Tag Archives: natural gas

USGS Releases U.S. Oil & Gas Reserve Growth Estimates

By Guest PostAugust 18, 2012Environment, Politicsbillion barrels, domestic oil, energy economy, fossil fuel, gas liquids, gas reserve, geologic information, ken salazar, marcia mcnutt, natural gas, obama administration, operating condition, projection, public domain, tcf, trillion cubic feet, united states, usgs, usgs assessment

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has released a new estimate for potential additions to domestic oil and gas reserves from reserve growth in discovered, conventional accumulations in the United States. The USGS estimates that the mean potential undiscovered, conventional reserve additions for the United States total 32 billion barrels (bb) of oil, 291 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, and 10 bb of natural gas liquids, constituting about 10 percent of the overall U.S. oil and gas endowment.

“As part of the Obama Administration’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, we are taking aggressive steps to safely and responsibly expand domestic energy production,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “USGS’s ongoing work to identify and estimate U.S. energy supplies – and to make that information available to everyone – is fundamental to our efforts to continue to grow America’s energy economy.” (more…)

Yale Researchers Find New Cause of Climate Change: Trees

By Guest PostAugust 10, 2012Environmentangelita williams, cause, climate change, connecticut, diseased trees, emissions, fungus, global warming, greenhouse gas, groundbreaking, methane concentration, methane gas, methanogens, natural gas, organisms, rotting trees, trees, upland forest, yale, yale myers forest

Researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies have discovered that diseased trees may be a significant cause of global warming. The university’s researchers tested the trees at the Yale Myers Forest near their campus in Connecticut and discovered that rotting trees release a significant amount of methane gas, a highly flammable type of natural gas that can cause climate change in large quantities. The trees at the Yale Myers Forest produce emissions that are equivalent to burning 40 gallons of gas per acre of forest per year.

In their academic report on this matter, “Elevated Methane Concentrations in Trees of an Upland Forest,” the Yale University research team noted that trees that release methane gas look just like ordinary trees on the outside. However, on the inside, they’re being eaten alive by fungus. And the fungus that rots these trees helps fuel methane production because it makes the trees a hospitable breeding ground for methanogens, tiny organisms that create methane. (more…)

Scientists Define New Limits of Microbial Life in Undersea Volcanoes

By Guest PostAugust 10, 2012Environment, Scienceaxial volcano, biogeochemical cycle, biological, biosphere, bruce strickrott, carbon dioxide, chemical, chemical factor, computer model, david butterfield, david garrison, deep ocean, earth, endeavour segment, fluid, formation, geochemical fluid, giraffe, growth rate, helene ver eecke, hydrogen, hydrogen threshold, hydrothermal fluid, hydrothermal vent, hyperthermophiles, hyperthermophilic, hyperthermophilic methanogens, james holden, julie huber, marine sediments, marvin lilley, metabolic process, methane, methane exhaling microbes, methanogen ecosystem, methanogenic, microbial composition, microbial life, microbiologist, natural gas, ocean surface, penguin, species, submarine alvin, subsurface microorganism, undersea volcanoes

A third of Earth’s organisms live in rocks and sediments, but their lives have been a mystery

By some estimates, a third of Earth’s organisms live in our planet’s rocks and sediments, yet their lives are almost a complete mystery.

This week, the work of microbiologist James Holden of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and colleagues shines a light into this dark world.

In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they report the first detailed data on methane-exhaling microbes that live deep in the cracks of hot undersea volcanoes. (more…)

Hydrogen from Acidic Water: Berkeley Lab Researchers Develop a Potential Low Cost Alternative to Platinum for Splitting Water

By Guest PostFebruary 12, 2012Scienceacidic, acidic water, artificial photosynthesis, berkeley lab, catalyst, catalytic hydrogen generation, christopher chang, elizabeth montalvo, emission, hemamala karunadasa, hhmi, hydrogen gas, jeffrey long, low cost alternatives, marcin majda, microdomains, molecule, molybdenite, molybdenite crystals, molybdenum disulfide, natural gas, pentapyridyl ligand, petroleum, photocatalytic systems, platinum, py5me2, reduction, sulfur, sulfur dioxide, water, yujie sun

A technique for creating a new molecule that structurally and chemically replicates the active part of the widely used industrial catalyst molybdenite has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This technique holds promise for the creation of catalytic materials that can serve as effective low-cost alternatives to platinum for generating hydrogen gas from water that is acidic.

Christopher Chang and Jeffrey Long, chemists who hold joint appointments with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, led a research team that synthesized a molecule to mimic the triangle-shaped molybdenum disulfide units along the edges of molybdenite crystals, which is where almost all of the catalytic activity takes place. Since the bulk of molybdenite crystalline material is relatively inert from a catalytic standpoint, molecular analogs of the catalytically active edge sites could be used to make new materials that are much more efficient and cost-effective catalysts. (more…)

Four WHOI Scientists Contribute to Comprehensive Picture of the Fate of Oil from Deepwater Horizon Spill

By Guest PostJanuary 16, 2012Environment, Scienceairborne plume, autonomous underwater vehicle, benzene, christopher reddy, ctds, dan torres, deep-water, deepwater horizon, elizabeth kujawinski, environmental distribution, fluid, gas components, gulf of mexico, hydrocarbon flow rate, jeffrey seewald, macondo well, mass balance, methane, natural gas, noaa p 3 planes, oceanographic instrument, oil and gas, remotely operated vehicle, richard camilli, rov, sampling techniques, sentry, spill, spill rate, subsurface chemical data, tethys, thomas ryerson, well, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution

A new study provides a composite picture of the environmental distribution of oil and gas from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It amasses a vast collection of available atmospheric, surface and subsurface chemical data to assemble a “mass balance” of how much oil and gas was released, where it went and the chemical makeup of the compounds that remained in the air, on the surface, and in the deep water.

The study, “Chemical data quantify Deepwater Horizon hydrocarbon flow rate and environmental distribution,” is published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. (more…)

Links in the Chain: Global Carbon Emissions and Consumption

By Guest PostOctober 19, 2011Environmentburning fuels, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide emissions, carbon-based fuels, carnegie institution for science, earth’s atmosphere, fossil energy resources, gross domestic product, ken caldeira, national academy of sciences, natural gas, steven davis

Washington, D.C. — It is difficult to measure accurately each nation’s contribution of carbon dioxide to the Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon is extracted out of the ground as coal, gas, and oil, and these fuels are often exported to other countries where they are burned to generate the energy that is used to make products. In turn, these products may be traded to still other countries where they are consumed. A team led by Carnegie’s Steven Davis, and including Ken Caldeira, tracked and quantified this supply chain of global carbon dioxide emissions. Their work will be published online by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of October 17. (more…)

Scientists Identify Microbes Responsible for Consuming Natural Gas in Deepwater Horizon Spill

By Guest PostOctober 7, 2011Environmentapril spill, bacteria, cold loving bacteria, colwellia, cycloclasticus, david valentine, deepwater horizon oil spill, DNA, ecological history, ethane, geological past, gulf of mexico, methane, microbe, molly redmond, national science foundation, natural gas, oceanography, oceanospirillales, petroleum hydrocarbons, propane, psychrophilic, sequencing dna, spill, submerged plume, surface oil slicks, ucsb, university of california at santa barbara, water temperature

*Water temperature played key role*

In the results of a new study, scientists explain how they used DNA to identify microbes present in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill–and the particular microbes responsible for consuming natural gas immediately after the spill.

Water temperature played a key role in the way bacteria reacted to the spill, the researchers found. (more…)

Significant Natural Gas Resources Remain to Be Discovered in Cook Inlet, Alaska

By Guest PostJuly 1, 2011Economy, Environmentalaska, alaska division of oil and gas, brenda pierce, coalbed gas, cook inlet, cook inlet region, natural gas, oil and gas resources, petroleum potential, U.S. Geological Survey, usgs, usgs assessment

The Cook Inlet Region of Alaska contains an estimated mean of 19 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, about 600 million barrels of oil, and 46 million barrels of natural gas liquids, according to a new assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This estimate is of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources, and includes both unconventional and conventional resources.

These gas estimates are significantly more than the last USGS assessment of southern Alaska in 1995, in which a mean of 2.14 trillion cubic feet of gas was estimated. This increase in the undiscovered resource is attributed to new geologic information and data. (more…)