1w/m^2? Good thing you're way off, cause Earth sure would be chilly if that were the case
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Us_pv_annual_may2004.jpg
True, but we have to put it in perspective. "Will this development push the end of oil past the end of my life expectancy?" Those who come after will consider us all a bunch of ass ponchos no matter what we do so we might as well grab the oil and drive the V8s God wants us to.this doesn't solve the problem of the eventual decline of crude oil...
the reason we don't is because the sun provides us with about 1 watt/sq meter. not nearly enough, even under the best of circumstances. are you going to cover the entire country with panels, including farmland? they are pretty worthless under a foot of snow, too.
The petro energy web is not as simple as most think.US domestic demand for oil was up a weak 1.1% in 2010, coming off a low, crashy, base in 2009. But worldwide demand for oil especially from developing nations is soaring. The result? The US is using its spare refining capacity to turn oil into products, like diesel–for export. Behold the growth oil Total Oil Product exports since the start of 2008. These have nearly doubled from near 1.2 million barrels per day at the start of 2008, to just above 2.2 million barrels per day as of mid-January 2011. | see: US Total Oil Product Exports 2008 -2010 in kb (thousand barrels).
When you hear a newsletter writer, oil analyst, or podcast saying that US domestic oil demand has rebounded strongly since 2008–talking in terms of millions of barrels of restored demand–the mistake they are making is obvious: they are missing the heroic rise in US exports of gasoline, diesel, and distillate. The error comes in part with the myriad measures EIA uses to measure US demand for oil. Hopefully my disentangling of this data here, is of some help]
http://www.businessinsider.com/punk-us-oil-demand-and-export-confusion-2011-2
The petro energy web is not as simple as most think.
US consumption no longer drives energy prices, we're becoming the tail of the dog.
how much do any of you really know about this process?
we are pumping fluid and chemicals( fairly low concentrations most of the time) 10 to 15000 feet into the earth, into rock formations that already have the ability to trap gas and oil under huge pressures. we are regulated to run cement bond logs to insure that the casing of the well is sealed above and below each zone. I have even had BLM people in my truck while running cement bond logs to monitor them.
the countries natural gas production in three of our biggest fields ( pinedale anticline, waumsutter, johna ) would be next to nothing without hydraulic fracturing.
we have been doing this for a long,long time. there is nothing new happening. my state does regulate it and requires each fracturing company to tell the state what is in the chemicals/fluid that is being pumped underground. also, i believe that they require the oil companies to support periodic ground water tests for these chemicals. I have never heard of a positive test. we have water treatment facilities in each of the fields mentioned, they bring the water back to drinking quality and then we re-use the treated water in the oilfield. i can only speak of the fields here, but we do manage our wast pretty effectively. the pinedale field has a collection system, they string long plastic pipes to each location where we are working and we pump the wast directly to the treatment facility so that we do not have to use trucks or risk spills.
do you have any questions that you do not want answered by some alarmist news article?
So we're exporting oil when our very own gas prices are at an all time high for the months of Jan/Feb?
While importing 12 million barrels per day? uh?
1w/m^2? Good thing you're way off, cause Earth sure would be chilly if that were the case
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Us_pv_annual_may2004.jpg
We're importing crude, Refining it, then exporting it. Not exactly exporting oil we drill.
There's a lot of risk to Ground Water with that method.
Hope the EPA doesn't hinder this. This is millions of jobs on the line. Which side is Obama on? Jobs or regulation?
the reason we don't is because the sun provides us with about 1 watt/sq meter. not nearly enough, even under the best of circumstances. are you going to cover the entire country with panels, including farmland? they are pretty worthless under a foot of snow, too.
we should just save the shlt and not touch it until the rest of the world runs out of oil.
The side that allows us to breathe clean air, drink clean water, etc. without having to worry too much about doing so. Seriously, Hacp, not all regulation is bad. We simply cannot blindly trust modern corporations to do the right things regarding valuable public ecological resources/services without proper verification. Trust but verify, my friend.
and that graph shows kWh/m^2/day. which is the total radiant energy per day. divide by 24 to get kW/m^2 and you end up with something less than 1 (kW/m^2 being a flux, or rate per unit area)
most solar plants are a few hundred MW output at peak operation. nuclear plants are ~1GW *per reactor* and run with uptimes of 99%.
you want clean? go nuclear.
I think 1 kW is nearly a thousand times more than a watt though........
Yep. My family owns a small local oil company and they're been pumping that shit into the ground for decades
You re-treat and re-use the reclaimed water? Isn't that what disposal wells are for?
(I work on the drafting side of the business, no firsthand experience in the actual field techniques)