Posted on 08/17/2009 6:14:56 PM PDT by Kaslin
Energy Policy: New York's governor wants to tap into a shale formation that can supply the entire U.S. with natural gas for 65 years. Will NIMBY environmentalists let him stimulate New York's and America's energy economy?
The Marcellus Shale stretches from southwestern New York to Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. A nearby formation of Devonian shale is even more porous, with a superior amount of trapped gas per volume of rock.
Geologist Gary Lash of State University New York at Fredonia and colleague Terry Engelder of Penn State estimate that Marcellus holds 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. About 20 trillion cubic feet are produced in the U.S. annually.
Lash notes that successful wells have already been drilled in Pennsylvania — one near Pittsburgh and the other in Susquehanna County. A Penn State report that was requested by state legislators predicted that Marcellus could add $14 billion to the state's economy in 2010, create more than 98,000 jobs and generate $800 million in state and local tax revenues. Now that's what you call a stimulus package.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Good post. I guess Saudi gas is superior to American gas? Lat time I looked, most of our water came from RAIN.
parsy, who says drill baby drill!
How deep is the shale in New York state?
Interesting under-reported item. A bi-product of many gas wells is casehead gasoline, otherwise known as natural gasoline. Nearly 2mm per day of oil produced by this country is actually casehead gasoline. With all of the large natural gas discoveries that have occurred in this country within the last year, that number could double or even triple.
This combined with additional production enhancement at our refineries will go a long way towards stabilizing or lowering the cost of oil.
Patterson = Paterson
Other than that, a good article.
It looks like about 9,000 ft deep on average? Here’s link to environmental site i just found, but their maps are probably accurate.
parsy, who still says drill
Energy is one of my favorite subjects. We have a staggeringly stupid energy policy in US. We have the energy reserves if we would only go and get them. We could have nuclear in a big way if we would only do it.
Thx. I didn’t know that. I have a friend who is taking an oil and gas curriculum in college. I read some of her stuff once in a while. Fascinating.
parsy, who is watching the Colony and just learned about “wood gas”
> How deep is the shale in New York state?
Here’s how deep. I live in Buffalo, NY. My old employer decided that the gas bills for running the chemical plant were too high. They used gas for both heating and the reactor kettles. When the decision to drill the company’s own well was made, they called some outfit, brought in some drilling equipment and in a single day sank a gas well. About $10K for the drilling, meters, valves and pipes and they were then pulling gas out of their hole to the tune of about 5 times what the factory was using. The excess went into the local gas company pipeline and it took less than one year to earn back the costs of the well. Now the gas is free.
> It looks like about 9,000 ft deep on average? Here’s link to environmental site i just found, but their maps are probably accurate.
It may be 9000 ft in some places, but in Western New York, it’s more like one or two hundred feet. My former employer and at least 3 of my friends have their own gas wells. Drilling can cost $10K to $20K, but costs can be reclaimed very quickly, by selling the excess gas to the gas company.
I’m crazy. Forgot to give link. Sorry ‘bout that.
http://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/node/290
parsy, who has a lot in common with the missing link
Please add me to your ping list...love IBD
Dems are fracking jerks
For whoever is interested, live and learn. I was just watching The Colony and they made a “wood gasifier”.
I wiki-ed it. You can run cars on these things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas
parsy, who just learned something new
Drill baby, Drill
We have at least 3 times the Saudis oil reserves in shale oil, coal, diesel and other sources of energy not counting off shore.
Our Energy is the BEST way to financially reboot the America economy, repay debt and create wealth.
The Saudis own DC and the white hut.
I’d think that drilling for natural gas is about as environmentally benign as you can get.
Priceless and self reliance. Outstanding.
Ping.
Drill here, now, everywhere, produce and burn cleanly, more efficiently and eliminate all pollution with no different C02/Oxygen mis than the ambient air. Do it with cheaper, simpler, gasoline and cheaper, simpler, cleaner refining. Produce all gas and use all methane produced by waste for power. Fluidize coal and burn it efficiently. Decentralize atomic power and produce more atom powered ships. Increase offshore production by 3 or more and drill under the Cubans, the Chicoms and the Russkies off our coasts. Create thousands of low head hydropower sites and tax incentivize individual hydro, wind and solar while discouraging boondoggles that don’t work in the marketplace. Put industrial water use on true recycling and stop wasting energy transporting water needed for other essetial purposes for industrial use.
In West Virginia a large number of Marcellus wells are already producing. More are being drilled everyday. In this area IIRC they go to 12,000’. A shallow well to less than 5,000’ takes about a week to drill. My guess is it costs about $200,000 (shallow). That includes the drilling rig for about a week, the site prep., casing and cementing, logging the well after it’s to depth and fracking. A Marcellus around here would cost quite a bit more. Much bigger well location, bigger rig, More drilling time. Way more water, etc. Around here it seems like the rig is on location for about three weeks.
I hope they drill for gas all around Ithaca NY just to p!ss off all the NIMBY lefties!!!
any thoughts?
The Saudi's have little gas - they have oil. Qatar has gas. We have more gas than any other country in the world.
If we would just make the cars and develop the infrastructure to run our vehicles off of natural gas, we could stop importing Saudi oil.
I like your tag line, but it should read "The Kenyan gaylord must fail". :-)
I would like to get back to work in the Oil and Gas industry. My job depends on drilling. So I say drill baby drill.
These are horizontal wells with around 4000’ of lateral. So, a 12,000’ well is about 8000’ deep and so on. Vertical wells are not commercial. Horizontal drilling with multi-staged fracs is what has made it commercial.
ping self.
All over occupied Europe, vehicles were powered by these "kettles" which destructively distilled wood to make methanol (wood alcohol)and then gasified it to make gases that then fueled the engine. Unfortunately, destructive distillation is also incomplete combustion and you wind up with a sort of devil's brew of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and methane.
A solution, but not a great one, as it also produces a lot of tars and other crapulous disjecta that can quickly foul an engine, unless you bubble it through a cleaner solution, which is undrinkable, even if listening to an Obama speech.
Pure methanol, which can be cheaply made from coal, btw, is a lot better motor fuel than ethanol, and does not starve Mexicans by driving up the cost of tortillas.
American Victory is a dangerous thinker and must be discouraged from posting at all costs. This kind of clarity is contrary to the Green Policy Initiatives proposed by our elected leader, and thus, like any opinion contrary to those of The Anointed One, can be summed up in one ugly word:
In fact, it would not surprise me one bit if it were found that this poster is also against the Obama Health Plan, supports the 1st and 2d Amendments, and is for strong borders! Why if this keeps up, we'll all be reported to the White House.
As long as we don’t start trying to run all our cars on NG. My winter heating bills are outrageous enough.
If we lightened up on diesel regulations the same would happen.
TDP does the whole distillation almost perfectly, especially if the fuel (often waste) stream is discrete.
The Saudis use the gases from their oil wells to create electric power and more interestingly, to power the giant de-salinization plants that provide the Kingdom's fresh water.
Speaking of fresh water, the Saudis are fortunate to be sitting on giant aquifers as well as giant oil fields! Unfortunately for them, they have been tapping them at a prodigious rate. 50 years ago, they could be tapped at 30-50 feet down, now they're at 400.
Where there's oil, there's always some gas with it. What I meant was they have little standalone gas.
Mostly just trying to point out the difference between gas and gasoline, which tends to confuse some people.
This ethanol craze drives me crazy. The Greenies are always pointing to Brazil. Lousy example, as after half-heartedly trying ethanol as their main motor fuel, the Brazilians were smart enough to discover giant oilfields, and thus were able to go back to drinking ethanol, instead of using it to try getting VWs up to 50 mph.
Methanol from coal, which I understand is quite abundant in some states, is the ticket! I still prefer small turbocharged, multi-point injection, clean diesels, which have been discovered all over the world except here in Green Obamastan.
the most assinine is using food for fuel. Is it true that it actually costs more in energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than oil, and the govt subsidies off set this.
So we’re paying taxes to subsidize an industry that is not efficient as drilling for our own oil, which at the same time uses food.
Sarah Palin needs to speak out on this.
Bingo. Nuclear’s been the way to go since the 70’s.
If we can put a reactor on a sub, we can certainly manage it on the beach, even on a fault.
The biggest benefit - all the freshwater you can make with the excess heat.
“in Western New York, it’s more like one or two hundred feet”
That would be in the water table. 200 feet is 60 yards.
It’s probably about 2,000 feet, which is VERY shallow.
(I am an oil driller; own a drilling company in New Mexico.)
Now that you mention it, you’re right. Lots of folks are wondering just whose gas the wells are extracting. I remember hearing about a driller locally that got run off because they ended up with a dog leg in the bore.
A horizontal well is purposefully kicked off from the vertical with a smooth transition to a 90 degree lateral. By law, this lateral is confined with the outline of the production unit that they have set up. In Pennsylvania, it is probably a standard section, which is 640 acres or one square mile. Most laterals are around 4000' so it would remain with the limits of the unit. Of course, they then frac the lateral in multiple stages to help reach out beyond the borehole. Think of a horizontal well as a replacement for multiple vertical wells. Fields that were at best marginally productive can now be commercial.
You are exactly right, not only do I and those I work with support the Bill of Rights we believe that our failure to support similar rights in other countries in lieu of our having fought and won wars only to install Eurosocialism has been a mistake that has been unnecessarily costly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.