Re: <nettime> US to become 'net energy exporter'

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

Hi Felix!

> It's hard to wrap one's head around the number of possible
> implications this shift in energy extraction has. One thing seems
> clear, oil/gas production will not peak any time soon. So neither
> the breakdown of fossil fuel civilization is taking place, or will
> increased oil/gas prices drive the shift towards renewable energy
> sources.

A somewhat simplified picture:

One thing the article did not mention is that well life-times in
these tight gas/oil shale reservoirs is very short. 'Traditional'
oil production depends on rock reservoirs that are quite (naturally)
permeable and that allow a stratigraphic flow through contiguous
interstices to a well-bore without much help (or even none at all
when under 'natural' pressure). In a fracked shale situation, the
rock is extremely tight (shale having much smaller 'grains' and very
low permeability) -- the fracking is the only source of flow pathways
to the bore, and consequently wells peak quickly with the oil/gas
that happens to be proximal to the fracked section streaming out but
otherwise the rock is still tight, so that once that initial flow
happens, the flow rate tails off very quickly. This is quite different
than 'traditional' easy reservoirs, some which will produce for tens
of years, albeit at a slowly declining rate.

Another words, the following:

> US to become 'net energy exporter'

doesn't really mean that much in the big picture in terms of depletion, 
unsustainability, and such. And to echo another posting, there is a consequent 
increase in methane and other heavy greenhouse gasses in the process all of 
which are way worse that Co2...

> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/20131514160576297.html
>
> Shale gas boom rewrites geopolitical rules, as US is set to produce
> more petroleum than Saudi Arabia within a decade.

[I find it strange that there were so many typos in an Al Jazeera article, too 
-- their editors are getting REALLY sloppy!!! Wonder what that's about!?]

jh
--


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
Watching the Tao rather than watching the Dow!
http://neoscenes.net/
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


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