mheslep said:
For case i), reference the 1979/Iranian oil crisis. US energy use per capita had been continually increasing every year as far back as the data shows. In 1978 it was at its all time high, and by 1983 after the crisis had dropped 14%. Yet during that same 5 year period GDP rose 32% (not inflation corrected).
That's all well and good, but since the 1980's the gap between US production and consumption has widened significantly. Anomalous drops in consumption reveal that, to some degree, conservation may help. The bigger picture, however, reveals that production is hitting a plateau and nominal drops in consumption will not be enough.
(taken from
here)
Also, I am highly doubtful that the US economy will be making strides like it did in the 80's.
Here's another narrower example. A US family summer vacation might be 1000 miles round trip, consuming 5GJ (5e9 Joule) in the average 25 mpg car. This source claims the construction of http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.html, so that if 100 million families decided to forego a
single summer vacation (gasp!) twenty new nuclear power plants could be built from the energy savings. If all those skipped family vacations were air travel,
2 people one flight, then 340 nuclear plants could be built.
The construction of 340 nuclear power plants would be a very significant contribution to alternative sources of energy in the US. These plants, of course, could not be built overnight and, seeing that the Plant Vogtle in Georgia (which was approved earlier this year) was the first in 34 years to be approved and likely won't be operational until 2017, I would suggest that the time required to get 340 plants proposed, approved and built would be significant. Also, nuclear power isn't what keeps the US transportation industry driving, nor does it keep any of those tourist-laden planes aloft.
For case ii), the ability to quickly produce alternatives, look at ethanol. Yes corn ethanol is a poor energy crop, is a dumb subsidy, using up arable land, etc, but this is beside the immediate point, which in this case is volume. US ethanol production, going from almost nothing a decade ago, is now
one million barrels per day, and it would be greater if not for the 10% blend limit imposed by the EPA that has leveled off production. For comparison the US produces almost
six million bbls / day of crude oil (and rising).
The US consumes ~19.2 million bbl, so that would meet 5% of the consumption for the country. Increasing production beyond current numbers, even without EPA restrictions, is likely not going to happen. Food/arable land is just as (if not more) valuable, so offsetting hydrocarbon consumption by taking up valuable agricultural land is something that would be far from an easy sell.
mheslep said:
I pointed out that pulling oil out of shale is not the only place where energy is consumed. In response you ignore that point and repeat what you said previously. Why?
Let's not have anyone fool us or fool ourselves. What about Hamm's reasoning?
I didn't ignore it, I just missed the addition you made to that post. As for Hamm's reasoning, he does a very good job at saying what any CEO of an oil & gas company should say.
mheslep said:
By virtual bore diameter, I refer to the reach of the created fissures shown in this illustration:
This increases the explored volume well beyond the bit diameter and thus the odds of success.
The term "virtual" well bore is something I am not familiar with and does not seem to come up on any sort of regular basis in discussion around hydraulic fracturing.
Please note that fracturing of wells is something that has been done in vertical wells throughout the history of oil and gas production. It is not a new concept. Techniques have changed and adapted to suit new resources (eg. shale gas), but it has been used for decades.
Last I looked, yes hydro frac gas drops initially in the first months and then stabilizes to a slow decrease. Is that your understanding?
Production drops off significantly throughout the first year of production. New wells are therefore required in order to compensate for this drastic drop-off in order to maintain production levels.
I don't follow the last sentence. Can you please explain further?
I was addressing your statement about how much more successful the shale gas wells are based on the drilling techniques. As I'd mentioned, the gas in these plays is pervasive, but very disseminated throughout the entire play (which can cover vast geographical areas). Thus, the chances of getting some gas are very high. However, drilling intensity has to increase in order to see viable rates of production. Your typical vertical well, on the other hand, may have a limited areal extent, but they are drilled to intersect much more productive gas horizons.