France discovers 1997 technology!

On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 22:28:24 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/17/2020 10:16 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/17/2020 9:27 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 11:58:51 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/16/2020 8:17 PM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 12:22:58 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:



Regarding air pollution, I thought it's generally accepted that a
central powerplant can control pollutants far better than a herd of
individual gasoline engines. That's even more true if the powerplant
runs on natural gas (a benefit of fracking). And if we can ever
move to
small modular nuclear reactors, CO2 and other emissions will be zero.

I don't think that technically a central power plant can control
better. I think it is more a matter that central power plants do
control... Nit picking, I admit :-0 And, by the way, natural gas has
very little to do with fracking, as fracking is simply a method of
obtaining more hydro carbon "whatever" from what is called a "tight"
formation, one that the permeability of the structure is high enough
that the hydro-carbon whatever does* not* easily flow into the well.

I just re-read that and I think I should add* something like
"fracking" is not confined to gas production as it is used to increase
production of both gas and oil wells".

Well, in modern parlance fracking almost always refers to horizontal
drilling (the real breakthrough) _plus_ fracking. Fracking or hydraulic
fracturing was used for old-style vertical drilling for decades to open
strata and allow flow of gas and oil. But the directed horizontal
drilling allowed massive new amounts of gas (and oil) production.

No Frank, in the trade "directional drilling" that you call horizontal
drilling, and "fracking" are totally different things.

If you want to argue that those lacking even a superficial knowledge
of the trade use the term incorrectly then fine. You may well be
right.

What you are describing is shale oil drilling where, because of the
lack of permeability in the oil bearing zones, conventional drilling
is not effective so a combination of directional drilling and fracking
is used.

Directional drilling has been commonly done, for years, from off shore
platforms thus allowing the drilling of a number of wells from one
expensive off shore structure. Fracking also has a long history. I
believe back into the 1800's, originally using dynamite or some other
chemical explosive. It was also used as an aid in extinguishing oil
well fires.

The first time I saw fracking used was in the 1970's, in the N.
Sumatra gas fields. A well caught fire and Pertamina contacted Red
Adair who wanted something like a half a million dollars just to fly
over and look at things so they decided to try themselves. They
drilled a well to the same depth, some 4 - 5 hundred meters away and
got, what looked like every oil field pump in Indonesia, a whole field
of them, connected up and started pumping water. after about a half a
day the flame turned color and shortly thereafter went out.

The huge new gas supply enabled a surge in gas-generated electricity and
a drop in coal generation. The result was a significant drop in CO2.

It might be useful to know that* the cost of drilling a production
"shale oil" well is as much as double, or even more, the cost of
drilling a conventional well so "fracking" in the sense you use it
only became viable when oil prices rose to about the $90/bbl level.

The cost of drilling a shale oil well based on the break even value of
the production is in the $40 - $90/bbl range while conventional wells
may well have a break even cost as low as of $10/bbl.

When I said "in modern parlance" I meant in common use in news articles,
magazine articles, on protest signs, in campaign speeches, etc. as
opposed to in trade communications.

When this issue first hit our area, a rabid group of ultra-liberal
protesters showed up at a village meeting regarding potential fracking -
that is, directional (horizontal) drilling and fracking. They were not
village citizens, but they were there for shouting purposes.

One village citizen in a drilling-related industry pointed out that
there are many dozens of conventional wells within five or ten miles,
and that they were all hydraulically fractured. The protesters shouted
him down. (And our idiotic mayor let them, instead of silencing or
ejecting them.)

For those people, "fracking" didn't mean simply hydraulic fracturing.
They use the term for the entire drilling, fracturing and extraction
process.

By the way, that same group tried something like seven times to pass an
ordinance prohibiting ANY fracking-related commercial activity in the
city that's the heart of our region. Each time it was voted down by the
citizens. Astonishingly, they seem to prefer burning coal despite its
effects on miner health, stream pollution and CO2 generation.

I need to clarify. My use of "they" in the last sentence is very unclear.

It was the anti-frackers who apparently thought we should burn coal
instead of natural gas. Or perhaps heat our homes using fairy dust.

The overwhelming majority of the citizenry rejected the anti-frackers
argument, believing instead that "fracking" was not horrendously
dangerous; and/or that the city had no legal authority to ban it (which
is clearly the case); and/or that its environmental benefits outweigh
its risks; and/or that it would be stupid to shut down a major industry
in the city, a mill that produces vast quantities of steel pipe used by
that industry.

As I wrote in another post fracking has proven, in some instances, to
cause some fairly severe damages. A 5.7 magnitude quake near Prague,
Oklahoma, damaged 14 homes. The question, again, is the gain worth the
pain?

Given the number of environmental friendly methods of generating
electricity I wonder whether another solution might not be the better
long term solution. Remember that natiral gas produces more CO2 than
any other fuel... except coal :-)

--
cheers,

John B.

On 3/17/2020 11:35 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 22:16:06 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/17/2020 9:27 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 11:58:51 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/16/2020 8:17 PM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 12:22:58 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:



Regarding air pollution, I thought it's generally accepted that a
central powerplant can control pollutants far better than a herd of
individual gasoline engines. That's even more true if the powerplant
runs on natural gas (a benefit of fracking). And if we can ever move to
small modular nuclear reactors, CO2 and other emissions will be zero.

I don't think that technically a central power plant can control
better. I think it is more a matter that central power plants do
control... Nit picking, I admit :-0 And, by the way, natural gas has
very little to do with fracking, as fracking is simply a method of
obtaining more hydro carbon "whatever" from what is called a "tight"
formation, one that the permeability of the structure is high enough
that the hydro-carbon whatever does not easily flow into the well.

I just re-read that and I think I should add something like
"fracking" is not confined to gas production as it is used to increase
production of both gas and oil wells".

Well, in modern parlance fracking almost always refers to horizontal
drilling (the real breakthrough) _plus_ fracking. Fracking or hydraulic
fracturing was used for old-style vertical drilling for decades to open
strata and allow flow of gas and oil. But the directed horizontal
drilling allowed massive new amounts of gas (and oil) production.

No Frank, in the trade "directional drilling" that you call horizontal
drilling, and "fracking" are totally different things.

If you want to argue that those lacking even a superficial knowledge
of the trade use the term incorrectly then fine. You may well be
right.

What you are describing is shale oil drilling where, because of the
lack of permeability in the oil bearing zones, conventional drilling
is not effective so a combination of directional drilling and fracking
is used.

Directional drilling has been commonly done, for years, from off shore
platforms thus allowing the drilling of a number of wells from one
expensive off shore structure. Fracking also has a long history. I
believe back into the 1800's, originally using dynamite or some other
chemical explosive. It was also used as an aid in extinguishing oil
well fires.

The first time I saw fracking used was in the 1970's, in the N.
Sumatra gas fields. A well caught fire and Pertamina contacted Red
Adair who wanted something like a half a million dollars just to fly
over and look at things so they decided to try themselves. They
drilled a well to the same depth, some 4 - 5 hundred meters away and
got, what looked like every oil field pump in Indonesia, a whole field
of them, connected up and started pumping water. after about a half a
day the flame turned color and shortly thereafter went out.

The huge new gas supply enabled a surge in gas-generated electricity and
a drop in coal generation. The result was a significant drop in CO2.

It might be useful to know that the cost of drilling a production
"shale oil" well is as much as double, or even more, the cost of
drilling a conventional well so "fracking" in the sense you use it
only became viable when oil prices rose to about the $90/bbl level.

The cost of drilling a shale oil well based on the break even value of
the production is in the $40 - $90/bbl range while conventional wells
may well have a break even cost as low as of $10/bbl.

When I said "in modern parlance" I meant in common use in news articles,
magazine articles, on protest signs, in campaign speeches, etc. as
opposed to in trade communications.

When this issue first hit our area, a rabid group of ultra-liberal
protesters showed up at a village meeting regarding potential fracking -
that is, directional (horizontal) drilling and fracking. They were not
village citizens, but they were there for shouting purposes.

One village citizen in a drilling-related industry pointed out that
there are many dozens of conventional wells within five or ten miles,
and that they were all hydraulically fractured. The protesters shouted
him down. (And our idiotic mayor let them, instead of silencing or
ejecting them.)

For those people, "fracking" didn't mean simply hydraulic fracturing.
They use the term for the entire drilling, fracturing and extraction
process.

By the way, that same group tried something like seven times to pass an
ordinance prohibiting ANY fracking-related commercial activity in the
city that's the heart of our region. Each time it was voted down by the
citizens. Astonishingly, they seem to prefer burning coal despite its
effects on miner health, stream pollution and CO2 generation.

There are valid, in some instances, reasons for not fracking and I
think that in those instances they are probably legitimate. There is
proof, for example, that in some instances sub surface water has been
contaminated; there is proof that methane contamination has happened;
there does seem to be some proof that fracking can cause earth quakes,
In Oklahoma, the number of earthquakes magnitude 3.0 or more has
jumped from an average of less than five a year to about 40, for
example. And the cause may be the fracking itself or the disposal of
the "waste water" from fracking.

The question seems to be does the results justify the means?

Of course! As I've said many time, consider both benefits and detriments.

France, for example has banned fracking "until there is proof that
shale gas exploration won't harm the environment", Germany banned it
saying " at an unforeseeable time, it can be scientifically proven
that [fracking] is completely harmless, then it may no longer be
permanently forbidden", Scotland Banned it and now the U.K. has banned
it.

Consider the foolishness of waiting until something is "proven
_completely_ harmless." Nothing can be proven to be completely harmless!

So the question is does one justify the possible contamination of
water sources, possible methane contamination and possibly
earthquakes? After all, a number of states have a restriction on
Nuclear power plant construction or an outright ban... because of the
possibility of radioactive contamination.

Yes, I know all that. But the "possible" contamination of water sources
has been a very rare occurrence. My area was briefly famous for
suffering an earthquake, but not from fracking itself; from deep well
injection that hit a previously unknown fault. But total damage in the
entire area was limited to some bricks falling from one chimney, plus
some alleged cracks in someone's plaster. (We have a couple plaster
cracks. I suppose I should have claimed they were from the earthquake.)

Meanwhile, coal mining kills miners every year either through mine
accidents or disease. Mine tailings cause serious pollution. I've driven
through areas of Mountaintop Removal Mining, and it's horrifying. All
this is true without the CO2 load.

By the way, the "clean" gas fired power plants generate more CO2 than
any other source of power... except coal :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-c...energy_sources

Right. Natural gas should not be the end goal, but it's logical to use
it as a bridge.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wednesday, 18 March 2020 11:28:26 UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/17/2020 11:35 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 22:16:06 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/17/2020 9:27 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2020 11:58:51 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/16/2020 8:17 PM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 12:22:58 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:



Regarding air pollution, I thought it's generally accepted that a
central powerplant can control pollutants far better than a herd of
individual gasoline engines. That's even more true if the powerplant
runs on natural gas (a benefit of fracking). And if we can ever move to
small modular nuclear reactors, CO2 and other emissions will be zero.

I don't think that technically a central power plant can control
better. I think it is more a matter that central power plants do
control... Nit picking, I admit :-0 And, by the way, natural gas has
very little to do with fracking, as fracking is simply a method of
obtaining more hydro carbon "whatever" from what is called a "tight"
formation, one that the permeability of the structure is high enough
that the hydro-carbon whatever does not easily flow into the well.

I just re-read that and I think I should add something like
"fracking" is not confined to gas production as it is used to increase
production of both gas and oil wells".

Well, in modern parlance fracking almost always refers to horizontal
drilling (the real breakthrough) _plus_ fracking. Fracking or hydraulic
fracturing was used for old-style vertical drilling for decades to open
strata and allow flow of gas and oil. But the directed horizontal
drilling allowed massive new amounts of gas (and oil) production.

No Frank, in the trade "directional drilling" that you call horizontal
drilling, and "fracking" are totally different things.

If you want to argue that those lacking even a superficial knowledge
of the trade use the term incorrectly then fine. You may well be
right.

What you are describing is shale oil drilling where, because of the
lack of permeability in the oil bearing zones, conventional drilling
is not effective so a combination of directional drilling and fracking
is used.

Directional drilling has been commonly done, for years, from off shore
platforms thus allowing the drilling of a number of wells from one
expensive off shore structure. Fracking also has a long history. I
believe back into the 1800's, originally using dynamite or some other
chemical explosive. It was also used as an aid in extinguishing oil
well fires.

The first time I saw fracking used was in the 1970's, in the N.
Sumatra gas fields. A well caught fire and Pertamina contacted Red
Adair who wanted something like a half a million dollars just to fly
over and look at things so they decided to try themselves. They
drilled a well to the same depth, some 4 - 5 hundred meters away and
got, what looked like every oil field pump in Indonesia, a whole field
of them, connected up and started pumping water. after about a half a
day the flame turned color and shortly thereafter went out.

The huge new gas supply enabled a surge in gas-generated electricity and
a drop in coal generation. The result was a significant drop in CO2.

It might be useful to know that the cost of drilling a production
"shale oil" well is as much as double, or even more, the cost of
drilling a conventional well so "fracking" in the sense you use it
only became viable when oil prices rose to about the $90/bbl level.

The cost of drilling a shale oil well based on the break even value of
the production is in the $40 - $90/bbl range while conventional wells
may well have a break even cost as low as of $10/bbl.

When I said "in modern parlance" I meant in common use in news articles,
magazine articles, on protest signs, in campaign speeches, etc. as
opposed to in trade communications.

When this issue first hit our area, a rabid group of ultra-liberal
protesters showed up at a village meeting regarding potential fracking -
that is, directional (horizontal) drilling and fracking. They were not
village citizens, but they were there for shouting purposes.

One village citizen in a drilling-related industry pointed out that
there are many dozens of conventional wells within five or ten miles,
and that they were all hydraulically fractured. The protesters shouted
him down. (And our idiotic mayor let them, instead of silencing or
ejecting them.)

For those people, "fracking" didn't mean simply hydraulic fracturing.
They use the term for the entire drilling, fracturing and extraction
process.

By the way, that same group tried something like seven times to pass an
ordinance prohibiting ANY fracking-related commercial activity in the
city that's the heart of our region. Each time it was voted down by the
citizens. Astonishingly, they seem to prefer burning coal despite its
effects on miner health, stream pollution and CO2 generation.

There are valid, in some instances, reasons for not fracking and I
think that in those instances they are probably legitimate. There is
proof, for example, that in some instances sub surface water has been
contaminated; there is proof that methane contamination has happened;
there does seem to be some proof that fracking can cause earth quakes,
In Oklahoma, the number of earthquakes magnitude 3.0 or more has
jumped from an average of less than five a year to about 40, for
example. And the cause may be the fracking itself or the disposal of
the "waste water" from fracking.

The question seems to be does the results justify the means?

Of course! As I've said many time, consider both benefits and detriments.

France, for example has banned fracking "until there is proof that
shale gas exploration won't harm the environment", Germany banned it
saying " at an unforeseeable time, it can be scientifically proven
that [fracking] is completely harmless, then it may no longer be
permanently forbidden", Scotland Banned it and now the U.K. has banned
it.

Consider the foolishness of waiting until something is "proven
_completely_ harmless." Nothing can be proven to be completely harmless!

So the question is does one justify the possible contamination of
water sources, possible methane contamination and possibly
earthquakes? After all, a number of states have a restriction on
Nuclear power plant construction or an outright ban... because of the
possibility of radioactive contamination.

Yes, I know all that. But the "possible" contamination of water sources
has been a very rare occurrence. My area was briefly famous for
suffering an earthquake, but not from fracking itself; from deep well
injection that hit a previously unknown fault. But total damage in the
entire area was limited to some bricks falling from one chimney, plus
some alleged cracks in someone's plaster. (We have a couple plaster
cracks. I suppose I should have claimed they were from the earthquake.)

Meanwhile, coal mining kills miners every year either through mine
accidents or disease. Mine tailings cause serious pollution. I've driven
through areas of Mountaintop Removal Mining, and it's horrifying. All
this is true without the CO2 load.

By the way, the "clean" gas fired power plants generate more CO2 than
any other source of power... except coal :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-c...energy_sources

Right. Natural gas should not be the end goal, but it's logical to use
it as a bridge.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Watch or read HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY about a Welsh coal mining town.

Cheers