Hoarding is exactly what the government is doing right now by filling the SPR, and frankly it's the best thing that could happen. It drives prices up. High prices encourage demand destruction. They also finance new well development. The hoarded oil gives us a buffer to fall back on once shortages become more prevalent. High prices are what we need in order to adapt to what's coming, and the sooner they happen, the better.
In view of peak oil, what % of your govt's overall spending on non-fossil energy development would you channel to this option in your country ?
80%
0%
[ 0 ]
60%
0%
[ 0 ]
40%
50%
[ 2 ]
25%
0%
[ 0 ]
10%
50%
[ 2 ]
Total Votes : 4
Author
Message
backstop Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Aug 24, 2004 Posts: 1532 Location: Varies
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 1:35 pm Post subject: The Windsor Field : 21.5 Bn barrels potential for C21
The Windsor Field : 21.5 Bn barrels potential for C21
A massive new field of unconventional oil has been identified in the realm centred on Windsor castle, home of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Though long rumoured, data on the Windsor field has yet to leak widely and is currently confined mostly to forums such as this and to a few specialist websites. No doubt the news will spread at a rate demonstrating the interest additional energy supplies now attract.
The crude product is potentially available in very large quantities particularly in the western and northern uplands of Her Majesty's realm, though lowland production shows good prospects in areas where it can compete successfully with existing land uses.
One significant aspect of the resource is that the crude material has an energy density that does not warrant haulage further than about 3 miles, so well-screened modular micro-refineries serving local needs plus export to the cities is considered the logical approach in terms of operational efficiency.
The well-proven refinement process currently yields high-grade fuel at around 55% by weight of feedstock, with an energy content that is potentially equivalent to petrol. This yield is expected to rise to over 60% by weight as a new catalytic production process (whose research was EU-funded) is brought to market in the next few years.
Field development and micro-refinery provision is projected to require overall front-end capital inputs comparable with the UK experience of the North Sea fields. Given foreseeable popular and official approval, the Windsor field should be well into major production within 10 years.
Current projections of annual output accept a limitation of access to only 20% of the UK’s area, which is projected to yield an average of around 50.0 MTs /yr of crude feedstock. At a 60% conversion efficiency will give 30 MTs /yr of fuel. In terms of daily fuel-yield at 6.3lbs/US gallon, this would represent a supply of about 685,000 barrels per day. If the field were managed just to maintain this rate of production it should yield around 21.5 billion barrels during the rest of this century.
One further anomaly of the crude feedstock is that while all UK mineral rights are crown property, in being an organic product it is legally the property of the landowner or tenant.
Technical Notes
Roughly one third of the UK is classified as unproductive moorland or marginal hill pasture. Lamb farming in these uplands is currently barely viable despite heavy government subsidies. As a result, many farms’ sons and daughters have already chosen to leave the land. Given a reliable alternative income a high proportion farmers can be expected to welcome their land’s diversification into the new rural industry.
Using land drawn primarily from the two categories above, 20% of the UK's area would equal 45,000 sq mls or 11.655M hectares (28.79M acres).
11.655Mha.s yielding at a projected average of 4.3Ts crude
feedstock /ha/yr, give an output of 50.12 MTs /yr of crude feedstock.
Income to the producer is thus drawn from the retail sale of around 750 gls(UK) (3,410 litres) of fuel per hectare /year
The crude feedstock is commonly known as “Dry Coppice Wood”, and is produced by the ancient and highly sustainable arts of coppice forestry to give better yields of deciduous poles than normal cohort silviculture. This is achieved by felling one of a group of plots or ‘coups’ on a cycle normally of between 7 and 28 years, and allowing the trees to regrow from the stump to be ready to harvest again by the time all other plots in the group have been felled. This gives the advantage of having a large and active root-ball to generate vigorous growth on the stump, rather than, as in cohort regimes, harvesting trees at maturity and then having to replant them.
The liquid fuel product is called Methanol or Wood Alcohol, and is eminently suitable for piston engines, turbines and fuel cells. Its energy density is such that its use in Methanol Fuel-Cell Vehicles can displace petrol used in SI-ICE engines roughly gallon for gallon.
This unconventional oil resource has various unique benefits. Of these perhaps the most notable are:
A massive boost both to rural employment and enterprise, as well as to biodiversity due to the exceptional habitat coppice woodlands provide;
A substantial self-funding flood-prevention capacity by slowing the outflow of intense rainfall from the uplands into watercourses;
A significant uptake of carbon during the establishment of new coppice woodlands (prior to the modular micro-refineries’ manufacture and installation) and a substantial reduction of UK CO2, CO, NOx and VHC emissions once the fuel is widely employed;
A notable improvement of the UK’s trade balance by reducing the need both to import increasingly scarce fossil oil and to purchase the tradable carbon credits that import would entail;
A potentially pivotal European leadership in an energy technology that has outstanding global relevance, legitimacy and sustainability, but in which few countries have yet developed expertise.
Further (less partisan) details on the Windsor field are available on request.
regards,
Backstop
PS . . . You may wish to consider additional posts on this issue before casting a vote in the poll on your Govt.'s spending priorities.
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:08 pm Post subject: Better idea
Why bother with dry coppice wood?
There is a readily available fuel which is already delivered to designated sites. Thus transportation costs = 0. People are currently paying good money to get rid of this fuel, so production cost is negative! No land needs to be set aside to grow this fuel, no need to enter the fuel vs food debate. Fuel production automatically increases with population growth, in fact fuel production usually grows faster than the population. It is the perfect fuel and it is everywhere.
I am refering to trash, of course. It includes the vast quantities of wastepaper the "paperless" office is producing, it includes sewage sludge, it includes yard clippings. Sawdust, autumn leaves, old shopping bags, worn clothing, dead animals, spoilt food, it's all there. Any organic waste is part of this fuel.
I have no idea if the TDP process will work as its inventors claim. I do know that they have proposed to use the ultimate renewable fuel. How best to convert the raw fuel into a useful form of energy is a technical detail that would be worked out in due course, and I expect the efficiency of the conversion process to keep improving over time.
It might even turn out that producing methanol is the optimal solution...
Industialised nations do not want non industialised nations to become industrialised.
Because
a)Industrialization create pollution.
b)Industialised nations do not want non industialised nations to become industrialised because if they do they will not be able to buy their resourses on the cheap and sell them their refined final products very expensively.
c)Industrialization allows for modern weapons that allows for military strentgh.
If the UK creates such an infrastructure to convert trees into fuel
(low tech because it happened in war world two)
then it going to show to developing nations how easy it is to make their own fuel.
Then developing nations will do so and create their own fuel.
Results.
a) Petrodollar dead USA economy dead.
b)World price of wood paper and anything that is made from wood will go skyhigh (maybe 10 times more)
c) IMF policies that stop developed nations from industrializing will fail (they do so by limiting the supply of oil to the local economy so more can be exported)
d) Strong armies that exist to protect oil will lose their meaning and half funding .
e)All poor nations will start industrializing. Imagine instead of 1 CHINA *FIVE* CHINAS.Final products cheap,resourses expensive, intellectual property created by law and big guns to restect those laws not respected
(like in china made dvd what do you think they are so cheap when the royaltes for 1 dvd is 20$ ? )
f) All the priviledges enjoyed by the developed nations will evaporate.
Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:24 pm Post subject: Why bother?
You still have not answered the question: Why bother with dry coppice wood?
If you can have the same benefits without many of the costs if you use trash instead of dry coppice wood. And doing so without refering to a mega-conspiracy theory would be refreshing indeed...
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wonder how many dead guys they are going to find burried down there
