War On Coal, US, Australia, And Common Sense -- July 23, 2014

Earlier I posted:

I doubt many folks will read the RBN Energy blog today: Burning natural gas this summer -- bluntly put: Texas will consume its own stored supplies to meet in-State needs first – depriving other States of a helping hand if need be. So low storage levels in Texas will likely have more impact out of State than in. Buried in that long post:

By October 2013, Texas’s stored gas had rebounded to 730 Bcf (only 2% less than its fall-of-2012 peak) but by March of this year in-state storage levels had plummeted to 418 Bcf, 26% lower than a year earlier and the lowest in the state since February 2004. 

Texas, with the most natural gas storage in the United States (in the world?), reported 26% lower storage of natural gas than a year early and the lowest in the state since February 2004. 

I don't think the word "coal" was mentioned it the RBN Energy post, but one can't explain away that dismal figure simply due to "the weather" (the polar vortex). Clearly there is something else going on. Yes, it's not that difficult to figure out: the war on coal is succeeding here in the US, and all that promised solar/wind energy simply cannot keep up.

Again, seldom reported: utilities need to add one-half MW of fossil fuel capacity for every one MW of solar/wind energy brought on-line for those periods (like all night) when the sun is not shining, and the wind is blowing too fast or too slow. 

The big story is not that natural gas stores are depleted; the big story is "why."

Don just sent me an interesting Motley Fool story that touches on this. Motley Fool is reporting:

The Australian Broadcast Corporation, Australia's public broadcaster, reports that electricity providers in that country are actually switching back to coal as the international price of natural gas is making coal a more cost-effective fuel to generate electricity. 

ABC also reports that Australian domestic gas prices may triple by 2021 as domestic producers elect to export gas to higher value international markets. 

Meanwhile, here in the states:

U.S. natural gas currently sits at about $4.10 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) as reported by the EIA, with futures even lower as reported by Bloomberg.

However, the international price of natural gas, as reported by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is much higher than the U.S. price.

Natural gas in Asia and South America can be as much as three times the U.S. price, likely prompting U.S. domestic producers to develop export markets in pursuit of higher prices.

In addition, even in the U.S., the converted energy cost of coal is significantly lower than natural gas, as reported by FERC, potentially pushing the U.S. electricity generators back to coal. [Presidents come and go. Common sense tends to remain common.]

Motley Fool then goes into "clean coal" projects and carbon capture/CO2 EOR which have already been reported on the blog. Both projects are in ... drum roll ... drum roll ... Texas and one of the projects is being underwritten by the Obama administration. The other project is a joint project with Japan's JX Nippon.

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North Dakota Crude Oil Production and Exponential Production

From Calculus: Single Variable, Deborah Huges-Hallett (Harvard University) and Andrew W. Gleason (Harvard University), c. 1998, p. 14:

Whenever we have a constant growth factor, we have exponential growth. 

Month-over-month, the oil production in North Dakota increases by about 2 percent. Rarely, the month-to-month growth declines (from early winter to late winter, for example), and often the rate is significantly more than 2 percent month-over-month. But I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that over time, the month-over-month increase in North Dakota oil production has been exponential.

So far this year:

Month	bopd	% change
Dec-13	923227
Jan-14	935126	1.29%
Feb-14	952055	1.81%
Mar-14	977178	2.64%
Apr-14	1001149	2.45%
May-14	1039635	3.84%

Production change by month for all of 2012 and 2013 can be found here. The numbers may be very, very slightly "off" due to fact that the monthly production numbers are revised following the initial report. I don't always have the most current data, but it's very, very close. Close enough for retired government employees.

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A Note for the Granddaughters

One of my favorite pastimes with our granddaughters is to work with math with them, which we try to do every day. We probably succeed four days out of seven, which is not bad. We have not less than three different "series" of math texts and/or workbooks for the summer. She says she loves geometry so we have a separate book on geometry. We started going through the book, working the problems, but due to the short time left before they leave for a few weeks, I have been going through the book, not doing the problems, but just going over the concepts. Her memory is such that I am convinced that when she starts getting into geometry sometime in the next three years in middle school, she will say, "oh, yes, I remember that." Much of math is the fear of the unknown, I think.

On the other hand, her dad has the Singapore Math Series for her which she must do as prescribed, not skipping any problems or any pages: the textbook, the workbook, and the intensive practice book.

I was surprised how quickly the word problems became exceedingly more difficult after starting out with quite easy problems. She has not had algebra yet, but we have gradually been introducing the concept. When I saw the following problem, I could only solve it using algebra:

The total cost of 5 CDs and 3 video tapes was $169.20. The total cost of a CD and a video tape was $43.80. If I bought 3 CDs and 5 video tapes and paid with two $100 bills, how much change would I receive. 

Obviously, once one figures out the cost of a single CD or a single video tape, the rest is just "busy work."

Our older granddaughter, studied the problem for awhile, and then came up with a way to solve the problem without using algebra, and I am convinced that was exactly what Singapore Math expected. The series had not yet introduced algebra but yet there was a fairly simple, albeit somewhat tedious, way to solve the problem without using algebra.

I was pretty impressed with her reasoning.