The Great Car Con: Channel 4 Dispatches
I just watched this Program..
It claims or suggests that the experts and government who persuaded the public to consider diesel vehicles as opposed to petrol ones may have made a mistake...and that diesel can create several other types of environmental problems. due to other chemical pollutants that it creates that pollutes the air we breathe ..some which the experts did not want to inform the public...It was even suggested that they may even decide to ban them as I thought that I understood...although I missed some of the end of the program, just caching the very end where it said some vehicles maybe have since been improved to what they initially where when the experts persuaded us to consider them..
I will try and add a video of the program if one is put on youtube.
Today on Channel 4 from 2:25am to 2:55am
Channel 4
Current affairs series. Reporter Morland Sanders investigates why politicians encouraged the 'dash for diesel' and asks whether we can trust manufacturers' claims about diesel vehicles' performance and pollution levels
One thing people forget...
The DEISEL engine was designed to run on VEGETABLE OIL not Petroleum
Rudolf Diesel was the father of the engine which bears his name. His first attempts were to design an engine to run on coal dust, but later designed his engine to run on vegetable oil. The idea, he hoped, would make his engines more attractive to farmers having a source of fuel readily available. In a 1912 presentation to the British Institute of Mechanical Engineers, he cited a number of efforts in this area and remarked, "The fact that fat oils from vegetable sources can be used may seem insignificant today, but such oils may perhaps become in course of time of the same importance as some natural mineral oils and the tar products are now
Periodic petroleum shortages spurred research into vegetable oil as a diesel substitute during the 1930s and 1940s, and again in the 1970s and early 1980s when straight vegetable oil enjoyed its highest level of scientific interest. The 1970s also saw the formation of the first commercial enterprise to allow consumers to run straight vegetable oil in their automobiles, Elsbett of Germany. In the 1990s Bougainville conflict, islanders cut off from oil supplies due to a blockade used coconut oil to fuel their vehicles.
Academic research into straight vegetable oil fell off sharply in the 1980s with falling petroleum prices and greater interest in biodiesel as an option that did not require extensive vehicle modification.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_fuel
If we got rid of the gasoline engine we could tell the Arabs to go drink their oil :D Pollution from vegetable oil is a whole lot less and less toxic than petrol products. One downside might be that the exhaust smells like french fries cooking :D
diesel is out for all of the utility vehicles.. they are all being converted to natural gas
--check your area for buses and such.. clean air act..natural gas is the thing NOW
the power companies are shutting down the coal industry (clear air stuff) and going to natural gas for electric production..
yeah ..well.. while no one was paying attention the drillers were having a hay (pay) day in this country...with leases that say they have the rights from 100 feet down to the center of the earth.. and as soon as they get it to ports for export they will be getting paid again
one thing this does that isn't obvious (well only if you aren't reading) is jobs..
only takes a hand full of humans to put the well in as compared to digging coal and other things
right now the big deal is land rights and it's a dirty fight with some pipe companies claiming eminent domain...it's in the courts in several states right now
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-04/u-s-seen-as-biggest-oil-producer-after-overtaking-saudi
U.S. Seen as Biggest Oil Producer After Overtaking Saudi
July 4 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will remain the world's biggest oil producer this year after overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia as extraction of energy from shale rock spurs the nation's economic recovery, Bank of America Corp. said.
U.S. production of crude oil, along with liquids separated from natural gas, surpassed all other countries this year with daily output exceeding 11 million barrels in the first quarter, the bank said in a report today. The country became the world's largest natural gas producer in 2010. The International Energy Agency said in June that the U.S. was the biggest producer of oil and natural gas liquids.
"The U.S. increase in supply is a very meaningful chunk of oil," Francisco Blanch, the bank's head of commodities research, said by phone from New York. "The shale boom is playing a key role in the U.S. recovery. If the U.S. didn't have this energy supply, prices at the pump would be completely unaffordable."
Oil extraction is soaring at shale formations in Texas and North Dakota as companies split rocks using high-pressure liquid, a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The surge in supply combined with restrictions on exporting crude is curbing the price of West Texas Intermediate, America's oil benchmark. The U.S., the world's largest oil consumer, still imported an average of 7.5 million barrels a day of crude in April, according to the Department of Energy's statistical arm.
Surpassing Saudi
U.S. oil output will surge to 13.1 million barrels a day in 2019 and plateau thereafter, according to the IEA, a Paris-based adviser to 29 nations. The country will lose its top-producer ranking at the start of the 2030s, the agency said in its World Energy Outlook in November.
"It's very likely the U.S. stays as No. 1 producer for the rest of the year" as output is set to increase in the second half, Blanch said. Production growth outside the U.S. has been lower than the bank anticipated, keeping global oil prices high, he said.
Partly as a result of the shale boom, WTI futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange remain at a discount of about $7 a barrel to their European counterpart, the Brent contract on ICE Futures Europe's London-based exchange. WTI was at $103.74 a barrel as of 4:13 p.m. London time.
Islamist Insurgency
"The shale production story is bigger than Iraqi production, but it hasn't made the impact on prices you would expect," said Blanch. "Typically such a large energy supply growth should bring prices lower, but in fact we're not seeing that because the whole geopolitical situation outside the U.S. is dreadful."
Territorial gains in northern Iraq by a group calling itself the Islamic State has spurred concerns that oil flows could be disrupted in the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia. Exports from Libya have been reduced by protests, while Nigeria's production is crimped by oil theft and sabotage.
Libya will resume exports as soon as possible from two oil ports in the country's east after taking back control from rebels who blocked crude shipments for the past year, Mohamed Elharari, spokesman for the state-run National Oil Corp., said by phone yesterday from Tripoli.
The U.S. will consolidate its position as the world's biggest producer in the coming months if returning Libyan supply limits the need for Saudi barrels, said Julian Lee, an oil strategist who writes for Bloomberg News First Word. The observations he makes are his own.
Record Investment
"There's a very strong linkage between oil production growth, economic growth and wage growth across a range of U.S. states," Blanch said. Annual investment in oil and gas in the country is at a record $200 billion, reaching 20 percent of the country's total private fixed-structure spending for the first time, he said.
A U.S. Commerce Department decision to allow the overseas shipment of processed ultra-light oil called condensate has fanned speculation the nation may ease its four-decade ban on most crude exports. Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Enterprise Products Partners LP will be allowed to export condensate, provided it is first subject to preliminary distillation, the companies said June 25.
The decision was "a positive first step" to dispersing the build-up of crude supply in North America, Bank of America said in a report on June 27. The U.S. could potentially have daily exports of 1 million barrels of crude, including 300,000 of condensate, by the end of the year, according to a June 25 report from Citigroup Inc.
To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaric Nightingale at anightingal1@bloomberg.net James Herron, Randall Hackley
.......................................................................
http://qz.com/335931/none-of-shales-boosters-told-us-what-would-happen-to-jobs-when-the-energy-bubble-burst/
Boom and bust
None of shale's boosters told us what would happen to jobs when the energy bubble burst
Over the last couple of years, Wall Street analysts, energy experts, consultants, and journalists have fallen over one another creating new superlatives to describe the impact of the US shale boom. It was producing a "manufacturing renaissance" in the US, would "supercharge the US economy," and was generating a veritable "shale gale."
And indeed, we saw the jobs picture brighten dramatically in North Dakota, in Texas, and elsewhere. But what none of the forecasters said was that shale had created a price bubble that, when the air went out, would cost thousands of oil workers their jobs—not only in shale, and not only in the United States.
With the surge in US shale oil production contributing heavily to the roughly 60% plunge in oil prices since June, jobs are being lost in droves around the world, in both shale and conventional fields.
The impact of the apparent bust-in-progress has not been nearly as powerful as the 2008 financial collapse, which exported economic pain to nations and industries around the world. But the US once again has shown itself to be, for better or worse, a potent driver of the global economy.
On the way up, the forecasts were uniformly rosy
In the US, oil and gas companies employ roughly 540,000 people, according to Rigzone, an industry employment agency. But that doesn't account for the sector's indirect impact. In 2012, IHS, an industry consultancy that has been one of the most robust boosters of shale, estimated that directly and indirectly, shale oil and gas production already supported 1.7 million US jobs. In a report paid for by the American Petroleum Institute and other industry lobbying bodies, IHS said that by 2015, the number of jobs would rise to 2.5 million, on its way to reaching 3.5 million by 2035.
This and a clutch of other, similar IHS reports helped form the basis of an industry campaign designed to discourage regulation of hydraulic fracturing, the drilling method used in shale, and open as much US land as possible to the practice. At a time of recession, the argument went, it made little sense to fiddle with the one industry that was producing jobs and juicing the economy.
TIHS was not alone—in 2013, PwC, the accounting firm, released a report detailing a similarly rosy outlook for the sector's jobs and economic impact. So did Citi. And the numbers may have been right were it not for the collapse in prices—although some analysts urged caution even before then and said the observable US manufacturing and jobs boom was actually broad-based, and resulted not just from the energy sector but also more accommodating US unions, advances in automation, and an array of other factors. IHS, PwC, and Citi did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Then the air went out
Now that the industry is crashing, with a future at which we can only guess, we may never know shale's actual impact the last few years, only that the jobs boon has subsided.
On Jan. 29, Shell announced a $15 billion cut in spending over the next three years, on top of $6.5 billion in planned cuts disclosed less than two weeks earlier. France's Total cut $2.5 billion in spending, 10% of its capital budget. Baker Hughes, the oil services company, said Jan. 20 that it will cut 7,000 jobs, or 12% of its workforce. Schlumberger, another oil services company, cut 9,000 jobs around the world. The jobs impact has crossed over into related businesses—DuPont, the chemical giant, has announced spending cuts; so has Freeport-McMoRan, the mining concern.
In Texas, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas now says that low oil prices will cost the state some 140,000 jobs directly and indirectly tied to energy. In North Dakota, too, there are fears of thousands of job cuts. In the energy sector alone, Goldman Sachs forecasts 70,000 US job cuts by the end of the year.
It should not be surprising that, in the midst of a feverish boom, no one was contemplating what would happen when logic took hold and oil prices came down. But after the calamitous boom-busts of recent years—dot-com, real estate, Wall Street—we all might have been a lot wiser.
..........................................
https://www.npms.phmsa.dot.gov/
National Pipeline Mapping System
http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publications/ngpipeline/index.html
uspipelines_SM.gif
The U.S. natural gas pipeline network is a highly integrated transmission and distribution grid that can transport natural gas to and from nearly any location in the lower 48 States. The natural gas pipeline grid comprises:
More than 210 natural gas pipeline systems.
305,000 miles of interstate and intrastate transmission pipelines (see mileage table).
More than 1,400 compressor stations that maintain pressure on the natural gas pipeline network and assure continuous forward movement of supplies (see map).
More than 11,000 delivery points, 5,000 receipt points, and 1,400 interconnection points that provide for the transfer of natural gas throughout the United States.
24 hubs or market centers that provide additional interconnections (see map).
400 underground natural gas storage facilities (see map).
49 locations where natural gas can be imported/exported via pipelines (see map).
8 LNG (liquefied natural gas) import facilities and 100 LNG peaking facilities (see map).
Learn more about the natural gas pipeline network:
Interstate – Pipeline systems that cross one or more States
Intrastate – Pipelines that operate only within State boundaries
Network Design – Basic concepts and parameters
Pipeline Capacity and Usage
Regulatory Authorities
Transportation, Processing, and Gathering
Transportation Corridors – Major interstate routes
Underground Natural Gas Storage – Includes regional breakdowns
Pipeline Development and Expansion
U.S./Canada/Mexico Import & Export Locations
ngpipelines_map.jpg
Combined "Natural Gas Transportation" maps
Geographic Coverage of Pipeline Companies
United States - links to companies listed A-Z with U.S. map showing regional breakout detail
Northeast - CT, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VA, VT, WV
Midwest - IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI
Southeast - AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN
Southwest - AR, LA, NM, OK, TX
Central - CO, IA, KS, MO, MT, NE, ND, SD, UT, WY
Western - AZ, CA, ID, NV, OR, WA
................................................
U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production - Energy Tomorrow
energytomorrow.org/.../crude-oil-and-natural-gas-pro... Cached
Similar
Energy Tomorrow
Loading...
The U.S. is the world's leader in the technological innovations allowing for the rapid expansion of production of oil and natural gas from shale deposits.
US Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Proved ...
www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreser... Cached
Similar
Energy Information Administration
Loading...
Dec 4, 2014 - Proved reserves of U.S. total natural gas increased 31 trillion cubic feet ... While U.S. oil reserves and production increased in 2013, imports of ...