Louisiana Research Paper
There are many types of energy sources in Louisiana that produce natural gas, coal, solar, and biomass. Out of these, petroleum and natural gas are the largest producers of electricity in Louisiana. Together, coal and natural gas make up 78%% of Louisiana’s energy. Actually, coal makes up 21% and natural gas 57% of this states energy. So this means that natural gas and coal are very important to Louisiana’s energy production and consumption. The four types of energy consumers are industrial, residential, commercial, and agricultural.
Natural Gas covers 38% of Louisiana’s energy sources. Louisiana is the second-largest state in the U.S. that produces natural gas. Many people buy natural gas to use it in their homes
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and kitchens for cooking on stoves, ovens, and fireplaces. “The turbines suck in air, mix it with the fuel and ignite a fireball. The hot gases from the fireball impact the blades of the turbine to cause motion, creating mechanical energy. The turbine, connected to a generator by a shaft, spins and powers the generator.” (www.cpsenergy.com). This action explains how natural gas turns into electricity. From January 2014-June 2014, Louisiana produced about $63,000 per thousand cubic feet in natural gas. Louisiana has six coal-fired power stations in four locations.
Those locations are Mansfield, Lena, Westlake, Boyce, Calcasieu Parish, and New Roads. These six coal stations produce at an average of 6,136 megawatts (MW). The history in coal is fairly short. Coal has only been produced in Louisiana for about 30 years. Louisiana’s lignite has risen to about 3 million short tons since the mid-1980s. Lignite is a smooth-like texture that is very similar to coal. Lignite was first found in the northwestern part of Louisiana in the early 1800s. At that time, small parts of lignite were used nearby for fuels for blacksmithing and home heating. Throughout the 1800s, lignite was used to heat schools near Mansfield and was tested as a locomotive fuel but the results expressed that it wasn’t appropriate. People slowly lost interest in lignite as Louisiana’s oil and gas fields became more popular and were seen more often. This was around the time of World War II. Lignite was not eligible to compete as a fuel but could form raw materials that made some chemicals such as dyes, fertilizers, and livestock feeds. A large percentage of these products would be transported to Europe especially Germany. In 1985, the Dolet Hills mine began producing lignite to the power plant’s stockpile by a 7.5 -mile-long conveyor. The next year, the plant began commercial operations with a working capability of 650 megawatts. In 1989, a second smaller surface mine was established near the Red River Parish to …show more content…
give extra lignite delivered from a truck. Louisiana Coal-Fired Plant The first oil well in Louisiana was discovered in September 1901. It was estimated to be around 1,700 feet deep and was near the city of Evangeline. The well was drilled in a rice field the property owner was a man named Jules Clement. There are approximately 20,577 oil rigs in Louisiana. From January 2014- June 2014, Louisiana produced around 43,000 barrels of crude oil. In Louisiana, a barrel of crude oil is $105.47!! Petroleum is 3% of Louisiana’s resources. “LOOP has offloaded over eleven billion barrels of foreign and domestically produced crude oil since it began. It is the single-largest point of entry for waterborne crude oil in the U.S. (https://rbnenergy.com) LOOP Offshore Oil Port coming into the U.S."(www.loopllc.com). Oil is the most important source of energy in the world today. Our world relies on oil to fill up our cars, airplanes, boats; (anything that burns oil or gas). Nuclear Energy takes place of 15% of Louisiana’s energy sources. Nuclear facilities support approximately 1,400 high paying jobs all over Louisiana. Yearly, the nuclear energy industry purchases nearly $4 billion of materials, services, and fuel that is transported from about 500 nuclear energy companies across the state. Biomass is abundant in Louisiana, but somehow manages to take up 2% of the state’s energy sources.
Some types of renewable energy sources include wind, solar, light, residue wood, soybeans, corn, sugarcane, rice, wheat, sorghum(milo), cotton, oats.(etc.). These sources show recycling or reusing items. There are so many types of resources in our environment. Many houses can be build out of these resources or recyclables. For example, rice hulls from milling industries can be made into electricity. Did you know that a 13-megawatt plant consumes approximately 600,000 pounds of rice hulls per day. By burning the hulls, a company called Agrilectric Power, located near Lake Charles, will take a liability and turn them into an
asset. Hydroelectric power is only 1% of Louisiana’s energy. The most seen type of hydroelectric power plant includes a dam on a river to store water. This is seen all over the country and is called a water reservoir. The water that travels down the reservoir runs through a spinning turbine, the turning of the turbines causes water to produce electricity. In Louisiana, this action is the only way hydroelectric power is made.
The Powder River Basin coal beds are some of the thickest in the world helping to make the basin one of the top producers not only nationally but globally as well. Although the coals are low rank and therefore not ideal for producing electricity, the sheer amount of coal in the basin makes it very economical to mine these coals. The low ash and low sulfur content of the Powder River Basin coals also make the coal ideal for the current marketplace. The low ash and sulfur content helps to make these coals relatively environmentally friendly in comparison to coals that are mined from places like Illinois, which have higher sulfur contents. The vast amount of resources that the Powder River Basin contains makes this region of the United States a major player when it comes to supplying energy for the next century.
use across all sectors. Natural gas is the second most used energy source in industry, trailing
Oklahoma's oil and natural gas industry is giving us unstoppable progress for energy solutions, but the other parts of the nation are still searching for theirs. While providing jobs for the thousands of people who live in Oklahoma, the oil and natural gas industry not only donates to America's petroleum production, but it also produces millions of dollars for our state’s economy, schools, and roads. Making new headways in our industry every day, artificial technology, scientific breakthroughs, adequate new exploration, and drilling methods took place. Without these upgrades, we would not be able to extract oil and natural gas from challenging fields more efficiently than we can now. As capability rises, environmental impact will continue to go down. In 1897, a tower of surging oil divided the Bartlesville sky. Oklahoma's preliminary drilling swaged badly, brought forth by the federal controls on wellhead prices of natural gas applied to interstate commerce in the 1950s. By 1982, oil prices hit an all time high of $37.60 per barrel. Furthermore, the number of progressive drilling rigs in Oklahoma also hit a record of 882. The total quantity produced from the soul and natural gas industry in Oklahoma reached about 40 billion dollars in 2007. Also, through the gross production tax, oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners gave more than 2 billion dollars to Oklahoma used for teacher retirement, public schools, wildlife management, bridges, roads, and state colleges. Petroleum remains an indispensable Sooner State industry. Natural gas continued to grow in the early 1990s despite of the entire staggering bust that was caused by the plummeting world crude oil p...
Since 1541, Louisiana has been ruled under ten different flags, starting with Hernando de Soto’s flag, a man who claimed the region for Spain (“About Louisiana”). For six weeks after the Civil War had first started, Louisiana had become an independent commonwealth before finally joining the Confederacy. The Louisiana Purchase was negotiated by President Thomas Jefferson, in 1803, in order to get a part of Louisiana in American hands, which was considered essential (“About Louisiana”). Louisiana was a center for trading and finances during most of its early history and it was one of the most prosperous regions in America due to the act that its land was very abundant. On April 30, 1812, after being admitted into the union, Louisiana became the eighteenth state of the United States (“About Louisiana”). Later on, after sulphur and oil were unearthed in 1869 and 1901, Louisiana became a part of the major industry of America that produces oil and natural gas which is what Louisiana is still a part of to this day. Many people assume that the capital of Louisiana is New Orleans because it is the most populated and one of the most popular cities, but the capital is actually Baton Rouge. Louisiana also has a motto that states “Union, Justice, Confidence.” (“About Louisiana”).
The major sources of energy in the US from highest percentage to lowest percentage are oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear fuels, renewable energy
In chapter thirteen of our book, Environment by Raven and Berg, it shows us just how important renewable energy sources are. Currently the United States of America thrives on the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power. The main problems with these types of fuel are that they are both limited and can be extremely harmful to our environment. They cause global warming, air pollution, acid rain, and oil spills (Environment), and not only that, but in the grand scheme of things, these sources really aren’t even that cheap of a fuel source. There are many alternatives to these all but outdated fuel sources.
In addition to the fact that solar, wind, and hydro power are local resources, they are also emission free resources. Emissions and pollution are a key concern with traditional power sources. The coal-fired plants that dominate U.S. energy production also produce more emissions than any other energy source. “Em...
Use of energy resources like that of natural gas and oil will mainly be determined by the government. Different governments want different things but most want energy security. Part of the USAs reasoning for extracting natural gas in northern Alaska is that it increases their energy security as they do not have to rely on importing as much energy from other countries. This means their political decision is what decides the supply of their energy
...ination, hydrogen fuel and solar energy (World Economic Forum 2014). These are technologies that closely related to environmental and recourse preservation, which help the society switch to use renewable energy.
Electricity is one of the chief products of the oil industry. We use oil to heat our homes and businesses. We use oil to produce electricity to light our homes and businesses also.
One of the most compelling arguments for the use of renewable energy is how many forms exist of it. Nuclear power, solar power, wind power, tidal power, hydroelectric power, pumped storage, wave power, geothermal power, biomass, and biogas are the most widely known renewable energy sources (Darvill, 2013). This large selection of fuels supports the idea of renewable fuels one day powering the entire planet. All the sources of energy have different niches and benefits. Solar energy is extremely effective when providing energy for small establishments such as a house or small store, but hydrothermal power would be a more plausible solution for factories or large establishments....
The amazing thing about renewable energy resources is that they do not deplete. These energy resources include energies such as hydroelectric energy, solar energy, wind energy, and geothermal energy. The major advantage of using these resources is that the environmental impact is extremely low when compared to the use of fossil fuels and other energy processes.
There are different kinds of resources that we can use in order to produce renewable energy. Solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power are just some of the kinds of renewable energy that might be the best options to obtain energy because they come from natural resources. Although renewable energy can be expensive to build, it has less environmental damage in comparison to non-renewable energy. Besides the natural resources such as sun, wind, water and hydrogen, we also have geothermal power, and biofuels as renewable sources.
There are two types of resources using to produce electricity, non-renewable energy resources and renewable energy resources. Non-renewable energy resources or known by fossil fuel such as wood, oil, gas and coal can be defined as solid, liquid or gaseous fuels formed in the ground after millions of years by chemical and physical changes in plants and animal residues under high temperature and pressure.
Energy can be put into two broad categories Renewable energy and none renewable energy. Renewable energy sources can be reused continually as they are abundantly found in nature. All of them are non-polluting but devices used to collect the energy may impact the environment adversely. They are free but producing storage equipment or converting them into another form of energy may be costly.