US Energy Independence No Longer A Pipe Dream

If you mean record profits with record US government subsidies, yes. If you mean good news for US like use ending the No. 1 threat to US national security (see 20 years of $14T in oil wars and 30 years of $10T in oil import trade deficits). No.

Even under the wildest oil corporation fantasy of a US laid to waste with oil, water and climate pollution, there is not enough oil or natural gas to end US oil/gas imports.

The only real solution is USE LESS OIL. Which the US can easily do by getting as energy efficient as Europe/Japan which use 50% less energy per capita and per GDP dollar.

That eliminates oil/gas imports. That eliminates the oil wars. That eliminates the oil trade deficit tax. That eliminates the resulting oil, water and climate pollution.

 

I'd say 90+% hype. Certainly cherrypicked stats. Notice they'll pick a month, a state, and so on. They've found the outliers, hoping you'll interpret that as typical.

Keep natural gas and oil separate. We have a lot of natural gas. The USGS says so, so that's likely true. Natural gas is expensive to transport, so natural gas markets tend to be local (in the sense that North America is one location). And so gas prices are volatile. But easy enough to look up, say here:

U.S. Natural Gas Wellhead Price (Dollars per Thousand Cubic Feet)

Without accounting for inflation (ie., just looking at the graph), the last time natural gas was this cheap was 2002. And prior to 2000, natural gas was pretty much always this cheap. So, yeah, it's cheaper than it was a couple of years ago. But about the same price as 2002, and about the same price as the entire period prior to 2002. In dollar terms, anyway.

It can't get but so cheap, or it's not worth drilling wells. Which, arguably, is about where it stands now. It's gotten so cheap, it faked out Warren Buffett, who wrote down about $2B on bonds from a natural gas supplier that is likely to go into default from the low current price. If Buffett called it wrong, a reasonable person would have to say that natural gas prices are unexpectedly low at present.

Natural gas production (gross withdrawals) was more-or-less flat from 1980 to 2005. It's now about 25% or so above that baseline. So, lots of gas.
U.S. Natural Gas Gross Withdrawals (Million Cubic Feet)

You see the quote of 100 year supply of natural gas in the US. There is some but only some truth to that. If you take the USGS reserves numbers (gas that they expect to be commercially viable with current technology, whether or not the gas has actually been found yet, arguably an unbiased source of data) and divide by current consumption, you get close to that 100 years. But, of course, if you (e.g.) decide to fire your electricity and run your cars with it, that falls. Currently, we get about 25% of total US energy supply from natural gas.

Going to the US EIA, the latest crude oil production (Feb 2012) was the same as we produced in 2004 or so. So the recent upswing has erased the last 8 years' decline.

http://205.254.135.7/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS1&f=M

That modestly understates the actual change in position because you get usable liquids from some natural gas fields (e.g., butane) that condense once that natural gas is depressurized. Growth in gas production has boosted production of those liquids.

If you look at oil alone, I can't see where they are getting their projections of becoming a net exporter of oil. The US EIA projections, at least, continue to show the US as a net importer all the way out to the end of their projection scenarios. So, whoever is betting the other way is basing their projection on something that doesn't show up in the US EIA statistics or projections.

The stuff about being an exporter of refined products, that's just silly. True, sure, but silly. We import oil, refine it, and export the finished product. We import gas for the east coast, but export it out of the gulf coast.

I like to put it like this: Whenever you see one of those articles that says, if we're pumping so much oil, why is the price of gasoline up. You should read that as, the price of oil is so high, we can afford to pump it from otherwise hard-to-reach areas, and that is raising US production. What you aren't going to see is abundant, cheap oil. I think we're reaching that point on the peak where it has to be expensive to be abundant. And, in fact, the International Energy Agency has quietly changed its projections of liquid fuels supply, and now bases them on the assumption that production of conventional crude oil (not the hard-to-get stuff) will never exceed the 2006 level. Last year was the first time they've ever said anything like that -- all prior projections were based on an assumption of ever-rising supplies of conventional crude. Once you get to that point -- saying that all the incremental production is from non-conventional sources -- then in effect, you're saying that, absent (e.g.) a deep recession, you aren't going to see low oil prices again. I guess I should also say that more some seemingly informed peole have noted that the projection of flat world conventional oil production remains unreasonably optimistic.

 

Funny thing was - when I read the title of the OP, I presumed the press was admitting that that battle for energy was likely a lost cause, and thus, "No longer a Pipe Dream"
All things have an end ... the question is how far out, and how long can we put off or forstall the inevitable. In the 1960's I recall a si-fi TV series, "Lost in Space" ... where a family would attempt to be the 1st to make it to Alpha Centauri ... our closest galactic neighbor. The premis of the distant future when this would be possible? The mid 1990's. Yes, we've been predicting hydrogen autos from that date too. I'm putting my money on making it to Alpha Centauri WAY before we get hydrogen, and/or sustainable energy utopia.
.

 

The real 'pipe dream' is to do away with the oil pipe.

 

Here is what I would say:

> USA is the Saudi Arabia of Coal
> USA is the Saudi Arabia of Nat Gas
> USA is the Saudi Arabia of Petroleum Refining Capacity
> North America (US+ Canada +Mex) is not too shabby re: Petroleum crude oil production and potential

I see Natural Gas as the Rodney Dangerfield of energy, it gets no respect, and is therefore under-utilized. In this respect I might agree with Chogan2 that natural gas has always been cost effective and clean-burning, but utilities and politicos favor coal, nukes, off shore wind etc. at some enormous extra cost. Thus only 25% of USA elec is nat gas.

>>Now then, energy conservation is sorely needed, if we have any hope at energy independence, we cannot squander energy.
>>There is also the question of global warming and how/if this should impact energy policy.
>>There is also the question of enviro impact of extraction and how this should be properly managed.

 

Interesting how conservation, efficiency and solar are always overlooked. These are renewable, sustainable and affordable.

 

Efficiency improvements are always talked about when it comes to energy independence.

Solar is not overlooked, it is pushed, but it simply is much more expensive in most cases than natural gas or wind. You can look at spain's energy costs when they tried to get to a high percentage of solar. We can hope that costs come down, but right now solar is much less than 1% of US electricity.

 

Solar panels can be had for around $1 per peak watt. For me, in a not-too-sunny area, with a pretty high price for electricity, that is cheaper per kiloWatt-hour than what I am paying from the electric company. After including balance of system, and interest payments on financing.

If you have unobstructed sun, you should be installing solar panels. This is your last chance to get out from under big corporations.

If you think they are too expensive, check the prices again.

 

I note that you completely ignore conservation.

While you are looking a Spain, glance at Germany.

 

I think home solar is a wonderful adjunct after conservation and passive solar, but I wondered about your blanket statement of equal cost to the homeowner, particularly in the NE United States. My calc came out like this:

Seems to me a typical, GOOD installed cost is about $5 a watt. Add to that an inverter change during the 30 year life of the system, and I estimate $6/watt as a starting point for financing. I estimate the Maine sun produces 1.25 - 1.5 kwh per watt*year.

A loan's amortized monthly payment works out to about 1/200 of initial principal, so in this case 3 cents/watt*month, or 36 cents a year. The production of 1.25 - 1.5 kwh in that year would have to cost 24 - 28 cents from the utility to break even. This of course ignores the risks the homeowner with PV takes upon themselves instead of the utility (failure, vandalism, damage, market changes etc.)

People who install themselves are in a much more favorable position. General contractors might be able to cut the installation costs dramatically on new homes, and the costs might be further subsidized by homeowner mortgage deduction.

 

I would love it if the country was 25% solar, and it made financial sense. It just doesn't. I'm glad you went solar. I don't know why more people in your situation don't. You need to remember you are comparing retail to wholesale. I have 4 years left on a wind contract and pay less than 10 cents/kwh to a utility I like. A friend is putting up solar, we are subsidizing it 65% so it makes sense if you aren't wind. The utility will be 3% solar in 2020, the solar project is costing 20 cents/kwh, which makes it cheaper to pay people to put up solar than do it and charge rate holders. Now if people really start building all this solar the subsidies will drop.

Which means for me solar is not too expensive, but I don't know how much longer I'll be in my house. Wind is priced right.

What does it cost your utility to add solar? What percent of your area is solar.

I want to run my efficient air conditioning enough to save cool. I would rather have it efficient than suffer and turn it off and conserve that wind in the summer.

Yes americans are unlikely to do less with energy. Many of us are willing to pay extra for renewable electricity and efficient cars and appliances though. Do you think we should be preaching doing less, be colder in the winter, hotter in the summer? That is why I ignored conservation. The best way to conserve are those other things.

Germans build much more wind than solar. Spain was the "solar" experiment country.

This has a good snap shot of us electricity and sources of renewable on the grid today. It does not include some home PV but this is much less than 1%, but hopefully growing fast.

http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/renewable_electricity.cfm

This is compared to about 120 billion kwh of wind

 

There is more to long term (good ) energy policy than short term financial "sense".

Icarus

 

Ok, but what does that have to do with the article.

It talked about reducing oil use with more efficient cars, and switching some trucks off oil to natural gas.

It also talked about replacing some coal electricity with less polluting natural gas and renewable.

These things not only make long term financial sense they are good for the environment.

 

And you would be wrong.

1. Natural gas. US imports 15% of its natural gas. Saudi Arabia exports 90% of its natural gas. US will never be "Saudi Arabia" of natural gas. The mirage of US having natural gas reserves is based on US not using more natural gas. The natural gas zealots have the energy version of the perpetual motion machine. If US switched to natural gas, usage would skyrocket and US would import as much as it currently does on oil. If we don't use the natural gas and use massively destructive fracking to extract more US might break even AT CURRENT USAGE LEVELS. Which does US no good at all.

2. Coal. Saudi Arabia isn't the Saudi Arabia of oil anymore either. Both Saudi oil reserves and US coal reserves were reduced by 50%. And the "recoverable" means total lack of environmental concerns, basically laying waste to any area that has any form of coal, using up even more precious fresh water supplies with massive air, water and climate pollution. Adding insult to injury to the hokey coal industry claims, China produces 4 times the coal of US so China is top coal producer just as Saudi is top oil producer. Sorry Saudi wannabes, it's a lose-lose-lose comparison.

Keep in mind that US oil imports will remain in the $500B per year range and increase over time even with the most optimistic oil industry dream world of no environmental controls. The "magic numbers" put out by the oil industry are INCREASED US oil usage but imports remaining the same percentage so oil use and oil imports both continue to climb in total. All bad.

Added to that the continued $500B per year military expense since Middle East oil controls the oil market oil imports will remain the No. 1 threat to US national security and to US economy UNLESS US gets as energy efficient as Europe and eliminates the need to oil imports and extreme oil extraction schemes that lay waste to the nation.

 

AG- I am confused by your Germany statement. Just got back.
I am thinking Germany was No. 3 in solar behind US and China (and possibly No. 1 on a per capita basis re: private owned PV). Germany has cooled off but they had huge subsidies and lots of private solar PV installed. I did not see any wind over there, I know off-shore is a proposal, but I was told off-shore has problems because that (shore region) is not where the people live (not where the transmission lines are). I was in the area in Germany where the make some of the Si and other solar related chemistry.

 

If China produces 4x our coal that is mind-boggling.

 

I read the same comment, but read it quite differently than you. Conservation could mean higher standards for building insulation, higher standards for lighting efficiency, requirements for Cogeneration plants, etc. No reduction in living standards intended. Those are things I know you would support, so underlying the word "conservation" could be two different intents.

We will have to leave it to Corwyn to state his underlying intent.

 

Germany has a lot of solar, but it was spain that was trying to get a high proportion of solar quickly. The incentives in spain were just too great, and the subsidy system collapsed.

Germany still wants a large percentage of solar, but will be adding it slowly as costs drop. Its goal, which seems to be a good one is 25% solar by 2050, but they are not just throwing crazy money at it like spain was. Let's hope the prices drop and they reach their goal.

Wind in germany in 2011 was about 8%, which is why I said germany was the country focusing first on wind. Solar was 3%, and this includes most of the solar built in Spain. There is a 4.5 cent/kwh (US) surcharge on utility bills to spread the cost of the subsidy.

Germany has grid problems with wind. They need to do grid improvements to add more wind and solar. They also are dealing with the nuclear phase out. It will be interesting to see how they do, and the US should be able to learn lessons from the German experience.

It seems like the big place for a US solar would be California, where high electricity prices and poor utility service should make roof top pv a good way for homeowners to reduce fossil fuel. The Solar CSP projects seem to be moving very slowly even with federal aid.

As I said locally my utility is going for the 3% solar that germany has now. Many parts of the country do not have the sun or are not willing to pay for it.