RE: Natural gas: The fracking fallacy

['Chris de Morsella' via Everything List]

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2015 12:56 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Natural gas: The fracking fallacy

 

On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 3:26 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List 
<everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> You are misrepresenting EROI numbers 

Let's talk a little about misrepresenting EROI numbers. There is something 
called the first law of thermodynamics and it says that no process can produce 
energy from nothing, so if you count self energy as you and environmentalist 
morons do you can ensure that the EROI number for ANYTHING never gets above 1. 

 

You use the word “morons”; then in the same breath go on to utter moronic 
things such as EROI never getting above one. The big gusher oil wells in Texas, 
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Mexico had EROI of better than 100:1. The energy used to 
drill and operate the well, pumping networks etc. to the tanker terminal 
yielded petroleum with a hundred times the invested energy. Which is why they 
were called gushers you libertarian moron. 

 

And there is also something called the second  law of thermodynamics and if you 
use that too you can ensure that the EROI never even gets as high as 1, it's 
always less, and so nothing, absolutely positively nothing, is worth doing. 
That's all you need to come up with EROI numbers that are always as low as you 
want them to be. Well.., you need one other thing, a desire to deceive. 


 

>> Wikipedia says:  

"A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the various known oil-shale deposits as 
varying between 0.7–13.3. More recent studies estimates the EROEI of oil shales 
to be 2:1 or 16:1  depending on whether self-energy is counted as a cost or 
internal energy is excluded and only purchased energy is counted as input.

> What do those numbers have to do with kerogen shale extraction.

THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT KEROGEN OIL EXTRACTION! See for yourself:

What are those numbers based on. Believe what you will. Show me an actual 
commercially producing shale oil operation? Show me some actual operating 
process that is generating actual data that can actually be measured and used 
to provide a realistic statistical basis upon which to make a judgment.

YOU CAN’T, BECAUSE THERE ARE NONE!

The biggest thing going now in kerogen extraction is probably a small startup 
shale energy company in Utah called RedLeaf Resources… that has some permits 
and  a plan and that is it.

NO DATA!

Screw those BS numbers. They are not based on anything real like an existing 
industrial scale operation. Unless you can show actual real world data then all 
you got is somebodies projections based on their assumptions. And as history 
has shown the EIA and the IEA have made highly optimistic projections in the 
past that have proven wrong and had to be seriously downgraded.

You have nothing because there is nothing! There is no kerogen extraction 
sector to speak of. In 1982 Exxon threw in the towel after dumping some $5 
billion down the shale oil money pit. The DOE threw some $10 billion trying to 
jump start the sector; that decades long effort was also abandoned. Shell Oil 
recently also called it quits with kerogen extraction. 

If it is so hot then why has every major attempt to extract it commercially in 
the US gone under or been shut down?

In the end it is the facts that speak John and the fact of the matter is that 
there is no existing kerogen extraction sector to speak of in the US; nor is 
there any on the horizon.

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

At the very beginning of the article it warns that if you're interested in 
"tight oil" which is sometimes also called shale oil it recommends a completely 
different article. The article I quoted also says:

 

"Shale oil is extracted by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution of 
oil shale. The pyrolysis of the rock is performed in a retort, situated either 
above ground or within the rock formation itself. As of 2008, most oil shale 
industries perform the shale oil extraction process after the rock is mined, 
crushed and transported to a retorting facility, although several experimental 
technologies perform the process in place (in-situ). The temperature at which 
the KEROGEN decomposes into usable hydrocarbons varies with the time-scale of 
the process" 

> And argument from authority is very often the cover of those who have no 
> argument of any worth themselves

 

So I should renounce Wikipedia's authority but embrace Chris de Morsella's 
authority. Everybody is wrong except you.

 

I am impressed John you demonstrated the aptitude to search google and find a 
Wikipedia entry. 

What are those numbers – you choose to uncritically accept – based on? On what 
actual data? Data from what? When there is no existing commercial scale 
operations to generate such data operating in the first place. 

And answer the question, if it is so lucrative then why has every attempt 
beginning from early last century to exploit this resource in the US failed?


 

> Is your understanding of energy matters is only Wikipedia deep perhaps?


Wikipedia flatly contradicts you, even a bunch of wacky tree huggers 
contradicts you, but you still insist you're right. So tell me, do you honestly 
believe you are being intellectually honest  right now? Is this a moment you're 
going to look back on with pride?

Point me to some actual operating real world kerogen shale oil extraction 
operation in the US? There is nothing real actually backing those numbers up, 
except highly optimistic assumptions that those who edited that Wiki entry saw 
fit to put there. In the real world the narrative is different; in the real 
world the oil majors and the DOE that have actually thrown BIG money at trying 
to commercialize this have all DUMPED their kerogen extraction operations.

They must all be tree hugging morons like me.

 

> You are confusing and conflating apples and oranges again.

 

At one time I confused tight oil and oil from kerogen oil shale but you 
corrected my mistake and I thank you for that because although it was a little 
embarrassing I learned from my mistake and that's much more important. And now 
it's your turn to be confused by the difference between tight oil and oil from 
kerogen oil shale, but unlike me you do not learn from your mistakes. 

 

The depth of your understanding of energy issues would not get my ankles wet 
John. It is true you confused kerogen shale with tight oil bearing shale, and 
this confusion of yours in energy matters continues to manifest in your 
insistence that kerogen shale can produce these rosy returns you quote – 
quoting the Wiki entry you so brilliantly located in 5 seconds.

 

I will continue to point out to you that all the major efforts to actually 
develop kerogen shale have been abandoned, dumped, gone belly up. If this does 
not cause you to question the rosy story you stumbled across in your two minute 
self-education on this then perhaps you should question your own intelligence.

 

 

> Any liquid oil that has been cooked from the kerogen is sold. 

The liquid oil is a solid? And by the way, all oil was probably kerogen at one 
point in it's life until the the heat of the Earth cooled it into crude oil.

Kerogen needs to be cooked at 350 degrees centigrade for months to cook out the 
oil (and volatiles) it contains. Kerogen itself is a waxy substance embedded in 
the shale rock.

> The needed energy inputs would come from electricity. 

The needed heat energy need not come from electricity, it could come from 
anything, and a large part of that heat would come from the self energy of the 
Kerogen itself. 

If the process is done in situ then how do you deliver the needed heat into the 
rock matrix? Electrically heated coils embedded in bore holes happens to be one 
of the best ways of doing this. Perhaps you don’t get this; that’s okay. As I 
had mentioned you could also pump a molten salt through a matrix of bore holes, 
but this is arguably more difficult to do and to operate than using the 
electric heating option.

Bottom line you need to raise the temperature of the entire rock matrix up to 
the processing temperature of 350 degrees C. There is no way around the fact 
that this is a very large energy cost. 

It's exactly the same with crude oil, when you refine a pound of crude oil the 
resulting gasoline produced from it has less chemical energy than the original 
crude oil, energy is conserved so the difference is released  as heat. 

When you calculate the resulting EROI of the gasoline produced you must count 
the required processing energy (as well as the embedded energy contained in the 
capital of the refinery plant etc.). Then you must also count the energy 
required to distribute that gasoline if you are measuring the end point EROI. 
This should make sense even to a libertarianism distorted mind such as yours. 
The EROI of a gallon of gasoline delivered by tanker truck convoy to some 
forward operating base in Afghanistan is very negative; while a gallon of gas 
at the pump in say Houston metro area is very much more positive.

Every energy expense that happens along the way form discovery, to production 
to distribution lowers the net energy that will remain when the product is 
consumed. This is common sense; perhaps in short supply amongst you 
libertarians, but quite commonly grasped by most people. 

Does this mean that it takes more energy to refine crude oil than the energy 
you get out of it? Yes, if self-energy is counted as a cost,  but only a moron 
would do that, or a swindler who wanted to make the EROI number look bad.   

John I don’t think you understand how EROI numbers are produced or what they 
seek to measure. I suggest you read Charles Hall’s seminal work on EROI to get 
a more in depth understanding.

> I’ve been noticing that you seem to have a tendency to shoot your mouth off 
> John. What do you actually know about kerogen extraction processes? 

Not a lot but clearly one hell of a lot more than you do.

Yeah right LOL -- Mr. Wikipedia. 

> Please don’t point me to some Wikipedia article you googled in five seconds;

Because five seconds is all it takes to prove that you're dead wrong. I was 
wrong a while back and when it became clear to me that I had made a mistake I 
admitted it, do you have the intellectual courage to do the same thing.  

You have not proved anything. Once again if kerogen extraction is so good then 
why did Exxon/Mobile throw in the towel (in 1982) after dumping $5 billion in 
its futile attempt to commercialize this resource? Why did the DOE terminate 
its shale oil program – after wasting $10 billion of the taxpayers money on it 
– how many multiples of a Solyndra is that? Why has Shell Oil also ended its 
decades long attempts?

Explain how the biggest energy companies in the world have all given up on it – 
after spending many billions of dollars in abandoned FAILURES. What do you know 
John that the oil majors don’t know, because they all must be idiots to be so 
completely ignoring these riches there for the plucking (according to you armed 
with your Wikipedia expertise)

 

> "Oil shale’s Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is extremely low, falling 
> between 1:1 and 2:1 when self-energy—the energy released by the oil shale 
> conversion process that is used to power that operation—is counted as a cost."


> And who funded this study which came out with these shamefully misleading 
> figures? The Western Resource Advocates, a organization of environmental 
> lobbyists. But claiming its 1:2.5 is going too far even for most 
> environmental loonies. 


> Says the hack – that would be you John 

It's hack work but not by me, it's the work of "The Western Resource Advocates" 
; and yes they are moronic but not as moronic as you, your EROI figure of 1:2.5 
is too stupid even for them.

 

Meanwhile back in the real world, all major attempts to exploit this resource 
have ended in failure and been abandoned. That this does not tell you something 
speaks more to the denseness of your libertarian dulled mental abilities than 
anything else. You are letting your dogma drive your mind. If it was worth 
exploiting it would have been exploited. 

 

> If we are talking about Kerogen shale then use numbers for kerogen shale. 

I HAVE BEEN!!

 

No you haven’t John. There is no existing Kerogen extraction and processing 
going on to produce the real world data that could develop a reality based 
dataset with which to intelligently discuss actual EROI values. All the numbers 
you have presented from your Wikipedia source are based on assumptions. Who 
produced these assumptions, what are the original sources for them? 

There is nothing there John. No real existing industry sector. There is no 
Kerogen sector to speak of in the US – you are brandishing projection made 
about something that does not exist. 

Ask yourself – why does no kerogen shale extraction sector exist to speak of in 
the US? Ask yourself why has every major player that has ever actually tried to 
make it work.. why have they ALL thrown in the towel and completely and totally 
abandoned all of their kerogen development and R&D efforts?

I realize it makes your Libertarian bones feel good insulting 
environmentalists, but seriously man try to transcend this dogmatic imperative 
and look at the picture as it actually is in our real world. There is no 
kerogen extraction industry worth speaking of and all attempts to create one 
have failed.

-Chris

 

 

  John K Clark 


 

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