The Oil Drum: Europe

160 comments on Natural Gas: how big is the problem?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

totoneila on December 4, 2006 - 8:55am

Hello Luis,

Thxs for this very informative keypost. The news is not good, that's for sure. I believe the best use of natgas going forward is for making fertilizers, not electricity or heat, until relocalized permaculture and full recycling of all possible nutrients is accomplished. This transition to the new lifestyles cannot be accomplished overnight, but will take years to develop.

I have posted before that humans should be quite content with naturally occurring darkness if they understand that this tradeoff means that food and water is still available. This is the best way to reduce postPeak violence levels. The sheer levels of sunlit manual labor required postPeak will make most go straight to bed shortly after sundown anyhow. Recall that I believe 60-75% of the present modern civilizational labor force needs to move in this direction. Fertilizers will be key to farm and garden yields until full organic methods predominate.

Vast energy savings can be accomplished virtually overnight if we have the combo of political leadership and citizen will and cooperation. That is why I continue to push for maximum Peakoil Outreach.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

billp on December 4, 2006 - 1:47pm

I am learning on Internet that natural gas is used extensively to manfacture explosives which are used to mine coal.

http://www.prosefights.org/coal/northantelope/northantelope.htm

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

billp on December 6, 2006 - 9:52pm

I never realized the seriousness of peak natural gas until I found vernon's posts while looking at coal posts in britain.

This led me to vernon's natural gas posts.

regards
http://www.prosefights.org/shattuck/shattuck.htm

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

nth on December 5, 2006 - 3:02pm

FYI, you can make fertilizer using any form of energy and not limited to oil or natural gas. Natural gas is the cheapest, so we use it. If we do have to switch to non fossil fuel, then fertilizer prices will skyrocket due to energy efficiency differences between natural gas produced fertilizer and other methods.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

billp on December 5, 2006 - 7:42pm

"FYI, you can make fertilizer using any form of energy"

What, other than oil and natural gas, form of energy to make fertilizer do you suggest?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Nick Rouse on December 5, 2006 - 9:08pm

High temperature nuclear or solar energy can produce hydrogen from water by the sulphur iodine thermal route. The Haber process can produce ammonia from the hydrogen and nitrogen from the air with pumping using a little renewable or nuclear derived electricity or even direct wind pumping. The solar thermal route would be ideal for North African countries with a lot of sun and desert and not much else to set up for export to Europe. The intermittency of the sun is no problem with a few storage tanks. As a liquid it could be pumped to Europe. Otherwise it could be converted to solid ammonium nitrate by reacting some of it with oxygen from the air to form oxides of nitrogen and dissolving it in water to form nitric acid to react with the rest of the ammonia.

This process may not be economic now but there must come a time when rising oil and gas prices make it so.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

billp on December 5, 2006 - 10:14pm

Thanks for the explanation.

My concern is that in the future where are they going to get all of the energy [BTUs] required to blast the overburder and coal? And diesel to transport the coal?

http://www.prosefights.org/coal/northantelope/northantelope.htm#overburden

Comments can no longer be added to this story.