DrumBeat: January 6, 2007
Posted by threadbot on January 6, 2007 - 10:05am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Peak Oil Passnotes: Is 2007 Time to Get Out of Oil?
There is a chance - this time - that those lows are going to be breached. The unfortunate fact for the executives of our international oil companies is that any price fall could not come at a worse time for the oil industry.Because the recent run up in prices have meant that companies have been falling over themselves to put on extra barrels of production. Of course this cannot be done overnight so we are now seeing the first wave of new output about to hit the market.
Facing a reinvigorated Liberal Party and Canadians' focus on the environment, the Conservatives are in a hurry to get green. It is a race companies in the oil sands have been running for years, some of them for decades. While the Conservatives appear ready for a sprint — Mr. Baird declared Thursday that “This year, I'm going to clean up the environment” — this race is clearly a marathon, a difficult and challenging slog, where the costs begin in the hundreds of millions of dollars and many of the solutions are unproven.
Planning for a Post Carbon Era
It doesn’t matter where in America you live; it doesn’t matter what your job is. Let’s imagine, for an instant, that tomorrow you wake up and the nation has entered a Post-Carbon Era.
Oprah's academy: Why educating girls pays off more
"With education, the girl child will grow up and be a better mother - she will be better able to understand the importance of her own children being educated, and will be better able to provide for her children," says Sarah Crowe, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Johannesburg. "Men and boys are often out of the home," she notes, so that fathers are less able to teach their children what they have learned.
AES executive joins alternative energy group's board
AES, one of the largest power companies in the world, is bringing its muscle to a national group that's an advocate for alternative energy.
Alternative-Energy Spending Fizzles Out
Congress ends without funding research programs, as the United States falls behind in alternative technologies.
Next IEA Chief Tanaka Vows to Spur Dialogue with Oil Market
Tanaka, originally from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said he sees it as important to ensure transparency in the oil market, but that he does not support the idea of "controlling" speculative funds in the market, which some see as the reason for increasingly high prices.
Europe to suffer as the world warms up
Chilly northern Europe could reap big benefits from global warming, while the Mediterranean faces crippling shortages of both water and tourists by the middle of the century, according to the first comprehensive study of its effects on the continent.
RFF Scholars Awarded Prize for Economics of Climate Change
Out of habit from when energy was cheap, open windows in winter
BERLIN: If you ever visit countries like Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia during the winter months, try to avoid spending much time in government buildings. They are sweltering. Ask that the temperature be turned down and your host will immediately oblige — by opening the window. Thermostats are nonexistent.
Geothermal power moves ahead as reliable source of renewable energy
LONDON: Homes in Unterhaching, a town south of Munich, will be warmed by hot water piped from 3,300 meters, or 10,800 feet, underground starting in May. The town of 22,000 people is at the leading edge of a shift toward geothermal power generation that may swell Germany's capacity 1,000-fold within a decade.
German Renewable Energy Usage at Record High in 2006
Japan to provide $2 billion in energy aid to Asia: Goal is "the eradication of energy poverty."
This is where political math becomes more complicated - while a political party espousing the cause of a hydroelectric project can expect to lose the support of people displaced, it cannot expect to gain patronage of people who stand to benefit until after the project is completed, by which time governments would have changed hands more than a few times.
Local action: a new initiative aims to deglobalize the Bay Area's economy
In what some experts are hailing as a first for sustainability movements in the United States, a coalition of policy organizations has unveiled a comprehensive campaign to reduce the Bay Area's reliance on global markets in favor of a more locally based economy.
Bunning, Obama Re-Introduce Blueprint For Energy Independence: Will Form Senate Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Caucus
Washington, DC - U.S. Senators Jim Bunning (R-KY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today introduced the “Coal-To-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2007.” This bipartisan piece of legislation is based on the bill first introduced by Senators Bunning and Obama last spring and would help create the infrastructure needed for large-scale production of Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) fuel. It is a comprehensive bill that expands tax incentives, creates planning assistance, and develops Department of Defense support for the domestic CTL industry.
New Congress juices energy bills
WASHINGTON -- U.S. lawmakers unveiled a raft of energy-related bills in the early hours of the 110th Congress aimed at boosting fuel ethanol use, extracting liquid fuels from coal and tightening automobile fuel efficiency rules.But instead of heaping all their ideas into a behemoth energy bill like they did in 2005, this year's Congress looks poised to pursue energy legislation on a piecemeal basis.
Unfazed by Oil Price Fall, OPEC Sits Tight for Now
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' officials, so far unfazed by this week's sharp decline in global crude oil prices, say they will sit tight to see if the downward trend continues before discussing an emergency meeting or whether they need to deepen existing supply cuts.
Interview with Paul Gipe, Wind Energy Pioneer
First of all, Americans have to cut their consumption. There’s no way around that. Then any renewables you put into the system do more good.
The Future's so Bright...I'm Going Solar!
Listen: At this point, unless you hate money, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be playing at least a few renewable energy stocks in 2007. It’s just a no-brainer.
Bolivia Gas Exports Spike in 2006, But Party May Be Over
Bolivia's natural gas export sales rose spectacularly in 2006, but the party may soon be over.While the thirst for gas in neighboring Brazil and Argentina continues unabated, virtually no fresh investment is being made in new production as companies lick their wounds after last year's oil and gas nationalization.
India's PM Says West is Environmentally Wasteful
CHIDAMBARAM, India -- Slamming the West for its "environmentally wasteful lifestyle", Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on Wednesday for industrialised nations to look at alterative energy sources to save the environment."We, in the developing world, cannot afford to ape the West in terms of its environmentally wasteful lifestyle," Singh said at a science conference in Chidambaram, 195 km (120 miles) south of Tamil Nadu's state capital, Chennai.
"Equally, developed industrial economies must realise that they too must alter their consumption patterns so that few do not draw upon so much of the Earth's resources."
The hype is racing ahead of consumer appetite for alternative-fuel vehicles, industry experts say. Only a small fraction of the cars on the roads are hybrids and diesels, which get better fuel mileage than gasoline-only cars and burn cleaner than they used to. While such vehicles have distinct advantages, consumers for the most part seem unwilling to pay their higher prices. As a result, carmakers will push ahead cautiously before deciding to turn out large numbers of the vehicles.
From a Collapsing Wall to a Pipeline
The unprecedented cooperation between Russia and China over the last few years is a waving red flag that could signal future complications for the U.S.
Saudi raises crude selling price for February
Saudi Arabia has hiked the official selling prices of its heavier crude oil grades for February term supply to Asia, possibly setting the stage for further term supply cuts....Saudi Arabia will announce February term supply allocations shortly, and traders expect the kingdom to deepen term supply reductions in line with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' decision to further tighten the market.
But they're lowering light crude prices: Aramco, light crude cuts
Saudi Aramco has cut the price of its light crude oil varieties that will be exported to Asia next month due to rising diesel and kerosene stockpiles, reported Bloomberg.
Australia and China ratify nuclear fuel deal
SYDNEY - Australia and China have ratified a nuclear agreement clearing the way for the export of uranium to feed Beijing's giant nuclear power programme, Canberra has said.
Bartlett will introduce 15 bills to Congress
Peak Oil Resolution -- Reintroduction of H. Res 507 that expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States, in collaboration with other international allies, should establish an energy project with the magnitude, creativity, and sense of urgency that was incorporated in the "Man on the Moon" project address the inevitable challenges of "Peak Oil."
Junior minister in bother after airlines attack
LONDON - A junior government minister has been told to make no further comments, after accusing British, Irish and US airlines of failing to take global warming seriously.The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it was to avoid fuelling the controversy further, after Ian Pearson branded no-frills carrier Ryanair "the irresponsible face of capitalism".
Warmer Seas Leave Fish Gasping
Difficulty in taking up oxygen via respiration and blood circulation, caused by the warming waters, proved to be the key factor in diminishing the size of the fish stock.
Use and abuse of oil discussed - More on the Indiana Energy Conference in Crawfordsville. It takes place over four weekends.
Pakistan: Import parity pricing to increase LPG production
KARACHI: The decision to take up the cost of locally produced liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to import parity price (IPP) will encourage investment for its production and allow consumers to choose between different fuels, an Ogra official told The News on Friday.Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) on Wednesday announced the base stock price of LPG benchmarked with Saudi Aramco Contract Price (CP) for the first time ever, provoking marketing companies to term the move unjustified and against the consumers’ interest.
Big Oil profits in danger as price of crude slides
NEW YORK - Energy stocks have taken a beating as crude oil prices plummeted this week, but oil producers will really feel the pain on the bottom line, threatening to wipe out billions of dollars in profits.
The attempt by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to fight a hike in the price of natural gas from Russia has German newspapers predicting a quick end to his resistance -- or his country's independence.
Book Review: The Downside of Up - Catagenesis
It's such a good read: San Fran in 1906, the day after the earthquake as the survivors try and stop the fires; jump/skip to a keystone in one arch of Rome's Coliseum and how it got there, Rome's rise as an empire and long decline; Americans in Iraq, the suburbs grown from cheap oil; our amazing, complex, emergent, globalized world, astonishingly, beautifully alive in the ecologist's eye, caught on video, for just a precious moment, before the peak.
India: Govt upset with ONGC`s poor recovery
The country’s largest upstream company — Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) — appears to have fallen foul of the government.Petroleum Secretary MS Srinivasan today said he was unhappy with the company’s inability to increase recovery of crude oil from proven reserves.
“The recovery rate seems to have been stuck at 28 per cent. I wrote to them a week ago regarding this,” said Srinivasan.
Falling oil prices should help drivers
NEW YORK - U.S. drivers could start seeing lower prices at the pump as early as this weekend, thanks to the cascading price of crude oil and a seasonal dip in gasoline, analysts say.
Pentagon to train a sharper eye on Africa
Strife, oil, and Al Qaeda are leading the US to create a new Africa Command.
What future for BC’s offshore oil and gas?
Provincial and national policy should acknowledge and prepare for the growing risks of US take-over.
2006 Top Green Tech Ideas (truthout.org)
Apparently Kelpie Wilson has been reading TOD or EB ...
News here in Europe say, the new democratic majority wants to decrease tax benefits for big oil companies and shift it to programs in order to promote the use of renewable energy technology.
On first glance this sounds really good. But will there not be big resistance against this programme? Especially promoting bio ethanol would probably direct most of the money to the big energy companies (bio ethanol needs as well the network of gas stations etc). Further using ethanol - as I know as frequent TOD reader - doesn't help escaping the PO dilemma, because this form of energy needs a lot of energy to produce and uses fertile soil which is better in use for agriculture.
Or will solar, wind, tidal, geothermal energy be as well among the technologies which will benefit.
marotti32 from much to warm Berlin, germany (this is definitley NOT a winter this year!)
Yes. Yesterday's DrumBeat has a story about the Democrats' plan...and one from the American Petroleum Institute, warning that doom will result if it goes through.
...doom will result...Distinguishable from the doom we are headed for anyway, by having someone to blame for it.
.. might even trigger a civil war in Iraq, if we're not careful!
Japan uses quite a bit less energy than the US, partly by fuel cells (heavily subsidized) and partly by conservation. Some interesting ways to conserve: $5.20/gal gasoline, smaller dwellings, space heaters, recycling bath water. It would take a lot for most of my countrymen to engage in this stuff, much less the government mandating it.
Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/business/worldbusiness/06japanfuel.htm...
I read one article that said that Japanese drivers actually turn off their engines at red lights, to conserve fuel. That right there tells you all you need to know about the difference between Japan and the U.S.
What it really says is how gullible people are. I have been to Tokyo, Osaka and many towns in between, and I never saw people turn off their engines at red lights.
Several people posting from Japan confirmed the story.
It is routine in Germany to do this at a train crossing, even if only for a few seconds - along with the long rolling stop, motor idling. German cars are still mainly manual transmission equipped - Germans seem to hate automatics, and if you take a driving test using one, your license is restricted to automatics only.
Further, warming your car up, for example to defog the windows in the morning, is essentially illegal (Ordnungswidrigkeit - a minor offense against the public order), and will definitely earn various reproaches from your neighbors. However, such regulations are essentially local, and obviously not rigidly enforced - except for your neighbors' opinion, of course.
While here, the cool people have remote control starters, so you can look out your home or office window and start your car without actually having to go outside. I know people who start up their cars remotely half an hour before they plan to use them. So they'll be nice and warm, and they won't have to scrape the windows.
their add says they can start the car up to one mile away .............. what, walk a mile to the car ? get a ride ? take the bus ? taxi ?
Office in the penthouse of a skyscraper. Huge parking lot below...far below.
I have lived in Japan for three years, and will be here for a few more years. Very few people turn their engine of at red lights, but public buses have been doing that in my city ever since oil becmae expensive (they didn't do this when I first arrived).
The main reason that Japan uses so little oil in comparison per capita with the U.S is because almost no houses have central heating here (or insulation strangely enough). Instead they use portable kerosene heaters for a few hours at a time (but not at night due to the high number of accidental carbon monoxide deaths, especially this winter). We also use a Kotatsu (heated table) and sit under that instead of heating the whole room. Most schools also don't have central heating but just use kerosene in periods.
Comuting distances are not as large either, and public transport is very efficiant and relatively cheap. Also in cities like Tokyo, cars are inconvenient for getting about on as opposed to subways. But because many families live communally (with grandparents, in laws, etc), many Japanese friends go to convenience stores and park outside them for several hours at a time as it is the only private alone time they get. And they idle the engine the whole time to keep the car warm or air conditioned depending on the season.
Natural gas is getting more expennsive here, and almost everyone I know has instant hot water heating devices using natural gas. My bill for hot water per month is about 4,000 yen ($33 U.S.D) and that is just for my showers (I live alone). And petrol is 168 yen per litre (Equates to $5.40 U.S.D per gallon). So at that price for natural gas and petroleum products no one is going to use it for something such as central heating.
I'll confirm it again. You don't see it as much on the city roads (in central Tokyo, for example) but it's routine out in the suburbs / countryside.
I'd caution against thinking you know anything about Japan from a 'Lost in Translation' business trip to Tokyo :)
Were you looking in other people's cars to see if they were turning off their engines? In our car, if you have the brakes on and turn the engine off, the brake lights stay on. I turn the ignition back on right away, but don't engage the starter, so the headlights and running lights stay on too. The only thing you would see is a quick flash of the headlights and a lack of exhaust. When the car is warmed up, you probably wouldn't see that either. I doubt anyone around here has any idea when I turn our car off at a red light.
You know, I shut off our car's engine at lights when I know it will be a while. It's another thing I love about simple manual transmission cars. On the other hand, the car is a Subaru, and I studied Japanese in college for two years. Maybe I was brainwashed and didn't know!
Back in my bus driving days I acquired the habit of shifting to neutral to unload the torque converter at red lights. It took less effort on the brake pedal which adds up to alot of weariness after a 8-9 hour day. The practice also improves braking on slippery roads. Don't know if it saved any btus.
Unless your engine speed really went up when the transmission went to neutral, it saved quite a bit. (Coasting and idling in neutral is one of the ways I am able to beat the EPA numbers for my car by such a large margin.)
I would suggest that market forces have far more to do with acts of conservation (such as shutting of cars at long lights) than social differences. If the US lived with $5 / gallon gasoline for an extended period of time I'm sure you'd start to see people shutting off their cars at red lights.
No, I think this is a social/cultural difference. Japanese tend to be a lot more civic-minded and a lot more environmentally-conscious than Americans. Indeed, it's quite striking.
The article was about a government office in Japan, where they all agreed to go without heat to save energy. Everyone wore heavy coats and hats at their desks, were typing on their keyboards with gloves on, etc. I can just imagine what the reaction would be if they asked that of government workers here.
In Germany, it is a social difference - the main reason not to run the engine is based on environmental concerns, not fuel savings, though obviously the two are 'synergistic,' to use a favored expression of American business. As a side note - busses turn off their motors here at any bus stop if they will be waiting any appreciable amount of time, such as before the start of their route or at a rail crossing, but generally don't while in traffic. Sometimes, bus stops are changed as the people living near them complain so fiercely about the exhaust.
Sounds like a battery-powered or PHEV bus with charging built into bus stops would go over well in Germany.
The fuel cell mentioned in the article uses natural gas to create the electricity, therefore a loss of energy in conversion must take place. He would have been better off in terms of efficiency to burn the gas outright for heat. Also the fool cell costs 50 grand, and is subsidised by the government. It's a fool cell boondongle...even the Japanese are pursuing technologies with no future.
GROK,
As the article mentioned, the fuel cell in the article is a _cogeneration_ fuel cell, so it generates electricity from the natural gas, then the coolant fluid (probably water) is used to heat the hot water tank. If this person has a new house, the hot water might also be used for radiant heating under the floors.
As a result, the fuel cell's overall efficiency (electric + thermal) is >80%. The best gas-fired water heaters get about 65% (thermal only). Note electricity is a higher "quality" energy than heat.
http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/topwater.htm
Though the fuel cell initiative might seem a boondoggle right now, we'll need to wait a decade before passing judgement. As the article notes, ten years ago, the Japanese gov't ran a similar program for rooftop photovoltaics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics (partway down the page)
Now, four of the five top PV manufacturers worldwide, are Japanese companies. (Anyone have the data? I think I saw the numbers on www.solarbuzz.com but couldn't find it just now)
The Japanese gov't helps domestic manufacturers become first-movers, reasoning that when the technology becomes commercially viable, Japanese companies will be the dominant players in the global market.
So: if fuel cells don't take off within a decade, yeah it'll have been a boondoggle. But if they do, future Oil Drum readers will compliment the Japanese gov't's far-sightedness... ;-)
Cascadian
Cascadian,
I agree that co-generation is a more efficient use and that the Japanese engineering is top notch. Fool cell technology in the terms of millions of units for personal use is not feasible! The use of platinum alone will kill this technology outright...I see a trend where technologies that can't be scaled up cost-effectively are touted as "the future", like the concept cars that Detroit hauls out every year that are never built for distribution. Our civilization has limited resources and time from here on out and proceeding to waste money on stuff that doesn't conserve RIGHT NOW means there will be less time before TSHTF.
Japan has lots of passive solar possibilities. They could retrofit and redesign their structures right now. Waiting for fool cells and the fusion illusion is a suckers game.
I really don't understand why Japan doesn't do more with geo-thermal. It would appear to rival Iceland in terms of activity (the number of hot springs is amazing) but it seems to be almost completely unexploited.
The hot springs used commercially for bathing in my town are all 1km deep. The water is not just there at the surface waiting to be exploited. Well water is used to melt snow in car parks, however.
The main reason cited for the lack of geothermal take up is the high cost of boring compared to other countries. As for low-cost implementations like Slinky coils that go in shallow trenches, most people don't have enough land. Typical UK applications use 100m trenches.
Cogen can be achieved in many ways, such as by Stirling engines.
Most old Japanese residential buildings are not worth retrofitting. They are too flimsy, too shabby, too leaky, and too poorly insulated. You'd be better off ripping them down and starting again, this time with the intention of learning from the past and building to last. Very few post-war structures were built to last.
Modern houses can be state-of-the-art however. The only question is how they will stand up to the climate in the long term. In the countryside, you can have summer at 35C, winter at -10C, high humidity most of the year, and very heavy snowfall on the Japan Sea side. That is more variation than houses face in many temperate countries. You're right about passive solar because much of Japan lies further south than Italy. We get some strong rays!
Delphi is working on a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) APU for automotive use. They delivered a prototype to DOE which would have a production cost of $254/kW (5.4 kW unit) and 49% efficiency.
Vehicular production volumes run to "millions of units", and cars and light trucks qualify as "personal use". It's not only feasible, it's going to hit you before you know it.
This page says the old GM EV1 was a 102 kilowatts unit. $254 * 102= $25K in power generation costs, before we build the car, the motor, the energy storage, ...
Please also note (per that page) that the EV1's maximum battery capacity (NiMH) was 26.4 kWh, which yields an average 13.2 kW power consumption at a 2-hour drain rate; in other words, your figure is peak (unsustainable) power. If you wanted to keep up with that plus a few kW of housekeeping loads, a 20 kW fuel cell would do. $5000 or so. The energy consumption figures appear to be at the charger; even assuming 260 Wh/mile from the fuel cell, burning gasoline (126,000 BTU/gallon) at 49% efficiency would yield 18.08 kWh/gallon for a rating of 69.5 MPG. Real efficiency would probably be twice that (no charger losses, much lower battery losses).
But the real improvement comes from putting the fuel cell in the house. Burn a therm of methane at 49% electric efficiency and 90% total efficiency, and you get 14.35 kWh of juice plus 41000 BTU of heat. That would heat more than 60 gallons of DHW and supply the juice to get two EV1's through the 23-mile daily commute, for under a buck.
How much the plant costs depends how fast the job needs to be done, but a 2 kW cell would handle it overnight. $500.
Ah, I am prepared for this ;-)
I considered after I posted that a hydrogen FC car might not need a FC to match peak output, so I went and looked up an actual model:
http://corporate.honda.com/environment/fuel_cells.aspx?id=fuel_cells_fcx
Interesting, isn't it, that they match a 86kW FC with a slightly smaller 80kW motor.
86kW * $254 = $21844
Now, while I do actually have hopes that FCs or batteries will advance to where they do fit "conventional" automotive costs, these are chickens which have not hatched. I cannot count them.
The only real technologies available today are efficiency options, high (40-60mpg?) efficiency automobiles available at relatively low costs (esp. in Europe).
(natural gas fuel cells in homes seem much closer and more practical, yes)
Of course Honda did that; that model doesn't use batteries for load-levelling (it just has an ultracap for regeneration). They sized the FC for peak loads, but that doesn't mean you have to.
Unless you're towing, you don't need 86 kW continuous. Heck, even when I AM towing, I get by with about 65 kW pulling up mountains! Freeway cruising at 70 MPH is well under 30 kW by my calculations (assuming 40% thermal efficiency from the diesel, which I doubt I get; at 35% it would be about 25 kW). A slightly lighter, cleaner vehicle would cruise all day on 20 kW, no problem.
Right, but we have a bit of a conundrum here when neither FCs or Big Batteries are ready to roll in $10-30K cars. Does spending on Very Expensive Batteries save enough on the cost of a Very Expensive FC ... enough to bring it down to reasonable production costs?
(you are after all towing with a diesel, one of those currently-practical technologies I endorse)
Some back of the envelope on that. The typical car gets 23 mpg (I actually think this is dreaming, based on Hwy numbers, but going with it) and travels 12K miles per year. That's 522 gallons of fuel per year. A 45 mpg hybrid or diesel (being conservative) would use 227 gallons. A savings of 295 gallons. Moving from there to an effective 100 mpg (however you do it) reduces fuel consumption to 120 per year. A savings of 402 relative to the current fleet but only 175 relative to the hybrid.
You've got a classic case of declining returns on investment. We can get a 295 gallon savings today, by choosing a low cost efficient alternative ... or we can put our money on cars costing $10,000 to $1,000,000 more ... just to squeeze out that last 175 gallons.
I note that E-Drive is still hoping to hit a $12K conversion price for a plug-in Prus, and given that they assert "most Prius EDrive users will likely get closer to 100mpg,"
... it will only take $12,000 / (175 * $3) = 23 years to break even.
Reducing the number of miles driven seems a far easier solution.
31 mpg, about 150 to 180 miles/month works for me.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Given the choice between a $10K+ upgrade and cutting the miles, I think a lot of people will agree with you.