NO POLITICS - Framing everything in my piece from a financing perspective.
US Shale / Unconventional Oil: Economically extractable inventories are declining fast. There’s oil, but it’s increasingly expensive to get.
US Shale / Unconventional NatGas: Abundance of it. Problem is, we don’t have enough refining capacity to process it, and there doesn’t seem to be enough investors willing to put the money down
Utility / Residential Scale Nuclear: Legitimately the best source of energy known to man. The problem is the startup costs (and coinciding red tape costs) are a 20 year long wait for an actual ROI for private investors (too expensive to subsidize). Also, nobody wants to live near reactors, and we don’t have a sufficient labor supply.
Solar & Wind: As of today, it’s the cheapest form of energy to generate (disregarding grid infrastructure), and it’s the easiest to scale due to quick returns. Problem is the intermittency and storage. Scaling solar & wind today would require a serious reduction in lifestyle/consumption
Carbon Capture: Conceptually, it’s perfect, but the economics to scale it is not there. It’s primarily supported by fossil fuel companies to continue the use of fossil fuel products.
Hydrogen: Too expensive to scale. Simple as that.
We cannot throw money at every technology and hope it scales. There’s not enough capital or time to do that.
So what do we do?
92010Coogs
(I took a lie detector test...No I did not)
2
I have a solution.
A solution that is feasible.
A solution that everyone can afford.
A solution that will please everyone.
A solution that almost anyone can do.
A solution that will benefit everyone.
A solution that can be installed anywhere be inside or outside.
I present to you the 92010 battery and fat burner cycle.
Think about it. The entire population on a bicycle. Yes you can still have access to Coogfans. In fact we can add a special talk/post feature.
P-S: battery not included
You left out power storage(battery) that is becoming the norm with wind and solar installs. This has become a big business for Tesla, one of it few bright spots showing growth.
White hydrogen is still out there too IF reserves are verifiable and can be commercially exploited. Definitely in the speculative category.
May can throw Fusion in there too, if they ever get a reactor running for sustained
period. What’s latest …25-50 years out still.
I’m going with helium 3, but I think the Chinese will have the market on that with their planned base.
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.just waiting to see if anyone over-reacts…
Foulger thinks commercialization is still two decades away. But if it can be done, she added, “the potential payoff is pretty significant.”
Fervo’s Latimer is unsurprisingly far more bullish. “The pace of technology innovation in geothermal has outpaced what really any market observers expected,” he said.
And the opportunity is too enormous to ignore, he added. “You could meet humanity’s energy needs for 17 billion years based off just what’s in the heat of the Earth.”
There isn’t really any issue with processing natural gas. Its only problem is that it’s too cheap for drillers to commit millions to drill wells. As many oil wells decline, they produce higher percentages of gas, so production will be available, but the market has only been supported by LNG exports.
In the past, oil and natural gas prices tracked together, but that changed in the 2000s. Gas prices are so low that producers routinely lose money putting it into the pipeline rather than just burning it (flaring).
The supply is abundant, and it can be stored in underground caverns. I expect it to be the dominant energy source for the foreseeable future, because it can scale up cheaper, faster, and more efficiently than any other current source. And you can’t disregard the cost of infrastructure when evaluating energy costs - they’re huge, and they affect the price of service.
In the meantime, continue developing alternate sources to provide more localized power generation as needs increase for things like data centers. The grid needs diverse sources to stay healthy.
I’ve seen estimates of 50-100 years of natural gas reserves available
worldwide.
Below, we show the top 10 countries with the largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, and the size of their reserves in trillions of cubic feet.
Country
Proven Natural Gas Reserves (in trillion cubic feet)
And we’ve been hearing about the demise of oil production for decades. There is more oil, and whether it’s economically recoverable obviously depends on prices, as well as technological advances that have increase productivity and recoverability. Where horizontal wells were just getting to 1 mile long about 20 years ago, you now see 4+ mile laterals and even u-shaped laterals to go with huge improvements in completion designs. These improvements lower the cost and increase “recoverable reserves” by lowering the break-even point in areas that would previously have not been drilled.
Oil demand has risen annually by roughly 1MM barrels per day for probably 50 years. As long as that continues, the economics of exploring new areas will support finding more oil.
Something else to consider is the productive potential of secondary recovery in established oil shale areas like the Bakken, Permian, Delaware and Eagle Ford. It’s huge, and companies have been working on this while continuing to drill new wells.
the usa has to think long term and the only thing long term is nuclear for reliability and efficiency. coal and oil will run out eventually. it may be that the usa can get oil from the earth’s production. read deep hot biosphere by dr gould; but thats not proven yet.
wind, you gotta scrap it, too inefficient, too unreliable.
as much as it pains me , solar should be used for residential and some industry; solar farms are too inefficient but powering houses and some industry for daily use.
Yes, but the competing industries , green renewables, fossil, and nuclear all
want to work to put roadblocks on the others. You really have to have the government entity managing it to fair and not biased. He who has the most effective lobby wins. Actually nuclear is just flat out noncompetitive on cost basis.
Disagree, it should be in discussion. Unless you want to limit the discussion
based on environmental concerns as well. IMHO it is the fuel of last resort,
for a number of reasons, but it is there.
Recoverable Reserves:
These represent the amount of coal that can be mined using current technology and practices. As of early 2022, the U.S. had an estimated 250.4 billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves.
Longevity:
Based on current production levels, the U.S. recoverable coal reserves could last for several centuries.
Why does it pain you to use solar for residential and some industry ?
solar farms are too inefficient but powering houses and some industry for daily use.
Not sure how you are determining solar farms are inefficient. Please share
the steps of how you reach that conclusion.
Fuel costs are zero. Operating pollution costs are zero. You may need new HVDC lines to move power if congestion is occurring. If you follow Texas Public Utilities Commission, it’s a battle that’s played out with fossil fuel groups in opposing construction of those power lines.
However, If you look at what Texas projected electricity demand will be in 2030, 130k mw daily vs the 75-80k MW today, new lines will need to be added no matter
what.
Sure waste management, CO2 emissions, particulate matter in air, and hazards mining. But those all get into politics, which the original thread premise was to avoid. So if we are to overlook environmental politics, coal is on the table as a solution.
Russia
Iran
Qatar
United States
Turkmenistan
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
China
Nigeria
Venezuela