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How much electricity to produce gasoline?
- Thread starter Brent
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- Energy Environment Policy
Did you know that there is a process to produce ethanol from natural gas? The cost to produce it this way is about $1.30 per gallon. The u.s government does not allow us to use this process because we have mandated that it be produced from "green" sources or plant growth which currently costs $ 2.50 per gallon to produce and takes food production away,from the rest of the world. We could lower the cost of gasoline by .25 cents per gallon and do a better job of providing food for the world just by eliminating this restriction!
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This isn't completely accurate. Tar sands was booming in the 70s when oil prices were high, but then crashed real hard in 1983 when the price of oil dropped too low ( mostly due to OPEC members cheating on their quotas and overproducing ).
The oil price crash in 1983 destroyed the economy of Alberta. The price stayed too low for the tar sands from 1983 until 2003 and they just barely hung on for those 20 years. Its been booming again since then, and there are no artificial production limits pushing prices up this time.
In the 1970s oil had to be above $70 (1975 dollars) per barrel in order for the tar sands to make a profit. Government support was required to keep the operations going for most of the time--other than the few years that Richkae mentions--between 1967 and 2003. There was fairly strong pressure on the government to shut the operation down completely, but I'm guessing that now everyone is glad that the government stuck to its guns.
Oil didn't really start to spike until after 1975 when the pollution regulations came into effect and mpg for cars was lowered because no one knew how to meet the standards and still be efficient. Because no oil producing country anticipated legislation that would cause a 25% or more drop in mpg (and the additional gasoline use) shortages occurred (and those who weren't U.S. fans did their bit to ensure shortages to keep the prices high as well). The legislation also ushered in the SUV era because a light truck was cheaper than a car since the legislators didn't require the same standards for trucks as they did for cars. Magazines of the time had cover stories on how a light truck was faster than a Corvette. Muscle cars died (IMHO, that's the silver lining). In fairness, I doubt the legislators even considered that people would flock to light trucks because at the time only construction workers and businesses owned trucks. Had they made the regulations the same across the board the SUV craze would likely not have happened.
AndreN
Member
There were two oil price spikes in the '70s, in 1973 (due to the Arab-Isreali war) and in 1979, (due to the Iranian revolution). Since cars with catalytic converters showed up over several years, I don't see how their phase-in could cause a sudden oil price spike. Also, can you post whatever article you have that shows catalytic converters caused a 25% or more loss in mpg? I'm sure there was some % efficiency loss due to added backpressure of the converter but I don't think it was anywhere near 25%.
Because the articles I am recalling were written during that time, I'm doubtful about finding them. And in fact, the overall mpg went up in 1975 because there were more small cars in the mix. You can go and find individual cars (recall that full-size cars were the common car rather than the exception back then) and cherry pick them since there weren't any EPA numbers but that's kind of cheating and doesn't prove anything. The articles you find today all go for the overall increase.
The thing that I most recall is all the people complaining that they purchased a new 1975 car and mpg went from 16-18 down to 9-10.
dhrivnak
Active Member
I think that was more due to hastily added emission controls that were bolted on with no integration. They later designed the engines for better economy. While the Catalytic was part of it I think the air pumps and EGR systems were worse.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
You bet, standard performance upgrades used to involve ripping out as much of that as possible, including the cat converter.
I had a 74 Pinto. Let me tell you, it was gutless. It was well known at the time that the new cars had poor performance because of the emission controls that choked the engine. It didn't have a catalytic converter.
(my father originally bought it... I was a little to young to drive when it was new... Later in its life I assumed ownership.)
(my father originally bought it... I was a little to young to drive when it was new... Later in its life I assumed ownership.)
Yes, and from NG extraction and processing too. Statoil released 2.6 million tons CO2 by flaring when they started up the LNG plant at Melkøya.
Btw, here's another of my favourite popular delusions:
Norway exports many times our own total energy consumption in the form of North Sea oil and gas. The CO2 emissions from the use of that energy is obviously the buyer's responsibility, but any emissions during extraction is Norway's, and offshore gas turbines are responsible for about a quarter of the total Norwegian CO2 emissions.
Some environmental organizations have been making a fuss about this for a long time, and to make the numbers look better, some politicians also want to electrify offshore rigs. Oil rigs have traditionally generated their own power with gas turbines, usually running on gas that is boiling off from or coming up with the oil and which must be dealt with anyway. The exhaust heat from the turbines is needed for heating the crude oil during processing, so total turbine efficiency is extremely high. The gas is usually of too low quality to sell directly, so if it's not used for powering the rig it must either be flared, pumped back down, or purified and transported. Oil companies would have to spend a pile of money on handling uneconomically small quantities of NG, another pile on bringing landbased electricity out to their rigs, and finally buy lots of extra electricity for process heat. The net effect would be to use valuable hydro power to replace highly efficient cogeneration fuelled with byproduct NG instead of backing up European windmills to get rid of coal. And oil production would suddenly require lots of electricity, of course.
Imagine if they had spent the same amount of money on improving building insulation and replacing fuel oil heating with large heat pumps. Landbased CO2 emissions would drop to offset the emissions offshore, and more hydro power would be available for sale to Europe. That would have had a real effect, instead of just shifting the blame. Offshore electrification has fortunately not happened yet. There was a lot of noise about it a while ago, but it seems the proponents may have found out what an exceptionally bad idea it is by now.
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