In a ClimateCrocks exclusive, an equal opportunity exploding head news item.
Fittingly, the video above has no sound.
Chevron Corp. (CVX), the second-largest U.S. oil company, began extracting crude from a southern California field using steam produced by a 29-megawatt solar- thermal power plant.
BrightSource Energy Inc.’s system uses mirrors to focus sunlight on a boiler at Chevron’s Coalinga, California, enhanced oil recovery project, the solar company said in a statement after extraction began today.
Solar-thermal technology companies such as BrightSource are targeting industrial users in the oil-recovery and food- processing industries as customers as well as power generation.
Chevron is using the power of the sun to increase crude production at the one of the oldest oil fields in the United States. If the demonstration project is successful, solar could eventually replace natural gas as the go-to fuel used in enhance oil recovery projects around the world.
The 29-megawatt thermal solar-to-steam facility officially launched Monday at the Chevron’s Coalinga Oil Field in the San Joaquin Valley. The field began operations in the 1890s and contains heavy crude oil, which is more difficult to extract than lighter grades. Traditionally, the oil industry will use steam generated by burning natural gas to heat the crude, which reduces its viscosity and makes the oil easier to produce. The traditional process works. It’s also extremely energy intensive, which means it’s expensive and significantly increases the carbon footprint of an operation.
The stupidity of this is truly astounding. If solar energy is a viable power source (for the avoidance of any doubt, I think it is), it should replace oil (which should be left in the ground). The only reason this will not happen (very soon) is that saving the planet would question the wisdom – if not jeopardise – the continuance of many peoples’ energy jobs. But which is more important, saving the planet, or keeping people in non-sensical jobs? We are quite-literally seeing Aldous Huxley’s classic science-fiction book of 1931, Brave New World finally becoming a reality!
The snail’s pace at which the global economy is investing in a post fossil fuel economy is dreadful. However, within that reality, this is a glass is half full project.
An oil and gas company is buying solar energy because it’s cheaper than their own product.
Chevron is using carbon neutral energy to extract oil from existing wells, an alternative to exploring for that oil in the Arctic, for example.
BrightSource undercut our new energy “savior”, natural gas, by 25%.
BrightSource, an American company, undercut European CSP competitors by 70%.
This is just an absolute classic.
When you know people who live off the grid you aren’t surprised by this sort of news.
Just imagine what sort of things could be done if there was more money for development instead of smear campaigns.
This is an excellent illustration of a point I’ve made many times about the supposed carbon cost of making electric vehicles and whatnot. We don’t need fossil fuels to extract minerals. We don’t need them to refine minerals.
Basically, we don’t need them for ANYTHING.
Hold on, folks! There is both a physical and an economic basis for this project. The physical basis is that, when you convert heat energy into electrical energy, you suffer a big loss. The thermodynamic efficiency of thermal power plants is only about 35% – 40%. In other words, at least 60% of the heat energy generated by any thermal plant (and that includes concentrated solar thermal) is lost. This plant uses the heat directly, meaning that there is zero lost energy.
The economics depend upon the supply of oil and its viscosity. If there’s a lot of viscous oil down there, then this can definitely be a cost-effective project. You can disagree with the value systems of these corporations, but surely you’ll agree that, when it comes to making money, they’re no fools.
Their 29 MW plant would generate only 10 MW of electricity — and the additional equipment (turbine, generator, electrical switchyard) would add to its costs.
Why are we denigrating the use of solar power? Is it because an oil corporation is using it? This is a salutary development!
Whilst I am familiar with the thermodynamics of it all, I cannot fault the logic of Greenpeace, who say that we must learn to “Go beyond oil“.
Even though it is there, and we can get to it, we must have the self-control not to use it. The continuing failure of so-called “sceptics” to grasp this logic can only be explained, IMHO, by an inability (or reluctance) to accept what will be the unprecedented long-term consequences of our continuing with anything remotely resembling “business as usual“.
We are way past the point where greenwash and gesture politics will suffice, it is time for radical changes; radical change was overdue 20 years ago.