With coal mines still being planned and opened with 30-40 year lives, is coal seam gas (CSG) a real clean option or is it just as dirty as coal for our global power stations? Most CSG wells have lives of up to 15-25 years. When are we going to take other energy sources, such as solar and wind seriously? Can they be taken seriously as the petroleum industry buys shares into renewable energy sources and places them on the back burner until expensive lead in costs for coal and gas mines and wells can be recouped?
I guess you are referring to Coal Bed Methane (CBM) when you are referring to Coal Seam Gas. In fact, CBM has been in news for a long long time. While there are advantages of CBM compared to dirty coal, the extraction process in my opinion is still to be refined. When Coalification occurs, the coal becomes saturated with water and methane gas is trapped within it. CBM can be recovered from coal deposits and seams through drilling and extraction. While the composition varies depending upon the geological variation, methane could be directly used for power generation (cleaner than coal) or could be converted to diesel and gasoline that could be used in Automobile industry. CBM has a very bright future in India if proper steps are taken in this direction. Currently, seven CBM blocks have been operated by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Essar, Reliance and Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd. (GEECL) producing methane commercially.
There is quite a bit to unpack in your question Joseph Stroud . For the energy technology adoption aspect, I had an interesting discussion with a colleague that remembered growing up with several impactful social manifestations to steer behavior, e.g. watching public service announcements and programs like D.A.R.E., recycling for cash, mister yuck stickers, etc. My point being, perhaps there needs to be a similar 'campaigns' for energy technology and transformative behaviors, not just the big renewables, i.e. solar and wind.
I also think another approach that could have impact over the long term is if engineering and business students study the components for planning ahead to implement energy resilience. For example, many engineering design projects include an aspect of budgeting based on rates of return. A different approach could be to include policy, fees, incentives and larger impacts as part of cost benefit analysis as more integrated project outcomes. A change in education could lead to changes in the energy practice....?
Short answer; no.
Longer answer; Coal, once you include transportation costs, can have an EROI of between 10:1 and 70:1. Coal Bed Methane used locally would have an EROI that would be near the top of that range, and if it were being shipped by CNG, near the low end.
Fossil carbon has a declining EROI - tarsands has an EROI of about 6:1; fracked oil slightly lower. As we use lower and lower EROI fuels, we begin to see cracks forming in our economic systems.
If a nation has an EROI delivered to the final consumer near 3:1, it is agrarian, and labour has effectively no value. At an EROI of about 7:1, one can have a first world economy, but not a growth economy. To have an economy that can support high interest rates, the EROI has to be above 9:1, and perhaps above 11:1 (depending on the source you quote).
Roof mounted solar panels have an EROI in Canada of between 12:1 and 24:1 (in Ottawa and Lethbridge, respectively)
Windmills in Saskatchewan have an EROI of about 18:1.
Fossil carbon on a planetary basis will have an EROI that is too low to support a growth economy by 2042, and will need to be heavily subsidized by energy sources with much higher EROI's, like solar and wind, but also hydro electricity, and some theoretical nuclear.
There will always be some high EROI fossil carbon that is available, but it won't be enough to be a major player on the world stage.
Douglas Nuttall
Douglas, where have you dug up all crazy ERoEI talk.? Really! Who have you been reading? You know that a growth economy is already in a state of collapse. I counted you as an ally. Do you recommend that high interest loans be legal?
What is happening to you? Maybe you are being sarcastic. Solar and wind do not have ERoEIs over 1.0 in a market economy. See https://eroei.blogspot.com/
Thursday, May 28, 2020
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Tom
Oh, god, no! High interest can't be supported with the available EROI. Right now, world wide EROI averages about 12:1, all sources included. By the early 2040s, it'll be below 9:1, and if we're stupid, it'll be below 7:1. 9:1 appears to be the threshold for a first world economy - not a growth economy, mind. The US, by exploring tight oils, has an average fossil fuel EROI that is certainly below 7:1, and might be as low as 5:1 (the sources are all fairly suspect). That is encouraging debt financing, and that in turn may explain the current political circus.
Natural gas present in crude oil deposits is a much cleaner source of energy compared to the combustion of other types of fossil fuels such as hard coal, lignite, refined petroleum derivatives, etc. However, the combustion of natural gas also produces greenhouse gases and a certain relatively smaller amount air pollutants. So it is not a completely clean, environmentally friendly source of energy. gas may be a transitional stage in the pro-ecological transformation of the energy sector, consisting in the successive replacement of classic energy sources based on the combustion of fossil fuels with fully renewable energy sources (solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, geothermal energy). In a situation where in a given economy there are no large-scale developed renewable energy sources, the reduction of fossil fuel-fired CHP plants may include the replacement of, for example, hard coal combustion with natural gas combustion and / or possibly also by building nuclear power plants. Within the framework of the energy sector, reconstructed in a relatively short time, the next stage of the pro-ecological transformation of the energy sector should be implemented, consisting in the development of fully renewable energy sources.
Regards,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
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