71
2007). The Nazis also lost access to oilfields in the Caucasus and the strategic oilfields at Ploesti, Romania as the armies of the Soviet Union drove them westward.
Heavy German tanks like the Panzer II and the Tiger guzzled fuel, and keeping them
supplied was challenging even under good conditions. In some skirmishes late in
the war, such as the Battle of the Bulge, many German armored vehicles simply ran
out of fuel and ended up stranded on the battlefield.
In desperation, the Germans set up synthetic fuel or “synfuel” plants to make
liquid fuels from coal, which was abundant in Germany and Poland. The synthesis
process had been invented in the 1920s by two German chemists: Franz Fischer and
Hans Tropsch. The “Fischer-Tropsch” (FT) catalytic chemical process works by
first creating synthesis gas from coal (the carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas mixture described earlier in the manufacture of “town gas”). Transition metal catalysts
such as iron, cobalt, or nickel are used to convert this syngas into paraffin and olefin
wax composed of long-chain hydrocarbons. The wax is then cracked into shorter
chain hydrocarbons to produce the desired liquid fuels (source DOE websites).
This so-called coal-to-liquids (CTL) process is complicated and expensive.
During the war, of course, the Nazis cared little about the cost, but American consumers were not willing to pay a higher price for synfuels just to be free of OPEC
oil. DOE pushed hard to improve the economics by funding a variety of synfuel
pilot projects in the 1980s aimed at making the process more streamlined and efficient, and bringing the cost of the resulting products more in line with traditional
fuels refined from petroleum and natural gas. Although many of these concepts
worked physically, all were abject economic failures. No matter how efficient the
synfuels manufacturing processes became, none were ever able to produce liquid
fuels that were cost-competitive with petroleum. Many of these old CTL pilot projects remain visible across the American landscape today (Fig. 4.2).
Natural gas was viewed by DOE as an under-utilized fuel that could displace
heating oil and fuel oil, effectively freeing-up liquid hydrocarbon resources to provide more diesel fuel and gasoline for vehicles. Research on new sources of natural
gas supply focused initially on developing the technology to efficiently recover gas
from coal seams, tight sands, gas dissolved in deep brines under high pressures
(known as geopressured aquifers), and gas in organic-rich, black shales (Schrider
and Wise 1980). Natural gas resources added later on included methane hydrates,
secondary recovery of gas trapped in watered-out conventional reservoirs, and abiogenic gas, a controversial hypothesis that claims primordial methane from the formation of the solar system still exists deep within the Earth.
Oil and gas resources fall into two broad categories: conventional and unconventional. As explained back in Chap. 1, the types of source rock that create oil and gas
tend to be fine-grained and very low in permeability. Conventional O&G resources
require five things: (1) an organic-rich source rock, (2) sufficient thermal maturity
to generate petroleum and natural gas, (3) a suitably porous and permeable reservoir
rock, (4) a trap and seal on the reservoir rock, and (5) a migration pathway from
source to reservoir (Selley 2014). The challenges inherent in having all of these
occur in the right order and with the correct timing makes the discovery of huge
4.3 The Unconventional Solution
2007). The Nazis also lost access to oilfields in the Caucasus and the strategic oilfields at Ploesti, Romania as the armies of the Soviet Union drove them westward.
Heavy German tanks like the Panzer II and the Tiger guzzled fuel, and keeping them
supplied was challenging even under good conditions. In some skirmishes late in
the war, such as the Battle of the Bulge, many German armored vehicles simply ran
out of fuel and ended up stranded on the battlefield.
In desperation, the Germans set up synthetic fuel or “synfuel” plants to make
liquid fuels from coal, which was abundant in Germany and Poland. The synthesis
process had been invented in the 1920s by two German chemists: Franz Fischer and
Hans Tropsch. The “Fischer-Tropsch” (FT) catalytic chemical process works by
first creating synthesis gas from coal (the carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas mixture described earlier in the manufacture of “town gas”). Transition metal catalysts
such as iron, cobalt, or nickel are used to convert this syngas into paraffin and olefin
wax composed of long-chain hydrocarbons. The wax is then cracked into shorter
chain hydrocarbons to produce the desired liquid fuels (source DOE websites).
This so-called coal-to-liquids (CTL) process is complicated and expensive.
During the war, of course, the Nazis cared little about the cost, but American consumers were not willing to pay a higher price for synfuels just to be free of OPEC
oil. DOE pushed hard to improve the economics by funding a variety of synfuel
pilot projects in the 1980s aimed at making the process more streamlined and efficient, and bringing the cost of the resulting products more in line with traditional
fuels refined from petroleum and natural gas. Although many of these concepts
worked physically, all were abject economic failures. No matter how efficient the
synfuels manufacturing processes became, none were ever able to produce liquid
fuels that were cost-competitive with petroleum. Many of these old CTL pilot projects remain visible across the American landscape today (Fig. 4.2).
Natural gas was viewed by DOE as an under-utilized fuel that could displace
heating oil and fuel oil, effectively freeing-up liquid hydrocarbon resources to provide more diesel fuel and gasoline for vehicles. Research on new sources of natural
gas supply focused initially on developing the technology to efficiently recover gas
from coal seams, tight sands, gas dissolved in deep brines under high pressures
(known as geopressured aquifers), and gas in organic-rich, black shales (Schrider
and Wise 1980). Natural gas resources added later on included methane hydrates,
secondary recovery of gas trapped in watered-out conventional reservoirs, and abiogenic gas, a controversial hypothesis that claims primordial methane from the formation of the solar system still exists deep within the Earth.
Oil and gas resources fall into two broad categories: conventional and unconventional. As explained back in Chap. 1, the types of source rock that create oil and gas
tend to be fine-grained and very low in permeability. Conventional O&G resources
require five things: (1) an organic-rich source rock, (2) sufficient thermal maturity
to generate petroleum and natural gas, (3) a suitably porous and permeable reservoir
rock, (4) a trap and seal on the reservoir rock, and (5) a migration pathway from
source to reservoir (Selley 2014). The challenges inherent in having all of these
occur in the right order and with the correct timing makes the discovery of huge
4.3 The Unconventional Solution