Meh, whether it is plant or animal based does not determine whether or not it is a fossil fuel. The energy source can be either one. Most natural gas in use is a fossil fuel. It comes from underground from long deceased plant and animal matter.

 

I guess methane does not require fossils, so technically, isn't she correct?

 

I stand corrected, thank you Martha

 

Martha knows as much about this as I do (probably more), but I'll throw my two cents in anyway. Natural gas is typically (at least in my experience) a co-product with crude. We invested in some wells several years ago, and some produce crude only, some produce natural gas, and some produce both.

I also used to work at a natural gas plant about 35 years ago. That plant stripped the methane, ethane, propane, and butane from the crude. The gases were then sweetened (desulfurized, i.e., the rotten egg smell from H2S) and sold either via pipeline (natural gas) or loading rack (LPG)

As an aside, my job at that refinery at the end of the summer was to odorize the LPG with methyl mercaptan by hand. Methyl mercaptan smells VERY bad and also boils at something close to room temperature, so I would come home with this stuff all over my clothes. It was not a garden of odoriferous delight.

Natural gas is typically defined as methane and ethane. Propane and butane are sold as LPG.

As someone mentioned, natural gas can also come from landfills, sewage treatment, pig and cow flatulence (don't laugh - there are farmers running gas turbines co-generating electricity off of pig and cow flatulence). Another source of natural gas is coal or biomass gasification.

 

There is "associated natural gas" i.e. that which comes associated with crude oil production, and there is "non-associated natural gas", which is not associated with crude oil production. As of 12/31/06 (last available data I could find) U.S. NON-associated natural gas reserves were 190.776 bcf (billion cubic feet). At the same time, associated natural gas reserves were only 29.640 bcf. I had read that around 70% of U.S. natural gas reserves are non-associated and these numbers indicate it's more like 85%+. These numbers are from the EIA, fwiw.

As mentioned above, there are also other sources such as coal gasification, sewage, landfills, etc.

 

I could see where someone without a technical background could conclude that non-associated natural gas was not a fossl fuel. However, oil and natural gas both come from decayed (pressurized/heated) organic material from plants and animals.

 

These are known as "Dual completions", where you have two seperate sands or
strata's. One is an oil sand the other is a gas sand. They can be either be close together, or 1000s of feet apart. If the diameter of the hole is big enough, then
you can run 2 sets of production tubing, one for the gas and the other for the oil.
If the diameter of the hole is not big enough, then typicaly one zone is produced
till its depleted, then the other zone is perforated and produced.

 

Bottom line is that, as Brokaw said, you drill for it. I still think that Pelosi thinks it comes from daisies or fairy dust or some other San Francisco approved method of energy.

That brings me to another fallacy--while I agree with his general ideas, I don't like how T. Boone Pickens continues the "we only have 3% of the world's oil reserves" nonsense in his advertisements. Truth up, Pickens.

 

cordy,
what do you believe the US reserves to be as a percentage of the worlds supply?
please back it up with accurate numbers?

 

bolton,

Based on "proven" reserves and current laws that are extremely, exhaustively, agressively, expensively in place, we have 3%. The oil that we know is down there but the government won't let us get doesn't count. Yep, you see that candy bar in the window, but you can't technically get to it, so it's not real.

According to congressional testimony in late May, the CEO of Shell said this to Senator Orrin Hatch about oil shale only, which isn't part of the 3%:

HATCH: I want to get into that. In other words, we're talking about Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. It's fair to say that they're not considered part of America's $22 billion of proven reserves.
HOFMEISTER: Not at all.

HATCH: No, but experts agree that there's between 800 billion to almost 2 trillion barrels of oil that could be recoverable there, and that's good oil, isn't it?

HOFMEISTER: That's correct.

HATCH: It could be recovered at somewhere between $30 and $40 a barrel?

HOFMEISTER: I think those costs are probably a bit dated now, based upon what we've seen in the inflation...

HATCH: Well, somewhere in that area.

HOFMEISTER: I don't know what the exact cost would be, but, you know, if there is more supply, I think inflation in the oil industry would be cracked. And we are facing severe inflation because of the limited amount of supply against the demand.

HATCH: I guess what I'm saying, though, is that if we started to develop the oil shale in those three states we could do it within this framework of over $100 a barrel and make a profit.

HOFMEISTER: I believe we could.

HATCH: And we could help our country alleviate its oil pressures.

HOFMEISTER: Yes.

HATCH: But they're stopping us from doing that right here, as we sit here. We just had a hearing last week where Democrats had stopped the ability to do that, in at least Colorado.

HOFMEISTER: Well, as I said in my opening statement, I think the public policy constraints on the supply side in this country are a disservice to the American consumer.

Bolton--this doesn't include ANWR, which is accessible and has an oil pipeline nearby. It doesn't include the outer continental shelf. It doesn't even include the coast of California, which already have platforms ready and in place, where oil could be recovered within months.

BTW, the Santa Barbara city council voted 3-2 this week to ask the Feds and California state to lift the ban on offshore drilling. You see, so much oil seeps up through the ocean floor that it becomes a mess on the beach. Drilling there would actually alleviate the mess and clean up the beaches....