Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
(OP)
Due to increase talk of energy/fuels in the general news, I want to be able to do a quick fact check when I see an article claiming one thing or another. If I get to use this for my work that would be a bonus.
I'm looking to be able to compare all types of energy production on a BTU expended, BTU available basis.
Has anyone seen an accurate breakdown or at the very least a semi-accurate ball park figure of cradle to grave costs of different fuels: natural gas, coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, solar, etc... I'm going to put a spreadsheet together for my own use, but before I re-create the wheel, does anyone have any information or links to information on this?
An example of what I am looking for: It takes X BTU's per 1 BTU of natural gas at the customers meter when considering all drilling and distribution losses to get natural gas piped from the Gulf of Mexico to New York City, for example.
Since nuclear, coal, hydro, and solar are only used to create electricity, it is okay to give just energy required to construct, install, produce, and maitain the generation plant.
I know there are different ways of looking at when does the support system stop, but as long as the data source indicates what is included and its designated amount then I can try to compare apples to apples. For example, some people like to include Defense spending in the oil equation, I'm fine with info like that as long as I know what portion they applied to the Defense spending. Again I am not looking for $ cost, but BTU amount.
I'm looking to be able to compare all types of energy production on a BTU expended, BTU available basis.
Has anyone seen an accurate breakdown or at the very least a semi-accurate ball park figure of cradle to grave costs of different fuels: natural gas, coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, solar, etc... I'm going to put a spreadsheet together for my own use, but before I re-create the wheel, does anyone have any information or links to information on this?
An example of what I am looking for: It takes X BTU's per 1 BTU of natural gas at the customers meter when considering all drilling and distribution losses to get natural gas piped from the Gulf of Mexico to New York City, for example.
Since nuclear, coal, hydro, and solar are only used to create electricity, it is okay to give just energy required to construct, install, produce, and maitain the generation plant.
I know there are different ways of looking at when does the support system stop, but as long as the data source indicates what is included and its designated amount then I can try to compare apples to apples. For example, some people like to include Defense spending in the oil equation, I'm fine with info like that as long as I know what portion they applied to the Defense spending. Again I am not looking for $ cost, but BTU amount.





RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
The point is, you need to draw an acceptable baseline from which to start accounting for the costs of energy creation/extraction, and I haven't found any real agreement on that yet.
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Just to touch on one of your examples: the energy to manufacture and install the compressor you mentioned, it's got to be less than 1% of the total deal, think of the gazillions of cubic feet it must pump over its life. The energy to produce that component has got to be too tiny to make a blip in the overall parasitic losses that exist in the operation, surely some expert has compiled all the relevant numbers. And even if it is as tiny as I suggest, someone intimate with the industry would roughly know that cost.
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
The trouble is that the cost of energy delivery is also directly proportional to the distance over which it's being delivered. So how would one allow for that?
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Your question also seems somewhat nebulous to me. What would be some examples of conclusions you might draw if you had exact data for your question?
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RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Although not exactly what I was looking for, I think if I dig into it I might get something.
GMcD and electricpete,
I'm not looking to write a thesis or argue energy policy, I just want to know the ballpark numbers. For example, do you know if it takes 1.1 Btu's for every 1 Btu of natural gas at the customer meter or 2.0 Btu's, or somewhere between or higher? I have no idea about the ballpark figures and just want a decent idea.
At a past job, we were involved with small scale distributed generation, usually with heat recovery. It would take me less than 2 hours to give a ballpark number of what our parasitic losses were for installation, service, operation, and maintenance, and the kwhr and btuh output. I could easily include down to the miles travelled on our vehicles per kwhr produced. I could even estimate the amount of copper fittings used, but I think I can also figure out when the order a magnitude of certain items gets so low that I could just estimate all other miscellaneous items = x% total loss. I'm assuming someone else has already done this for the major fuel/power generation sources.
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Be aware that Prof. Patzek is a thoroughly biased, petroleum consultant and a petroleum industry's 'Man of the Year' (1995 if I recall right). His farming model is strip mining (his original field of study) rather than sustainable agriculture.
[Although I agree that a lot of corn is grown on a non-sustainable basis, contributing to erosion & the 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico, sucking up a taxpayer subsidy of 50 cents/gallon and costing consumers a hidden tax in higher food prices.]
For more of a critique, from Argonne National Lab, see
eerc.ra.utk.edu/etcfc/docs/pr/MichaelWangResponse~7-19-05.doc
Prof. Patzek picked up an agriculture professor, 'world-famous' professor David Pimentel of Cornell, as co-author on some publications to gain some credibility, but Pimentel seems to be an entomologist (insect guy) with limited practical knowledge of agricultural.
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
for energy costs go to
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For energy a related BTU amount
go to
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http:/
20fuels.pdf
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luismarques
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
A US gallon of ethanol contains 76,000 BTU, probably the high heating value. According to Patzek and Pimenthal it takes 98,000 BTU of energy to make the gallon of ethanol, much of this coming from fossil fuels.
A US gallon of gasoline contains 116,000 BTU. To find the well, transport and refine the fuel requires 22,000 BTU. If you make the gasoline from tar sands, you need about 60,000 BTU of energy.
Now all that needs to be done is to complete this list for coal, nuclear, PV, etc. after putting the calculations on a consistent basis. As has been stated earlier on this thread, Good Luck! Maybe a first step, to generate interest, would be to tabulate the data on a non-rigorous basis. Google finds references for PV and for nuclear without too much digging. One interesting parameter used in the PV reference was the number of years it takes to get the energy to construct back. It looks like it takes a few years.
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Hmm... the complicated bit would be converting BTU spent into cradle to grave cost, which is not at all the same correlation in different cases.
BTUs required in oil refining to produce gasoline are very easily = cheaply obtained by burning part of the oil (fuel or fuelgas).
BTUs required to generate a BTU of solar energy are (1) very difficult to quantify and (2) very difficult to convert into cost. So difficult that I would tend to believe that it does not even makes sense to take the BTUs required into account, but rather correlate BTUs produced to money spent directly.
BTW how do you factor in that refinery facilities have usually been written off long ago (gasoline usually comes out of a '50s style "vintage" naphtha reformer) while R&D is still a major part of the cost of solar.
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
The US National Academy of Sciences (Proceedings, July 11, 2006):
"The first comprehensive analysis of the full life cycles of soybean biodiesel and corn grain ethanol shows that biodiesel has much less of an impact on the environment and a much higher net energy benefit than corn ethanol, but that neither can do much to meet U.S. energy demand.
...
The study showed that both corn grain ethanol and soybean biodiesel produce more energy than is needed to grow the crops and convert them into biofuels. This finding refutes other studies claiming that these biofuels require more energy to produce than they provide. The amount of energy each returns differs greatly, however. Soybean biodiesel returns 93 percent more energy than is used to produce it, while corn grain ethanol currently provides only 25 percent more energy."
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/30/11206
Also, soybean biodiesel (from soybean oil) has a valuable byproduct, high-protein soybean meal.
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
http:
You can see fossil fuels and hydro are the standouts. Nuclear/wind and maybe solar is ok, while biofuels are barely positive. I've read that cellulose ethanol is expected to be in the range of 4-5 someday, but hard to say.
One thing you'll note is that the EROI for fossil fuels decreases over time. We are forced to tap more and more difficult assets (which overwhelms the gains in efficiency we make from better technology). Some stripper wells in the US spend more energy than they make pulling up dregs of oil, but it's worth it because oil is so valueable.
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Kiven, Robert K. “Ethanol in gasoline: environmental impacts and sustainability review article.”
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Volume 9 (2005), Issue 6, pp 535-555
RE: Request: Accurate cradle to grave costs of fuels wanted
Unfortunately I think it is going to take more of my free time than expected.