Friday, April 05, 2002
8:59 AM LINK
Annual U.S. Coal Demand
source: U.S. DOE
in millions of short tons
1997: 1,030.1
1998: 1,038.3
1999: 1,045.3
2000: 1,070.5
about 90% is of coal demand is for the generation of electrical energy. 1 short ton = 1 ton (common usage) = 2000 lbs.
Thus the U.S. used about 2.1 trillion pounds of coal in the year 2000, mostly to generate electricity.
Thursday, April 04, 2002
1:22 PM LINK
Maximum Harvestable Sunlight Power
This is called the Solar Constant. It is the average power received over a surface area of one square meter at earth's average orbital distance from the sun. Using the sun's luminosity (4 x 10^26 W), use of the geometric formula for the surface area of a sphere of the sun-earth radius 1.5 x 10^11 m, we can estimate the solar constant as:
1.4 kilowatts per square meter (kW/m^2)
This would be theoretical upper bound on the energy per second harvestable by a one-square-meter panel in free space outside the top of earth's atmosphere pointed directly at the sun.
The true irradiance of the sun at the orbit of the earth varies because the solar output is not constant (largely due to solar flares). Between 1979 and 1994, the value measured by Nimbus 7 in outer space fluctuated between 1.372-1.374 kW/m^2.
On the surface of the earth, even this observed maximum is not achievable in practice, due to atmospheric absorption. The maximum is most approached under ideal atmospheric conditions at whatever point on the surface of the earth happens to lie directly under the sun. For example, at local noon on the solstices at the equator.
12:08 AM LINK
Luminosity of the Sun
On the order of 4 x 10^26 watts.
=400 trillion trillion watts.
= 400 trillion terawatts
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
7:41 PM LINK
Hi-Res photos of 1950's Nevada Nuclear Tests
"XX-40 BOLTZMAN was a 12 kiloton shot fired from a tower in the Nevada Test Site May 28, 1957. Part of Operation Plumbbob."
As you may know, a kiloton is actually a unit of energy. According to this site, a kiloton is equal to 1 trillion calories (1 billion food calories), or about 4 billion BTU. The energy of modern warheads is measured in megatons. A megaton is 1000 kilotons. Doing the arithmetic, a megaton is the energy equivalent of around a billion barrels of crude oil (50-day U.S. demand).
12:45 AM LINK
History of Oil and Gas Production in Colorado
Short abstract by Vicki Cowart of the Colorado Geological Survey.
"The second oil field to be drilled in the United States was located in Colorado. The discovery of the Florence Oil Field, near Pueblo... produced a classic oil boom scenario in the late 1800s."
"Today Colorado is a gas province, part of the southern Rocky Mountains that are estimated to have 388 trillion cubic feet of natural gas resources by the National Petroleum Council. Oil reserves in Colorado have been on a steady downward trend since 1975, while natural gas, and particularly coalbed methane reserves have been trending upward in that same time. In fact, since 1996, more than half of Colorado's gas production is from coalbed methane.
on coalbed methane:
"The coalification process...generates large quantities of methane-rich gas which are stored within the coal. The presence of this gas has been long-recognized due to explosions...associated with underground coal mining. Only recently has coal been recognized as...an enormous undeveloped "unconventional" energy resource."
12:22 AM LINK
Revival of Drilling in the Wattenberg Field in Colorado
Includes a map of the Rule 318A area. Good illustration of wringing more oil out of old fields, which is the future of oil production in the U.S.
"What's happening in the center of the Denver-Julesburg Basin may contain some lessons for other extra-mature areas...Indeed, fully half of Colorado's 22,000 wells tap reservoirs in Wattenberg, which lies mainly in Weld County, and also slops over into northern Adams County, eastern Boulder County and extreme southeastern Larimer County. In 1993, Weld County saw the most well completions of any county in the United States."
"This basin-center accumulation, comprised of Wattenberg and a few subsidiary fields, has produced...1.967 trillion cubic feet of gas and 136.9 million barrels of oil."
"After four years of burgeoning activity, however, the Codell-Niobrara play withered when the drill rigs reached out beyond a central sweet spot."
Sunday, March 31, 2002
10:27 PM LINK
Diesel Oil
"...evaporates more slowly than gasoline...because it is heavier. It contains more carbon atoms in longer chains than gasoline does."
Gasoline typically contains hydrocarbon molecules with 8 or 9 carbon atoms in a chain. Diesel is refined from the heavier fractions, typically around 14 carbon atoms in a molecule chain. This actually means Diesel is cheaper to refine from crude oil than is gasoline. Cf. biodiesel, which is refined from vegetable oils and animal fats.
10:13 PM LINK
Map of Oklahoma Oil and Gas Fields
Red=natural gas, Green=oil.
Hoo boy. Was this one ever hard to dig up. It is from this site, which is a pseudoscience page on the supposed effects of reversals of the earth's magnetic field. Nevertheless it has the only online maps of U.S. oil provinces I have found (with properly credited permissions!). Had to drill down to the bedrock of Google. Enjoy
9:59 PM LINK
World Oil Production After Year 2000: Business As Usual or Crises?
1995 CRS Report for Congress by Joseph Riva. Riva's paper is definitely not a Hubbert's Peak-based study. He predicts "business as usual" for most of the 21st Century, with the only hitch being whether or not Persian Gulf nations will keep their end of the bargain to sustain production increases. One interesting conclusion:
"Much of the world's reserve data is held confidential by governments and state companies and the lack of confidence in the reported numbers is a serious obstacle to the analysis of future oil production."
which is followed immediately by:
"However, to reach the point at which world oil resources no longer are able to sustain current production levels in only five years would assume an even greater, and purely political, inflation of reserves than previously discussed."
Deffeyes disagrees wholeheartedly with this last point. Even assuming the most generous numbers for the potential oil supply, he predicts the peak of world production will be reached no later than the end of this decade.
1:49 AM LINK
Map of the Middle Eastern Oil Fields
Amazingly hard to find this. Had to drill down through several hundred pages on Google on different searches. Note the big green blotch in eastern Saudi Arabia on the large map. This is the Ghawar oil field, the largest in the world. The American military forces are stationed between this field and the Iraqi border.
Notice too that Saudi Arabia is not littered with oil fields, like the map of Kansas is. This is because all the oil comes form a handful of huge fields.
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