NATURAL GAS: Fueling vehicles with natural gas might help avoid any future oil crisis.
Image: Flickr/Georg Schwalbach
Geopolitical issues are driving up the cost of oil and eroding U.S. energy security and could trigger another recession, according to energy experts.
But fuels derived from natural gas could help avoid a future oil crisis if they're poised to effectively compete in the oil-dominated transportation sector, members of the U.S. Energy Security Council said yesterday at a meeting of energy industry leaders.
"The U.S. is really facing an energy security paradox. We've expanded domestic oil supply, we've reduced demand through fuel efficiency, and yet gas prices in 2012 were at record high and OPEC revenues were at record highs," said Anne Korin, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and an adviser to the Energy Security Council.
"So drilling more and using less aren't going to solve our problem, which is price," she said. "So in order to solve the price problem, you have to focus on fuel competition."
Korin and co-author Gal Luft argue in their new book "Petropoly" that OPEC is increasing U.S. insecurity by driving up oil prices to balance their national budgets, particularly in the wake of the Arab Spring.
OPEC governments started handing out perks to their populations in response to the uprisings that have destabilized numerous regimes in the Middle East over the last two years. But the more a government spends on gifts for its people, the bigger its budgetary needs become, and if its main budget input is oil, it will need to sell oil at a higher price per barrel, Korin explained.
This puts the United States in a precarious position. A spike in crude oil prices has preceded nearly every major economic downturn in the United States since the 1970s. If the United States remains oil-dependent and prices continue to rise, it could trigger another recession.
World oil demand expected to rise
Growing demand in China and India compounds oil supply issues, which could bring global oil consumption up to 98 million barrels per day over the next three years while global production remains at around 86 million barrels per day, said John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Co. and founder of the nonprofit group Citizens for Affordable Energy.
Oil production in Brazil, East Africa and the Arctic faces institutional and technological barriers, and with the Middle East in a such a volatile state, no one knows where that supply will come from, he added.
"Who will assure America can get its 20 million barrels a day?" said Hofmeister. "The answer is, if we don't do it ourselves, no one will."
That's where domestically produced natural gas could step in.
Compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol, diesel, gasoline and even ethanol are all natural gas-based fuels that could potentially replace oil-derived gasoline and diesel. CNG-powered heavy-duty vehicles are economically attractive because of their large fuel cost savings, and there is strong interest in using them in the trucking industry, especially in fleets (ClimateWire, Nov. 30, 2012).
According to a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, methanol could be the most promising option for large-scale market penetration of a natural gas-based fuel for light-duty vehicles because of its low fuel cost and low additional cost relative to powering a vehicle with gasoline.
Methanol can be made efficiently, has already been established commercially for use in the chemical sector, is relatively inexpensive because of low natural gas prices and produces less greenhouse gas emissions compared to other natural gas-derived liquid fuels, said Daniel Cohn, a research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative.
See what we're tweeting about
15 Comments
Add CommentNatural Gas is a dry fuel and does not wash the oil from the cylinders of the engine. The engine lasts a lot longer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is little or no sludge build up in the oil. So the engine efficiency is maintained and oil change periods can be extended. Saving oil and service costs.
The future is EV's for those so short minded that can't see the Forest for the trees.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBattery technology is on the way which will allow the Tesla to have thousands of miles of range and EV's like the Leaf to have at least a 350 mile range. But soon they will have coast-to-coast range of 2000 to 3000 miles when combined technologies are implemented.
And when this happens ALL internal combustion engines are obsolete.
Don't believe this will happen?
Then your not paying attention to the research being done in our Universities, etc.
Read these and get sobering facts:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2013/01/28/nanoparticle-sets-world-record-for-battery-storage/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111114142047.htm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=better-battery-lithium-ion-cell-gets-supercharged
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/fuel-economy/8-potential-ev-and-hybrid-battery-breakthroughs?click=pm_news#slide-1
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101073146.htm
In Utah the state gas utility is required by law to provide gas in the form of CNG at home delivery cost at selected gas stations all around the state. You don't need the extremely expensive "Phil" station which is really just a dirt cheap scuba compressor with an explosive safe electrical system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the rest of the county T Boone Picken's has bought off all politicians and sells the CNG for close to same cost as gas in his Clean Energy outlets.
While electric transpo is a great idea, dirt cheap nuke based hydrogen synfuels are also part of the solution. China's new HTGR plant under construction for 2017 service has 70% of its output reserved for synfuel production.
Nuke hydrogen combined with Biomass or cement production carbon can produce all the worlds needs for liquid fuels at a cost less than $30 a barrel. Right now Shell's first of kind GTL plant in Qatar is doing better that using natural gas.
Nuke powered EV's and other green nuke synthetic fuels like ammonia (propane substitute) ensure dirt cheap clean and green zero environmental cost fuel supplies in perpetuity.
Nuke power is the only way forward for the national's energy future - payback period to the nation for a 100% fossil to nuke conversion is 3 years over a 30% rate of return on investment.
roads will be destroyed if what I read is correct.Massive earth upheavals are predicted.Not even horses will survive that. The I.C.E. will be banned for pollution . Therefore, future transport will need to be cheaper air.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs our primary objective to dramatically reduce co2 emissions in order to have some positive impact on global warming, or are we only interested in reducing dependence on foreign oil providers, reducing the impact of oil reserve depletion and achieving economic stability for the multinational fuel industry, national and multinational economies?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe later has been an unachieved political and economic objective since the OPEC fuel crises of the 1970s. While still important to short term economic stability, achieving a stable fuel supply does virtually nothing to reduce co2 emissions or reduce global warming.
There will be no economic stability in a global 'climate' of environmental instability.
Nope
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause natural gas distribution systems are notoriously leaky spewing the 75 times as GHG potent as CO2 methane all along their length, natural gas is almost as dirty as just burning coal. NG also spews deadly fine particulate pollution which is more deadly than the coarse particles from burning coal.
Gas kills thousands even year,nuke power not a one in its entire history. Now which did you say was dangerous.
Gas in north america currently selling at the 30% the cost of production is the same cost as nuclear unless a public power company is building the nuke. Then its way more. Overseas nukes are far cheaper.
Gas still filthy/deadly just not as bad as coal.Nice!!!
In Brazil there is no scarcity of ethanol, but gas is being used increasingly, as it is even cheaper and cleaner. Taxis and vans use it almost exclusively.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill prefer EV and multifuel, though (electic + compressed air, electic + flywheel, etc)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf anyone doubts the EV is a mature tech, watch:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho Killed the Electric Car
at
movie2k(.to)
Natural gas is fine, but until we determine where and how to get it without destroying our water resources, all this hoopla is a little pre-mature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "Haliburton Ammendment" allowed the fracking industry to take off before the science was in. We better play catch up fast with science and serious regulation of fracking or our water supplies may be destroyed.
I believe the future is Electric Vehicles, not Natural Gas Vehicles. Also, I think Electric Vehicles will soon have several removable battery packs (maybe the size of skateboard) that can be swapped out at gas stations, like swapping out a propane tank. The gas stations can have solar panels or wind generators on site used to re-charge their store of battery packs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut how do we disposed of the batteries?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe cannot avoid catastrophic warming if we don't stop burning fossil fuels. Natural gas is a fossil fuel. We must stop thinking incrementally and take the leap to renewables. We have the technology. We lack the political will and courage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about this?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRAS LAFFAN INDUSTRIAL CITY, Qatar — The compact assembly of towers, tubes and tanks that make up the Oryx natural gas processing plant is almost lost in a vast petrochemical complex that rises here like a hazy mirage from a vast ocean of sand.
Image: ORYX GTL
The Sasol plant in Qatar makes 32,000 barrels of liquid fuels daily. Experts say the economics of the process are challenged.
John Broder/The New York Times
Marjo Louw, the president of Sasol Qatar, at its Oryx gas-to-liquids complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar.
But what is occurring at Oryx is a particular kind of alchemy that has tantalized scientists for nearly a century with prospects of transforming the energy landscape. Sasol, a chemical and synthetic fuels company based in South Africa, is converting natural gas to diesel fuel using a variation of a technology developed by German scientists in the 1920s.
Performing such chemical wizardry is exceedingly costly. But executives at Sasol and a partner, Qatar’s state-owned oil company, are betting that natural gas, which is abundant here, will become the dominant global fuel source over the next 50 years, oil will become scarcer and more expensive and global demand for transport fuels will grow.
Sasol executives say the company believes so strongly in the promise of this technology that this month, it announced plans to spend up to $14 billion to build the first gas-to-liquids plant in the United States, in Louisiana, supported by more than $2 billion in state incentives. A shale drilling boom in that region in the last five years has produced a glut of cheap gas, and the executives say Sasol can tap that supply to make diesel and other refined products at competitive prices.
******
I saw "diesel" on the list of natural gas fuels, but no other mention made of it.
For those of you that have never had a natural gas vehicle we had two (converted) back in the 80's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey lacked power, had a limited range and required filling 2x daily with normal usage (125-150 miles).
There were few filling stations requiring frequent detours many miles out of the route.
The tanks were compressed to about (if memory serves me it has been 20 years) 3000 lbs psi which represented a danger if the vehicle was in an accident. The car had the tank taking up the trunk and the truck had it slung under the back fender.
They may improve the technology but based on what we experienced back then I wouldn't touch one again.