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: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 10:55 PM
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:

 

>>> Perhaps the existence of this string of failures and no corresponding list 
>>> of success stories should tell you that maybe, just maybe those 2.5:1 EROI 
>>> numbers I gave are on the mark.


>> I'm confused. I think you're using some weird EROI convention because 
>> usually  EROI numbers are always compared to 1 and so any EROI number above 
>> 1 is a net energy generator;  2.5: 1 would mean you'd get 2.5 times as much 
>> energy out as you put in and thus would be worth doing, but that doesn't 
>> seem to be what you're saying. I think you mean 1:2.5  or as compared to 1  
>> .4:1 or better yet just .4 . I need for you to clarify this point because I 
>> can't debate you when I'm not sure what you're saying.

 

> oops, my bad; I inadvertently transposed the positions.

 

>>Shame on you, I never things transpose. But I'm starting to understand where 
>>you're getting those strange numbers and strange ideas about economics and 
>>energy.

 

Such colorful language Mr. Clark…. Strange indeed. My ideas on economics and 
energy are what they are; your beginning your reply to the EROI by calling them 
strange is itself a strange manner of engaging in discourse.

 

> I should have said and meant to say 1:2.5 that is one unit of energy out for 
> every 2.5 units of energy put in.

>>Wikipedia says:

 

And argument from authority is very often the cover of those who have no 
argument of any worth themselves. Is your understanding of energy matters is 
only Wikipedia deep perhaps?

 

"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. You are 
confusing and conflating apples and oranges again. I have gone through this 
with you before and you claimed to have understood the substantial and critical 
difference between tight oil bearing shale deposits and kerogen shale (which 
most of the hydrocarbon shale resources are)

The EROI of tight oil from shale in the best sweet spots has zilch, nada, 
nothing to do with the EROI of kerogen bearing shale. Why don’t you tell me why 
you continue to try to present these two very different resources as if they 
were one and the same? 

After all this back and forth I doubt you can still remain so profoundly  
ignorant of the salient fact that in one case it is oil trapped in 
micro-recesses in the shale while in the other it is a waxy substance called 
kerogen that will not flow and needs instead to be cooked out of the rock mass 
– at immense expense of energy inputs.

 

 

Wow, forget about cooking the oil shale, this is cooking the books! Why on 
earth would anybody include the self energy of the Kerogen, which costs 
absolutely nothing, as part of the energy COST of converting Kerogen to oil?? I 
can think of only one reason for doing so, to make the ERORI figures look worse 
than they really are. 

If that is the only possible reason you can think of I must question your 
intelligence Mr. Clark. Why on earth would anybody in their right mind burn 
something of high value – the extracted liquid that has been cooked out of the 
kerogen – in order to make electricity with which to heat electric heating 
coils embedded in sunk wells in the rock mass that is to be heated – when Dah 
they could instead burn cheap brown coal. 

Any liquid oil that has been cooked from the kerogen is sold. That is the 
product. The needed energy inputs would come from electricity. There is a 
reason for this – you claim to be a smart fellow – why electricity? Ask your 
wetware why John? How do you heat the three dimensional mass of presumably well 
fracked shale rock – and do so in place – in order to cook the kerogen it 
contains into a useful and crucially EXTRACTABLE product? 

Mining the rock and pulverizing it is out of the question – far, far too 
expensive. The oil has to be extracted in place. So how do you do it genius? 
You need to raise the temperature of the entire shale rock mass up to a 
processing temperature of 350 degrees C. You made noises about self-energy – 
well? Where, how? The kerogen in the shale rock is not going to provide you 
with any energy until you have first extracted it from the shale rock matrix.

People who have actually made it their careers to try to figure out how to do 
this seem to have settled on sinking arrays of electric heating coils down bore 
holes in a matrix as being the best engineering solution to tackle this 
formidable problem. Perhaps an alternative means could be pumping a molten salt 
dense fluid through a bore hole (but what heats the salt to its hot molten 
state?) 

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? Please 
don’t point me to some Wikipedia article you googled in five seconds; because 
if that is the extent of your understanding of energy systems you really ought 
to be doing more listening and (maybe learning) and less pontificating about 
environmentalists.

 

And who would want to do something like that? My old friends the 
environmentalists. And sure enough a very recent report came out that said:
 
"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 -- who continues to uses EROI figures 
for tight oil when arguing about kerogen. Lying with numbers is still dishonest.

Look, despite what you may think I'm really not a huge fan of oil shale or even 
oil in general, I think there are better energy alternatives either now or in 
the near future, but I think we should play fair and not fudge the numbers to 
accommodate our personal likes and dislikes.  

 

Precisely John – let’s not fudge the numbers. 

If we are talking about Kerogen shale then use numbers for kerogen shale. You 
are misrepresenting EROI numbers that are for tight oil (in shale) as being 
representative of some hypothetical EROI reality for kerogen bearing shale.

This either makes you seem rather dense, possessing, but a meager intellect; or 
it indicates that you are ethically challenged and are prone to engage in 
dishonesty in discourse.

-Chris

 

  John K Clark






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