Tag: Natural Gas

Did You Hear The One About The Fart?

Once again it is the weekend and I for one am damn sick of all the SOTU crap…..okay I get it….you think it was a good speech….or maybe you think he was lying his butt off….let me let you in on a secret…they all lie their butts off in the SOTU….you will be a lot happier if you remember that one small fact……

May I see a show of hands….how many like a good fart story?

As usual I want to post something on the w/end that will make you smile or make you stop and think or just entertain you…….this week I could not resist a couple of fart stories……

Hitting a high C is hard enough without worrying about passing gas—and an opera singer in Nashville is suing over the dilemma, Fox News reports. Amy Herbst, a mezzo-soprano, says she was doing fine until an Army nurse screwed up her childbirth operation in 2012. The nurse at an Army hospital in Fort Campbell, Ky., apparently damaged Herbst’s reproductive and digestive system when her son was born—leaving Herbst incontinent, flatulent, and unable to continue her singing career. “She is suffering through a very embarrassing and very significant injury, and frankly, the prognosis of a fully successful repair is pretty low,” her attorney tells the Army Times. According to Herbst, the nurse performed an episiotomy—meaning she cut an area between the anus and the vagina to help ease childbirth. But the incision couldn’t be fully repaired, and it seems follow-up surgeries may not fix it, either. Herbst lost a job singing in Madame Butterfly thanks to the operation, the Tennessean reports.

Sorry but a good fart story is worth its weight in entertainment value…….

But Wait!  Yes, there is more…..

A herd of dairy cows nearly lifted the roof off their barn in central Germany yesterday when methane released by the animals caused an explosion. Police in Hesse state said in a statement that a static electric charge apparently triggered the detonation, and a spurt of flame, at a farm in Rasdorf. The roof was slightly damaged and one cow suffered light burns. No people were hurt. Police say 90 cows are kept in the shed and it wasn’t clear why quantities of methane had built up, though bovine belching and flatulence releases large quantities of the gas

Maybe there is really something to the story that farting cows are causing global warming…..after all……….

And there we have the fart stories for the month…hope you enjoyed them…..come on!  You know you are smiling….come on!

Enough With Weiner’s Weiner!

If you have had enough gossip and BS…like Weiner’s weiner….or perhaps you are fretting over what name will be given to the pampered royal larva……while all that “news” was being reported….there was something happening in the Gulf…..yes once again……..

This is an upodate on a post I did earlier about the leaking gas well…..thanx to the AP for the  update……..

An out-of-control natural gas well off the Louisiana coast has caught fire, hours after a blowout that prompted the evacuation of 44 workers.

Meanwhile, officials stressed that Tuesday’s blowout wouldn’t be close to as damaging as the 2010 BP oil spill, in which an oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, exploded off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers and eventually spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

No injuries were reported as a result of Tuesday night’s fire, Eileen Angelico, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, told The Associated Press.

She said it wasn’t known what caused the gas to ignite. It also wasn’t clear early Wednesday how and when crews would attempt to extinguish the blaze. BSEE said earlier Tuesday that a firefighting vessel with water and foam capabilities had been dispatched to the scene.

Wild Well Control Inc. was hired to try to bring the well under control. Angelico said Wild Well personnel approached the well earlier Tuesday night, before the fire, but they determined it was unsafe to get closer when they were about 200 feet away from it.

The gas blowout was reported Tuesday morning.

Tuesday’s blowout occurred near an unmanned offshore gas platform that was not currently producing natural gas, said Angelico. The workers were aboard a portable drilling rig known as a jackup rig, owned by Hercules Offshore Inc., which was a contractor for exploration and production company Walter Oil & Gas Corp.

Walter Oil & Gas reported to the BSEE that the rig was completing a “sidetrack well” — a means of re-entering the original well bore, Angelico said.

The purpose of the sidetrack well in this instance was not immediately clear. A spokesman for the corporation did not have the information Tuesday night. Industry websites say sidetrack wells are sometimes drilled to remedy a problem with the existing well bore.

Just more environmental damage to an already fragile ecosystem……..may not mean much to some but I live here and it could effect so many different sectors……..how many times must a story like this come to light and people still cannot see pass their moronic slogans?

Safe, Clean Energy

That is what we are subjected to daily from the Nat. Gas people….they are pushing for more drilling in the US and selling the idea that it is cleaner then the alternative…..that it will be better for the environment……….is it?

From an article in Pro Publica……..

Advocates for natural gas routinely assert that it produces 50 percent less greenhouse gases than coal and is a significant step toward a greener energy future. But those assumptions are based on emissions from the tailpipe or smokestack and don’t account for the methane and other pollution emitted when gas is extracted and piped to power plants and other customers.

The EPA’s new analysis doubles its previous estimates for the amount of methane gas that leaks from loose pipe fittings and is vented from gas wells, drastically changing the picture of the nation’s emissions that the agency painted as recently as April. Calculations for some gas-field emissions jumped by several hundred percent. Methane levels from the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas were 9,000 times higher than previously reported.

Billions of cubic feet of climate-changing greenhouse gases—roughly the equivalent of the annual emissions from 35 million automobiles—seep from loose pipe valves or are vented intentionally from gas production facilities into the atmosphere each year, according to the EPA. Gas drilling emissions alone account for at least one-fifth of human-caused methane in the world’s atmosphere, the World Bank estimates, and as more natural gas is drilled, the EPA expects these emissions to increase dramatically.

But roughly half of the 1,600 gas-fired power plants in the United States operate at the lowest end of the efficiency spectrum. And even before the EPA sharply revised its data, these plants were only 32 percent cleaner than coal, according to a lifecycle analysis by Paulina Jaramillo, an energy expert and associate professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

So we see that the promise of clean safe energy source maybe what it sounds like….too goo to be true…..and we know what they say about that…….don’t we?  If I recall correctly back in 2008, the McCain/Palin ticket, had this plank that was basically “cap and trade”…….but now Palin is calling it cap and tax……see if you snooze you lose….it is virtually impossible to keep up with politics and its leap Right, if you only watch the news once a day….

And the dance goes on for alt energy….but can we have an energy source that does not include drilling the crap out of the earth?  We need a renewable source that is almost limitless…..nat gas does not meet that criteria……but yet the Prez thinks it is a good idea….why?

Can we please stop all this now?  NOTHING will be done!  You know…..I know it…..Obama knows it!

War Drums Sing Of Coming Events

Inkwell Institute

International Studies Group

Middle East Desk

There seems to always be a perpetual war/peace thing going on in the Middle East….the institution of war has made it virtually impossible for wither side to give a little to secure a future without war.  Just in recent years peace was close and then Israel decided on more settlements…peace off….then Pals and Jews agree to a possible direct talks on peace…Hamas extremists said that they will begin firing on Israel again….NO matter what is tried someone, on either side has to pee in the punch…..all in all it is pretty sickening!

And when there is a bright spot a dark cloud just has to move in to rain on the parade…this time it is an energy thing…..and this time it is Lebanon……the AP is reporting:

The discovery of large natural gas reserves under the waters of the eastern Mediterranean could potentially mean a huge economic windfall for Israel and Lebanon, both resource-poor nations — if it doesn’t spark new war between them.The Hezbollah militant group has blared warnings that Israel plans to steal natural gas from Lebanese territory and vows to defend the resources with its arsenal of rockets. Israel says the fields it is developing do not extend into Lebanese waters, a claim experts say appears to be correct, but the maritime boundary between the two countries — still officially at war — has never been precisely set.

Israel is far ahead in the race to develop the resources. Two fields, Tamar and Dalit, discovered last year, are due to start producing in 2012, and experts say their estimated combined reserves of 5.5 trillion cubic feet (160 billion cubic meters) of natural gas can cover Israel’s energy needs for the next two decades.

In June, the U.S. energy company Noble Energy, part of a consortium developing the fields, predicted that Israel will also have enough gas to export to Europe and Asia from a third field — Leviathan, thought to hold up to 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters) of gas.

Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, warned that Israel is “turning into an oil emirate while ignoring the fact that the field extends, according to the maps, into Lebanon’s territorial waters.”

I smell trouble brewing!  Oh crap!  Why not?  They have started wars with less provocation.  If this situation gets settled without shots being fired then the settlements will return and when that fuse is extinguished then the mother of all problems will eventually arise…..water!  And this one will be interesting because most of the aquifers are on the West Bank and with the Palestinians……could that be a reason for not wantinga Pal state on the West Bank?

An Ignored Idea

In keeping with the subject line of posts I will have another one onb alternatives….some good….some not so good…..but as I have been saying….it is time to FIX the damn problem and stop giving it lip service only……

There is a plentiful source of alternative energy that is being ignored……I know…Professor, do tell….do tell…..

It’s natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It’s now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation’s homes, it’s becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks.

Natural gas’ abundance and low price come as governments around the world debate how to curtail carbon dioxide and other pollution that contribute to global warming. The likely outcome is a tax on companies that spew excessive greenhouse gases. Utilities and other companies see natural gas as a way to lower emissions — and their costs. Yet politicians aren’t stumping for it.

about 27 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions come from coal-fired power plants, which generate 44 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. Just under 25 percent of power comes from burning natural gas, more than double its share a decade ago but still with room to grow.But the fuel has to be plentiful and its price stable — and that has not always been the case with natural gas. In the 1990s, factories that wanted to burn gas instead of coal had to install equipment that did both because the gas supply was uncertain and wild price swings were common. In some states, because of feared shortages, homebuilders were told new gas hookups were banned.

This is truly a low emissions industry and it is a good alternative for the foreseeable future…… then why not push it tooth and nail?  Lobbyists are the main answer….too many power generating industries are paying good money to keep this off the agenda….

In the area I live there are many, many natural gas wells that have been drilled but capped…..why?….because the oil companies were looking for more oil, not natural gas….

I will be watching the next big Washington sideshow….the energy debate…..to see if alternatives are there or if the gas companies get the same deal insurance companies got in the health debate……