After shale producers pushed U.S. oil and gas output to all-time highs, some are now taking what they have learned to fields that until recently were considered played out.

Among vineyards and cow pastures in east Texas last month, roughnecks started to drill in an oilfield that is 25 years past its production peak.

In the limestone and clay Austin Chalk formation, which stretches across south Texas into central Louisiana, Wildhorse is among a growing group of U.S. producers opening a new front in the nation’s energy revolution.

“The application of new technology to older plays is a winning bet,” Drew Cozby, Wildhorse’s finance chief, said in an interview.

After shale producers pushed U.S. oil and gas output to all-time highs, some are now taking what they have learned to fields that until recently were considered played out.

If they are successful, the U.S. energy boom could find another gear as producers find profitable ways to extract the billions of barrels of oil remaining in older fields.

Production from the Austin Chalk jumped to 57,000 barrels per day (bpd) last year from 3,000 bpd five years ago and up 50 percent from the previous year, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie, which expects rapid production gains to continue.

The number of drilling rigs in the Austin Chalk has doubled in the past six months to 14, according to data from energy researcher DrillingInfo.

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June 17, 2018 at 03:53AM

Wind and solar account for just six percent of total electricity globally, despite decades of subsidies. The growth of fossil fuels were enough to wipe out any emissions reductions from wind and solar, which grew 17 percent and 35 percent, respectively.

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), public and private actors spent $1.1 trillion on solar and over $900 billion on wind between 2007 and 2016…. To put this roughly $2 trillion in investment in solar and wind during the past 10 years in perspective, it represents an amount of similar magnitude to the global investment in nuclear over the past 54 years, which totals about $1.8 trillion.

Turns out the green movement also played itself. Hysterical scaremongering over the Fukushima emergency had a number of nuclear plants closed, especially in Japan, only to be replaced by coal.

That scaremongering was disgraceful, and had the greens freaking people about dangers that turned out – again – to be vastly exaggerated. As UNSCEAR said:

Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects.

It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers,” concluded the 60th session of … UNSCEAR…

On the whole, the exposure of the Japanese population was low, or very low, leading to correspondingly low risks of health effects later in life….

No radiation-related deaths or acute effects have been observed among nearly 25,000 workers (including TEPCO employees and contractors) involved at the accident site.

Yet the scare caused a number of nuclear power plants – all with virtually no emissions – TO be switched off, especially in Japan. Coal-powered generation then filled the gap:

[Japan] has fired up at least eight new coal power plants in the past 2 years and has plans for an additional 36 over the next decade—the biggest planned coal power expansion in any developed nation (not including China and India). And last month, the government took a key step toward locking in a national energy plan that would have coal provide 26% of Japan’s electricity in 2030 and abandons a previous goal of slashing coal’s share to 10%.

The reversal is partly a result of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which punctured public support for atomic energy…

In 2010, coal plants accounted for 25% of Japan’s electricity, but the powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) planned to reduce that share by more than half over 20 years. The ministry counted on nuclear power to pick up the slack, with its share of the nation’s electricity set to increase from 29% in 2010 to 50% by 2030.

But the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident forced a reassessment. All 54 of Japan’s reactors were shut down pending compliance with new safety standards. Just seven have restarted. Utilities have turned to liquefied natural gas and coal, which surged to provide 31% of the country’s electricity in 2014.

And that helps to explain why reliance on coal remains so high.

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June 17, 2018 at 03:53AM

The Australian industry will be put at risk unless the federal government’s new energy policy guarantees round-the-clock power at internationally competitive prices, according to the country’s biggest aluminium producer.

Tomago chief executive Matt Howell said renewable forms of energy were unable to deliver reliable and affordable power to energy-intensive users.

“We cannot, in our approach to this transition, lose sight of the fact that there are 24/7 baseload energy customers,” Howell told The Australian newspaper on Friday.

“And we have to make sure our grid can still provide energy to those customers at competitive prices, irrespective of the weather.”

His company, based in the Hunter region of New South Wales, produces 593,000 tonnes of aluminium a year, but a sharp fall in available energy last week caused three potlines at its plant to shut down.

Maintenance work meant coal-fired generation was unavailable and this had coincided with low solar generation and higher-than-usual domestic demand.

Howell said Australia’s overall baseload capacity had been cut, with coal generation replaced by unreliable energy sources that could not be economically bolstered with gas or battery storage.

Battery storage was not viable for big energy users, noting that South Australia’s vaunted solar Tesla battery “would power us for about eight minutes.”

“So, our question is: in the absence of wind and solar and commercial reliable storage for energy-intensive industries, where does the energy come from for industries such as ours that need it every minute of the day? Where does it come from when the intermittent generators are simply not providing?”

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June 17, 2018 at 03:23AM

Australia’s energy policy has been hijacked by lunatics, whose persistent ignorance has left it with out-of-control power prices and a grid all set to collapse. Pinning your energy needs to the weather was never going to pan out all that well. Of the Australian states, South Australia set the benchmark for virtue signalling stupidity; establishing … Continue reading "Subsidised Wind & Solar Driving Out-of-Control Power Prices: Business Hit With 24% Hike"

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June 17, 2018 at 02:30AM