USA win-win: 160 billion more barrels of domestic oil via coal carbon capture.
 

the tech is here, finally a bridge between power and oil ::::::::

It is estimated that there are 160 billion barrels of oil still trapped underneath this country in what are considered depleted oil fields. That's a tremendous amount of oil given that America uses about seven billion barrels of it each year.

The key to unlock that oil is discarded carbon dioxide, with the primary source of this practically prized greenhouse gas coming from none other than coal emissions.

NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG ) announced earlier this week that it began construction on a billion dollar retrofit to its East Texas coal-fired power plant. the carbon dioxide that is captured will be used to yield a 30-fold increase in oil production from an aging oil field NRG Energy also co-owns.

NRG Energy expects this process will improve the production at its West Ranch oilfield from a meager 500 barrels of oil per day to 15,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak. Put another way, at current oil prices that field will go from producing about $18.2 million worth of oil each year to well over half a billion dollars of black gold per year.

Meanwhile, the project will also substantially clean up the carbon emissions of NRG Energy's coal plant. About half of the flue gas that would typically be emitted into the atmosphere will go into the carbon capture facility, which will remove all of the sulfur as well as capture about 90% of the carbon. Because of that it will remove the equivalent of the exhaust of 336,000 cars each year.


http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...lion-barr.aspx

http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawa...-power-plants/

well that's just great, now they're gonna have to invade themselves

always the optimist, eh, I knew gfy couldn't digest the reality of this, that's why I posted it.

meanwhile, others are banking cash on it.

choices :1orglaugh

So they found enough oil to fuel the USA for another 23 years. That's a bandaid.. Not a solution.

lolz.

1. if you believe that BP estimate, then this tech adds 50% to total reserves in that estimate.

2. Many people know that estimate is grossly low, and mostly wrong.

3. you can see the opportunity/reality of this or not.

A new source of oil, awesome. The price of gas at the pumps should be going down soon, right?

RIGHT??


:D

No. This doesn't instantly add oil and one of the primary reasons it's becoming available is the price of oil sypports it.

Not to mention the massive reduction of co2 and more from coal, the significance of the partnership between power and gas industir out es is profound and historical.

Jeezus mo, my sarcasm is lost on most here, I get that. But surely not you!

Surely not YOU!!

What about the Mercury.. They going to just inject that too?

You're Canadian, something got lost in the translation, + i have my flamesuit on alrwady anticipating the neg comments on the advancement

The tech to remove metcury is decades old and already proven tech

Or are you being sarcastic? Because we both know how much petrol and its byproducts your travels require. :-)

Now I'm feeling marginalized. :(

Thank ********** for that!

Btw, this is a great news for canada and exteacting oil from those sand pits.

this is RaCisM :mad:

How exactly is this a win for the USA? The oil companies just get the oil cheaper, pay no taxes on it, and then resell it at market price. Do we get gas at a cheaper price? Nope.

Your title should read OIL COMPANIES win-win

I knew most gfy would not understand the opportunities this creates nor the economic impact but didnt expect that to be so perfectly illustrated in 1 single post.

Actually if you take Canada as the example, once the oil sands became 'workable' if you will the economic boost for the province of Alberta as well as Canada as a nation on the global energy-producing market was sky-high.

I'd wager a guess that if this coal project pans out as anywhere close to anticipated it will very much mean a great economic boon for the US, especially the States who are most producing.

But you're right, it's highly doubtful there will be any benefit to the masses by way of reduced gasoline prices. Of course if an oil rig worker farts loud enough the prices go UP, but add in a massive multi-trillion-dollar oil find that didn't exist before and well all know the price should drop... but no one should hold their breath for it.


And now, back to my confusing Canadian sarcasm mode.... :D

CD, honestly, it never crossed my mind to think of it in terms of gas Prices going down. I figured a while back a limited resource like gas will never really go down in price, especially after the point of getting the low-Lieing fruit, which we past.

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

I know, right?!!


(Assuming your post is not Canadian Sarcasm)!

My Canadian sarcasm is approved and sanctioned by the dreaded Canadian Illuminati.

All others are imposters.

Humor by country:
1. Britain
1. Canada
3. USA

The thing is, you (you meaning the world oil industry) can't tell consumers and drivers of the world that because the world's oil supply is 'getting low' so prices must be raised -- which they did back in the 70's and 80's with the so-called 'gas shortages' -- .... and then when a huge new source of oil is found say prices won't be affected.

The rest of us shlubbs can't have it both ways in most things, but that old adage doesn't seem to apply to the oil companies.

I'm thinking it's because they're assholes. But that's me, a simplistic Canadian asshole. :D

Those were gas shortages. Perhaps they were politically motivated, opec cluster fucks, refinery issues, weather catastrophe,etc., I can't recall a time when gas prices jumped justified by "we are literally running out."

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

The party line at the time was "world oil supplies are running low", meaning they were able to calculate when we might run out. Thus prices 'had' to go up. 'Had' to. Oil industry is constantly reminding the world that "we have only 50 years of oil left", "only 75 years of oil left", "only 100 years of oil left".

Meanwhile in other oil-producing nations the prices at the pump are super low. I've heard for years now that gas is still only pennies per gallon in Venezuela, certain parts of the middle east, etc. I'm not saying they should be that low here but christ, our prices should be lower than $4+ per gallon, being that both the US and Canada are major oil producing nations as well.

Reason for high gas prices here: gas tax.

And that's fine, we'll all pay it, either happily or not so happily, doesn't much matter. But are we not tired of hearing about "limited oil supply" when the obviously keep finding new ones?

Sorry, I'm not changing my mind. Prices should go down accordingly, just at they go up accordingly.

I have now spoken out against big oil conglomerates. I can hear a helicopter approaching.

It was nice knowing you all. :(

+ all the europeans you just incensed by saying $4/gal is expensive!

Compared to the $1 a gallon we were paying before they announced the "shortage" that's nothing.

Euros have no one to blame but the Russians. :2 cents:

Yea I know.. The ironic thing, is I'm actually stopped off in Denver and doing a short term contract job for the company that supplies NRG Energy with their clean coal tech. Not sure how long I'll be here but I couldn't pass up the money as it's pretty good. They seem to be a fast growing company and I'm sure being NRG is their customer that if this works out they will be growing even more.

It sounds like a great solution, reduce carbon emissions and recover a shitload of oil at the same time. :)

Unfortunately I can imagine the more idiotic enviro-nazis who want us all thrown back into the 16th century, actually fighting against this because it's not 100% emission-free, plus how dare we pump our co2 pollution into the pristine environment of the inner earth! :upsidedow

Plus there is the problem of the Pavlovian trigger word "pipeline" that is bound to make the treehuggers start frothing at the mouth. :1orglaugh

Don't get me wrong, I hope they can actually make it work but I foresee picketing and court challenges coming to this project in the near future. :winkwink:

I've gotta figure that to put $1 billion into this, quite a few peeps had to see huge dollars at the end and roadblocks busted through.

nevertheless, you're right, there is no guaranteed roi.

Some more of the positives though, re: pipelines, from what I've gathered, a co2 event is not that big of a hazard. It disperses quickly and 10% of the air needs to be co2 to be dangerous, or something around there. It's not flammable or combustible and at current prices of $40-$50 per ton, it has value and that means efforts to keep it contained would be better.

i don't care what gas costs - i always buy for $50














(j/k - i don't have a car)

This calls for a celebration!!:thumbsup:thumbsup

All you Global Warning nut jobs can go Fuck yourselves!

hasn't that been a year or so now? how's that working out?

2 years - no problems

i rented a car a couple of times when i needed to go back to Germany

some other times people picked me up or brought me back

everything else i have in walking distance

i missed it maybe once or twice when i needed to go to some mall outside the city and was too lazy to take the bus that goes there for free but i have to walk to the bus station first :1orglaugh

but the money i saved in this time now pays for the rebuilding of my flat - makes more sense

Huh? I didn't post....but I will now... ! I'll admit it looks interesting... but lets wait and see if it is used, and takes off, and works. Forgive me, but trusting big oil to clean their shit up is a hard pill to swallow.

Yeah, because Global Warming is a hoax

fuel prices going down ? finally i can afford a car now

Maybe you should check a percentage calculator to see what your "tremendous" actually is.

Are you referring to me or the person who wrote the fucking article?

If you are referring to me, even though I didn't use the word, I'll use it here & now:

160 billion barrels of oil is a tremendous amount of oil to be sitting on.

feel free to fill me in on any new math you are aware of that proves it's not.


I know gfy is negative nancy central, the neg spin on this is classic gfy.

stay classy gfy!


:1orglaugh

It's hard to be positive about coal. We should be moving away from that antiquated energy source -- that means oil too.

that's not realistic. In fact, it's entirely unrealistic.

and clean coal tech is hardly antiquated.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Thanks for proving my point from a while back, you aren't really interested in changing behaviors because this is a total attempt at that. While you high five yourself for buying a volt, these corps/peeps are risking a billion dollars to reduce the equivalent of 350000 cars pollution per year but thats not good enough for you. You should be applauding the effort at the very least. Eh.

Lolz.

It doesn't work like that. For a starters it doesn't have a lot to do with the actual amount of oil left. A hundred billion, two hundred billion, three, it doesn't matter. What matters is the production capability which is always a tiny fraction of the reserves vs the demand which is always going up. It would take many decades to produces that oil. It doesn't even sound like the first drops will be produced for a couple of years.
You're drinking a milkshake while someone is slowly refilling your glass from a massive vat.. If you're drinking faster than the vat is refilling it doesn't matter if there is a gigalitre of milkshake left, there is none in your glass and that's what actually matters.
Then of course you have the issue that it's a world commodity. It doesn't mean jack that America might have another 160B in reclaimed reserves because it's going to be sold to the highest bidder.. basically that vat is feeding a couple of hundred other milkshakes.

Now, to show it's not all the evil O&G companies, look at natural gas in the US over the last 5-6 years. It's a domestic market (can't export it yet) that really did experience an excess to demand situation from fracking. The excess made natural gas so cheap they lost money drilling for it. Same companies, drilling with the same rigs, sometimes in the same hydrocarbon deposits (gas caps are found over oil) but one resource (oil) is "the bad oil companies keeping gas high and never letting it come down" the other associated resource (natural gas) crashes in price so low people lose money drilling it but no one says "yay those awesome nat gas companies making it cheap to cook or heat my house"!

The reason oil states generally have cheap prices for their locals is they are largely socialised producers and cheap oil is a low cost form of welfare. Hell, Saudi Arabia is essentially a welfare state. Blame capitalism

that is precisely what makes it jack. Worldwide Economic power, not just having it in our own back yard, is real value. Petrodollars, etc.

You're conflating two different issues. I'm saying it doesn't mean jack in the context that future reserves "should" mean cheaper oil locally. I'm obviously not saying oil aint shit but hoes and tricks.

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

I know full well "it doesn't work like that". I said "should", did I not? And it's not I that is saying the world oil supply is affecting prices, I just happened to be the one paying attention to what's been fed to the public via the news over the past 40 years. You can't seriously sit there and tell me "limited world oil supply" has never been used in the past as the talking point for raising prices, can you? No one said it was the actual reason, I certainly didn't say it was.

But frankly I'd wager most people don't care about oil production not keeping up with demand. Most people I know anyway realize that both Canada and the US have existing reserves of oil already refined and already paid for that are huge, certainly huge enough to keep both countries going while they adjust production and/or purchasing to match any discrepencies in consumption, or major oil spill, etc. It's just another excuse to hike up gas prices.

And frankly most people are just tired of excuses. Forgive me but your laborious attempt at educating as to "how it works" really reads like more excuses. I know you'll say "no it's reality" and that may be true, but if you think that the size of the overall supply in the world has never or won't ever be (or be said to be) the reason for gas prices going up then it's not just I who needs the reality check. Whether you agree or not I know full well that as the supply still in the ground dwindles the price IS going up. Unless of course we find new oil deposits off-world, like Mars or the 5th moon of Jupiter or something. Then we'd have what we have now, a whole new huge source of oil. And at that time someone will say "hey, shouldn't prices for gas come down a bit since we have all the new oil?"
And someone like you will say "no, because it doesn't work like that"
Eventually someone's going to throw rocks at you Bhuto. :D

Fact is whenver there's the least little hitch in the oil industry anwywhere in the world, it's not long before gas prices are raised. All I'm saying is it would be nice if once in a while when something positive happens in that industry, say, by way of a huge new oil deposit or source found, that we the consumers get gouged a little less, that's all. Most people can't drink more than a litre of milkshake at a time, but they sure need a steady stream of gas.

Bhuto, does your family own a string of gas stations or something? :D