Author Topic: Energy Revolutions Hidden In Plain Sight: Part 1 of 3 -- Shale Crushes Solar  (Read 1064 times)

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Offline thackney

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Energy Revolutions Hidden In Plain Sight: Part 1 of 3 -- Shale Crushes Solar
http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2017/04/26/energy_revolutions_hidden_in_plain_sight_part_1_of_3_--_shale_crushes_solar_110215.html

The Promethean task of supplying energy to the U.S. economy and the rest of the world involves scales that are truly difficult to visualize. Many options appear to make sense until you crunch the numbers. That’s why Bill Gates said that people need to bring “math skills to the problem.”

Consider petroleum alone, which accounts for about one-third of global energy use. If the world’s current oil supply were delivered in a pile of actual barrels, that stack would rise up at a velocity of 1,500 miles per hour and reach the moon’s orbit in a week – and continue at that rate every week for years to come.

Meanwhile, solar and wind power are the two most discussed “disruptions” to our energy supply. It is true that solar/wind costs have gone down dramatically in the past decade. At the same time there’s a policy revolution in subsidies (more about policies in part 3 of this series) leading to a cumulative $100+ billion in the U.S. for solar/wind. The effect of this combination has been to proliferate solar panels and wind turbines sufficient to drive a nearly 10-fold increase in combined energy supplied from those sources.

While that’s quite remarkable, wind and solar together still supply less than 1.5% of America’s energy. Fast growth from a small number is like winning $100 in Vegas on a $10 bet. Nice, but not life-changing.
To find a “radical and pervasive” change in energy markets we have to look elsewhere. Over the same decade noted above, the amount of energy added to America from shale hydrocarbons was 2,000% greater than the additional supply from solar and wind combined.  That actual revolution also happened because of the maturation of new technologies. But, notably, in this case it took place without the stimulus of special subsidies.

The scale and velocity of the shale revolution is underappreciated. It is the fastest and biggest addition to world energy supply -- not just hydrocarbons, but all forms of energy -- that has occurred in history.  The only time something close to as dramatic has occurred was in the decade following the 1968 opening of Saudi Arabia’s giant Ghawar oil field....



...None of the “big oil” companies, the super-majors, were responsible for creating the new shale industry. The pioneers were all upstarts with names like Continental, Pioneer and Brigham. There are hundreds of shale drillers; more than four dozen relatively unknown companies comprise the top ranks. The majors, of course, have noticed and have started to get into the game, but they will still constitute a small share of that industry for the foreseeable future. The rapid emergence of a new, diverse and broad community of companies in the U.S. shale industry is a classic, American entrepreneurial bootstrap story culminating in a new industry that has truly democratized a huge swath of the energy landscape....
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Online IsailedawayfromFR

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Pretty visual of reality of oil and gas contributions vs the expensive and not-too-important wind/solar.

The impression left, with predictions way out to 2035, is shale is where it's at.

I continue to believe that the gas side of the shale revolution has no virtual limit.  The liquids does.

The insurmountable fact is that the shales are tight and it is very difficult for liquids to travel in that medium.  There are only a handful of places in the US where conditions are right on a widespread basis that allows liquids to be produced, like the Bakken, Eagleford and the somewhat in the Niobrara.  The Permian is almost entirely just redrilling horizontally an area drilled originally with vertical wells.  The shale 'revolution' has been the exploitation of these few areas where liquids are commercially developed.

In most places, it just won't happen and the liquids are and will remain essentially non-commercial with only the occasional area that produces liquids.

Many formations are conducive to produce dry gas, and there are many basins out there which can commercially extract gas.

To put it another way:  the shale revolution is short-term liquids, long term gas.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2017, 01:24:09 pm by IsailedawayfromFR »
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