Natural Gas: Fuel for the future? | Hacker News Reader

Natural Gas: Fuel for the future?

economist.com

29 pointsbrkumar60 comments

The end result of the 21st century will be that we will use every single gram of fossil fuel of every type (petroleum, natural gas, coal) that can be dug up for less cost than wind/solar. The more reserves we find, the more carbon winds up in the atmosphere. Environmental handwringing will be about as effective as standing in front of an oncoming train and whispering "stop, please". At best, the environmentalists will succeed in slowing fossil fuel consumption down by a decade or two before we hit the inevitable wall of it no longer being economically viable.

Meanwhile, we'll slam into Hubbert's Peak at the global level some years before the dinosaur farts run out, resulting in a steep drop in energy availability and a steep increase in cost. This will send shockwaves through the global economy, and set off resource wars the likes of which we've never seen.

If we're very, very smart, and very, very lucky, we won't see half the population of the Earth wiped out in resource wars and famine during this century. :(

Resource wars will, if anything, validate the American strategy of stockpiling more weapons than the rest of the planet combined. Don't get me wrong--I hope it doesn't come to that. I'm just saying I like our odds. China would do well to remember the power balance before they dig up and burn every piece of coal they can find.

Indeed. China doesn't have the practice of actually projecting military force the way we do.

On the other hand, long distance fuel transport is a highly vulnerable situation. It doesn't take much to bomb a pipeline into uselessness. I fear the odds favor localized terrorism over massive force.

Some communities might even preemptively sabotage natural oil reserves if the alternative is a possible military occupation.

See the Kuwait oil fields for an example.

During the Iraq war and what we're still doing in Afgahnistan the US has spent over $400/gallon to transport fuel to bases. The Pentagon already acknowledges this is not sustainable. In Iraq they adopted soar and wind power for bases to reduce fuel consumption and learned to become so efficient that at times some bases were supplying free electricity to locals. The DOD has also invested in private biofuel companies with the intent of eventually being able to grow fuel for combustion on their bases.

The wiser long term strategy the defense establishment is taking isn't just stockpiling weapons for a resource war, but learning how to innovate so they won't even need to fight over those resources.

Jupp

just like the current syria proxy war about controlling the gas pipe conduit to Europe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/may...

A very, very cynical way of looking at it, but I too would be darkly amused at validation of the "America, Fuck Yeah!" school of weapon policy.

Shame that the common people aren't interested in nuclear power anymore due to stupid badvertising.

That's a rather pessimistic view that reminds me of past views that proved too pessimistic; I don't think we'll slam into anything. Solar costs continue to drop exponentially[0] and it's possible that it will be cheaper than fossil fuels within a couple of decades. Whether it gets there or not, it will likely keep dropping, and the "dinosaur farts" won't run out[1], they'll just rise in price to meet the cost of extraction until other things are more viable. Rising prices spur demand for more efficient uses, and eventually through a combination of reduced demand and alternative energy sources, we all switch over without a big crisis. Not saying it's the guaranteed or even most likely scenario, but in my opinion we're not so doomed we need to be "very, very lucky".

[0]http://azizonomics.com/2013/01/25/when-solar-becomes-cheaper...

[1]http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-...

I think solar/wind becoming cheaper than fossil fuel substantially before the global Hubbert's Peak would fall under my "very, very lucky" clause. It's nice to hope for, and I do have my hopes up. But. :(

"I don't think we'll slam into anything."

The traditional response is something along the lines of "the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone". Other than Easter Isle we don't have much experience with this and similar things have not turned out well.

No matter how cheap solar energy becomes, it won't be a complete solution until the energy storage problem is solved. I don't see the same rate of progress on that. If you can't store the energy you'll need a backup that can supply the missing power when the sun isn't shining - you'll need to keep building the old fashioned power plants even if you don't run them as often.

Unfortunately there's no guarantee that prices will rise at the time and pace required for efficient uptake of new technologies. The easiest way to reduce demand is to tank the economy. We got a taste of that in 2008, and I'm not looking forward to it happening again.

or maybe, as fossil becomes more scarce and prices rise, we develop more efficient means of harvesting solar and wind energy.

malthus thought the same things about food that you think about energy. but instead of global food wars, the green revolution happened, we became more efficient at producing food, and massive famine / famine-war didn't happen.

We are not "saved" yet because the green revolution is really petro-dependent for both mechanization and fertilizer production.

That being said, all these intertwined topics (energy/population/food/health) are more complex than the false dichotomy we are saved or doomed.

Or we start building nuclear plants, which can provide reliable, affordable power without needing the energy storage, overproduction, smart grids, and long-distance high-voltage lines that come into play when you want to use wind/solar for more than 20% or so of your power (and which tend to be overlooked when people compare costs).

1. A lot of people are afraid of the term 'nuclear.'

2. There's a lot of "Not in my Backyard"-ism.

3. They don't get built over-night. Most of those projects are measured in decades.

Yes, nuclear has a lot of political difficulties. It's frustrating. Politics is a big reason why they take so long to build. To the extent the build problems are technical, factory-built small modular reactors would help a lot.

Take a breath.

We've transitioned from horse fodder, whale oil, peat, wood and other fuels as better, cleaner alternatives appeared.

This is no different. We're all benefiting from cleaner and more efficient combustion engines. The cadence of innovation will continue that trend.

I predict that oil will be cheaper (adjusted for inflation) in 50 years than it is now.

Several reasons:

1. there are huge amounts of oil in places like the oil sands that only recently became economically viable to extract. Economics says that the price of a commodity is the cost of production of the marginal unit. We're still extracting lots of $30 oil, but we're also extracting some $80 oil. In the future, there'll be less $30 oil but we'll still have lots of $80 oil. But that $80 oil will have the benefit of 50 years of technological advances to drive its price down.

2. The cost of solar energy is currently following Moore's law. If that continues it won't be long before it's much cheaper than everything else. So many of the current uses for fossil fuels will be replaced with solar energy because it's cheaper.

That won't unseat petroleum's status as the best portable dense energy source unless

3: We're putting a lot of money into battery & capacitor research. Right now batteries are heavy & expensive & slow to fill compared to a gas tank, but I'm willing to bet that this will change sometime in the next 50 years. Once an electric car is better in all ways than a gas one, demand for petroleum will drop like a rock, and so will prices.

I'm not so hopeful about electric cars. The nice version of the Tesla S has an 85kwh battery to accomplish adequate range, and its drivetrain is probably pushing 90% efficiency. It really does take 80-100kwh to drive a midsized sedan for 250+ miles.

Even a doubling of battery power/weight ratio from now is optimistic. And charging times are tied to that massive storage - a 20kw source (the equivalent of a 200 amp circuit at home) would take over four hours to charge it. And that's, say, 20 amps at 1000 volts - enough to jump a spark a few feet and leave a smoking puddle where your shoes used to be if there's a problem. So faster charging requires specialized charging stations that must be carefully managed, a lead Tesla has taken. And even those stations can only do half-full on power. The battery won't take the abuse of high speed charging all the way.

So the car tech is already here. The charging problem, on the other hand, is borderline unsolveable.

I'm not so sure.

I agree that there is massive demand for fossil fuels, and John and Jane Treehugger aren't going to change that. But then I look at someone that might change that - Elon Musk - and I'm not as convinced that our future is so certainly bleak.

The electric car is a viable - some would say likely - disruptor of your inevitability. Considering that even today, 25% of fossil fuel burning is done by the US, most of it to run cars, the conversion of even that market would be substantial.

In every other case besides cars and plastics, fossil fuels are a means to an end. Factories and cities are powered by electricity, and there are numerous ways to make electricity that will become much more viable should fossil fuels jump in price. Even now, we burn coal because it's generally the most viable, not just because it's the cheapest. We will naturally start building other things when governments start to see risk in securing fuel in the 10-15 year span. Those "other things" aren't risky solar and wind ventures - they're nuclear and hydro projects that exist everywhere already.

It is possible right now to generate electricity in a "clean and safe" manner. Here is Canada right now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_production_in_...

What actually bothers me most is that if we shift cars onto electricity, that jump in price/lack of availablity will likely be delayed.

Even if one must rely on fossil fuels to produce electricity though, the effect of the Hubbert curve on any one country is much less pronounced when vehicles are not directly burning gas - It's a matter of finding a way to generate electricity, not finding something to run your car on. While that is an issue, it's a solvable one.

There will be some tough times ahead, that's for sure. However if we are going to blow ourselves to kingdom come, it will likely be more related to water (which will be exacerbated by climate change) than it will be to fossil fuels directly.

The article states: 'a licensed professional can only tamper with an emissions system.' This is obviously not true, because the person who stole my catalytic converter most likely did not have a license. Much like the hundreds of thousands of diesel based Mercedes Benz with a BB in the EGR valve to increase fuel economy, power, and smoothness.

In Texas, I see a lot of trucks from the oil fields which are fitted to run on dirty diesel. Every once in a while, you see a natural gas truck, but it is rare.

I was just looking into buying a natural gas dryer, water heater, and oven. I get the same feeling of buying a Nexus phone and choosing a carrier versus getting stuck in a contract. The initial lump sum will pay off in savings within a year. My only worries revolve around repairs.

If we really want to use natural gas for transportation, an easier path might be to use it to synthesize gasoline and diesel. A barrel of synthetic oil from methane costs about $60.

Before doing that, it might be a good idea to fix the methane emissions from fracking, and figure out how long those wells are really going to last. There's a lot of skepticism about that "100-year supply."

We have seen a new fleet of taxi cabs here in Chicago. They run on compressed natural gas. I got to ride in a VPG a few weeks ago. The driver liked the car but said the biggest problem is mileage. 9-10 mpg in the city. I like the idea of CNG, of course there are kinks that need to be worked out. Forklifts have been running on CNG for years so why not cars.

New Auto Company: Built in Indiana http://www.vpgautos.com/

Chicago Article about VPG Auto: http://taxicabtimes.com/compressed-natural-gas-fuels-expansi...

Here in bangladesh (I think to some extend in india too) CNG is being extensively used for the last 5-6 years.

We have more CNG station than mobile stations here. The price used to be 1/3rd of mobile but because of CNG shortage it has gone up in recent times.

India mandated CNG for taxi's in many cities to combat air pollution. It has had a significant effect to reduce air pollution.

The driver liked the car but said the biggest problem is mileage. 9-10 mpg in the city.

Since when is gas measured in gallons? Around here, we've always had it measured in cubic meters at atmospheric pressure.

I see how this statement is flawed. Thank you for pointing that out. So this car gets 9-10 miles per (your choice of wordage). Also around murica we measure gas in gallons. hahaha.

Oh, I should have written Europe::gas, which is not the same thing as America::gas or Europe::petrol. The problems with using mpgs for CNG and LPG vehicles, of course, are many:

- CNG, LPG, and gasoline have significantly different mass density, so you can't compare the fuel tank sizes easily.

- CNG (methane), LPG (propane/butane), gasoline (octane), and diesel have different energy density, so it doesn't make sense to compare mileage by volume.

- They also may have slightly different energy efficiency in the engine.

My conclusion is that the best way is probably miles per MJ of the calorific value of the fuel.

Or, you know, you could simply state miles per $ of the fuel price + power train depreciations/maintenance, or even include the vehicle's TCO, which is what intensive car users are aiming for anyway. :-)

I was at first annoyed that coal was described as cheap in the article, and then relieved to hear that in the US the EPA is adding the environmental cost back into the equation. Hope that China follows in the reduction of coal fueled power.

It's almost impossible to build a new coal-powered plant in the US currently (EPA has driven up the cost). Current plants; however, produce cheap energy. Where the EPA causes trouble is with "new source review". They punish energy companies for improving existing plants. Want to make your plant more efficient and cleaner? Then the EPA says it is a new plant and subject to the new regulations. It is more cost effective to run dirty plants.

I think tranisitioning to natural gas is silly. Its at best a bridge technology before an eventual tranisition to solar. Given the opportunity to leapfrog a generation of technology and infrastructure while doing less damage to the environment is a now brainer. Plus, investing in solar gives the US the opportunity to liquiefy the natural gas and export it, helping the trade imbalance and displacing the new coal fired plants being built abroad.

When building a power plant the expected return is usually about 40 years. We shouldn't be asking ourselves what infrastructure we want in 5-10 years, but how we want our energy infrastructure to look in 30-50 years. In 30 years I'm pretty confident solar will be cheaper than natural gas, so why build out all this infrastructure to switch to natural gas cars etc?

At best natural gas is a good resource for handling the intermittency problem with solar. Gas power plants fire up and shut down very quick and efficiently comared to other types of power. Thus they're a great compliment to a power source that currently cannot be stored for night time use.

Not if our supply of it depends on fracking.

Well, natural gas, that's mostly methane. The good thing about methane is that there are reasonable pathways leading to it from waste inputs, so if we ever switch to synthetic methane, you won't have to upgrade your natural-gas-powered stuff.

Natural gas prices are volatile at this point. Seems they have increased in recent months:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/coals-us-comeback/2...

I've been very interested in converting my vehicle to run on natural gas but I haven't been able to find any services that do it, nor any price estimates. (US east coast) Is this an area to consider starting a business?

I don't mean to be a debbie-downer, but it probably isn't worth it.

To convert your car to use natural gas, you would have to buy a natural-gas engine. These cost about 8k- 10k. You could recoup some of the money by selling your old engine, but it is still a steep upfront cost.

Here's an article if you're interested in reading more: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/why-youre-no...

WTF? Normal engines are perfectly capable of running on natural gas, you need to install some hardware, but not an engine replacement.

The original article states "Kits to do so cost anything from $12,000 to $18,000" which feels quite strange, as in Eastern Europe the major car service companies offer the kits for at most $1,200-1,500 with installation. Sure, the car mechanics earn a bit more in USA, but it's not really that much labor and the actual hardware should be cheaper in USA - all other hardware is, due to larger scale and smaller taxes.

No, normal engines cannot run using CNG, without experiencing extensive wear and tear.

Also, I think you'll find that the cost of things in Eastern Europe is commensurate with their earnings. You can't compare the cost of things there with the cost of things in America, just like you can't compare the cost of a home in India vs. the cost of a home in San Fransisco.

"No, normal engines cannot run using CNG, without experiencing extensive wear and tear."

Well, that's a new once, since everything I've ever heard is the exact opposite.

I know propane conversions run forever.

CNG is methane, and propane is propane.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/maintenance/shou... The lower-pressure gas travels to the engine, Chrysler's flex-fuel-capable Pentastar V-6. A flex-fuel engine is important, since it has hardened valves and valve seats, which are necessary for CNG operation.

Suggests there is something to worry about in a conversion for regular cars.

I believe that GP is confused a little. In Europe (at least Cental and Eastern), the gas conversions of cars are mostly of the LPG variety. I haven't seen a gas pump without LPG for a long time. I'm unaware of any CNG conversions around here, however.

Ok, I was thinking about gas as in LPG, not CNG.

But cost of things nowadays is not commensurate with earnings, and you definitely can compare cost of things (not food, services or homes, though).

Stuff is produced globally, consumed globally and priced globally - the same globalized physical item, regardless if it's a Honda Civic engine, an iPad or a commodity part #12345AB, can be easily compared across the world - it's all made in the same place anyway, shipping costs are comparably tiny, and the USA will usually be the second cheapest place to buy it, right after the actual country of origin; due to economy of scale and tax differences. If I can buy a physical global-commodity nonperishable item for $x, then it is almost always available in USA for 80%-90% of that, I've not seen any significant counterexamples other than custom hand-made stuff.

The wholesale price of a pallet of LPG conversion kits as coming from the factory in China or Indonesia would be nearly the same for USA, Somalia, Switzerland or Argentina - and there's not enough labor involved to justify a $10.000 markup on that unless $500/h lawyers would be doing the installation.

Depends on the type of car (hackable computer, fuel injection) and weather you go for a complete conversion or run both petrol and cng (extra fuel rail or reuse old one).

If you have a Honda you can easily reprogram the ECU to compensate for running a different type of fuel (you would simple need to replace the fuel system, which means just a high pressure tank and a regulator) I could see this working for ~$1500.

On other cars you might need a piggyback computer. (source: I converted my car to ethanol which has a few similarities)

Some off-the-cuff numbers.

Let's say it costs $3,000 to have things converted. This is about the cost for an LPG conversion in the UK, though that might be an underestimate, as while LPG requires a bunch of stuff installing the engine still works in fundamentally the same way. How many gallons (x) will you have to buy before you've spent the same in both cases, and what will the cost have been (y)?

Assume $4/gal petrol and $2.50/"gal" gas.

    4.00x = y (petrol)
    3000 + 2.50x = y (gas)

So, 4x+-y=0, 2.5x+-y=-3000; 4x+-y=0, 4x+-1.6y=-4800; -0.6y=-4800; y=8000. So x=2000.

At 20mpg, 2000*20=40,000 miles. That's quite a lot of driving. Don't most people change car every 3 years? And by that point you've only just broken even.

One of the benefits of a pressurized fuel source is that you don't vent the petrol saturated air in your tank to the atmosphere every time you fill it up. About 4million cubic yards daily.

Humorous comment: When I read something like cubic yards I always think I'm reading about some crazy variant of golf.

(I am used to the SI)

I have a 2012 Honda insight Hybrid for about a year now.

In the Eco mode and normal driving it sustains about 48MPG mostly in city driving. With lots of highway it goes up to 52MPG. It does this with remarkable regenerative braking, running on electricity most of the time, turning off the engine while you are in low energy consumption modes, and only running the engine at target efficiency.

The future of energy in America is Black Gold, aka Petroleum. Imported from various places in the world.

Future for how long? 10 years? 25? 50? 500?

This song of Oil running out has been playing constantly for the last 30 years. The reason you don't hear the "Peak Oil" song and narrative being played anymore by the propaganda agencies in America is because the globe has not even hit peak oil yet.

Global production of oil fell from a high point in 2005 at 74 mb/d, but has since rebounded setting new records in both 2011 and 2012.

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

You and I will have vehicles drinking Petroleum for at least 10 years. At that point there will be slow shifts to other fuel technologies.

Ah, but it WILL happen. Finite is finite.

One of the reasons the estimates for Peak Oil are off is because oil companies only project the amount of oil they can economically recover. However, because the price of oil continues to go up they start to consider more options economical, such as tar sands. If you read literature on how these companies determine the size of their reserves and how much oil is left that can be extracted economcally, the answer is pretty much consistent at 40 years, but this measure has never been an accurate account of the total amount of oil in the ground, its just a number that makes sense for their business.

It stops when EROEI hits 1:1, though, and it's no longer possible to get a net positive energy result from recovery/refining. The tar sands are already in the 3:1 range. Corn ethanol is even worse, 1.3:1.

In practice, it will stop before that, when the recovery costs exceed the cost of wind/solar. In the meantime, it will continue to be LESS expensive than unsubsidized wind/solar.

I'm not convinced that battery-powered vehicles are a better idea than using that same energy to manufacture fossil fuels from atmospheric CO2.

We could be using gasoline in cars 100 years from now, only the gas is a storage mechanism for nuke/solar.

It's a thermal efficiency problem. Yes, you can theoretically turn atmospheric gasses (CO2 and water) into gasoline, but it requires a LOT more energy to create than you get out of it by burning on the back end.

If there's sufficient surplus solar energy one of these days, it's great. Gasoline is just about the perfect energy source for vehicles, but petroleum is kind of a nasty source for gasoline. Unfortunately, it's the only net energy positive one.

How did you choose the insight over a Prius?

The honda insight is much less expensive per driven mile if you are OK with "eco mode" limiting the peppy acceleration. You should try it out at the car dealer, it runs off the electric motor primarily.

MSRP Prius: $23,115 MSRP Insight: $17,810. The eco mode increases the MPG from (41-44) what is stated on the sticker to (48-52) (my real world results), comparable to Prius at far less cost.

http://www.cars.com/go/compare/trimCompare.jsp?acodes=USC20T...

How can the eco mode make that much of a difference? That seems unbelievable.

Any other advice for buying one?

It makes a huge difference because it stops you from using the engine inefficiently. They don't put it that MPG on the sticker because if a car drove like that normally people would not buy it. You step on the gas a little and you only get a little bit of acceleration. But you learn to live with it and you get as good a MPG as the Prius at much lower price. You can stamp on the gas and it overrides the eco mode.

One issue is that the air conditioner shuts off when the engine isn't charging, but I compensate for that by setting the temperature lower than normal so it fluctuates where I want it to be.

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