New Developments in World's Energy Sector

choi

(1) Alison Fitzgerald, Virginia Tries to Circumvent Obama to Allow Energy Drilling. New York Times, Nov 14, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/1 ... ts-name-in-oil.html

three consecutive paragtraphs:

"The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management[, an agency under US Department of the Interior] estimates that there are 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil on the Atlantic’s outer continental shelf and 31.3 trillion cubic feet, or 886.3 million cubic meters, of natural gas. The estimates are based on two-dimensional seismic surveys that were done in the early 1980s.

"While they are careful to say that they have no idea what energy resources might be hidden beneath the Atlantic, energy executives say they believe that the bureau’s estimates are low, noting the industry’s history in the gulf.

“'Initial estimates in the gulf were five billion barrels of oil,' said Andy Radford, senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute. 'We’ve already produced over 20 billion, and current estimates are that there are 48 billion more.'

My comment: This report is important. The Atlantic along US east coast, it turns out, has petroleum, too.

(2) Matthew Wald, Fuel From Waste, Poised at a Milestone; Two plants near commercial production, hoping to fulfill a long-delayed promise. New York Times, Nov 14, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/1 ... -near-fruition.html

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: Advocates hope to end contentious arguments about food versus fuel.

(b) Quote:

(i) "Officials at two companies that have built multimillion-dollar factories say they are very close to beginning large-scale, commercial production of these so-called cellulosic biofuels, and others are predicting success in the months to come.

"In Columbus, Miss, KiOR has spent more than $200 million on a plant that is supposed to mix shredded wood waste with a patented catalyst, powdered to talcumlike consistency. Its process does in a few seconds what takes nature millions of years: removes the oxygen from the biomass and converts the other main ingredients, hydrogen and carbon, into molecules that can then be processed into gasoline and diesel fuel.

(ii) "And Ineos, a European oil and chemical company, is putting the final touches on a plant in Vero Beach, Fla, that would cook wood and woody garbage until they broke down into tiny molecules of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Those molecules would be pumped into a giant steel tank, where bacteria would eat them and excrete ethanol.

(iii) "Many companies have produced biofuel successfully, but only in quantities characteristic of a factory that makes fine whisky or perhaps perfume. The trick is to get reliability up and costs down to a level that allows operation on a large scale.

(c) Note:
(i) KiOR Inc is based in Pasadena (a suburb of Houston), Texas.

Technology. KiOR, Inc, undated.
http://www.kior.com/content/?s=11&t=Technology
("In essence, KiOR’s technology simply reduces the time it takes to produce oil from millions of years to a matter of seconds.  The company’s technology platform combines its proprietary catalyst systems with a process based on existing Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) technology, a standard process used for over 60 years in oil refining")
(ii) Ineos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos
(a privately owned multinational chemicals company headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland)
(iii) Vero Beach, Florida
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vero_Beach,_Florida
(iv)
(A) All molecules of glucose in nature is in D-form. (YOu need not know what it (D-form) means).
(B) Wood is made of cell wall, composed of
cellulose  纖維素
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose
(Cellulose is derived from D-glucose units, which condense through β(1→4)-glycosidic bonds)
(C) Starch 澱粉 and glycogen (translated as 肝糖 in Taiwan) are D-glucose units, which condense through α(1→4)-glycosidic bonds.
(D) A glycosidic bond is a hydroxyl group -OH + -OH to form -O-, where at least one hydroxyl group is on a sugar. See the first schematic drawing in
glycosidic bond
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycosidic_bond
(E) The numbering of carbon atoms in a glucose, and its α or β form, can be found in the schematic drawing of

hexose (六碳糖 in Taiwan, because it, such as a glucose 葡萄糖, contains six carbon atoms)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexose
(section 1.1 Cyclic hemiacetals)

* The α form of glucose has the -OH in carbon 1 and the -Ch2OH in carbon 5 points to opposite directions (one down and the other up). The β form, in the same direction.
* The (1→4) means the -OH in carbon 1 of one sugar unit (called monosaccharide 單醣 in biochemistry) connected to the -OH in carbon 4 of a second sugar unit.
(v) "Alpha linkages are easily digested by the human body. Beta linkages are stronger than Alpha linkages because they are more stable. Carbohydrates with Beta linkages are not easily digested by the human body, except for lactose 乳糖 [made up of a galactose 半乳糖 and glucose through β(1→4) linkage] because most humans have an enzyme which breaks down this disaccharide 雙糖."
A Guide to α and β Carbohydrates. Department of Chemistry, University of California Los Angeles, undated.
http://www.chem.ucla.edu/harding/ec_tutorials/tutorial43.pdf
(vi)
(A) cellulase  纖維素酶
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulase
(B) cattle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle
(These microbes [in the rumen] are primarily responsible for decomposing cellulose)


(3) Andrew E Kramer, Russia Sees New Benefits To Shale Oil Extraction. New York Times, Nov 14, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/1 ... ted-from-shale.html
("The Russian government has until now viewed the spread of such technologies from the United States largely negatively, because of their implications for the European natural gas market: Large shale gas deposits in Poland and Ukraine threaten exports from Moscow-based Gazprom, one of the world’s largest natural gas companies. Shale oil [in Siberia], in contrast, could be a boon for Russia")

My comment:
(a) essence: Cold-War rivals (US and Soviet Unions rushed to extract shale gas or oil. US succeeded by inventing fracking. Now Russia is hoping to emulate US.
(b) There is no need to read the rest.
  
(4) Front and center in the IEA home page is:

Press release: North America leads shift in global energy balance, IEA says in latest World Energy Outlook. IEA, Nov 12, 2012
http://iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2012/november/name,33015,en.html
(the launching of the 2012 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO); "WEO-2012 is for sale at the IEA bookshop")

Quote:

"'North America is at the forefront of a sweeping transformation in oil and gas production that will affect all regions of the world, yet the potential also exists for a similarly transformative shift in global energy efficiency,' said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven [of France]. * * * The WEO finds that the extraordinary growth in oil and natural gas output in the United States will mean a sea-change in global energy flows. In the New Policies Scenario, the WEO’s central scenario, the United States becomes a net exporter of natural gas [not oil, though] by 2020 and is almost self-sufficient in energy, in net terms, by 2035.

"Water is essential to the production of energy, and the energy sector already accounts for 15% of the world’s total water use. Its needs are set to grow, making water an increasingly important criterion for assessing the viability of energy projects. In some regions, water constraints are already affecting the reliability of existing operations and they will introduce additional costs.

Note:
(a) Quotation 2 did not explain, and I do not see, why.
(b) There is no need to read the rest of the press report.
(c) Benoit Faucon and Keith Johnson, US Redraws World Oil Map; Shale Boom Puts America on track to surpass Saudi Arabia in production by 2020. Wall Street Journal, Nov 13, 2012 (front-page top article).

There is no need to read the WSJ report.
(d) International Energy Agency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Energy_Agency
(IEA; a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis; The IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries, especially China, India, and Russia)