Liquified Natural Gas Serious Threat to Climate

The notion that somehow natural gas or Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is a clean transitional fuel is a complete fiction. To be clear natural gas is a fossil fuel and when combusted releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, its only advantage is it releases about 24% less carbon compared to carbon  46% less than coal. However, this statistic is very misleading as natural gas is primarily made of methane (CH4) methane is a greenhouse gas that is 86 times worse than CO2. In order to produce natural gas it has to be extracted, processed, transported and in some cases liquefied. In British Columbia alone in 2016 the production emissions are around 11.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide or 18% of the provinces total emissions. This does not include all the climate damage that comes from natural gas and the actual emission of green house gas reported in 2014 is 63 Mt CO2e/year.

Courtesy of DSF

Where do the Emissions Come From

Using British Columbia as an example where do the mega tonnes of emissions come from in the natural gas industry. The largest amount of emissions actually come from using the fuel for power processes 56%, formation CO2 venting, methane venting 9%, flaring 5% and electrical generation 3%. 

What was not Include is Worse

What is not included in these figures is the emissions from using consumer use such as gas hot water tanks and gas furnaces that are used extensively in the province. In addition to this one of the most dangerous is leakages from the wells themselves something called fugitive emissions. These are emissions that come from poorly regulated well heads either during transportation or after the wells are abandoned. North American has some of the laxest regulations in terms of fugitive emissions and if these are factored in then natural gas is a just as dirty as coal and more damaging to the climate because it is methane that is leaking, 86% worse than CO2.

Damage to Aquifers

There are a number of hidden dangers to the LNG natural gas industry one of which is the threat to our fresh water supply. The Scientific American has suggested that this is particularly dangerous when fracking shallow wells. In this process, the fracking introduces a mixture of toxic chemicals such as benzene, toluene, and other hydrocarbons into the water table. And of course, the gas and oil that is released by this process also flow into the water table. Even if the wells are deeper improperly sealed wells can cause the same problem. Regulations around protecting these water tables are few and far between especially in North America.

To get a sense of just how many wells are threatening aquifers you can refer to the Chemical and Engineering New magazines article Shallow Fracking Wells May Threaten Aquifers. 

 Courtesy: Environ. Sci. Technol.

Things Might Get Worse

What will make things worse is seeing natural gas as some sort of transition fuel with this fiction firmly in the minds of the public the industry is gearing up to expand the industry world wide using a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) transportation process. In BC in order to profit from this trend, even with attempting to use hydro power to convert the fuel thus reducing emissions in new plants by 56%, it is estimated that the emissions would still rise by 10 Mt CO2e/year. BC, in order to meet its climate change targets, must be reducing emissions to 12.6 Mt CO2e, instead, they are planning to go in the opposite direction from 63 Mt CO2e/year to 73 Mt CO2e/year.

In addition to this if this fuel is subsidized as fossil fuels in Canada are it could potentially undermine the development of renewal energy sources that are not subsidized. Causing the adopting of renewable energy to be slower and thus increasing the damage to our climate.

World Wide Ramping Up of Industry

Australian is poised to become the largest exporter of LNG possibly reaching 50 million tonnes per year of subsidized exports, and now they are moving to expand their domestic market. The increasing use of LNG imports around the world has gone from 100 mega tonnes per annum (MTPA) to 300 and it is anticipated by 2030 it will be close to 500 MTPA. So there is no indication that this industry is on the decline.

Courtesy CSC

The Dangers of Transporting LNG

Sandia Laboratories was commission by the US government to determine what might happen if an LNG transportation ship explosion, so they could build in some hazard zones around the ships. The report concluded the following: 

Anything within a 500-meter radius of the tanker could be killed by freezing or suffocation from the cold gas cloud.  If ignited, a large shockwave would be produced as well as a fireball that could burn anything within a 1.6 km radius, causing structural damage and starting forest fires and grass fires.  The remaining LNG pool would continue to burn and spread until all of the fuel is gone. Anything within a 3.5  km radius of the blast could also be affected, but less severely.

Links:
Would exporting BC LNG reduce global greenhouse gas emissions?
Shale gas expert drills 50,000 holes in BC LNG plans
Size of the expanding LNG fleet
Increasing number of regasification terminals in Europe

Lithium Extraction and Geothermal Power Could Happen in Cornwall

The Express News Line highlights a discovery that is occurring all around the world that geothermal areas exude a brine that is often very rich in Lithium. In this case, Cornish Lithium is exploring a 15 mile stretch of a peninsula to explore the extent of the Lithium. They are consulting with companies like MGX Minerals and Canada and Pure Energy Minerals, which appear to extract the lithium using evaporation ponds. The companies also suggesting that they might also strike oil or gas should the drilling not hit brine with lithium in it. At the same time in the same area, may projects are planned to create electric power plants from the same brine.
I am not sure whether the two groups are talking to each other or not but they might want to look at what is going on at the Salton Sea where they have not only managed to create a large geothermal electric plant but used some its power output to power a lithium extraction plant.
The geothermal plant the Salton Sea requires a very small surface area to operate, this is true of all geothermal plants the smallest foot print of any energy plant clean or dirty. The way it operates is the hot brine is brought to the surface in a closed pipe and then put through a heat exchanger which heats as a secondary liquid that flashes into steam powering large electric turbines.  The brine is then sent in a closed pipe to the extraction plant, which extracts the lithium and other minerals from the brine. Once the extraction process is completed the brine in a closed pipe is reinjected into the mineral rich area it came from to be recycled.
It seems to me that it would be in the better interest of everyone to combine lithium extract with the production of geothermal energy, for a myriad of reasons.

Image from Renewable Energy World

Fossil Fuels Still Subsidized $3.80 per gallon?

A study published in the World Development journal has found that 6.5 percent of the worlds GDP goes to subsidizing fossil fuel. If we were to put this subsidy towards green energy imagine how quickly we could transition. Imagine if the fossil fuel companies put their profits toward green energy rather than more exploration or expansion. If we were to include the costs of pollution into the cost of fossil fuel you would have to add $3.80 to every gallon of gasoline and $4.80 to every gallon of diesel according to a study by Drew T. Shindell (former NASA, now Professor at Duke University). Similar costs are associated with coal and gas.
What does this mean in terms of electric cars? Even if an electric car was power through a coal plant the cost of operation would be less than half that of a gas car.
A good article on this report and be found through this link.

Fight Methane Crisis by Making Green Energy

Why We Need to Act

Methane our most dangerous greenhouse gas is 85 times worse than carbon dioxide. Reducing methane emissions is the fastest and cheapest way to reduce climate change. Not only that but with the Methane leaks, there are also carcinogenic chemicals being released as well, such as benzenes. 

We know from research in BC that the leakage is 2.5 times higher than what the Government reports list. In Alberta, the research indicates a 60% higher rate of release than the industry claims. 

What are the Benefits

Aside from the obvious benefit that we are going to reduce one of our worse greenhouse gases thus making an effort toward trying to slow down climate change, there are other benefits to this as well:

• In Alberta alone regulating methane would create 1,500 jobs immediately in the province. The only opposition against this at the moment is from the industry.
• The Canadian government estimates that the regulation of methane would result in a net benefit of 11.7 billion dollars, resulting from lower climate change impacts. The net saving to the health system is not included in this figure.
• The current methane loss per year is 55 million tons, enough to heat 200,000 homes for one year.

What Needs to be Done

The Minister can make this change by simply modifying the existing regulations to move that dates of compliance forward, no legislation required. They can also increase the frequency of inspections so they are as rigorous the US or better. Also, this regulation should apply to all wells currently single wells are exempt and well as oil facilities, both should regulate these serious omissions in the regulation.  

The Best Solution

This article from Green Energy illustrations how you can create 100 Megawatts from one abandoned oil well and stop the methane leakage at the same time. Even marginal wells can be used to produce one to three Megawatts. Of course, the power is produced 24 hours a day seven days a week.

This technology does the following:

• Taps energy that conventional technology can not use.
• Delivers scalable electric power
• Provides continuous yet flexible power for grid stability
• Provides green energy with no gas emissions, waste stream, explosives, dangerous chemicals, visual obstructions, and no possibility of ground water contamination.

To read article click here.

Illustration courtesy of Green Energy

The Enormous Potential for Geothermal Power Plants in British Columbia

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association has a number of reports on the extensive energy potential of British Columbia, we never need to build a dam again and the costs of using this energy are less than a 1/3 of the cost of building a dam and with no environmental impact.

• British Columbia Geothermal Resource Estimate Key Findings.
• Geothermal Resource Estimate Maps of BC following a Global Protocol.

Geothermal Energy: The Renewable and Cost Effective Alternative to Hydro Dams

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA) has produced a 60-page report assessing the geothermal potential of British Columbia. The report highlights how the provinces geothermal reserves are a much more cost effective alternative to the site C dam.

This report builds upon Joint Review Panel (JRP) of the Site C Clean Energy Hearings. The hearings concluded that: “a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource the BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs.” 

CanGEA was granted interested party status at the JRP hearings, and this conclusion largely stems from CanGEA’s submissions. CanGEA considers this number, or 700 megawatts, low. To ensure the true value of geothermal energy is assessed, CanGEA has released The 10 Advantages of Geothermal Energy not Considered by BC Hydro or the Joint Review Panel. Seven of these are economic considerations and the other three address socioeconomic and environmental considerations.

Massive Green Energy Find in Abandoned Alberta Oil Wells!

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association has just produced a report on the geothermal potential of existing oil wells in Alberta. Alberta alone has 60,000 wells with geothermal potential, to produce electricity for our grid, as well as heat towns and greenhouses.
The report lists the well sites who owns them and what towns they are near the wells.

The report can be read by clicking here.

Produce 100 Megawatts of Electricity from One Abandon Well

This technology does the following:

• Taps energy that conventional technology can not use.
• Delivers scalable electric power
• Provides continuous yet flexible power for grid stability
• Provides green energy with no gas emissions, waste stream, explosives, dangerous chemicals, visual obstructions, and no possibility of ground water contamination.

To read article click here.

Illustration courtesy of Green Energy

British Columbia May Have a “Trillion Dollar Opportunity” with Geothermal Power by Roy L Hales

Link to original article

November 6th, 2014 by  

An interview with Alison Thompson, Chair of the Canadian Geothermal Association

Originally Published in the ECOreport

British Columbia may have a “Trillion Dollar Opportunity,” and it is NOT LNG.*  There are more than 150 known hot springs in Western Canada. Look at the map below, most of the high generation temperature areas are in BC! According to Alison Thompson, Chair of the Canadian Geothermal Association, there is more than enough geothermal energy to power the province’s grid, yet none of these sites have been developed. Geothermal energy has never been invited to bid on calls for power. In fact, there isn’t a single developed geothermal site in all of Canada!

“Hot springs are great for the direct use of geothermal, but for power you’d have to drill,” Thompson explained. “Of course the hot springs are a surface manifestation that leads you to prospect in that area.”

Borealis Geopower has two prospective sites for +/- 15 MWe power plants in BC. The Federal government and First Nations both support the development of the Lakelse Lake site, but the province has yet to come to the table. The Canoe Reach Project is at the end of a transmission line and the nearby city of Valemount is experiencing routine brown-outs! They want to use the water left over from production for a community greenhouse and could also use it for public hot springs facilities.

There are many direct use applications, which do not need power. The heat from geothermal has been used for lumber drying, green housing, fish farming, milk pasteurization.

“On our mission down to Klamath Falls we visited a geothermal brewery that uses the heat from geothermal for the fermentation process,” Thompson said.

“If you look at what similarly geologic settings have, the sky’s the limit for BC,” she added. “We certainly have thousands and thousands of megawatts beneath our feet. We have so much of it that it truly could provide the province’s needs.”

Thompson added that it would be cheaper to develop geothermal than LNG and the jobs that came through it would be fairly evenly distributed throughout communities and First Nations.

“Looking at a statistic from the US Department of Energy, the comparison between a natural gas plant and a geothermal plant,  geothermal is usually lower for power price and we offer ten times the employment,” Thompson said.

Geothermal is also a good baseline power source, permitting the incorporation of more intermittent renewable energies into the grid.

“If someone was able to come online at a lower cost, you would just not use geothermal for those moments in time,” said Thompson. “Our ability to ramp up is as good, or better, than hydro. We really are a grid stabilizing feature and at a competitive cost, so perhaps you may want to turn off hydro and keep geothermal running.”

Looking south across the border, the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) says:

There are currently 64 operating conventional geothermal power plants in the United States, accounting for nearly 2,700 megawatts (MW) of total capacity at the end of 2013. Over three-fourths of U.S. geothermal power generation in 2013 was in California, largely because of favourable geothermal resources, policy, and market conditions in the state. The largest group of geothermal power plants in the world, a complex called the Geysers, located in Northern California, has more than 700 MW of capacity.

…. Geothermal plants are virtually emissions free, and unlike renewable sources such as wind and solar, they provide an available, dispatchable source of baseload power that is able to operate at a relatively high capacity factor….

There are 160 American projects in development that have a similar geology to BC.

EIA projects that America’s geothermal electricity generation could more than quadruple between 2012 and 2040, increasing to over 67,000 GWh.

Italy has been using geothermal energy for over a century. New Zealand, Iceland and California have utilized it for the past 50 years.

“This is just low-cost base load energy that, for most people is comparable to hydro,” Thompson said.  “There are 25 countries using geothermal power and they, too, have hydro. It isn’t a competition, it is a complimentary thing to build for your system.”

B C knows Geothermal is a Clean, Low-Cost Option

BC Hydro has been aware of geothermal energy since at least 1983. On page 229 of  the Joint Review Panel Report for the controversial site C dam it says, “BC Hydro, in its IRP, said that ‘geothermal appears to be a low-cost resource option,’ and ‘BC’s geothermal resource is estimated to total more than 700 MW of potentially cost-effective clean or renewable power.’

Given the opposition to site C in the Peace River Valley and the fact thousands of acres of valuable farm land will be submerged if the project goes forward, it seems shocking to read BC Hydro said they were “not expected” to explore this option.

So why has British Columbia not developed ANY geothermal?

A spokesperson for BC’s Ministry of Energy and Mines said, “12 geothermal permits have been issued in recent years. Despite its relatively low cost, developers have not bid into the system primarily due to the high upfront costs and risks associated with exploring for and pinpointing geothermal resources.”

Thompson had a different explanation, “Of the 25 countries currently using geothermal power, BC is worst in class for its legislation. While there have been bright spots recently and there are two permitted projects CanGEA members are trying to further, it is not an easy system to navigate. There are different ministries involved. With the last election now there's another ministry involved. There is the Natural Gas Ministry, the Energy Ministry and BC Hydro – a lot of bureaucracy and very little streamlining, and very little intent by the government to make geothermal a reality.

“We’d like to see them use their geothermal as a tool to stimulate industry, not as a barrier to keep the industry at bay,” she added.

Most developers are going to less restrictive countries.

“At one point, before the financial market collapsed, there had been a billion dollars raised on the Toronto Stock Exchange and all but $25 million of that billion went to projects outside Canada,”  said Thompson.

Listen to my interview with Alison Thompson, and Justin Crewson, of CanGEA in the podcast below (was originally broadcast on the ECOreport radio program).

* A reference to Premier Christy Clark’s oft repeated boast that LNG is BC’s “trillion dollar opportunity.”

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/174145725″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

All illustrations courtesy CanGEA

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Tags: Alison Thompson, BC Hydro, Borealis Geopower, British Colombia, California, Canada, Canadian Geothermal Association, CanGEA, Canoe Reach Project, First Nations, geothermal in BC, Iceland, Italy, Klamath Falls, Lakelse Lake, Ministry of Energy and Mines, Natural Gas Ministry, New Zealand, Peace River Valley, Premier Christy Clark, US Department of Energy, US Energy Information Agency, USA

About the Author

Roy L Hales is the editor of the ECOreport (www.theecoreport.com), a website dedicated to exploring how our lifestyle choices and technologies affect the West Coast of North America and write for both CleanTechnica and Planetsave on Important Media. He is a research junkie who has written over a thousand articles since he was first published in 1982. Roy lives on Cortes Island, BC, Canada.

Why Tar Sand Oil Should be Replace by Geothermal

Why We Need to Transition

The Alberta tar sands which have been euphemistically renamed oil sands, produce the dirtiest and most expensive oil on the planet. So economically and from an investment stand point going all in to develop such a resource is a shaky thing for an economy and for investors. The more important point is its impact on climate change and the destruction of the immediate environment and the subsequent plume of toxins that drift out over the land and leach into the water systems. It takes two tonnes of earth or sand and three barrels of fresh water to make one barrel of bitumen, in addition to this the plants consume enough natural gas every day to heat six million homes. Is Alberta prepared to lose a forest the size of Florida permanently from its province, with the toxins impacting water and land systems on a much larger scale?
The next question Albertans and Canadians have to ask ourselves is do we benefit in the long run with facilitating this industry. The tar sands have attracted 60 percent of global investments and the Canadian and Alberta government rather than controlling the resource to transition to clean energy have attempted to liquidated the resource as quickly as possible. So this is short term cash with no long term future. It also has the potential, by fostering such an economic monoculture, to derail our democracies, if our industrial bases are not diversified enough.
Finally in order to stay within the 2 degrees Paris agreement we can only burn 20% of our known fossil fuel reserves. We will need that 20% even in a green energy future, so we need to convert rapidly. The fastest way to do this is to convert to geothermal energy.

Why Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC is Ideal for Geothermal Plants

The geothermal energy industry uses drilling technology and expertise that exists on a large scale in Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan so it can be scaled up by using equipment, labour and expertise that already exists and is often idle during fluctuations in the fossil fuel market. In addition, there are thousands of abandoned oil wells leaking methane into the atmosphere that could be converted easily to a closed loop geothermal system, solving two problems creating clean energy and stopping the methane leaks.

Type of Geothermal Plant for Converting Oil Wells

Closed loop geothermal power plants are ideal for converting exhausted oil wells as they do not depend on a source of water but just hot rock. Most wells these days are deep enough to have hit hot rock that can power these plants indefinately with clean electrical energy.

High Output Closed Loop CO2 Geothermal

Green Fire Energy has developed a closed loop geothermal electric production process. Their method uses supercritical carbon dioxide in a closed loop system, which produces substantially more power than conventional water geothermal electric systems. A diagram of their system is as follows:

Closed-loop CO2-based Geothermal Power

The system does not need a water source, nor permeable rock and the turbines need in this system can be smaller and more efficient.

Conventional Geothermal Electric Plants

Traditional Geothermal Systems and Enhanced Geothermal systems both water based are illustrated in the following diagrams. The trouble with conventional geothermal electric plants is they are dependent on a source of hot water which can be created by either by fracking and create an artificial reservoir or by finding one that already exists which requires exploration. or a and existing underground hot springs.

Geothermal Electric Plants World Wide

World wide Geothermal plants because of their low cost over time, constant 24/7 energy production, small physical footprint and clean operation are increasing in popularity. In addition, they create high-quality long term jobs.

New Plants in the US coming on Stream

The United States alone has numerous Geothermal Electic Plants feeding their grid the following is a list of new Plants in the planning or in the process of coming on line, this is from a 2015 report produced by the US government: