JasenComstock

September 27, 2011

inothernews:

Oil companies drilling for the stuff in places like North Dakota are happy to let perfectly good natural gas — a by-product of the drilling process — go to waste. From the New York Times:

They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.
Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.
The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.
All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.

Yes, by all means, let’s trust oil and gas companies to do the right thing.
(Photo of natural gas being flared off near Ray, North Dakota by Jim Wilson for the New York Times)

I don’t know if this is being totally truthful. If the economic incentive doesn’t exist to sell the natural gas (the cost of piping and equipment is greater than the amount you would sell) then it makes sense for them to sell flare it.
Flaring isn’t done for fun, it’s unsafe to release natural gas this way, or allow it to buildup around the operating equipment.
also,

Although capturing the gas is the best option, scientists say that flaring is better for the environment than venting the gas into the atmosphere. Pure natural gas is mostly methane, which has far greater heat-trapping qualities than carbon dioxide.

Oil companies drilling for the stuff in places like North Dakota are happy to let perfectly good natural gas — a by-product of the drilling process — go to waste. From the New York Times:

They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.

Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.

The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.

All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.

Yes, by all means, let’s trust oil and gas companies to do the right thing.

(Photo of natural gas being flared off near Ray, North Dakota by Jim Wilson for the New York Times)

I don’t know if this is being totally truthful. If the economic incentive doesn’t exist to sell the natural gas (the cost of piping and equipment is greater than the amount you would sell) then it makes sense for them to ~~sell~~ flare it.

Flaring isn’t done for fun, it’s unsafe to release natural gas this way, or allow it to buildup around the operating equipment.

also,

Although capturing the gas is the best option, scientists say that flaring is better for the environment than venting the gas into the atmosphere. Pure natural gas is mostly methane, which has far greater heat-trapping qualities than carbon dioxide.

10:38am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmCeYy9-QSm2

(Notes: 312)

September 1, 2011

muppetpants:

theconjecturer:

Actually a company going out of business says nothing about economic growth. In a growth environment companies go out of business all the time. What matters is how many new companies are founded at the same time. The foundation that funds my research into developmental economics has found that firm creation, rather than firm destruction, is the most reliable and consistent metric by which one can measure economic health.

In that light, the very low rate of new firm creation under Obama is far more worrying than a promising company going out of business, which is just normal economic activity.

It says a lot about the President’s priorities, ability to create jobs and influence on the renewable energy industry—all of which are fucked.

It’s also worth noting the $535 million loan guarantee, which we will now be footing, would be enough to cover the Federal government’s contributions to NPR for 122 years (at current levels). Instead, we just have 1100 people out of a job.

I think it represents a lot of things.

This loan guarantee would probably have been a wise bet if a cap and trade bill was passed (maybe not).

like Muppetpants, the Administration’s energy policy is a poor one that’s designed to make jobs through stimulus. An energy policy should be designed around the most efficient use of resources to power the nation.

To his supporters, loan guarantees to small businesses to make solar panels or wind turbines are smart bets, but without an adequate policy and infrastructure you will just make a bunch of stuff that won’t sell and it will sit in a warehouse until it can be used, if at all. We also have this big problem called China that makes solar panels cheaper.

The administration has been slow to propose high power line construction- because you have to build it through places that people don’t like and usually with the help of local government. and the price tag is a lot, $1.5M a mile or so, especially through places where wind turbines are going to be really effective. $500M for manufacturers is sexier than $500M for high power lines through the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The Administration has also been all about making the grid ‘smart’ (which is going to be necessary to shift power from region to region making wind and solar cost effective) but there has been little movement on it.

(Source: theatlanticwire.com, via fungazi-deactivated20120817)

9:36am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmCeYy906YAt

(Notes: 22)

Filed under: economics libtards energy

September 1, 2011

"The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra."

— Obama, on a company that declared bankruptcy yesterday. Woops! (via muppetpants)

(via fungazi-deactivated20120817)

8:58am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmCeYy903wgY

(Notes: 22)

Filed under: economics libtards energy

August 31, 2011

Solar company that received Obama administration backing closes its doors

muppetpants:

Ugh, it’s already starting to get ugly.

(via fungazi-deactivated20120817)

1:58pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmCeYy8_8SNi

(Notes: 9)

Filed under: energy politics libtards economics

August 30, 2011

Ethanol continues to be one of the dumbest, most costly programs ever engaged in by the Federal government

muppetpants:

jasencomstock:

davidkendall:

kaching:

“Today, about 40 percent of all U.S. corn — that’s 15 percent of global corn production or 5 percent of all global grain — is diverted into the corn ethanol scam in order to produce the energy equivalent of about 0.6 percent of global oil needs. Corn prices, now close to $7 per bushel, have more than doubled over the past two years (see chart above). And recent harsh weather, including floods in the Midwest and drought in the South, will likely mean a subpar U.S. corn harvest. That, in turn, will mean yet higher prices for corn, which will translate into higher prices for meat, milk, eggs, cheese and other commodities.”

Environmental damage: check

Fails to meets its goals (of reducing fossil fuel use): check

Raises food prices: check

Raises gas prices: check

Highly regressive costs that hurt the poor most: check

Benefits accrue to very a small group of the politically connected: check

I hate ethanol for all of these reasons; in addition, on a purely personal note, ethanol screws up the fuel system on things like motorcycles and ATVs. I’ve had to have my fuel system cleaned twice because of ethanol, and it was only after the second time that my new mechanic explained how ethanol leaves a residual film on injectors (motorcycles and other small engines are particularly susceptible because the injectors are slightly smaller) and the film clogs the fuel system and keeps it from operating properly, often shutting it down completely. There are ways to clear the system after a ride, but if you’re going to let the bike sit for more than a couple weeks, you have to remember to do it, or you’re looking at a costly repair. Nothing like creating an additive that ruins the vehicles it’s supposed to benefit.

This is slightly incorrect. corn used for ethanol is not the same as corn for human or animal consumption. Though the acreage used to grow ethanol corn obviously would be used to grow feed-corn.

Ethanol is strange. The corn syrup based shit is probably what we don’t actually want our diets based on, so having the price of corn go up isn’t all that bad. it also keeps farmers off of subsidies (by another name anyway- mandating ethanol is obviously a kind of subsidy).

The high price of feed corn for animals SHOULD be a good thing. Beef, pork and chicken exports are some of the biggest money makers we have to places like China.

Some scattered thoughts:

The ethanol policy put into place under Bush wasn’t made to be the subsidy it has turned into. Bush’s plan was to create ethanol distribution infrastructure while simultaneously increasing the commercial viability of cellulosic ethanol, thus making a lot of the foodstock concerns moot. This target has changed under Obama, who has made it more about merely increasing infrastructure rather than technology, basically limiting ethanol to a subsidy rather than any sort of transformative petroleum offset.

Ethanol does screw up a lot of older engines—this is changing as automotive makers are being forced by the market to make their cars more ethanol-worthy. I don’t know much about ATVs and the like, but I’d assume they’d react to the same forces.

I agree there’s a benefit to corn being made more expensive, particularly the kinds that are used to produce HFCS, but it also backfires. Rising corn costs have pretty positive correlation to political instability and ecosystem degradation in Latin America. People in Mexico are going to be a lot more likely to get involved in a black market if they can’t afford tortillas, which in certain parts of Mexico make up the majority of carbohydrate intake. The increasing size of Mexico’s black market has essentially turned it into an insoluble state and the rising cost of food has aided this situation.

In regards to agricultural trade with China: it’d be more worthwhile looking at foodstock ethanol’s displacement of soy, of which China buys a quarter of the soy grown in America. The rising cost of corn just makes the price of livestock rise, which isn’t such a huge issue as rise of Chinese GDP PPP has been keeping demand steady. For all of the shit people say about China being a world power, they are completely at America’s whim as far as food consumption goes and the more of their food we can grow, the more we can turn this new Cold War into economic MAD.

I don’t think ethanol is an inherently bad idea, however any merits it had have been crushed by Obama’s taking Bush’s short-term plans and mistaking them for long-term ones.