USGS: 16 Trillion cu-ft of Natural Gas in Texas

[DeepFriar]

Originally Posted By: Garak
I only wish LPG was as conveniently available here as it once was. The F-150 would have been a perfect candidate.


My S(son)IL runs a fleet of Ford vans, 42 I think, in a transfer service to the Atlanta and Nashville airports. Others into Phoenix and Portland. They had made the transition locally to LPG just prior to oil prices taking a dive. It had paid for itself, about $2800 per vehicle if memory serves, befoe that downtick. It was initially a better than 50% savings and continues to save currently at lower levels. Still very worthwhile apparently.

 

[Garak]

It still would be a minor saving here. There used to be a lot more availability of 24 hour propane here and in Saskatoon. That's dicey at best these days, and given my weird hours (and the weird hours I've always run), late night fuel availability is crucial. I rarely buy fuel during the daytime.

Even in the "good old days," I used to have to drive across town in Saskatoon to get fuel after 11:00 p.m. Pricing is a bit odd these days. Like I said, it can still pay, but a few stations are just out to lunch with high pricing.

 

[userfriendly]

Is SaskPower mostly Estevan coal fired? www.saskpower.com

 

[Garak]

Mostly is probably a good choice of wording:

 

[Garak]

Here is a map of facilities, too.

 

[CT8]

Originally Posted By: BigCahuna
It's funny that back in the '70's when we had the oil embargo, the Government had us all believing that we "Had" to buy our oil and gas from overseas. Nowadays, they're finding it everywhere.,,,
Opec lobby money works wonders.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Mostly is probably a good choice of wording:

You need a nuke. Holy coal batman

 

[vitez]

Or more imports of hydro-generated electricity from Manitoba. Manitoba Hydro currently generates about 1/3 more electricity than is needed within the province itself.

BTW, using NG to produce electricity can be more wasteful than using it directly. The best NG furnaces and boilers have a seasonal efficiency of ~ 98%. NG fueled generating stations are about 40-43% efficient.

England started the Industrial Revolution partially due to it being blessed with large amounts of coal. Coal, shale oil, shale gas, Alberta oil sands: Canada and the US are also blessed. Now if only our respective government leaders can get along.......

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: vitez
Or more imports of hydro-generated electricity from Manitoba. Manitoba Hydro currently generates about 1/3 more electricity than is needed within the province itself.

BTW, using NG to produce electricity can be more wasteful than using it directly. The best NG furnaces and boilers have a seasonal efficiency of ~ 98%. NG fueled generating stations are about 40-43% efficient.

England started the Industrial Revolution partially due to it being blessed with large amounts of coal. Coal, shale oil, shale gas, Alberta oil sands: Canada and the US are also blessed. Now if only our respective government leaders can get along.......

Any idea as to how many GWh or TWh in excess Manitoba has?

 

[userfriendly]

Manitoba still has coal fired plants. I think the one in Brandon burns about 2,000 tons of Estevan black/day, or about 20 rail cars.

www.hydro.mb.ca

 

[OVERKILL]

Thanks. Given its proximity to Alberta's uranium mines, I would think a nuke plant would be a huge step to reduce the carbon emissions, and with the new carbon tax looming, it may make sense.

 

[userfriendly]

Lol, you haven't met Brad Wall? East meet West

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: userfriendly
Manitoba still has coal fired plants. I think the one in Brandon burns about 2,000 tons of Estevan black/day, or about 20 rail cars.

www.hydro.mb.ca


1370MW, heat rate probably about 9.5MJ/KWh, and Capacity factor of (say) 80% wuld require 250TJ of energy from the coal, or probably about 10,000 tonnes all up.

 

[vitez]

The Brandon station has 2 NG fired units and one 105 MW coal fired unit.

In their 2014-15 annual report MB Hydro states the peak load was 4688 MW with a generation capacity of 5701 MW, or 21.6% higher. Actual excess should be a lot more when you look a MWh not just peak MW.

 

[userfriendly]

10,000 tons would be 88 rail cars loaded to 143 (non-metric) tons. Aluminum cars weigh about 25 tons, the steel ones 35 tons empty.
Back in the day, many of those prairie coal fired's provided steam heat to schools, hospitals and other large buildings.
Maybe they still do.

edit; Estevan black is high grade, would that make much difference to the tons/day?

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: vitez
The Brandon station has 2 NG fired units and one 105 MW coal fired unit.

In their 2014-15 annual report MB Hydro states the peak load was 4688 MW with a generation capacity of 5701 MW, or 21.6% higher. Actual excess should be a lot more when you look a MWh not just peak MW.



Originally Posted By: userfriendly
10,000 tons would be 88 rail cars loaded to 143 (non-metric) tons. Aluminum cars weigh about 25 tons, the steel ones 35 tons empty.
Back in the day, many of those prairie coal fired's provided steam heat to schools, hospitals and other large buildings.
Maybe they still do.

edit; Estevan black is high grade, would that make much difference to the tons/day?


Ahhh...wrong plant I got there.

105MW, 80% capacity factor, heat rate being a smaller unit is going to be likely well over 10...20TJ...

http://westmoreland.com/location/estevan-mine-saskatchewan/

This the mine ?

They list 16.1 MJ/Kg, and lignite, which is basically brown coal...Black as in colour in this case, but needs to be in the ground a while longer to be termed "black".

Using those numbers turn into 1,250 Tonnes per day...would be more being lignite as there's a lot of moisture which drops efficiency some as well.

The black coal that I'm used to is 23MJ/Kg, having dropped from 25 when the seams were stronger...we burn 12,000 TPD for 1,400MW.

 

[Shannow]

Interesting read...

http://wdm.ca/skteacherguide/WDMResearch/Saskatchewan's%20Long%20History%20of%20Coal%20Mining%20by%20Janet%20MacKenzie.pdf

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
You need a nuke. Holy coal batman

25 years ago, it would have looked much worse. We can't have any nukes; there's no uranium in this province. Being the world's largest exporter of uranium, there's none to spare for use in the province, I guess.

 

[userfriendly]

I thought Estevan was black coal & of better quality, but for 1,200 tons/day it wouldn't pay to burn the expensive export coking coal even in poor market conditions.

Here is the good stuff: www.teck.com from and around the town of www.sparwood.ca

www.westshore.com

 

[Shannow]

Looking at that Teck site, their metallurgical coal income/sales was around $117/tonne, so it's the good stuff....would never see the front door of a power station.

Most of the lignite mines tend not to even have delivery from remote areas, they build the station at the mine, and extract it straight into the boilers...$3/cum extraction costs, and 3 cum per tonne of black coal equivalent.

This is pretty interesting regarding lignite
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-29/di...962?pfmredir=sm

finely ground, and emulsified, they can run it in industrial diesels (including the giant ship engines) at way better than thermal station efficiencies.