We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "nightjar" saying something like:
Peak Oil is on us already, according to some very knowledgeable folk in the oil industry.
No reserve is 100% obtainable.
Aye, and then there's the Falklands oil. That was reckoned to be economically retrievable when oil prices reach 80usd /barrel. Mind you, that was back in the 80s, and I don't think deepwater drilling has improved that enough in the past 20 years to make it realistic.
As it has been at regular intervals for the past 30 years, according to the same experts. However, they rely on Hubbert being right in assuming that the level of recoverable reserves are fixed, but that has proved to be wrong at regular intervals over the past 30 years. It will not be true until we reach the point where recovery technology cannot be improved and we are a long way from that.
We could, however, do a lot better than we do now, if anybody wanted to spend the mony on it, which they may well do in the future.
The area is still disputed, so the oil companies will try to avoid it as long as possible, in case the Argentineans try another takeover and they lose all their investment. Similarly, the seabed around Greece and Turkey is geologically similar to the North Sea, but nobody wants to explore that area because of the long term political tension between the two countries. Politics is often as important in deciding where drilling takes place as the feasibility of extraction.
The Malasians and Indonesians are currently clearing 22,000 hectares of rain forest to grow palm oil to satisfy the demand for bio deisel created by EU "green" targets. And this when we're being told not to use tropical hardwoods. The same problem exists with ethanol imported from Brazil in tankers to this country, so some target or other can be met.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "nightjar" saying something like:
I'd be surprised if extraction technology doesn't improve greatly, with the spur of rising prices. I find it scandalous that many fields are abandoned with substantial quantities of oil still in them. Cost, I suppose.
the yanks the technology of the Harrier's ability to fly vertical, they have not allowed us access to the technology of how to program the weapons system. I can't see Britain buying an aircraft that they can't program the missiles into bombing on any country they want to. The theory behind the yanks is that they will only let us arm the aircraft if they think the target is OK by them.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Chris Bacon saying something like:
True enough, but istr that previous extraction methods left some fields unusable for the remaining oil. Something to do with the peculiar geology of oil reservoirs.
Unusable in relation to oil almost always needs to be modified by the words 'at economic cost', which is a variable concept. Some capped wells could be revitalised by pumping gas down them and that is exactly where it is now proposed to pump excess CO2. It would probably be uneconomic to do it just to get the oil, but there is political mileage to be gained by doing something that people think will help prevent global warming. Of course, even if the 'CO2 is the culprit' pundits are right, the best that can be done is to delay the onset by a few years and the money being spent on 'prevention' would be much better spent on getting the world ready for an increase in temperature.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration is the next big thing in the power generation industry - for each kWh of power produced, your typical coal fired power station releases just short of 1 kg of CO2. Since last year, industry across Europe has been operating in an environment where they have a physical cap on the amount of CO2 that the whole of Europe emits. Each power station has a 'free' allocation of CO2 from the government that allows a limited amount of running each year, after that the plant has to buy what are called carbon credits from a traded market but for each year there is a finite number of carbon credits available. At present, a carbon credit is valued at around £16 per tonne so very roughly 1 MWh of generation releases 1 tonne of CO2 so the additional cost of each MWh generated over the plants carbon cap costs £16. Interestingly, the cost of coal for your average power station also costs around £16 for that MWh so the cost of the carbon credit is having the same effect on final electricity price as the cost of the fuel - whilst electricity prices in Europe have in the main been driven upwards by the spiralling cost of oil driving the gas prices there is an effect on prices since last year by the carbon market.
Capturing the CO2 from a power station and stuffing it down an oil field (Enhanced Oil Recovery as it is known) would save the cost of carbon credits and release valuable oil so it is of great interest to the oil and power industries. Trouble is, getting the CO2 to the oil fields requires pipelines - yet another national infrastructure (and the technology to scrub the CO2 out of the power plants - very immature at the moment) so the best option is to build new coal plants on the East Coast of the UK close to the North Sea oil fields.
When I owned a rental flat it used to cost me almost as much to service the aged boiler [1] each year than I payed in electric to heat my own all electric (UK) house. There were some studios in the same block with GCH that could easily have been kept warm with 2 NSR at less TCO.
GCH is installed because buyers 'expect' it. It really annoys me when I see these property programs criticise a small flat with perfectly adequate for the size of the property NSRs because "it needs GCH installing".
tim
[1] I couldn't replace it because the new ones (apparently) required a larger flue and the freeholders would allow tenants to make bigger holes in the roof.
The graphite cored ones are pretty safe at 2%, not that I am advocating them. If more efficiency is required as it was demanded by the Tories during the miner's strike the balance hits a diminished return at some rate I am not familiar with.
There is a greater need for vigilance of course and breakages may damage the graphite. It is contaminated graphite that renders the power station obsolete, or rather unusable.
That at least is my limited understanding. They are facinating devices though. It seems now that the region surrounding Chernoble is a flourishing wildlife zone now. An as yet unknown factor is the take up in sub soil fungii.
Apparantly a tree fed with radio-identifiable fertiliser can transport it into the soil and from the interaction with that tree's particular subsoil partner, to other trees in the region that are partnered with the same fungus.
Perhaps they are helping dilute the concentrations. Or concentrating them where they won't be found until some politician builds a show house on the site one day.
I think that punishment to fit style would be appropriate - e.g. 10 rounds with Chris Byrd for Prescott, standing on Lenin's Tomb in his underpants in January for Brown, etc.
What the hell is this 2% you keep referring to? If it is the idea that you can run a nuclear reactor at 2% output forever then you will have to totally rethink the steam turbines to cater for very "wet" steam.
2% on a 660MW AGR is 13MW. The auxiliaries alone are over 20MW and until you start pulling good vacuum on the condensers and start using feed heating the efficiency is very, very poor.
So the question has to be asked just exactly what was the point you were trying to make?
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.