Energy (Focusing on Oil and Methane)--Modern History and Future

choi

This is a lengthy, but highly informative, article. In the weekend, maybe you will have more time to spend, and read it. And in the weekend, I have no access to a computer that contains software that read foreign language. So I do not have the Japanese names in Note (8).


Charles C Mann, What If We Never Run Out of Oil?  The Atlantic, May 2013.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magaz ... -out-of-oil/309294/

Quote:

"In the 1970s, geologists discovered crystalline natural gas--methane hydrate, in the jargon--beneath the seafloor. Stored mostly in broad, shallow layers on continental margins, methane hydrate exists in immense quantities; by some estimates, it is twice as abundant as all other fossil fuels combined. * * * These deposits--water molecules laced into frigid cages that trap 'guest molecules' of natural gas--are strikingly unlike conventional energy reserves. Ice you can set on fire!

"Shale gas, too, was subject to skepticism wide and loud. The egg on naysayers’ faces suggests that it would be foolish to ignore the prospects for methane hydrate

"For a long time, companies collected oil [from petroleum] and discarded the methane that burbled up with it, often by burning the gas in a cinematic flare atop special derricks, or even simply dumping it into the atmosphere. People did use natural gas for energy—-gaslights have existed since the days of Jane Austen—-but transporting it was costly.

"(A barrel, the unit of oil measurement, is 42 gallons; depending on the grade, a ton of oil is six to eight barrels.)

"Since Hubbert’s time, the dispute has focused on 'conventional' petroleum, the type found in regular oil wells, most of which is in the Middle East and controlled by OPEC. Production of conventional oil has indeed plateaued, as Hubbertians warned: OPEC’s output has remained roughly flat since 2005. In part, the slowdown reflects the diminishing supply of this kind of oil. Another part is due to the global recession, which has stalled demand. But a third factor is that OPEC’s conventional petroleum is being supplemented—-and possibly supplanted—-by what the industry calls 'unconventional' petroleum, which for the moment mainly means oil and natural gas from fracking. Fracking, [Philip] Verleger says, is creating 'the biggest change in energy in almost 100 years—a revolution.' That revolution, in his view, will have a big winner: the United States. * * * So bright are the fracking prospects that the U.S. may become, if only briefly, the
world’s top petroleum producer. ('Saudi America,' crowed The Wall Street Journal. But the parallel is inexact, because the US is likely to consume most of its bonanza at home, rather than exporting it.) * * * As companies switch to cheap natural gas, a Citigroup report argued last year, the US petroleum boom could add as much as 3.3 percent to America’s GDP in the next seven years [or about 0.5% for each of the seven years].

"Until about 1970, the United States produced almost enough petroleum for its own needs. Then, just as Hubbert predicted, domestic oil production began to wane. Suddenly the United States was vulnerable. OPEC had launched an oil embargo in 1967, but it had next to no effect, because the US produced so much of its own oil. Six years later, with US imports surging, OPEC launched a second embargo.

"that goal [of US energy independence] is within sight, says Leonardo Maugeri, a former director of the petrochemical division of the Italian energy firm Eni. The United States will still import oil, he argued last summer in a report from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. But domestic production will increase so much that by 2020, all of this country’s oil needs 'theoretically could come entirely from the Western Hemisphere.' Within a decade, in other words, the US could, if it wanted, stop importing oil from the Middle East. In November, the International Energy Agency agreed, though it pushed the date of independence to 2035.

"Nations like Japan, China, and India will still be stuck in that world, as will much of Europe and Southeast Asia. Many of these nations do not have shale deposits to frack, the requisite technological base, or, even if they have both the shale and the technology, the entrepreneurial infrastructure to finance such sweeping changes. Nonetheless, they want to be freed from their abrasive reliance on OPEC. The United States and Canada, mindful that the good times will not last forever, are also hunting for new supplies. All have been looking with ever-increasing interest at a still-larger energy source: methane hydrate.

"Energy costs [of fracking] are surprisingly small; a Swiss-American research team calculated in 2011 that the average EROEI for fracked gas in a representative Pennsylvania county was about 87—about six times better than for Persian Gulf oil

"Almost all domestic coal is used to generate electricity—it produces 38 percent of the US power supply. Fracking is swiftly changing this: in 2011, utilities reported plans to shut down 57 of the nation’s 1,287 coal-fired generators the following year. * * * [Meanwhile] US coal exports, mainly to Europe, almost doubled from 2009 to 2011.

"(Several researchers told me that the current towel-snapping between Beijing and Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea is due less to nationalistic posturing than to nearby petroleum deposits.)

"Worse, that remaining pillar [ie, energy industry of the energy-producing nation] becomes so big and important that in almost every nation, the government takes it over. ('Almost,' because there is an exception: the United States, the only one of the 62 petroleum-producing nations that allows private entities to control large amounts of oil and gas reserves.)

"None of this is what makes Christopher Knittel use words like catastrophe. What Knittel is thinking of is, so to speak, the little black specks of Yulin, China. Five years ago, I traveled with a friend to Yulin, in the northwestern province of Shaanxi * * * There were little black specks all over my glasses [deposited from atmosphere] * * * Thousands upon thousands of coal fires were loading the air with tiny dots of soot. Scientists have taken to calling these dots 'black carbon'

choi

Note:
(1) "the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea."
(a) chikyu 地球 【ちきゅう】 (n): "the earth; the globe"
(b) With a good natural harbor, Shimizu-ku 清水 区 is one of three wards of City of Shizuoka, in Shizuoka Prefecture.
(c) Philippine Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Sea

(2) "Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911."
(a) Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
(b) Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Commissioners_of_the_Admiralty
(from around 1400 until the Admiralty became part of the Ministry of Defence in 1964 (with two exceptions); The president of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty)
(c) Erik J Dahl. Naval Innovation: From Coal to Oil. E&P Magazine, July 4, 2006
http://www.epmag.com/archives/digitalOilField/5911.htm

Quote:

"Supporting change was Admiral John Fisher, the First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 and friend and advisor to Churchill during his tenure as First Lord of the Admiralty.

"The first oil-burning American destroyer, USS Paulding, was commissioned in 1910.

* About Us. E&PP Magazine, undated
http://www.epmag.com/About/
(published by Hart Energy, located at Houston, Texas)
(d) Paulding-class destroyer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulding-class_destroyer
(The newer class burned oil rather than coal, lightening the ships and making them faster; lead ship: USS Paulding, named after Rear Admiral Hiram A Paulding USN (1797-1878))

USS Paulding is world's first battleship exclusively fueled by oil. Until then, at most oil was used to supplement coal, for many reasons (including oil engine not being reliable enough).
(e) For debates of oil versus coal, see section 2.3.1 Fuel in
Dreadnought
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought
, where USS Nevada was commissioned in 1916 and HMS Queen Elizabeth (a super-dreadnought), in 1915.

* HMS Dreadnought
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dreadnought

(3) "At the time, the United States produced almost two-thirds of the world’s petroleum; Russia produced another fifth. Both were allies of Great Britain. Nonetheless, Whitehall was uneasy about the prospect of the Navy’s falling under the thumb of foreign entities, even if friendly."
(a) Whitehall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehall
(b) Under the thumb. The Phrase Finder, undated.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/under-the-thumb.html

(4) "Spurred by the Admiralty, the UK soon bought 51 percent of what is now British Petroleum, which had rights to oil 'at the source': Iran (then known as Persia). * * * Britain enmeshed itself ever more deeply in the  Middle East, working to install new shahs in Iran and carve Iraq out of the collapsing Ottoman Empire."
(a) British Petroleum was company name from 1954-2001. Since it is BP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP

Quote:

"On 14 April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was incorporated as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company to exploit the first commercially significant find in the Middle East at Masjid-i-Suleiman, discovered in May 1908 under a concession granted to William Knox D'Arcy by the Shah of Iran.

"In 1913, the British Government acquired a controlling interest in APOC in exchange for oil supplies for its ships.

* Burmah was varianr spelling of Burma the nation. See
The Coloured History of the Burmah Oil Company. Myanmar Times, Aug 20, 2007.
http://www.mmtimes.com/feature/energy/01.htm
(b) Iran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran
("In 1935 Rezā Shāh requested that the international community should refer to the country as Iran. Opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and in 1959 both names were to be used interchangeably. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 the official name of the country has been the 'Islamic Republic of Iran'")
(c) Rezā Shāh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez%C4%81_Sh%C4%81h
(1878-1944; shah 1925-1941; section 2.1 The 1921 Coup: The coup d'état of 1921 [led by him] was partially assisted by the British government; he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on Sept 16, 1941 [in favor of his son, who was overthrown in 1979])
(d) Ottoman Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
(Osman I (1258-1326), from which the name Ottoman is derived; "The Arab Revolt which began in 1916 turned the tide against the Ottomans at the Middle Eastern front, where they initially seemed to have the upper hand during the first two years of the war [World War I]")
(e) Oil was discovered in Iraq in 1927.

Iraq Petroleum Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Petroleum_Company
(sections 1.1 and 1.2; 1929-1972)
(a) As a result of Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire (1918-1922), Iraq and Palestine became British mandated territories. Iraq was granted independence in 1932 by the urging of King Faisal.
(b) The article in Web page 4 states, "Saddam [Hussein] personally directed the nationalization of Iraqi oil in 1972, then leveraged his control of petroleum revenues to seize power from his rivals."

Mr Hussein gained power by participating in a 1968 bloodless coup.
(5) "Nowhere has the interest been more serious than Japan. Unlike Britain and the United States, the Japanese failed to become 'the owners, or at any rate, the controllers' of any significant amount of oil. (Not that Tokyo didn’t try: it bombed Pearl Harbor mainly to prevent the US from blocking its attempted conquest of the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.)"
(a) Dutch East Indies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies

Quote:

"On Jan 10, 1942, during the Dutch East Indies Campaign, Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies as part of the Pacific War. The rubber plantations and oil fields of the Dutch East Indies were considered crucial for the Japanese war effort. Allied forces were quickly overwhelmed by the Japanese and on Marc 8, 1942 the Royal Dutch East Indies Army surrendered in Java.

"oil from Sumatra and Kalimantan became a valuable resource for industrialising Europe.

"The Dutch East Indies produced most of the world's supply of quinine and pepper, over a third of its rubber, a quarter of its coconut products, and a fifth of its tea, sugar, coffee, and oil. The profit from the Dutch East Indies made the Netherlands one of the world's most significant colonial powers.

(b) Melvin E Page, Penny Sonnenberg and James D Ciment, Colonialism: An international social, cultural, and political encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, at 716
books.google.com/books?isbn=1576073351
("1890  The Royal Dutch Petroleum company,later Shell Oil,is founded, partly to exploit recently discovered reserves in the Dutch East Indies)
(c) Royal Dutch Shell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell
(section 1.1 20th century: Royal Dutch Petroleum Company was a Dutch company founded in 1890 by Jean Baptiste August Kessler[, a Dutch])

(6) "Today, Churchill’s nightmare has come true for Japan: it is a military and industrial power almost wholly dependent on foreign energy. It is the world’s third-biggest net importer of crude oil, the second-biggest importer of coal, and the biggest importer of liquefied natural gas."
(a) petroleum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Import
(section 12.5 Import: US > China > Japan > India > Germany >> Taiwan (No 11))
(b)
(i) Coal Statistics. World Coal Association, undated
http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/
(Top Coal Importers (2011e): PR China (190 million tonnes) > Japan (175Mt) > S Korea > India > Chinese Taipei)
(ii) coal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal
(section 12.5 Major coal importers: Japan > China > S Korea > India > Taiwan)

It cited "EIA International Energy Annual: Coal Overview 2010. Eia.gov. Retrieved on 24 August 2012," whose web page is now updated to include 2011--still according to Energy Information Administration (EIA), US Department of Energy--which shows Japan (194,071 Thousand Short Tons) led by China (192,499) in 2011 coal import by a razor-thin margin.

(7) Nankai Trough
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankai_Trough
(8) Koji YAMAMOTO of Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC)

(9) "A giant, hypermodern petroleum operation barely 100 miles from Los Angeles! I couldn’t believe it. As I stood gawping, a policeman drove by. I asked him when this complex had sprung up. He looked at me like I was an idiot. 'They’ve been drilling here since 1899,' he said. I was standing by the Kern River oil field, one of the best-known petroleum deposits in the United States."
(a) gawp (vi): "chiefly British : GAWK"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gawp
(b) Kern River Oil Field
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kern_River_Oil_Field
(Kern River flows south of the field, from east to west, from the Sierra Nevada into the city of Bakersfield)

(10) "gaseous methane had to be pumped through sealed tubes to its destination, which required energy firms and utilities to lay thousands upon thousands of miles of pipeline. Not until the Second World War and war-production advances in welding did this effort gather speed. (Methane can be cooled into a liquid and transported in pressurized tanks that are loaded and unloaded in special facilities, but this is also expensive.)"

The former is CNG and the latter, LNG--C and L stand for compressed and liquified.

(11) The author writes, "According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the United States has experienced 11 recessions since the end of the Second World War. All but one were associated with spikes in energy costs—specifically, abrupt jumps in the price of oil."

He is confusing results with causes. None of the latest recessions, of 2008, 2001 and 1990-1991 has anything to do with oil/energy. See
List of recessions in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis ... n_the_United_States
(section 3 Great Depression onward)
Sure, a boom in the run-up to the recession is coupled with great energy demand, which dissipates once a recession sets in.


(12) United States Geological Survey is under US Department of the Interior.
(13) "The argument has nonetheless continued, pessimists and optimists hammering at each other like Montagues and Capulets."

Characters in Romeo and Juliet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_Romeo_and_Juliet
(section 2 House of Capulet ; section 3 House of Montague: Both houses were nicknames of actual political factions--not names of families--of the 13th century in Italy)
(14) In Kern River filed, "they could barely wrest any of this goop from the ground."

goop (n; probably alteration of goo; First Known Use  c 1918):
"GOO, GUNK"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goop
(15) The article then describes a "bowout" when Kern River field burrowed farther into the Earth.
(a) blowout (n): "an uncontrolled eruption of an oil or gas well"
m-w.com
(b) blowout (well drilling)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_(well_drilling)
(16) "Sweeping claims like these make Jean Laherrère’s teeth hurt."

That means causing toothache.
(17) The article observes when marine creatures die, "their bodies drizzle slowly to the seafloor, creating banks of sediment, marine reliquaries that can be many feet deep."

reliquary (n; from Medieval Latin reliquiarium, from reliquia relic — more at RELIC):
"a container or shrine in which sacred relics are kept"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reliquary

(18) "Hydrates were regarded purely as laboratory curiosities until the 1930s, when a Texas petroleum researcher realized that they were clogging natural-gas pipelines in cold weather. Three decades later, exploration in Siberia revealed gelid bands of methane hydrate embedded in the tundra."

gelid (adj; Latin gelidus, from gelu frost, cold):
"extremely cold : ICY <gelid water>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gelid
(19) "In most cases, mining tar sands involves drilling two horizontal wells, one above the other, into the bitumen layer; injecting massive gouts of high-pressure steam and solvents into the top well, liquefying the bitumen; sucking up the melted bitumen as it drips into the sand around the lower well; and then refining the bitumen into 'synthetic crude oil.' Refining in this case includes removing sulfur, which is then stored in million-ton, utterly useless Ozymandian slabs around mines and refineries."
(a) gout (n)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gout
(b) Ozymandian
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ozymandian
(c) Ozymandias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias
(The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue [of  Ramesses II of ancient Egypt], given by Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica, as 'King of Kings am I, Osymandias'")

(20) "Governments dip into the oil kitty to reward friends and buy off enemies."
(a) kitty (n; from kit):
"1: a fund in a poker game made up of contributions from each pot
2: a sum of money or collection of goods often made up of small contributions : POOL"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kitty
(b) kit (n):
"2a: a collection of articles usually for personal use <a travel kit> * * *
b : a container for any of such sets or collections"
(21) Ramez Naam, The Infinite Resource; The power of ideas on a finite planet. University Press of New England, Apr 9, 2013.

choi

Note:
(8) Koji YAMAMOTO of Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC)
(a) 山本 晃司/ (独立行政法人) 石油天然ガス・金属鉱物資源機構
(b) kōkō 煌々; 晃々 【こうこう】 (adj, adv): "brilliant; dazzling"  <大きな建物は光でこうこうと輝いていた。 The big building was blazing with lights>"
(c) ガス is katakana for "gas."