Came across this article:The following is taken from the statement of Robert S KripowiczPrincipal Deputy Assistant for Fossil Energy to the Subcommittee on Energy and Enviroment U.S. House of Representatives.
Natural Gas Supply Research
In all cases in the Energy Information Administration?s recent Annual Energy Outlook - 1999, natural gas consumption continues its steep rise, reaching nearly 30 trillion cubic feet (TCF) per year by 2020 in the low economic growth case to almost 35 trillion cubic feet per year if economic growth is high (current consumption is 22 trillion cubic feet per year). Should emission targets be enacted for greenhouse gases, the upward trend in gas demand could be even more pronounced in the post-2010 timeframe, perhaps pushing gas demand to 40 trillion cubic feet or more per year.
At the same time, however, natural gas reserves-to-production ratios have been declining in North America since 1986. New fields are smaller than their predecessors, and improved technologies deplete them faster than in the past. Proven reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, which account for almost one-quarter of U.S. gas production, continue to fall.
The challenge for the coming century will be to develop an adequate gas supply resource base and the necessary infrastructure to meet a 30 TCF-plus market at reasonable prices. Future gas supplies will likely come increasingly from today?s immature and undiscovered resources. As gas demand grows in the next two decades and conventional gas resources continue to decline, gas from deeper and denser formations and potentially, gas from hydrates could become important new sources of this clean-burning, versatile fuel.
New technology is the key to unlocking these future resources; however, R&D expenditures by industry and the Gas Research Institute, now transitioning to an all-voluntary funding basis, are declining. The federal natural gas research program is now the only national effort providing a consistent level of support for gas supply technologies. Without these R&D investments in supply side technologies, the Nation?s gas production may not keep pace with the growing demand for gas, especially for power generation.
In FY2000, the major elements of this program will include:
Exploration and Production FY1999 - $13.43 million FY2000 - $14.93 million
The majority of R&D in this category continues efforts begun in prior years to 1) develop and field test new technologies, such as hydraulic pulse and underbalanced drilling, that are faster and less damaging to gas-bearing formations, 2) study advanced fluid fracturing techniques using the unique facilities and expertise at the University of Oklahoma, 3) improve techniques for imaging and predicting gas production in naturally fractured reservoirs, 4) study the potential for deep gas production in priority basins, 5) support industry-national laboratory partnerships in new gas technologies, 6) examine ways to revitalize production from gas stripper wells, and 7) continue work to produce missed or bypassed ("secondary") gas from formations in the Appalachian Basin and the Gulf Coast offshore.
One area where increased funding is requested is for the study of methane hydrates (FY1999 - $500,000; FY2000 - $1.99 million). Methane hydrates ? natural gas molecules encased in ice crystals ? is a potentially vast, global gas resource, with resource estimates that are more than 5000 times the world?s currently recoverable gas reserves. After a year of developing a
multi-agency methane hydrates program strategy, the FY2000 budget would increase funding for DOE?s share of research in such areas as resource characterization, production, and safety and seafloor stability.
Delivery and Storage FY1999 - $1.00 million FY2000 - $1.00 million
As gas demand grows, reliable, cost-effective storage of natural gas will remain key to customer confidence in gas supplies. Depleted oil and gas reservoirs are used for interim storage of natural gas primarily to meet seasonal increases in gas demand during the winter. Each reservoir has characteristics that determine how fast gas can be injected and withdrawn and the total amount of gas that can be effectively stored. R&D is necessary to improve storage methodologies and technologies to prevent a loss of deliverability from these fields and to better remediate lost deliverability when it occurs. In FY2000, DOE will continue its R&D efforts with industry to develop advanced storage technologies, novel and improved fracture simulation techniques and better remediation efforts to offset today?s annual losses in deliverability. Work will also continue to improve gas metering (such as ultrasonic metering) that can provide real time, automated data on pipeline gas flow.
Emerging Processing
Technology Applications FY1999 - $9.06 million FY2000 - $7.31 million
Development of a lower cost method to convert natural gas to liquid fuels remains a high priority in this budget area with R&D in FY2000 continuing in the 3rd year of an 8-year program to develop ceramic membrane technology for the conversion process. If this R&D is successful, gas-to-liquid costs could be reduced by 25-35% into a range of $18-22 per barrel, improving prospects for applying the technology to prolong the life of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and increase gas production from remote locations in the Gulf of Mexico.
R&D also will continue in FY2000 to improve upgrading technologies to reduce polluting contaminants that make as much as 1/3rd of the nation?s gas resources unsuitable for pipeline transport unless the impurities are removed. An important aspect of this research also applies to the often-ignored gas released from coal mining. Support is also provided in this category for the International Center for Gas Technologies.
Effective Environmental
Protection FY1999 - $3.02 million FY2000 - $2.62 million
In recent years, environmental concerns have led to numerous Federal and State regulations being imposed on oil and gas operations in the United States. The increasingly higher costs of environmental compliance ? now amounting to $8 billion a year for the oil and gas industry, including refining ? places a substantial economic burden on producers, particularly in times of low oil and gas prices. DOE?s efforts in FY2000 will be to continue efforts with Federal and State agencies to reduce overlapping and sometimes outdated regulations that can add unnecessary costs, and to develop lower-cost environmental technologies ? for example, to treat and dispose of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) from oil and gas operations.
Advanced Gas Turbines
The United States now has in sight an advanced gas turbine that will surpass any other utility-scale turbine offered in the world. The FY2000 budget represents the last major funding year (FY2001, at a lower level, will be the final funding year) in an 8-year program to produce working prototypes of a natural gas turbine for baseload power generation that will be 10% more efficient and will produce less than half the nitrogen oxides of current gas turbine systems.
The likely benefits of this program are enormous. The Energy Information Administration estimates that gas turbines will satisfy as much as 81 percent of new electric power demands in the U.S. by the year 2010. More than 70 percent of all new power generation equipment installed in the U.S. after the year 2000 is forecast to be derived from the DOE Advanced Turbine Systems program. Because the advanced turbine systems will produce lower cost electricity than currently available technology (around 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour), U.S. consumers stand to save an estimated $7 billion in electricity costs in the 2002 to 2015 timeframe because of our investment in this "next generation" turbine system. Billions more will be saved in reduced environmental compliance costs due to the low emission characteristics of these new systems.
The full text is here
house.gov
Cheers,
JR. |
