No, Mr. President. Natural gas is not a "bridge" fuel.

[hunter]

With coal you're riding the highway to hell at 100 miles per hour.

With natural gas, especially fracked natural gas, you're going 75 miles per hour.

The destination is the same.

How do we turn around?

That's the question that needs answering.

[tridim]

1. He said it is a bridge fuel only if "extracted safely"

Did you listen to the entire SOTU or are you just reacting to one word?

[hunter]

2. It's a fossil fuel.

Burn it, add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

No getting around that.

Quitting fossil fuels is like quitting smoking.

You haven't quit smoking until you quit smoking.

[DCBob]

3. Actually is like e-cigarettes.

Its a much much cleaner burning fuel than diesel or gas. CNG gives us time to further develop alternatives without completely destroying the environment.

[2naSalit]

4. The time to

further develop alternatives has been around for decades. It's all about the fossil fuel oligarchs who, like that guy in Dr. Strangelove riding the missile, can't allow some other industry to take hold because they can't own it themselves so they'll take us down with them whole planet because of that. Fuck fracking and the devastation it has caused and continues to cause. What we have allowed to be squandered we can't get back, not in the next fifty generations of humankind... if we last that long.

We needed to get it together with wind, solar and other alternatives that don't require combustion a LONG TIME AGO and we let the greedy pigs have their way with us. Now we are paying in every way possible and still people are saying that we should just keep burning it all up.

[pangaia]

28. " like that guy in Dr. Strangelove riding the missile,'

was SLIM PICKENS !

One of the best film scenes ever..

"..One miniature Bible, one issue of prophylactics....."

[2naSalit]

29. Thans!

I couldn't remember his name while I was writing the comment, was focused elsewhere.

[hunter]

5. Problem is they are already using natural gas to make diesel and gasoline...

... and that use is only going to increase.

Natural gas is already being used to extract and refine things like tar sands and very heavy sour oils. In some places they are turning natural gas directly into synthetic gasoline and diesel fuel, dumping a lot of carbon dioxide at the "refinery."

This is why fears of "peak oil" subsided, but it's also a disturbing development. The fuel you fill your car or truck up with no longer represents the total amount of carbon dioxide your vehicle releases. Natural gas and coal are now used in the process of synthesizing fuel, either directly, or by generating heat, hydrogen or electricity, adding a great deal more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at the extraction sites, in transportation, and at the refineries.

Measured by carbon dioxide emissions your 40 mile a gallon car of today may be no better than a 20 mile per gallon car of yesterday.

Simple distillation of sweet crude oils with mild chemical shifts is largely a thing of the past. Modern fuels are increasingly synthetic products.

[DCBob]

7. I was thinking more of CNG powered vehicles and natural gas power plants.

I was not aware there was much synthetic conversion of ng to gas/diesel. That doesn't seem cost effective.

[hunter]

16. Here's the Shell site...

http://www.shell.com/global/future-energy/natural-gas/gtl.html

And that's just for starters.

The entire MTBE fiasco was an early process of converting natural gas to a gasoline component, under the guise of an oxygenated "clean air" fuel.

Cheap MTBE + cheap low "octane" gasoline --> higher "octane" gasoline + profit$

The modern version is:

Cheap natural gas + cheap heavy crudes --> gasoline, diesel, jet fuel + profit$

There's a lot of amazing chemistry going on there and coal will be increasingly involved too, none of which bodes well for atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

[kristopher]

18. Where do you get this crazy stuff?

"Measured by carbon dioxide emissions your 40 mile a gallon car of today may be no better than a 20 mile per gallon car of yesterday."

I don't think it's too much to ask that you produce some real analysis when you post this kind of outlandish claim.

[hunter]

19. Can I show you pictures?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_oil_sands

Maybe you'd like to see photos of great piles of petroleum coke or sulfur too?



Oxbow Calcining facility and Port Arthur Steam Energy plant after hurricane Rita

You can dig through current and historical refinery statistics if you like, but in this case, pictures really are worth a thousand words.

[kristopher]

20. You made an outrageous false claim - stop spreading the bullshit.

"Measured by carbon dioxide emissions your 40 mile a gallon car of today may be no better than a 20 mile per gallon car of yesterday."

This is false. It isn't even close to being true.

[kristopher]

21. Here is a "picture" more appropriate to the discussion

[hunter]

22. Now show me the graph from my childhood, when gasoline smelled like gasoline...

... and not like toluene, other aromatics, ethers, and alcohols.

Compare:

C₈H₁₈ + O₂ --> carbon dioxide and water and energy.

to:

C₇H₈ + O₂ --> carbon dioxide and water and energy.

I leave it to you to balance the equations and wonder by what miracle modern refineries, Jesus-like, turn a barrel of crude oil into more than a barrel of fuels.

[kristopher]

23. You're the one that made the absurd claim

The product hasn't changed in any substantive manner other than replacing lead.

Stop spreading bullshit.

[hunter]

24. Shocking!

[Niceguy1]

6. cleanly extracted natural gas is an excellent

Bridge fuel. it is clean and reliable and it's something that we are fielding right now extensively way better than the diesel vehicles that are being replaced with CNG vehicles right now. in the natural gas vehicles can be replaced with a cleaner technology when it becomes available and suitable for mass use

[madokie]

8. If you think that today's USA can somehow transition back to the horse and buggy days

and or bicycling miles to and from work every day is possible then maybe natural gas isn't but in reality that all is not possible anymore. Back in the days of the beast of burden and bicycles people didn't work 20, 30, 40, hell even 70 and 80 miles each way to work.
Natural gas is an excellent transitional fuel for today according to everything I've read

I know what we're doing now isn't working and we need to do something different. If nuclear had lived up to its hype it would have been a great way to provide our energy but as we can see from the few catastrophes its caused it doesn't.

[hunter]

17. Sure it's possible. We just don't have the will to do it.

I'm not advocating "horse and buggy days." Pretty soon now we'll have climate change refugees all over the place, even within the U.S.A., people moving away because they have no choice.

When jobs evaporate or an environment becomes unlivable, the commuting will stop.

Life's just not going to be the same.

I figure many existing "commuter" suburbs with no civic centers, few employment opportunities, zoning ordinances that restrict population densities or innovative lifestyles, these are going to be increasingly unhappy places with decreasing property values.

"Innovative lifestyles" would be things like unrelated people sharing large homes, chickens, home shops, micro-homes, front yard food gardens, walkable, bike friendly, etc.. A more traditional, pre-automobile, kind of urban living but with flush toilets, hot showers, and electric lights.

How do we allow for lively, much less automobile dependent, development without creating slums? The places that succeed will be the attractive communities of tomorrow.

[Champion Jack]

25. Problem is, it cannot be extracted cleanly…

it cannot be extracted cleanly without adversely affecting millions of people and potentially ruining the water supplies. Poisoned aquifers take a long time to recover if they ever do

[Niceguy1]

26. fracking isnt required to extract

Natural gas, it is a rscent trend that isnt necessary

[Champion Jack]

27. What exactly are the alternatives to get the deep shale gas?

[arachadillo]

9. count me in the gangplank category

count me in the natural gas as the gangplank to the future category
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/30/3224951/obama-sotu-natural-gas/

The Environmental Protection Agency has pegged natural gas leakage from production at 1.5 percent. But the agency tends to rely on industry-provided numbers. A separate study by fifteen scientists — from institutions including Harvard, NOAA and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab — looked at comprehensive atmospheric data and models, and concluded the leakage was at least three percent. At 2.7 percent or more, natural gas loses any advantage over coal in terms of its greenhouse effect.
That finding is backed up by other, more local studies by NOAA, which found a four percent leakage rate from natural gas production around Denver, a 6-to-12 percent rate from production in Colorado’s Uintah Basin, and a 17 percent rate in the L.A. basin.
On top of all that, the fracking process consumes and pollutes enormous amounts of fresh water, which can leach from the wells into other groundwater supplies. That combines with the massive freshwater consumption by other fossil fuel energy sources, which in turn aggravates the water shortages brought on by climate change.

[kristopher]

10. No where in the replies so far is an understanding of what "bridge fuel" means.

Our fossil centric system evolved around the economics of cheap fossil fuels. It created an infrastructure that depends on large scale centralized generating facilities and a transmission/distribution network designed around that type of facility's needs.

The solution to the problems associated with fossil fuels is found in different sources of energy; but those sources of energy aren't well suited to the centralized generation infrastructure nor the economic model that created it. They work to a degree, but eventually, if left unaddressed, the conflicts in the economics that are dictated by their operating characteristics will cause the system to stop functioning.
"W. Australian grid may become first big victim of “death spiral”" http://www.democraticunderground.com/112763112

Natgas is thought of as a "bridge fuel" in that it functions well within the two different systems. It works with coal and nuclear to facilitate their operations and economics, but it also works with the operational characteristics of wind and solar. It thus holds the system together during the transition phase, thereby allowing the seamless phase out of centralized generation.

It also differs from coal in one other important way - it potentially delivers less than half of coal's carbon per kilowatt. There is strong evidence that to achieve this level of emissions strong action would be required to regulate and monitor the production process, but that is an achievable task.

Finally, to fulfill this role, we do not need to ramp up or in any way increase production of natural gas - what we need to do is rapidly increase the deployment of all renewable energy technologies.

Additional reading: "Renewable Energy Is Capable of Meeting Our Energy Needs"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112762685

"Controlled EV charging cuts power costs 50% – even more with wind"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112763015

"Wind turbines can be instrument to boost grid stability"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112762721

[arachadillo]

11. Gangplank to the Future

It also differs from coal in one other important way - it potentially delivers less than half of coal's carbon per kilowatt. There is strong evidence that to achieve this level of emissions strong action would be required to regulate and monitor the production process, but that is an achievable task.

There are two logical problems with that assertion.

1. It's not an achievable task.

No doubt the technology exists to potentially reduce excess GHG emissions from fracking...the problem is cost. Higher costs means that the independent frackers will get booted from the fields....no way on God's green earth is that gonna happen....look what happens when independent oil companies get threatened with the same thing....the politicos scream bloody murder that their "poor" constituents are getting shafted (pun intended).

2. It's not an achievable task.

Frackers way overestimated the amount of potentially recoverable gas from their wells. Maybe the Bakken shale worked out, but Utica shale appears to be a bust (unless the price of natural gas increases by 400% or more), Barnette shale is crapping out, and other shale plays are playing out well before they were assumed to reach their fracking maturity stage (they might frack out after three fracks rather than 10 fracks).

so, if there's less potential economic benefits from one fracking site, then more fracking sites are needed, increasing costs. Increased costs means that frackers do not want to add additional costs by using more expensive technology.

The assertion that fracking can be done cleanly, under a proper regulatory environment falls flat on its face given the economics of fracking.

The assertion that fracking is a bridge to the future is an oil and gas company myth.

[kristopher]

12. I don't believe you have the evidence to support that conclusion on economics

Last edited Fri Jan 31, 2014, 06:40 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm dedicated to the objective of getting rid of both, but the point of the post was that we can't get rid of both simultaneously. In a forced choice situation which would you get rid of - coal or natural gas; what is your poison?

I say we continue building renewables, and try to clean up the natural gas production while we shut down the coal plants. When the coal plants are shut down we don't stop deploying renewables but continue on and shut down most natural gas also. By cleaning up I'm an completely in favor of extremely stringent controls on both atmospheric emissions as well as potential contamination of water supplies.
The key isn't natural gas that is extremely cheap, it is a stable supply of natural gas such that it doesn't experience price spikes.

The assertion that NATURAL GAS is a bridge fuel predates fracking and the objections to it. The interest groups most threatened by natural gas for electric generation are nuclear and coal.

If you have an alternative that will work faster to get rid of all fossil fuels, I'm eager to hear it.

ETA: I knew I forgot something. Natural gas plants are able to ramp up and down quickly in a way that coal and nuclear can't. This characteristic facilitates the continued deployment of variable renewable generation. Also, the market is already structured to allow increasing prices for that ramping ability as the quantity of electricity delivered from natgas declines. Coal can't do that. As it loses market share it can't deliver the support power via the spot market; meaning it becomes impossible to make up losses. This shuts it down before renewable deployment would be sufficient to cover the loss.

This is the specific reason natgas was originally labeled by those dedicated to building a carbon free renewable energy infrastructure as a "bridge fuel".

[arachadillo]

13. yeah

Hey Mr. Nobel Prize Winning Economist who declares "I don't believe you have the evidence to support that conclusion on economics"

I'm dedicated to the objective of getting rid of both, but the point of the post was that we can't get rid of both simultaneously. In a forced choice situation which would you get rid of - coal or natural gas; what is your poison?

My poison is apparently not your leaky, fuzzy logic.

Let me see, the oil and gas industry can, at the drop of a hat come up with $3T to fund a series of endless wars to defend their economic interests.

The oil and gas industry can, at the drop of a hat come up with $4T to pad the FED's balance sheet to support their economic interests.

The oil and gas industry can, at the drop of a hat, come up with who knows how many trillions of subsidies since the Regan administration proclaimed full steam ahead with fossil fuels.

Now if the oil and gas industry can, in a "forced choice situation" find trillions of dollars to support their economic interests, simple logic suggests that getting rid of both by coming up with $T at the drop of a hat is also possible.

Maybe not politically possible, but logically possible...

The assertion that NATURAL GAS is a bridge fuel predates fracking and the objections to it. The interest groups most threatened by natural gas for electric generation are nuclear and coal.

Natural Gas is a gangplank to the future. see previous post.

If you have an alternative that will work faster to get rid of all fossil fuels, I'm eager to hear it.

the relational integrity of the logician's enterprise requires one to charitably accept an individual's premise as valid. Charitably, I will accept your premise of your belief of the need to rid the world of fossil fuels as valid. Although I do question the soundness of your reasoning. (the other element associated with maintaining the relational integritity of the logician's enterprise).

Politeness also requires I remind you of President Roosevelt's answer to your inquiry.

"After his election in 1932, FDR met with Sidney Hillman and other labor leaders, many of them active Socialists with whom he had worked over the past decade or more. Hillman and his allies arrived with plans they wanted the new President to implement. Roosevelt told them: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."

BTW...where did you get your degrees in philosophy and international political economy?

[kristopher]

14. So you don't think we need to get off of fossil fuels?

"Charitably, I will accept your premise of your belief of the need to rid the world of fossil fuels as valid. Although I do question the soundness of your reasoning."


I can see you have no answer to my question nor do seem to see a need to transition away from fossil fuels. It appears you are more intent on stringing a line of meaningless bullshit than anything else. So, I'd say that ends the discussion.

[arachadillo]

15. yeah

so.............. you received your degrees in philosophy and international political economy from bullshit U...that explains your abrupt ending of the conversation of my responding ever so politely to your less that totally polite response.

I guess the end, is the end...that sounds logical too...