Liquid fuels from carbon dioxide

[ronwagn + 6,290]

You state that natural gas lost market share from 1970. Do you have a  reference?

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

35 minutes ago, nsdp said:

No but consumers do have a vote. Look at the industrial shift to self generation in the late 1970's and early 1980's when electric prices rose because of fuel costs.  It took natural gas 50 years too recover market share from 1970.  there is this thing some times called the utility death spiral which is what natural gas experienced.   It is often called demand destruction. You would do well to read this:https://alcse.org/utility-death-spiral/

Bah, you simply had too much deregulation. If there is only one unified principle grid/pipeline Soviet style network operator, you reap positive network externalities according to the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

which is proportional to the square to the connected nodes.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Andrei Moutchkine

[nsdp + 449]

6 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

You state that natural gas lost market share from 1970. Do you have a  reference?

In Texas 90% of all generation was natural gas when I started work . Houston Lighting and power company was 100% NG.   If you remember natural gas had climbed to $2/mmbtu in 1975. from 20cents in 1970. Houston Lighting and Power lost 600 mw at Dow to self generation, 400mw  at Diamond Shamrock Chloralkali, 100mw as Armco moved its National Supply tubulars back to Pittsburg closing the Houston plant, 120 mw at US Steel Baytown as they moved oil field steel to Mexico, 160mw at Amoco Texas City refinery  and Chemicals and Chocolate Bayou Chemicals, 80 mw at Exxon Baytown and 40mw at  Exxon Chemicals, 60mw at Shell Deer Park , 80 mw at ARCO LLyondell, 15mw at Texasgulf at New Gulf, 50 mw at Phillips 66 at Old Ocean, `14mw at American Rice Mills, 8 mw University of Houston, 5 mw at Rice University. Trinity Portland closed three plants at 10 mw. Monsanto Texas city was 35 mw, Marathon Oil was 40 mw and Texas City refining about 15 mw.  other than Dow it took the others 3 years to cancel contracts plus time to get air permits and time to build  replacement generation. Here is EXXON Baytown https://www.puc.texas.gov/industry/electric/directories/pgc/report_pgc.aspx?ID=PGSQL01DB1245458100037

Here is the PUCT Texas generator list  and you can look up plants and see how much self generation they have installed now and the utility company who used to serve them.   It wsn't confined to HL&P. https://www.puc.texas.gov/industry/electric/directories/pgc/alpha_pgc.aspx

EASTMAN CHEMICAL COMPANY https://www.puc.texas.gov/industry/electric/directories/pgc/report_pgc.aspx?ID=PGSQL01DB124545810008

CONOCOPHILLIPS SWEENEY COGEN GP INC https://www.puc.texas.gov/industry/electric/directories/pgc/report_pgc.aspx?ID=PGSQL01DB1245458100022

If you were working in the oil patch in Texas , Louisiana, Kansas,  Oklahoma or New Mexico , you had to be aware of the change. Gas generation  lost load because the industrial shad another option.

[nsdp + 449]

1 hour ago, Andrei Moutchkine said:

Bah, you simply had too much deregulation. If there is only one unified principle grid/pipeline Soviet style network operator, you reap positive network externalizes according to the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

which is proportional to the square to the connected nodes.

Gee that great in a dictatorship.   We don't have that. We have competitive markets  so Adam Smith prevails.

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

5 minutes ago, nsdp said:

Gee that great in a dictatorship.   We don't have that. We have competitive markets  so Adam Smith prevails.

One is no better than another - brutal primitivism and ad absurdum reductionism. There is place for both competition and cooperation to any real business. Did you know that Marxism is a branch of political economy Adam Smith started? The better econ programs are teaching it again.

Seriously though, why are the telecom networks are supposed to get better as they get larger, but pipeline networks always the opposite? In more specialist circles, it is well understood that electrical grids also profiteer from economies of scale in the direction of large. There is actually a whole argument for specifically globally interconnected grid called "the Dyson grid" (after Freeman Dyson, not sure if he actually invented it himself)