Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

solarvic

Thought that this might be interesting to anyone that is wandering about where some of the natural gas from PA. might be used. Electrifying News out of Tennessee, Prepare to be Shocked!

TVA's John Sevier Combined Cycle Natural Gas Plant, completed a month early, $30M under budget

Ok, pardon the bad puns. But the recent unveiling of a brand new natural gas fired "combined cycle" (NGCC) electricity generation plant in Tennessee gives us the chance to make a very poignant comparison on how America is moving forward with its power generation. We'll compare and contrast the John Sevier NGCC plant and the country's first new nuclear plant in decades, being built in Georgia.

First, a bit of background. A combined cycle plant is a plant that captures and makes use of the waste heat that comes from the primary generation units which in this case are natural gas fired turbines (very similar to jet engines). This Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) plant captures the heat, uses it to generate steam, which in turn spins generators making more electricity, and significantly increasing efficiency. Check out this excellent YouTube video which shows how NGCC works.

Now, let's take a look at these two projects:

TVA NGCC Plant:

880 Megawatts ( enough to power 500,000 homes)
2 years construction time
Projected Cost: $790 Million
Actual Cost: $760 Million (30 Million UNDER BUDGET)
Completed: one month ahead of schedule
Cost per watt: $897

Southern Company Nuclear Project: Vogtle Units #3 and #4
2,200 Megawatts
10+ years construction time
Projected cost: $14 Billion
Actual cost: $913 million over budget already (with 7 years of building to go)
Completed: Anticipated to be years past original estimated 2017 completion date
Cost per watt: $6,818



Southern Company's Massive Vogtle Nuclear Project. Cost Over-runs Already More Than TVA Project Total Cost





As you can see from the raw numbers above, natural gas is 7.6 times cheaper than nuclear. And who is paying this massive extra cost to flip on their light switches? The consumer, of course. In Georgia, Southern Company has a monopoly, and every single penny of the project is being passed along to consumers in their bills as an extra charge. And, of course, there's the issues with sourcing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel, and heaven forbid the consequences of that could be associated with a Chernobyl/Fukushima style incident here in the Lower 48.

Natural gas continues to distance itself as the obvious choice for electric generation. It's far cheaper, far more efficient, and far cleaner than the traditional fuel based generation sources. It can act as a reliable, cleaner backup to renewable energy sources (something has to kick on to meet demand if the wind dies down or the clouds come out). This makes renewables more viable, and considerably cleaner than they were before (as coal plants must run 24/7 when they are backing up renewables, whereas natural gas plants can be turned on and producing electricity in as little as 10 minutes).

Just one more way that natural gas is making the country better. Tomorrow, we'll talk about the chemical industry, which uses huge amounts of natural gas as a feedstock for its products, and how shale gas is spurring investment and jobs in that industry, and bringing back factories that left to go overseas years ago.
The pictures didn,t go in this post so I am going to post the address for this so you can look.
http://knappap.blogspot.com/

Posted by Mike Knapp at 7:54 AM 0 comments Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook

BB.

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

One of the "issues" with natural gas for a long time was born out of the energy crises of the late 1970's... At that time, natural gas was restricted, by law, for use to generate electricity (PDF):

By the 1970s, demand for artificially cheap natural gas continued to grow, as competing crude oil prices moved higher, resulting in natural gas shortages in non-producing states. This led President Jimmy Carter to include provisions restricting the use of natural gas for electricity generation in the National Energy Act of 1978, which also relaxed some of the price controls on the interstate sale of natural gas. Not surprisingly, these new regulations resulted in a vastly oversupplied natural gas market by the early 1980s. Recognizing the failure of price controls and overregulation to protect consumers, Congress repealed restrictions on the use of natural gas for power generation and phased out price controls by the late 1980s.1 Finally, after four decades of government intervention, the free market was allowed to function

With horizontal drilling and "fracking", natural gas (and even oil) "known" reserves in the US appear to be dramatically increasing (as well in other countries too).

-Bill

niel

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

not to point out the obvious here, but those costs make pv seem like quite the gold mine.:-)

solarvic

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

My point is our country don,t need to import oil and have wars in countrys that don,t like us unless the anti frackers get there way. I also still think we still need to keep growing our use of solar and wind. People in my area will have lifetime carreers working in the gas fields. All the big companys like BP Chevron ond others are going to be the companys doing it as these wells cost too much for the small guy. If you read all the pages of KNAPPS site you can learn a lot. :Dsolarvic:D

ggunn

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

solarvic wrote: »

My point is our country don,t need to import oil and have wars in countrys that don,t like us unless the anti frackers get there way. I also still think we still need to keep growing our use of solar and wind. People in my area will have lifetime carreers working in the gas fields. All the big companys like BP Chevron ond others are going to be the companys doing it as these wells cost too much for the small guy. If you read all the pages of KNAPPS site you can learn a lot. :Dsolarvic:D

Oil produced in any part of the world goes into the global market. There really is no distinction between "foreign oil" and "our oil".

Also, fracking is not risk free. The potential for ground water contamination is an issue that demands a great deal of attention. One of the problems with doing due diligence on the protection of the water we need for human consumption is that it is challenging to monitor in such a way that any problems are caught early, and completely and immediately remediated. By the time contamination is detected in someone's well water the damage is done and is virtually impossible to reverse. Couple that with the oil and chemical industries' track record of caution (or rather, the lack of it) when it comes to balancing the profit motive with environmental issues, and I believe that there is cause for concern.

mikeo

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Also, fracking is not risk free. The potential for ground water contamination is an issue that demands a great deal of attention.

Not to mention the very high correlation with earthquakes caused by deep dispersion wells for waste fracking fluids. They have shut two wells down just south of me about 40 miles and the earthquakes above 2.5 magnitude have gone from several a month to a frequency of 1 every few months and seem to be tapering off over a years period. I'm not opposed to the fracking technology, but it need to be well (no pun intended) regulated and monitored closely by the States with independent scientist's to be paid for by the energy companies. Realizing that gas is only a stopgap measure to provide an increasing demand for power over time, solar initiatives need more incentives rather then less going into the future. The Arkansas Oil and Gas Board is run by representatives of the companies and they still deny the science provided by our Geological Survey Commission on the earthquake correlations. By the way I have seen many small solar panels mounted near well heads, so I guess solar and gas do go together.

solarvic

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Mikeo and ggunn Near youngstown, Ohio where they have a couple injection wells they also had problems with Earthquakes and shut them down till they do more studys. Pa has been sending used fracking water to Ohio for decades because Ohio standards were easier than Pennsylvania standards. Now that the Utica shale boom started in eastern ohio it is sread into western Pa. Where I live. People are signing lease payments close to $4000.00 per acre with at least 18% royalitys. I could be left out as the people that already have gas wells are held by the co that has my well. The only thing I can wish for is 12.5% royality which could still be lots of money as I have more than 40 acres. On our local news yesterday there was a portable water treatment plant that I think the gas drillers will ultimatly be required to use to avoid the problems of getting rid if the fracking water. It takes millions of gallons to reackure a well. This water treatment plant will clean the used water so they can keep reusing the same water. It separates the solids with an ozionator to separate all the solids and might be taken to a hasordas waste site thus reducing the need for fraquing wells. Ggunn I also know we have to preserve our good water supply but think the anti frackers and EPAhave over exagerated everything about our enviroment. Some of the oil will be sold in foriegn markets which is good. Might help to keep our balance of trade in the plus coloum instead of all our money going to foriegn countrys to buy oil. Could even help some business to move back to our country because of lower energy costs. Even though wages might be lower in China they still have to buy the components they need for thier factorys. It cost $60.00 for the same amount natural gas that sells here for $2.00. So with the transportation cost and energy cost factored in I think more companys might come back to usa and canada. The eastern Ohio area already has some manufacturing relocating to make items needed in the area to supply the gas drilling ect. The pipemills which just about shut down are booming making drilling pipe ect.
:Dsolarvic:D

ggunn

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

solarvic wrote: »

Ggunn I also know we have to preserve our good water supply but think the anti frackers and EPAhave over exagerated everything about our enviroment. Some of the oil will be sold in foriegn markets which is good. Might help to keep our balance of trade in the plus coloum instead of all our money going to foriegn countrys to buy oil. Could even help some business to move back to our country because of lower energy costs. Even though wages might be lower in China they still have to buy the components they need for thier factorys. It cost $60.00 for the same amount natural gas that sells here for $2.00. So with the transportation cost and energy cost factored in I think more companys might come back to usa and canada. The eastern Ohio area already has some manufacturing relocating to make items needed in the area to supply the gas drilling ect. The pipemills which just about shut down are booming making drilling pipe ect.
:Dsolarvic:D

I don't agree that the EPA has exaggerated anything. We very much need to err on the side of caution with fracking because once an aquifer is polluted there is no unpolluting it in anything like a human lifetime and the drinking water of millions of people could be adversely affected by a single accident. The impact on our society that would result from the contaminating of a major aquifer would make the BP blowout in the Gulf seem like a fart in a hurricane by comparison. Labeling people that are concerned about this as "anti frackers" is, IMO, disingenuous.

There are no "foreign markets" for oil separate from a US market. There is only the one global market and national boundaries are irrelevant to it. Natural gas is a bit of a different ball game (at the moment, at least), largely because it is so much harder to transport overseas in quantity.

I do agree that burning less oil and coal is a good thing, and if you have to burn any hydrocarbon, methane is the least harmful.

icarus

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

A freindly moderator reminder here. I think this is a conversation well worth having on a number of levels. That said, there is a very real risk if vering into the poltical abyss. Keep the converstion going if you wish, but let's make sure we don't cross any lines, and don't make your arguments personal,

Thanking you in advance,

Tony

peakbagger

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Natural Gas Combined cycle generation is a necessary partner to a high level of renewable power generation. When the winds stop blowing or a cloudy day, CC plants can be ramped up or down quickly unlike conventional boiler based plants which take many hours of days to change their output. The general rule of thumb is for every MW of connected non firm renewable power (like wind and solar), there has to be an equivalent amount of "capacity" generation which is generation that can be rapidly ramped up or down. Of course there is a downside to natural gas in that its not easy to store so when there is a sudden demand for gas there could be a shortage of gas. ISO New England has identified this as a problem in New England which has shifted a large amount of generation to natural gas, they have predicted certain scenarios where authorities will have to decide on curtailing residntial heating or running short of power. When New england was at the "end of the pipe" for natural gas, there were some gas utitlities that ran plants to convert natural gas to liquified natural gas to overcome supply shortages, but they are expensive to run and not many folks want a LNG tank in their neighborhood. (look up BLEVE).

Natural gas is currently dirt cheap, so much so that it is not economical to frack for gas. There are still rigs in the field as they are fulfilling contracts but the gas is selling for less than they can make it. Eventually, the supply will balance the demand and the prices will go back up substantially. Currently the world market is willing to pay a lot more for natural gas than the cost in North America so eventually new LNG plants will start converting it to a liquid and shipping it offshore for higher prices which will drive up the price in the US.

ggunn

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

peakbagger wrote: »

Natural gas is currently dirt cheap, so much so that it is not economical to frack for gas.

But isn't the fracking process itself largely responsible for the crash in natural gas prices?

solarvic

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Peakbagger. Everything you said is what I heard at The last landowners meeting I went to. They addressed the price of NG and what they expect might happen. The said it was $1.92 per unit and don,t expect the price paid at the wellhead to go up to much over $4.00 per unit after we start exporting liquified Natural gas. They already have 9 ports that they originaly set up to export NG as they thought we would need to import N till they designed the horizontal drilling so it is feasable to get the NG from shale formations. They also said ships are bieing built now for the purpose of exporting the LNG. The marselles shale where they were drilling has the dry gas. A lot of the drilling rigs that were drilling for marselles shale in central PA. have moved to Eastern Ohio and they are bringing drilling rigs here from Texas and Oklohoma. I am not trying to be political about this but feel happy that my area of the country might somehow share in the wealth. Our area is referred as the rust belt as we lost a big share of our industry, steel mills, foundrys, railroad shops. The list goes on and on. I barely could hold on to a job for most of my working life as most of the places I worked either shutdown or moved out of the US. When the younger people in my daughters generation went into the workforce there weren,t any jobs so a lot of them moved out of state to have careers. As a result our population really declined and a teacher can,t even hold a job as many schools are bieing shut down and combined. Most of the population is old and most of the new jobs in the last 10 years or so was in retirements homes or hospitals taking care of the older Americans. So this NG boom we are about to have excites me as it gives more hopes for the younger people that want to live here. Fracturing is the only way to get the Ng from the shale formations. I have done some research and feel confident we have a safe way of doing the fracturing. Mikeo brought up the point of having small earthquakes from the frackwater injection wells in Arkansas not real far from him. We also had the same problem with earthquakes at 2 fracking wells Near Youngstown ohio. Geololigist have determined there is a Earthquake fault there so they are not going to use them anymore. Guess they are going to a different location and see if the geological formation can support an injection well. Every time you watch the news on our local tv there is a story about the Utica Shale boom. There are lots that want it and lots that don,t. Anti fracker protesters are also called Anti frackers which I don,t feel is political at all. No I don,t want my water supply to be ruined either as I live here too. I expect them to be darn sure they don,t ruin the water. There is a vertical gaswell on my property that also was fractured and I nor any of my neighbors have had any problems with thier water wells and my area has a lot of vertical wells. And as far as the statement about the federal EPA I think they mostly let the State Departments regulate thier gas drilling. PA and Ohio really stiffened up the regulations to insure safe gas drilling. Most of what I think about the federal EPA is some of the nusuance regulations they have that really don,t help the environment all that much and cost us a lot of unnessary expense. I live in a very rural area and we have an emission inspection for our cars. Only live about 1 1/2 mile from the next county border. we have to get the emission inspection , they don.t and the 2 countys that border us don,t have it wither. Even the county where Pittsburg Pa is located is trying to repeal this emission inspection and Pittsburg is a fairly large city. They say only 3 cars in a 100 failed the emission test and it wasn,t by much. Things like that is what I was referring that the Federal Epa as overdoing it. Someone somewhere is always trying to pass laws to regulate our lives like the mayor of New york city is trying to pass a law that a resturant can,t serve you a soft drink larger than 16 oz. So point stated. I will look for a good explanation of what fracking is and what is used and how they drill the well to avoid any contamination of water supply. I think the oil companys should do a better job of educating the public than they do. People are always afraid of the unknown. :Dsolarvic:D

solarvic

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

ggunn wrote: »

But isn't the fracking process itself largely responsible for the crash in natural gas prices?

Fracking don,t hurt the gas at all. The horizontal wells output is so much more lucritive that they have oversupplyed the market. One of the reasons we will probably start to export cng instead of importing it. The gas they are going to drill in my area is wet gas which has a lot more components that are much more valuablr than the dry gas. suposed to be pentane, propane ,oil, what they make antifreez out of and material to make plastics. There will be a chemical plant north of Pittsburgh Pa to process the wet gas. There is a story about the chemical plant you can read if you delve into the knapp website I put on my original post. I hope you see in my previous post that I don,t completely disagree with your fears of fracking. Most of the peoples fears on that subject is the unknowns.. What you don,t know will hurt you. solarvic

ggunn

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

solarvic wrote: »

Peakbagger. Everything you said is what I heard at The last landowners meeting I went to...

Paragraphs, man. That post is very hard to read.

niel

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

solarvic,
please be careful here as your post #12 has gone political and i ask that you and others do not go farther in that direction or action will be taken.

for what it's worth, you should realize that the problems aren't just in the rust belt that are in a bad way as most of america is in a bad way. we don't want to go into it here with the why's and finger pointing though as this forum is not that kind of a forum. nor is the subject of the employment the lng business has brought really in the scope of this forum, but we aren't that picky if it gets a mention and that would be the most it would deserve. should debates or discussions take place because of such a mention it could detract from the scope of the forum and could get managed by us mods.

in general, we sense your happiness at your new found wealth, but just be careful that it does not cloud your vision too and i make no claims that it has as i want you to always just be cautious and questioning is all.

icarus

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

I think that post 12 is fine until the last paragraph. Talking about the relative issues with fracking, LNG, employment on this subject is, IMHO fine. Talking about the relative merits of the EPA is beginning to cross the line.

Keep it civil and on topic and I think it is fine, if not, the delete monster might appear.

Tony

niel

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

thread locking would also be possible and more likely.

peakbagger

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

High natural gas prices are generally the cause of low natural gas prices. This doesnt make sense to most folks but its the law of supply and demand. Overlying this is the financial industry, they are always looking to make a quick "secure buck" so natural gas companies promised them high returns for investing in natural gas wells. The natural gas drillers typically work as brokers, they develop a project to drill a well and then sell the majority of the output to a pool of owners who typically are financial firms. The driller makes bucks up front and usually retains a portion of the gas produced. The financial firms are happy as they have a peice of paper guaranting a certain out from the well and they merrily enter the current gas price into their financial models. This shows a great return on investment. Unfortunately many other wells are drilled due to the great return and the financial firms start to see the value of the gas go down. They really dont have the option of shutting the well down as once a gas well is shut down (especially a frack well), the well loses capacity. The financial firm then is in death spiral, if they shut down the well, they have no income, so they keep it running selling at a lower and lower cost. Eventually the existing wells cant meet the load and no new wells are drilled so the price goes up and eventually the cycle starts again.

The only alternative is to keep increasing the demand for gas, by discouraging other forms of energy like imported oil and coal and exporting more gas. If that happens everyone with a well wins. Sasol has a technology called GTL (gas to liquid) to take natural gas and convert it into gasoline, just think what would happen if that was implemented in the US, bascially no more imported oil required.

solarvic

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Niel So far I didn,t have any new found wealth for myself and might not be still living if the drilling ever gets to my land. My last gaswell check was less than $20.00 for a month. What is more valuable to me is the house heating. i was trying to figure what was political about complaining about the federal EPA and if it is such a toucky subject I won,t bring it up anymore.
Peakbagger, You got it all so right with your posting. I like that and think what you said is what I was trying to say by some extent. Maybe I am not that good of explaining things. :Dsolarvic:D

ggunn

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

peakbagger wrote: »

High natural gas prices are generally the cause of low natural gas prices. This doesnt make sense to most folks but its the law of supply and demand. Overlying this is the financial industry, they are always looking to make a quick "secure buck" so natural gas companies promised them high returns for investing in natural gas wells. The natural gas drillers typically work as brokers, they develop a project to drill a well and then sell the majority of the output to a pool of owners who typically are financial firms. The driller makes bucks up front and usually retains a portion of the gas produced. The financial firms are happy as they have a peice of paper guaranting a certain out from the well and they merrily enter the current gas price into their financial models. This shows a great return on investment. Unfortunately many other wells are drilled due to the great return and the financial firms start to see the value of the gas go down. They really dont have the option of shutting the well down as once a gas well is shut down (especially a frack well), the well loses capacity. The financial firm then is in death spiral, if they shut down the well, they have no income, so they keep it running selling at a lower and lower cost. Eventually the existing wells cant meet the load and no new wells are drilled so the price goes up and eventually the cycle starts again.

The only alternative is to keep increasing the demand for gas, by discouraging other forms of energy like imported oil and coal and exporting more gas. If that happens everyone with a well wins. Sasol has a technology called GTL (gas to liquid) to take natural gas and convert it into gasoline, just think what would happen if that was implemented in the US, bascially no more imported oil required.

But if it weren't for the fracturing process, drilling new wells would not be nearly as attractive an option. As for the GTL process, how much does a gallon of gasoline produced this way cost and how much energy input per gallon does it take to run the process?

icarus

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

I believe that in Bakken, natural gas is a by product of the quest for oil. The price of gas has gotten so cheap that the wellhead price for the gas is zero or nearly so. (a quick look says it is lower than iit was in 1985! I begs the question as to why we don't concentrate to some extent building a natural gas vehicle fueling net work.

Tony

westbranch

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

icarus wrote: »

It begs the question as to why we don't concentrate to some extent building a natural gas vehicle fueling net work.
Tony

In 1990 we traveled around NZ and every 'gas station' had 3 choices... Gasoline, LPG and CNG, that was 22 years ago!!...
I don't know why but I think it may have had something to do with a Gov policy or?? I guess it just takes some initiative..

BB.

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Flaring in North Dakota:

Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.
The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.
All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.
...
“I’ll tell you why people flare: It’s cheap,” said Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum. “Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain.”
...
Some of the companies working in North Dakota, including Whiting, are investing $3 billion over the next three years in pipelines and several large processing plants to deliver gas to Midwest markets rather than burn it.
...
The company is rapidly expanding oil drilling while building and expanding two plants to process its own gas as well as gas produced by others. Whiting was flaring 80 percent of the gas in its first major Bakken field in 2007, but says it has now reduced its flaring to 20 percent across all fields, which will fall further when its second gas plant comes online.

-Bill

icarus

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

BB. wrote: »

Flaring in North Dakota:


-Bill

BINGO!


May make sense in one dimension but is so wrong in so many others,,IMHO

Tony

RCinFLA

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Here in Florida, FPL has practically totally focused on new NG cogen plants. Two factors prevail. First is obviously the low cost of fuel in today's market. Second is these NG cogeneration stations, are relatively small, quite, and low polution so they are the easiest electric plant to get approved in a suburban area without the massive public revolt of oil, nuk, or coal fired plants.

Putting all your eggs in one basket can backfire down the road.

icarus

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Why not, for example, build generating facilities in ND to use the BTUs? If nothing else to supply the local market?

T.

RCinFLA

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Coincidently, there was an article in the finance section today.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-reasons-natural-gas-cheap-131541612.html

westbranch

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

An alternative to just burning NG for heat.. Solarvic, sounds like it is your neighbourhood too..
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/business/energy-environment/24fuel.html?_r=1

NorTracNY

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

I've got no problem with Fracking if the companies were liable for water contamination. I investigated and found there are actually laws that will prevent the companies from being liable!

I've never heard an intelligent person say nuclear was cheap energy.

ggunn

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

NorTracNY wrote: »

I've got no problem with Fracking if the companies were liable for water contamination. I investigated and found there are actually laws that will prevent the companies from being liable!

That's not surprising, given the huge lobbying that comes from the oil and gas business.

topper

Re: Where the natural gas from PA is going to be used

Some FYI for what it's worth.
Flaring wellhead gas is a lot cheaper than pipelining, scrubbing, and networking back to the population. I have not heard it mentioned here as yet. Well head gasses from oil production contains H2S (hydrogen sulfide) gas which is DEADLY and EXTREMELY TOXIC. The by products of burning H2S are also harmful but not as deadly.
I have lost 3 good friends over a number of years to H2S. One breath and life is over.

Fracturing of wells. That I am one the fence. Yes it can be done safety. Reuse of fracturing fluids makes good economic and environmental sence. And yes the oil companies themselves should be more proactive in thier day to day operations. Unfortunatly, as with the gulf spill, this tend to follow Murphey's law and go really bad from time to time with catastrophic results.