacity .Anything less is some what less cost effective .The excess can be sold over the grid or if over the capacity of the big main generators ,extra can be purchased .This is how Ken Lay ripped off the state of California .

Often times the power companys find it's more effective to use smaller generators during periods of high usage and thus the peaker units .Often times natural gas fired turbines for the prime mover.These can be fired and on line very quickly as opposed to steam turbines .

[SwampDonkey]

The power company had agreed to buy many thousands of trees from the Kansas Forest Service to negate the carbon. Think they were just going to donate them to anyone that wanted to plant them. I don't remember all the details of that meeting, but I remember it was a bunch.

The Feds had something similar for carbon offset. Divied out a bunch of trees to land owners, hybrid poplar. I was for a walk this spring with a landowner that gave it a try. Every tree was either cankered and about to break off or the moose had them all trimmed up good. Waste of time and $$.

[Al_Smith]

I don't think that poplar business ever worked out too well .They used to brag it up .Grow firewood in 5 years and an acre would last you a life time because it regrew  :

Somebody on one of the forums showed some contraption that baled up poplar saplings in big round bales like hay .Evidently from some Europian country .

Aha ,there ya go Swamp ,your next money maker . ;)

[SwampDonkey]

The funny part of it was that if they had planted balm-of-gilead (balsam poplar) they would resist the canker better and the tree looks pretty much the same except the leaves were a slightly different. Maybe the moose would leave them alone because of the balm smell, but doubt it. :D

Al, you have me mixed up with a fella that worked for me once. Full of dreams, no ambition, loved to talk, an obstacle in his own path. :D

[Al_Smith]

Well if nothing else you could sell it for moose feed .Moose like to eat too . :D

[Kansas]

I am absolutely no fan of Bank of America. But this lessens my feelings a little. BoA has announced 50 billion dollars pledged towards renewable type energy. Yes, thats 50 billion over the next 10 years. That is a pile of moolah.

[Al_Smith]

"pledge " ,reading between the lines says they would make loans available for such activities more than likely .Just as likely might be the fact the those loans are backed by the US gov .Banks don't do anything out of the goodness of their hearts .They always make money .

[SwampDonkey]

 :D :D

Al, I wonder if pledging $1000 to the Heart and Stroke Foundation is the same notion as pledging $50B to renewable energy? :D

[Al_Smith]

Well the money amount is certainly different .

However if you stop and think about how banks operate if they were to back loans with alternate methods  of energy in mind they must see a potential to make money on the deal else they wouldn't do it .

Now ecology in mind ,need or whatever "alternate " has become the buzz word of the early portion on this century .

They say neccessity is the mother of invention so who can really say where this all will lead to .

[Norm]

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts at the end of 10 years BOA hasn't spent a 10th of that. Sounds like typical feel good press releases to kiss the godfathers ring.

Local radio station had the biggest maker of grain handling systems on talking about how farmers could convert their propane systems over to CNG. The propane folks could sure use some competition.