Crude Oil/Natural Gas Usage Breakdown by Product

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » February 21, 2006, 5:02 pm

Anyone have any decently reliable estimates on the breakdown of Crude Oil/Natural Gas usage by product or product type? (ie percentage of volume used as fuels, plastics, fertilizers etc). I figure they must be out there for petroleum engineering folks etc. But damned if I can google em up.

NM: found some numbers @

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/ ... oducts.htm

redeemed · Post by **redeemed** » February 21, 2006, 5:18 pm

go yellow!

Truant · Post by **Truant** » February 21, 2006, 6:32 pm

So what we were talking about on the other thread.

While cutting down on the demand in residential power usage would be good for our friend, the earth. It would be such a small change compared to manufacturing usage or transportation.

So then I wonder why we are focusing so much on it? Is it just happy smoke and mirrors to make us think that we are solving the energy crisis, when in fact we still haven't a clue what to do?

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » February 21, 2006, 7:45 pm

Truant wrote:So what we were talking about on the other thread.

While cutting down on the demand in residential power usage would be good for our friend, the earth. It would be such a small change compared to manufacturing usage or transportation.

So then I wonder why we are focusing so much on it? Is it just happy smoke and mirrors to make us think that we are solving the energy crisis, when in fact we still haven't a clue what to do?

Well it is the easiest place to cut...

The real solution long term is to reduce the population and work on zero net footprint...So basically we are prolly fucked long-term cause the people who know this aren't the ones breeding like rabbits...

But yeah it is largely sunshine up your ass imo...we get a finite amount of energy per year from the sun (all of the energy we get is from the sun with the exception of nuclear)...if we use more than that we are at a net loss...if we can get to net zero we can cruise until the sun goes out...

To last we basically have to balance consumption with input...We have known this ermmmm for centuries really, entropy is a very old concept we just think we can beat the laws of physics...

Another reason god is a dangerous concept...it lets us think we are above natural law...

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » February 21, 2006, 7:48 pm

Just adding this comment to a random thread because I don't want to start another one...

What's with this Port deal? Bush must be getting some major kickbacks for his buddies in this deal. On the surface it seems obvious that something fishy is going on but I don't know enough about how port security works to know for sure.

Any schooner captains out there? Is placing an middle eastern country in charge of our security as insane as it sounds?

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » February 21, 2006, 7:52 pm

Winnow wrote:Just adding this comment to a random thread because I don't want to start another one...

What's with this Port deal? Bush must be getting some major kickbacks for his buddies in this deal. On the surface it seems obvious that something fishy is going on but I don't know enough about how port security works to know for sure.

Any schooner captains out there? Is placing an middle eastern country in charge of our security as insane as it sounds?

Outsourcing is always good! Until you have sold it all down the river...

And by the way...

http://www.veeshanvault.org/forums/view ... hp?t=16974

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » February 21, 2006, 8:04 pm

Replacing civic power needs with non-fossil fuels would be a step in the right direction anyway. Having ANYTHING in place that is truly clean and renewable invites more progress across the board. For example, fuel cell technology is basically a conversion of electricity that was made at a plant which could power a city into a more portable form of energy. If that plant is a coal plant, then youre really not accomplishing anything except replacing gasoline with coal. But if its from a renewable and clean source then you are truly teh winner, without that then fuel cell technology is slapping a buzzword on fossil fuels.

Tangurena · Post by **Tangurena** » February 23, 2006, 2:32 am

I am surprised that the doe link was completely missing anhydrous ammonia from its list of uses for natural gas. It is one of the most common fertilizers in use.

The nitrogen fertilizer industry relies upon natural gas as the fundamental feedstock ingredient for the production of nitrogen fertilizer. Natural gas represents 70 to 90 percent of the production cost of one ton of anhydrous ammonia – the building block for most other forms of commercial nitrogen plant nutrients.
Since 1999 – when natural gas prices began rising – 20 nitrogen fertilizer plants have closed. Of those 20 plants, 17 have closed permanently.

Source
Older article
Perhaps the anhydrous ammonia was removed from the list because it is also used to make meth, and a number of farms have AA stolen each year.

Rising natural gas prices, combined with drop in soybean futures (due to massive culls in the european poultry industry - they expect around 25% of the euro poultry industry will be killed to prevent H5N1 from spreading) have squeezed a number of farmers. Many will lose less money sitting out the growing season than growing food.