Shale Gas: Hopes for Our Energy Future

lrn2 hydrogen

Let me try a crappy analogy.
If you are trying to scam someone(not saying they are scamming but same principle) do you tell them you are going to scam them?

If they are really in control would they really tell the public that they are? Or if they were doing something harmful to the environment, etc etc. It's not like they're going to tell you, oh ya we are fucking peoples lives and making huge profits off of oil. Not saying they are guilty about it but expecting them to tell you everything, now that is fucking bullshit.

c-burg you are a fucking idiot.

well i guess this is somewhat a step in the right direction.

Wtf? hes not  some fucking agent from the oil industry spreading convenient propoganda haha your acting like he is involved in some global conspiracy. Your an oil whore as much as anyone in the industry or anyone else who pushes pipe dreams. Why deamonize the people you know you rely on

We all are dependent on Oil. And it is certain it won't last. But are we really doing anything about it? Truthfully they could be screwing us over, trying to squeeze oil for all its's got. Not saying they are. It's not the public being lied to as in not being told at all. We don't know shit what they are doing. It's not like they are going to tell us all what they are doing and give us a road map. Watch "Who killed the Electric Car" or "Peak Oil".

I've seen "Who killed the electric car" and it was anti-oil propganda which was completley based on flaming the industry we rely on. We all want alternative energy and more importantly a domestic source. Nuclear could help. So could many others but oil isnt the problem our lack of a better option is. We should be thanking them for keeping our country moving while the litany of companies which have entered the green energy industry progressivley work on new options.
Christ we have subsidized them enough lets see some results!

But that movie never considers the economic and structural viability of the current alternative options. Its just kool-aid and

I say we should use more solar. Gas is in no way the thing we should rely on energy from. I know we all use it but we should work our way to getting off it. It really doesn't seem like the oil companies are doing much to think in the future. Just think about it though, if use goes up at the rate it is going up we will use it to it's economic depletion meaning, then what? Are we are going to pull some magical oil replacement out of our ass? I guess maybe the oil companies aren't the one to "blame" but what are they doing to help everyone but themselves gain a profit.

Just my Point of View.

SEC. 322. HYDRAULIC FRACTURING.
Paragraph (1) of section 1421(d) of the Safe Drinking Water
Act (42 U.S.C. 300h(d)) is amended to read as follows:
‘‘(1) UNDERGROUND INJECTION.—The term ‘underground
injection’—
‘‘(A) means the subsurface emplacement of fluids by
well injection; and
‘‘(B) excludes—
‘‘(i) the underground injection of natural gas for
purposes of storage; and
‘‘(ii) the underground injection of fluids or propping
agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic
fracturing operations related

good argument thanks that really helps

Yes its overused, but that is because it is true. The phrase "low-hanging fruit" perfectly describes the situation.

In light of the oil spill, I decided to buy a book called "Oil: Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century". It's pretty fascinating, although I'm only on about chapter 4.

Anyways, offshore drilling has become increasingly common because of the "dwindling" supply - but that's obvious.

i am sorry, but you must not care about anyone but yourself. Maybe in terms of your life the fossil fuel supply isn't going away anytime "soon", but in terms of the future for the planet, it is very soon. many people such as yourself need to open their fucking eyes and look at the consequences we are facing right now, and then think about how much worse that will be in the future if we do not start shifting away right now. In addition, it's not just a dwindling supply that should be of concern to people. Fossil fuels are the worst types of fuels for the environment since they release the most GHG's.. and if you are one of those people who are still fucking stupid enough to not believe in global warming, then fossil fuels are bad for the environment simply because they pollute and reduce air quality. Also a significant amount of energy and money is wasted through refining of petroleum and transporting of its products. get your shit together and don't be an ignant.

Wow, where to begin.

To understand hydraulic fracturing you need to understand geology and engineering. Oil is not in big pools in the earth, it is held within a matrix. Imagine a bucket full of sand to the very top. Now I might ask you if there is any room left in the bucket and you might say now. But then I take a cup of water and easily poor it into the bucket. Now imagine this thousands of feet below the earth compacted into a thing stratographic layer, think the layers you can see at the Grand Canyon. These layers of sand are isolated by layers of shale. The shale layers, for the most part, have no permeability, so they cant communicate fluids.

So now we get to fracing. You first drill the well, set a pipe in the hole called casing, then cement behind said casing. If you have a good cement job then the casing is isolated from the hole and you have a nice pipe in the ground. Then you … nevermind here is a youtube video


Anyway there is absolutely no way that 1) you are going to connect ground water, which is generally around 500 feet max, to a gas zone. 2) Contaminate any drinking water. It is 99% water and sand, there are a few chemicals but every drop of fluid is flowed back into a frac tank and then production vessel. But people see chemicals being injected into the earth and freak out when a very basic understand of geology would let you know how foolish you are being.

I am about as liberal as they come in the oil field. I believe in saving our environment and investing in future technologies. I could pretty safely say that I know more about “alternative” fuels than 99.9% of NS. The problem is you guys hear about a new technology, wonder why it isn’t being used, and then say how evil the oil companies are, when you are all driving around and enjoying the countless advantages of a cheap fuel society. I fucking ride my bike to work every day, who of you who are over 16 can say that.

As far as alternative fuels go they don’t work, that’s why we don’t use them. Do you think if it was cheaper and cleaner to use solar we would? It would take 700 + wind turbines to match the power output of one off shore well. Think about all the petroleum we would use creating these technologies. In the long run it is better to use a Hummer H2 than a Prius because of the outrageous amount of mining it takes for the batteries (which don’t last long). I could go on and on but the bottom line is that Oil is the only fuel that we have that works.

Oil companies are not evil. They supply you with your fucking blood, you would die without them. They are full of people who are just like you. I am not saying they shouldn’t be regulated, in the past there have been many issues with pollution but we are working on it and I can pretty safely say that percentage wise we are the best industry in the world with dealing with hazardous chemical.

So my challenge to you is this, try to go one day without using oil based products, I can tell you now, unless you made all your own clothes and live in a tree trunk in Siberia you are screwed.

I love Tasche. No homo. The dude brings the knowledge.

^^ I love his last comment- so you're saying that since oil is in everything we shouldn't change how we make our products?- just keep it the same and no one will care?- Yes its impossible today to go without oil- but we should change it to other fibers natural or synthetic- use 1 bottle rather 245 per year, etc.etc

Tasche- solid response, and I agree with you in most of your arguments here. Only one problem, if you are "about as liberal as they come in the oil field" than that leaves a lot of people in the established energy business on the opposite end of the spectrum. And that's a little scary to me. I don't believe that the industry as a whole will do anything to push changes in energy methods until there is money to be made from it. That much is obvious (and natural). But meanwhile they will continue to rape the earth for fossil fuels..IE off-shore drilling, tar sands, and the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. I guess if anything, natural gas is the cleanest option they are supplying right now.

Have some faith in the energy industry, my friend. While there are a good deal of money hungry assholes who don't give a shit about anything but their bottom line, there are also a good deal of solid, moral individuals who take pride in their work and do what they can to ensure it is as safe as possible.

I am all for conservation and new technologies. I am just trying to highlight how oil is currently used and to have at least some understanding of oil companies.

And if you drill a water well into a gas reservoir your water will have gas in it. This has nothing to do with fracing. If the guy was smart he would put a simple 2 stage seperator on his water well and heat and power his house.

What I find most interesting is that every single person interviewed for that film didnt have any mineral rights. That is that they owned the surface but not the oil below the surface. They were just looking for a hand out. Every mineral owner was stoked. I would gladly have an oil or gas well on my property. We recently drilled some wells out in eastern colorado. The guy had no previous activity on his land and was hesitiant. We drilled and completed the wells leaving only a 150x30 foot production pad that is very well maintained as per state guidelines. Just from his 1/8th royality this guy has paid off his massive house, has no debt, and is currently building a runway and hangar. His land looks just as it did before and everyone is happy. That is how wells are drilled now a days, like I said before, if anyone in Colorado wants to I will take you out to a well site to dispell any trash in your brain from gasland. It is actually pretty boring. And states are cracking down, we no longer vent any gas, all the gas is either flared or compressed with a VRU. Very clean operations.

Here's the PDF in an Image. Click to make it bigger.

So are you just going to keep quoting energyindepth or do you want to try and provide those of us without the expertise an honest representation of the facts and opinions of the qualified experts? Phrases like absolutely no way and 99% are red flags that indicate a fact or opinion from biased sources.

People are worried about watershed contamination and negative environmental impacts. The The FRAC Act of 2009 is an example of the concern about the ramifications of the Energy Policy Act of 2005...

You can see people are going to respect your authority on the subject matter, at least provide us with enough information to decide for ourselves whether we trust the oil industry or not.

He is probably just giving strong opinions because its so annoying that anyone on this site is challenging him with little or no information on the realties of reenginiering of our source and power consumption
The "green movement" scaring people into buying shit that isnt viable. Taking advantage of people who want to do their part.

And Solar and Wind, not only are they inapplicable on large scale but they cost a fortune.
If your gonna get buszi with power go nuclear at least it puts out

Go read Thomas Friedman.

vs... "Oil companies are not evil. They supply you with your fucking blood, you would die without them."

that sounds pretty scary & coercive if you ask me.

Here is the bottom line: It is hard to explain how insane it is to think a reservoir like the Codell or the Niobrara which are at 5000’ could ever frac into ground water. That is what is frustrating, its like someone telling you that it is impossible to ski backwards.

Fracing is not new technology, we have been doing this shit forever. I don’t have the time right now but I will write out something better in the future.

GASLAND owns natural gas

So does selling people biohazard light bulbs and Hybrids with batteries who's production alone carries environmental footprint (battery alone) than a domestically produced Yukon XL. Under the pretext that your helping the world...
get real this is just a partisan back and forth the green movement is as guilty morally as anyone else who is profiting off their patrons fears and desire to be benevolent

I'm sorry but what do you think my argument is? And while you're at it, what exactly is your point? Are you really saying that we should embrace the status quo?

kale, our source of gas in the future!

Im sorry,im retarded, this intership is making me go INSANE

Jim Cameron

Where does hydrogen come from?

1) Electrolisis (produced at a net energy loss)

2) Natural Gas.

hydrogen fusion, although EXTREMELY hard to contain and control, presents an amazing amount of energy. It will take a while for sure, but in the meantime people need to stop being so stupid about nuclear power so we can make advancement in that field. (You know the same feeling, stupid uneducated public!!RAGE!!!) Nuclear power itself has room for improvement but is already quite efficient.

I am a big proponent of nuclear fuel; however it has its drawbacks.
1) The waste is around for thousands of years. We can store it safely but it is impossible to guarantee that far into the future.

2) It is very expensive to build and operate and requires long run times and significant investment.

3) There is always the possibility of a meltdown. This is very slim but we pursued the technology too fast and disasters like 3 mi island and Chernobyl shaped a negative public opinion. People don’t want it in their backyard.

If I was in charge I would commission 1,000 new nuclear plants to be built all across the US. Just showing what you have to deal with. Also you can’t run cars, trucks, or airplanes on nuclear fuel without batteries. Batteries consume massive amounts of energy to mine and produce and have a short life compared with current technology.

Hydrogen fusion is great, but we never got it to work at a net energy gain. So you can say that it is viable.

I am a realist, you can bitch all you want but the hard facts are that there is no substitute for oil. I am not saying future technology will not change that but you can’t sit there and say we should be using all these other technologies that either don’t exist or run at a net loss.

I am actually in the process of putting solar panels on my house. I am getting everything at a steep discount and taking advantage of numerous government and energy company subsidies and still the payout is in the tens of years. I am basically wasting money on this project (only just, and it depends on my energy usage) but it will take a lot of people losing money till we can get to a new energy future. What really needs to happen is oil prices need to get back to 150 $/bbl that will stimulate new technologies.

Going off on a tangent; I think the most exciting new technology is the ability to create an artificial DNA molecule and create tailored bacteria. Technically we could create bacteria that eats all our trash and produces hydrogen. Each house could have its own hydrogen production unit. This technology is just years away, but it is just that, years away as in not the present.

^ Yea, oil definitely is the number one resource we have going for us right now, and I your points definitely are valid. My only problem with it is the 50-100 years left we have with it. It's not a whole lot of time to develop a new system that we can successfully transfer to when it does die out.

I agree, but let me just say there is no way you can put a number like 50-100 years on oil production. There are vast reserves and new technologies that are constantly increasing the world wide reserves.

We will stop using oil before it runs out, that I can guarantee. The cost will increase and a new CHEAPER technology will take its place.

ha - you have 50-100 years alone sitting under Los Angeles and on the Continental shelf there....

True. And what's funny is that they dropped those same arbitrary numbers 50 years ago. Since then the US has never had a scare even close to the 1979 oil shortage (which was entirely political). I am a realistic too, and it's clear that we'll need oil for the forseeable future. And there's no doubt that we can find it. The issue is at what cost? Fucking up the entire landscape of Northern Canada & Alaska? More offshore? It would also help to make combustible engines more efficient...like cars that don't have the same mpg that they did when they were invented.