Heating costs to rise this winter

Americans will pay more to heat their homes this winter as they feel something they didn't feel much of last year: cold. Prices for natural gas, heating oil and other fuels will be relatively stable. But customers will have to use more energy to keep warm than they did a year ago, according to the annual Winter
Fuels Outlook from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.

Last winter was the warmest on record. This year temperatures are expected to be close to normal. Heating bills will rise 20 percent for heating oil customers, 15 percent for natural gas customers, 13 percent for propane customers and 5 percent for electricity customers, the EIA announced Wednesday.

Biddeford Plush Electric Blanket (Google Affiliate Ad)

Heating oil customers are expected to pay an average of $3.80 per gallon, the highest price ever. That will result in record heating bills, at an average of $2,494. That's nearly $200 more than the previous high, set in the winter of 2010-2011. Kathleen Ryan of Cohoes, in upstate New York, is on a payment plan in which she is billed for oil November through May to spread out the costs. But with oil prices high and a hint of winter chill in the air, she is concerned. Read more >>

Subsea landslide could cause massive eruptions of explosive methane gas

History Channel "Mega Disasters" series. This explores the controversial paper published by Northwestern University's Gregory Ryskin. His thesis: the oceans periodically produce massive eruptions of explosive methane gas... enough to cause global catastrophe on a regular basis!

Also See: How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

Even TEN relief wells will be unable to plug the hole

Rumors abound regarding the nature of subsea operations and the true status of the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher. I've long since dismissed most main stream media accounts as propaganda, and seek out information from web citizens for a clearer picture of the truth.

While most of us realize that not all reports made by citizens are entirely reputable, contrary to corporate-owned media who have historically served as stenographers for the power elite, in most cases, citizens have no vested interest in lying about events.

The compromised well casing has already been mentioned by main stream media. Bearing that in mind, here's a rather disturbing post by "Rob Kall" at "Life After The Oil Crash" forum.

By Rob Kall
June 17, 2010

(...)

Here's the latest report I just received from my contact inside BP:

Ok, here's the deal.

Size of reservoir - estimated by BP and its partner, Andarko to be between 2.5B and 10B bbl. (that's 100,000,000,000 gallons and 400,000,000,000 gallons.
Yes - all of those numbers are BILLIONS.

BP has admitted in at least 3 interviews that the well casing is compromised (broken). So, when they tried the Top Kill - and then the Junk Shot - the stuff shot out the sides and didn't go much down the hole. A REAL top kill should just take a few hours - or it's not going to ever work.

The casing was undoubtedly broken apart by the natural gas 'explosion' at the bottom of the well, which was the result of methane coming out of solution (ie. the methane hydrates melting and expanding dramatically). Much like when your washer's water line has air in it and you shut off the valve and the line 'hammers', the well 'hammered' when the BOP shut (the guess is 80%), and the dramatic upshot in pressure, as well as the acoustic shockwave, broke the casing.

The Question of the Day is: Did the explosion rupture the casing for its entire length?

If that is so, then a relief well will be unable to plug the hole. TEN relief wells would be unable to plug the hole.

The consensus seems to be, among oil people I've spoken with, that this is exactly the case.

If that's so, then the well will run until Obama nukes it. That is the only thing that could close it.

If they can't plug it via the relief wells, and if they don't nuke it (it can't be conventional explosives, for a few reasons), then about 1/2 of the oil and gas will run out. That would be 50 BILLION to 200 BILLION gallons of oil, over a 10 year period. Although, like the interest you pay on a house note, the biggest part would be up-front.

Gulf of Mexico: "This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history"

Matthew Brown

It is an overlooked danger in oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico's fragile ecosystem.

The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.

That means huge quantities of methane have entered the Gulf, scientists say, potentially suffocating marine life and creating "dead zones" where oxygen is so depleted that nothing lives.

"This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," Kessler said.

Methane is a colorless, odorless and flammable substance that is a major component in the natural gas used to heat people's homes. Petroleum engineers typically burn off excess gas attached to crude before the oil is shipped off to the refinery. That's exactly what BP has done as it has captured more than 7.5 million gallons of crude from the breached well.

A BP spokesman said the company was burning about 30 million cubic feet of natural gas daily from the source of the leak, adding up to about 450 million cubic feet since the containment effort started 15 days ago. That's enough gas to heat about 450,000 homes for four days.

But that figure does not account for gas that eluded containment efforts and wound up in the water, leaving behind huge amounts of methane.

BP PLC said a containment cap sitting over the leaking well funneled about 619,500 gallons of oil to a drillship waiting on the ocean surface on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a specialized flare siphoning oil and gas from a stack of pipes on the seafloor burned roughly 161,700 gallons.

Thursday was focused on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers chastised BP CEO Tony Hayward.

Testifying as oil still surged into the Gulf at between 1.47 million and 2.52 million gallons a day, coating more coastal land and marshes, Hayward declared "I am so devastated with this accident," "deeply sorry" and "so distraught."

But he also said he was out of the loop on decisions at the well and disclaimed knowledge of any of the myriad problems on and under the Deepwater Horizon rig before the deadly explosion. BP was leasing the rig the Deepwater Horizon that exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the environmental disaster.

"BP blew it," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the House investigations panel that held the hearing. "You cut corners to save money and time."

As for the methane, scientists are still trying to measure how much has escaped into the water and how it may damage the Gulf and it creatures.

The dangerous gas has played an important role throughout the disaster and response. A bubble of methane is believed to have burst up from the seafloor and ignited the rig explosion. Methane crystals also clogged a four-story containment box that engineers earlier tried to place on top of the breached well.

Now it is being looked at as an environmental concern. More...

Even The Relief Well May Blow Up

Image by uscgd8 via Flickr

May 19th, 2010 report from Solveclimate.com

Did Deepwater Methane Hydrates Cause the BP Gulf Explosion?

According to the National Academy of Sciences, which published a bullish report on the energy potential of methane hydrates,

"Industry practice is to avoid methane-bearing areas during drilling for conventional oil and gas resources for safety reasons."

Professor Sum explained that because "with oil there is usually gas present," it is possible for methane hydrates to form in the pipe even when not drilling through hydrate-bearing sediments. The pressure and cold of the deepwater create conditions that encourage gas flowing into the pipe to form hydrates, and if the rate of crystallization is rapid enough, the hydrates can clog the pipe.

The cofferdam that BP lowered over the broken pipe gushing oil to contain the spill was almost immediately clogged by methane hydrates, which formed spontaneously. Gas escaping with the oil from the well, when trapped in the steel structure with cold water under great pressure, rapidly accumulated into an ice-like matrix.

Documented Explosive Hazard

In a book about methane hydrates, which Professor Koh co-authored, brief mention is made of a case in which methane hydrates caused a gas pipe to rupture on land, leading to loss of life.

Two workers were attempting to clear a line in which a hydrate plug had formed. The authors say that "the impact of a moving hydrate mass" caused the pipe to fail. The explosion caused a large piece of pipe to strike the foreman, killing him. The book then quotes from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Hydrate Guidelines to describe proper procedures for safely removing a hydrate plug in a pipe on land.

SolveClimate was not able to find more detailed public documentation of this incident in Alberta, but mention is made in an article in a publication of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a federal research center associated with the Department of Energy, of a different unspecified incident on a drilling rig.

"Forces from methane hydrate dissociation have been blamed for a damaging shift in a drilling rig's foundation, causing a loss of $100 million," the article reports.

Although public discussion of damage from methane hydrate accidents appears to be minimal, the danger is well-recognized within the industry. Last November, one Halliburton executive gave a presentation before a meeting of the American Association of Drilling Engineers in Houston, titled "Deepwater Cementing Consideration to Prevent Hydrate Destabilization."

It recognizes that the cementing process releases heat which can destabilize methane hydrates, and presents something called Cement System 2 as a solution to the problem. One of the graphs shows that the system doesn't achieve gel strength for four hours.

Yet according to an eyewitness report broadcast on Sunday on 60 Minutes, BP managers made the decision to decrease pressure in the well column by removing drilling mud before the cement had solidified in three plugs Halliburton had poured.

When a surge of gas started shooting up the well, a crucial seal on the blowout preventer at the well head on the ocean floor failed. It had been damaged weeks before and neglected as inconsequential by Transocean managers, according to the CBS news broadcast, even after chunks of rubber emerged from the drilling column on the surface.

According to the Associated Press, the victims of the Deepwater Horizon explosion said the blast occurred right after workers "introduced heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead." It is not known if Halliburton was employing Cement System 2, and testifying before the Senate last week, a Halliburton executive made no mention of methane hydrate hazards associated with cementing in deepwater.

A Promising Substance

Professors Koh and Sum are concerned that a focus on the dangers of methane hydrates in deepwater drilling will obscure their promise as an energy solution of the future. They are conducting research in the laboratory to create methane hydrates synthetically in order to take advantage of their peculiar properties. With their potential to store gas (both natural gas and hydrogen) efficiently within a crystalline structure, hydrogen hydrates could one day offer a potential solution for making fuel cells operate economically. Still at the fundamental stage, their work on storage is not yet complete enough to apply to commercial systems.

At the same time, there is an international competition underway to develop technology to harvest the vast deposits of methane hydrates in the world's oceans. Japan has joined the US and Canada in pursuit of this energy bonanza, motivated by the $23 billion it spends annually to import liquefied natural gas.

According to a Bloomberg News article called "Japan Mines Flammable Ice, Flirts with Environmental Disaster," the Japanese trade ministry is targeting 2016 to start commercial production, even as a Tokyo University scientist warned against causing a massive undersea landslide that could suddenly trigger a massive methane hydrate release.

The U.S. has a research program underway in collaboration with the oil industry, authorized by the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 1999. The National Methane Hydrates R&D Program is housed at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the Department of Energy.

The National Academy of Sciences provided a briefing for Congress last January on the energy potential of methane hydrates based on its report which asserts that "no technical challenges have been identified as insurmountable" in the pursuit of commercial production of methane hydrates. More...