Power Earth for 217 years using H2, from Proton's process

To approximate the full potential of Proton’s process to make low cost H2, we need to approximate the volume of hydrocarbons that exist on Earth. This doesn’t count adding organic-rich waste streams like raw sewage and agricultural by-products into these reactors; those are additive. Let’s do a simple conservative calculation: 

Resource Pyramid

As an exploration geologist working for very large oil companies, I was amazed at the large amount of hydrocarbon resources that could be unlocked by a small upward shift in commodity price, or the pain for so many projects caused by a small downward price shift. Vast resources can come onstream based on modest price upticks. Imagine a “resource pyramid” with the very best, biggest, and easiest to find and produce at the very top. These “easy” resources are what the world has dominantly been working with. While discovering these good ones over the last 150 years or so, a bunch of shabby fields and opportunities were also found, which were uneconomic at the time they were discovered. For example, in early days “gushers” that brought the oil to surface were sought after. Eventually people designed various pumps or techniques that brought oil up from shabby or tired fields. Gradually methods continue to improve, making oilfields once thought too shabby, or too distant from infrastructure, to become exciting economically. Worldwide, budgets have shifted from finding new resources to developing slightly shabbier, but already known ones through clever lower cost techniques.

The world is amazingly full of shabby but vast hydrocarbon resources. Many are logistically or politically difficult to access. So far, we’re only scratching the least shabby of the shabby (shale resources and heavy oil in easy to access places). There are a lot of other types of “marginal” enormous hydrocarbon resources; immature kerogen deposits, very deep offshore or onshore deposits, a lot of tight but saturated rocks, resources with higher than desired water saturation, clathrate hydrates, and virtually unexplored fractured Precambrian zones worldwide. These increasingly challenging hydrocarbon sources are the base of the pyramid; relatively enormous by volume compared to economic reserves.

Despite the relative lack of interest in new exploration, discoveries continue to happen. For example, the 50-billion-barrel field Iran recently found. “But wait”, some of you will note, “that’s 50 billion barrels of oil in place. Not oil reserves which are defined as economically recoverable”. Well that’s the thing. Proton’s method is useful for “oil in place” and doesn’t care how much is conventionally recoverable. So, while perhaps 5 billion barrels of the new Iran discovery are economically recoverable oil reserves, almost all 50 can be exploited in place, without bringing anything to the surface except H2.

It is unfortunate that Wikipedia doesn’t provide a database of oil in place. Oil companies, governments, and even academics mainly care about, study, and plan based on economically recoverable reserves. The tight portions of rock in the Permian basin have been known about since the Permian began producing 89 years ago. Everyone thought those over-pressured zones were just annoying geological hazards. The same sentiment was widespread in Canada. Early in my career when I suggested drilling horizontals, I recall a VP banging his fist on the table toward the end of the meeting suggesting with exuberance that I was unaware that horizontal wells cost more than verticals!

To the point, the Wilrich was not assessed as having reserves in 2005 even though it was packed with highly pressured hydrocarbons. The relatively low porosity hadn’t yet made it a drilling target in 2005, but not long after, a lot of bankable Wilrich reserves were booked. The same is true of many other types of geological challenges; until someone proves that it can be done economically it doesn’t exist, even if basic principals of physics strongly suggest a path. Someone has to invest and prove it. That step is where the really big value is quickly unlocked. 

The same basic mindset challenge prevails in relation to Proton’s method and potential. My advice here is essentially the same as for the Wilrich; extrapolate from known principals and precedent analogs. In the case of the Wilrich, by 2005 horizontal drilling was not mysterious. It was new but proven elsewhere. Similarly, oxidizing oil fields is well-known to produce a lot of H2. It is also well known that gases move through rock more easily than liquids like oil move through rocks. So, it is easier to get oxygen to oil, and resulting H2 to a well, than trying to move oil to a well. This provides numerous efficiencies and allows energy to be extracted from oil that will never make its way to a production well. 

Now back to the challenge of quantifying our relevant portion of the resource pyramid; the big bottom.

A conservative approach is to extrapolate using Canada as an example. Canada has at least 2 trillion barrels of oil in place, not counting the arctic, offshore, natural gas, or really weird types of deposits. Canada has 170 billion barrels of oil reserves. So, 8.5% of Canada’s oil in place is considered economically recoverable reserves. If we apply the same ratio to the whole world which so far has “proved” roughly 1.7 trillion barrels, we might assume 20 trillion barrels of oil in place. As an aside, my observations as an exploration geologist lead me to believe 20 trillion bbls is a low estimate. Despite this I’ll set aside my abundant oil hobby-horse, and stick with what is a reasonably conservative number for a conventionally acceptable volume.

20 trillion barrels in place is easy math because it’s 10 times more than what I posted in a prior article in reference to Alberta. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-inexpensively-power-canada-700-years-h2-grant-strem/

10 times more is 900 billion tonnes of H2, or 128 trillion GJ’s.

The world bank says that total primary energy supply for the world is 14,000 million tonnes of oil equivalent per year. At 42 GJ per tonne, that’s 588 billion GJ per year. So Proton’s process has the potential to power the entire world for 217 years at current energy consumption rate. With no emissions. That assumes no hydroelectric power, no nuclear power, no geothermal power, no solar power, no wind power, no other breakthroughs or sources. Which of course is silly to assume.

The key point to consider here is that Proton might have the lowest cost, least-polluting method to produce energy at extremely large scale. H2 at 10 cents per kg is our initial target.

It takes a lot of energy to break water (H2O) apart. This can be done through electrolysis or high temperature reactions. Hydrocarbons release a lot of energy when oxidized. This energy is known to cause reactions that break H2 out of H2O.

The main constraint for H2 production is the amount of energy available to break H2O. In our case, the limitation is the rate O2 gets at the fuel (oil in the ground). O2 is available everywhere on Earth. Roughly 20 trillion barrels of oil is accessible; relatively shallow in Earth’s crust. Shabby oil fields or shabby parts of oil fields, are essentially free.

Lot's of free fuel, oxygen everywhere on Earth; it’s not hard to imagine the potential here!

Our future is abundant clean energy. Let’s unlock it quickly together.

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Grant