Second Cousin To Peak Oil

[ThomWV]

I am not an alarmist about Peak Oil, I don't expect the black goo to be running out anytime soon but what really amazes me is that we seem to overlook our depletion of Natural Gas. Its way worse than oil. Most of ours is gone and we import lots from Canada. That wouldn't be so bad but Canada is running out quickly as well. It gets very little press.

Natural Gas is the fuel source for about a quarter of our electricity but what may be of more interest is its use as the basis of nitrogen fertilizers. The thing about ethanol as a liquid fuel, even if you don't accept that it requires more energy to produce than it generates as a fuel, is that its economic production is based on high corn production per acre. That requires nitrogen fertilizer, and lots of it; over 100 pounds per acre annually. Where's that going to come from when the natural gas runs out?

[NMDemDist2]

1. hmm. we have 3% of the world's reserves and it's stayed static for

the last 10 years

interesting reading here

http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/resources.asp

[Mojorabbit]

2. There are some pretty iffy

definitions in that paper. Interesting.

[greenman3610]

3. new discoveries in PA

ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2008) — Natural gas distributed throughout the Marcellus black shale in northern Appalachia could conservatively boost proven U.S. reserves by trillions of cubic feet if gas production companies employ horizontal drilling techniques, according to a Penn State and State University of New York, Fredonia, team

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080117094524.htm


gas is a relatively low carbon, low toxicity fuel,
and is increasingly competitive with coal,as climate and
other concerns block coal plants.
Price of coal has risen so sharply that gas is
getting more competitive.