Established technologies: hiding in plain sight?
…our roadmap to net zero, as gas is 60% lower-carbon per MWH. The best gas power plants can achieve 80-90% thermal efficiency when running gas through a combined heat and…
Adiabatic flame temperature: hydrogen, methane and oil products?
…can easily be calculated from first principles, as a function of (a) the different input gases; (b) the resultant exhaust gases; (c) the masses of those gases (in kg); and…
The laws of thermodynamics: what role in the energy transition?
…natural gas flaring, which ran at 122bcm in 2019. To all intents and purposes the useful energy in the gas is being destroyed, as the gas is simply wasted. Again,…
Thermodynamics: Carnot, Rankine, Brayton & beyond?
…advantage of the Rankine Cycle, and two devastating limitations (pages 7-8). The Brayton Cycle harnesses work from hot gases, and approximates both jet engines and modern gas turbines. Well-designed Brayton…
Flaring reduction: screen of service and equipment companies?
…possible to separate the gas, and fluids must be moved by multi-phase pumps. Sometimes wells are flowed back before gas infrastructure is available. Sometimes, despite extensive separation, gas still flashes…
Global decarbonization: speeding up or slowing down?
…the step up is that coal-to-gas switching was providing -0.2% pa of decarbonization in 2012-17, while underinvestment in gas caused a switch back to coal in 2017-22 (from 6.4GTpa to…
LNG liquefaction technologies: an overview?
…affected by design decisions? In an LNG plant, gas is first de-acidified to below 50 ppm, to remove contaminants such as CO2 in input gas which would otherwise be prone…
CO2-EOR in shale: the holy grail?
…to shales across the Permian, D.J. and Powder River basins” On decarbonised gas power: “What it does is, it takes natural gas combines that with oxygen and burns it together,…
Decarbonized power: how much wind and solar fit the optimal grid?
…Pages 21-23 quantify the residual reliance on natural gas. Amazingly, even our most aggressive battery scenarios only permit 10% of gas-power capacity to be shuttered. Low-utilization gas is costly. High-utilization…
UK grid volatility as renewables gain share?
…up wind today, as shown in the fascinating chart below. Gas has always been a flexible supply source. And the total share of gas has remained relatively constant at about…