Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumWhat If We Never Run Out of Oil?
CHARLES C. MANN
As the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea, chances are good that not one of the scientists aboard realized they might be closing the door on Winston Churchills world. Their lack of knowledge is unsurprising; beyond the ranks of petroleum-industry historians, Churchills outsize role in the history of energy is insufficiently appreciated.
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. With characteristic vigor and verve, he set about modernizing the Royal Navy, jewel of the empire. The revamped fleet, he proclaimed, should be fueled with oil, rather than coala decision that continues to reverberate in the present. Burning a pound of fuel oil produces about twice as much energy as burning a pound of coal. Because of this greater energy density, oil could push ships faster and farther than coal could.
Churchills proposal led to emphatic dispute. The United Kingdom had lots of coal but next to no oil. At the time, the United States produced almost two-thirds of the worlds petroleum; Russia produced another fifth. Both were allies of Great Britain. Nonetheless, Whitehall was uneasy about the prospect of the Navys falling under the thumb of foreign entities, even if friendly. The solution, Churchill told Parliament in 1913, was for Britons to become the owners, or at any rate, the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the supply of natural oil which we require. Spurred by the Admiralty, the U.K. soon bought 51 percent of what is now British Petroleum, which had rights to oil at the source: Iran (then known as Persia). The concessions terms were so unpopular in Iran that they helped spark a revolution. London worked to suppress it. Then, to prevent further disruptions, 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.
Churchill fired the starting gun, but all of the Western powers joined the race to control Middle Eastern oil. Britain clawed past France, Germany, and the Netherlands, only to be overtaken by the United States, which secured oil concessions in Turkey, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The struggle created a long-lasting intercontinental snarl of need and resentment. Even as oil-consuming nations intervened in the affairs of oil-producing nations, they seethed at their powerlessness; oil producers exacted huge sums from oil consumers but chafed at having to submit to them. Decades of turmoiloil shocks in 1973 and 1979, failed programs for energy independence, two wars in Iraqhave left unchanged this fundamental, Churchillian dynamic, a toxic mash of anger and dependence that often seems as basic to global relations as the rotation of the sun.
more
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-of-oil/309294/
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)hunter
(38,264 posts)The article ends with bullshit:
Natural gas, both from fracking and in methane hydrate, gives us a way to cut back on carbon emissions while we work toward a more complete solution.
Just like PBS, NPR, and the "alternative energy" industry they get owned by "clean burning natural (ha-ha) gas."
Most effective advertising scam ever, better than anything the tobacco industry ever came up with.
Fossil fuel Natural Lite!
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)It's all bad, but gas is less bad. And a natural gas infrastructure can also utilize biogas, which is carbon neutral.
NickB79
(19,111 posts)the research team reported new Colorado data that support the earlier work, as well as preliminary results from a field study in the Uinta Basin of Utah suggesting even higher rates of methane leakage an eye-popping 9% of the total production. That figure is nearly double the cumulative loss rates estimated from industry data which are already higher in Utah than in Colorado.
The Uinta Basin is of particular interest because fracking has increased there over the past decade.
How much methane leaks during the entire lifecycle of unconventional gas has emerged as a key question in the fracking debate. Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4). And methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned 25 times more potent over a century and 72 to 100 times more potent over a 20-year period.
If those numbers are verified, that means natural gas from fracking is WORSE than burning coal and oil, amazingly enough.
It leaks. Not just during drilling. It leaks all the time.
Actual Methane Emissions Measured in Manhattan Show No Advantage to Natural Gas: Two Reports
Thanks.
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)for the sake of the environment.
Brings a tear.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)There is a natural interplay of economic forces that results from the fact that renewables have no fuel cost and natural gas will always have a fuel cost.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance
STRONG GROWTH FOR RENEWABLES EXPECTED THROUGH TO 2030
Improvements in cost-competitiveness means that renewables will account for between 69% and 74% of new power capacity added by 2030 worldwide, despite current difficult market conditions.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112742104
hatrack
(59,439 posts)nt