DrumBeat: May 28, 2007
Posted by Stoneleigh on May 28, 2007 - 9:00am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Troubles Run Deep on Gulf Oil Platform
The workers were surprised to learn that the platform, evacuated before Dennis hit, had not taken on water from a leak through its hull. Rather, an incorrectly plumbed, 6-inch length of pipe had allowed water to flow freely among several ballast tanks. That began a chain of events that caused the platform to tip into the drink.
Now BP is attempting to do what no oil company has done before: essentially rebuild the entire architecture of an oil field on the sea floor some 6,000 feet beneath the waves.
At $250 million, the job is costlier, and riskier, than putting the equipment on the gulf floor in the first place. On the frontier of oil exploration, the margin between riches and disaster can be as small as a 6-inch piece of pipe. Yet for BP, rebuilding the platform is critically important because the company desperately needs the oil flowing as reserves in formerly rich fields such as Prudhoe Bay in Alaska dwindle.
Indonesia considers revoking exploration licenses
Indonesia is considering revoking licenses of oil companies that fail to start developing oil and gas fields within 10 years, a senior government official said on Monday.
Indonesia, OPEC's second-smallest producer, has been offering new exploration rights and financial incentives for oilfields in a bid to stem a steady decline in production as the country has failed to tap new oilfields fast enough to meet domestic demand.
"We will see the contracts. If the companies do not meet their commitments on exploration after the 10-year period, we will revoke their licenses," the oil and gas director general, Luluk Sumiarso, told Reuters by phone.
Ankara to deliver strong ‘energy artery' message to Europe
The name of a conference to be jointly held by the EU's executive arm and Turkey, a candidate for full EU membership, next week in İstanbul succinctly explains its goal: "Turkey and the EU: Together for a European Energy Policy."
EU's Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül and Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Güler will participate in the conference, which will assemble key political and economic actors to discuss the challenges and opportunities concerning future energy issues faced by both the EU and Turkey.“The main goal behind arranging such a conference is to send a strong message to the international community, in particular to Europe, concerning the important role that has been and will be played by Turkey in the energy field because not all segments of the European public are aware of [this vital role]. Thus, we believe that highlighting it will also be helpful for our relationship with the EU,” a senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Today’s Zaman.
Saudi Arabia sees no need for raising crude oil production
The surge in oil prices is being driven by political factors and there is no need for additional crude supplies, Saudi Arabia's assistant oil minister said on Monday.
'What brings prices up is politics, what brings them down is politics,' Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz told Agence France-Presse, referring to tensions in major crude producers Nigeria, Iraq, Iran and Venezuela.
'We have a well-supplied market,' he said on the sidelines of a European-Gulf forum today.
'We have always said, and OPEC has always committed itself to keep the market well-supplied and balanced. Never has this market been (more) balanced with crude than today,' said Prince Abdul Aziz, who is assistant oil minister for petroleum affairs.
He said that while there was no need for additional crude supplies, there is a problem with refining capacity. He was referring to what Saudi officials say is a need to invest in expanding refining capacity in consumer countries.
Bill Urges Farmers to Grow Energy Crops
Legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate this week would entice farmers located near ethanol biorefineries to grow dedicated energy crops.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said his bill would offer incentives to farmers who plant switchgrass, fast-growing trees and other cellulosic feedstocks and deliver them to the nation's next generation of ethanol plants. Cellulose is the woody material in branches and stems that makes plants hard."For cellulosic to achieve its potential, Congress needs to help this industry overcome some of the initial market barriers," Thune said Wednesday during a conference call. "And if we are serious in the country about reducing our dependence upon foreign oil, we have to be serious about giving the necessary jump start to America's budding alternative fuels industry and the farmers who supply it."
When I say punishing the oil companies, I mean that the Stupak bill allows compulsory lowering of fuel prices. That will mean service stations running out of gas, long lines at the pump, and people unable to get to work or school or the hospital.
Who will really be punished when the bill is enacted? Not the top dogs at the energy companies -- they'll continue to be well paid. No, the drivers and homeowners of America who can't get gasoline and heating oil will be the ones to suffer. And ordinary investors who own stock in oil companies are also going to be punished. But everyone will suffer from indulging the fantasy that waving a government magic wand can solve real problems.
Pump Prices Hit Home More in Kentucky
As gasoline prices flirt with all-time highs ahead of Memorial Day weekend, the drivers hit hardest aren't the ones paying the highest prices.
In an index released this week, Oil Price Information Service, a source for petroleum pricing, broke down who's paying the most taking into account local gasoline prices and local monthly income.The biggest losers are drivers living in Clay County, Ky., who shell out 14.78 percent of their monthly income to buy gasoline costing $3.156 a gallon. While the price there is far lower than the retail average in San Juan County, Wash., which is the highest in the country at $3.926 a gallon, Clay County's average monthly income of $1,423.67 is the lowest nationwide, making any increase in gasoline prices much more painful.
A Gas Crisis 30 Years in the Making
Embrace the memory of the average $3.21 cents we'll pay for each gallon of regular unleaded gasoline purchased this Memorial Holiday weekend. The chances are we'll pay a lot more next year and the year after that.
Abandon your conspiracy theories, your worries that global oil companies are gouging us at the pump. For the record, they are. It's the kind of profiteering that accompanies any crisis -- war and rumors of war, hurricanes, or other actual or imminent disasters.
What the oil companies are doing isn't moral. Nor is it illegal. But it is business.
Crises usually are profitable for people positioned to exploit them; and they usually are costly for those who aren't.
When it comes to oil and the motor fuels it provides, we're in a crisis. We've been in a crisis for nearly 30 years now.
Australia: Huge power price rises loom
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said failure to adopt carbon trading straight away would lead to higher electricity prices in the long run.
"This research highlights that it would be reckless to delay action, or only take half measures," Mr Connor said.
The warning came after national electricity market regulator Nemmco said on Friday that southeast Queenslanders faced blackouts if the drought continued.
State and territory leaders yesterday urged Mr Howard to launch an emissions trading scheme by 2010, and set an environmentally credible target to cut greenhouse gases.
Deals signed on pipeline that seeks to divert Malacca Strait oil
Half of the world's oil shipments currently pass through the 960-kilometre (595-mile) Strait of Malacca, the busiest seaway in the world, which links the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
The Strait was notorious for pirate attacks but security officials, who fear the economic and strategic ramifications of any disruption to the vital maritime traffic, say security has vastly improved.
"Everyone can use the pipeline. It is to direct traffic away from the international waterway of the Straits of Malacca," Rahim Kamil Sulaiman, chairman of Trans-Peninsula Petroleum, told a news conference.
In its statement, Trans-Peninsula said the pipeline, about 300 kilometres in length, will cut across Malaysia's northern states of Kedah, Perak and Kelantan. It will have support facilities for deep-draught tankers at either end.
Rahim said the oil will come mainly from the Middle East but also from Africa for "the East Asian oil market".
He said "we have made known our projects to both China and Japan, especially China".
Huge gas reserves found in southwest China
China has discovered huge gas reserves in the southwestern province of Sichuan, hoping that the find will help ease growing concerns about energy security, state media reported Monday.
A total of 3.8 trillion cubic metres (133 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas deposits have been found in the western part of the Sichuan Basin, the China Daily said, citing officials in Dazhou city, near the reserve.
The discovery is equivalent to about 60 years of China's total production at current output levels.
Chernobyl Fungus Feeds On Radiation
Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AEC) have found evidence that certain fungi possess another talent beyond their ability to decompose matter: the capacity to use radioactivity as an energy source for making food and spurring their growth.
Detailing the research in Public Library of Science ONE, AEC's Arturo Casadevall said his interest was piqued five years ago when he read about how a robot sent into the still-highly-radioactive Chernobyl reactor had returned with samples of black, melanin-rich fungi that were growing on the ruined reactor's walls. "I found that very interesting and began discussing with colleagues whether these fungi might be using the radiation emissions as an energy source," explained Casadevall.
Casadevall and his co-researchers then set about performing a variety of tests using several different fungi. Two types - one that was induced to make melanin (Crytococcus neoformans) and another that naturally contains it (Wangiella dermatitidis) - were exposed to levels of ionizing radiation approximately 500 times higher than background levels. Both of these melanin-containing species grew significantly faster than when exposed to standard background radiation.
"Just as the pigment chlorophyll converts sunlight into chemical energy that allows green plants to live and grow, our research suggests that melanin can use a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum - ionizing radiation - to benefit the fungi containing it," said co-researcher Ekaterina Dadachova.
Nobody wants to pay the price of going green
Everything is relative. As Torontonians complain and raise their collective fist over high gasoline prices at the pumps, keep in mind that our fellow Canadians out in Vancouver are paying up to 20 per cent more.
Guess what? British Columbia has a healthier and more robust economy than Ontario. "Outstanding job creation," were the words used by the Conference Board of Canada. Vancouver actually promotes the use of hybrid taxis in their city and allows low-speed electric vehicles on some roads.
Vancouver is also arguably the centre of clean-technology innovation in Canada for the moment, at least.
Canadian Pacific seeks approvals to better service Alberta's oil sands development
Canadian Pacific announced today it has sought regulatory approval to construct rail lines to serve planned and existing bitumen upgraders northeast of Edmonton in Alberta's developing Industrial Heartland.
"Acquisition of the necessary land to assemble the rail right of way was a strategically important initiative for CP," said CP President and CEO Fred Green. "It strengthens CP's commitment to the growth objectives of the oil sands industry, contributes to lasting economic benefits for the Province of Alberta, and provides significant scope for CP shareholder value creation."
US not ready for regional carbon scheme
"We're struggling with what the appropriate macro policy response is," the Deputy Secretary for Energy, Clay Sell, said when asked whether the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group could become the basis of a regional scheme that would put a price on greenhouse gas pollution.
Mr Clay noted that while some American states had carbon trading schemes, they were not uniform and the Federal Government had not come up with a national system.
As energy ministers from Asia and the Pacific meet in Darwin this week, the Prime Minister, John Howard, is preparing to bring down a watershed report on whether Australia should set up its own carbon emissions trading scheme, a decade after it was first proposed by the Government.
U.S. Rebuffs Germany on Greenhouse Gas Cuts
The United States has rejected Germany’s proposal for deep long-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, setting the stage for a battle that will pit President Bush against his European allies at next month’s meeting of the world’s richest countries.
In unusually harsh language, Bush administration negotiators took issue with the German draft of the communiqué for the meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, complaining that the proposal “crosses multiple red lines in terms of what we simply cannot agree to.”
BP loses appeal against Russian oil field seizure
It is widely believed that the Russian government is using the threat of withdrawal over environmental grounds to force TNK-BP and its privately-owned partner Alfa - owned by a group of Russian billionaires - to give up a proportion of their stake in the oil field operator Rusia Petroleum.
It followed a similar strategy with Shell, forcing it to give up a majority stake in the giant Sakhalin-2 oil and gas field project
TNK-BP has a 62 per cent stake and according to the Russian press, state-controlled group Gazprom wants to obtain a near-75 per cent stake.
Iran offers Gulf states nuclear help
Iran can help its Gulf neighbours develop peaceful nuclear energy, the country's foreign minister said today, in comments which might irritate major powers fearing Tehran's own atomic work is aimed at building bombs.
Manouchehr Mottaki, whose country has rejected Western demands to halt sensitive nuclear activities, was speaking a week after Gulf Arab states meeting in Riyadh began working on a feasibility study for a civilian nuclear programme.
CIS Electric Power Council to discuss forming energy market
Chiefs of energy companies and of controlling bodies of countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Baltic countries will discuss on Tuesday question of forming the common energy market and unification of power systems of countries of the CIS and Baltic countries with the European Union for the Coordination of Transmission of Electricity (UCTE). The 31st meeting of the CIS Electric Power Council will be held in Yerevan on May 29 under the presidency of Anatoly Chubais, the head of RAO UES of Russia, (Unified Energy Systems of Russia).
2nd Irving refinery a done deal, residents say
"When you're within a stone's throw of the refinery, and a refinery that big — it's half a city down there — you're definitely going to get some pollution from the refinery, regardless of what they do," he said.
At the same time, Murphy said he equates this new refinery with better-paying jobs for the area. The proposed facility would be the first refinery built in North America in 25 years.
Green leader slams feds over scope of refinery's assessment
The leader of the federal Green party says she's outraged at Ottawa's decision to limit its role in assessing the environmental impact of a proposed Irving Oil refinery in Saint John.
Last week, the Conservative government announced it would only look at the possible impact on coastal areas, leaving the rest of the review process up to the New Brunswick government.
Elizabeth May says that will leave too many questions unanswered.
Spain's New Renewable Energy Rules
Spanish ministers approved a new set of rules for renewable energy on Friday, curbing profits for wind generators and setting incentives for other types of renewable energy to boost their development.
Palm oil puts squeeze on endangered orangutan
Bound hand and foot, dishevelled orangutans caught raiding Borneo's oil palm crops silently await their fate as a small crowd of plantation workers gather to watch.
Lacking only hand-cuffs and finger-printing to complete the atmosphere of a criminal bust, such "ape evictions" have become part of life for Asia's endangered red apes.
Thousands have strayed into the path of international commerce as Indonesia and Malaysia, their last remaining habitats, race to convert their forests to profitable palm crops.
China's social security fund turns cautious on domestic stocks investment
China's huge Social Securities Fund is becoming cautious about investing in the A-share market amid growing worries that share prices could plunge, state media said monday, citing the fund chief.
Local stock markets probably have "too many bubbles" and the fund's strategy of investing in A-shares is turning conservative, the China Securities Journal said, citing Xiang Huaicheng, chairman of the council in charge of the fund.
Xiang, a former finance minister, was not quoted as giving any details about the fund's immediate plans or whether it intended to start selling stocks.
China's stock market has trebled in value since 2005, giving rise to a growing chorus of warnings that a bubble is developing and that it must implode sooner or later.
Bank of Canada governor David Dodge made headlines last week when he told an audience in Chicago that a single North American currency was "possible."
Of course, anything is possible. It is even possible that the United States will one day tear down the wall it is building on its southern border to keep Mexicans out of the country.
Common Currency, The Current (CBC Radio), Part 2
When Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon and its hit 'Money' in June of 1973, one Canadian dollar would buy you, almost to the decimal point, one US dollar. There was no loonie back then , it was a green dollar bill and the two greenbacks were on par.
Today the loonie is trading at around 92 and a half cents U.S. And according to some economists, the dollar could reach 96 cents next month. And if commodity prices remain high, the two currencies could, once again, equalize.
So, as the gap between the two dollars continues to close, a long-dormant debate over unifying the two currencies has re-emerged.
It has been dubbed by some supporters as the 'Amero,’ and last week Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge said a single unified North American currency - - similar to Europe's Euro was "possible."
Some of the world's biggest gas peddlers are encouraging their workers to pump the pedal.
Exxon Mobil, BP and ConocoPhillips are among the Houston-area employers trying to make it easier for employees to bike to work.
Workers already have enough excuses: potholes, impatient drivers and the Houston heat.
But some businesses are easing the commute for those who decide the exercise and reduced emissions make biking worthwhile. They're giving them locker rooms, shower areas and safe places to park their bikes.
The RAND corp on coal to liquid
http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/2007/RAND_CT281.pdf
In quickly perusing that testimony I noticed a lack of analysis on the future producibility of coal in the US. I have no doubt that from a resource security view coal is desirable. Nevertheless the growth of the coal industry in the US to a level to replace imported oil is worthy of closer scrutiny.
Here's some closer scrutiny:
According to Robert Rapier and others the F-T process is about 50% efficient, meaning that half of the coal used is consumed in the process. Today about 40% of the energy consumed in the US is petroleum based, 23% is coal based (EIA 2005). So to replace the petroleum we are consuming by liquified coal we would have to increase our coal consumption to about 4.5 times what we are using today. That increase would include a proportional increase in greenhouse gas emissions, bulk transport needs, etc. Even assuming only the replacement of our imported petroleum the increase in coal usage would be a 350% increase.
Coal to liquids is a good way to speedup the end of fossil fuel consumption.
Coal-to-liquid, and biofuels, along with PHEVs and possibly (I still hold out hope) flywheel cars. What we will see in the US, if oil stays at $60 a barrel or above, is a radical reduction in fossil crude oil demand in the next 10 to 15 years. Sheesh, we likely will see typical commuters get 200 mpg, as their daily commute will be bettery powered. What will this do to crude demand, especially when replicated worldwide? PHEVs hitting showrooms in three years. Big problem: US fleet of 220 million cars/trucks cannot be retrofitted. One might want to enter scrap metal business now (steel prices high too).
China? Planting millions of hectares of jatropha, and just struck gas, like enough for 60 years.
The great boom in crude demand from India and China? What if they mandate PHEVs as national policy, before they build up huge fleets? Makes sense at $60 a barrel.
We may see Peak Demand a good generation before we see Peak Oil, if OPEC, the hedge funds and doomsday hysterics can keep the price of at $60 or above. (Even RR says we may not see PO for 10 years) Most likely the price will crack sometime before that, like it has so many times before.
What a load of bollox
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
Yeah,
It's Hothgor. What else do you expect?
I called him as Hothgor on his first post.
The obsession continues.
No kidding, He's still obsessed with us.
Who's Hothgar? Sounds like one of the Vandals at the sack of Rome.
Antoinetta III
A III, Where have you been for one year and 32 weeks?
China's Gas find was only mentioned with the words "At present day usage levels" that it'd last 60 years. HYPE. Given their rise year on year averages they will use that stuff faster than you can shake a stick at.
As far as 220 million cars being replaced anytime soon by an all PHEV or other niffty energy saving device, take a long hard look at those last 6 Zeros. That is MILLION not not something smaller. At around a guess of 250,000 new energy sipping cars being built at this time, the whole fleet is not going to get dented soon. If every Car company made energy sippers then you might get 2 million to 4 million new replacements a year, but that is still a big IF.
The only reason OIL will fall is if the demand goes away. And that is not something I see going away any time soon.
T. Boone Pickens launched a chain of natural gas stations for natural gas cars.
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/may2007/pi20070525_526064.h...
Pickens is expecting that oil and gasoline demand will rise, their prices will rise, which will spur further interest in alternative fuels, and then this investment will turn a profit.
As the article points out, the market is currently more interested in ethanol.
They're both interesting investment opportunities, but neither a solution for how to continue business-as-usual.
possibly (I still hold out hope) flywheel cars.
Like the 'lets build big reactors' crowd, your desire ignores the failure modes.
this is new to me have they re-invented the flyWHEEL ?
this is new to me have they re-invented the flyWHEEL
That is what Benji needs to answer. I've put out the question, lets see if he's got something to say to back up his wish.
Flywheels, in theory, are absolutely wonderful. Back 25 years ago, during another "energy crisis" that was to plunge us into eternal darkness, flywheel research was ramped up, though the dollar numbers were still small (colleges making test buses etc). New composite materials, use of vacuums and magnetic bearings made flywheels seems so tantalizingly close. If you can get a flywheel to work, it stores more energy than a battery of equal weight, and can be charged quickly.
Evidently, the technical or commercialization problems beat the engineers back then. I have long rued that fact that we did not then 27 years ago, and have not, launched a Manhattan Project for flywheels, with a few billion behind it. Several teams got darn close to something good. All teams felt there was real promise.
I see nothing wrong with cars that tap into an electric grid, which itself is being increasingly fed by solar, wind, nukes and other renewables. Who doesn't want cleaner cars which run more cheaply, while reducing a crippling dependence on foreign oil (mostly owned by despots)? If this is the Peak Oiler's view of a bad thing, I want this bad thing. (By the way, is there anything on which the Peak Oil crowd is positive, or likes? Is every positive effort appears regarded with fear and loathing, apologies to Hunter.
By the way, you guys should check out CERA's website from time to time, to balance your viewpoints. I am not saying CERA is right and the PO crowd is wrong. But I advise everyone to read up broadly.
I agree that, unfortunately, the huge fleet of US autos and trucks stands in the way of radical reductions in fossil oil demand quickly. But, at $60 a barrel, we will see radical reductions in the five to 15 year period. Given that such similar radical reductions will be going on all over the world, I think it is very fair to ponder whether we have hit Peak Demand long before we hit Peak Oil, if this price regime can hold. The more I read broadly, the more I suspect oil is going to crack. Too bad, a lot of alternatives are going to be stuffed back into the back closets again.
There might be something useful at the CERA site, but considering the pandering corporatized drivel that their ongoing string of predictions seems to represent, I can't be bothered. I did peek in about 6 months ago for some reason, but found little that kept me there.
To put my refusal in context.. If I wanted to broaden my perspective on spiritual matters (as I often do), I don't feel as if I'd need to read up on Pat Roberson or the Branch Davidians 'To get the whole picture' There are better voices out there to challenge your assumptions against. Vested Interests aren't usually that interesting.
Flywheels, in theory, are absolutely wonderful. Back 25 years ago, during another "energy crisis" that was to plunge us into eternal darkness, flywheel research was ramped up, though the dollar numbers were still small (colleges making test buses etc). New composite materials, use of vacuums and magnetic bearings made flywheels seems so tantalizingly close.
And this addresses the failure modes exactly how?
If you can get a flywheel to work, it stores more energy than a battery of equal weight, and can be charged quickly.
Not a failure mode - but exactly where is the electrical grid going to come from to do this 'fast recharge'?
And this address the failure mode how?
The original question was addressing the failure modes. You have not done this.
If you don't know an answer, say so. Right now, you are avoiding the issue of failure modes.
People continue to try to equate re-filling their gas tanks with storing energy, when in fact the two things are not similar. When you refill your tank with gasoline, you are not recharging anything or storing energy in anything, you are simply moving material - the energy is already stored in it. When you look at trying to actually store an equivalent amount of energy in a similar amount of time, especially from an electrical source, you soon realize the problems. It does not matter WHAT you try to store the energy in, it takes a hell of a lot of power to store energy of such quantity that fast.
It's hard enough trying to just transmit the amount of energy needed to move several thousand pounds a couple of hundred miles at speed without issues (i.e. what is done with a conventional engine and drivetrain), let alone coming up with a media that can repeatably charge and discharge that energy.
The operating words in this fantasy about flywheels are "in theory".
As Mr. Cole can't be bothered to respond - I want to make sure that the archives have info as to why his dreams are a bad idea.
Energy in a flywheel are a function of mass and speed. More mass, more speed more energy storage.
1) Flywheels will act like gyroscopes - so in a moving application they will resist turning.
Not a deal killer, but a problem.
2) Cars get in accidents. If the flywheel is damaged it can come apart (and the energy that was in the motion will still exist and now be in the shards of material) or come loose from its bearings (thus a large spinning mass will be free to hit other things)
This is the deal killer.
Feel free to offer why these are not concerns BenjaminCole
In a bit more detail:
According to this report:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/942445/coaltoliquids_plant_is_consi...
the latest CTL demonstration project will yield just over 1bbl of diesel per ton of coal (and it also could produce 1 bbl of naptha for other products.)
The weekly US distillate demand for this time of year is around 29 million barrels.... so at just under one ton per barrel that would consume around 27 million tons of coal, per the Illinois study figures.
Weekly US coal production is a bit over 22 million tons:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/weekly/weekly_html/wcpweek.htm
Therefore, to replace all of the US weekly distillate production with CTL would require more than doubling US coal production (according to the design of the Illinois plant.) And we haven't even gotten to gasoline yet...
Perhaps Alan could chime in here about US rail capacity for coal, but it seems to me to be a big challenge to just double coal production just for distillate.
There have been all sorts of rumors of big money players doing deep investments into coal and rail - it would make sense to me. The CTL drumbeat is getting louder and louder. I notice there is a big coal industry powwow coming up:
http://www.clean-coal.info/mcclosky_coal_usa_2007
which will probably discuss some interesting topics. Unfortunately the entrance price is rather steep so I suspect the TOD folk in NYC will be unlikely to attend.
Of course the sensible thing would be to do CTL at the mine. No reason to drag all that tonnage across the Great Plains. Then ship the liquid products by pipeline.
AFAIK, BN-SF and Union Pacific share a 3 track rail line out from the Powder River Basin and they are adding a 4th line. I think 6 tracks can be built on a 100' ROW but more than 4 are rare.
The current 3 track line is near capacity. They are trying to run longer trains to destinations where this strategy works (some routes & customers cannot accept longer trains).
http://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/releases/capital_investment/2006/0508_sprb....
Warren Buffett is buying shares in both railroads, plus Norfolk-Southern.
Other routes exist from the Montana & Wyoming coal beds (some outside Powder River) and they still have surplus capacity.
A small railroad is trying to build new sections of rail going from Montana to Minnesota. Problematic. The Mayo Clinic is a major railroad block.
Hope this helps,
Alan
Alan, what would the Mayo Clinic have to do with railriads?
Antoinetta III
The proposed route goes through Rochester MN, home of the Mayo Clinic, a bit over a mile away (per memory).
The Mayo Clinic objects to frequent coal trains (vs, infrequent mixed freight ones now) because they will 1) disturb patients and 2) block access of staff to work with at grade crossings.
Alan
Coal to liquids is a good way to speedup the end of fossil fuel consumption.
Really? And why does nobody mention that we need to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere?
A recent model from Jim Hansen's group says that just burning the rest of the world’s recoverable oil and gas would raise the CO2 concentration almost to the point where the earth will have warmed dangerously, leaving almost no room for emissions from other fuels such as coal and unconventional hydrocarbons. The only scenarios in which atmospheric CO2 could be stabilized around 450 ppm had zero emissions from coal after 2050. Zero, as in full carbon sequestration. We're not going to get that from mobile sources based on CTL.
I wish someone would provide details of these magical models which somehow predict the future. What assumptions do they use, and what do they leave out? How far back can they run the model before it become random - 2 years, 20 years or 200? (Unless they can do 200 back I wouldn't trust it to predict 43 years forwards, let alone 93.)
How can a model be much more than pure guesswork when we have no agreement when Peak Oil, Gas, and Coal will be.
Since Global Warming has been going on since the little Ice Age, and massive CO2 emissions since only since 1950, there must be some other factors at play and which MUST used in the model.
The truth is that no one can really predict the future. Yet I am as certain as I reasonably can be that energy prices will be trending upwards in the future. This certainty is based upon the fact that the cheap and easy stuff is gone, what is left will be increasingly difficult and expensive to find and extract, and will not be economical to extract except at higher prices. This is the hard truth that even the most optimistic cornucopians cannot deny unless totally deluded.
How much, and how quickly, and with what impact on the economy and society -- those are more speculative questions.
IMHO, the IPCC models to not adequately account for the above fact, and the consequent inevitable decline in global demand for energy as prices rise. Thus, I tend to discount the worst case scenarios that their models depict. However, it is true that you cannot dig up and burn geologically sequestered carbon in vast quantities without its having an impact on the global climate. What we have already burned has had an impact, and due to lag times there is more impact to come just from that. Even if the rate of fossil fuel use declines in the future due to price increases, that is still even more carbon released into the atmosphere, and even more climate change resulting.
All this might very well be happening on top of an underlying natural phenomenon. But the scientific evidence is good that there is indeed an anthropogenic basis for climate change above and beyond any possible natural phenomenon.
IMHO, the IPCC models to not adequately account for the above fact, and the consequent inevitable decline in global demand for energy as prices rise.
That's what Hansen and company are saying as well. You can read the linked article for more info.
Go to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ and sign up for the Climate Prediction project to use your unused computation cycles in donated work.
My current model (they have graphics on demand :-) is on Feb 19, 1936 ATM. It takes several months to complete one model.
Best Hopes for Positive Action instead of just bitching,
Alan
I have only recently started a detailed study of Global Warming and its causes. I have so far found a lot of noise and very little clear information. I inherently distrust models as it is almost impossible to avoid bias in what to bring in and what to leave out, and as they must leave out vast areas as they are not known, or they can not be modeled.
As I have, I trust, enough scientific knowledge to understand a model (I have a M.Sc) I would like to know the parameters used (and unused) in a model before I take it's predictions too seriously. As the only way of testing a model, that I know, is to run it backwards, I will be happy to donate cycles.
Note: I have a new computer with a dual processor and it should have quite a few spare.
I have only briefly perused the parameters of the model that I am running but there is more on the website and associated discussion boards (which I have not read).
http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_index.php
My understanding is that are running slightly different mixes of equations and the interrelations between factors looking for a best fit.
A dual processor computer can run two models efficiently AFAIK.
Welcome Aboard :-)
Alan