All good things must come to an end

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All good things must come to an end..

• It looks like there is a lot left, but it wont
  last very long-UNLESS substantial
  non-conventional sources can be economically
  tapped, or we have the ability to economically
  tap reserves that are more difficult and
  expensive to tap
• It takes about 11 years from the time an oil
  reserve is discovered until the oil reaches
  production.
• This is an extremely important point-drill now
  does not reduce your cost at the pump tomorrow,
  maybe in 11 years.
• Also, the production of any energy resource has
  to be economically feasible it cant take more
  energy to get the energy produced than the energy
  itself produces.
• Q8 denotes the amount of a resource available for
  all time, until it is exhausted

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M.K. Hubbart A prediction of petroleum production

• Predicted Q8 to be 165 X 109 barrels of oil for
  the US in 1956 (this did not include Alaska or
  other non-conventional sources).
• Much smaller value than his contemporaries and he
  predicted that US oil production would peak
  between 1966 and 1971 and then fall off,
  independent of anything the oil industry did.
• Not a popular prediction, but it rang true, US
  oil production peaked in 1970.

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Hubbart Curve
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Graph from Hubbarts paper
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In Hubbarts words
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Oil production around the world
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World Oil Production
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Petroleum From the ground to your gas tank

• What comes out of the ground is not immediately
  useful
• It has to be treated, or refined, to produce
  useful fuels
• First step is fractional distillation
• This process separates the various petroleum
  based products.

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Fractional Distillation

• The petroleum is heated to about 400 C which
  vaporizes it.
• The vapors are sent into a tower called a
  fractionating column. As they rise and cool
  different fuel products condense at different
  heights.

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Further treatments

• What comes out of the distillation process is not
  quite ready for use yet. It still needs to be
  modified.
• For example Gasoline needs octane added and tar
  needs heavy molecules removed from it.

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Treatment processes

• Thermal cracking The product is exposed to high
  temperatures and pressures which break heavy
  molecules into lighter ones.
• Catalytic conversion petroleum vapor is passed
  over a alumina-silicate mixture or clay which
  creates a chemical reaction and adds octane to
  the gas
• Polymerization light hydrocarbon molecules are
  joined and they produce heavier molecules.
  Natural gas is made into high octane fuels this
  way.

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Alkane Hydrocarbons

• You have heard these names before methane,
  ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexne, heptane,
  octane.
• Methane and ethane are the main components of
  natural gas
• Propane and butane can be liquefied at fairly low
  pressures, and are well known as liquefied
  petroleum gas (LPG)
• Pentane, nexane, heptane and octane are
  volatile liquids. They are used as fuels in
  internal combustion engines, as they vaporize
  easily on entry into the combustion chamber
  without forming droplets, which would impair the
  uniformity of the combustion.

• Methane
• Carbon atom is black, H atom
• is white
• Ethane

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How long?

• Lots of disagreement here 50-150(300) years
• Total vs proved resource
• Maybe a better question is at what point is oil
  no longer economically viable and will we have
  an economically viable replacement?
• Important numbers United States uses about 700
  million gallons of oil every day or 255.5 billion
  gallons of oil a year. The world uses nearly 3
  billion gallons each day.
• There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil, so the
  US uses a little over 6 billion barrels of oil a
  year

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US Resources- conventional

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• North Dakota Bakken Oil Field
• Outer continental shelf(off Pacific, Atlantic and
  Gulf coasts
• Some will argue there is enough conventional oil
  here for 300 more years-assuming current
  consumption remains the same, we can create the
  refining capacity and technologies to extract
  this oil and assuming the oil companies do not
  sell it overseas to growing, more lucrative
  markets.

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Natural gas

• Used since the 6th century BCE in China and
  Japan. They used bamboo pipes to carry it to
  lights.
• For the most part, it was considered an annoying
  by product of petroleum exploration and was often
  burned off of oil wells.
• 1821 Fredonia, New York. A pipe provided NG to 30
  burners
• Development was slow due to the lack of pipeline
  infrastructure
• During and after WWII, its use became more
  widespread because it was inexpensive and
  pipelines were laid across the country.

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Uses

• Power plants gas turbines have a higher
  efficiency in converting the fuel to power than
  steam turbines (we will talk about these turbines
  later) . Plants are cheaper to build and more
  environmentally friendly.
• Transportation Use is growing, but limited by
  range (need to store the fuel in the vehicle
  under high pressure and there is not a widespread
  distribution system).
• Appear to be good prospects for the future if a
  new source of natural gas can be found

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Not the solution!

• Conventional natural gas will not solve our
  energy problems
• Most comes from domestic production, as shipping
  is difficult.
• US uses 23 trillion scf per year.
• Methane from coal beds can be used to produce
  natural gas, which will increase supply somewhat.
• We have enough for about 30-100 years at current
  rates of consumption.

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Coal Formation
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Coal types

• Peat Youngest form of coal, lowest grade, low
  quality fuel and organic material for gardeners
• Lignite 150 million yrs old, 50 carbon content
• Bituminous 300 million years old, 50-80 carbon
• Anthracite 500 million years old, 95 carbon,
  hardest and cleanest burning coal.

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Coal vs Diamonds

• Diamonds need high temperature and pressure,
  which is found at large depths in the Earth,
  usually between 140-190 km deep.
• Coal mines reach depths of 2000 ft (0.6 km)
• Dont form from coal, dating of diamonds shows
  them to be older than the oldest known plants
  that existed on the planet and it is unlikely to
  find coal that deep.
• Confusion stems from both being high in carbon
  content