"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
08/27/2020 at 10:40 • Filed to: None
2
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"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
08/27/2020 at 10:40 • Filed to: None | 2
| 37 |
Lots of life (and death) happening there ~280 million years ago, and lots of sand to make great stacked reservoirs.
Will be interesting to see what the industry looks
like in 5-
10 years, with political changes and the rise of EVs, but it’s damn hard to beat hydrocarbons for energy density, portability & “storability”. No one talks about “peak oil” anymore, just peak oil
demand
. Natural gas power generation will be with us for a long time.
(red dot is near my home)
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
ttyymmnn
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 10:43 |
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Merkin Muffley
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 10:45 |
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The blackouts in CA remind everyone that "following California over the green energy cliff" is probably not a good path. We'll have natural gas fired, high-efficiency compound cycle plants and nuclear baseload plastering over the gaping holes in "the green story" for decades to come.
jminer
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 10:48 |
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With Fracking and Shale oil production there is no longer a shortage of oil so Peak oil isn’t likely to be a problem ever again now that oil demand is falling.
Future next gen S2000 owner
> Merkin Muffley
08/27/2020 at 10:49 |
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Sure, for a long time we need a mix but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t move towards less renewable generation.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> jminer
08/27/2020 at 10:53 |
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Yup, there was a glut before the pandemic, and then demand took a nosedive.
Will be interesting to see if there’s a WFH revolution after this event, and far less total commuting than we saw prior to it. May be far less business travel as well (I see personal travel going crazy once it’s viewed as safe again).
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Future next gen S2000 owner
08/27/2020 at 10:55 |
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Not less, just not total or
unreasonable reliance.
facw
> Merkin Muffley
08/27/2020 at 10:56 |
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Sorry but that’s nonsense. California had blackouts much more frequently in the past when they had a much heavier fossil load. And here for some reason they decided to issue blackouts when they were well below the historical capacity cutoff (apparently they thought some plants weren’t operating when they actually were?). There was also something weird going on with imports, limiting the expected ability to draw from elsewhere.
Obviously you can’t use solar for 100% of power (unless you have a way to store that power), but that doesn’t make it useless. You can of course actually store that power, and there are a bunch of proposed approaches for that. While some of those are still out there, one that would have helped CA if they had more power would be using solar to offset hydro, allowing reservoirs to refill, which would then allow hydro to be able to spin up much more effectively to replace solar when it’s not available.
The real trick here is that we need to put a price on carbon, either through taxes or a cap and trade, so that we aren’t subsidizing dirty energy by letting them pollute while we absorb the costs in terms of global warming and decreased air quality.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Merkin Muffley
08/27/2020 at 10:56 |
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“Greener” > green + black
camarov6rs
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 11:03 |
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Agreed. My company’s CEO made the statement that they were reevaluating work travel now that business is up and travel is almost non-existent. Lots of money to be saved I assume.
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Merkin Muffley
> facw
08/27/2020 at 11:13 |
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Google “duck curve problem”
This is all brought on by over-investment in solar, even as California bowed to green pressure and retired more reliable sources.
The massive daily swings in grid sources and variable reliability speak for themselves. Even as California sets new records for importing coal and natural gas electricity. Some days Arizona and Nevada can't cover for California's bad management
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Merkin Muffley
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 11:15 |
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These guys squawking need to Google “duck curve problem”
Cute friendly name. B ig damn problem. All self inflicted wounds BTW
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Merkin Muffley
> camarov6rs
08/27/2020 at 11:16 |
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Cant be good for the rental car and hotel businesses either. H ertz Chap 11 the first of many to come
TheRealBicycleBuck
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 11:18 |
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I had students question my sanity when I mentioned Gondwanaland during a lecture. I wrongly assumed that everyone had some exposure to the super- continents during their 7th-grade earth science class. The looks of confusion and doubt on their faces was priceless!
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facw
> Merkin Muffley
08/27/2020 at 11:19 |
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And? It’s well known... there are a shit ton of ways to address it. This is not some insurmountable problem.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> camarov6rs
08/27/2020 at 11:24 |
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Money can be saved on travel, and money can be saved on office space, if WFH is widely allowed (and it allows companies to hire the best candidates, regardless of their
location - and no relocation costs
).
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Merkin Muffley
08/27/2020 at 11:26 |
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Yeah, this event will be the tipping point for many big changes, some for the better, some for the worse.
Widespread WFH may not be the best thing for many people’s mental health (if work is their only real time to be social with others).
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> TheRealBicycleBuck
08/27/2020 at 11:28 |
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Pangaea may have gotten more recognition.
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 11:44 |
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It did. But most of the students hadn’t heard of Pangaea either. When they talk about students taking remedial math and E nglish courses their first year of college, they forget about remedial science.
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jminer
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 11:58 |
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Demand was already falling but yeah the pandemic sent if off a cliff. The hurricane didn’t even budge gas prices here and it usually sends them on a $0.30 a gallon spike.
NKato
> TheRealBicycleBuck
08/27/2020 at 12:02 |
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You should require the students to write to their high schools demanding an explanation on why they were forced to take remedial classes for college.
Should incentivize the schools to be more diligent...
HoustonRunner
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 12:08 |
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This will be particularly interesting to me - not only am I in oil and gas (and focus on downstream), but I’m a consultant. Through my 20 year career I’ve traveled (by air) roughly 50% of the time.
WFH is more effective than I thought it could be for me, but I still think it is 80% as effective as being in an office together. Running business transformation projects takes a lot of planning, but in between the meetings there are a lot of valuable conversations.
In the past week I’ve been working on a process / data flow with a colleague virtually. If we were all in an office I think we would be mostly done. As it is we are still iterating on a transaction piece. A virtual whiteboard just ins’t the same (yet.
I agree that some of it will be me (and others) learning how to use all the virtual work tools we have, but I still think there will be a loss of efficiency.
My $0.02, taken with the grain of salt that my main clients are the refining and trading companies.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> HoustonRunner
08/27/2020 at 12:32 |
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Yes, in-person definitely has some real benefits. The question for many companies’ leadership right now is whether the benefits outweigh the costs, longer term.
How many will follow Google/Twitter/Facebook?
https://observer.com/2020/05/coronavirus-work-from-home-facebook-google-microsoft-apple-amazon/
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> jminer
08/27/2020 at 12:34 |
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Have
any major refineries been
greatly affected by the storm?
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jminer
> HoustonRunner
08/27/2020 at 12:37 |
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I’m with you on likely reduced work travel, but there still will be travel.
Normally I travel once a month for work, which has been zero since mid-March and we've been able to turn what was a trip into a pretty successful program but I'll still travel some when we can again.
DipodomysDeserti
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 12:39 |
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I love studying subsu rface geology. I’ve been studying aquifer formations for my degree. It’s suspected that there is a deep aquifer under Phoenix with as much water as Lake Michigan. Quality is probabl y shit on account of all the volcanic soil, and the groundwater above it has been heavily contaminated thanks to Motorola .
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> NKato
08/27/2020 at 13:13 |
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If I were still teaching, I might take that into consideration. It’s a well-known problem.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> DipodomysDeserti
08/27/2020 at 13:28 |
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How deep is the aquifer? There’s generally some amount of produced water in oil & gas wells, but it’s brackish wastewater. They end up disposing of it in old, depleted oil wells. Some companies are figuring out ways to use it in operations instead of fresh water (for drilling mud).
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DipodomysDeserti
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 13:38 |
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I’m not sure if anyone has measured a depth on that aquifer. It’s confined below the water table where we currently store and pump water. Kind of crazy that they’re able to just dump wastewater into used up wells. I guess the area is already contaminated. I wouldn’t want to be drinking water sourced from anywhere near those wells.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> DipodomysDeserti
08/27/2020 at 13:57 |
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They pump it, not dump it, and
have to get the necessary permits to do so
. The wellbores are cement-lined (casing) and the reservoirs have a natural seal above them (why the oil ended up trapped there in the first place) and are generally
a mile+ underground. The problems arise when there are spills at the surface by poor operators, or there’s a casing leak that’s
not discovered early enough (or ignored). So yeah...
Jerry Harding
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 15:17 |
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“ It’s geology!”
- Me, A Geologist
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Jerry Harding
08/27/2020 at 15:22 |
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Jerry Harding
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 15:32 |
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I live in Florida, so my subsurface is more like cemented shells and cheese.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Jerry Harding
08/27/2020 at 15:49 |
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LOL
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Jerry Harding
08/27/2020 at 15:54 |
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Jerry Harding
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/27/2020 at 16:22 |
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Geology, the guilty pleasure of theoretical physicists everywhere. I got to go on field trips in college, what did they do?
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Jerry Harding
08/27/2020 at 16:26 |
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Oh man, I’m so jealous of all the field trips!
My job is mapping & software support for a small group of geologists & engineers. I shortly considered going back for a geology degree a decade plus ago, but decided I really needed to love it/live it if I wanted to do well and truly enjoy myself
on that path.
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NKato
> TheRealBicycleBuck
08/28/2020 at 15:01 |
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Tell anyone you know that’s a professor, then. The sooner it becomes a policy to call out the schools for undereducating, the better.