Planet Carbon

UK to start 'non-competitive' EUA auction

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T17:04:52Z

The UK will change the way it holds auctions of EUAs to allow small companies to bid directly.

Antarctica: The Birds Think I Should Go [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-14T10:59:01-05:00

Image: Bob O'Hara, I Can Has CheeseBurger.

I need your vote to win an essay contest to be the official blogger on a one month cruise in Antarctica. This cruise takes place in February 2010. To vote, you must register your email address on the site and you can only cast one vote per email address.The Antarctica official blogger contest ends at noon EDT on 30 September 2009.

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Another Week of GW News, September 13, 2009 [A Few Things Ill Considered]

nobody@example.com (coby none@example.com) — 2009-09-14T07:50:14-08:00

Sipping from the internet firehose...

This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H.E.Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup

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Fuel Cell Trains

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-09-14T15:44:00Z

I often use my gym time to catch up on interesting podcasts, and NPR's excellent Science Friday series is one of my favorite sources. I just caught up with a recent segment on the development of hydrogen-powered trains, which seem like a particularly clever application of a promising technology that must still overcome serious obstacles in its automotive applications. But while I give the host, Ira Flatow, credit for pursuing the question of where the hydrogen for trains would come from, his guests' answers left something to be desired. That's not just because they tended to downplay the emissions associated with producing hydrogen, but because this omission might result in ignoring what could be an even better, more efficient fuel-cell configuration for trains and other large vehicles.

The basic idea of powering trains with fuel cells offers several important advantages--and one very serious disadvantage--for rail companies and their stakeholders. It also represents a less revolutionary change for rail than for automobiles, since trains are already partially or wholly-electrified, and a fuel cell is just another way to generate that electricity. Even the diesel locomotives that fuel-cell locos would be intended to replace are really diesel-electric hybrids. The key benefits of using fuel cells instead of big diesels for this application include substantial reductions in local pollutants, including soot, along with much quieter operation. Unfortunately, even if fuel cell trains could circumvent many of the infrastructure hurdles that have impeded automotive fuel cells, they still look prohibitively expensive. Diesels are pretty cheap on the basis of $ per kilowatt of generating capacity, while fuel cells are still much pricier, by at least a factor of 10.

Ignoring cost, fuel cell trains would face fewer obstacles to wide-scale deployment than fuel cell cars. As one of the program's guest pointed out, hydrogen storage, the Achilles heel of fuel cell cars, is not a problem in this situation. If necessary, a fuel cell train could carry an entire tank-car of compressed hydrogen behind the locomotive, and it wouldn't alter the train's performance or cost appreciably. That would also reduce the need for a widely-dispersed refueling infrastructure. For that matter, a train could carry along its own refueling set-up, in the form of an electrolyzer and compressor. It would require only fresh water--reminiscent of the coal-burning locos of yore--and a place to plug in. However, when you follow that plug back to its ultimate source, you find that the CO2 emissions of a hydrogen train could be quite a bit higher than zero, and possibly even higher than those of the diesel train it would replace, because our power generating mix is still dominated by fossil fuels.

So whether the H2 for a fuel cell train would be produced from natural gas, as most of the substantial quantity of industrial H2 in the US is, or from grid electricity, it results in CO2 emissions somewhere. In fact, because electrolysis of water into H2 is only about 80% efficient, the associated emissions of electrolytic H2 used to fuel a train would be 25% higher than the average of the grid power used to produce it. And although it's theoretically possible to generate H2 solely from off-peak renewable electricity when the latter is not being used to back out higher-emitting power sources, the capital cost of that route is much higher, because it would only operate a small fraction of the time. At least for the near-to-medium term, most H2 will likely be generated from natural gas, and that argues for a very different configuration for the fuel cell train than the one considered in this episode of Science Friday. Instead of using low-temperature automotive-design fuel cells, which require a source of pure H2, a high-temperature fuel cell of the type used for stationary power generation might make more sense. Not only do these operate more efficiently, resulting in lower overall emissions, but they can also run directly on natural gas and other light hydrocarbons, producing the H2 they require internally, rather than externally. In that case, the fuel tank for a fuel cell locomotive might just be an ordinary propane tank car, for which the entire supply chain is already well-developed.

If you've ever waited for a train in an underground or partially-enclosed station with several diesel locomotives idling away, you'll probably join me in wishing the hydrogen train test project team good luck with this initiative. The benefits of converting trains to fuel cells seem obvious, assuming this can ever be done at a competitive cost. At the same time, I hope the developers will take a broader view of hydrogen as not just another fuel, but as part of our overall energy ecology. That might lead them to an even more viable, beneficial result, with a better chance of showing up in real train yards, and eventually even passenger trains.

European offshore wind could cut 200mt of CO2

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T15:28:26Z

Offshore wind in Europe has the potential to make big cuts in CO2 emissions, a wind lobby said.

Canada's tar sands conundrum [The Island of Doubt]

nobody@example.com (James Hrynyshyn none@example.com) — 2009-09-14T10:10:41-05:00

One of Canada's best journalists, Andrew Nikiforuk, is the author of a just-released report on Canada's tar sands from Greenpeace. "Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the global climate crisis" is not a peer-reviewed paper, it was commissioned by environmental activists, and it relies heavily on other non-peer-reviewed reports by non-objective organizations. Despite all that, it's still a solid, reliable read that every Canadian and American with an interest in energy policy should download promptly.

There isn't a lot new in the report for anyone who's been following the massive development underway in what used to be the boreal forests of northern Alberta. But we are treated to some useful numbers that help put the world's largest energy project into perspective. For example:

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The Zero Growth Mind

nobody@example.com (Ugo Bardi) — 2009-09-14T10:44:52-04:00

Ancient peasants lived, mostly, in a "zero growth" world and, perhaps, in the future we'll return to a condition in which the finiteness of resources is an obvious fact of life. We see in this painting a group of 19th century Dutch peasants as painted by Vincent Van Gogh, who had an uncanny capability of showing not just the exterior aspect of things but also their inner reality ("The potato eaters", 1885, the Van Gogh museum, Amsterdam)

We often think that we have a problem of scarcity of resources. It is not so: scarcity is not absolute. Whether we have enough of something or not depends on our perception of what we need. And, because we seem to think that we never have enough, we tend to use what we have faster than it can be replaced. It is the phenomenon called "overexploitation" or "overshoot". It is the main problem that we are facing and it is all because of the way the human mind works. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, overexploitation is all in the brain of the exploiter.

Nate Hagens has argued several times in "The Oil Drum" that the human mind is geared for growth (see, for instance here ). Apparently, we act on the basis of a series of neurotransmitters (e.g. dopamine) that make us search for continuously renewed stimulation. This way of functioning of the human mind is what generates our tendency of "discounting the future", that is of giving a lower value to the future than to the present. This rapidly declining discount function is the key of the mechanism of overexploitation.

This view of human behavior is based on experimental evidence which, however, is mostly limited to humans living in the modern, fast growing countries of the Western world. But present day humans may be just a short lived phenomenon. Growth cannot continue forever and sooner or later we'll have to settle in a condition of zero growth; very likely after a phase of decline. Zero growth has been the normal condition of human life for the past few millennia of agricultural civilizations. Surely the world changed even in ancient times, but the perception of this change was denied to people constrained to their fields, their family, their village, and little more. It was the world of peasants.

Peasants, by now, have disappeared in the Western world, replaced by farm workers specialized in operating agricultural machinery. Yet, this is a recent development and the peasant world is still alive in poor countries and a living memory in rich ones. So, we still have a chance to have a glimpse of a zero growth world and of the mind of the people living in it. How did they see the world around them? How did they see their future? How did they plan ahead for good and bad times?

There seem to be few psychological studies of the mind of the peasants: office workers are much easier to find and study, nowadays. But anthropologists have studied peasant civilizations in depth. One of these studies is in the book of Peter Farb "Humankind" published in 1978. Farb was an American anthropologist who had studied mainly native Americans, but who had a broad interest in human behavior in general. "Humankind" was a condensate of his thought (he died in 1980). After more than 30 years, the book is dated in many respects, but it is still well worth a look even today. I remember having read it for the first time in the early 1980s and, rereading it now, I see how much it has shaped my vision of the world.

Here are some excerpts of Peter Farb's description of the way of thinking of peasants as it appears in the chapter titled "The Perennial Peasants". The pattern that emerges doesn't agree with the idyllic view of a zero growth world made of small, self-sufficient units as it is often presented today. It shows that the limitation of material resources affects also the perception of all (as termed by Farb) "the good things in life", such as friendship, manhood, honor and sex. We don't know the shape of the discount function in the mind of peasants but, from this description, they seem to be even less worried about the future than we are. That is, perhaps, a logic consequence of the fact that in a zero growth world the future is just the same as the present.

People living in a future zero growth world will not necessarily live and think as ancient peasants, but surely there is a lot of food for thought here.

From Peter Farb's "Humankind", Triad Press, 1978. Excerpts from Chapter 7 "The Perennial Peasants"

Although peasants are widely scattered throughout the world, owe allegiance to many nations, speak a variety of languages, and display dissimilar customs, they nevertheless share certain fundamental traits. For this reason they often give the impression of being - as Karl Marx once declared with some exaggeration - as alike as the potatoes in a sack. <..>

Almost anywhere that peasants are encountered, they are likely to give the same impression of being conservative, individualistic, prone to suspicion, jealous, violent, superstitious and unthrifty. <..> To the peasant, the farm is a household rather than a business enterprise designed to turn a profit, as are most farms in North America and Western Europe today. The household farm barely provides subsistence for the family after the obligations due to the owners of the land and the wielders of political power are met. Peasants are unlike modern farmers also in that they do not rely on machinery, modern techniques of plant science, or hired labor. The extreme inefficiency of their methods can only be compensated for only by long hours of backbreaking labor. <..> Such has been the lot of peasants in almost all societies, since complex civilizations arose about 6000 years ago.

<..> Peasants at all times and in all places, almost without exception, have had an inferior status - legally, politically, socially, and economically. <..> This subservient position of peasants in society has produced behavior that often appears irrational, uneconomical and ultimately self defeating. <..> Peasants frustrate all attempts by national governments to get them to increase agricultural production through the use of modern technology. And while seemingly making no attempt to lift themselves out of inherited poverty, they even worsen the situation by rejecting birth-control measures. <..> Many of the ills besetting them could obviously be cured by cooperation and by the exercise of local leadership, but the peasants remain tenaciously individualistic.Well intentioned outsiders, such as Peace Corps or United Nations workers who come to the village and attempt to provide such leadership are viewed as potentially dangerous, criticized and gossiped about, and sometimes assaulted. A widespread peasant strategy in contact with outsiders is to play dumb, preferring this to being swindled by a representative of the external powers. Or an outsider will be replied to in words that mean "Yes, I'll do it tomorrow"; with Spanish-speaking peasants it is manana , with Italian ones domani , with German ones morgen, and the Amhara of Ethiopia say eshi naga. As if all this were not irrational enough, one further thing bewilders outsiders. As soon as peasants have acquired a small surplus through hard work or good fortune, they spend the entire amount profligately on one grand fiesta or ceremonial.

Why is it, we may wonder, that the peasants do nothing to better themselves? Some scholars have concluded that they are too desperately poor to have time for social cooperation or for political agitation. Others have attributed the inaction to their being as impassive as their donkeys and oxen. Still others explain that the peasants have been exploited for so long by the upper classes that they would never join their social superiors in any venture, for fear of being cheated. Each of these statements is true to some extent, but none by itself can account for the peasants' disregard of their own welfare. 'The peasants may be poor, but each could afford a day or so of voluntary labor for such community projects as repairing a schoolhouse. Impassive they may be also, but they are far less so than is usually thought. Scarcely a peasant can be found who in private conversation is not articulate about the ills of this world and about what steps might be taken to correct them. And if the peasants so mistrust the upper classes, why then do they not band together? Obviously, none of the above explanations entirely accounts for their acting as they do.

Their behavior is not irrational at all, given the realities of their existence. In fact, the attitude of peasants is probably the only one possible for them. A modern observer of peasant life has defined their adaptation in terms of "the image of limited good." In other words, peasants view their total environment as one in which all the good things of life-land, wealth, power, friendship, sex, health, and honor-exist in only limited quantities. As they see it, the limitation exists for two reasons: 'There are more of themselves than there are of good things, and they consider themselves powerless to increase the quantities available. Peasants have unconsciously extended a truth about the limited nature of their arable land to include all aspects of life. Like the land itself, good things can be divided and their ownership changed-but they cannot be increased.

Because not enough good exists to go around, a peasant family can improve its position only at the expense of other families in the community. A family that actively works to improve its lot thus represents a threat; whatever extra good it obtains must inevitably be taken from someone else. Peasants consequently regard modern farming techniques as ways to deprive others of their rightful share of wealth rather than as ways to increase productivity and thus to create new wealth. Even enlightened peasants realize that they cannot modernize, although they understand the advantages in doing so, simply because the other villagers would see it as taking unfair advantage if they were to augment their share of the limited good. 'The peasant belief that everything desirable is limited lies behind the social behavior that to outsiders often appears ludicrous, pathetic, or maddening.

True friendship is included among the scarce goods, and to ensure at least a minimum of it peasants try to form a longlasting relationship with a close friend. Similarly, honor and manliness (the well-known machismo of Latin American peasants and the philotimo of Greek peasants) exist mainly in limited quantities. Constant vigilance is therefore required to prevent loss of any amount of manliness - which explains the male peasant's sensitivity to insults and his violent reaction to real or imagined affronts to his honor. The list of goods that are considered scarce is a long one, and it even includes health. The supply of blood itself is thought to be limited, and thus to give a transfusion would mean that the donor had parted with a non-renewable good.

No wonder, then, that peasant behavior is characterized by extreme individualism and the absence of cooperation. To cooperate, peasants would have to delegate authority - but no one wishes to assume leadership lest gossiping neighbors complain that their own share of authority is being taken away from them. In thus shirking community responsibilities that might thrust them into prominence, peasants deprive their own community of the leadership essential for breaking the cycle of poverty. They pay no immediate penalty for their lack of cooperation, as do hunter-gatherers (whose very survival may depend upon it) or people living in modern societies (whose complex political, social, and economic systems could not function without it). The peasant family can manage very well without cooperation because it is a nearly self-sufficient unit. It produces almost all of its own food, uses only family members for labor on the farm, makes its own clothes and most household utensils, and carries its own produce to market. Most families feel that rather than waste time on cooperation they should spend it in vigilance to make sure that they obtain exactly their share of the scarce good things. The family must not fall behind, but it must also not appear to improve its relative position lest that arouse suspicion and jealousy. Outsiders who visit a peasant village are usually struck by what appears to be uniformity of housing and attire (such as the plain black dresses of Spanish, Italian, and Greek peasant women and the trousers and shirts of white cotton twill worn by Latin American men).

Peasant families make a desperate effort to guarantee for themselves their proportionate share of the limited good through the sheer number of children they produce. From the standpoint of the peasant, it makes eminent good sense to have many children. In fact, almost everything in their experience goes against the opinion that small families are advantageous. Because the mortality of peasant children has traditionally been high, large numbers of them are a form of insurance that at least some will survive. Even young children can do chores both inside and outside the house. As the younger children grow up, some of the older ones can be spared from the land to take up employment elsewhere and contribute their wages to the family's well-being (as do the braceros who annually cross into the United States from Mexico). The peasant couple realize that the more sons they produce, the greater the chance that a few will survive to care for them in sickness and old age. In the process of producing many sons, of course, many daughters might also be brought into the world. But daughters will eventually marry and provide a wide network of sons-in-law, who with their kin can be called upon for support in time of need. From almost every point of view, the peasant's logic is unassailable: The rich agriculturist can invest in farm machinery but the poor peasant can invest only in children.

Drumbeat: September 14, 2009

nobody@example.com (Leanan) — 2009-09-14T09:55:47-04:00

Kjell Aleklett: Peak Oil is not a theory; Peak Oil is the reality of past and future oil production.

Over the past five years, Mr. Michael Lynch and I have debated future global oil production at meetings in Gothenburg (Sweden), Paris and Shanghai. We have also conducted the debate through an exchange of emails published in the British journal Science and Public Affairs in December 2008. The arguments that Mr. Lynch advances are, therefore, well known to me. The fact that he is an economist and I am a natural scientist means that we see the future of oil production from two different perspectives, but are in agreement that access to oil is of great importance to the world economy and our future.
What has prompted Mr. Lynch to write his recent opinion piece in the New York Times appears to be a statement from Dr. Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency (IEA) that Peak Oil is near. At the same time, Mr. Lynch attempts to discredit a number of dedicated and qualified people who work on the Peak Oil issue as well as ASPO, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil&Gas. To suggest that Dr. Birol would base his assertion on “anecdotal information” is astonishing. One wonders what secret information Mr. Lynch possesses and does not wish to share with the IEA.

The first peak oil recession: Interview with Steven Kopits

Question: When did you learn about the peak oil story?
Kopits: I was preparing investor documentation—a prospectus for a public offering. As part of my work, I was looking at oil supply and demand issues, in particular as they related to China. When I ran the numbers, I found that projected demand turned out to be considerably greater than what the EIA was stating. Just for the sake of completeness, I thought to confirm that the oil supply was adequate to meet Chinese demand growth. Now you should keep in mind that, at the time, I thought peak oil was pure fantasy. But when I checked, supply growth promised to be much less than the EIA was indicating. I became concerned because I couldn’t find the resources on paper.

Raymond J. Learsy: Chairman of Gazprom Predicts $100 Oil Because of Speculation. Speculation, Really?

This weekend, there was Alexei Miller, Chairman of Russia's major energy company, Gazprom, predicting that the price of oil would jump to $100 a barrel because of 'speculation'. Now there is a man who should know what he is talking about, or certainly what he shouldn't be talking about. And he should know when the fix is in. One little detail however. His language, one could surmise, is willfully misleading. 'Speculation' should not be the operative word. Rather 'manipulation' would be more to the point.

Same Old Hope: This Bubble Is Different

Economists also worry that commodity bubbles, which tend to be more cyclical, may strike again. Oil and gold prices are rising, and though both of those commodities have boomed and busted many times in the last century, investors may bet on unrealistically high growth once more. Gold prices, for example, have risen more than 30 percent from a year ago.
“With every commodity bubble, you see a whole new set of rationalizations,” Mr. Yergin said. “People find ways to shut out the reality of economic processes. If oil prices shoot up, investors are always surprised to see demand go down again.”

Crude awakening

Today’s regulators are fixated on banking reform, and rightfully so. Financial industries have buckled under fallout from the credit crisis. Although oil price gyrations also share blame for the recession, commodity futures markets are receiving less urgent attention than banking system repairs. Because crude oil prices have been relatively well-behaved in 2009, the dangers of spikes and squeezes seem less drastic now.
Yet authorities who postpone energy regulation may do so at their peril.

Resource nationalism

Opec left quotas unchanged last week, but $70 oil is still high enough to produce stirrings of resource nationalism, which had earlier waned as oil prices slumped. Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has proposed rules that would give government-controlled Petrobras a privileged role in developing its vast “pre-salt” offshore reserves. Petrobras is this week meeting international oil companies to reassure them they will not be squeezed out.

Recovery Drives Commodities ‘Hiring Boom,’ Lai Says

(Bloomberg) -- Global banks are engaged in a hiring boom for commodity traders as they add staff to benefit from surging metals and energy prices, offering $1 million packages for top employees, recruiters Robert Walters Plc said.
There’s “huge demand for physical traders,” Gary Lai, manager of financial services at Robert Walters in Singapore, said today in an interview. “For top traders, especially investment bank traders, $1 million is not unexpected, it’s easy to get,” Lai said, referring to salaries and bonuses combined.

Pertamina may retain oil supply rights - regulator

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's state oil firm Pertamina may retain its exclusive right to supply and distribute subsidised oil products next year, a regulator said Monday, beating out interest from several international oil firms.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Malaysia's Petronas [PETR.UL] were among the companies that have joined an Indonesian tender to distribute subsidised gasoline and diesel oil.

Libya's Peace Offering To Big Oil

A $10 billion oil fields upgrade is an attempt to pacify its foreign partners as political tensions escalate.

Venezuela’s Chavez Agrees to $2.2 Billion Russian Arms Pact

(Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Russia will provide a $2.2 billion credit line for weapons purchases and will jointly develop oil fields and nuclear energy.
Venezuela will buy 92 T-72S tanks, Smerch missiles with a range of 90 kilometers and an S-300 Antey-2500 anti-aircraft defense system including radar and missiles with a range of 400 kilometers, Chavez said yesterday during his weekly program “Alo Presidente” on state television.

Trinidad and Tobago: Oil, gas and the budget

T&T earned substantial revenues when energy prices were high. The collapse of the world economy and the demand and prices of petroleum are normally laid at the feet of the sub-prime mortgage issue. The large and rapidly increasing demand for oil and other commodities by, say, China and India coupled with the supply constraints (economic, geological and political-Peak Oil) drove the price of oil rapidly to US$147/bbl and gas US$7/mmcf. This forced countries to look towards renewables and with ethanol-driven land use the prices of food rose considerably. The world economy began to contract, destroying demand for fossil fuels while the financial crisis hastened the global economic collapse.

Kuwait, Saudi 'delivering Opec cuts'

Core Gulf Arab Opec members Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are delivering 98 per cent of the crude output cuts they have pledged under Opec deals, Kuwait's oil minister was reported as saying by state news agency Kuna.

The crude realities of diplomacy

‘Follow the money’ is the advice routinely offered to detectives in low-budget thrillers. For anyone attempting to understand the ebbs and flows of international politics, I offer a variant of that old line: “Follow the oil”. Any suggestion that the search for energy is fundamental to the foreign policy of Britain and the US is often treated as faintly indecent. In Britain, the government is currently angrily brushing off suggestions that the decision to release Adbelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, had anything to do with Libya’s oil and gas.

Russia and Turkmenistan fail to reach new gas deal

Russian and Turkmen leaders failed yesterday to set a timeframe for the return of Turkmen gas flows to Russia, halted since April after a pipeline blast that left the nation short of revenues.
The meeting between Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov had been expected to generate a breakthrough and mend ties. Relations were hit after Turkmenistan accused Russia of suspending gas imports because Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom faced reduced demand in Europe.

Statoil: "open" on Shakh Deniz gas sales

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The president of StatoilHydro in Russia said on Monday gas sales from the second phase of the Shakh Deniz project in Azerbaijan was 'an open issue'.
Shakh Deniz has been courted by Russian gas giant Gazprom and an EU-sponsored consortium which is working on the Nabucco gas pipeline, which is expected to rival Russian plans to supply Europe with the fuel.

Total Executive: Gasoline Demand To Fall In US, Europe

BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- Gasoline demand in the U.S.and Europe is expected to fall through to 2020 due to the recession, climate change legislation and new refining capacity, a Total SA (TOT) executive said Monday.
"We are quite convinced at Total that in both regions the consumption will decrease very sharply," Andre Tricoire, senior vice president of refining, said.

Chevron, Exxon, Shell Agree to Build Gorgon LNG Plant

(Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp. and its partners approved development of Australia’s Gorgon project, clearing the way for a venture forecast to earn A$300 billion ($258 billion) in gas sales to China, India and Japan in its first 20 years.
The project will cost A$43 billion in its first phase, with work on a liquefied natural gas plant to start immediately on Barrow Island, a nature reserve off the northwest coast, 50 percent-owner and operator Chevron said today. LNG exports from the 15-million-metric-ton-a-year venture are due to start 2014.

Repsol’s Venezuelan Find Will Need 5 Years to Develop

(Bloomberg) -- Repsol YPF SA, the Spanish oil company that announced one of the world’s largest natural-gas discoveries last week, said the field will take as many as five years to be developed.
“Four to five years is the time that is needed to develop a project of this quantity and quality,” Chief Executive Officer Antonio Brufau said in an interview in Madrid today. “The next five years will be an investment process.”

Reliance May Seek Oil Fields Overseas to Cut Risk

(Bloomberg) -- Reliance Industries Ltd. may buy oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil to hedge the risk of investing in India where a dispute over pricing of gas is shaving $100 million off monthly sales.
“We put too many eggs in one basket, we put too much time into one asset,” P.M.S. Prasad, president of the oil and gas business at India’s most valuable company, said in an interview at Reliance’s gas-processing terminal at Gadimoga in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. “We might change our strategy now and look to spread our geographical and geological risks.”

E.ON Sees EDF Capacity Swap Soon, Delays Russian, German Plants

(Bloomberg) -- E.ON AG, Germany’s largest utility, expects to reach an agreement with Electricite de France SA on swapping power-generating capacity soon, while putting projects in Russia and Germany on hold as the recession erodes demand.

Brazil and Mexico: Pitfalls of Protectionism

Brazil and Mexico are in danger of going down the path blazed by Venezuela: after years of opening up trade and improving their economies they are reintroducing protectionism in oil and gas.
This energy analyst describes how the real patriotic move would be to stimulate exploitation - and therefore employment and the economy - by welcoming foreign firms instead of favouring state-run and domestic firms.

Nigeria's Planned 500MW Power Plant To Cost $400 Million Official

IBADAN, Nigeria -(Dow Jones)- The first phase of an independent power project to be built in the industrial city of Aba in Nigeria's southeast Abia state is to cost $400 million, the state-run Bureau of Public Enterprises, or BPE, said Sunday.

Sasol’s Annual Profit Falls 39% on Oil Price Decline

(Bloomberg) -- Sasol Ltd., the world’s largest producer of motor fuels made from coal, said annual profit fell 39 percent after oil prices declined.
Net income fell to 13.6 billion rand ($1.8 billion) in the 12 months through June from 22.4 billion rand a year earlier, Johannesburg-based Sasol said in a statement to the JSE stock exchange’s news service today.

Long-term coal supply a threat

(Reuters) - South Africa's power utility Eskom faces considerable pressure to sustain long-term coal supplies, its chief executive said in remarks broadcast on Saturday.
"Now we are doing the long term. It is by no stretch of the imagination complete. It is still a big issue. The whole issue of the availability of coal long term. The price and the logistics," said Jacob Maroga.
The global economic crisis badly hit the utility's ability to borrow and Eskom was forced to buy coal on more expensive short-term contracts to boost supply during last year's crisis.

A new security paradigm is needed to protect critical US energy infrastructure from cyberwarfare

On the 8th anniversary week of 9/11, the US remains vulnerable to a devastating cyber attack directed at its critical infrastructure. Despite all the warning signs of this threat, policy makers continue to prepare for the last war, ignoring the major lesson of both 9/11 and Pearl Harbor–not to be prepared, but to understand the changing nature of warfare. US policy makers need to adopt a new security paradigm to defend its critical assets in cyberspace, especially energy infrastructure, from a devastating cyber strike.

District 719: Author is no 'Fossil Fool'

At 77 years old, Joe Shuster doesn’t have much of a personal stake in the impending depletion of fossil fuels, or the havoc such energy sources can wreak on the planet. But that didn’t stop him from penning a tome he hopes will steer future generations clear of an energy-fueled disaster.
In “Beyond Fossil Fools: The Roadmap to Energy Independence by 2040,” Shuster lays out a step-by-step plan to get the United States and the rest of the world off fossil fuels and onto a multi-sourced diet of renewable energy sources.

Is Sustainable Development an Oxymoron?

As modern society increasingly becomes a single, globalized civilization, the quality of life that post-industrial nations have come to expect is now is becoming achievable around the world. Living on a planet of finite resources, widespread development can only last so long; it’s not sustainable over the long-term. The Western ideals being spread to developing nations are material intensive and would be physically impossible to achieve.

Offshore Wind to Provide One-Fifth of EU Power, Producers Say

(Bloomberg) -- Offshore wind may provide as much as 17 percent of European Union electricity demand by 2030, surging from almost nothing now as the bloc promotes renewable energy, an industry group said.

Where have all the little cars gone?

But the shortage of cars out there in rental-land is also a function of the economy.
"It's the fallout from the credit crunch," Brown said, explaining that rental companies are suffering from high-interest rates and a decline in manufacturing because of the auto industry slump. As as result, car rental fleets have diminished.
Customers are also more educated about mileage. "After what happened last summer with gas at $4 a gallon, no one wants to upgrade," Brown said.

Repair Options for Ailing Electronics

Mr. Sanderson also repairs iPods and iPhones, and his business is booming.
“There’s definitely a huge surge in the amount of repairs” in this economic climate, he said, as people choose to keep what they have rather than spend twice as much on the newest model.

City life is a honey trap for France's beleaguered bees

"We notice that apiaries located in the heart of Paris get better results than those in the countryside," explained Nicolas Géant, the French bee-keeper who initiated the project at the Grand Palais in order to draw attention to the predicament of rural bees.
"Towns offer myriad small flowers in parks and on balconies, as well as a wide variety of trees along streets and in public gardens. By contrast, there is no longer enough food for bees in rural and cultivated areas. The mortality there is 30 to 50 per cent but very small in Paris."
Henri Clement, president of France's main apiarist union, Unaf, says changes in French agriculture have damaged the bees' habitat. "Both monoculture and the intensive use of pesticides, fungicides and fertilisers kill massive numbers of bees," he explained.

Climate bill politics are heating up

Reporting from Washington - After months of promoting President Obama's climate plan as a vehicle to create millions of clean-energy jobs, supporters of the legislation are increasingly pushing another strategy -- its benefits for national security.
It's a deliberate, anxiety-themed effort to press a handful of fence-sitting moderates to support a bill that will probably be the administration's next great legislative push after healthcare.

Sweden urges US Senate to pass climate bill

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Sweden's environment minister urged the U.S. Senate on Monday to pass legislation to control greenhouse gases, saying a delay in the vote is impeding negotiations on a new international climate treaty.
Minister Andreas Carlgren said America's complex debate over health care reforms is sidelining its vote on a climate bill that is needed to persuade other nations -- especially the fast-growing economies of India and China -- to commit to lowering their greenhouse gas emissions at the Copenhagen climate summit in December.

New Zealand floats new climate change policy to cut consumer costs

Wellington - New Zealand's centre-right government released details Monday of a new climate change policy that it said would halve forecast price rises for power and fuel as the country moves to cut greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. The minority government which came to power in November said its plan would reduce the initial extra cost on the average household to 3 New Zealand dollars (2.10 US dollars) a week over the next three years.
It also gave New Zealand's farmers, whose animals' methane production account for about half the country's greenhouse gases, another two years before they have to start paying for their emissions.

Report predicts the severe economic cost of climate change

Climate change could cut gross domestic product in countries at risk from extreme weather by a fifth in little more than ten years, a report said on Monday.
Unless urgent action is taken to cut carbon emissions, countries prone to severe weather-events such as floods, droughts or hurriances could have up to 19% knocked off their annual GDP by 2030.

UK: Could rationing be back?

The Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), has published a report warning that 70 years after wartime rationing was introduced, the government may need to look to rationing again - this time of carbon rather than food - in the fight against climate change.

Putting cattle on a diet to curb climate change

(CNN) -- Much has been made of the problem of livestock emissions of methane -- a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 -- but a solution might be just around the corner.
"I really think it's a solvable problem," Professor Jamie Newbold of the Animal and Microbial Sciences Division, Aberystwyth University, Wales, told CNN.

JPMorgan Offers $203 Million for Carbon-Trader EcoSecurities

(Bloomberg) --A JPMorgan Chase & Co. subsidiary offered to buy EcoSecurities Group Plc, manager of the largest number of emission projects overseen by the United Nations, for 122.9 million pounds ($203 million).

Breakthrough

The mystery of the Northeast Passage has been broken, but at a terrible price.

A new Dark Age?

We need to do more to prevent the world descending into a new Dark Age as a result of climate change, argues Professor Tim Flannery.

EU carbon continues to plunge

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T13:53:39Z

Weaker energy markets pushed carbon lower on Monday morning to extend Friday’s losses.

Nordic fund to buy post-Kyoto carbon credits

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T13:49:41Z

Nordic fund Greenstream has launched its second post-Kyoto carbon fund in three months.

Monday Musings: The end at Montserrat, more rock falls at Kilauea and a Shiveluch update [Eruptions]

nobody@example.com (Erik Klemetti none@example.com) — 2009-09-14T08:45:20-05:00

Monday is here again already ...

A pyroclastic flow from Soufriere Hills heading towards the ocean. Note the large volcaniclastic debris fan being formed by repeated flows. Dated March 2006.

The "Science Advisory Committee" at Montserrat in the West Indies suggests that the current eruption of Soufriere Hills on the small island could be drawing to a close. This is mostly based on the ever-decreasing seismicity under the volcano and that the volcano has not experienced any new dome growth or explosions over the last 6 months. Gas emissions have remained relatively constant over the last 18 months, so they warn that Soufriere Hills has not reached true "end-of-eruption" criteria (which vary from volcano to volcano - there not no universally-prescribed criteria to declare a volcanic eruption "over").
The crater area of Halema`uma`u at Kilaeua experienced another rock fall, this one caught on camera by the USGS HVO. The rockfall, which occurred on the morning of September 9th, did not produce as much ash as the fall from earlier this summer, but may have blocked some of the "glowing" from within the crater. Sulfur dioxide emissions from the Halema`uma`u vent still remain high - upwards of 900 tonnes/day.
The alert status at Shiveluch was lowered from "red" to "orange" over the weekend. It appears that the ash plume since the explosions on Friday (9/11/09) may not have been as large, possibly reaching only ~6.5 km / 21,000 feet, but clouds obscured most of the eruption. The current status report:
Activity of the volcano continues: a new viscous lava flow effuses at the lava dome. Ash explosions > 10 km (> 32,800 ft) ASL could occur at any time. The activity of the volcano could affect international and low-flying aircraft. Seismic activity of the volcano decreased: only three explosive events occurred from 02:15 till 15:46 UTC on September 11

If you want to see images of the volcano before the eruption, including closeups of the dome, check out the KVERT page for Shiveluch.
Read the comments on this post...

CDM board rejects six projects, calls for many corrections

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T13:24:25Z

A UN panel has rejected six proposed CDM projects, while approving registration for three.

UN clears China CDM wind projects

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T13:15:52Z

The UN has given conditional approval to 17 Chinese wind projects.

EU economy recovering, says commission

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T12:59:30Z

The EU is emerging from recession, the European commission said today.

UN issues CERs to six projects

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T11:28:08Z

The UN issued 1.17 million carbon credits last week, bringing the total to 328.5 million.

NZ gov agrees on amended ETS

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T11:07:06Z

The ruling National party and the Maori party have agreed on an amended carbon scheme.

JP Morgan unit agrees deal with Ecosecurities

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T09:47:41Z

A unit of JP Morgan Chase has offered 100 pence per share to buy London-listed Ecosecurities.

More Efficient, and Cheaper, Solar Cells

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T04:00:00Z

New manufacturing techniques could cut solar power costs by 20 percent.

China's Potent Wind Potential

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T04:00:00Z

Forecasters see no need for new coal and nuclear power plants.

UN board suspends SGS

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-14T01:08:00Z

The UN has suspended SGS UK from acting as an auditor of clean development mechanism projects.

The Drilling Rig Part of Creating an Oil Well

nobody@example.com (Heading Out) — 2009-09-13T11:09:45-04:00

Well, there are several ways to go after talking about the pressures that develop at the bottom of oilwells. But before going on to talk about completing the well, let me first just cover some basic terms and parts that go into getting the bit to actually turn and drill the well. In other words, today I want to talk about the oil derrick and what happens on the rig floor. Trying to update this, I discover that the term “derrick” has an interesting past.

The term derrick comes from Thomas Derrick, a hangman who invented a type of gallows using a movable beam and pulley system during the Elizabethan era. During his lifetime, Derrick executed over 3,000 people, many of them with his modified gallows device, and the supporting framework for his gallows came to be known as a derrick.

Well, the ones that we are dealing with have to be a bit taller than that. The reason comes from the connection that we have to make from the rig floor down to the bit at the bottom of the hole. Because we are continually pushing the bit deeper into the ground we need to use something that we can keep extending. (From this it also follows that the top guy on the rig got to be known as the tool pusher).

At the same time, this connecting device has to be able to allow the mud to get down to the jet nozzles on the bit. The logical way of doing this is to have a tube or pipe, into which the drilling bit can be threaded on the lower end. (Which gives rise to the expression oilfield tubulars). Now, by attaching the mud pumps to the upper end of the pipe, we can also get the mud down into the bit. There is usually a special piece of pipe that fits between the bit itself and the main sections of the pipe, and this is called the drill collar. These normally have a thicker wall than normal pipe so that they can add more weight to push the bit into the rock. (see below).

Drill pipe comes in various sizes, depending on the hole that is being drilled, but for the sake of an example we might use a pipe that is 5.5 inches diameter on the outside and 3.25 inches wide on the inside. This would weigh around 14 lb a foot, and is normally used in 30 ft lengths. This length is a standard, and the pipe will have a threaded connection welded to each end, known as the tool joint. One is male and one is female, so that additional lengths of pipe may be threaded into the original piece to extend the overall length as the hole gets deeper.

Normal male pipe ends (taped over to protect the threads)

To handle these lengths of pipe, and to have them already in place and vertical before we need them, we need a handling system that can lift the pipes into place, and this tall initial support structure is called the mast. Typical modern masts may be around 140 ft tall, with the space between the legs around 12 ft. So to follow through the parts I’ll make a simple version of a mast, and then as I explain what the parts are, I can add them to the model.

Basic Mast

I mention the length because there are several things that control the rate of penetration (ROP) of the bit, and one is the thrust that is applied to push the bit into the rock. This comes from the weight of the pipe that is connected to the bit, and thus is known as the weight on bit. However, if you do the arithmetic, 14 x 30 = 420 lb. per length of drill pipe. So if we have one length of pipe, we are pushing the bit into the ground with 420 lbs of weight. Add another length and we are up to 840 lb. And so it continues, except that there is, for each bit and rock, a bit weight that will cause that bit to drill at its best ROP. Typically this might be around 15 - 20,000 lb depending on hole size and rock type. But we get that weight from the pipe with only 36 lengths, or a total of around 1,000 ft of drill pipe. But increasingly we might be drilling a well that is much more than 7,000 ft deep. (It is actually a bit shorter, since for the first few hundred feet the additional weight of the drill collars is needed to keep the thrust up).

To keep the bit weight at the best level to give the fastest ROP, the driller will carry the rest of the weight of the pipe through the derrick and will adjust the weight on bit by controlling the amount of lift through a block and tackle arrangement to a traveling block on the top of the drill pipe. So to the model we will add a platform at the top, (or crown) of the derrick which will have a pulley on it to feed cable down to the travelling block.

Crown block at top of mast (OSHA)

The cable that connects the traveling block to this second crown block at the top makes a number of loops between the two blocks and in this way the cable can carry up to a million pounds or more of weight.

Schematic of the two blocks at the top of the mast

From the crown block the cable feeds back down to the reel on the rig floor where it is stored. The reel and the motors that drive it are known as the drawworks, and the driller controls the reel rotation and thus the weight carried through the cable to the derrick, to control the amount of thrust on the bit.

The hoist and motor of the Drawworks (Schlumberger)

There are two other things, however, that have to be controlled. Firstly the bit has to turn, and so there must be a way of allowing the pipe to rotate. This is done by adding a swivel below the traveling block. The swivel also allows a connection to the mud system and mud can be pumped into the pipe, without the mud line having to turn.

Travelling block showing the swivel and mud line connection (OSHA)

This is done through a rotary table that sits on the rig floor and a special piece of pipe (some 43 ft long), known as the Kelly, that is connected between the swivel which sits right under the traveling block, and the first length of drill pipe. The pipe is square or hexagonal and will slide through the turntable as the hole gets deeper. At the same time the shape allows the turntable to grip it and turn it, and the attached drill string that connects below it to the drilling bit at the bottom of the hole. There is a motor, generally under the rig, that drives the turntable.

Drive through the turntable and Kelly drive to the Kelly, and the underlying drill pipe (OSHA)

Some more modern rigs can have an electric motor at the top of the mast, attached to the bottom of the traveling block, which drives the pipe without the need for the Kelly and rotary table.

Top drive that can be used in small mast applications (Tesco)

Bear in mind that after the drill bit has penetrated 30 ft (the length of a single length or joint of drill pipe) then drilling must stop. The Kelly is disconnected from the top joint, and raised while a new joint is swung in up the catwalk (from where spare joints are stored on the rig) and connected, at the bottom end to the existing string, and at the top end to the Kelly.

The drill is then ready to go forward again. While I am not up on current performance, I was once taught that a good crew cannot make more than 7 connections, or drill more than 200 ft of hole an hour. (There is another way of adding pipe that can allow a faster ROP but we’ll get to that another time). Now also remember that if the bit needs to be changed because it wore out, or because it can't drill in the rock that it has not started to go through, then the entire string above the bit has to be removed, one joint at a time, until the bit reaches the surface. Then it is replaced, and the joint in turn have to be replaced, again one-at-a-time, until the bit hits bottom again. Now hauling the string out of the hole goes a little faster than drilling, but you can see that this process, known as tripping, can take more than a day. Which can be quite expensive, especially since, while you are tripping you are not making hole, and that is what the rig is being rented to do.

When tripping the well, the drill pipe has to be held in place with slips, which are a wedge shaped tool that fits around the top of the pipe and grips it, while the connections are made or unmade.

Slips prepared to slip around the drill pipe (Schlumberger)

Well, this is a bit of a hard subject to cover in less than 50 minutes, and without 60 pictures, so if there are things that are not clear, or if some of my numbers aren't quite up to date please comment or ask.

Drumbeat: September 13, 2009

nobody@example.com (Leanan) — 2009-09-13T10:30:14-04:00

Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Human Suffering

Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.
In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.
Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.

Europe fears winter energy crisis as Russia tightens grip on oil supplies

Russia's stranglehold over dwindling global energy resources was dramatically confirmed yesterday when new figures showed that the country has become the world's biggest exporter of oil.
With production in August hitting record levels, Russia toppled Saudi Arabia from the number one spot. It is already the world's largest exporter of gas, and supplies around a third of the European Union's consumption.
The news is likely to heighten unease in EU capitals over the Kremlin's tightening grip on energy reserves. There are fears of a repeat of January's debilitating gas war between Russia and Ukraine – which saw winter supplies to EU consumers cut off for weeks. Members of Opec agreed to cut oil production last year in response to the economic crisis. Moscow indicated last December that it would follow suit but instead ramped up production in the second quarter of 2009, as new fields in Siberia came on stream.

Oil giants zero in on untapped Greenland: The high price of crude and rising demand make exploration of the coastline viable

The Nordic Explorer set off last week for the seas off Cape Farewell on the southern tip of Greenland. For the next few weeks the 269ft research ship will zigzag across the water to collect data on the rock formations thousands of feet below the seabed. It is not alone. Up and down the coasts of this desolate, ice-covered country, seven other ships are carrying out similar work.
The ships are funded by oil companies hoping to determine whether the country, long dismissed as too icy and remote to be worthwhile exploring, is one of the world’s last virgin oil provinces.

The ambiguous blessing of new oil

The good news is that British Petroleum just found a massive new oil field in the Gulf of Mexico.
That's also the bad news.

Libya Approves $9.86 Billion Plan to Boost Oil Output

(Bloomberg) -- Libya approved a 12.1 billion-dinar ($9.86 billion) plan to develop and upgrade 24 oilfields as the holder of Africa’s largest crude reserves seeks to boost output.

China's leading oil producer to triple natural gas production

HARBIN (Xinhua) -- Daqing Oilfield, China's No.1 terrestrial oil producer, is expected to triple its natural gas production while stabilizing crude output in the years to come.
Wang Yongchun, general manager of Daqing Oilfield Co. Ltd., confirmed Sunday his company would be producing 8 to 10 billion cum of natural gas annually by 2020, accounting for 20 to 25 percent of the company's oil and gas production total.

Venezuela, Russia Sign Joint Venture to Develop Junin 6 Block

(Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA and the Consorcio Nacional Petrolero SRL, a joint venture of five Russian oil companies, signed an agreement to develop the Junin 6 heavy crude block, the state oil company said in a statement on its Web site.
PDVSA, as Venezuela’s state company is known, will have a 60 percent stake and Consorcio Nacional, conformed of Rosneft Oil Co.,Lukoil OAO, Gazprom OAO, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz, will have the remaining 40 percent. The companies expect to produce 400,000 to 450,000 barrels per day, the statement said.

Strong 6.2-degree quake shakes central Venezuela

One of Venezuela's main oil refineries, El Palito, and a petrochemicals complex are located in the region where the tremor was felt most strongly.
The earthquake was also felt in oil-rich Zulia state, northwestern Venezuela.
Sources at the state-run oil firm Pdvsa reported no damages that may hit the production of crude oil or byproducts.

PTT’s Timor Oil Leak Fix May Take More Than 4 Weeks

(Bloomberg) -- PTT Exploration & Production Pcl, Thailand’s only publicly traded oil exploration company, said it may need longer than four more weeks to plug a leaking well in the Timor Sea.

No power cuts danger - Miliband

There is "no danger" of mass power cuts in the UK during the next decade, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said.
He told the BBC it was possible to meet the country's energy needs while using more "sustainable" sources such as wind farms and nuclear stations.

Jordan Signs Accord With Tractebel as Part of Nuclear Ambitions

(Bloomberg) -- Jordan signed a $12 million agreement today with Belgium’s Tractebel Engineering as part of the kingdom’s plan to build its first nuclear plant and reduce reliance on oil imports.

Nuke power emerging as attractive option for emissions goal, but concerns persist

With incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama having set a more ambitious emissions reduction target for the government to be led by the Democratic Party of Japan than that pledged by outgoing rival Taro Aso, nuclear power is emerging as one of the most effective possible solutions.
In the only country to have suffered atomic bombings, however, the hurdles remain high for those pushing for greater use of nuclear energy, which is ''cleaner'' in terms of carbon emissions than fossil fuels. The DPJ's alliance with a smaller party that calls for a withdrawal from nuclear technologies could also pose a hindrance.

Turning to Windmills, but Resistance Lingers

BOURNE, Mass. — Wendie Howland grows her own food and heats her water with rooftop solar panels. She drives a Prius with a bumper sticker that boasts “One Less S.U.V.”
But when Mrs. Howland tried to take the next step in green living — installing a 132-foot windmill in her backyard that would generate enough electricity to power her home — she hit a wall. The planning board in this pastoral Cape Cod town twice rejected the project citing safety concerns and predicting “an adverse effect on the character of the neighborhood.”
Mrs. Howland’s defeat was sealed by a Superior Court ruling in July that backed the planning board’s decision, underscoring the steep odds that residential windmill plans face nationwide. After investing some $40,000 in a 10-kilowatt turbine and legal fees, Mrs. Howland and her husband, Francis, are giving up their two-year fight.

Euro wind producers want billions for sea turbines

BRUSSELS (AP) — European wind power producers are calling for billions of euros (dollars) in investments to generate energy from wind turbines planted in the sea.
The European Union is aiming to generate a fifth of all its energy from renewable sources by 2020 to lessen reliance on imported oil and gas and meet climate change goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Shell and Chinese coal giant to develop clean coal technology

Royal Dutch Shell has partnered with a unit of China’s largest coal producer to jointly develop clean coal technology.
The Netherlands-based oil group this week signed a deal with Shenhua Coal to Liquid and Chemical to work on advanced techniques to covert coal into gas, then to liquid – also known as coal liquefaction. The process results in a synthetic oil.

IEC / Bussard Fusion has gotten $8 million in Funding

The project that we hope to have out within the next six years will probably be a demo, which won't have the attendant secondary equipment necessary for electricity generation. Hopefully the demo will demonstrate everything that is needed to put a full-scale working plant into commercial production. So if the concept works we could have a commercial plant operating as early as 2020.

National study touts benefits of compact development

Mere days before the Metro Council is scheduled to receive a milestone report on transportation and land-use planning, a national research panel has concluded that building dense mixed-use neighborhoods could reduce driving and greenhouse gas emissions.

At last, an LED bulb worth talking about

Other LEDs disappoint, but the new bulb from Philips has the power to drag low-carbon spotlights out of the shadows.

Striving for sustainability (review of Permaculture Diary 2010)

The permaculture movement is not new now, having begun in the 1970s.
However, the insights of this ecologically-sustainable food movement are now more vital than ever as the world confronts the imminent threats of peak oil and climate change.
Margolis has compiled a beautiful and inspiring diary, complete with growing calendar and lots of room for notes for each day of the year. It’s peppered with stories of survival and transition, from across Australia and around the world.

A triumph for man, a disaster for mankind

Two ships are finishing the first commercial navigation of the fabled North-east Passage. It is an epic moment – but also a vivid sign of climate change in the Arctic.

Study: Iowa farms to benefit from climate bill, others won't

A new study making the rounds of Capitol Hill shows Iowa farms could potentially benefit from a cap-and-trade bill passed by the House to reduce carbon emissions.
However, the study shows many types of farms in other areas of the country are likely to lose money under the legislation.

EPA finds means to its end

No, the monster that scares them is under Bed No. 2.
That's where you'll find the Environmental Protection Agency, a once safe haven under the Bush administration that is anything but that under the Obama administration.
The EPA is planning an end run around Congress if it balks at passing cap-and-trade legislation.
It is drawing up rules to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Oil and gas industry’s carbon SOS

Oil and gas industry bosses are pressing the UK government to protect the North Sea’s electricity use from the next phase of the carbon trading scheme before the Copenhagen climate change conference in December.
The industry is concerned that plans to make oil and gas platforms and other offshore infrastructure part of the third phase of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which begins in 2013, would effectively impose an unfair tax on the industry as it is not possible to power platforms and equipment using anything other than fossil fuels. Oil and gas producers would be forced to buy extra carbon permits to make up for their pollution under the scheme, and will also suffer steadily rising costs as newer offshore equipment uses more power than older equipment.

Climate change depresses beer drinkers

IF THE sinking Maldives aren't enough to galvanise action on climate change, could losing a classic beer do it? Climatologist Martin Mozny of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and colleagues say that the quality of Saaz hops - the delicate variety used to make pilsner lager - has been decreasing in recent years. They say the culprit is climate change in the form of increased air temperature.

On Climate, Partners on Hill Drift Apart

As climate change reemerges as an issue in the national policy debate, it may help define the legislative legacies of two men who once vied for the White House: Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Both men have championed the issue of global warming for years, including when they served as their party's presidential nominees in 2004 and 2008, respectively. But, for the moment, McCain is barely engaged in the issue beyond criticizing the climate bill passed by the House, while Kerry has emerged as one of the chamber's leading dealmakers. The fact that the two no longer appear to be on the same side underscores the challenge Democrats face in enacting the first national cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Why France Wants to Introduce A New Tax on Carbon Emissions

It's hard to imagine a new tax getting a bigger cheer from a political leader than the one unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy Sept. 10. The French President's radical plan to impose a carbon tax on homes and businesses, he said on a factory visit in eastern France, addresses the "question of survival of the human race." Slated for introduction next year, the levy marked the "first step," Sarkozy said, in "a fiscal revolution."
As Europe wrestles with the challenges posed by climate change, France's new tax is unlikely to be the last.

Turning green into gold: The path to riches — and happiness — is a bustling new eco-economy

We will emerge from the current recession, and, when we do, we can choose something different. Instead of re-creating conditions that delivered the economic crisis and systematically trashed our environment, we can build an economy that’s cleaner, greener and much less wasteful, where valuable things are valued, pollution has a cost and green choices — currently available only to the committed or wealthy — become mainstream.

Stern: Rich nations will have to forget about growth to stop climate change

Economic expansion cannot be achieved forever if greenhouse gases are to be curbed, warns the leading economist and author of the UK's government's report on climate change.

CERA Says World Has Peaked, Buffett Calls Capitalism a Ponzi Scheme

nobody@example.com (Nate Hagens) — 2009-09-13T10:22:38-04:00

The Oil Drum is known for primary analysis and perspective on a variety of energy and broad resource related topics. Of our content, this lone Saturday (Campfire) slot was intended as a side forum to explore non-empirical, deeper questions relevant to society and our energy future.

The trend in media this decade has been for the gritty, non-politically correct analysis and muckraking to be primarily found on the internet. The content of conventional media is largely confined to a narrow band around conventional institutional views. A couple years ago, I wrote this overview to belief systems, including such aspects as cognitive dissonance, self-deception, steep discount rates, our penchant to listen to confident authority figures, and our split brain unconscious editing mechanisms. As we live through growing disconnects between perception and reality, the abstract and the concrete, and the aware and the blissful, I thought an imaginary press conference among some conventional luminaries might highlight some truths via its juxtaposition.

A FICTIONAL PRESS CONFERENCE

Jim Lehrer: Ahem. If we could get started folks - please everyone take their seats. We've arranged this joint press conference/interview to set the record straight on some issues critical to the future of every American, and even every citizen of the world. Though lacking in organization, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of bloggers, private analysts and internet forums claiming that the recent peak in oil production was a hoax, that there are in fact no limits to economic growth, that fiat marker capital accurately reflects remaining available flow rates of natural resources, and that capitalism and democracy actually could permanently improve the welfare of all the worlds citizens without fouling our only nest. With me today are legendary social muckraker Warren Buffet, oil expert Daniel Yergin, and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Gentlemen: what do you make of these assertions?

Warren Buffett: Well, if I may start Jim, these folks are extreme to say the least. We all learn in school there are no perfect substitutes and that a marginal unit pricing system is completely ineffectual at predicting long term scarcity. I think these online blogging battalions ought to look at the real world for a change - can't they see wide boundary limits to growth with their own eyes? The only time to buy these naive theories is on a day with no "y" in it.

Daniel Yergin: I totally agree with Warren. With respect to oil, these bloggers claim that conventional media coverage of the oil supply fears in the 1880s, at the end of World War I and II and again in the 1970s were unneccessarily alarmist - in reality these were valid long horizon warning signs of technology advancing, but not keeping up with, depletion. This is a misunderstood position: CERA has never claimed we were physically running out of oil, only that the bloggers' 'Asian Phoenix' and other fantastic scenarios do not incorporate rising costs, receding horizons of non-energy inputs, and environmental impacts. These internet analysts are well intentioned, but frankly just don't have the training our people do needed to understand these complex systems.

Jim Lehrer: Mr. Paulson? What do you have to add?

Henry Paulson: There is a long history of social malcontents thinking we can have unlimited growth, develop some perpetual energy machine, or completely replace primary wealth (like oil and forests) with tertiary markers like stocks, bonds and derivatives. Science has pretty much closed the door on these faith based views of our planetary systems. I think it is a danger to the stability of our steady state system to allow these type of fringe views to permeate our media.

Daniel Yergin: That's right Hank. If we had unlimited resources, then why does the overburden continue to increase in virtually all metals and mineral extraction, which requires more energy to operate, which itself requires more metals and minerals. These online analysts have probably never heard of a positive feedback loop! Our field by field analysis of over 800 oil producing structures confirms that the 6.7% decline rate for mature fields that is oft bandied about on the internet is grossly understated. First, technology and high dollar prices caused us to suck out oil with a larger straw in the first half of these oil fields' lives, than physical principles will allow in the second half. Furthermore, the artificially high oil prices brought about by the fiat credit orgy made more supply appear than was sustainable - as investment ceases and as old oil infrastructure needs replacement, the decline rate the world will observe more closely approximate the natural decline rate of all fields. And most of what we find today is small fields, which give sharp bursts of production followed by steep declines.

Warren Buffet: Interesting Danny - I always say that if past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians, and the happiest too. In the businessworld, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield, but in the field of ecology, the windshield is usually a pretty good indicator of whats coming. As far as these internet analysts pointing to indefinitely repealing the second law of thermodynamics, let the blockheads read what the blockheads wrote. They point out that Mexican drilling activity is twice what it was a couple of years ago, as if all that is needed to pull oil from the ground is more capital. Without oil, or similar quality energy, there is no capital. We believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade solely on financial capital is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a 'romantic.' These would-be-capitalists are in for a surprise - only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

Jim Lehrer: Expand on that please Mr. Buffett. How does natural capital, like fossil fuels, impact financial marker capital?

Warren Buffett: Imagine a spigot attached to a large underground cavern. From the spigot comes a natural resource elixir which is variously consumed by the planets denizens, human and other. The sun and our ecosystems gradually replenish what the cavern loses via the spigot. Human sociopolitical systems dictate how wide the spigot is opened: capitalism, unchecked financial markets, and technology all open the spigot wider. The wider the spigot, the faster the elixir depletes, and the more social tiers are created, which creates unstable and unsustainable tensions. The kind of system being painted by these internet rebels would undergo a temporary increase in riches at the larger costs of destruction of global social and natural capital, unlikely to be replenished. We have weekly strategy meetings at my fund, and like to think in as wide of boundaries as possible. Our favorite holding period is forever. What do we want to hold forever? Natural capital, social capital, built capital, and human capital. What these blockheads are proposing would never make it through our committee.

Jim Lehrer: My gosh. I imagine not.

Warren Buffet: Well Jim, you can imagine the reaction of my grandkids and yours if they found out we had depleted the natural capital beyond the ability to create new built infrastructure with bad financial tracking markers? I always say that should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks, which is what the capitalist system advocated by these inciters would be a perpetual exercise in. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

Daniel Yergin: There are only 2 things certain in life: death and EROI. These resource cornucopians have never grasped that the major obstacle to the development of new natural capital is not geology or ecology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.

Henry Paulson: I'll simplify it further Dan. The concentration of wealth that would result from these internet analyst recommendations would imply only 2 options: a return to the feudal system or a hell of a dieoff.

Warren Buffet: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. Why would I listen to these pseudonymous resource cornucopians sprouting up all around the internet if I understand ecology, complex systems, biophysical economics and that the earth is round (well, slightly spherical)? People should spend time listening to the conventional media - the smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves - and the better the teacher, the better the student body. I have enough on my plate than to read these distracting treatises about the unlimited growth chimera by blockhead bloggers.

Henry Paulson: I find these penny-ante criticisms bubbling around the internet of our recent financial policies laughable. The Federal Reserves duty is to maintain natural capital levels so that any short term drawdowns can be relatively quickly replenished with solar energy flows and net primary productivity, which we now have a full understanding of its quantity and dispersion. The cornucopian chants for accelerating growth in the system via more debt are incredibly dangerous if taken seriously -you simply can't grow any socio-economic system by borrowing capital from yourself. We are taking this step to secure permanent natural capital to stabilize; to share ownership broadly among our citizens now and through future distribution; and to permit us to use publicly traded securities to finance strategic acquisitions that we may contribute to a more secure future for all of us. “We are very confident about the long-term outlook for our biosphere, but believe that the immediate impact of recent policies will be a further weakening in the operating environment and a delay in reaching a steady state, ... However, given decreased fiscal and monetary stimulus, we anticipate that long-term risks of future cannibalistic growth in our system should be less frequent and muted than previously expected.”

Jim Lehrer: Well what about those who claim that we went from wood to coal, and coal to oil and oil to gas - that we will similarly be able to more efficiently be able to harness sunlight and use this excess energy to recycle potentially scarce non-energy inputs? Do you ever get intimidated by these congressional analysts who are starting to throw barbed questions at you at hearings, with the sole intent to create a playing field where all their constituents can have more?

Henry Paulson: All can't have more - that is a delusion. Some can have more, or more can have less. I amuse myself a lot by sitting in those hearings and thinking what would happen if I said, "Do you realize what an idiotic question that is?"

Jim Lehrer: Thank you gentlemen. Let's pause and field a few questions.

CAMPFIRE QUESTIONS

1. If such an unlikely press conference were to take place, with the icons of modern industry and intellect doing a complete about face on resource availability and limits to growth, what would happen?

2. Is blogging, public analysis, social critique, etc. found on the internet, more of a social relief valve than a real attempt at changing the future? In other words, is the vast undercurrent of angst and opinions of what is wrong with our trajectory just a 21st century passive variety of self-expression, ineffectual at impacting real events?

3. Is there any time in history in the liminal space between paradigms, where the most authoritative voices of the dying model were the ones to articulate the model was dying? IOW, if things are badly wrong, wouldn't listening to the most successful people at the top be the wrong strategy, as they got to that position from being the most ambitious/skillful/invested in the current paradigm?

TODAY in NYC: A Sea Change: What if There Really Were No More Fish in the Sea? [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-13T07:59:04-05:00

tags: conservation, environmentalism, global warming, ocean acidification, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, A Sea Change, film premier

Image: A Sea Change [larger view].

Can you imagine oceans that have been emptied of all fish? What would life be like for other life forms on this planet if there really were no more fish in the sea? This is not science fiction: human-caused ocean acidification is already making its effects known. Sometimes known as the "wet underbelly" or "evil twin" of climate change, ocean acidification is caused by excess carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels dissolving in sea water. The ocean becomes more acidic, making it difficult for tiny creatures at the bottom of the food web to form their shells. The effects could work their way up to the fishes that one billion people depend upon for their source of protein and livelihood.

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MORE BIG NEWS Regarding the Antarctica Contest! [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-12T12:29:24-05:00

Another competitor in the competition has endorsed me to be your official Antarctica blogger: Rooth MacMillan, from Canada! She writes;

I wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who made it through the onerous voting process and were successful in casting a vote for me - I know it's been a trial for many of you and I appreciate your perseverance.

I have however, decided to bow out at this point and ask that if you have a second, login and switch your vote over to Devorah Bennu here: http://www.blogyourwaytoantarctica.com/blogs/view/152

She sounds like an interesting person who would write an insightful, grown-up blog of the expedition.

Not to worry though, I still plan on journeying to Antarctica in November 2010 likely with Quark and possibly still with Heather. I'll be taking tons of photos - you'll just have to wait another 7 months longer for the blog ;-)

Until then, keep yer eye on my Facebook page for updates.

Since Rooth cannot donate her votes to me outright (you really MUST change this, Quark!), she has to ask her voters to change their votes. So if you've cast a vote in the Antarctica contest, then be sure to check back to see how your candidate is doing, and to see if that person has endorsed someone else, and then re-cast your own vote accordingly.

Wow, Rooth, thank you ever so much. I really appreciate this and I hope to pave the way with words, photographs, video and audio, for your own November journey to Antarctica.

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Tomorrow: A Sea Change in NYC [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-12T10:59:54-05:00

tags: conservation, environmentalism, global warming, ocean acidification, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, A Sea Change, film premier

Image: A Sea Change [larger view].

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Drumbeat: September 12, 2009

nobody@example.com (Leanan) — 2009-09-12T10:45:03-04:00

Oil Supply: As Russian Production Tops Out, World Supply Will Continue to Slip

Where would the world be without the extraordinary growth in Russian oil supply, this decade? Not in a good place, actually. Russia’s near 50% oil production increase since the year 2000 did a lot of heavy lifting. And it’s concerning that this very fast growth rate has now topped out.
North American crude oil production (Canada + US + Mexico) saw, during the current decade, its highest levels in 2003 at an annual average of 11.358 Mb/day. The high month of production that year was in September, at 11.450 Mb/day. In that year, 2003, the average price of oil was 31.08. But by 2008, North American crude oil production had fallen to 10.338 Mb/day. Thus, as the price of oil went from 31.08 in 2003 to the 2008 average of 99.67, North American crude oil production lost over a million bbls a day.

India: Dying of thirst

"As a country, we are going in the wrong direction with water," says Singh, whose state produces about 22 per cent of India's wheat (and, along with Haryana state, supplies more than 88 per cent of the country's emergency grain stocks). He toes a clump of dry, crumbly dirt. "We are running out of it, and crops are going to slow. We will see more hunger, more disputes and clashes. More theft."
Already, farmers are desperate.
And from desperation, it's a small step to violence.

New York City Braces for Risk of Higher Seas

NEW YORK -- When major ice sheets thaw, they release enough fresh water to disrupt ocean currents world-wide and make the planet wobble with the uneven weight of so much meltwater on the move. Studying these effects more closely, scientists are discovering local variations in rising sea levels -- and some signs pointing to higher seas around metropolitan New York.
Sea level may rise faster near New York than at most other densely populated ports due to local effects of gravity, water density and ocean currents, according to four new forecasts of melting ice sheets. The forecasts are the work of international research teams that included the University of Toronto, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., Florida State University and the University of Bristol in the U.K., among others.

China threatens to default on oil derivatives trades

About one year after the Lehman bankruptcy, we are getting rumors of more impending bankruptcies, this time from China.
The problem started last year when the price of oil dropped from $147 to $32 per barrel. Many companies use the futures markets to hedge their buying of oil. When prices skyrocket, they get scared and buy futures contracts for future delivery to lock in a price and to be assured of getting the product. So, some companies were buying oil at the height of the market last year. Companies that place hedges usually leave them on until delivery. What happened was that when the price of oil collapsed, these companies were still holding high-priced contracts. They saw the price plummet and took horrendous losses.

Ecuador says had no role in alleged bribery case

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on Saturday his government had no involvement in an alleged bribery scheme linked to a $27 billion environmental damages lawsuit against U.S. oil company Chevron Corp.
The judge hearing the case, Juan Nunez, recused himself days after Chevron handed Ecuadorean and U.S. authorities a secretly recorded video of the magistrate talking of ruling against Chevron later this year.
"They've come up with some videos, but we are not going to fall into the trap," Correa said in a public address.

Iraq moves ahead on foreign oil tax

Iraq's parliament held an initial discussion yesterday of a bill that would impose a 35 per cent income tax on foreign oil and gas firms working in Iraq, lawmakers said.

Reliance’s $5.7 Billion Debt Cost Rising on Gas Delay

(Bloomberg) -- Reliance Industries Ltd. said its cost of paying about 280 billion rupees ($5.7 billion) of debt raised to develop India’s biggest gas field is increasing after it capped output waiting for the government to find new buyers.

Champagne and slums: In West Africa's oil giant, the rich-poor gap is a chasm

At the Megaplaza mall, a flat-screen TV taller than a man sells for $53,000, a crystal chandelier for $10,000. A 2009 survey by U.S. consulting firm Mercer finds Lagos pricier for expatriates than Berlin or Madrid.
Meanwhile, four-fifths of Nigerians live on less than $2 a day.
In this city of over 17 million, power shortages caused by neglect and mismanagement mean even rich areas only get a couple of hours of electricity a day. A fleet of diesel generators keeps the Megaplaza lights burning.
The wealthy import everything from refined gasoline for their Mercedes-Benzes to their children's favorite foods.

Algeria is developing oil sector to maintain level of output

Algerian authorities have begun a wide-scale operation for oil exploration and drilling in several regions in northern Algeria, Oil Minister Chekib Khalil said on Saturday.

China's August crude oil imports up 18 pct

TOKYO (KUNA) -- China's crude oil imports rose 18.0 percent in August from a year earlier to 18.47 million tons, or 4.37 million barrels a day (bpd), the Chinese government said Friday.
Imports fell 5.9 percent from July's 19.63 million tons (4.64 million bpd), according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on its Website.

Robert Bryce: Bird Kills? What Bird Kills?

But the ExxonMobil and PacifiCorp prosecutions bring up an obvious question: why aren’t wind power companies being prosecuted for their bird kills? A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, California, estimated the farm’s turbines were killing 80 golden eagles per year. Those birds are protected by the Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which was enacted in 1940. In addition to the eagles, the study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, estimated that about 10,000 other birds -- nearly all of which are protected under the MBTA – are being whacked every year at Altamont.
To recap: ExxonMobil was prosecuted for killing 85 birds over a five-year period. The wind turbines at Altamont, located about 30 miles east of Oakland, are killing more than 100 times as many birds as were Exxon’s tanks, and they are doing it every year. Furthermore, the bird kill problems at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since at least 1994.

Study Finds Risk to Some Birds Nesting Near Oil Fields in Alaska

As oil and gas companies press to tap new deposits in remote places, scientists are trying to gauge and limit the ecological impact of pipes and other structures in otherwise wild lands.

British environmentalists link with natives to fight oil sands

An anti-oil-sands partnership between a bank in Manchester, England, and a small Alberta First Nation may seem unlikely, but it's part of an increasing alliance between international environmental crusaders and Canadian aboriginals.

Environmental Ideas Put in Print With Select Audiences in Mind

Some might argue that Mr. Savitt’s original aim — “capturing knowledge” that would otherwise languish unshared — is obsolete in the Internet age, in which a vast quantity of information is available online.
But others say the proliferation of material online has made credible sources of environmental guidance all the more important.

Efforts to turn empty lots to a glass half full

Even as San Francisco's development scene continues to languish, city officials and at least one private landowner are exploring how to fill empty sites in creative ways - including art installations and a working farm.
"If you leave a blank landscape, that's an invitation to blight," said Matt Jacobs of Turnberry Lansing, the owner of 45 Lansing St., a Rincon Hill lot that also fronts Harrison Street. "It's better to do something that's interesting and that the neighbors like."

A Wooded Prairie Springs From a Site Once Piled High With Garbage

The site is not yet open to the public. Indeed, it is still listed by the state as a toxic waste site. But the air is clear and fresh.
“You can probably compare it with a day in the Alps,” Mr. Shelley said during a tour given to local residents by the city this summer. “We had hoped we would have a park. It’s turned out to be better than a park.”

Find Local Rideshares Quickly Via Mobile Phone

ScienceDaily — In spite of rising energy prices, many car drivers in large cities still ride alone. The OpenRide mobile ridesharing service aims to save them money while reducing the amount of traffic and thus the burden on the environment. At the IFA international consumer electronics exhibition in Berlin (September 4 to 9), Fraunhofer researchers presented a prototype of their open infrastructure for organizing spontaneous ridesharing opportunities.

German Geothermal Project Leads to Second Thoughts After the Earth Rumbles

LANDAU IN DER PFALZ, Germany — Government officials here are reviewing the safety of a geothermal energy project that scientists say set off an earthquake in mid-August, shaking buildings and frightening many residents of this small city.
The geothermal plant, built by Geox, a German energy company, extracts heat by drilling deep into the earth. Advocates of the method say that it could greatly reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels by providing a vast supply of renewable energy.
But in recent months, two similar projects have stirred concerns about their safety and their propensity to cause earthquakes. In the United States, the Energy Department is scrutinizing a project in Northern California run by AltaRock Energy to determine if it is safe. (The project was shut down by the company last month because of crippling technical problems.) Another project, in Basel, Switzerland, was shut down after it generated earthquakes in 2006 and 2007 and is awaiting the decision of a panel of experts about whether it can resume.

Foreign ships in North underline sovereignty issues for Canada

A historic voyage this week by two German cargo ships across the Northern Sea Route above Russia highlights the challenges — and potential missed opportunities — confronting Canada in the Arctic, says a leading expert on polar issues.
UBC professor Michael Byers, whose book Who Owns the Arctic? is being launched this month, says the transit of the German vessels in the company of Russian icebreakers — widely reported Friday as a landmark commercial passage from East Asia to Western Europe via Arctic waters — underscores Canada's current inability in the Northwest Passage to match Russia's readiness to exploit economic opportunities and assert sovereignty in the melting polar realm.

CEO: Eskom aware of coal weakness

Johannesburg - Eskom was aware of weaknesses in its coal contracts before it received a report warning about its stockpiles, the parastatal's CEO said in Johannesburg on Friday evening.

Thailand: Power producers call for deeper cut in reliance on natural gas

Energy business operators say the use of natural gas for electricity generation should be cut even lower than the 60% planned under the revised power development plan (PDP), saying the risk of dependence on gas is still too high.

Documentary on electricity and coal-fired power plants will be shown Sept. 16

“The Electricity Fairy” examines America’s national addiction to fossil fuels through the lens of electricity. Hansell follows the story of a proposed coal-fired power plant in the mountains of southwest Virginia, connecting the local controversy to the national debate over energy policy.
Present-day documentary footage is remixed with old educational films, connecting past policy to America’s current energy crisis.

Behemoths to the fore in Frankfurt as sales window threatens to shut

Children and grandchildren will one day hear barely believable tales of long extinct, gas guzzling 150 mph beasts like Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Jaguars and Porsches which were on show at the 2009 Frankfurt Car Show. Anybody could buy them, as long as they had the money.
The global car industry is on the verge of revolutionary change. New laws are about to kick in forcing manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient cars, from governments convinced that global warming is caused by humans burning fossil fuels. This urge to fight climate change, which a vociferous and growing minority of scientists say has no basis in science and is therefore impossible, will lead to more laws forcing cars to become slower, smaller, and restrict driving in city centers.

The Food Wars

Neither the recent global food shortages nor the impending world energy crisis will be unfamiliar to readers, yet the link between the two has only recently been discussed.
Walden Bello, renowned activist, academic and voice of the global South, situates the origins of the current food crisis within the neo-liberal reforms occurring on a global scale, describing the marginalization of the peasantry by global systems of production and distribution that service mainly the world’s middle class and elite.

From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a Catch

“Most Americans have no clue that hoki is often what they’re eating in fried-fish sandwiches,” SeaFood Business, an industry magazine, reported in April 2001. It said chain restaurants using hoki included McDonald’s, Denny’s and Long John Silver’s.
Ominous signs of overfishing — mainly drops in hoki spawns — came soon thereafter. Criticism from ecological groups soared. The stewardship council promotes hoki as sustainable “in spite of falling fish stocks and the annual killing of hundreds of protected seals, albatross and petrels,” the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand said in May 2004.

Environmental Groups Spar Over Certifications of Wood and Paper Products

For more than a decade, the nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council generally has been viewed as the premier judge of whether a wood or paper product should be labeled as environmentally friendly.
But to the dismay of major environmental groups, that label, known as F.S.C., is facing a stiff challenge from a rival certification system supported by the paper and timber industry. At stake is the trust of consumers in the ever-expanding market for “green” products.

Lush Land Dries Up, Withering Kenya’s Hopes

A devastating drought is sweeping across Kenya, killing livestock, crops and children. It is stirring up tensions in the ramshackle slums where the water taps have run dry, and spawning ethnic conflict in the hinterland as communities fight over the last remaining pieces of fertile grazing land.
The twin hearts of Kenya’s economy, agriculture and tourism, are especially imperiled. The fabled game animals that safari-goers fly thousands of miles to see are keeling over from hunger and the picturesque savanna is now littered with an unusually large number of sun-bleached bones.

Slideshow here.

Activist and author campaigns around the globe for climate action

The problem is, our political and economic system would like slow, cheap solutions that cause as little disruption as possible. Physics and chemistry, on the other hand, have already laid out their bottom line--above 350 ppm CO2, the world won't work right. That's why, at 390 ppm, the Arctic is melting. And since physics and chemistry are unlikely to negotiate, we have to meet their demands, hard as it may be. I'm not at all certain the U.S. will act decisively. Obama is clearly doing far more than President Bush; unfortunately, that's not the bar he has to clear. China and India profess themselves willing to take action if we do, and it's clearly up to us to lead. But it's going to be difficult for everyone, especially the poor countries--burning their coal is the easiest way forward, and giving up that option will mean we need to transfer serious resources north to south to compensate them.

Human-made Crises 'Outrunning Our Ability To Deal With Them,' Scientists Warn

ScienceDaily — The world faces a compounding series of crises driven by human activity, which existing governments and institutions are increasingly powerless to cope with, a group of eminent environmental scientists and economists has warned.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say that nations alone are unable to resolve the sorts of planet-wide challenges now arising.

Endless oil

Today, Russians laugh at our peak oil theories as they explore, and find, the bounty in the bowels of the Earth. Russia’s reserves have been climbing steadily — according to BP’s annual survey, they stood at 45 billion barrels in 2001, 69 billion barrels in 2004, and 80 billion barrels of late, making Russia an oil superpower that this year produced more oil than Saudi Arabia. Some oil auditing firms estimate Russia’s reserves at up to 200 billion barrels. Despite Russia’s success in exploration, most of those in the west who have known about the Russian-Ukrainian theories have dismissed them as beyond the Pale. This week, the Russian Pale can be found awfully close to home.

Oil Pushes Up Manufacturers' Costs

LONDON (Reuters) - Manufacturers' raw material costs rose at their fastest monthly rate in more than a year in August, driven up by oil costs and resulting in the smallest year-on-year rate of decline since April.
But faced with ongoing recession, manufacturers were slower to pass on August's 2.2 percent monthly rise in input costs and only raised factory gate prices by 0.2 percent in the month, the same as July's pace of increase.

Drilling for Oil & Gas in the Arctic

For years it remained economically unviable to extract oil and natural gas in the Arctic, but the situation is now changing: Interim price drops notwithstanding, prices on commodity exchanges will rise again in the near future.
"We must not let us ourselves be swayed by low oil prices," says Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency in Paris. "Raw materials extraction problems are not out of this world -- to the contrary. Our figures leaves no doubt about that."

Summit may reshape Caspian bloc

A summit of Caspian states this weekend could foreshadow the emergence of a new regional economic grouping, according to Central Asia commentators.

Venezuela bought Russian arms, Chavez says as trip concludes

(CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned home Friday after a sometimes controversial nine-country tour and said he had purchased weapons from Russia.

Shell CEO says reorganization to mean job cuts

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A planned reorganization of Royal Dutch Shell Plc's worldwide exploration and production operations will mean job cuts, its chief executive said Friday, but he declined to say how many.
Shell, Europe's largest oil company by market value, aims to boost the efficiency of its oil and gas production business as it tries to meet energy needs for the next decade or more, CEO Peter Voser said.

Gazprom sees Ukraine gas 'risk' next year: Miller

Ukraine is ensuring smooth transit of Russian gas supplies to Europe but there is a risk of disruption next year due to uncertainty on payments, the head of Russian gas giant Gazprom said Saturday.

Number of active rigs drops by 10

The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. fell by 10 this week to 999.
Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday that 699 of the rigs were exploring for natural gas and 288 for oil. Twelve were listed as miscellaneous. A year ago this week, the rig count stood at 2,031.

Saudi offers more fuel oil on refinery glitch

SINGAPORE: Saudi Aramco’s fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit in its Rabigh refinery experienced an outage last week, and was re-started this week, but was still not running at full capacity, industry sources said yesterday.
This has led to Aramco offering unusually high volumes of A962 cracked fuel oil in the last two weeks. Three cargoes scheduled to load on Sept. 14-15, 17-19, and 24-25 have already been sold, traders said.

Chris Jylkka: Rough Times Ahead For Natural Gas

We've asked it before and we'll ask it again: What is up with natural gas these days? Stockpiles are at all-time highs and prices near their lowest point in years, and yet natural gas ETFs like the U.S. Natural Gas Fund (NYSE Arca: UNG)—which has traded with as much as a 20% premium—just keep climbing. What gives?
It comes back to demand—or the lack thereof, says Christopher Jylkka, principal and manager of Boston Energy Trading, LLC and regional director of energy market intelligence firm Enva. With over 12 years' experience in the energy industry, Jylkka is an expert in the trends and fundamentals currently shaping the natural gas markets.

Top US hedge fund eyes big business in Gulf

With some of world's biggest financial institutions caught in the global financial crisis, forcing them to deleverage and reduce international operations, a raft of international funds, private equity firms and investment banks are positioning themselves to access liquidity in the region.

Slicing & Dicing Sectors Into Themes

Specialty-sector ETFs—also called “thematic” ETFs—have emerged as a major force in the ETF industry.
These ETFs run the gamut of investment possibilities, but have one thing in common: They look past traditional size and sector designations to carve out new investment areas, often driven by a single investment thesis.
Clean energy, infrastructure, nuclear power—by our count, there are now more than 40 of these unique ETFs on the market, with more than $10 billion in assets under management.

China, U.S. to dominate solar market

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The United States and China are in a head-to-head race to become the world's top market for solar power, and panel makers are wasting no time making plans to cash in on the growth promise of both markets despite the global recession.

Low Crop Costs To Boost Ethanol Producers

With huge harvests expected, meat and ethanol producers should get a break on input costs.

Navy to fly jets fueled by algae, oilseed crop

The U.S. Navy plans to fly fighter jets and run ship engines powered by "biofuels" made from algae and oilseeds—part of a fledgling effort to reduce the military's dependence on imported fossil fuels.

2 German cargo ships pass through 'Arctic Passage'

FRANKFURT — Two German merchant ships have traversed the fabled Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia's Arctic coast to Siberia.
Now the German-owned ships are poised to complete their journey through the cold waters where icebergs abound, heading for Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 3,500 tons of construction parts.

What will it take to produce 'A Sea Change' in public opinion on ocean acidification?

Sven Huseby and wife Barbara Ettinger have made a new documentary about ocean acidification, the other offspring (along with global warming) of the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (and the one that can't be covered up with a good batch of geo-engineering.) As a staffer at the marine environmental group Oceana once told me: "If the ocean goes, we're all toast."

UN climate chief sees 'significant' Copenhagen deal

DALIAN, China (AFP) – UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said on Friday he believed nations would sign a "significant" deal on how to reduce the effects of global warming at a conference in Copenhagen in December.
"I am confident we can reach a significant agreement," De Boer told AFP on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions, known as the "Summer Davos in Asia", in the Chinese port city of Dalian.

Friday Cephalopod - Giant Squid (video) [A Blog Around The Clock]

nobody@example.com (Coturnix none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T20:18:52-05:00

I heard someone else in the blogosphere does this on Fridays, but I could not resist stomping into his territory as this video is Teh Awesome, from the Seaplex expedition - a dead Giant Squid, torn apart by hungry marine biologists:

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New and Exciting in PLoS ONE [A Blog Around The Clock]

nobody@example.com (Coturnix none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T19:59:32-05:00

There are 22 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

Major Role of Microbes in Carbon Fluxes during Austral Winter in the Southern Drake Passage:

Carbon cycling in Southern Ocean is a major issue in climate change, hence the need to understand the role of biota in the regulation of carbon fixation and cycling. Southern Ocean is a heterogeneous system, characterized by a strong seasonality, due to long dark winter. Yet, currently little is known about biogeochemical dynamics during this season, particularly in the deeper part of the ocean. We studied bacterial communities and processes in summer and winter cruises in the southern Drake Passage. Here we show that in winter, when the primary production is greatly reduced, Bacteria and Archaea become the major producers of biogenic particles, at the expense of dissolved organic carbon drawdown. Heterotrophic production and chemoautotrophic CO2 fixation rates were substantial, also in deep water, and bacterial populations were controlled by protists and viruses. A dynamic food web is also consistent with the observed temporal and spatial variations in archaeal and bacterial communities that might exploit various niches. Thus, Southern Ocean microbial loop may substantially maintain a wintertime food web and system respiration at the expense of summer produced DOC as well as regenerate nutrients and iron. Our findings have important implications for Southern Ocean ecosystem functioning and carbon cycle and its manipulation by iron enrichment to achieve net sequestration of atmospheric CO2.

Does the Order of Invasive Species Removal Matter? The Case of the Eagle and the Pig:

Invasive species are recognized as a primary driver of native species endangerment and their removal is often a key component of a conservation strategy. Removing invasive species is not always a straightforward task, however, especially when they interact with other species in complex ways to negatively influence native species. Because unintended consequences may arise if all invasive species cannot be removed simultaneously, the order of their removal is of paramount importance to ecological restoration. In the mid-1990s, three subspecies of the island fox Urocyon littoralis were driven to near extinction on the northern California Channel Islands owing to heightened predation by golden eagles Aquila chrysaetos. Eagles were lured to the islands by an abundant supply of feral pigs Sus scrofa and through the process of apparent competition pigs indirectly facilitated the decline in foxes. As a consequence, both pigs and eagles had to be removed to recover the critically endangered fox. Complete removal of pigs was problematic: removing pigs first could force eagles to concentrate on the remaining foxes, increasing their probability of extinction. Removing eagles first was difficult: eagles are not easily captured and lethal removal was politically distasteful. Using prey remains collected from eagle nests both before and after the eradication of pigs, we show that one pair of eagles that eluded capture did indeed focus more on foxes. These results support the premise that if the threat of eagle predation had not been mitigated prior to pig removal, fox extinction would have been a more likely outcome. If complete eradication of all interacting invasive species is not possible, the order in which they are removed requires careful consideration. If overlooked, unexpected consequences may result that could impede restoration.

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Antarctica: Others Think I'd do a Helluva Job, Too [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T15:59:21-05:00

Image: courtesy of Bob O'Hara, author of Deep Thoughts and Silliness.

Since I have recently developed quite a history of visiting cold and snowy places, often during the winter (remember Morris, Minnesota in January? Or how about Helsinki, Finland in November, then again in February?), I wish to preserve that tradition. I am competing for the opportunity to go to Antarctica in February 2010 -- a dream adventure that I've always wanted to pursue (and almost did pursue when I was an undergraduate researching Fin Whales and Crabeater Seals at the University of Washington). To enter, all candidates must publish a picture of themselves and write an essay explaining why we think we are the best choice, and solicit votes from the public. Whomever receives the most votes wins the job. Of course, I think I am the best candidate to share this adventure with you, but I am not the only one who thinks this. Below the jump is a list of lots of other people in the blogosphere who are also supporting my bid to become the official blogger on this Antarctic expedition;

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BIG NEWS Regarding the Antarctica Contest!! [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T15:28:51-05:00

One of the competitors, Andrew Evans, who is in the official Antarctica blogger contest with me just talked to me on the phone and says he wants to donate all 500 of his votes to ME! He is going to write a message on his blog to this effect on Monday, after he returns from a writer's retreat being held on a tiny island in the state of Maine. So please everyone, VOTE VOTE VOTE for me!! The momentum is growing rapidly, since there's only two weeks remaining in this contest!! And I would love love love to have this job!!

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Large eruption underway at Shiveluch [Eruptions]

nobody@example.com (Erik Klemetti none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T14:51:28-05:00

Undated photo of Shiveluch volcano in Russia.

In case you haven't seen the report yet, Shiveluch in Kamchatka has gone, as they say, "non-linear". KVERT has raised the alert level at the volcano to "Red" with reports of many strong explosions and an ash plume of >32,800 feet / >10 km. This all suggests that the volcano might have experienced [WARNING SPECULATION] a massive dome collapse followed by rapid decompression of the magma under the dome - causing the plinian eruption that seems to be underway. The size of this eruption plume will definitely have some effect on air travel over the region from North America and Europe. More details as they arrive.

The full KVERT alert is as follows:

KVERT INFORMATION RELEASE 51-09
Thursday, September 10, 2009, 20:50 UTC (Friday, September 11, 09:50 KDT)

SHEVELUCH VOLCANO: 56°38'N, 161°19'E; Elevation 3,283 m, the dome elevation ~2,500 m
CURRENT AVIATION COLOR CODE IS RED
PREVIOUS AVIATION COLOR CODE WAS ORANGE

Strong explosive eruption of Sheveluch volcano with ash explosions >10 km (>32,800 ft) ASL probably continues. The activity of the volcano could affect international and low-flying aircraft.

According to seismic data, strong explosions of Sheveluch volcano occurred from ~14:19 to ~14:55 UTC on September 10. According to an interpretation of seismic signals, ash plumes rose up to >15,000 m (> 49,200 ft) ASL.

Next seismic signals detected a movement (during 8 minutes) of pyroclastic flows from the lava dome of the volcano at 15:57 UTC on September 10. Ash plumes from pyroclastic flows rose up to ~10,000 m (~32,800 ft)ASL (according to seismic signals).

No visual and satellite data about this events - the volcano obscures by clouds.

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Mystery Volcano Photo #3 [Eruptions]

nobody@example.com (Erik Klemetti none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T10:28:16-05:00

OK, well, apparently MVP #2 was waaay too easy because Elizabeth got it on the first try - it was indeed Villarrica in Chile - I'll post something on Villarrica later this weekend. Anyway, for the weekend, I'll leave you with this photo. Hopefully it won't be so easy ... but then again, you all seem to be pretty good at this.

Scoreboard
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
all the rest of you - 0

The new photo:

Good luck.

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If We Can't Get Oil from Mexico . . .

nobody@example.com (Heading Out) — 2009-09-11T10:16:49-04:00

The news from Mexico just continues to get worse with bad news from all three of their biggest oil fields, even as our perennial cornucopian talks of “a Mexican surprise.” As Gregor noted recently (h/t ft energysource) at the beginning of the year Cantarell was producing 862,000 bd and at the end of July this was down to 588,000 bd. The graph plotting decline continues to show a linear decent at the rate of 35,000 bd per month or roughly 100,000 bd every three months – giving it just 17-months at that rate (ending right at the end of next year) until there is nothing left. Somewhere in there the drop is likely to stabilize, but suddenly and soon the questions as to where the replacement hundreds of thousands of barrels are going to come from is going to stop being an almost academic exercise.

The peak and decline of Cantarell – where Mexico once got most of its oil.

But they aren’t the only ones in trouble. Consider U.S. net imports from Mexico over the same period. That decline also looks pretty linear, with a projected intersection with zero in 2014, depending on where you draw the line.

Net Imports From Mexico (EIA)

Mexico itself is not likely to be able to come up with much of an answer.

The President just changed the head of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) as the revenues that the state gets from sale of its oil (making up nearly 40% of the federal budget) dropped 30% in the first half of the year. Current Mexican Government predictions that overall Mexican production will stabilize at 2.5 mbd over next year don’t reflect the collapse of Cantarell, and also fail to recognize that the promised increases in production from other fields are not reaching the goals set. It is only a few days since the production at Chicontepec was “evaluated” after falling some 12,000 bd short of target. This field is still in development, with ultimate production targeted at 550,000 to 700,000 bd by 2017, but as it is already 16% behind the mark that does not augur well for that future.

As Euan Mearns pointed out the fields at Ku-Maloob-Zaap (KMZ) which lie adjacent to Cantarell are being produced in the same way as Cantarell, and thus production has recently risen dramatically.

Ku Maloob Zaap (KMZ) adjacent to Cantarell in the Gulf of Campeche is the largest source of new production growth. It recently overtook Cantarell as Mexico’s biggest producer, with record output of 814,000 b/d in April. The KMZ complex produced 740,000 b/d of crude in 2008, up from 550,700 b/d in 2007. Production has doubled in the last 3 years with a nitrogen reinjection program similar to one at Cantarell. Pemex expects KMZ production to peak at 820,000 b/d before declining to 810,000 b/d next year.

Read that last sentence again! Now the oil in KMZ is proving to be much heavier than that from Cantarell and so may not decline at quite the same rate, but given the very rapid increase in production, and that the peak is already here, this does not bode well for sustaining Mexican production using that region for any great period into the future. Rather it might increase the already precipitate drop in total production levels going into 2011.

Mexican exports of heavy crude (that from Cantarell and KMZ) had fallen, by July to 1.06 mbd from 1.22 mbd in January. Pemex had domestic sales of 1.8 mbd in July which is up some 45,000 bd from January, largely due to increases in sales of motor gasoline. The country imports some 550,000 bd of refined products.

If we go back to the Export Land Model, if internal demand continues to grow, and if Chicontepec proves to consistently fail to produce the needed production by as much as 20% or more (assuming that they are now working the best prospects first) and if we start to see the decline in KMZ next year . . . . . .

And to quote an “expert” on the subject:

Michael C. Lynch, president, Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc., differs from the generally pessimistic consensus on Mexico. “I think Mexico will probably surprise many,” he said.

Lynch said, “[Pemex’s] first need has been capital; the government has a long tendency to starve them of money, and only recently has this been reversed. Mexican drilling activity is twice what it was a couple of years ago, and they have a lot of medium-sized fields that could make a serious contribution. (The decline in rigs rates has helped them, but the peso decline offset that somewhat). Deregulation and outside investment would certainly help, but capital is the main thing.”

Perhaps somebody could explain to Michael that when one uses the word “surprise” it generally means you’re going to hear good news – none of this is!

Drumbeat: September 11, 2009

nobody@example.com (Leanan) — 2009-09-11T10:08:42-04:00

Analysis: Pemex Strives to Increase Production through Offshore Drilling

The petroleum industry in Mexico is in a race to catch up. Although a major non-OPEC country and the seventh-largest oil producer in the world, production in the Latin American country is on the decline.
In fact, the EIA reports that the country's production has fallen from 3.5 million barrels of oil a day in 2007 to 3.19 million barrels of oil a day in 2008. Furthermore, according to the agency's Short-Term Energy Report published in March 2009, production is expected to slip even further. In 2009, production in Mexico is expected to average 2.9 million barrels of oil a day, and then in 2010, production is predicted to fall to 2.7 million barrels of oil a day.

Mexico’s PRI May Favor Raising Oil Price Estimate in Budget

(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s largest party in the lower house of congress might seek to raise the estimate for the price of Mexico’s oil exports in next year’s budget, lawmaker Oscar Levin said.

U.S., Canada to conclude joint survey of extended continental shelf in Arctic

SAN FRANCISCO (Xinhua) The United States and Canada will conclude a joint 41-day exploration of the continental shelf and ocean basins in the Arctic, which may find evidence to support the two countries' claims to the rich oil resources sleeping under the sea floor.
According to the U.S. State Department, two ice breakers, the U.S. coast Guard Cutter Healy and the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent launched the joint mission on Aug. 7. The two ships were scheduled to cross the icy areas from the north of Alaska to Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge and eastwards toward the Canada Archipelago. The mission will conclude next Wednesday.

Shell CEO says price hike

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Another round of significant oil price increases could come within four to five years because oil companies slashed investments to cope with last year's plunge in oil prices, Peter Voser, Royal Dutch Shell Plc's (RDSa.L) chief executive, said on Friday.

Shell Sees Time, Not Technology, as Renewable-Energy Challenge

(Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, said large-scale deployment is a bigger challenge than technological advances in replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.
It typically takes 25 years for new energy sources to build their share of global energy supplies to 1 percent, Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser said today at a conference in Calgary. The Swiss-born Voser, 51, succeeded Jeroen van der Veer as CEO at Shell, based in The Hague, in July.

Repsol Says It Makes Venezuela’s Biggest Gas Find

(Bloomberg) -- Repsol YPF SA, Spain’s biggest oil company, discovered a Venezuelan gas field containing as much as 8 trillion cubic feet of fuel, one of the world’s largest finds.
The field’s potential gas resources would be enough to supply Spain for more than five years, the company said today in an e-mailed statement. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Repsol Chief Executive Officer Antonio Brufau discussed the find in Madrid today, the company said.

ExxonMobil has trouble hawking fields

US supermajor ExxonMobil has been unable to sell four Canadian fields as low natural-gas prices discourage potential buyers.
The properties, which include ExxonMobil’s stake in the Yukon Territory’s only producing gas field, have not attracted any suitors since they were put up for sale on 4 May, Bruce Rauch, an ExxonMobil asset-enhancement manager based in Calgary, said.

Shell’s Renumeration Chief, Attacked Over Pay Awards, to Retire

(Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, said the chairman of its renumeration committee, who came under attack from shareholders over executive pay awards earlier this year, is standing down.

Oil-Rich Caspian Neighbors Say They Didn’t Mean to Snub Iran

(Bloomberg) -- Iran’s northern neighbors agreed to discuss the boundaries of the energy-rich Caspian Sea with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after his government protested its exclusion from a regional meeting.

Storm little threat to Gulf flows

US oil producers and refiners said operations were normal on Friday morning as they monitored a storm system in the western Gulf of Mexico that has a low chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.

Environmental Groups Wait to See Definitive Action From Obama

The White House's main effort has been to undo several Bush-era policies on climate control, air pollution and the regulation of roadless forests. Those actions, combined with court decisions that have struck down other rules, have given President Obama a relatively blank canvas on which to redraw U.S. environmental policy. But the administration has been cautious, leaving key issues in limbo and questions unanswered about the way it would balance environmentalism and the economy.

The electric-fuel-trade acid test

IN 1995 Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen, two researchers at the Harvard Business School, invented a new term: “disruptive technology”. This is an innovation that fulfils the requirements of some, but not most, consumers better than the incumbent does. That gives it a toehold, which allows room for improvement and, eventually, dominance. The risk for incumbent firms is that of the proverbial boiling frog. They may not know when to switch from old to new until it is too late.

The Problem With 'Eat Local'

HOUSTON -- With the world population headed toward 9 billion by 2050, Texas author James McWilliams wants more genetically modified organisms and more subsidies to feed people, not cattle.
His new book, Just Food: Where Locavores Get it Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, is sure to irritate organic food fundamentalists. He recently talked to Forbes.

Michael Pollan: Big Food vs. Big Insurance

No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.
That’s why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry.

Climate Bill Will Save Each US Household $5,600 Due to Reduced Oil Imports: EIA

According to the EIA, oil imports would drop by 590,000 barrels per day by 2020 under ACES. Currently the US imports about 9.8 million barrels of crude oil per day.
So in terms of actually reducing US dependence on foreign oil that's not really that much, but it does add up in terms of money saved. Cumulatively though 2030 the US would save $658 billion -- or $5,600 per household. Or, using the same cumulative math, $466 per household per year through 2030 just from reduced oil imports. That's in constant 2007 dollars, by the way

8 signs you’re an energy-hogging jerk

Following the advice may not make you any less of a jerk, but at least it will make you a more energy-efficient jerk, noted John Rogers, a senior energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass., who helped compile the list.

Obama Administration: US Has Overinvested In Oil, Gas

The Obama administration opened a new front in its effort to impose $31.5 billion in taxes on oil and gas companies, saying that the nation puts too much emphasis on oil and gas at the expense of other industries.
The chief economist in the Obama administration's Treasury Department testified before a Senate panel that current subsidies "lead to overinvestment" in the oil and gas industry. That went beyond previous statements about the need to protect taxpayers and was the clearest signal yet that the federal government hopes to end its role in nurturing domestic oil and gas production.
"To the extent that current subsidies for the oil and gas industry encourage the overproduction of oil and natural gas, they divert resources from other, potentially more efficient investments, and they are inconsistent with the Obama administration's goals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and build a new, clean energy economy," Alan Krueger, the Treasury's chief economist, told the panel.

Import prices spike as oil rises

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. import prices spiked 2% in August as the cost of oil rose, the Labor Department said on Friday.
The increase, twice what analysts polled by Reuters had expected, was the fifth rise in the last six months. It followed a July drop of 0.7%.
Excluding petroleum, import prices increased a much milder 0.4% in August after falling 0.3% in July. Petroleum prices were up 10.5% and fuel import costs were up 9.8% -- both the sixth increases in the past seven months.

The Biggest Threat to the U.S. Oil Supply

My colleague David Lee Smith detailed the matter of Cantarell's dangerous decline curve in a seminal piece back in 2007. At that time, production had slipped by 20% in a little more than one year, from 2 million to 1.6 million barrels per day. The declines have only gotten more dramatic.
Last summer, Cantarell dropped below the 1 million barrels a day. This July, output registered a 40% year-on-year decline, to a little more than half a million barrels per day. That's a 72% decline from peak production rates in 2005.

Pemex Sells $1.5 Billion of 5.5-Year Bonds in Overseas Markets

(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the largest oil producer in Latin America, sold $1.5 billion of 5.5-year bonds to help finance a record investment plan, according to a person familiar with the transaction.
Pemex, as the Mexico City-based company is known, sold the bonds to yield 2.75 percentage points above U.S. Treasuries, said the person, who declined to be identified because he’s not allowed to speak publicly.

Mexico's Fading Oil Output Squeezes Exports, Spending

Mexico's oil output is falling faster than expected, increasing the chance that the country will lose its status as a major oil exporter in coming years and face a worsening budget shortfall.
Output at state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos's offshore field Cantarell, once the world's second-largest oil field, has plunged to 500,000 barrels a day from its peak of 2.1 million in 2005.
"I don't recall seeing anything in the industry as dramatic as Cantarell," says Mark Thurber, assistant director for research at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University.

Pemex Sees “Doubts” About Chicontepec Profitability

(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the state- owned oil company, needs to find a profitable way to develop its Chicontepec field, Chief Executive Officer Juan Jose Suarez Coppel said.
There are “certainly doubts” about the field’s profitability and the technology that should be used, said Suarez Coppel, who took the helm of Latin America’s largest oil producer on Sept. 8. “Chicontepec has a great potential, and we have to keep investing to find a way to exploit it in a profitable manner,” he said today in a Radio Formula interview.

Sinopec to double oil refining size

CHINA Petroleum and Chemical Corp, commonly known as Sinopec, plans to spend 24 billion yuan (US$3.5 billion) to double capacity of a refining project in Fujian Province.
Asia's biggest oil refiner will expand the refinery - part of China's first Sino-foreign integrated refining and petrochemical project - in the southeast China's province to 24 million tons a year, or about 480,000 barrels per day, according to a newsletter issued by its parent company yesterday.

Crude Reality – A Closer Look at the Almost Perfect Crime

Interestingly, the U.S. government chose not to publicly disclose that they were involved in crude oil swaps – because their intention was to stall manically rising prices, creating a temporary “physical glut” in the market place - and to DRIVE CRUDE OIL PRICES DOWN. Their actions were only recorded “buried” in foot notes of the Department of Energy’s Annual Report where, I’m certain, they assumed no one would ever look.

Did S.C.’s gouging law worsen gas shortage?

The S.C. law that prevents price rip-offs might have prevented something else during the monthlong statewide gas shortage that started a year ago today.
Some gas stations refused refills because of skyrocketing prices, an industry official said.
“That law and threat from the (state) attorney general kept plastic bags on the pumps,” said Michael Fields, executive director of the S.C. Petroleum Marketers Association. “If they knew their next load would cost $5.50 (a gallon), they knew they would be accused of gouging. ... They knew no one would believe, ‘I gotta charge this because this is what it costs.’”

ExxonMobil, Qatar Gas put more downward pressure on LNG prices

Last week, the Henry Hub spot price for natural gas touched $1.83/million btu. On August 28, the Purvin & Gertz LNG netback at the Isle of Grain was $2.13/million btu for Algerian LNG. At Lake Charles the netback price touched $0.44 for Nigerian LNG and close study of all sources reveals that the potential for prices to go lower is real. While ExxonMobil is in a leadership position, they are joined by many others including Royal Dutch Shell, Total GDF-Suez, BG, Chevron plus national oil companies that include Saudi Aramco, Sonatrach, Sonangol and Gazprom among others. Even with a strong growth in demand for all categories of natural gas, it is now reaching the point where LNG has a commanding lead by virtue of its low and falling extraction cost. One possible consequence of this in Europe is that Gazprom's North Stream and South Stream pipelines no longer make economic sense.

Split on the atom

When Vladimir Putin visited Ankara last month, one of the Russian prime minister’s main objectives was to breathe new life into Turkey’s long-held dream of developing civil nuclear power. The planned reactor at Akkuyu on Turkey’s south-east coast, conceived in the 1970s and now being developed by a Russian-Turkish consortium, is still delayed by haggling over the price. But Turkey has made clear it is firmly committed to acquiring nuclear generation capacity.
Shelving the project back in 2000, Bulent Ecevit, then the country’s prime minister, said the world had turned against nuclear power. Now, as Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, once said, it is back “with a vengeance”. If the world is to meet its demand for energy and address the threat of climate change, then plenty of other countries will, like Turkey, have to acquire civil nuclear technology for the first time.

San Francisco gets smart with green technology

San Francisco is using advanced technology – and the strong arm of government – to turn the city into one of America's greenest.

Darpa Seeks to Tap Water’s Power Potential

The quest for limitless energy has preoccupied military researchers for years, and Darpa, the Pentagon’s far-out science arm, has often led the way. Now the agency is looking for yet another method to harness cheap and environmentally friendly energy that would be as simple as turning on the tap.
Well, sort of. Darpa is soliciting proposals for using seawater to create liquid fuel. Their hope is to harvest the abundance of carbon and hydrogen in ocean water, and somehow convert the molecules, via chemical reaction, into usable energy. Since fuel is mostly made up of hydrocarbons, the right interplay between water molecules and the carbon dioxide lurking among them would — in theory — yield fuel compounds.

350 and counting

For a growing number of people in the world, 350 is no longer just a number. In the past year several nations have waged a campaign to reduce the presence of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere to 350 parts per million. Scientists say this level is the safe limit for humanity due to the effects of this greenhouse gas.
Journalist Bill McKibben took this apocalyptic piece of scientific data and used it to launch a worldwide campaign to fight global warming. The founder and director of 350.org, McKibben visited Israel this week as a guest of a coalition of local environmental organizations.

People, Let's Get Our Carbon Down

But this environmentalism can't just be about the dangers we'll face if we don't take action--Green the Block means embracing the changes we must make as a way to build inclusive, thriving local economies. We need to put people to work swinging hammers--not building luxury condos for people with easy credit but installing insulation in old homes and solar hot-water heaters on roofs. We need urban farming and strong local businesses standing up to the big boxes that suck the life and money from communities.

Russia tells OPEC: We never promised you anything

Russia will make no apologies to OPEC for boosting oil CL-FT production to record monthly highs and can invest in new fields while crude trades at current levels around $70 (U.S.) per barrel, the country's energy minister said.
Sergei Shmatko told reporters the world's No. 2 oil exporter would apply zero export duties for East Siberian oilfields from the end of September, although it would step in to regulate the oil sector should world prices plunge again.
“We never had any obligations (to OPEC). When we were communicating, we never promised anything,” Mr. Shmatko said late on Thursday, after OPEC members decided to retain output cuts.

Shtokman timing 'down to demand'

Gazprom may delay the launch of the giant Shtokman gas field beyond 2013 should demand in Europe not recover fast enough, the Russian company's export chief said today.
Deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev also told Reuters Gazprom was considering partnering with South Korean state-owned company Koren Gas Corporation (Kogas) at a liquefied natural gas project in Russia's Far East.

U.S. Energy Department Inventory Data Signals Good News for Oil Producers

The price of crude oil wasn’t exactly surging on Thursday – but apart from that, there was no end to the good news for oil producers.
The U.S. Energy Department noted in its weekly inventory data that crude oil stockpiles fell 5.9 million barrels, well above estimates for a decline of just 1.6 million barrels. This suggests, for the time being at least, that energy consumption is on the rise.

Halliburton betting on deepwater projects

Halliburton Co., the world's second-largest oil field-services provider, is betting on deepwater oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil and West Africa to bolster earnings.
Explorers have contracted 16 new deepwater rigs, which are expected to arrive in the second half, Tim Probert, president of Halliburton's drilling division, said in an interview. Some 30 more rigs will be delivered in 2010 and early 2011, he estimated.

ArcelorMittal to Complete Saudi Arabia Oil Pipe Mill in 2011

(Bloomberg) -- ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, said it will complete a mill in Saudi Arabia to make pipes for the oil industry in 2011, at least two years later than scheduled, to tap a revival in demand.

Analyst: Shell could be first to liquefy gas offshore

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, may be the first company to develop a floating liquefied natural gas project with the location likely to be off northern Australia, an energy consultant said.
“The pioneering floating LNG project is likely to occur somewhere where you have got benign sea conditions and where you have got a stable fiscal and political environment,” Daryl Houghton, senior LNG consultant at Poten & Partners, said at a conference in Darwin today. “That sort of sounds like northern Australia to me.”

Energy Information Administration Alludes to Speculative Money Affecting Oil Prices

In response to Congressional pressure for greater energy market transparency, new EIA director Richard Newell said his agency will now harvest more information about the energy markets and conduct deeper assessments of price factors.

Shell’s Hamburg Refinery in No Danger of Closure, Minister Says

(Bloomberg) -- Hamburg’s economy minister said he’s “less worried” that the city’s refinery could be closed down following its proposed sale by Royal Dutch Shell Plc after holding talks with the oil producer.
Shell, which is reviewing the future of its refineries worldwide, offered reassurance that the sale of the plant won’t lead to production moving elsewhere, Axel Gedaschko, State Minister of Economic and Labour Affairs, said by phone from Hamburg.

Breakup shows credit markets are back

EnCana wants to break up.
That is as clear a signal as you’ll ever get that credit markets are back.
EnCana’s strategically sound but poorly-timed decision to split its U.S. natural gas division away from its Canadian oil sands, gas and refining assets last year was delayed for one reason: Cenovus Energy, the new company which would be home to the heavy oil properties, was having trouble borrowing at competitive interest rates.

Valero’s Klesse Bets All on Beating Waxman-Markey Climate Bill

(Bloomberg) -- Valero Energy Corp. Chief Executive Officer Bill Klesse is so sure the Waxman-Markey climate bill will fail to become law that he’s making no strategic adjustments to cope with the legislation.
“We are not altering our business model based on this legislation because we think the legislation is so poor for all the constituents, the consumers, everybody,” Klesse, 63, said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in San Antonio.
As head of the biggest U.S. refiner, Klesse may have little choice but to bet on failure of the bill, which passed the U.S. House in June. Valero said it stands to lose more than any other company and can’t turn on a dime to blunt the impact.

UK climate scepticism more common

The British public has become more sceptical about climate change over the last five years, according to a survey.
Twice as many people now agree that "claims that human activities are changing the climate are exaggerated".
Four in 10 believe that many leading experts still question the evidence. One in five are "hard-line sceptics".
The survey, by Cardiff University, shows there is still some way to go before the public's perception matches that of their elected leaders.

Australia overtakes US as biggest polluter: report

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australians have overtaken Americans as the world's biggest individual producers of carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global warming, a risk consultancy says.
British firm Maplecroft placed Australia's per capita output at 20.58 tons a year, some four percent higher than the United States and top of a list of 185 countries.

Warming turns global poor's staple into poison

SYDNEY: Cassava - the staple of 750 million impoverished people in Africa, Asia and Latin America - is turning more toxic with much smaller yields, thanks to global warming and carbon levels.

World must help China shift to clean growth: Stern

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will have to retool its engines of economic growth to help the world avoid increasingly dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades, a leading expert on the economic impact of climate change said.
Nicholas Stern, formerly a British Treasury official and World Bank chief economist, told a meeting in Beijing on Friday that transformation would rest on rich countries leading the way by cutting their own emissions and helping poor nations, including China, now the world's biggest emitter.

Total CEO Expects Higher Crude Prices, Supply Squeeze in 2014

(Bloomberg) -- Total SA Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said oil will probably rise to more than $145 a barrel on concern supplies may fall short as soon as 2014.
“We are running the risk of another oil crisis when demand outstrips supply around 2014 or 2015,” de Margerie told Le Parisien newspaper, according to spokesman Paul Floren. “There won’t be enough oil and gas by the middle of the next decade.”
Crude futures peaked at $147.27 a barrel in New York in July 2008 and tumbled almost 70 percent in the second half of the year as the global recession eroded demand. Prices have since climbed 62 percent.
Oil producers must invest in new capacity to avoid a jump in prices, de Margerie said. The slump in crude futures and tightening credit markets have forced explorers to scale back spending plans and scrap expansion projects.
“It is worrying and we must take this into account now and not wait for 2014,” the CEO said.

Crude Oil May Decline as Fuel Supplies Rise, Survey Shows

(Bloomberg) -- Crude oil futures may fall as fuel stockpiles increase and refineries prepare to idle units for seasonal maintenance.
Fourteen of 31 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, or 45 percent, said futures will drop through Sept. 18. Ten respondents, or 32 percent, forecast that the market will rise and seven said prices will be little changed. Last week, 50 percent of analysts said oil would fall.

Natural Gas Poised for Biggest Weekly Gain Since May on Economy

(Bloomberg) -- Natural gas futures in New York are poised for their biggest weekly gain since May on speculation a recovery in the U.S. economy is gaining momentum, spurring demand for industrial fuels.
Natural gas soared 15 percent yesterday, the biggest one- day gain in almost five years, sparked by Energy Department data that showed a smaller-than-forecast increase in U.S. stockpiles. Confidence among U.S. consumers probably increased in September for the first time in three months as the pace of job losses slowed and the economy showed signs of pulling out of the recession, according to survey of analysts by Bloomberg News.

Commodity Inflows Reach August Record, Barclays Says

(Bloomberg) -- Investments in commodity products advanced to $2.63 billion last month, at least double the amount recorded for any August, with investors favoring Europe over the U.S., Barclays Capital said.
Exchange-traded products got $1.74 billion and commodity- linked mutual funds took in $472 million, the bank said in a report late yesterday. The monthly figure includes structured products. European ETPs got more than their U.S. equivalents, the second time that’s ever happened, Barclays said.

Exxon Mobil Says Landowner Protests Won’t Stall PNG LNG Project

(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp., operator of a proposed $12.5 billion liquefied natural gas project in Papua New Guinea, says landowner protests won’t jeopardize a development decision for the venture.
“It’s not causing us delays,” Decie Autin, upstream project manager for Exxon in Papua New Guinea, told reporters at the South East Asia Australia Offshore Conference in Darwin today. A final investment decision is on schedule for the end of the year, she said during a presentation.

Oil majors propping up Myanmar regime: rights group

BANGKOK (AFP) – Energy giants Total and Chevron are propping up Myanmar's junta with a gas project that has allowed the regime to stash nearly five billion dollars in Singaporean banks, a rights group said Thursday.
France's Total and US-based Chevron have also tried to whitewash alleged rights abuses by Myanmar troops guarding the pipeline, including forced labour and killings, two reports by US-based EarthRights International said.

Norway Election Loss May Spark Arctic Victory for Shell, Exxon

(Bloomberg) -- A defeat for Norway’s Labor-led coalition in next week’s election may pave the way for oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and StatoilHydro ASA to explore more of the country’s Arctic waters.
The Labor Party, split between promoting jobs and protecting the environment, is undecided on opening more areas, while its partners oppose new drilling. The coalition trails in polls, suggesting the next government may be a more exploration- friendly, center-right group or a Labor minority administration.

Norway Aug oil output falls to 1.91 mln bpd

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's oil production fell to a preliminary 1.91 million barrels per day on average in August from 2.07 million in July, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said on Friday.

China’s August Power Generation Rises to a Record

(Bloomberg) -- China’s power generation rose to a record in August after the domestic economic recovery spurred demand from businesses and factories.
Power output increased for a third month, gaining 9.3 percent to 344.3 million megawatt-hours, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing today. Power generation had climbed 4.8 percent in July and 5 percent in June after contracting for three straight months.

Hugo Chávez deepens petroleum and military ties with Russia

Moscow – Eight visits in eight years. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez has been here so often that the Moscow media calls him "Russia's comrade-in-arms-and-oil," a phrase that neatly summarizes the growing politicization of a relationship whose profitable core is trade in weapons and energy.

Hugo Chavez wraps up 9-country tour in Spain

MADRID – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will focus on energy and oil agreements during a visit Friday to Madrid, the last stop of a nine-country tour.
Chavez will hold brief talks with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and King Juan Carlos during his half-day stopover.
"We come here to continue working with the Spanish government, to revise agreements, energy, oil and cultural projects," Chavez said in comments broadcast by Venezuelan state television.

Australia in $60 bln Japan, S.Korea gas deals

CANBERRA (AFP) – Australia on Thursday announced liquefied natural gas (LNG) deals worth up to 60 billion US dollars with Japan and South Korea, raising its status as a major energy supplier.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Chevron Australia would supply three firms from the planned Gorgon field off the country's west, just weeks after joint venture partner ExxonMobil's record 41 billion US dollar deal with PetroChina.

Mexico’s rapid decline in oil production is proving peak oil proponents right

The proponents of peak oil—the theory that the world is no longer finding enough new oil from conventional sources to keep up with increases in oil consumption—can rightfully point to Cantarell as confirmation for one part of their theory. Once a field goes into decline, peak oil proponents have argued, the decline in production is shockingly rapid.
Cantarell is now Exhibit #1.

UK 'could face blackouts by 2016'

The government's new energy adviser says the UK could face blackouts by 2016 because green energy is not coming on stream fast enough.
Ministers have previously denied that the UK is heading for an energy gap.
But David MacKay, who takes up his post at the Department of Energy on 1 October, says that the public keep objecting to energy projects.
This, he says, is creating a huge problem, which could turn out the lights.

How Wishful Thinkers Are Forced To Reconnect With Energy Reality

One day Energy Secretary Ed Milliband sets out his proposed expansion of the U.K.'s wind power-led alternative energy revolution; the next day, Vestas, the U.K.'s largest wind turbine manufacturer, shuts down a big part of its British operations citing "low demand" and public opposition to onshore wind farms.
Just bad luck or bad PR? Not quite. Simply another blatant example of the ongoing "disconnect" over energy between those suffering from WTS (Wishful Thinker Syndrome) and the hydrocarbon-fueled present and future energy realities.

Peak Moment Television: The Waking-up Syndrome (video)

Ecopsychologist Sarah Edwards, PhD, explains stages people often go through when facing the implications of climate change and resource depletion. She outlines various aspects of Denial, Anxiety, Awakening, Despair, Powerlessness and eventual Acceptance. Differentiating these from the normal grief process, Sarah emphasizes how we can face inevitable feelings of grief and free our energy for positive, practical action in our personal and community lives. (http://eco-anxiety.blogspot.com)

Q&A: Examining the No-Impact Life

New York City–based writer Colin Beavan was casting around for a new book idea a few years ago - and fretting over the state of the planet - when he had an epiphany. He and his family - wife Michelle and baby daughter Isabella - would live for an entire year while making as little impact on the environment as possible. That meant no motorized transportation, no elevators, no nonlocal food, no caffeine and (eventually) no electricity. TIME talked to Colin and Michelle about the new book and documentary on their green year, No Impact Man, and why pulling the plug on modern life was the best thing that ever happened to their family.

Calif. lawmakers weigh rules on renewable energy

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Increasing California's use of renewable energy would seem like a relatively simple goal, but it has become one of the hottest legislative debates as lawmakers rush to finish their business for the year.

Car dealers appeal ruling on California emissions

WASHINGTON – Auto dealers and business leaders on Thursday appealed a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency that allowed California to establish the nation's first greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks, setting the stage for a potential attempt to block the global warming rules.

Mountaintop Coal Mines Face New Scrutiny Under Obama

(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is starting to dismantle Bush-era environmental rules that have let mining companies like Massey Energy Co. dig coal more cheaply by removing mountain tops and dumping the debris in nearby streams.
Government agencies are reviewing regulations by former President George W. Bush to ensure they haven’t jeopardized water quality around mines, Michael Shapiro, the Environmental Protection Agency’s deputy administrator, said in an interview.

GM rolls past 1 million miles in fuel cell demo

BUFFALO, N.Y. – General Motors Co. is now 1 million miles into its fuel cell experiment and company officials say having everyday people drive a test fleet of pollution-free cars has convinced them they are on the right track.
The automaker on Friday said it passed the 1 million-miles-driven mark in its fuel cell Chevrolet Equinox vehicles, with about 5,000 people rotating in and out of more than 100 cars over the past 25 months.

Regenerative Agriculture: The Transition.

In the face of peak oil and in order to curb carbon emissions, methods of farming that depend less on oil and natural gas, respectively to run machinery and to make synthetic fertilizers, must be sought. Such options are to be found within the framework of regenerative agriculture, but the transition from current industrialised agriculture to these alternative strategies will prove testing.

Can he fix it? Sarkozy's carbon-tax plan derided by environmentalists

A "carbon" tax on transport, homes and factories, intended to make France a "green" model for other large economies, was unveiled yesterday by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
But the convoluted proposals, including mechanisms to refund most of the new energy levies through tax breaks and "green cheques", were condemned by critics as half-hearted and a bureaucratic nightmare.

UN climate chief: Big greenhouse gas cuts needed

DALIAN, China – Rich countries must commit to deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if they want China and India to sign onto an accord to curb global warming, the top U.N. climate official said Friday.
"We need to see that leadership from rich countries," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, at the World Economic Forum. "Without rich country leadership, we will not get developing country engagement."

Climate clean-up not up to developing states only: OPEC

VIENNA (AFP) – Oil-producing and developing countries should not bear the brunt of efforts to clean up the environment, the OPEC crude producers' cartel insisted on Thursday, ahead of a major climate conference in December.
Developed countries "cannot shift the responsibility of cleaning the world or cleaning the environment on developing countries," OPEC secretary-general Abdullah El-Badri told a press conference following a late-night meeting of the cartel at its Vienna headquarters.

S.Africa must lead efforts to avert climate change: EU

KLEINMOND, South Africa (AFP) – The EU on Friday urged South Africa to lead emerging powers such as China and India to commit to cutting carbon emissions, as world leaders grapple ambitious targets on global warming.

As Hill Debate on Climate Flounders, EPA Plows Ahead on Emission Rules

The Obama administration is finalizing rules to control industrial greenhouse gas emissions amid growing skepticism about the prospects of Congress passing a comprehensive climate change bill this year.

Effects of Arctic warming seen as widespread

WASHINGTON – Arctic warming is affecting plants, birds, animals and insects as ice melts and the growing season changes, scientists report in a new review of the many impacts climate change is having on the far north.

Greenland's melt mystery unfolds, at glacial pace

The dynamics of the ice sheet on Greenland — and the much larger ones on Antarctica — were not included in sea level rise projections by the U.N. expert panel on climate change in 2007 because the phenomenon was poorly mapped at the time.
The picture of what happened in Greenland is just starting to come together, and scientists are still in the dark about how the underlying causes were set in motion, how much was owed to natural variances and how much to man's tinkering with the global climate system.

Mystery Volcano Photo #2 [Eruptions]

nobody@example.com (Erik Klemetti none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T08:40:56-05:00

The first Mystery Volcano Photo worked out so well, I thought I'd try a second one, this time culled from my personal collection. I'll try to figure out a way to post the scoreboard on the blog so you can keep track of your standing as MVP continues.

Take your best guess!

Enjoy the weekend.

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Friday Flotsam: USGS/SI update and the plume from Rabaul [Eruptions]

nobody@example.com (Erik Klemetti none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T08:25:19-05:00

To the updates!

Batu Tara volcano in Indonesia. The volcano is currently producing small ash plumes.

I was distracted enough by trying to figure out a way to teach about Miller Indices that I plum forgot to post this week's USGS/SI Weekly Volcanic Activity Report. It was a fairly quiet week so you didn't miss much. Enjoy it at your leisure.
Rabaul must be positioned on the globe in such a way that NASA's Aqua satellite always gets a good shot at it. The Earth Observatory posted a new image of the plume from Rabaul and it looks thicker and more ash-laden than the image posted a few weeks ago. What this says about any potential future activity at Tavurvur crater at Rabaul is unclear, but it does show that the volcano is on a constant "simmer" right now.

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Beneath the Frozen World: Cousteau in Antarctica [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T06:59:59-05:00

tags: travel, nature, Antarctica, Beneath the Frozen World, television, Jacques+Cousteau, streaming video

This video presents an exclusive full-length movie of Captain Cousteau's expedition to Antarctica (this is the third of four parts -- couldn't find any of the others). Narrated by Jacques Cousteau.

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Sorry: it is properly called swine flu [Effect Measure]

nobody@example.com (revere none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T06:33:58-05:00

The old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had a fatal flaw. It's task was both to promote and to regulate nuclear power. That sounds like a bad idea, right? Conflict of interest? But in fact there are a number of government agencies that are in the same awkward position. One of them is the US Department of Agriculture, now run by Obama appointee and former ag state (Iowa) Governor, Tom Vilsack. I'll say one thing for Vilsack. He takes his responsibilities seriously. At least the promoting and protecting the ag industry part. Vilsack has had a mixed record on matters of importance to progressives. He was a timid but definite opponent of the Iraq War and had a fairly good record on energy (except for the inevitable ethanol bias of corn producing states). But generally, Big Agribusiness liked him. For some of the same reasons, organic food advocates didn't. He has a strong bias for industrial farming and livestock operations and the promotion of genetically modified food and seeds developed by the big agribusiness and biotech players. Now comes swine flu. Vilsack is on a crusade to expunge swine flu from all media reports and government agency use. Why? He's upfront about it. Because it hurts the pork producers:

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Update: Antarctic Vote Count [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-11T01:44:04-05:00

Image: Sneer Review.

The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 6100 - 1899 - 1841 - 1264 - 1232 out of 587 candidates registered. I am in third place and sloooowly creeping up on second place. With less than 3 weeks remaining, things are heating up and voting is changing rapidly as previous voters reassign their votes and new voters cast theirs for the first time. [Yes, you can change who you voted for, even if you voted weeks or months ago! All you have to do is log in using the account you created to cast your original vote, a process that takes only seconds] Many tens of thousands of votes have already been cast in this competition, so if the people who have cast their votes already decide to change them, they can significantly affect the outcome of this competition. The top four vote-getters are receiving most of these votes, so I need your votes more than ever -- and you are encouraged to change your votes if you've already voted -- so I can recapture first place, so please ask your friends and relatives to vote for me now!

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Defusing the population bomb

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-10T14:40:37-08:00

Study suggests family planning is one of the lowest-cost ways to reduce CO2

by Adam Stein

People may be the problem, but what’s the solution? Although energy use is driven by demographic trends, we don’t seem to have many tools readily at hand for addressing population as a root cause of climate change. But a new study suggests that a simple investment in family planning services might save an enormous amount of carbon emissions at very low cost.

Specifically, the report claims that the world can spare 34 gigatons of CO2 emissions — the amount the entire U.S. produces in six years — over the next four decades at a cost of $7 per ton. According to the report, these reductions can be achieved simply by fulfilling the current “unmet need” for family planning, an ungainly phrase that refers to the population of couples who are married or “in union” and want contraception but lack access. Because unmarried people experience unwanted pregnancy as well, presumably demand for contraception is even greater than the study suggests.

If all this unmet need is filled, the projected population in 2050 drops from 9.1 billion to 8.7 billion. 8.7 billion, of course, still represents substantial growth from today’s level. That’s always been the problem with focusing overly much on population as the key driver of climate change: the number of people on the planet seems likely to hit roughly 9 billion no matter what we do, so ultimately clean energy and efficiency are going to be the primary way we solve the resource puzzle.

Nevertheless, 34 gigatons is a lot of gas, and $7 is a nice price, and providing family planning services to people who want them has meaningful humanitarian benefits, so this seems like a fruitful (ha!) area to explore. Of course, family planning is also an insanely fraught topic, so don’t expect much progress on this front anytime soon, at least in the U.S.

Cadillac Desert

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-10T14:07:26-08:00

A century of damming and diverting threatens to leave the West high and dry

by Nicole Schuetz

I just finished reading the environmental classic Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner. The book tells the story of water policy in the Western United States from the mid-1800s (the time of John Wesley Powell’s exploration of the region) to the early 1990s.

The strategy of damming and diverting the region’s rivers over the past 150 years to encourage settlement has led to a self-reinforcing cycle: cheap water spurs farming and urban development in areas otherwise classified as semi-deserts, which then require even more cheap water as agriculture and urban growth accelerate in response to the subsidy, requiring more rivers to be dammed and diverted…you get the picture.

For decades, water managers ignored the high cost of these decisions: dangerously polluted rivers and aquifers; drastic loss of species and habitat; erosion and silt-clogged reservoirs; and the development of marginally productive lands. Instead, many residents of the West clung to the belief that water allowed to flow freely to the ocean was wasted, that there was always more water to be had, and that in a truly desperate situation, the United States government would bail them out.

Fortunately, as Reisner points out in the afterword to the revised edition, the national appetite for building new dams has sharply decreased. This is due to both the incredible cost of new water projects and to the Wests well-organized environmental conservation movement. Indeed, there is more and more talk of dams coming down and the restoration of river basins to their original free-flowing state.

Still, over a century of frenetic water development has changed the West from a sparsely populated frontier to a heavily populated, extremely productive, and politically powerful region, precariously dependent on an over-extended water resource that is likely to become increasingly unreliable as climate change progresses. After the financial and auto industry bailouts of the past year, I find myself in agreement with some of the locals — Congress couldnt possibly let the West decline because of a measly little problem like a chronic water shortage. Just a couple of weeks ago, California’s Governor Schwarzenegger appealed to the Obama administration to divert what little water there currently is in the Sacramento River delta to thirsty cities and farmers, instead of leaving it in the river for migrating salmon and fish species as the Endangered Species Act now requires ( http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5817FK20090902 ).

In this cultural climate, its going to take something pretty drastic for the Wests water use to come into balance with reality. Whatever that event is, I hope its more like a proactive compromise among Western water stakeholders than a punishing 30-year drought.

France announces carbon tax

nobody@example.com (Jeremy Hance) — 2009-09-10T18:43:00Z

The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has announced that he will implement a carbon tax to help "save the human race" from global warming.

Another pseudoskeptical climate change website, but nothing untoward going on here [The Island of Doubt]

nobody@example.com (James Hrynyshyn none@example.com) — 2009-09-10T12:22:05-05:00

Miles Grant at Grist has alerted us to a new global-warming pseudoskeptic website, PlantsNeedCO2.org, with questionable parentage. Although "Plants Need CO2 is a 501 (c)(3) non profit corporation" it appears to be closely associated with decidedly profit-oriented types.

The domain name is registered to Houston-based Quintana Minerals, although the company's IT chief, Sammer Arnouk, told me they've registered hundreds of sites to all kinds of groups, including non-profits. There is none of the usual information on the "about us" link beyond a bio of a spokesperson, one H. Leighton Stewart, "a geologist, environmentalist, author, and retired energy industry executive" who once wrote a popular diet book. What the bio doesn't tell you is Stewart continues to work with the fossil-fuel industry and, according to another bio at one of the companies that includes him on a list of directors, "is former Chairman of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association and the Natural Gas Supply Association, and is currently an honorary director of the American Petroleum Institute."

All perfectly legal, of course (despite Grant's accusation of "Yet more lies by Big Oil"). But who's paying the bills? I tracked down Stewart and asked him. He said it's just him. And a couple of friends. But does he have any corporate backing? Not yet, he said, although he is hoping to attract some.

Stewart is a sincere guy who believes the climatology community has made the critical mistake of assuming carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming. He mentions "experimental evidence that CO2 has not been having much of an impact on the climate," although he could offer no citations to peer-reviewed literature.

The website contains all sorts of distracting statements, such as the fact that changes in CO2 levels follow temperature changes in the paleoclimate records. Unfortunately, Steward doesn't seem to understand the difference between a climate forcing and a feedback. He also couldn't resist making a few disparaging comments about the "hockey stick" (despite the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences the graph is sound), calling James Hansen's scientific work "garbage" and dismissing Al Gore as a purveyor of "myths." In other words, nothing new here. Same old tired and discredited climate change denial talking points

Our conversation was frustrating in that there isn't a lot on which we can agree when it comes to the basics. He simply doesn't accept the mountains of evidence that carbon dioxide is a significant greenhouse gas, and that small changes in its atmospheric concentration can have a big impact on climate. But he's not a dupe of Big Oil trying to pull the wool over our eyes. At least, not consciously. He's just decided that, after three years of research, he's one of the those non-climatologists who understands climatology better than those who have made the subject their life's work.

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The Sun or the Atom

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-09-10T15:21:00Z

It looks like we might finally see a solar power installation built on a large enough scale to enable meaningful comparisons between it and our current largest low-emission energy source, nuclear power. Tuesday's announcement by First Solar, Inc. that it had negotiated a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government to install up to 2,000 MW of capacity in Inner Mongolia could take solar out of the world of rooftops and into direct competition with central power plants. It also provides an opportunity to assess this technology on a more consistent basis with our other full-scale energy options, even if it's clear that they ultimately serve somewhat different portions of the power market.

For years I've been reading suggestions for covering large swaths of desert with solar panels, and this looks like the largest realistic proposal so far, involving 25 square miles of desert near the city of Ordos, China. While the Desertec project in North Africa might ultimately be much bigger, that still looks like a much more remote possibility, at this point, though it was also clear from First Solar's press release that their project in China will start at a modest scale of 30 MW and work its way up from there. I can't help wondering if some of the project's later phases might be contingent on continuing to reduce the cost of solar power from today's levels. As I noted recently, even with solar module costs below $1/Watt for First Solar's thin-film technology, non-module costs can still push total installed costs above $4/W. That would put the Ordos project in roughly the same category as a new nuclear power plant in terms of total cost, not just notional output.

And while we're looking at output, we ought to consider how comparable an installation of 2,000 MW of solar panels anywhere on earth would really be to two coal-fired power plants, as was mentioned in several news reports on this story. Although I couldn't find data specifying the actual annual number of peak-sun hours for Ordos City, a glance at this solar irradiance map of China suggests that this location gets around 6 kW/m2/day, equal to 6 peak-sun hours per day, on average. That gives this project an average capacity factor of 0.25, which means that 2,000 MW of peak solar power would generate roughly the same amount of electricity annually as one 700 MW coal-fired power plant or a single 550 MW nuclear power plant, if there were such a thing. Perhaps this project's biggest benefit is in its scalability. Unlike a new nuke, which would probably take about as long to build, the Chinese won't need to wait until the project was completed in 2019 to get useful electricity from it. Each sub-project would stand on its own, and the first one could start generating within a year or two.

On balance, then, this huge solar project could produce as much peak power as a pair of nuclear power plants (or large coal-fired plants)--though still quite a bit less than either of those technologies over the course of a year--while costing about as much as one large nuclear reactor, even allowing for significant cost improvement between the time the first and last solar panels are installed. How useful such a facility will be is largely a function of whether that region of China has a greater need for lots of power when the sun happens to shine, or reliable power around the clock. I'm as pleased as anyone that China appears to be diversifying its energy mix away from coal, even to a modest degree, and there's certainly nothing about building such a facility that precludes expanding nuclear power, since in the long run the country is likely to need lots more of both. Still, in terms of bang for the buck and without factoring in what this one project might do to help bring down the cost of solar power elsewhere, it hardly seems an obvious choice.

Renewable Fuel Contenders

nobody@example.com (Robert Rapier) — 2009-09-10T10:15:38-04:00

Introduction

I got quite a few interesting e-mails and comments following my previous essay: Biofuel Pretenders. I probably should have mentioned - but I thought it went without saying - that pretenders usually don't think they are pretenders and will therefore protest mightily at the characterization. A number of people who e-mailed assured me that they have really cracked the code to affordable biofuels, and that we would be hearing more about them soon. Another person who wrote to me about algae said that he has been following algae since 1973, and he wrote "In spite of all the hype and non-stop press releases, no one to my knowledge is producing algae on a commercial basis for biofuel production."* Ultimately, I would be happy to be proven wrong on this, but I am just calling it as I see it.

On the other hand, there are some renewable fuel options that have either proven themselves as solid contenders, or have not yet demonstrated fatal flaws that would disqualify them at this point. In this essay I will cover some of those. First, I will cover a pair of first generation biofuels that have proven that they can compete with oil on a cost basis, and then a pair of next generation biofuels that I believe will be competitive.

Caveats

There are some other things that I need to point out, but if history is any guide these caveats will be completely ignored by some. First, I am discussing liquid fuels here, even though I am hopeful that electric cars become a real contender.

Second, calling something a contender is not an endorsement – particularly of the first generation contenders. Palm oil can compete with petroleum on price to some extent. The wisdom of using palm oil for fuel is a different matter. So please do not confuse how I see it with how I would prefer to see it.

Third, I am fully aware that there are limits to the biomass that can be removed from the soil. I want to be sure that biomass that is grown and used responsibly. One of the things I am involved in right now concerns farmed biomass that removes few nutrients from the soil. There are even ways to produce biomass that can improve the quality of the soil. Imagine a tree that sends down deep roots, brings nutrients up from the subsoil, and concentrates them in the leaves which then fall off and add to the soil. It is not science fiction, and my new group has people working on these types of biomass.

Finally, for those who go on an anti-car rant any time there is a discussion of liquid fuels: I personally would like to see a big reduction in motorized transport. The basis of our future energy strategy has to start with conservation. But I believe we will need liquid fuels for applications like long haul trucking, airline transport, and marine applications. There will likely be a liquid fuel need for emergency vehicles. So while I am under no illusions that bio-derived fuels can replace our petroleum usage, I believe they can make a contribution for critical applications.

The First Generation Contenders

Sugarcane Ethanol

Ethanol that is produced in conjunction with sugar production, especially from tropical regions like Brazil, has some unique attributes that have enabled it to compete on a head to head basis with gasoline pricing. Specifically, during the production of sugar, the bagasse (sugarcane residue) is pulverized and washed many times. Many soluble inorganic constituents that may normally pose an ash problem for a boiler are washed out in the process. What remains after processing is a pretty clean biomass feed for the boilers. The normally vexing logistical issues aren't present because the biomass is already at the plant as a result of the sugarcane processing. So they essentially have free boiler fuel, which minimizes the fossil fuel inputs into the process. That enables ethanol production that is relatively cheap, and that is largely decoupled from the impact of volatile fossil fuel prices.

There are several reasons we don't this in the United States. Last year I made a visit to the largest sugar producer in Louisiana, and they explained the reasons to me. Ethanol can be produced from sugar (but sugar subsidies discourage this), or from the molasses that is produced as a co-product. (The latter was the basis of the plant I visited in India). For sugar producers in the U.S., the economics of the by-product molasses generally favor using it as an additive to animal feed. If the U.S. had a year-round growing season as they do in the tropics, it is more likely that the animal feed market would start to become saturated, and conversion into ethanol might be more attractive. Further, a bagasse boiler is a major capital expense, so there needs to be a high level of confidence that in the future ethanol will consistently be a more economical outlet than animal feed. For Brazil, this is certainly the case.

The ultimate downside of sugarcane ethanol will come about if the U.S. and Europe begin to rely heavily on tropical countries for their fuel needs - thus encouraging a massive scale-up. First, trading oil imports for ethanol imports doesn't do much for domestic energy security. More importantly, it may encourage irresponsible usage of the land in an effort to feed our insatiable appetite for fuel. I think the ideal situation would be to produce the sugarcane ethanol and use it locally, rather than try to scale it up and supply the world. In this way, sugarcane ethanol could be a long-term contender for providing fuel for the tropics, but not a long-term contender for major fossil fuel displacement outside of the tropics.

Palm Oil

The other major first generation contender is palm oil - which also comes with a lot of environmental risk. Palm oil is derived from the African Oil Palm. The oil palm is a prolific producer of oil, which can be used as fuel (and food). This is also a plant that thrives in the tropics, and is capable of annually producing upwards of 500 gallons of oil per acre. To my knowledge there is no other oil crop that consistently demonstrates these sorts of yields (acknowledging that algae could theoretically produce more).

The price of palm oil over the past 5 years or so has traded in a range comparable to that of crude oil; $50-$75 a barrel for the most part (although like petroleum, prices shot up to around $150/bbl in mid-2008). Palm oil can be used unmodified in a diesel engine, although some precautions are in order (and I don't recommend it). It can also be processed to biodiesel, or hydrocracked to green diesel. The extra processing will generally make the final product somewhat more expensive than petroleum, but demand has still been strong due to biofuel mandates.

The risks with palm oil are significant, though. Palm oil presents an excellent case illustrating both the promise and the peril of biofuels. Driven by demand from the U.S. and the European Union (EU) due to mandated biofuel requirements, palm oil has provided a valuable cash crop for farmers in tropical regions like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. The high productivity of palm oil has led to a dramatic expansion in most tropical countries around the equator. This has the potential for alleviating poverty in these regions.

But in certain locations, expansion of palm oil cultivation has resulted in serious environmental damage as rain forest has been cleared and peat bogs drained to make room for new palm oil plantations. Deforestation in some countries has been severe, which negatively impacts sustainability criteria, because these tropical forests absorb carbon dioxide and help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Destruction of peat land in Indonesia for palm oil plantations has reportedly caused the country to become the world’s third highest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Because palm oil is capable of competing on price, it was originally viewed as a very attractive source of biofuels. In recent years, countries have begun to rethink their policies as the environmental implications of scaling up palm oil production began to unfold. As is so often the case, the biofuel mandates that politicians thought were a good idea have had some pretty serious unintended consequences.

Next Generation Biofuel Contenders

Here is how I would define a next generation Biofuel Contender: A technology that is capable of supplying 20% of our present liquid fossil fuel consumption on a net energy basis.

Yes, 20% is somewhat arbitrary, but it weeds out a lot arguments over many potential small contributors. If you set the bar too low - say 5% - all kinds of things come out of the woodwork and make claims. Too much to discuss or debunk. Set the bar too high - say 50% of our current usage - and in my opinion no renewable fuel can meet that target via biomass. Although the pretenders will insist that they can.

I will focus in this essay on the United States, because I am most familiar with our energy usage and biomass availability, but these arguments should be applicable in many places around the world.

Consider for a moment the amount of energy locked up inside the 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass that the Department of Energy and the USDA suggest can be sustainably produced each year. (Current biomass usage is 190 million tons/year). Woody biomass and crop residues - the kind of biomass covered in the 1.3 billion ton study - contains an energy content of approximately 7,000 BTUs per pound (bone dry basis). The energy content of a barrel of oil is approximately 5.8 million BTUs. Thus the raw energy contained in 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass is equivalent to the energy content of 3.1 billion barrels of oil, which is equal to 42% of the 7.32 billion barrels the United States consumed in 2008.

This calculation tells you a couple of things. First, the 42% represents an upper limit on the amount of oil that could be displaced by 1.3 billion tons of biomass – presuming we could really produce that much sustainably. The actual amount of oil displaced would be much lower because energy is required to get the biomass to the biorefinery and then to process it. So replacing oil with biomass isn't going to be a trivial task, and a process must be capable of turning a respectable percentage of those biomass BTUs into liquid fuel if it is to be a contender. But it is unlikely that we are going to replace anything approaching our current level of energy usage with biomass.

Imagine a process that only captures 25% of the starting BTUs as liquid fuel. The liquid fuel production of 1.3 billion tons would then be 10.5% of our oil usage instead of 42% - and that's before we consider the energy requirements from the logistical operations (like getting that wood to the biorefinery). This is the realm of the pretenders; they waste a lot of BTUs during the production of the liquid fuel. What we really need is a process that can capture >50% of the BTUs as liquid fuels. That's what it will take to be a contender, and quite frankly I don't believe cellulosic ethanol has a chance of pulling this off on a large scale.

However, there are at least two technologies that can achieve net liquid fuel yields in excess of 50% of the BTU value of dry biomass. These technologies are flash pyrolysis and gasification. I will talk about each below. (Hydrocracked oils – green diesel - might get close as well, but the most consistent oil producers are generally also foods).

Flash Pyrolysis

Flash pyrolysis involves rapidly heating up biomass to around 500°C. The reaction takes place in about 2 seconds, and the products are pyrolysis oil (also called bio-oil) and char. The process can handle a wide variety of feedstocks, the oil yield is approximately 70% by weight, and the energy content per pound of oil is similar to the starting material. Thus, approximately 70% of the initial BTUs are captured in the oil before we have to start subtracting out energy inputs.

Char is frequently mentioned as a great soil amendment (as terra preta, for instance), but I don't really know if there is a market for it. As someone recently said to me, it may be like biodiesel and glycerin. In theory there are all kinds of uses for glycerin, but the market was quickly saturated as biodiesel production ramped up. Glycerin suddenly became a disposal problem. Terra preta does in fact appear to be a great soil amendment, but people are going to have to show that they will buy it. It seems to me that the ideal solution would be to use the char to help heat the biomass, unless the ash properties are problematic for the process.

There are definite downsides to flash pyrolysis. Heating up to 500°C will subtract from the net energy production, and while heat integration is possible, it would be more difficult to achieve in a hypothetical mobile unit (which I think could finally provide an outlet for the millions of acres of trees destroyed by the Mountain pine beetle). The properties of the raw oil are such that it isn't suitable for transport fuel as produced. It is not a hydrocarbon and is very acidic. Without upgrading, it can't be blended with conventional diesel. There are various issues around reproducibility and stability, especially if the biomass quality varies. The oil is suitable for power generation or gasification, and can be upgraded to transportation fuel, albeit at greater expense and lower overall energy efficiency.

With those caveats, it is still a contender. It could be knocked out of contention as a viable transportation fuel if the upgrading process is too expensive or energy intensive, but at present no fatal flaw has emerged. There are a number of companies involved in pyrolysis research. Dynamotive Energy Systems has been working on this for a while (I first wrote about them in 2007). UOP - a company that specializes in product upgrading for refineries - has teamed with Ensyn to form a joint venture called Envergent Technologies. The company intends to make pyrolysis oils from biomass for power generation, heat, and transport fuel (this is where UOP's skills will come into play).

Gasification: Biomass to Liquids

The following example is just one reason I think gasification is going to play a big part in our future. During World War II, the Germans were cut off from liquid fuel supplies. In order to keep the war machine running, they turned to coal to liquids, or CTL (coal gasification followed by Fischer-Tropsch to liquids) for their liquid fuel needs. At peak production, the Germans were producing over five million gallons of synthetic fuel a day. To put that into perspective, five million gallons probably exceeds the historical sum of all the cellulosic ethanol or synthetic algal biofuel ever produced. Without a doubt, one week's production from Germany's WWII CTL plants dwarfs the combined historical output of two technologies upon which the U.S. government and many venture capitalists are placing very large bets.

South Africa during Apartheid had a similar experience. With sanctions restricting their petroleum supplies, they turned to their large coal reserves and once again used CTL. Sasol (South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation) - out of necessity - has been a pioneer in gasification technology. Today, they have a number of gasification facilities, including the 160,000 bbl/day Secunda CTL facility, which has been highly profitable for the company (but very expensive relative to oil prices when constructed). In total, Sasol today synthetically produces about 40% of South Africa's liquid fuel.

While we can speculate on the source of future fuel supplies in a petroleum constrained world, we do know that two countries that already found themselves in that position turned to gasification as a solution. The technology has a track record, is scalable, and today commercially produces synthetic fuel in volumes cellulosic ethanol or algal fuel can only dream about. We hope various other technologies scale and that technical breakthroughs allow them to compete. But gasification has already proven itself as a viable go-to option. There are presently a number of operating CTL and GTL plants around the world. Shell has been running their Bintulu GTL plant for 15 years, and is currently building the world's largest GTL plant with a capacity of 140,000 barrels/day.

The biomass to liquid fuel efficiency for gasification is around 70% (See Section 1.2.2: Second-Generation Biofuels), a number cellulosic ethanol will never approach. In short, no other technology to my knowledge can convert a higher percentage of the embedded energy in biomass into liquid fuels.**

Of course there's always a catch. Despite large reserves of coal, the United States has not turned to gasification as a solution. Why? High capital costs. At the end of the day the desire to keep fuel prices low consistently overrides our desire for energy security. (There are also greenhouse gas concerns over using coal gasification which should not be an issue for waste biomass gasification).

But biomass is more difficult to handle, so there are added costs above those of coal gasification. So you have a process that is more capital intensive than a conventional oil refinery, or even a cellulosic ethanol plant. But what you save on the cellulosic ethanol plant ultimately costs a lot in overall energy efficiency. Until someone actually scales up and runs a cellulosic ethanol plant, we can only speculate as to whether cellulosic ethanol is even a net energy producer at scale.

Interestingly, one of the "cellulosic ethanol" hopefuls that we often hear so much about - Range Fuels - is actually a gasification plant. (Ditto Coskata). The front end of their process is intended to produce syngas in a process derived from that of World War II Germany. For their back end they intend to produce ethanol, which in my opinion is an odd choice that was driven purely by ethanol subsidies. But this is definitely not the optimal end product of a gasification process. They are going to lose a lot of efficiency to byproducts like methanol (which is actually a good end product for a gasification plant) - and that's assuming they get their gasification process right. They are then going to expend some of their net energy trying to purify the ethanol from the mixed alcohols their process will produce.

The question for me is not whether BTL can displace 20% of our petroleum usage. I believe it can. The question is whether we are prepared to accept domestic fuel that will cost double (or more) what we pay today. In the long run - if oil prices continue to rise - then BTL plants that are built today will become profitable. The risk is that a sustained period of oil prices in the $50-$70 range will retard BTL development. But I don't expect that to happen.

Conclusions

In my opinion, the question of which next generation biofuels can compete comes down to fossil fuel prices. If oil prices are at $50 for the next 10 years, it will be difficult for next generation renewable fuels to compete. Despite the many promises of technologies that will deliver fuel for $1 a gallon, I think that target is likely to be reached only on paper. My view on which technologies will be competitive is based on 1). An expectation of an average oil price over the next 10 years that exceeds $100/bbl; 2). An expectation that we will need to efficiently convert the available biomass. 3). Knowledge of what many of the major players are doing. I expect biomass prices to rise as well, and inefficient technologies that may be competitive if the biomass is free and fossil fuel inputs like natural gas are low-priced will not survive as the prices of both rise.

I am certainly interested in helping promote promising next generation technologies, so if you think I have missed some really promising ones then feel free to add your thoughts. It is possible that a company like LS9 or KiOR will ultimately be successful, but they are going to require some technical breakthroughs. Those don't always happen (I am waiting for a laptop battery that runs my laptop for a week on a single charge). Given the great number of renewable energy start-ups, it won't be surprising if one or more of them eventually makes a contribution, but the odds are against most of them. I selected pyrolysis and gasification as strong contenders because they don't require technical breakthroughs in order to produce large amounts of fuel. The technical aspects of gasification at large scale are well-known. This is not the case with most companies seeking to compete in the next generation arena.

Personal Note on Technology Development

On a personal note, since I have long believed in the promise of gasification as a future solution to our liquid fuel problem, it may come as no surprise that my new role in Hawaii has connections into this area. While several have figured out what I am doing, I still don't have the green light to explicitly discuss it (but I should before year-end). I am not being coy, it is just that we still have some pieces to put in place, and then I will explain why I believe we are building a platform that is unique in the world. I can say that my new role is as Chief Technology Officer of a bioenergy holding company, and the platform we are putting together does not exist elsewhere to my knowledge.

One of the things I am very interested in is developing conversion technologies for woody biomass and crop wastes. I have a number of technologies on my plate right now, but I am searching for other pieces that improve the economics (scalability is important).

For example, in the earlier example of the beetle-infested forests, the logistical challenge of getting the biomass to a processing facility - without consuming a large fraction of the BTU value of the tree - is significant. Biomass has a low energy density relative to fossil fuels, and cost-effective technologies are needed for improving that equation. I am speaking to a number of people with promising technologies around this area, but am always open to speaking to others who have ideas, prototypes, or pilot plants demonstrating their technology. You can find my spam-protected e-mail in my profile.

Footnotes

* Following the publication of this essay on my blog, I had a meeting with someone inside the Department of Defense who is involved in testing fuel for the military. The person said they were able to get some algal fuel to test from one of the well-known names – for around $100/gal.

** I have heard from a couple of people that 70% seems too high, and is likely a result of an improper energy balance. I have personally seen this number several times, but I have not seen a full energy accounting to validate that. One person who is very well-versed in gasification said that total energy balance will probably put the liquid fuel recovery at about 50% of the starting BTUs. (You can't calculate an EROEI from this unless you also have the fossil fuel inputs – primarily from the logistical operations).

Plight of Penguins Predicts Coming Plight for Humans [Reprise] [Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)]

nobody@example.com ("GrrlScientist" none@example.com) — 2009-09-10T08:59:44-05:00

tags: bpr3.org/?p=52, global warming, climate variation, climate change, penguins, El Nino, marine zoning, P. Dee Boersma

Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, and chicks.

(a) Adélie penguin chicks may get covered in snow during storms, but beneath the snow their down is warm and dry. (b) When rain falls, downy Adélie chicks can get wet and, when soaked, can become hypothermic and die.

Images: P. Dee Boersma.

According to an article that was just published in the journal BioScience, penguin populations are declining sharply due to the combined effects of overfishing and pollution from offshore oil operations and shipping. Dee Boersma, professor of biology and the Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science at the University of Washington in Seattle, has been studying Patagonian (magellanic) penguins, Spheniscus magellanicus, at Punta Tombo, Argentina, for almost 30 years. In her paper, she reports that their numbers have declined by 22 percent since 1987.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Drumbeat: September 10, 2009

nobody@example.com (Leanan) — 2009-09-10T09:55:50-04:00

Growing Asian middle class to propel oil use: study

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A rapidly expanding middle class in China and India will provide the main engine for world oil demand growth in the coming years as families in developing nations buy more cars and appliances to go with their thicker wallets, according to a study released on Thursday.
The outlook could place a firm floor under global oil prices into the next decade after the first decline in world energy demand in a quarter century pulled them to lows near $30 a barrel this winter.
"The dramatic growth in the middle class, concentrated in China and India, provides a significant upside to the outlook for global oil demand growth in the next several years," according to PIRA, a New York-based oil consultancy.

Marin Katusa: Get-and Stay-Ahead of the Herd

TER: One of the managers was quoted as saying that finding a project this big will ease the concerns about peak oil. Do you think that's true?
MK: No. If you look at how many of these types of deposits that have been found, that's not true. It will increase their reserve numbers quite significantly. But to say that it will ease global peak oil-nah, that's just rubbish.

Fossil fuel: Now without the fossils

More bad news for the Peak Oil doomsday cult. Russian boffins say they have proved that fossil fuels can be created synthetically by replicating the high pressure, high temperature conditions found in the upper parts of the Earth's crust.

Condemning the corporate campus

Corporations engaged in environmentally destructive practices provide funding to many departments here at U of T, including Engineering, Geology, Forestry, Chemistry, and Commerce. Why is this a problem? Because some industries, such as fossil fuel and mineral extraction, cannot ever be made sustainable in any meaningful sense of the word, despite the rhetoric of “sustainability” that appears in their promotional literature.
If our society is to make the necessary transitions to renewable energy, local agriculture, and greater energy efficiency in order to survive peak oil, finite resource depletion, and anthropogenic climate change, these industries must be phased out. Truly sustainable industries and green jobs must be put in their place. This could and should be the business of such departments, not minor reforms that contribute to the illusion that fossil fuel companies can be made “sustainable.”

Investing In Clean Energy

The United States is taking a big step this month in its efforts to spur private sector investments in clean and renewable energy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced $502 million in the first round of cash awards from a U.S. government program that provides cash assistance to energy production companies in place of earned tax credits.
The new funding creates additional upfront capital, enabling companies to create jobs and begin construction that may have been stalled until now.

Study: Wind could cut China's emissions by 30 pct

BEIJING (AP) -- China could cut its emissions by 30 percent in the next two decades if it switches to wind power to meet about half of its electricity demands, a U.S. study published Thursday said.
China's energy needs are expected to double by 2030, but the study in the journal Science says that the country could reasonably meet half of those needs with wind.

Wash. says deal will cut pollution at coal plant

SEATTLE (AP) -- The state Department of Ecology says a proposed agreement with TransAlta will reduce air pollution at the state's only coal-fired power plant in Centralia.
But environmentalist say the pollution limits doesn't do enough to protect public health.

THE WORLD IN 2025: Rising Asia and socio-ecological transition [PDF]

Energy: Tension between rapidly growing demand and restricted supplies due to the resources available (oil, gas) or their polluting nature (coal) should cause a constant rise in energy prices that could be contained by an increased use of renewable energy as well as progress in the reduction of energy consumption. However around 2025 the energy question should remain a source of major tension (economic and geopolitical) due to the likely “oil peak” and the energy needs of a world of 8 billion individuals.
Briefly speaking, the tensions will be both between production and consumption patterns and between production/consumption patterns and natural resources.

Mexico water shortage becomes crisis amid drought

Reporting from Mexico City - In the parched Mexican countryside, the corn is wilting, the wheat stunted. And here in this vast and thirsty capital, officials are rationing water and threatening worse cuts as Mexico endures one of the driest spells in more than half a century.
A months-long drought has affected broad swaths of the country, from the U.S. border to the Yucatan Peninsula, leaving crop fields parched and many reservoirs low. The need for rain is so dire that water officials have been rooting openly for a hurricane or two to provide a good drenching.

Better world: Take Friday off… forever : The four-day week could boost employment, save energy and make us happier

FANCY a three-day weekend - not just once in a while but week in week out? You may think your bosses would never agree to it, but the evidence suggests that employers, employees and the environment all benefit.

Better world: Tax carbon and give the money to the people

Goods should be taxed to reflect the damage they do to the planet, with revenues redistributed to society.

Better world: Generate a feed-in frenzy

ONE day, 100 per cent of our energy will have to come from renewable sources. But how do we make it happen?
There is a proven way to rapidly boost the adoption of renewable energy - give companies or individuals who want to generate green energy access to the grid and promise to pay them extra for the electricity they "feed in" over the next 20 years or so.

"Dramatic" rise in renewables needed for 2C goal

OSLO (Reuters) - The share of renewable energy will have to rise "dramatically" if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) temperature rise, a leading expert said on Wednesday.
Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of a scientific group due to present a U.N. report on renewable energy in 2010, said clean technology such as wind and solar power needed a big role even if the world also turned increasingly to nuclear power.
"To achieve a 2 Celsius target the share of renewables has to be increased substantially and dramatically," he told the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in a telephone interview.

Smart Growth Solutions Can Help Coastal, Waterfront Communities Address Climate Change, Other Challenges

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies have released a first-of-its-kind smart growth guide that will help coastal and waterfront communities tackle threats from sea level rise, stronger hurricanes, flooding and other challenges.

Maria Bartiromo: The Big Oil Dilemma

When compared with oil’s all-time high of $147 per barrel last year, the current price in the $68–$70 range could be easily dismissed as insignificant.
I believe that would be a mistake.
I think oil is a big story.

Iraq Urged by U.S. to Open More Oil Fields to Boost Stability

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. ambassador to Iraq urged the Iraqi government to open more oil fields to investors, saying the move, along with a hydrocarbons law, would be a “game changer” for the country and undercut terrorism.
“A market economy generating sustained economic growth and increased employment opportunities will weaken insurgent and extremist networks,” Christopher Hill, 55, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee today.

Brazil to Pass New Oil Rules in 7 Months, Deputy Says

(Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s Congress will likely pass new regulations for deepwater oil fields off the coast of the South American country within seven months, said the head of the government coalition in the lower house.
The lower house will probably start voting on the rules by Nov. 10, Deputy Henrique Fontana, who is also a member of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s Workers Party, said today in a telephone interview from Brasilia.

Poland faces gas shortfall

Poland faces shortages of as much as 800 million cubic metres of gas this year if it fails to reach a long-term supply deal with Russia, a deputy treasury minister said today.
In January, some Polish companies led by state-controlled chemical producers were forced to cut production after a Russia-Ukraine row reduced gas supplies by a quarter.

Trident Resources Files for Bankruptcy Citing Gas Price Decline

(Bloomberg) -- Trident Resources Corp., a Canadian natural gas explorer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., citing a drop in prices and fluctuations in the Canada-U.S. currency exchange rate.
The company listed as much as $10 million in assets and as much as $1 billion in liabilities in a filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Lower natural gas prices may decrease cash flow and force a delay in investments, it said in a separate motion to the court.

Michael Pollan: People Are Finally Talking About Food, and You Can Thank Wendell Berry for That

Certainly these are heady days for people who have been working to reform the way Americans grow food and feed themselves -- the "food movement," as it is now often called. Markets for alternative kinds of food -- local and organic and pastured -- are thriving, farmers' markets are popping up like mushrooms and for the first time in many years the number of farms tallied in the Department of Agriculture's census has gone up rather than down. The new secretary of agriculture has dedicated his department to "sustainability" and holds meetings with the sorts of farmers and activists who not many years ago stood outside the limestone walls of the USDA holding signs of protest and snarling traffic with their tractors. Cheap words, you might say; and it is true that, so far at least, there have been more words than deeds -- but some of those words are astonishing. Like these: shortly before his election, Barack Obama told a reporter for Time that "our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil"; he went on to connect the dots between the sprawling monocultures of industrial agriculture and, on the one side, the energy crisis and, on the other, the healthcare crisis.

Nouriel Roubini: Is Resource Nationalism Back?: A look at Brazil, Iraq, China ... and Alberta.

Triggered by Wednesday's OPEC meetings and last week's announcement of new regulations governing Brazil's offshore oil, I am devoting this week's column to examining whether government control of the resource sector is increasing as commodity prices continue to creep up.

US Interior Department Considers 'Variable' O&G Royalty Rates

According to Reuters, the Obama administration is mulling "variable" royalty rates for drilling on federal lands that would reflect the difficulty of tapping oil and natural gas supplies.
Speaking at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that the Interior Department intends to issue proposals by the end of the year to update the royalty rates and ensure that oil companies pay reasonable rates as oil prices rise.

Oil, gas contracts on Chavez agenda in Russia

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in Moscow on Thursday to negotiate and sign new oil and gas contracts between his country and Russia.
"Agreements on cooperation in the oil and gas sector, and in environmental protection, are being prepared for the visit," the Kremlin press office said.

Pemex Cuts 2010 Investments 4.7% to 250 Billion Pesos

(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the largest oil producer in Latin America, will cut its investment budget 4.7 percent next year to 250 billion pesos ($18.6 billion).
The state-owned company’s spending plan, outlined in the federal budget sent to Congress yesterday, will fall from a record $19.5 billion this year, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said today at a press conference in Mexico City.

Quito sets sights on output boost

Ecuador has no plans for now to boost oil capacity and is instead concentrating efforts on maintaining output from mature fields and overhauling oil legislation, Energy Minister Germanico Pinto said.
Ecuador's oil output stands at around 450,000 barrels per day and it wants to boost that to over 600,000 bpd.
"We have potential (to pump more)," Reuters quoted Pinto telling reporters at a briefing after last night's Opec meeting.
"Right now our efforts are to sustain oil output. The problem is the levels of investment needed are high given that many of the oilfields are mature."

Brazil’s Tupi Field May Yield 1 Million Barrels a Day

Lobao said Brazil’s oil reserves may grow to become the world’s seventh or eighth largest after the discovery of so- called pre-salt fields.

Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s Tupi oil field may yield 1 million barrels a day, or almost half of Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s current output in the country, Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. Shares of the oil producer led gains in Sao Paulo.
Brazil’s oil reserves may grow to become the world’s seventh or eighth largest after the discovery of so-called pre- salt fields, Lobao told senators today in Brasilia. Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based state-controlled company is known, will be the sole operator of the fields under new proposed regulations.

Political bickering already bogs down Brazil oil debate

Political bickering over potential windfall oil profits threatens to derail debate over Brazil's new regulatory framework for oil and gas, mere days after the proposals were announced with great fanfare.
Governors from key oil-producing states clamor to maintain royalties; opposition leaders vow to fight the monopoly granted to state-run energy giant Petrobras; and bad blood remains from a string of recent congressional investigations pitting many lawmakers against one another.

Oil & Gas Industry Supports 9MM American Jobs, 7.5% of GDP

The U.S. oil and natural gas industry supports more than 9 million American jobs and makes significant economic contributions as an employer and purchaser of American goods and services, a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found.
The study entitled "The Economic Impacts of the Oil and Natural Gas Industry on the U.S. Economy: Employment, Labor Income and Value Added” notes that the industry's total value-added contribution to the national economy was more than $1 trillion, or 7.5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, in 2007, the most recent year for which data was available.

Saudi Arabia maintains oil shipment cuts to Japan

SINGAPORE (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s largest state-owned oil company, maintained cuts in its supplies of crude to Japanese refiners for October, said two officials who received notices.
The company, also known as Saudi Aramco, will keep reductions in supply at about 10 percent to 15 percent below contracted volumes, according to refinery officials who asked to remain unidentified because of confidentiality agreements.

Conoco Says Australia Could Be Biggest LNG Exporter

Australia could become the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, by 2020, the head of ConocoPhillips' Australian unit said Thursday.
The comments came as Chevron Corp. said it has signed three binding sales agreements to supply nearly three million tons a year of LNG from the proposed Gorgon project in Western Australia state to Japanese and Korean energy companies.

Where Did the Ever-Worsening Grain Shortage Go?

Grain elevators across Kansas have a problem this fall as the combines get ready to roll for what looks to be a record fall harvest. The elevators are full of wheat. The terminals are too.
Faced with lower than break-even prices, farmers haven't sold their wheat. They are holding on, hoping that dwindling supplies will push prices upward or that a recovering world economy will spur export sales. But that leaves no place to put the corn, soybeans and milo about to start pouring in to local co-ops.

India food prices surging on poor monsoon

New Delhi: Indian food prices surged nearly 15% in the year ended August as a poor monsoon hit crops, but analysts said moderate price pressures elsewhere in the economy meant an interest rate rise was unlikely for now.
The annual change in the overall wholesale price index was negative on 29 August for a 13th week, although a return to inflation looked imminent in September as the effect of last year’s high fuel and commodity prices fade out of calculations.

Bill McKibben on Why 350 is the World's Most Important Number

Bill McKibben (author of Deep Economy and The End of Nature) is the man behind 350.org, the campaign to convince the world that we aren't safe until global carbon dioxide levels are down to 350 parts per million. In the run-up to major climate talks in Copenhagen, the author-turned-organizer has orchestrated what he hopes will be the largest day of climate action in history, complete with scuba divers in the Maldives and monks in Tibet.
McKibben talks with TreeHugger about the recent good news from the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and about one of his greatest challenges to date: being a guest on The Colbert Report.

Nicholas Stern Latest Climate Expert to Endorse 350 ppm Limit

While the world’s governments struggle to agree on emissions cuts that would keep atmospheric CO2 from exceeding 450 ppm, a growing number of climate experts are warning that even that target is too high.
British economist Nicholas Stern is the latest to recommend 350 ppm instead. Stern, whose 2006 Stern Review spelled out for the world the economic crises that would accompany climate change, told a reporter in Germany that 350 ppm — rather than 450 ppm — would be “a very sensible long-term target.”

IEA Raises 2009, 2010 Oil Demand Forecasts on Growth in China

(Bloomberg) -- The International Energy Agency raised its global oil demand estimate for next year for a second consecutive month, citing growth in Chinese consumption and stronger-than-expected oil use in the U.S.
World oil consumption is likely to average 85.7 million barrels a day next year, 450,000 barrels a day more than previously estimated, the adviser to 28 nations said today in its monthly report. Demand growth next year, at 1.27 percent, is lower than previously forecast after the outlook for 2009 was also increased.
“There is growing evidence that the global economy may be finally stabilizing, with industrial de-stocking coming to an end, coupled with the effects of large-scale government intervention,” the IEA said in the report. “Oil demand in U.S., China and other Asia appears to be running stronger than preliminary estimates suggested.”

OPEC Maintains Oil Quotas as IEA Raises Global Demand Forecast

(Bloomberg) -- OPEC said it will keep oil production quotas unchanged, banking on a recovery in the world economy to maintain prices near today’s $72 a barrel as the International Energy Agency raised its global demand forecast.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to maintain total production quotas at 24.845 million barrels a day and will urge members to adhere to targets, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla El-Badri said. The IEA raised its global oil demand estimate for next year for a second month, citing growth in Chinese consumption and stronger-than-expected U.S. oil use.

Economic jitters hit OPEC oil cartel at talks

VIENNA (AFP) – Top oil-producing countries expressed "grave concern" that a recovery from the economic downturn crippling energy demand will be slow and uncertain, as they held their output steady on Thursday.
"Since the market remains oversupplied and given the downside risks associated with the extremely fragile recovery, the conference once again agreed to leave current production levels unchanged for the time being," said the closing statement by OPEC.

Economy takes over as OPEC's oil market fundamental

VIENNA (Reuters) - OPEC's around midnight deal to keep output steady marked the third time this year it has opted for no policy change, citing first economic weakness and now economic recovery as a reason to ignore bulging oil stocks.
But the bottom line was the producer club's confidence the return of investor appetite for riskier assets such as oil would be enough to sustain a robust market rally.

Nigeria set to become oil leader

ABUJA, Nigeria (UPI) -- Nigeria is set to become the African leader in oil as an amnesty program with Niger Delta militants contributes to a rise in crude production, officials say.

Australia in $60 bln Japan, S.Korea gas deals

CANBERRA (AFP) – Australia on Thursday announced liquefied natural gas (LNG) deals worth up to 60 billion US dollars with Japan and South Korea, raising its status as a major energy supplier.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Chevron Australia would supply three firms from the planned Gorgon field off the country's west, just weeks after joint venture partner ExxonMobil's record 41 billion US dollar deal with PetroChina.
"These contracts will deliver in the order of 70 billion (Australian) dollars worth of exports to Australia over the next 25 years," Rudd told parliament.

Oil at $65 pays for Petrobras subsalt plan -report

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petrobras would be able to fulfill its planned investments for the next five years with no need for additional capital if the price of oil CLc1 stayed around $65 a barrel, its chief executive told Valor Economico in an interview published on Thursday.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva unveiled last week long-awaited plans to overhaul Brazil's oil sector. Among the proposals was for a capitalization of Petrobras worth 5 billion barrels of oil, using yet-to-be-proven reserves instead of cash.

Preparing to spend a “millionaire ticket” from offshore

The government has unveiled plans to give the state the lion’s share of the money from vast new oil discoveries. Will this wealth be invested or squandered?

Korea National Oil Considers Overseas Acquisitions

(Bloomberg) -- Korea National Oil Corp., beaten by China in the race to buy Geneva-based Addax Petroleum Corp., said it’s seeking to acquire overseas assets to boost production.

China Pushes Burma Pipelines Amid Criticism

BEIJING (IPS) - Despite fresh international criticism of Beijing's backing for as unpopular a regime as the Burmese junta, China sees its alliance with the country's military as a matter of simple economic expediency and is determined to forge ahead with controversial joint dual oil and gas pipelines that will ensure greater energy security for its robust economy.

Pakistan can't sell Iran's gas -- official

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- Pakistan is not permitted to sell natural gas from an Iranian pipeline to any third party under the terms of its agreement with Iran, officials say.

Bank of China’s Zhu Sees ‘Bubbles’ in Asset Markets

(Bloomberg) -- Bank of China Ltd., which led the nation’s $1.1 trillion lending spree in the first half, said ample liquidity has caused “bubbles” in stocks, commodities and real estate.
“The potential risk is that a lot of liquidity goes to the asset market,” Vice President Zhu Min said in an interview in Dalian today. “So you see asset bubbles in commodities, stocks and real estate, not only in China, but everywhere.”

Venezuelan Leader Praises Putin’s Tough U.S. Policy

MOSCOW (Reuters) — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela praised Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Wednesday for standing up to the United States, as Mr. Chávez began a visit to Moscow that the Kremlin said would concentrate on energy and military agreements.
Cooperation between Russia, one of the world’s top oil exporters, and Venezuela, a member of OPEC, has been dismissed by the United States as mostly talk, but the relationship is being watched with concern by Colombia, which has stormy ties with Venezuela, its neighbor.

China Strongly Opposes U.S. Duties on Steel Oil Pipes

(Bloomberg) -- China “strongly opposes” a ruling by the U.S. Commerce Department to impose duties of as much as 31 percent on steel pipes, the Ministry of Commerce said today.
The U.S. decision doesn’t comply with rules set by the World Trade Organization, the ministry said on its Web site.

Kjell Aleklett: Peak Oil - Economy and Climate on the path down from the peak

Our oil needs for the next 20 years can be found in known reserves. The problem is that the oil exists in small pores within layers of stone and must be forced towards the borehole from which it is pumped up. Investments in new technology can influence the flow, but this flow is restricted by physical parameters such as pressure, viscosity and surface tension. However, a study we have made of the largest oilfields shows that just before half the oil is extracted from a field its flow begins to decline dramatically by, on average, 8% per year. What is unfortunate for our future oil production is that a large part currently comes from giant old oilfields. Today, the crude oil production is 72 Mb/d but in 20 years these fields will produce between 20 to 30 Mb/d.

Economy vs. ecology

Out of what humanity takes from the earth in one year, it takes the earth one year and four additional months to regenerate. At our current pace, we are liquidating our planet of its goods faster than it can give them back to us. With developing nations anxious to successfully catch up, a human balance with ecosystems needs to be found before the earth has hit the point of no return.
The artificial necessity for goods created a hole in several ecosystems and disrupted a fragile balance of life that was doing fine until humans with dollar signs in their eyes entered the picture.

John Michael Greer: A Terrible Ambivalence

At some risk of oversimplification, the argument between Monbiot and Kingsnorth may be summed up more or less as follows. Both agree that industrial civilization faces imminent collapse. Monbiot argues that collapse might still be prevented if we all pull together, that the only alternative is letting total collapse happen, and that this is unthinkable because billions of people will die horribly. He argues that the only alternative to preserving modern society in some improved form is a cataclysmic process of mass dieoff ending in a new dark age ruled by petty warlords, with some new earth-ravaging society likely to rise on the ruins of the old unless his preferred political solution gets put in place to control our species' ecocidal tendencies.
Kingsnorth rejects all this. He insists that collapse can't be prevented, and in any case should be allowed to happen, because industrial civilization is a "planetary weapon of mass destruction" and letting it collapse is less destructive than allowing it to continue. He cites my concept of the Long Descent to argue that the end of industrial civilization could be a lot less traumatic than Monbiot thinks it must be, insists that ecocide is inherent in our present society rather than in humanity as a whole, and suggests that whatever replaces our society is bound to be less dreadful than what we have now.

Signs of peak oil: Here and growing louder

Why, in the midst of a global recession, are oil prices hovering in the $70-a-barrel range, when $30-odd a barrel was considered a good price for the market just a couple of years ago?
Meet a little concept called “peak oil,” which — despite its detractors — is daily showing more signs of becoming the new global reality.

Peak oil: Is the global economy going to run out of gas?

As the global community focuses on righting the economic ship of state, it seems worthwhile to take another peek at the "peak oil" debate. The basis of considerable controversy, peak oil is the theoretical point at which global oil production will plateau, and then irreversibly decline. Geologists and veteran oil industry analysts have varying forecasts as to when peak oil will occur, with several arguing that the concept itself is flawed, and that crude will remain abundant through the 21st century.
Still, the forecasters all agree on one point: if global oil production peaks, the price of oil will quickly rise to unprecedented levels. For example, given current demand conditions, if peak oil occurred today, oil would quickly rocket to $100, then $150 per barrel, creating the world's fourth oil shock.

Electrical thinking

The energy of the future appears to be electricity. In the auto industry, an enormous consumer of power, companies are gravitating to electricity. Unlike hydrogen, the distribution system is already in place. Most residents have plugs on the side of their homes.
Auto companies have seen the future -- with its spectre of peak oil -- and realize that electricity will be their products' future propulsion.

Toyota to Show Its First Plug-In Prius at Frankfurt Motor Show

(Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest seller of autos powered by a combination of gasoline and electricity, said it will display its first hybrid car that can be recharged at a household outlet in Frankfurt next week.
The 2010 Prius plug-in hybrid vehicle, or PHV, will be shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show, which opens to the press Sept. 14, the company said in a statement today. Toyota plans to deliver 500 of the cars to global test fleets starting this year, including 150 in the U.S.

West vs. China in solar war

BERLIN (UPI) -- Europe's solar energy industry is facing a wave of bankruptcies because Asian companies offer their products much cheaper.

Google plans new mirror for cheaper solar power

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google is disappointed with the lack of breakthrough investment ideas in the green technology sector but the company is working to develop its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more.

Wind Power Capacity May Exceed India’s Estimate by Fivefold

(Bloomberg) -- India can build wind power plants that may be able to generate almost five times more than the government’s estimate by 2030, according to a study by the Global World Energy Council.
Wind energy capacity can climb to as much as 231,000 megawatts in India, compared with the government’s forecast of 48,000 megawatts from 216 potential sites, according to the study, produced in partnership with the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association.

Nation's oldest nuclear plant showing its age

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. – As the nation's oldest nuclear power plant shows its age, some call it Oyster Creak.
The latest problems — a series of radioactive water leaks — were found just days after the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station got a new 20-year license that environmentalists bitterly fought for four years.

Arab states race for nuclear power

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (UPI) -- Amid the gathering storm over Iran's controversial nuclear ambitions, the race is on among Arab states to build nuclear power plants of their own, opening up immense trade opportunities for the industrialized world as well as the specter of proliferation.

Monbiot: Palm oil power plants become burning issue thanks to UK's crazy 'green' policy

This is a story about the maddest energy scheme the world has seen since Ferdinand Marcos built a nuclear power station on a geological faultline. As I write, councillors in Newport, south Wales, are sitting down to decide whether or not to approve a new power station that burns vegetable oil. It's one of several being considered in the UK. These plans owe their existence solely to government policy.

Kenya appeals for 400 mln dollars to save largest forest

NAIROBI (AFP) – Kenya on Wednesday appealed for 400 million dollars to conserve its largest forest ecosystem which has been extensively destroyed over the past two decades.

Report on global warming predicts dire Illinois consequences

WASHINGTON -- If global warming continues unchecked, Chicago would see a repeat of the killer 1995 heat wave every summer by the middle of the century, an environmental group says in a study released Wednesday.
The report from the Union of Concerned Scientists also predicts that the city's air quality would deteriorate if humans do not scale back greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.
Illinois farmers would suffer from droughts, pests and flooding that would more than outweigh any potential benefits from a longer growing season caused by warmer temperatures. Heat stress in cattle could force the state's dairy industry to migrate north.
"Global warming represents an enormous challenge to Illinois' way of life and its residents' livelihoods," the authors write in conclusion.

An updated global warming prediction for Michigan

The Union of Concerned Scientists is out with a report today on how climate change is expected to impact Michigan.
Expect more heat waves, flooding and reduced crop yields if nothing is done to stave off the worst consequences of climate change, says a peer-reviewed paper from UCS.
"The Midwest climate is already changing," Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University and a co-author of the report, said in a statement.

Sarkozy unveils new carbon tax for 2010

CULOZ, France (AFP) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday announced plans to impose a new carbon tax next year on oil, gas and coal as part of a drive to combat global warming.
The plan would make France the biggest economy in Europe to impose a carbon tax on households and businesses, boosting Sarkozy's green credentials ahead of a key UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

Walruses congregate on Alaska shore as ice melts

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska's northwest coast, a sign that their Arctic sea ice environment has been altered by climate change.

Maldives welcomes Denmark aid for climate talks

COLOMBO (AFP) – The Maldives, which faces the prospect of being submerged by rising sea levels, welcomed Wednesday an offer by Denmark to finance its participation at a key climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, who said this week he would have to skip the meeting to save money for the crisis-hit islands, said he was "delighted" to hear that Denmark had offered to sponsor their participation.

EU considers 15 bln euros to help poor nations on climate

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The European Union will propose giving developing countries 15 billion euros annually to help fight climate change, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Wednesday.
Reinfeldt said that the figure, which represents a target annual contribution to be reached by 2020, is a "starting-point" in negotiations on a new global deal to combat climate change after Kyoto Protocol requirements expire in 2012.

Behind India's Intransigence on Climate Change Talks

If you ask India's climate change negotiators, the December summit in Copenhagen will be not about how to save the planet, but about how to accommodate the rights and aspirations of millions of Indians like Kumar. Since developed countries have already pumped out a large proportion of the greenhouse gases that the environment can safely handle, they argue, those same nations must vacate some atmospheric space for the latecomers to industrialization. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 380 parts per million (ppm), 72% of which has been emitted by developed countries. Most scientists agree this needs to be stabilized at 450 ppm or less, leaving a tiny wedge — about 70 ppm — where the developing countries must jostle for space to industrialize and pollute.

Gasoline from Vinegar

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-09T04:00:00Z

A process that converts acids from garbage into fuel gets a boost.

Space-based solar energy

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-08T11:14:26-08:00

California and Japan pursue projects to beam energy from satellites

by Adam Stein

Generating solar energy in space stations and beaming it down to earth is a wacky idea, but it’s also an interesting one, and not just for the obvious reasons (outer space, energy beams, etc). To explain why, I need to make a digression into some energy facts and figures.

Solar energy enthusiasts are fond of pointing out that enough energy from the sun hits the earth every hour to fill humanity’s needs for a full year. This is meant to sound very impressive, but really it’s cause for at least a little bit of concern.

In the long term, the amount of solar energy reaching the earth’s surface represents the maximum amount of energy available to humankind. If we flip around the statistic about the amount of energy that reaches the earth in an hour, we see that the sun is sending us roughly 8,000 times the amount of energy we presently consume.

That seems like a lot! But how much of it can we actually make use of? Only 30% of the earth is covered in land. And let’s say that, through dedicated effort, we’re able to cover 5% of our land with solar panels. And maybe those solar panels covert 20% of the light that hits them into electricity. Of course, things aren’t static on the demand side. By 2050, the earth will contain 50% more people. And those people will be much wealthier than they are today, so they might use, on average, double the amount of energy we do now.

Multiply this all through, and the sun is only sending us 8 times the amount of energy we need to keep the human population fat and happy. That still gives us some headroom, but not a lot. And this analysis fails to take into account that electricity usually needs to be produced close to where it’s consumed, so the pressures on land use in densely populated areas could be enormous.

A recent article in the New York Times comes at the issue from the opposite direction, estimating the area needed for energy production based on the energy density of various types of renewable power technologies. It’s an interesting and readable article, so go read it, but the punchline is roughly similar to my analysis above:

For illustration, imagine getting one-third of that energy from wind, one-third from desert solar power and one-third from nuclear power…

If a country with the size and population of Britain 61 million people adopted that mix, the land area occupied by wind farms would be nearly 10 percent of the country, or roughly the size of Wales. The area occupied by desert solar power stations in the case of Britain, they would have to be connected by long-distance power lines would be five times the size of London. The 50 nuclear power stations required would occupy a more modest 50 square kilometers.

The effort required for a plan like that is very large, but imaginable. Countries that claim to be serious about creating an alternative energy future need to choose a plan, stop arguing and get building.

The assumptions underlying both analyses may be significantly off, but the basic message is sound: powering ourselves with renewable energy is doable, but it’s also a really big undertaking that will push against some tricky constraints. (Related message: energy efficiency is really, really important.)

Space-based solar energy may help to sidestep some of these land-use constraints. Such schemes, of course, face their own daunting engineering challenges, but one can imagine a far future in which such exotic forms of power generation become an important part of the mix. Recently a California company signed a contract with PG&E to deliver space-based power by 2016. And Japan just announced an initiative to build a 1-gigawatt plant in space by the 2030s.

Much more on the benefits and challenges of the technology is available here. The inevitable Joe Romm takedown of the idea is here. I suppose I should add the obligatory caveat that most highly speculative, far-off technologies don’t pan out. In other words: you’ll be waiting a long time for that jetpack.

Paris to launch innovative car-sharing program

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-08T10:10:08-08:00

And Better Place will provide electric taxis in Tokyo

by Adam Stein

Paris is preparing to unveil a car-sharing program consisting of a 4,000 electric cars and 1,400 rental stations scattered throughout the city and neighboring suburbs.

Dubbed Autolib, after the popular Velib bike-sharing program, the car-sharing service will offer far more flexibility than its U.S. counterparts. For example, drivers won’t have to make a reservation to use a car. Instead, they can simply walk up to an available vehicle and swipe a credit card. And rather than requiring cars to be dropped off where they were picked up, Autolib will allow drivers to drop cars off at any available stand.

The scheme has encountered some surprising opposition from French environmentalists, who fear that the system’s very convenience will make it an attractive alternative to walking, biking, or public transportation. This isn’t a totally crazy fear — car-sharing programs provide different incentives to different people. For some, they may be a replacement for a secondary or even a primary car. For others, particularly those who don’t own a car and weren’t planning to get one, car-sharing programs may be a valuable service but are unlikely to offer much in the way of environmental benefits.

So the price matters and the target customer group matters. The transportation mix in any city can include taxis, buses, trains, privately-owned cars, bicycles, and foot traffic. How will Autolib affect the balance of these elements? Evidence from U.S.-based car-sharing programs has so far been encouraging. The French experiment injects some exciting innovation into this young industry.

And speaking of electric fleets, Better Place has reached a deal to provide electric taxis in Tokyo starting in early 2010. The taxis will use Better Place’s battery-swapping technology for quick recharging.

This is a surprising announcement. Most car owners don’t drive very far in a typical day, a fact that is in some ways the saving grace of current battery technology. Batteries might not provide a lot of range, but most drivers don’t need a lot of range. They can run their errands during the day and juice up at night.

Taxis, on the other hand, drive constantly, and each will need to have its battery swapped many times in a single day. This test will pound the heck out of Better Place’s experimental infrastructure, providing a great testing ground for the technology.

The pilot project will be small, and as far as I know it’s the first public trial of Better Place’s technology. 2010 is not all that far away. The world will be watching.

Cap & Trade, Gas Prices and Uncertainty

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-09-08T15:45:00Z

Over the weekend a New York Times editorial critical of the energy industry for trying to stir up opposition to the Waxman-Markey climate bill prompted some further thought on the potential impact of the legislation on gasoline prices. The Times appears to accept the government's analysis suggesting that the increase would amount to no more than 20 cents per gallon by 2020, though this conventional wisdom collides with common sense, since such a low price on carbon seems unlikely to stimulate sufficient conservation and investments in efficiency to deliver on a steadily-shrinking national emissions cap. In particular, the Times seems unfazed by the way the bill's allocation of free emission allowances is stacked against the oil industry, suggesting that it, of all industries, can surely afford the extra burden. Yet it's precisely that distortion that I believe could throw all of the official estimates of future permit prices--and thus gas prices--into a cocked hat, when you consider the possible dynamics of a market established along these lines.

Let's start by stating the obvious: I don't have a detailed computer model of the energy markets and US economy to query on the likely outcome from the cap & trade system that would be instituted under Waxman-Markey, though I could probably come up with some drastically-undervalued credit default swaps for anyone who believes in the infallibility of such models. My assessment relies instead on logic and the experience of a career that included a long stint in energy commodity trading, including futures, options and derivatives. Based on that experience, I believe the crucial starting point for any attempt to understand how a new market might function is supply and demand: who has the commodity in question and who needs it.

Begin with demand. The Department of Energy's recent "flash estimate" of US CO2 emissions indicates that the electricity sector accounts for 41% of emissions, followed by transportation with 33%, and the non-electricity-related emissions of the industrial sector a distant third at around 17%. These three segments thus account for 91% of our CO2 emissions, by far the largest component of our greenhouse gas output. Under cap & trade, every ton of those emissions would have to be matched with a corresponding emission allowance, or the emitter would be liable for penalties at a multiple of the going price for allowances. Anyone who is given fewer allowances than their current emissions must thus either reduce their emissions directly or purchase allowances from others. But who are the likely sellers? A careful reading of the bill provides strong hints

Under President Obama's original concept of cap & trade, in which 100% of emission allowances would have been auctioned by the government to the emitters that needed them, all sectors of the economy would have been in the same position of needing to cover their entire shortfall in the market. The government would have been the primary seller, though as the market evolved, companies that found cheap ways to reduce their own emissions would have ended up reselling allowances they had bought earlier, at a profit. Under Waxman-Markey, by my tally roughly 60% of the emission allowances would be handed out to emitters such as utilities, refiners and other industrial firms. Another 30% or so would be doled out in lieu of cash to fund efforts such as renewable energy R&D and deployment, climate adaptation and assistance to low-income consumers. Something less than 10% would be auctioned by the government itself to fund deficit reduction and other initiatives.

So on a given day, who would be selling and who would be buying? Consider the utilities and merchant power generators. As generous as the bill's authors were to this sector, it would still be short allowances from day 1, with a gap between actual emissions and free allowances equal to roughly 4% of US emissions. Non-energy industrial firms probably wouldn't be selling, either, at least unless the price got high enough to stimulate the big investments in energy efficiency that haven't risen to the top of their capital budget priorities so far. Initially, they would need to acquire allowances equal to around 5% of all emissions. And that brings us to refiners, who under Waxman-Markey would be responsible for their own emissions plus all of the emissions from the end-use of their products by non-regulated consumers, yet would receive only a 2% allocation of free allowances. Depending on how upstream production and oil imports are counted, the gap that refiners would need to cover could amount to more than 31% of all US emissions, or 3/4ths of the allowances given to non-emitting entities or auctioned directly by the government. At the same time, they have only modest scope for further reductions in their own emissions, considering that they are already 90% energy-efficient, on average. Who would be likely to have the advantage in such a situation? It sure looks like a "sellers' market" to me.

I don't doubt that refiners could probably scoop up some relatively cheap allowances from groups that get handed these tickets and don't quite know what to do with them, though market sophistication--and for-fee advice on such matters--might spread quickly. But refiners wouldn't just need to sweep up the stragglers, here. They'd require the entire allowance streams of many of the legislation's chosen beneficiaries for years to come, nor could they risk coming up massively short in any year. To me that suggests an average acquisition price for allowances that could rise well above the notional $15-$20/ton expounded by the EPA and DOE, considering that the effective price ceiling provided by brute-force CO2 reductions such as carbon capture and sequestration is probably north of $50/ton, equating to 50 cents per gallon of gasoline. While an increase that high might not be the likeliest outcome, it is at least plausible, and it would be added not to current gas prices, which have been depressed by the recession, but to those that would prevail after the legislation went into effect, when the economy--and perhaps even fuel demand--was presumably growing again. It doesn't take a leap of imagination to combine these factors to get to the $4 per gallon that the Times appears to dismiss.

From the last sentence of the editorial, I have to conclude that the Times doesn't understand the rationale for cap & trade nearly as well as they think they do. The point of this approach and any well-structured legislation implementing it is not to wean the US off of petroleum, but to reduce our emissions of the greenhouse gases implicated in climate change. While that certainly implies lower emissions from the oil sector, and thus lower consumption, it is perverse and counter-productive to shelter higher-emitting sectors that have greater flexibility for reducing emissions. The Congress may have judged that consumers would complain more about higher electricity bills than about increases at the gas pump, which could always be blamed on other factors--and on a singularly unpopular industry. But in creating such a wide disparity of demand for allowances among business sectors, they risk driving the price of those allowances much higher than otherwise, imposing an unnecessary drag on the economy. Even if their protests are motivated by self-interest, the oil industry and oil consumers are right to point this out.

Recyclable Hydrogen Fuel Tanks

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-08T04:00:00Z

A new process makes regenerating hydrogen fuel more efficient.

Japan to raise greenhouse gas target to 25%

nobody@example.com (Dave Sag) — 2009-09-07T05:11:27Z

Reuters is reporting that “Japan’s next PM raises greenhouse gas target to 25%“. That’s 25% below 1990 levels too, not 2000 levels as advocated by the Australian scheme.

Japanese Prime Minister-elect Yukio Hatoyama said Monday Japan will aim for a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

The target was premised on a deal on ambitious goals being agreed by major nations, Hatoyama said in a speech to a Tokyo symposium on climate change.

This is much more like the sort of action we need from the rich countries. Domo Arigato Mr Prime Minister. — DS

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, CO2, CO2e, global warming, Japan, targets

£10m boost for British Sea Power

nobody@example.com (Dave Sag) — 2009-09-04T22:10:05Z

Photo of Glenelg, Scotland, by Dave Sag and used with permission.

IEEE Spectrum is reporting, in a story “£10 Million Sea Power Challenge“, on a new initiative by the Scottish Government to boost research into technologies that generate power from the sea.

Scotland is finalizing the terms of a contest in wave and tidal energy that takes inspiration from the prize that prompted Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927 and successors like the X Prizes and the Virgin Earth Challenge. The aim of the contest is to make ocean energy more than just a technical curiosity and, not so incidentally, give the country’s inventors and entrepreneurs a boost in an area where they have some obvious advantages–suitable geography, friendly government policies, and a head start in engineering.

Dubbed the Saltire Prize, after the cross that is the central element in Scotland’s flag, the prize of £10 million (about US $16 million) will be awarded in five years. Contestants will need the time to devise and demonstrate their technology because, by all accounts, Saltire is a very challenging challenge, so much so that only a Scottish company may be able to win it.

“To win the prize,” the rules say, “entrants must demonstrate, in Scottish waters, a commercially viable wave or tidal energy technology with a minimum output of 100 gigawatt-hours over a two-year period–using only the power of the sea. The winner will be judged to be the best overall technology after consideration of cost, environmental sustainability, and safety.”

The transition from powering our lives by burning fossil fuels to lives powered by renewable resources is going to require considerable investment and innovation. Prizes like this go a long way to stimulating the kind of entrepreneurial initiatives that will speed that transition. Just as the stone age did not end for lack of stones, so the age of dirty oil, coal and gas burning will surely come to an end, well before those resources are truly depleted. Whaling didn’t end because the world ran out of whales, or because the world suddenly started to care about our seep sea cousins. Whaling ended because lamp-oil became redundant due to a technology shift. So too with fossil fuels. When clean power hits price parity with fossil fuels, and that’s not far away now, and when energy density of batteries, fuel cells and other means of storing and transporting power improves just a little bit more, we’ll see a wholesale shift from centralised, ‘broadcast’ power, to decentralised ‘peer-to-peer’ power supplies. And won’t that just be great! — DS

Technorati Tags: Alternative Energy, British Sea Power, energy, Scotland, sea power, tidal power, wave power

Crunching numbers on my home energy use

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-04T14:03:18-08:00

Nine year's of utility bills tell a story of one family's energy use over time

by Erin Craig

During an attempt to bring order to our household files, my husband and I discovered that we saved enough utility bills to reconstruct a nearly complete record of our household energy and water use since we moved in in 2000. Unable to let such a treasure trove sit idle, I ordered the pile and input everything into a spreadsheet.

I hoped, indeed expected, the resulting data to show clear if subtle downward trends across all three resource types (electricity, natural gas, and water). Our household size has not changed over this time, and we have replaced several major energy-using appurtenances and made numerous small changes over time.

Unfortunately, the data is not so clear. After viewing the first graph:

…I found myself spinning up several kinds of analysis trying to find one which told the story I was looking for. I know that isn’t an objective way to study data but I was not ready to conclude that all our diligence was for naught.

First, I compiled wintertime data, as our natural gas use is dominated by our house’s radiant boiler:

If I let Excel generate trend lines over these graphs, they do point ever so slightly downward. But I don’t think it’s compelling. I don’t know if what Im looking at is all weather-related. We replaced our boiler before the 2008 winter so I would have expected gas use to drop there, and it does a tiny bit. But it doesnt take us down to our 2003 levels. Meanwhile, electricity use has dropped more markedly and I dont know why that is, either. We did use some space heaters before we replaced our boiler; would that account for the large drop?

Then, I examined summer data:

Notice that Ive used a multiplier on the natural gas use to make it visible. Theres a nice drop in 2009 which derives, I am fairly sure, from installation of our solar water heating system last year. I wish its magnitude in actual energy were greater. But look at the electricity — whats going on here? I cant think of anything that can account for peaks in 2004 and again this year. We dont have air conditioning. Indeed Im not sure why the electricity use shows the strong seasonality that it does (winter is about 1.5 x summer).

So Im puzzling over this. Im feeling empathetic toward real scientists trying to isolate causes and effects in the complex system of climate. I have a much smaller system but its affected by many of the same variables and my data isnt quite up to the task. But Im not going to let that stop me from taking some meaningful action. Something is going on with our electricity use and Im going to find out what.

In the meantime, I am comforting myself with the one graph I can be proud of:

What Does Tiber Tell Us?

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-09-04T15:17:00Z

Like many bloggers this week, I've been thinking about the implications of BP's big, new oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. Some analysts suggest that the Tiber field might contain as much as 3-4 billion barrels of oil, though much of it might never be recovered. The Wall St. Journal's Environmental Capital blog suggests that such discoveries serve as a kind of Rorschach test, with the various interpretations of it telling us more about the observer than the thing being observed. Fair enough. Without venturing into grandiose conclusions about whether the Tiber-1 deep water well refutes--or in some convoluted fashion confirms--the central hypothesis of the Peak Oil theory, this discovery provides a handy opportunity to remind my readers of a few principles and themes about oil exploration and production that I've been discussing here for the last six years:

There's still life in the old dog. While the US has been drilled like a pincushion for 150 years, we have still not found every barrel of oil that nature provided us. Don't be misled by proved reserves data that seem to show that we have less than 12 years of oil left at current production rates. In point of fact, the US has produced a cumulative 200 billion barrels of oil from reserves that never exceeded 40 billion barrels. Not only do we continue to find new resources in the manner of Tiber-1, but we continually learn how to extract more oil from the reservoirs we've already found, revising their reserves steadily upward over time.
A discovery like Tiber doesn't mean we've merely added two weeks worth of production to reserves. US oil production, like global production, is comprised of the contributions from thousands of oil fields and hundreds of thousands of oil wells, with the most productive 20% or so accounting for roughly 87% of output. If initial guesses of recoverable oil are right, then the Tiber field could yield on the order of 100,000 bbl/day of oil for 20 years--2% of US production for a generation. If we turn up our noses at that, then we surely ought to think twice about wind power. In 2008 all the wind turbines in the US generated 52 billion kilowatt-hours, backing out natural gas power generation equivalent to just 245,000 bbl/day of oil, or 5% of US oil output.
We've heard a lot from skeptics about how inconsequential the oil in areas that have been off limits to drilling would be, whether we're talking about offshore California, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, or the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Yet without actually exploring these areas using the kind of technology that found the Lower Tertiary trend of which Tiber appears to be a part, in a place that just a few years ago would have seemed both inaccessible and highly improbable, we can't know what's really there, waiting to be discovered. In that light, the official estimate of 18 billion barrels of "undiscovered, technically recoverable" oil in these areas must be regarded as an extremely conservative lower bound, based on totally obsolete 1970s technology.
Although finding more oil may look problematic from a greenhouse gas perspective, oil is not our worst fuel, and it remains the hardest to displace, because of its unique combination of energy density and portability. I share the vision of many for a future made up of electrified cars and low- or no-emission power plants, but we're going to burn many billions of barrels of oil getting there. For reasons including national security, national pride, and our balance of trade, it matters whose oil it will be, as we make the long transition to a more sustainable energy economy. If we ignore that principle, we're likely to end up even more reliant on unstable foreign suppliers, before we arrive at the elusive promised land of energy independence.

Mixing Solar with Coal to Cut Costs

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-04T04:00:00Z

A new strategy could reduce coal plant emissions and cut the cost of solar power.

Sprawl: a problem without a solution?

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-03T13:42:47-08:00

New study suggest we need to look elsewhere to curb carbon emissions

by Adam Stein

Dueling headlines cropped up in my newsreader today:

More People, Less Driving: The Imperative of Curbing Sprawl (Smart Growth America)

Vs.:

Forget Curbing Suburban Sprawl: Building denser cities would do little to reduce CO2 emissions, a new NAS report concludes (MIT Technology Review)

Both articles refer to the same study, conducted by a blue-ribbon panel for the U.S. Department of Energy. And both are pretty much right: the study does affirm the link between sprawl and carbon emissions, but it also strongly suggests that attacking sprawl is a tough way to curb energy use.

Despite the common-sense link between density and driving, establishing cause and effect in a rigorous manner remains difficult. The sheer number of variables tend to overwhelm the analysis. Nevertheless, empirical evidence does support a link between land use and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The MIT Technology Review summarizes the study’s conclusion thusly:

Even if 75 percent of all new and replacement housing in America were built at twice the density of current new developments, and those living in the newly constructed housing drove 25 percent less as a result, CO2 emissions from personal travel would decline nationwide by only 8 to 11 percent by 2050, according to the study. If just 25 percent of housing units were developed at such densities and residents drove only 12 percent less as a result, CO2 emissions would be reduced by less than 2 percent by 2050.

In other words, an enormous shift in land development trends yields a roughly 10% cut in emissions over 40 years. A more modest shift in land development trends yields a fairly anemic drop in emissions over 40 years. Vehicle fuel efficiency provides a much bigger lever for lowering emissions from transportation. This is what I was getting at the other day when I said, “If your car runs on electricity, and your electricity comes from the sun, and your McMansion is built to the Passive House standard, then your suburban lifestyle is suddenly looking a lot more benign.”

All that being the case, the study sensibly recommends a variety of policies to promote compact, mixed-use development. There are a number of good reasons to pursue smart land use policies, even if attacking sprawl isn’t likely to save us from climate change in the near- or even medium-term.

The first is that many anti-sprawl measures are just good policy in their own right. Carbon taxes, gas taxes, transit development, better zoning laws, etc., all make sense regardless of their immediate payback in reduced gasoline consumption. And, of course, sprawl has environmental impacts beyond just VMT.

The second is that we’re stuck with our built environment for a very long time, so if we want the future to look different than the past, we had better get started making some changes. As Ryan Avent reminds us, “Between now and mid-century, the country will very nearly have to build itself all over again to accommodate population growth. In addition to the 100 million homes now in America, somewhere between 62 and 105 million more will be built.” Examples such as Portland show that it is possible to buck the dominant trend in development. But it takes a few decades for the results to really show.

Forget Curbing Suburban Sprawl

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-03T04:00:00Z

Building denser cities would do little to reduce CO2 emissions, a new NAS report concludes.

A Liquid Design for Cheaper Fuel Cells

nobody@example.com — 2009-09-03T04:00:00Z

A platinum-free liquid cathode could cut fuel-cell costs by 40 percent.

Interactive Climate Anomaly Map

nobody@example.com (Dave Sag) — 2009-09-02T23:41:20Z

There’s a great mashup over at Australian tabloid blog The Punch, where they show the last month’s pattern of extreme weather anomalies using an interactive Google Map. See the originl story at “Australia’s scorching August”

View The Punch – August weather in a larger map

Weather records are often trivial matters, a question of a few tenths of some obscure measurement here and there. Last month’s heat highs streaked away from the norms like Usain Bolt taking on a field of suburban club runners.

It’s a shame the author of the piece then has to moan on and on about how climate deniers have a point, and the map is not evidence of climate change and that the whole debate is boring anyway.

One anomalous month does not say anything about long term climate trends thats true. But this is just the latest in a series of climate anomalies and is in line with the general predictions of climate science. There is nothing here to refute the climate change argument either.

It wasn’t just a case of there being an occasional hot day, either. Alice Springs, not unaccustomed to a stretch of sun, had 16 days over 30C in the month, compared to its previous record of eight.

And the high temperatures, particularly in the east, weren’t just tenths of a degree here or there. Maximum temperatures in Queensland averaged more than 4C above the long-term trend for August. Brisbane temperatures got well into the thirties, repeatedly. Inland, the town of Windorah had never breached 35C in August. This year, it got at least that hot on seven different days.

The author seems afraid to actually choose a side in this phoney debate. To be clear, on one side of the argument, there is over 99% of the world’s climate scientists and experts who agree the evidence of human activity heating the planet is unequivocal. Then there are the shills, the bitter old geologists and the lunatic supernaturalists who either throw up the same old debunked ‘counter-theories’ they think explain the warming we’ve seen, or they wheel out parts of graphs and purport to show there is no such warming. These are not credible people yet they get airplay as if they were credible because the press like to ‘present both sides’ and, as Chomsky warned us years ago, frame the debate to restrict what can be said. — DS

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, debate, denier, global warming, map, mashup, media, message, sceptic, science, skeptic, The Punch

Can Solar Compete?

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-09-02T15:01:00Z

I'm still catching up on articles I missed during my recent vacation. A pair of them from MIT's Technology Review caught my attention, because they seemed to contradict each other. In this month's briefing on low-carbon electricity technologies, TR concluded that while the cost of solar power has declined significantly, it remains too expensive to compete with electricity from fossil fuels. What's needed, they indicate, is better technology. And yet in another article earlier in August TR reported that industry experts at a recent symposium argued that current solar technology had already achieved the necessary cost reductions to compete with conventional energy, and would become more competitive as it scales up. If even MIT's signature technology journal can't agree who's right on this point, how in the world should policy makers decide whether the priority for solar should be further R&D or deployment of the technology we've already got?

There's little debate that solar power is one of the most promising energy options available to us, at least for eventually replacing much of the electricity we currently generate from fossil fuels. The basic science has been well-understood for a long time, either in terms of photovoltaic cells that produce power directly, or the use of concentrated solar radiation to generate steam for power. Unlike energy technologies such as biofuels from cellulose or algae, we don't have to wonder whether we can ever harness solar at a useful scale. Notwithstanding the serious challenges of transmission, distribution and storage, we know that if we covered a modest fraction of the surface area of the US with solar panels or concentrators, they could generate as much electricity as we currently consume, in contrast to the 2/100ths of a percent that it contributed last year. So while there's still plenty of room to improve the technology for turning sunlight into electricity, the main obstacle we encounter is cost. If solar isn't quite cheap enough today, could merely scaling up the existing technologies make it truly cost-competitive with power from coal and natural gas?

Answering that question is complicated by the way we typically compare different power generating technologies on the basis of their "capacity" costs--what it costs to manufacture and install or construct them. For many years the solar industry has pursued a goal based on reducing the manufacturing cost of a solar module below $1 per peak Watt, which would roughly match the installed cost of a gas turbine power plant and come in around half the cost of a coal-fired power plant. Last year a company called First Solar announced that it had reached that milestone. Unfortunately, however, module costs are only half the story. A solar installation requires more than the bare solar module, which converts sunlight into DC power. In fact, a recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed that in the last decade non-module costs had declined from around $6 per Watt to just under $4. So even if we extrapolate that trend to $3/W, the installed cost of the industry-leading solar technology would still be around $4/W, and many of the utility-scale solar projects I've been reading about come in around $5-6/W, a level that is far higher than the cost of a natural gas turbine.

Of course gas turbines have a big hidden cost, too, in the form of a perpetual fuel requirement. If you do the math, though, even with fuel cost included a gas turbine runs around half the cost of currently-deployed utility-scale solar power. In order to calculate this, you must make an assumption about how many hours per day the turbine will operate. For the purposes of an apples-to-apples comparison, I chose six hours, which is roughly the number of peak-sun-hours that a solar array would get in a prime location in the Southwest. At a conservative heat rate of 10,000 BTU/kWh, the comparable fuel consumption for each Watt over 20 years would be around 440,000 BTUs. That sounds like a lot, but at recent natural gas prices it would cost around $2. Add another buck for the capacity cost, and we're under $3/W on an undiscounted basis. (Assume that future gas prices inflate at the discount rate, and the NPV would match this figure.) Even adding a $20/ton charge for CO2 emissions would only bring that up by about $0.50/W, based on average emissions for gas-fired power plants. That ignores maintenance and other costs, but then I've ignored solar array maintenance and the gradual deterioration of solar cell output, as well.

In this simple comparison, at least, it appears that today's best solar technology is still somewhat more expensive than the fossil-based power it's likely to be displacing in a typical power grid, while most of the solar arrays now being installed reflect costs at least 40% higher than gas turbines, even after accounting for fuel and CO2 emissions. I'm skeptical that simple economies of scale beyond those already achieved could deliver that kind of improvement any time soon. That might explain the necessity for a 30% federal tax credit or grant on solar installations, along with generous state-level incentives and renewable portfolio standards--mandates on utilities for a targeted level of renewable power. Absent these, much of today's solar activity would probably grind to a halt.

In this light, answering the question we started with requires defining the basis on which we expect solar power to compete in the future. If we're satisfied with needing to apply a combination of incentives and utility mandates more or less indefinitely, in order to achieve the desired level of solar power deployment, then the current technology and its incremental evolution might be perfectly adequate to the task. If, on the other hand, we'd prefer to see solar and other renewables weaned off these subsidies and able to compete on a truly level playing field with conventional energy sources--after adjusting for emissions at market prices--then it looks like a lot more R&D is called for.

Maldives president tells world: 'please, don’t be stupid' on climate change

nobody@example.com (Jeremy Hance) — 2009-09-01T17:02:00Z

"Please, don't be stupid," Mohamed Nasheed told the world regarding the need to act decisively against climate change. To underlie his message, Nasheed announced that his country will become carbon neutral in ten years.

Intel Leading The Way in Employee Engagement

nobody@example.com (birdman) — 2009-08-31T18:25:00Z

Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) has just published a fantastic newsletter article about how Intel is working with employees to meet sustainability goals. Written by Blythe Chorn of BSR’s Advisory Services, the article does a great job laying out the business case for Intel’s employee programs. It also highlights the innovative things Intel is doing to raise awareness, appeal to employee interests, and incent involvement.

We are grateful and proud that Intel is using Carbonrally’s Custom League service as part of their employee programs. We hope other leading companies are inspired to join the Rally and unite with people around the world to save energy.

A big thanks to Blythe and BSR for including us in the article. This means a lot to us! BSR is one of the most respected organizations working with business to drive justice and sustainability. To learn more about BSR, consider attending the BSR Conference 2009:

Reset Economy. Reset World

October 20-23, 2009 – San Francisco

In a world that has been “reset” by the worldwide recession and a collapse of trust in business, companies can deliver value by thinking big and embracing long-term sustainability trends. Register Now for the BSR Conference 2009.

150 Years of Oil

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-08-31T17:49:00Z

As I noted in my first posting of the month, August 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the first commercial oil well. Edwin Drake's well in Titusville, PA hit "paydirt" on August 27, 1859, and the world has never been the same since, though it took decades for oil production to grow beyond levels that would seem trivial today. In its early years the price of oil was even more volatile in real terms than it has been recently, as new sources of supply and new markets repeatedly swung the industry from boom to bust and back again. That led to numerous business failures, consolidations, and the eventual domination of a few large players. Although the world is quite different today, and history rarely repeats itself exactly, there might still be some lessons for alternative energy firms in the early history of the incumbent industry they are attempting to unseat.

Oil statistics back to 1859 are a little shaky, though this chart of oil's annual production history provides a useful overview of the early trends, if we ignore the portion devoted to projecting future output. From its current position of energy dominance, it's easy to forget that the initial success of oil was hardly a foregone conclusion, and its biggest early gains were matched by serious setbacks. While oil has never relinquished the lubricant markets it captured early on, kerosene met a very different fate. It was the most important oil product for several decades, rapidly penetrating illumination markets and displacing whale oil, which was facing its own imminent Peak Oil by then. However, it's no accident that one of the most important early markets for my former employer, Texaco Inc., which along with many other firms grew out of the great gusher at Spindletop, TX more than 40 years after Drake's well, was "oil for the lamps of China." By the early 20th century the US lighting market was already being swept by electrification. Oil was rescued from impending oblivion when a relatively unimportant byproduct called gasoline found its "killer ap" in the early automobile.

As impressive as the growth rates for wind and solar power have been over the last few years, they still fall short of the early growth of car ownership. Between 1901 and 1916, annual US car registrations grew from a few thousand units to over one million, a sustained compound average growth of around 40% per year. Over the same interval, oil production more than quadrupled, led by the combination of soaring demand for gasoline, which was produced by simple distillation of petroleum in "tea kettle" refineries, and the discovery of numerous large oil fields. This remarkable growth wasn't spurred by government incentives or economics that made oil and its products merely a little better than their closest competition. It was the result of a quantum leap in personal mobility facilitated by oil's extraordinary inherent advantages in convenience. Huge surpluses of energy could be extracted from the ground and delivered relatively easily and cheaply to cars in the most remote corners of the country.

The difference in oil's success in the transportation and illumination markets is clear. In modern terms we'd say that two transformational technologies competed head to head, with each ultimately dominating the market in which it had clear advantages of better/faster/cheaper. Kerosene, which lost to electric lighting, is only important today because it turned out to make a wonderful fuel for a device that didn't exist in Drake's time, the jet engine. And it has taken a further century for the technology of electricity to advance to the point at which it is again competitive in transportation, having once lost that battle definitively a century ago, with the mass production of the Model T.

The lessons for today's energy situation are worth contemplating. For example, ethanol has just experienced a boom and bust cycle that the early oil barons would readily understand. Over-investment in capacity still destroys margins, and distribution remains a serious constraint. More importantly, perhaps, ethanol lacks a better/faster/cheaper edge as it fights for market share with petroleum products. Must true success for biofuels await innovations that will turn cheap cellulose into molecules that carry energy at least as efficiently as those in oil, or for the mass production of new conversion devices (engines or fuel cells) that can overcome ethanol's shortcomings relative to gasoline? Oil's history poses similar questions for wind and solar power, which for all their environmental benefits remain costlier and less reliable than conventional sources of electricity. Subsidies and regulations seem anemic substitutes for the inherent advantages of cost and convenience that can sweep away incumbent technologies within a decade or two. I can't help wondering whether the story of today's alternative energy technologies will more resemble that of oil's experience in illumination or in transportation.

Digital books: greener than real books

nobody@example.com — 2009-08-31T09:12:53-08:00

Study claims the devices pay themselves back in a year

by Adam Stein

Last week brought the unsurprising news that mp3s are more environmentally friendly than physical CDs. I wondered at the time whether the same might be true for digital books:

Its not clear to me, though, which way the scales tip. Book are not, of course, completely benign. Energy goes into their manufacture, transport, and disposal. Beyond that and here I speak as a Kindle owner electronic readers do result in at least some energy savings by supplanting computer use. I suspect that physical books retain an edge over their digital cousins, possibly a substantial one. But Id be curious to see some actual numbers.

Today the internet delivers some actual numbers, and it turns out that a modern-day Thoreau is better off with a keyboard than a pen:

The new study finds that e-readers could have a major impact on improving the sustainability and environmental impact on the publishing industry, one of the worlds most polluting sectors. In 2008, the U.S. book and newspaper industries combined resulted in the harvesting of 125 million trees, not to mention wastewater that was produced or its massive carbon footprint….

The report indicates that, on average, the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of a Kindle is fully offset after the first year of use.

The full study isn’t publicly available, so I can’t comment on the assumptions that went into this analysis. It appears the authors are assuming e-readers displace almost 23 physical books a year, a figure that strikes me as fantastically high. However, it’s possible that the figure is inflated to account for the large proportion of physical books that are remaindered and destroyed. And in any case, replacing 23 books over the lifetime of the device seems plausible enough.

Long story short: you can buy your e-reader guilt-free. Or you can use libraries and used bookshops to green you reading the old-fashioned way.

Destructive farming practices of early civilization may have altered climate long before industrial era

nobody@example.com (Jeremy Hance) — 2009-08-31T16:43:00Z

William Ruddiman has become well known for his theory that human-induced climate change started long before the Industrial Age. In 2003 he first brought forth the theory that the Neolithic Revolution-when some humans turned from hunter-gathering to large-scale farming-caused a shift in the global climate 7,000 years ago.

The greenest city in America

nobody@example.com — 2009-08-31T07:38:50-08:00

And the lessons it offers for a more sustainable future

by Adam Stein

I’m not sure what link trail led me to this five-year-old New Yorker piece on the greenest city in America, but it holds up quite well. According to New Yorker magazine, the greenest city in America is: New York.

The average Manhattanite consumes gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasnt matched since the mid-nineteen-twenties, when the most widely owned car in the United States was the Ford Model T. Eighty-two per cent of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. Thats ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for residents of Los Angeles County. New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy use.

The author makes a strong case, although he also makes one big goof: the per capita carbon footprint of New Yorkers is about the same as that of Los Angelenos, and both cities are radically greener than most of the rest of America. Los Angelenos have their cars, but they also have their wonderful climate. New Yorkers are astoundingly energy efficient, but the need for summer air conditioning and winter heating takes a toll. One thing seems certain: if you crossed New York’s density with LA’s weather, you’d have the greenest city in the world, by far.

One of the foundational ideas of modern environmentalism is that environmentally damaging activities should carry a price. Polluters should have to bear the cost of environmental destruction, rather than pushing that cost onto society. Gas should be more expensive. Electricity — at least electricity that comes from coal and natural gas — should be more expensive. And so forth.

The New Yorker piece makes the counterintuitive claim that electricity prices in cities should be reduced, to lure more people to live in dense, energy-efficient settlements:

People who live in cities use only about half as much electricity as people who dont, and people who live in New York City generally use less than the urban average. A truly enlightened energy policy would reward city dwellers and encourage others to follow their good example.

I think this suggestion is probably wrong, but it does get at a more general and important idea: a tax code and infrastructure plan that took the environment into account would as a natural consequence make cities cheaper to live in and suburbs more expensive. They would have to, because cities are just so much better for the planet.

California proposes auction to boost solar energy

nobody@example.com — 2009-08-31T06:12:58-08:00

Kind of like a feed-in tariff, but possibly much better

by Adam Stein

California has proposed setting up an open bidding process for mid-size solar projects. Under the scheme, utilities would rank bids by price and accept all of the cheapest proposals that their budgets allow. The auction would be repeated twice a year, with the eventual goal of bringing an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar capacity online.

The scheme is somewhat reminiscent of feed-in tariffs, a dead-simple policy mechanism that has successfully boosted renewable energy in Europe. Essentially, a feed-in tariff is just a guaranteed, above-market rate paid for electricity from renewable sources. The rate depends on the technology used: one rate for wind, another for solar, etc.

The simplicity of feed-in tariffs is one of their primary virtues. Such programs are easy to administer and easy for investors to understand. By providing long-term price stability and guaranteed returns, feed-in tariffs do an excellent job of coaxing capital toward renewable energy projects.

The tariffs are not, however, without their problems. Picking prices is hard. Too low, and the incentive won’t work. Too high, and consumers overpay. Also, because different rates apply to different technologies, certain industries can become unfairly advantaged. (Note, though, that even if picking prices is hard, alternative policies aren’t necessarily better. In the U.S., we typically mandate that a specific percentage of our electricity come from renewable sources, which requires predicting future supply and demand — no easy feat. At least when you pick prices, you can plan a budget.)

Also, feed-in tariffs may suppress innovation by offering a guaranteed price to all providers, regardless of their underlying costs. This problem can be at least partially addressed by lowering the tariff over time. But when prices for solar energy have plummeted 40% in only six months, it seems unlikely that any simple descending tariff is going to keep up with the state of the art.

Auctions retain most of the simplicity of feed-in tariffs and address many of the problems. The auction mechanism ensures that the price is always right, neither too high nor too low. The price automatically adjusts with each new auction, capturing any changes in technology. And because the program specifically targets mid-size solar installations — defined as projects between 1 megawatt and 20 megawatts in size — it holds the potential to bring a lot of capacity online quickly, without the need for expensive new transmission infrastructure.

The system reminds me a bit of New England’s forward capacity market, an auction system that puts energy efficiency projects on equal footing with fossil fuel-powered energy projects. The California system hasn’t been formally approved yet, but solar providers seem excited about it, so hopefully it will move forward quickly.

Searching for Impact Man

nobody@example.com — 2009-08-29T04:17:25-08:00

Taking aim at wannabe Thoreaus (including Thoreau)

by Adam Stein

If you read only one piece of long-form environmental journalism this month, make it Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker piece on the uncertain lessons to be learned from “eco-stunts,” the tradition of self-promotional experiments in green living that winds from Thoreau right on down through No Impact Man.

Colin Beavan, the central figure of the piece, has been successful enough in his experiment that by now you’ve probably heard of his family’s effort to live impact-free for a year in a Manhattan apartment. Maybe you’ve read the New York Times article, or seen the Colbert Report appearance, or subscribed to the blog, or bought the book, or seen the trailer for the upcoming film.*

Despite its focus on Beavan, though, Kolbert’s piece isn’t strictly about No Impact Man. Rather, the article stands on its own as a stunningly entertaining look at the tensions that have always existed between the various strands of the environmental movement. What does it mean to act sustainably in a society that isn’t, at root, sustainable? Is there any way through the paradox that criticism of consumption is, itself, a sign of enormous privilege? I’ve been thinking about these topics a lot lately while watching the dispiriting spectacle of our political system grappling with climate change, and the equally dispiriting spectacle of environmentalists’ retreat into doom-saying.

In a perfect coda, Kolbert writes:

A more honest title for Beavans book would have been Low Impact Man, and a truly honest title would have been Not Quite So High Impact Man. Even during the year that Beavan spent drinking out of a Mason jar, more than two billion people were, quite inadvertently, living lives of lower impact than his. Most of them were struggling to get by in the slums of Delhi or Rio or scratching out a living in rural Africa or South America. A few were sleeping in cardboard boxes on the street not far from Beavans Fifth Avenue apartment….

Whats required is perhaps a sequel. In one chapter, Beavan could take the elevator to visit other families in his apartment building. He could talk to them about how they all need to work together to install a more efficient heating system. In another, he could ride the subway to Penn Station and then get on a train to Albany. Once there, he could lobby state lawmakers for better mass transit. In a third chapter, Beavan could devote his blog to pushing for a carbon tax. Heres a possible title for the book: Impact Man.

* In the wake of Kolbert’s meticulous and somewhat brutal examination of eco-stunts, there’s been a bit of a pro-Beavan backlash on the interweb, so there’s one thing I should make clear: I really haven’t spent much time on the No Impact Man blog, book, movie, or other media appearances, but by every account I’ve read, Beavan is earnest, well-meaning, and dedicated advocate who fully understands that sustainability is more than just a lifestyle choice. Moreover, his book apparently contains plenty of good advice on community engagement. If his experiment has helped to raise awareness, then good on him. You should still read the New Yorker article, though.

The Demise of MPG

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-08-28T15:33:00Z

Even before the advent of partially- or fully-electric cars, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the old fuel economy metric of miles per gallon isn't as useful for measuring energy consumption in vehicles as when it was first codified in the original Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard in the 1970s. That is due in part to the proliferation of new fuels--E85, LPG, LNG, CNG, methanol, and hydrogen--but also because expressing the relationship between distance and volume in this way obscured the diminishing returns to higher levels of fuel economy. As a Wall St. Journal column earlier this week put it, adding electricity into the mpg mix, "risks giving consumers inaccurate information about the financial and environmental costs of driving." But if we need a new metric, what should it measure?

I've been interested in this issue for some time, and GM's recent announcement that its new Volt plug-in hybrid achieves 230 mpg in city driving prompted some further thought. I don't doubt the accuracy of that figure or the thought that GM's engineers put into bridging this new vehicle type into a system that was designed when the average US fuel economy was 13.1 mpg and unleaded gasoline was the newest fuel around. Yet all this figure tells us is how much liquid fuel the car's generator would consume over a carefully-chosen driving interval, completely ignoring the electricity--with its cost and consequences--required to deliver that result. Nissan's Twittered riposte that it's new Leaf electric car gets 367 mpg is even less useful, because the assumptions behind it are not clear--and might just ignore some basic engineering realities.

Without access to Nissan's calculation, I can only guess at how they might have arrived at it by backing into it. (Skip this if you hate numbers.) Start with the fact that each gallon of petroleum gasoline (without ethanol) carries 115,000 BTUs of energy. At an official conversion of 3412 BTUs per kilowatt-hour (kWh), that equates to 33.7 kWh per gallon, so 367 mpg implies that the Leaf would go nearly 11 miles per kWh. That's pretty amazing by itself, considering that the Volt is generally expected to go between 4 and 6 miles per kWh. It also suggests that the Leaf would be using less than half of its 24 kWh Lithium Ion battery pack to deliver its advertised 100 mile range. But even if this is all correct, there's a basic problem with the calculation; in the real world it can take a lot more than 3,412 BTUs of primary energy to generate one kWh of electricity, depending on how you do it. If the power source is surplus wind, solar or nuclear power that wasn't already being used to displace power generated from fossil fuels, the BTUs required could be effectively zero. Otherwise, for power generated from coal or natural gas they would range between 6,000-12,000 BTU/kWh. Even assuming a relatively conservative 8,000 BTU/kWh for the natural gas turbines that provide the incremental power supply for many markets, the resulting equivalent mpg falls from 367 to 156 mpg. But that still doesn't tell us enough, in my estimation.

The problem here is the existence of a variety of perspectives on vehicle energy efficiency with competing information needs. From the standpoint of energy policy, we are most concerned about annual oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. We already have a new federal mileage standard that is set in terms of grams of CO2-equivalent per mile, which gets at the latter issue. The EPA's current mpg methodology based on liquid fuels comes close to addressing the former, though the increasing contribution of biofuels renders it suspect. Unfortunately, any standard or metric that treats non-petroleum energy as essentially free seems certain to result in colossal unintended consequences, as non-oil energy sources ramp up. The engineer in me would argue strongly for something like the MPGe calculation used for the Automotive X-Prize, comparing all the energy delivered to the car in any form with how far the car went. However, from a consumer perspective that still seems overly complex and opaque. While I would certainly prefer the inverted form of fuel economy--gallons per 100 miles--to our current mpg, it's hard to beat miles per dollar as a means of comparing how much it will cost the average driver to operate any of these new cars.

Money is the common denominator for most of the things we consume, so why shouldn't it be for vehicle energy, as well? At current pump prices, an average American passenger car goes about 9.5 miles per dollar (mp$), while a Prius-type hybrid approaches 20 mp$. If we factor in electricity at the national average retail price of $0.11/kWh, then the Chevrolet Volt would deliver something in the vicinity of 30 mp$, if I've correctly understood how they arrived at their 230 mpg figure, while the Leaf might yield as much as 99 mp$--though my natural skepticism about its unofficial claims leads me to suspect it would be closer to 45 mp$. Of course, when you have to pay $5,000-10,000 extra for a battery pack, you'd certainly hope the operating cost per mile would be a lot lower than for a conventional car. And that's precisely the kind of comparison that a truly useful fuel economy metric should facilitate.

In the near term, the EPA should continue its work on adapting the familiar mpg metric to a new world of more diverse vehicle technologies, but for the longer term it ought to convene other government agencies, car and fuel companies, universities, and consumer groups for the purpose of developing a new and more helpful set of metrics that would tell consumers what they need to know about costs and consequences as the car fleet undergoes its long transition toward an uncertain destination.

Plant a tree...it could be free!

nobody@example.com (alexandra) — 2009-08-28T02:10:00Z

Planting trees on New Haven streets. The natural way to reduce CO2. Courtesy of New Haven Independent

As the summer winds down, I’ve become oriented here at Yale Forestry and Environmental Studies, and have learned quite a bit about our local CT forests. I spent the last week learning about the micro-ecosystems here in New Haven and the most interesting was learning that there is a lot more to our environmental damage than just the emissions from our cars and air-conditioners. Planting certain types of trees and plants (flora) can actually cause damage to other plants or animals. When planting a tree, there is a lot to consider. What kind of shade will it provide? Is it indigenous? What kind of water and sunlight will it require? How will it affect your local flora and fauna? etc.

Of course, planting native tree species provides shade from sun and rain, habitats for birds right on your lawn, and improve air quality. Most cities have block associations or horticultural societies which can keep you informed about appropriate flora. And, due to increased stimulus funding, many of these organizations are not only giving away advice, but also providing the labor and the tree itself free of charge!

Carbon Planet wins AMI Award for Marketing Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility

nobody@example.com (Dave Sag) — 2009-08-27T06:25:24Z

Carbon Planet is the 2009 South Australian winner of The Australian Marketing Institute’s award for Marketing Excellence in the Corporate Social Responsibility category for its innovative primary schools education programme, Operation: Coolenation.

Operation: Coolenation is an effective and enjoyable tool for communicating the science of global warming and climate change to primary school students. The programme was developed as a part of Carbon Planet’s own corporate social responsibility commitments after research showed there was strong demand from students, teachers, schools, and other organisations for clear, simple and accurate information about the causes of, and the solutions to global warming.

Inspiring behavioural change has been shown to be the single most effective way to save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to a create transition to a viable society. The Operation: Coolenation programme was designed to help younger kids understand the science behind global warming and climate change, and armed with that understanding, to take direct, long-term action.

The program provides fun and informative answers in a user friendly format, including the use of the Planet Saving Superheroes: Cyberwind and Aerogreen in a comic series and a comprehensive education resource. The success of the program is also evident in the popularity of school visits which were booked out in the first half of 2009.

Operation: Coolenation is a core scheme by which we will achieve our longer term corporate mission of enabling any business or individual on the planet to manage their contribution to climate change.

The annual Australian Marketing Institute Awards for Marketing Excellence are presented to organisations who have achieved extraordinary success from innovative and effective marketing practices.

Carbon Planet will proceed as finalists to the prestigious 2009 AMI Awards for Marketing Excellence with interstate finalists in the national awards to be announced in October.

On a personal note I’d like to congratulate Pearl (pictured top right), as well as all those many people both within, and outside Carbon Planet who helped make Operation: Coolenation such a success. If your school would like to know more please check out cooleantion.com. — DS

Technorati Tags: Coolenation, education, global warming. climate science, kids, schools, science, teachers. climate change

As Arctic Ocean warms, megatonnes of methane bubble up

nobody@example.com (Dave Sag) — 2009-08-27T02:42:01Z

New Scientist is reporting, in a story “As Arctic Ocean warms, megatonnes of methane bubble up“, that one of the key tipping points we, and other climate science groups have been predicting for a long time is now actually happening.

Over 250 plumes of gas have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor to the west of the Svalbard archipelago, which lies north of Norway. The bubbles are mostly methane, which is a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Methane, aka Natural Gas or CH₄, has a global warming potential of around 21 times that of CO₂. However you count it this is very bad news. Right now it seems that the methane being released is being dissolved back into the ocean, but that is just making the ocean more acidic. Should the gas start leaking out into the atmosphere in quantity then we can expect a sudden acceleration in global warming. Delaying your own response to global warming just takes us all closer to this, and other tipping points. If we cross these lines we may never make it back to a world we can call home. — DS

Technorati Tags: AGW, clathrates, Climate Change, GHG, global warming, greenhouse gas, methane, ocean acidification, tipping point

Deficits, Dollars, and the Price of Energy

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-08-26T16:54:00Z

The latest revision to the forecasted federal deficit has implications beyond the sustainability of current government spending. Reading a pair of high-profile, skeptical assessments of Peak Oil in the context of a $9 trillion deficit projection for the next decade, it occurred to me that the most serious risk of higher oil prices in the near future might not be flagging production or surging demand but the further depreciation of the US dollar. The quickest route back to $4 gasoline could run through Washington, DC, rather than Riyadh or Beijing, and that might not be as helpful for renewable energy as its advocates might guess.

The main worry I've heard expressed about the size of the federal deficit has focused on the risk of inflation. However, high deficits carry another risk that could have a much more direct effect on energy prices, which in turn could help re-ignite inflation. The problem is acute because it goes well beyond the one-time impact of federal stimulus efforts, which have apparently ballooned this year's deficit to $1.6 trillion. Fundamentally, there is a persistent and growing gap between government revenue and expenses, exacerbated by high unemployment and lower income--and thus lower tax collection--particularly from the top quintile of earners who have consistently been paying 86% of the federal income tax. Unless that gap can be brought back into line with recent history, the government will soon face a difficult choice. Financing a steady stream of trillion-dollar annual deficits will require either interest rates high enough to attract investment from all over the world--and thus high enough to stifle a nascent recovery--or the monetization of the debt by means of the Federal Reserve printing even more money than recently. The latter course, which seems likely to be more politically palatable, despite Dr. Bernanke's reappointment, would inevitably weaken the dollar and lead in fairly short order to higher energy prices.

We got a taste of this effect in 2007, when oil prices and the dollar moved in opposite directions in an oil-dollar price loop that looked more than merely coincidental. A weaker dollar encourages producers to raise prices, or to consider pricing their output in a stronger, more stable currency. Meanwhile, non-US consumers experience stable or falling energy prices that encourage demand growth, which eventually leads to higher prices in all currencies. Either way, US consumers would see higher prices for petroleum products, though it's not clear how much further demand could fall in the near term, with US oil consumption already running 10% below 2007's, on a comparable year-to-date basis.

The dollar has already weakened by about 10% against the Euro and 5% vs. the Japanese Yen since March, as the resolution of the financial crisis and early signs of a global recovery have eased the fears that prompted a classic flight to dollar safety. This shift merely returns the exchange rate to roughly its level of pre-crisis 2008. Oil prices have risen by around 40% over the same interval, though how much of that is due to a weaker dollar is far from clear. However, from today's $70/bbl level, another 25% drop in the value of the dollar could return us to the threshold of $100 oil.

Higher oil prices due to a weaker dollar would not necessarily be beneficial for biofuels and other alternatives to oil, either. If we learned anything from the oil price spike of 2006-'08, it was that higher oil prices don't automatically make alternative energy more competitive. If only oil prices were moving, it might be helpful, but the only way to achieve that is through taxation, not inflation or currency depreciation. Just as oil functions in a global market, so too the components of the main alternative energy technologies have become global, with wind turbines and solar panels sourced globally and in high demand in many regions. So too for the steel and other basic materials for constructing such installations, as well as the grains and oilseeds turned into ethanol and biodiesel. A weaker dollar wouldn't just mean higher oil prices, but higher prices at least for all of the new energy sources to which we are turning in our effort to address climate change and bolster our energy security.

At an average price for 2008 of $93/bbl, oil made up just 15% of the value of the goods and services we imported last year, and a weaker dollar would see the prices of a host of other things--cars, electronics, call-center assistance, for example--go up, as well, fueling inflation and further depressing our standard of living. That scenario is hardly inevitable. A sea change on the part of the American public could convince the Congress and administration that we are finally prepared to pay for the government we have been demanding, or to see government services fall to a level commensurate with the level of taxation we appear willing to bear. Or the Fed could start raising interest rates to defend the dollar, in spite of the consequences for economic growth and unemployment. I'm pretty sure which choice I'd vote for.

Better Gas-to-Methanol Catalyst

nobody@example.com — 2009-08-26T04:00:00Z

An improved catalyst could reduce the cost of making methanol from methane.

US Refineries Under Cap & Trade

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-08-24T16:45:00Z

A new study confirms my previous suspicions that the allocation of free emission allowances in the Waxman-Markey climate bill would disproportionately disadvantage the US oil sector, with serious consequences for our energy security. In particular, it quantifies the impact on the refining sector, which was chosen by the bill's authors as the focal point for collecting the "tax" on all carbon emissions from the use of petroleum products. In the view of EnSys Energy Systems, Inc., based on their model of global downstream petroleum markets, US refineries would run much less crude oil and be able to invest much less in modernization. As a result, US imports of refined products would grow significantly, despite lower overall consumption, and employment in the US refining sector would fall, while the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from domestic refineries would be largely offset by increases abroad. Such an outcome would benefit neither the global climate nor US national security.

When I examined the preliminary version of Waxman-Markey in early June, I concluded that because it doled out so many free emission allowances to the electricity sector, its main effect for at least the first two decades would be to function as a tax on the petroleum sector, though without the clarity and transparency of a gasoline tax. Those allocations didn't change materially during negotiations, with the final House bill offering roughly 2% of emission allowances to refineries that would be saddled with the responsibility for between 33% and 44% of all US GHG emissions, depending on how you slice them. Compare that to the electricity sector, which accounts for 39% of emissions but would get at least 35% of the free allowances.

Rather than going through the details of the EnSys study, which was commissioned by API, I'd like to approach this by considering how an evenly-distributed cap & trade system (or carbon tax) should reasonably be expected to affect the oil industry, which after all accounts for a major share of US emissions. You'd hardly expect it to get off scot-free. However, it's a fact that most emissions in the petroleum value chain occur when refined fuel is burned, rather than during production (extraction) or refining. The Ensys study puts the refining contribution at less than 10% of all emissions from well to wheels. Although refiners ought to see their operating costs rise under cap & trade, giving them further incentives to increase their already impressive efficiency of roughly 90% (energy out vs. energy in), the impact should properly be relatively modest. The bulk of the impact from cap & trade should manifest in the form of higher end-user prices for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, putting commensurate pressure on consumers to use less. The outcome of that reduction would fall on the marginal suppliers of refined products to the US market: foreign refiners that sent us over 3 million barrels per day last year. EnSys concludes that Waxman-Markey would have entirely the opposite result, enriching foreign refiners at the expense of the employees and owners of US facilities.

I wouldn't be surprised if the EnSys study were greeted with the customary skepticism of a finding that supports the interests of the constituency that paid for it. API and its member companies have much at stake in this debate. But if you doubt the likelihood of the scenario it describes, you need only review the regulatory history of the US refining industry and the long-term trend of our refined product imports, which have increased at double the rate of our crude oil imports. Between 1993 and 2007--before the recession axed them--net US refined product imports (after subtracting out exports) grew by a compound average rate of roughly 6% per year, compared to an average increase of 3% per year for net crude imports over the same period. This coincided with increasingly strict regulations on permits for new facilities and on refinery emissions of criteria pollutants, along with ever-tougher rules on gasoline and diesel fuel specifications, culminating in the current reformulated gasoline and ultra-low-sulfur diesel specs. With the exception of a couple of years of stellar margins late in that interval, returns on refinery investments were very poor, and the major oil companies were steadily shedding refining capacity as a bad bet. Today, even the independent refining companies that created profitable businesses by purchasing these assets at a fraction of their replacement cost are suffering from low profits.

If anything, the economic impact on the US refining industry from regulating carbon emissions could be even worse than this recent history, since it hinges on the basic chemistry of combustion itself, rather than the removal of impurities that constitute only a small percentage of their feedstock inputs, even for the highest-sulfur crudes. That could happen even with an even-handed approach to cap & trade or a carbon tax, but it would be a certainty under a system that appears designed mainly to shield utilities and their customers at the expense of the entire existing transportation fuel system. The principal means of reducing GHGs from the latter is through cuts in consumption, not more efficient refining, and even our recent low level of product imports offers the opportunity to cut our emissions from petroleum products by roughly 7% with a minimal effect on US refineries. Instead, Waxman-Markey would effectively offshore many of those refineries--and their emissions. In a world transfixed by market failures, that would constitute a regulatory failure of the first magnitude.

Climate vs. Security?

nobody@example.com (Geoffrey Styles) — 2009-08-21T17:30:00Z

In the last few years I've watched perceptions of US energy security and climate change, the two main drivers of energy policy, converge gradually toward a general sense that smart climate policy will be good for energy security, and vice versa. There's even a growing understanding that a stable climate contributes to national security, distinct from any energy considerations. However, there are still cases with strongly divergent energy security and climate change implications, and a new pipeline that will deliver crude extracted from Canadian oil sands is a prime example. The US State Department's approval of this project looks entirely appropriate and sensible, even if it conflicts with the administration's emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Like it or not--and largely because of past decisions concerning our own off-limits oil resources--Canadian oil sands have become an essential pillar of US energy security.

The "Alberta Clipper" pipeline of Enbridge, Inc. could eventually bring up to 800,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude oil to refineries in the US Midwest, as oil sands production in Alberta Province continues to grow. This oil would displace imports from the Middle East and West Africa, which absent oil sands are likely to grow, in spite of increasing biofuel production and higher fuel economy standards for new cars. That's because output from Mexico, our other main local supplier, is dropping sharply, while higher production from Brazil may only offset declines in Venezuela, which has grossly mismanaged its oil sector. Oil sands are already compensating for the steady decline in conventional Canadian oil production, and without them our imports from our largest oil supplier couldn't be sustained at their current level of roughly 10% of US oil consumption--equating to about five times the energy content of current US ethanol production. There is simply no realistic energy scenario for the next 20 years in which we could forgo imports of Canadian crude produced from oil sands, without a corresponding increase in imports from the Middle East.

The main concern cited about oil sands relates to its higher emissions of greenhouse gases, compared to conventional oil production. This is indisputable, though it's important to put those higher emissions into perspective, while also recognizing that technology and an increased Canadian emphasis on these emissions should reduce this disparity over time. The most recent study I've seen on the subject indicates that although the processes for producing useful liquids from Canadian oil sands result in roughly three times the upstream greenhouse gas emissions of the average barrel of US supply, the well-to-wheels lifecycle emissions are only 17% higher than average. In either case, most of the emissions from oil occur when it is burned in vehicles or other end-uses, not during production. While not insignificant, the excess emissions from oil sands can be offset less expensively elsewhere in our energy economy, particularly if the ultimate US climate legislation gives the utility sector the right incentives to cut its CO2 emissions, which are roughly a fifth larger than those from oil consumed in transportation.

Greenhouse gas emissions aren't the only environmental impact associated with oil sands, but we lack any reasonable or consistent way to assess the trade-off between the others and the potential impacts--physical or aesthetic--of increasing our own oil production from the significant resources we have placed off-limits to exploitation, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the outer continental shelves of California and other states. In effect, American policy makers and consumers have implicitly chosen to ramp up oil output in Alberta to spare other areas of greater concern to American voters. Such decisions have left us reliant on this Canadian energy resource, the incremental greenhouse gas consequences of which can be offset elsewhere. The State Department appears to have reached a similar conclusion.

Ultracaps Could Boost Hybrid Efficiency

nobody@example.com — 2009-08-20T04:00:00Z

Recent studies point to the potential of ultracapacitors to augment conventional batteries.

10 Places to Find Back-to-School Clothes on the Cheap

nobody@example.com (Chris Baskind) — 2009-08-19T22:47:20Z

How would you like to cut this year’s back-to-school budget in half?

Backpacks, pens and pencils, notebooks — it all adds up. But in terms of both cost and environmental impact, the biggest line item is clothing. So that’s the most productive place to make getting your kids back to class a leaner and greener experience.

Want to save? Buy used

Yes: used. With new clothes, no matter how organic the fabric or local the production (and most school clothing is neither), nothing beats the eco-efficiency of secondhand. Every time you repurpose a piece of clothing, you’re saving hundreds of gallons of water; all the pesticide that would have been used to produce its natural fibers or the petroleum from which synthetics are made; and the energy and resources to bring the finished garment to market.

Used clothing is actually a huge industry in most of the developed world. But almost all secondhand clothes end up overseas. In many peoples’ minds, there’s a stigma to used cloth. Maybe that’s because at one time, the places you’d be most likely to find used clothing were run by charitable organizations. Perhaps our resistance to used clothing goes deeper — to the consumerist notion that if we’re not buying the newest and most expensive things for our children, we’re failing as parents.

In either case, there are plenty of great ways to find deals on great-looking, perfectly serviceable secondhand clothing. Let’s go shopping!

10 sources for used kids’ clothing

Family and friends: The old standby. Who do you know who with kids a little older than yours? A quick note on a church or office bulletin board can get the ball rolling on a group exchange. Don’t be shy about making a few calls: People are usually happy to empty their closets of unneeded items.

Consignment stores: Commissioned resellers always seem to have the freshest fashion and most immaculate goods. You’ll pay a bit more for the convenience, but consignment stores — with their marked and sorted goods — can be real time savers. Most offer some sort of return policy, too.

Church and multifamily rummage sales: The advantage of these larger events is convenience. More stuff in one place means you’ll be doing less driving around. Some of the church sales can be large scale, semi-annual events. It pays to connect with groups staging these. Volunteers sometimes get first pick or a discount, so what get out of the deal can be in direct proportion to what you put in. Once you’ve located a quality event, ask if they have a mailing list so you can be informed of future sales.

Craigslist: The 24/7 online rummage sale. You’re probably in luck if your area has a local Craigslist, and it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. Preparing this article, we did random searches for “clothing” in two or three smaller cities. Our first hit was a 105-piece boy’s assortment in what appeared to be excellent shape for $100. There was easily a thousand dollars worth of clothing in the set. Read through Craigslist’s online guide to buyer safety and use common sense before arranging any in-person transactions.

eBay: Online auctions are great places to pick up specific items you might need to fill in your child’s wardrobe. You’ll be hard pressed to think of something not covered by eBay’s listings. Merchandise is generally of high quality — much of it is new — and you’re protected, to an extent, by eBay’s built-in reputation and dispute resolution systems.

Flea markets: You never really know from week to week what will be on the tables at your local flea market, and that’s part of the fun. You’re as likely to find new clothing as used, along with things like book bags, bikes, and serviceable lunch boxes. Prices are usually higher than rummage sales and secondhand stores, but you can cover a lot of ground in an hour. Tell the sellers what you’re looking for — chances are, they have a hook-up.

Freecycle: A genuine online community, Freecycle can deliver the best deals in town because everything is free. The downside is that most people on the list are making space at home, and you may have to agree to take more than you really need. Fair enough.Visit the main site to locate a Freecycle group near you. As with Craigslist, use caution when pickups with strangers. Freecycle etiquette dictates that if you agree to pick up an item, you should do so promptly. And be sure to give back when it’s your turn to lighten your load.

Salvage stores: Like flea markets, you never know from week to week what you’ll find at a salvage store. These outlets purchase salable merchandise from insurance companies at pennies on the dollar. You’ll have to be on the lookout for damaged goods (most salvage stock comes from businesses destroyed by flood or fire), but a good cleaning is a small price to pay for otherwise new, name-brand merchandise. Increasingly, salvage stores or coming into possession of bankruptcy liquidations — so there are lots of unexpected deals to be found.

Saturday morning rummage sales: For a lot of people, weekend rummaging is a hobby and a way of life. It’s possible you’ll find the very best deals on someone’s driveway on a Saturday morning — but you’ll need to make a plan if you expect to compete with the the rummage sale veterans. Start here and pick up some tips from the pros.

Secondhand and thrift stores: You already know the names: places like Goodwill and the Salvation Army. You probably have at least one locally run, independent secondhand store in your community, as well. Nonprofits and charities have used thrift stores to finance their operations for decades, so buying from one is a way of supporting their work. You can find good deals in these large=scale secondhand stores — but come prepared to dig through a lot of junk, too.

Have fun!

There are ten reliable sources of used children’s clothing to get you started — and thinking resourcefully. Have any brilliant back-to-school bargain-hunting ideas to add to the bunch? Please share them in our Comments section!

“First Day of School” image by Flickr user Terren in Virginia / CC BY 2.0. Abstract yard sale image by Robert Couse-Baker / CC BY 2.0.

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