Peak Expensive Oil

[GRG55]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

...So the 350 trillion cubic feet of US NG reserves will last only 20 years if all of it is used to generate electricity.

We've not be considered exports and using NG to power cars.

You are assuming the reserves number remains static. It won't.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

I doubt we will ever completely eliminate all the coal burning power plants.
Even though I am a pretty strong environmentalist, I don't think we should try to fully eliminate coal.

Natgas does not eliminate all the CO2 emissions, it only eliminates half.
This is from the EIA

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels:

Coal (anthracite)	228.6
Coal (bituminous)	205.7
Coal (lignite)	215.4
Coal (subbituminous)	214.3
Diesel fuel and heating oil	161.3
Gasoline	157.2
Propane	139.0
Natural gas	117.0

Coal is a good and useful fuel that is abundant and easy to use, and the technology is well understood and highly efficient.

Touchring mentioned efficiency improvements.
I still believe efficiency improvements are WAY underrated.
New passenger vehicles; LED lights; high speed turbo blowers in industry; magnetic bearings and air bearings; widespread use of VFDs; advanced active controls on everything...

I think we are on the edge of a golden age of energy efficiency improvements that will have dramatic effects over the next 30 years.
EJ and others have pointed out that in the last 200 years GDP is energy consumption, both go up together.
Increases in living standards and wealth and GDP have all been achieved by consuming more energy per person.

I believe the BTUs per dollar GDP will go down dramatically in the first half of this century.

[jk]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

Also time to make meaningful strides in harnessing the power of hydrogen, (fuel cell technology). Toyota is completely committed to this direction. The Mirai is arriving in the US next year. Looks like a nice car.

https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html

who's going to build the infrastructure to make hydrogen available for your mirai?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

who's going to build the infrastructure to make hydrogen available for your mirai?

If hydrogen fuel cell vehicles become popular, the hydrogen will be made with grid electricity at the local fuel station with a sort of fuel cell running in reverse.
So a Mirai would, essentially, burn coal.

[jk]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

If hydrogen fuel cell vehicles become popular, the hydrogen will be made with grid electricity at the local fuel station with a sort of fuel cell running in reverse.
So a Mirai would, essentially, burn coal.

even so, there's a chicken and egg problem- people won't buy the car if the hydrogen isn't available. the local fuel station won't spend money on an electrolytic hydrogen system without customers. someone has to subsidize the infrastructure to prime the pump.

[GRG55]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

If hydrogen fuel cell vehicles become popular, the hydrogen will be made with grid electricity at the local fuel station with a sort of fuel cell running in reverse.
So a Mirai would, essentially, burn coal.

I would have expected solar powered electrolysis in your garage or something like that?

The only other source of abundant H2 is methane gas I believe, but that means finding some way to capture the carbon atom.

At 300 miles the range of the Mirai is about 50% more than a Tesla, but if the electric vehicle manufacturers can close that gap it would seem they have the advantage in terms of convenient re-fueling options.

I am also surprised that the curb weight of the Mirai is a hefty two tons. The drive train and H2 containment aren't lightweight.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

even so, there's a chicken and egg problem- people won't buy the car if the hydrogen isn't available. the local fuel station won't spend money on an electrolytic hydrogen system without customers. someone has to subsidize the infrastructure to prime the pump.

I have only personally ridden in one hydrogen fuel cell vehicle - this bus in Vancouver in 1993



While I support spending research money for things like this, I do not expect to see a fuel cell powered personal car sold in any numbers in my lifetime.

Fuel cells are too expensive, and too easy to destroy with a whiff of incompatible chemicals.
Plus, as you mention, creating a fuel infrastructure for hydrogen is a huge problem.
And don't forget the range problems - storing enough hydrogen on the vehicle is tough.
And the very real safety issues for handling hydrogen.

Fuel cells, like batteries, come in many types.
Vehicles prefer Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells because they are compact and have no need for ancillary systems.

A market may develop for stationary fuel cells, especially other types like Solid Oxide fuel cells, or Phosphoric Acid fuel cells.
When a fuel cell stands still powering a building from natural gas, they can be highly efficient and can be trouble free for years and years.
Locomotives or ocean vessels might one day run on fuel cells.
Like buildings, weight and volume do not matter in those applications.

[GRG55]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

I have only personally ridden in one hydrogen fuel cell vehicle - this bus in Vancouver in 1993



While I support spending research money for things like this, I do not expect to see a fuel cell powered personal car sold in any numbers in my lifetime.

Fuel cells are too expensive, and too easy to destroy with a whiff of incompatible chemicals.
Plus, as you mention, creating a fuel infrastructure for hydrogen is a huge problem.
And don't forget the range problems - storing enough hydrogen on the vehicle is tough.
And the very real safety issues for handling hydrogen.

Fuel cells, like batteries, come in many types.
Vehicles prefer Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells because they are compact and have no need for ancillary systems.

A market may develop for stationary fuel cells, especially other types like Solid Oxide fuel cells, or Phosphoric Acid fuel cells.
When a fuel cell stands still powering a building from natural gas, they can be highly efficient and can be trouble free for years and years.
Locomotives or ocean vessels might one day run on fuel cells.
Like buildings, weight and volume do not matter in those applications.

Vancouver and Whistler B.C. had a small demonstration fleet of new H2 buses installed in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately the only source of H2 to fuel them was in Quebec and that required diesel trucks to haul it across the country to the west coast. The energy used to move the H2 tankers was greater than the energy in the payload. Very green.

There seems a irresistible urge by every alternate fuel proponent to somehow focus on the vehicle market. Yet it is the most difficult application to satisfy. Even Royal Dutch Shell gave up on their LNG for vehicle fuel programs in Canada, USA and Australia this year.

Vancouver Ends Hydrogen Bus Program Amid High Costs

March 10th, 2015 by Steve Hanley

As part of the 2010 Olympic Games in British Columbia, the city of Vancouver added 20 hydrogen fuel cell powered buses to its transportation system. The $90 million worth of hydrogen buses were paid for in part by grants from the Canadian government and were intended to showcase Vancouver as a modern city in tune with a sustainable world. After all, we know the only thing that comes out of the tailpipe of a fuel cell vehicle is water vapor. Things don’t get any greener than that.

But less than five years later, British Columbia Transit has put its hydrogen bus fleet in storage and is offering it for sale to the highest bidder, reports the CBC News. They will replace the buses with new diesel powered vehicles. If they can’t find a buyer, they intend to remove the fuel cells and replace them with old fashioned diesel engines, ending an experiment that had doubters from the get-go. What went wrong?

One thing is that after the Olympic Games were over, local, regional and national governments forgot about their much ballyhooed commitment to clean hydrogen power. They failed to build the infrastructure that was supposed to make Vancouver a model for the rest of the world. Part of that plan was a proposed “hydrogen highway” connecting Vancouver to Seattle, Washington, just a few hours drive away. But construction on most of the hydrogen stations never began and the ones that were completed went out of service soon after the Olympics left town.

The dagger in the heart of the hydrogen experiment was cost. A diesel powered bus costs about $0.62 in fuel and maintenance for every kilometer it travels. BC Transit was spending double that for its hydrogen, about $1.34 per kilometer. That’s because Vancouver has no hydrogen fuel supplier of its own, so the fuel had to be trucked in using diesel powered trucks from…..wait for it…..Quebec, 2350 miles away. Not only did that double operating costs, it also reduced the zero-emissions benefits of having hydrogen buses in the first place.

Quite naturally, supporters of fuel cell vehicles are outraged. Eric Denhoff, President and CEO of the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, told the CBC that the buses should have kept on the road as a demonstration project, despite their higher operating costs. He says electric trolley buses also cost more than diesels, but the transit authority manages to keep a large fleet of them on the road in order to further other goals, such as reducing pollution.“Even if there was a bit of additional cost to running these things, you now have to go out and buy 20 new diesel buses to replace them, so I don’t understand how the math on that works,” said Denhoff. “I just think management there doesn’t like new technology.”

Unfortunately for Denhoff and other hydrogen supporters, in the real world most decisions like this come down to dollars and cents. Each of these hydrogen buses has been on the road for at least four years and 200,000 kilometers; how much more of a demonstration do you need?

All of this revives the age old conundrum — which comes first, the infrastructure or the bus? In an odd twist, Hyundai began selling the hydrogen powered version of its popular Tucson SUV in the Vancouver market last month. No word on whether lucky Hyundai Tucson FCEV owners will have to drive to Quebec to refuel.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

Vancouver and Whistler B.C. had a small demonstration fleet of new H2 buses...

...Unfortunately the only source of H2 to fuel them was in Quebec

It was the same program I visited back in 1993. That was the very first one of those buses.
I was doing research on alternative fuel vehicles, especially buses.
Ballard Power Systems is in Vancouver. They make fuel cells, and are good at getting demonstrations funded there in Vancouver.
The Ballard facility I visited was out on Vancouver Island as I recall, a really beautiful place.

That bus in 1993 also ran on hydrogen from Quebec.
Quebec Hydro has a hydroelectric dam or two that are so remote they can't sell all the power they generate, so they use their excess power to electrolysize water into O2 and H2, which sell for a good price.

[jk]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

There seems a irresistible urge by every alternate fuel proponent to somehow focus on the vehicle market.

they focus on what's in front of their faces. it's a rare person who'll go farther than that.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

they focus on what's in front of their faces. it's a rare person who'll go farther than that.

That's probably a big part of it, jk.

Another is gross economics.
Transportation fuel is, by a long shot, the biggest fuel market, and the second biggest use of all energy on earth.
Every alternate fuel type wants a bite of that apple.

[GRG55]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

It was the same program I visited back in 1993. That was the very first one of those buses.
I was doing research on alternative fuel vehicles, especially buses.
Ballard Power Systems is in Vancouver. They make fuel cells, and are good at getting demonstrations funded there in Vancouver.
The Ballard facility I visited was out on Vancouver Island as I recall, a really beautiful place.

That bus in 1993 also ran on hydrogen from Quebec.
Quebec Hydro has a hydroelectric dam or two that are so remote they can't sell all the power they generate, so they use their excess power to electrolysize water into O2 and H2, which sell for a good price.

This is just another example of politicians wasting taxpayer money. If they would actually take a long term view, support and fund the development of the technology (or at least structure policy to support those initiatives) in time we might actually have something.

Instead they make a ballyhoo of it in the papers, photo-ops with Arnie, sprinkle some money around uselessly and once the press go away the politicians fergedaboodit.

Ballard is located in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver. It is now being funded by a couple of JVs with Chinese bus manufacturers.

Whatever happened to the hydrogen highway?

Only a handful of fuel cell cars still on road in B.C.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

This is just another example of politicians wasting taxpayer money. If they would actually take a long term view, support and fund the development of the technology (or at least structure policy to support those initiatives) in time we might actually have something.

Instead they make a ballyhoo of it in the papers, photo-ops with Arnie, sprinkle some money around uselessly and once the press go away the politicians fergedaboodit.

Ballard is located in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver. It is now being funded by a couple of JVs with Chinese bus manufacturers.

Whatever happened to the hydrogen highway?

Only a handful of fuel cell cars still on road in B.C.

I view it less harshly, GRG55.

A few million bucks here or there are small enough in the grand scheme of things.
The photo ops raise public awareness, and the projects keep a few engineers and scientists working towards a worthy goal.

That kind of research and demonstration project only wins funding if it gets the Governor or Senator a good photo op.

Some good has come of it all. Many cars in the US can now run on corn (ethanol), which might come in handy during WW3.
Same with the CNG fleets.
The hybrid battery electrics came out of projects like that, and there are few parked in driveways in my neighborhood.

[GRG55]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

I view it less harshly, GRG55.

A few million bucks here or there are small enough in the grand scheme of things.
The photo ops raise public awareness, and the projects keep a few engineers and scientists working towards a worthy goal.

That kind of research and demonstration project only wins funding if it gets the Governor or Senator a good photo op.

Some good has come of it all. Many cars in the US can now run on corn (ethanol), which might come in handy during WW3.
Same with the CNG fleets.
The hybrid battery electrics came out of projects like that, and there are few parked in driveways in my neighborhood.

Yes, you have more tolerance than I.

Canadian politicians are like 4-year olds playing soccer. They herd together chasing the photo-op ball in every which direction all over the field.

How on earth did anybody expect even some minimum semblance of a "hydrogen highway" to get built without any committed sponsorship from either the public, the private sector, or both? Where did they expect to source H2 fuel on the west coast (or some place closer than Quebec)? What funding and/or policies were put in place to advance that? How is it that so many, many "infrastructure" stimulus programs have been implemented sinve 2009 by every layer of government we have. and yet we have but one H2 filling station in the B.C. Provincial capital? Wow.

Now we have B.C. Transit (a public institution) under budget pressure and for obvious reasons unwilling to continue running a tiny, oddball fleet of unusual and costly buses, and the politicians who saddled them with that decision are off chasing some other photo op.

Here's the latest Canadian political class boondoggle thumbing their noses at the long suffering taxpayer:

Canada sent 383 people to the UN climate conference, more than Australia, the U.K. and U.S. together

December 3, 2015

The massive Canadian contingent at the UN climate-change conference in Paris was originally estimated at 350 people, but it appears the trans-Atlantic road trip has expanded.

The “provisional list of participants” just released by the UN has an amazing 383 names from Canada, ranking us among the largest entourages in the entire confab.

Don’t nitpick over the newly bloated number, as it’s understandable some jet-setting bureaucrats may have been initially overlooked during such a busy travel period.

If you’ve ever seen the classic Christmas film “Home Alone” you’ll know how easy it is to get the head count wrong during a mad dash to Paris.

“Canada is back, my good friends,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the conference, and he wasn’t just blowing greenhouse gases.

Canada has sent more people to Paris than Australia (46), the U.K. (96), the U.S. (148), Russia (313) and almost as many as host-country France (396).

Not a bad turnout for a country that emits just 1.6 per cent of the planet’s greenhouse gases, eh?

Or maybe it’s not something to admire when you consider how much polluting fossil fuel was burned to fly so many hundreds of people across the ocean to talk about burning less.

Looking down the list of Canada’s participants in Paris, it’s hard not to conclude we’re vastly over-represented.

Did we really need to send the deputy environment minister for the Northwest Territories? The climate-change youth ambassador for the Yukon? The leader of the New Brunswick Green Party? The interim leader of the Bloc Quebecois and his press secretary? The “security co-ordinator” for Hydro-Quebec?...

...[B.C.] Premier Christy Clark is there, of course, though critics says she’s just taking credit for someone else’s work. (Former premier Gordon Campbell brought in B.C.’s groundbreaking carbon tax, which Clark promptly froze in 2012).

But while Clark has been called a laggard on the climate-change issue, she’s no slouch when it comes to climate-change photo-ops.

Clark’s entourage includes her “official photographer” and her “events co-ordinator.” Hey, who could save the planet without them?

Back home, meanwhile, Clark’s “Climate Leadership Team” just reported that the government will fail to meet its own greenhouse-gas reduction targets and called on Clark to double the carbon tax within five years.

The government said it won’t do that unless “emission-intensive, trade-exposed” industries are“fully protected” from any tax hikes.

That’s clearly meant as a reassuring signal to the big oil-and-gas companies Clark wants to lure to B.C. to build her promised liquefied natural-gas industry.

But that’s all down the road. For now, it’s time for another climate-change photo-op in Paris...

[santafe2]

Re: Peak Expensive Oil

Canada sent 383 people to the UN climate conference, more than Australia, the U.K. and U.S. together

Note to self. No more hand wringing, got to save the world now, it's probably too late for most homo sapiens conferences in Paris. It's the only city in the world where terrorists can kill over 100 people in several venues and before the bodies are cold my folks are fighting each other for a piece of la vie fantastique. COP22 should be in another city with a French name, Detroit. At least North Americans will save some money and carbon pollution getting there....everybody from the 313 put your hands up...