DrumBeat: February 10, 2008
Posted by Leanan on February 10, 2008 - 10:00am
Topic: Miscellaneous
BP has warned staff against creating electronic documents on unpublicised problems with a key component of the much-delayed Thunder Horse, the world’s largest floating oil production platform, as continued troubles with its US operations plague the UK company.In a confidential e-mail to staff on the platform in the Gulf of Mexico, Stan Bond, project general manager, said: “Don’t create a document (including e-mails or BlackBerry messages) if a telephone call or meeting will suffice.’’
...Ronnie Chappell, a BP spokesman, said Mr Bond’s e-mail, seen by the Financial Times, was “standard internal communication business advice”. Yet a BP employee insisted the advice was “highly unusual – never-seen-before kind of stuff”.
Chavez Threatens to Halt Oil Sales to US
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets."If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said. "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."
Gulf union's delay spurs unilateral revaluation
Dubai: Gulf Arab oil producers are more likely to revalue their dollar-pegged currencies unilaterally and the longer plans to introduce a single currency are delayed, US investment bank Morgan Stanley & Co. said.
Oil industry facing headwinds in 2008
NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Will 2008 be the year that the oil industry's vastly profitable ride slows?After years of record oil prices and profits, the oil industry is facing the headwinds of a weak U.S. economy, dwindling access to supplies and slowing production.
These will be among the top issues discussed by oil executives and policymakers in Houston at this week's CERAweek energy conference -- one of the biggest U.S. energy conferences of the year.
Ukraine govt suggests Russia gas debt payment terms
KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine is willing to settle its gas debts owed to Gazprom on the proviso that it can have a direct import agreement with the Russian gas monopoly, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov said on Sunday.Gazprom has threatened to cut some supplies to Ukraine if the state energy firm Naftogaz does not settle a debt of $1.5 billion by Monday.
Court KOs administration's emissions policy
WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court struck down a Bush administration policy exempting power plants from certain environmental regulations. The court said the policy was unlawful.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit negated a rule known as cap-and-trade. That policy allows power plants that fail to meet emission targets to buy credits from plants that did, rather than having to install their own mercury emissions controls. The rule was to go into effect in 2010.
Britain says North Sea incident "contained"
Sky News said the evacuation followed a bomb threat, apparently made by a woman on board, but officials would not confirm the nature of the security alert. Sky later quoted sources as saying the episode was being treated as a hoax.There was no information immediately available on whether the incident had affected production.
Car-Free, Solar City in Gulf Could Set a New Standard for Green Design
In an ever more crowded world facing environmental limits, the push is on to create entire communities with reduced needs for energy, water, land and other resources.The latest effort comes not in some green hub like Portland, Ore., but in the Persian Gulf, fueled as much by oil wealth — and the need to find postpetroleum business models — as environmental zeal.
Groundbreaking is scheduled for Saturday for Masdar City, a nearly self-contained mini-municipality designed for up to 50,000 people rising from the desert next to Abu Dhabi’s international airport and intended as a hub for academic and corporate research on nonpolluting energy technologies.
Living in the dark has its own illumination
It is in our nature to exploit a resource until it gone, then latch on to something else until that's gone, and so on, in order to feed our profligate energy appetite. The power outage acted as a forced reduction in demand for the state's utilities. Were Kansans able to maintain that level of usage, how many coal plants, nuclear facilities, even windmills, could be idled?
Given the human love affair with high-priced luxury goods, and their association with status and power, it’s possible that we’ve come to experience a cerebral shiver of delight in response to things that promise that cachet. It is as if consuming high-end goods might lead to a personal transformation that bargain-hunting can’t buy.
Craving the High That Risky Trading Can Bring
A small group of scientists, including some psychologists, say they are starting to discover what many Wall Street professionals have long suspected — that people are hard-wired for money. The human brain, these researchers say, responds to high-stakes trading just as it does to the lure of sex. And the riskier the trades get, the more the brain craves them.
Can growth and sustainable ecology go hand In hand? Or does one cancel out the other? A financial slump could present stark choicesPicture a drunk so far gone that he's bent on drinking himself sober.
It's much like the behaviour of governments and central banks in Canada and the U.S. in the face of a looming North American recession, suggests Robert Costanza.
Climate scientist they could not silence
The trap was sprung in February 2006. The White House ordered that Dr Jim Hansen was to be denied the oxygen of publicity forthwith. He was to be banned from appearing in newspapers and on TV and radio. He was effectively to disappear.It was the kind of treatment that might be reserved for terrorists, criminals or, in a totalitarian regime, for political dissidents.
United States: A rocky start for ‘clean coal’
To avoid a total phase out of coal, the coal industry is desperately eager to “demonstrate” that CO2 can be captured and sequestered below ground.Without CCS, coal is over, and if coal is over then space opens up for renewable technologies. It poses a basic choice: stick with 19th century technologies (coal and oil) or move into the 21st century and revitalise our economy and our standing in the world at the same time.
Uncertainty could delay greener energy plants
AUSTRALIA could, like Europe, experience a delay of investment in its energy sector unless details of the proposed emissions trading scheme are released quickly, people in the industry say.Uncertainty about the cost of carbon and economical alternatives meant the country could end up with costly energy solutions.
Iran gas flow to Turkey resumes
LONDON, February 10 (IranMania) - Iran resumed the flow of its natural gas to Turkey from around midnight Friday, and will pump two mln cubic meters of gas per day, a senior energy official told Reuters, Iran Daily reported.Iran had stopped pumping gas to Turkey due to harsh weather conditions, the Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said on Friday.
Pakistan: Guidelines on energy conservation issued
LAHORE: The federal government has issued new guidelines for efficient use of energy to industries in the wake of ongoing energy crisis caused by rapidly rising consumption, depleting domestic oil and gas reserves and escalating international fossil fuel prices.
500 flee rig after security alert
LONDON — Britain evacuated oil workers from a North Sea accommodation platform on Sunday and sent in an explosive disposal team following reports of a bomb threat, officials said.About 14 helicopters and a Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft were sent to the Safe Scandinavia platform in the Britannia oil field, 210 kilometres northeast of the Scottish city of Aberdeen, the officials said.
A spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said about 500 oil workers were being evacuated to other platforms and there were no reports of any injuries.
Oil crisis ahead? 'Peakniks' build for future
If the day comes that oil grows so scarce that Austinites can't afford fruit hauled in from California and brownouts roll across Texas, Lester Germanio will live high, wide and cool in his West Lake Hills villa.Germanio and other Austinites who have banded together to trade information and survival tips are preparing themselves for what they see as inevitable deprivations as oil production declines past its peak. Some call them "Peakniks."
Chavez vows Venezuela revolution despite Exxon
"You have a multinational, imperialist company trying to damage our flagship company," Chavez said at a meeting with farmers. "But this ship will keep sailing and sailing full of oil.""PDVSA will not sink. Venezuela will not sink. This revolution will not sink," he said, in his first comments on the legal move by the world's largest oil company.
THE decision by the Prices and Incomes Board not to increase fuel prices this month had been agreed to by fuel companies, says Total Fiji Limited.Managing director Vijay Kumar said it was too early for the company to reveal the cost being subsidised.
Clean-energy companies fueling a N. Colorado revival
Fueled by a surge of clean-energy projects and research, the northern Colorado economy is regaining some of its lost strength.The state's fledgling "new energy economy" is gaining an impressive foothold on the plains of Weld County, along the Interstate 25 commercial corridor and in the research labs of Colorado State University.
If More CO2 is Bad ... Then What?
I no longer care much about the science. To me, the central question, and the one that few are willing to discuss in depth, is: Then what?That is, if political leaders agree with Gore and others who believe too much carbon dioxide is bad, then what are we going to do? Fossil fuels now provide about 85% of the world's total energy needs. Even more important is this corollary: Increasing energy consumption equals higher living standards. Always. Everywhere. Given that fact, how can we expect the people of the world--all 6.6 billion of them--to use less energy? The short answer: we can't.
Here's an interesting article in today's NY Times:
Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/fashion/10suburbs.html
It's sort of about suburban environmentalism - what people/organizations/towns are actually doing today.
Almost as interesting as what is being done is the simple fact that awareness does seem to be growing:
'“In the American suburbs, people are suddenly literate in the language of carbon emissions and carbon footprints,” he said. “I’m hearing it in most mainstream places.”
Last summer, Mr. Tidwell attended a picnic where, he said, a guest had brought a plate of kiwi fruit imported from New Zealand. “This very nonhippie, not-environmental-cliché-type woman I heard asking another person, ‘I wonder what the carbon budget of these kiwis are?’ ” he said. “I was just astonished.” '
Article comes with a cool sidebar that shows how wasteful detached homes are.
Interesting what information is not in the graphic, as well. The three come in at 41K, 71K and 53K BTUs per sq ft; on that basis the detached house is the most efficient. It doesn't say what the average household sizes are; if the detached house is 3.5 and the multifamily is 2.5, they are much closer in per-person energy usage than the graph suggests. I'm always curious about whether the research has captured comparable household energy use; the detached house almost certainly has its own laundry facilities where the multifamily unit may well not. If laundry is done at the local laundromat, is that included?
Can detached housing in the suburbs be made efficient enough, or must everyone move into a crowded urban environment? I suspect that the answer is different for different regions. Some may well have enough local renewable energy resources to support suburbs; others probably not.
Just under the title, "Greener Pastures?", they state that the comparison is based on average household with income and family size etc standardized.
In my view, the suburbs are never going to look good by comparison. Yes, it's possible they can be made to look ok by comparison with currently existing multi-family units, but remember that new large units are going to be redesigned also as time goes on to be very efficient.
On a personal note, I live in a high-rise condo with my own furnace in the unit. My neighbours are so profligate with energy use that even though I live in Canada, I don't need to run my furnace at all except on those half-dozen or so ulta deep-freeze nights that come every winter. So, in a dense urban setting your neighbour's waste can be your gain. If my neighbours ever turn green, it's going to cost me!
Passivhaus technology works fine in semi-detached or detached houses, and uses little or no additional heating other than the warmth of appliances and people.
How much warmer do you need to be, and why would you need to be more efficient?
Where can we get some energy-use numbers on multi-family versus detached single family in the PassiveHaus design?
The wikipedia piece shows pics of large buildings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passivhaus
If we get to a point post-peak when energy is cheap again on account of huge success with renewables, I agree. But before then, I suspect there won't be such a thing as too efficient.
I don't read German and most of the detailed specifications will be in that language, of course.
You are of course correct that it is easier to conserve heat in an apartment block, but other criteria such as soundproofing may be harder, so the overall task may not be that much tougher.
In any case, they regulate by energy use per square meter, so to get the rating of Passivhaus then you have to meet that one way or another.
Here are a couple of links that may interest you:
http://www.trada.co.uk/news/view/5D2EEC93-C592-46D7-AC69-2D0337C7DAF0/
Note the Greenroof in the illustration.
German building standards are very high though, and not easy to duplicate in countries like the US and UK as the builders are not used to them.
The UK has alternative plans for highly efficient energy houses, which do not use mechanical ventilation and work to lower tolerances.
Unfortunately they use porches front and back to reach the standard, and so our already small floor areas in the house proper would be further encroached upon.
Here is the Passivhaus website:
http://www.passivhaus.eu/
More talk about Passivhaus:
http://blogsearch.google.com/?bl_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.housebuildersupdat...
And here Greenroof:
http://www.thenbs.com/topics/Environment/articles/greenRoofs.asp
Hope you find these links of interest!
Cool. Thanks!
DaveMart
Please can you post links to the following information:
"The UK has alternative plans for highly efficient energy houses, which do not use mechanical ventilation and work to lower tolerances.
Unfortunately they use porches front and back to reach the standard, and so our already small floor areas in the house proper would be further encroached upon."
I have followed the PassivHaus with great interest, but the necessity of mechanical ventilation (ie, the grid must be up) makes me very nervous. I'm in Saskatchewan at -40C with wind chill now and shelter is not optional. However, even now, the grid can certainly go down in winter storms, potentially for days at a time.
Stupidly, I did not keep the URL, however, I do have a copy of the full pdf specs which I can forward to you if you give me your e-mail - I suggest you do so in the form of somebody at internet provider dot com to avoid spam bots
If you prefer not to do this, I enclose the main link to the Passivhaus site here.
However, it is my understanding that, rather like a church, there is a tendency to schism in the Passivhaus movement, complete with cries of heresy, and some would not consider a house not using mechanical ventilation to be part of the true faith.
http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/index.jsp?id=667
You should note however that the standards called for for the UK, a mild maritime climate, will be much different to your needs in Saskatchewan, which would need something similar to Scandinavian standards - I believe they also use mechanical ventilation, although presumably if you want to be independent of the grid you could perhaps rig a custom variation.
For security, you can get a temporary e-mail here:
http://www.jetable.org/en/index
jmcheval at sympatico.ca
To be frank, this 1954 house is so leaky (ice inside) that it is going to take an awful lot of insulation, new windows (single pane glass in Saskatchewan! %%$^^%$!!! What were they thinking!), and tightening before we have to start worrying about air exchange. We've added attic insulation to the last two houses we've lived in in Canada (none before us in old houses). Canada has alot of low-hanging fruit that can be picked fairly easily in purely pragmatic terms. The problem is that ~50% of the housing in the country is rental (no reference, sorry) so there is no incentive for landlords who typically don't pay the heat to upgrade, and well, they don't. Such legal problems prevent much obvious improvements in North America. Fortunately we now own, but if we stay here for more than a year, we have a very large amount of work to improve this building.
I've e-mailed the info you want - actually, I managed to dig out the URL's for most of it, and they are in my reply to Black Dog, but I've mailed the rest.
Sounds like you have a long way to go! Single glazing in Saskatchewan, forsooth!
I can't get an e-mail through to you - you should be OK with the links I've posted here though.
I don't know if it is practical in a rented property, but a air heat pump has now been designed for Canadian conditions, and is good down to -30C, the advantage being of course that it is a lot cheaper than a ground-source pump.
http://www.gotohallowell.com/technical.html
Hallowell International: Technical Datahttp://www.thestar.com/article/302300
TheStar.com | columnisthttp://www.thestar.com/article/302301
TheStar.com | Business | Costing it out Acadia vs. gas furnace and central airs | Electricity: will it be a gas killer?
You also get air-conditioning for the summer thrown in.
In the U.S., so-called "super insulated" houses have been around for more than 20 years. The PassivHaus looks to be quite similar to those designs. As I too looked for a description of the PassivHaus, I noticed the requirement for 300mm of wall insulation and 500 mm roof insulation, triple layer windows and tightly sealed envelope. That's roughly what I did with my house, which has a double wall of 5.5 inch thickness for an R value about 38 and about R value 49 thru the roof. I used triple layer (Southwall tm) windows on three sides and double layer low-e windows on the south wall. And, I've a large solar thermal collector as well.
The ventilation can also be done passively, I think, if one uses some sort of traditional heat exchanger. If the exhaust vent is high enough, perhjaps in an attic location, the natural difference in density between warm inside and cold outside air might provide enough flow in a pinch. Some heat exchangers require electric power to operate, even if set to work without fans though. I like the idea of an earth based pre-heater for the incoming air too.
E. Swanson
I've managed to track down the URL's for detailed specs of the Passivhaus standards for Euopean warm climates - by which they mean like the UK:
http://www.passive-on.org/CD/1.%20Technical%20Guidelines/Part%202/Passiv...
Part%202%20-%20UK%20Passivhaus%20in%20Detail.pdf
http://www.passive-on.org/CD/1.%20Technical%20Guidelines/Part%203/Part%2...
Part%203.pdf
And here is some info on warmer regions like Spain, but not as detailed:
http://www.passive-on.org/en/downloads/Passive-On-Long%20Description-v1-...
Passive-On-Long%20Description-v1-0.pdf
Hope this helps!
What does "crowded" mean?
Seriously, what is a "crowded" environment?
If you think about it, to most Americans it means "a place that is hard to drive."
Did you go to a residential college? Was it "crowded"? You probably never felt crowded. In fact, if you were like me, you probably felt a need to stick close to the campus, where all the action was. This is because residential college campuses are, generally, no-car pedestrian environments. Even though most colleges have lots of greenery and open space, they are typically quite "dense" due to lots of dormitory residences.
Unfortunately, I don't know of a single example of a no-car pedestrian urban environment in the US, not even Manhattan. However, they are quite common in the rest of the world.
Another reason people feel "crowded" is because they live close to people they would rather not live with. However, if they live close to people like them (think of a college campus or the Upper West Side of Manhattan) then it doesn't feel "crowded" anymore, does it?
The last significant reason that people feel "crowded" is because they are in a multifamily structure with inadequate sound insulation. This is merely shoddy construction.
One thing to think about, regarding these statistics, is that they are from Atlanta. The multifamily dwellers generally live side-by-side the single family detached dwellers in automobile suburbs. The real gains are had when you get multifamily dwellings in a pedestrian/subway/train environment. Subways/trains use about 10% of the energy per person/mile compared to cars, and also trips are shorter.
Also, you can have SFD dwellings in a dense urban environment. Think of Greenwich Village. Tokyo's first apartment building was constructed in the 1920s. Before then, the city consisted of very dense single-family residences, often on plots of 500 square feet or less. I have been in some pre-1930 neighborhoods, and they are quite lovely. Because they are too dense for cars (the streets are simply too narrow to drive, and are really more like walkways), they are "uncrowded"!
You nailed it. That makes all the difference in the world.
Econguy - I've never taken my car into San Francisco because it turns a rather nice trip into a horrible ordeal. Yet, right by Fisherman's Wharf, there are big, ugly, expensive, parking lots right there - where space is at a premium and the area would be really pleasant without all the cars. You got it right on what Americans consider 'crowded' it means you can't take your beloved SUV there, which you bought because it's taller than your neighbors' one.
When things aren't going well, CARVE A BIGGER STONE HEAD.
I think all they have done here is shown that more wealthy people use more energy, which if not obvious, has already been shown by various studies.
No, they controlled for income, family size and a bunch of other variables. So, wealthiness is not a factor.
There is also the issue of how well the house is insulated and how it is heated. Those fators have to be included. It is much easier to put a ground source heat pump into a detached home than a semi or townhome because of the more land available.
Also, appartments are much less energy efficient in their heat use. Many older appartments have no insulation at all, just brick and concrete with poor single glazed windows.
Thus the comparison is misleading.
It is much easier to put a ground source heat pump into a detached home than a semi or townhome because of the more land available.
All one needs is a small square large enough for the drilling rig for a vertical well. I wonder if one could drill at an slight angle from the edge of teh property, with most of the rig on public ROW ?
My sisters high-rise in Mid-City Manhattan (she lives on 33rd floor) put in a well for non-potable water during a water shortage a decade ago. About as dense as it gets !
Alan
You could do that to steal the heat from under somebody elses warm house!
Oh wait!... Kuwait had an idea like that ... the Iraqis didn't like it, as I remember!
It is much easier to put a ground source heat pump into a detached home than a semi or townhome because of the more land available.
Actually, it's more expensive and less efficient for detached homes. You have to install 10 heat pumps for 10 families! In multifamily, you just need one. Yeah, it needs to be somewhat bigger, but multifamily benefits from economies of scale.
Yes, the load is lower. A 10-plex should use 46% as much heating (actually less since internal heat is still 10x as much) according to square-cube law.
Add to this the fact that rarely, if ever, would all ten units be on.
I would feel comfortable making a 10-plex GSHP just 4x bigger than a SFR GSHP. Perhaps the 10-plex could share some of the infrastructure with a neighboring 6-plex, saving even more.
Single family residences are inherently inefficient.
Alan
You could do that with multiplex that shares a single duckwork system, but you couldn't do it for a string of townhomes. One thing a single family home on a large lot provides is the ability to grow one's own food. Crammed into multiplexes and small townhomes there is just not the land to do that. Trade offs. I'd rather be in a small home on a large lot in the country than crammed into a city. Once things start to happen the city is the last place to be.
Actually it is possible and feasible to run a row of townhomes off of a single borehole or cluster of boreholes.
In the Heat Pump thread, they show a Calgary subdivision that is run off of apparently one centralized borehole complex.
Might be more efficient (lots of calcs) to split them 5 & 5. Common compressors only if electricity bills are in common. Else a common warm water supply and individual units.
Only two common walls for most townhomes.
Better than SFR, but not the best.
BTW, you do realize that rural snowplowing will be the first thing to go post-Peak Oil don't you ? And then rural road repairs ? Winter repairs to rural electrical distribution ?
Alan
There are umpteen assumptions in your post.
It is pretty obvious that there will be dislocations post peak, but it is by no means clear that what some here refer to as BAU will not carry on.
See Gail's article on peak liquid oil.
Even on the most pessimistic assumptions it is clear that it will be possible to make electric run-arounds, using advanced lead -acid bateries with a range of perhaps 40 miles, light and cheap, so personal mobility should not be threatened.
It is interesting in this respect that the major Japanese manufacturers have never been very keen on plug-ins, but have said why should we not go straight to electric vehicles.
In most of the world car usage differs vastly from that in the US, and in the rare occasions when this mileage needed to be exceeded it would be a lot easier to hire a ICC car.
Some dislocation is inevitable, but the Mad Max scenarios painted here by some are by no means certain, or even probable.
Hi Dave,
Just a note (it's probably way too late for anyone to read)...
Here is one way to reason the thing out:
1) If the world supply of oil were to cease tomorrow,
2) the global economy would collapse.
3) So, we can then ask the questions:
---How much drop in supply
---With how much lead time (or warning)
---Over what time period
Can avert collapse?
The "inevitable" is a contingent outcome. It depends on the steepness of the decline slope, how much preparation is done ahead of time, what kinds of renewable technologies can really be put in place, and how many verses of "kumbaya" we can manage to learn.
Good, it will keep the roaving hords of starving city folk trying to escape from coming here.
Yesterday Leanan posted, "Limit on wheat prices raised", This years crop could be a problem.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat_wheat_0209feb09,0,6375433...
Ag insight a pay to view sight shows winter wheat seeding for 2008 season to be 46,610 million acres compared to 44,987 for 2007 and 40,575 for 2006. They also show expected precipitation below normal for Mar. thru May in the prime wheat growing areas of Kan, Okl, Tex, Col. These same states all show lower seeding acreage for 2008. The increase in acreage is made up in the mid-west and northwestern states. These data are taken from the week of 18 Jan and show ND Durum at $18.85 Bu.
USDA data on all wheat:
2007 wheat crop: 60.4 million acres planted, 51.0 acres harvested, 2.007 billion bu. Harvested, 40.5 bu/acre.
2006 wheat crop: 57.3 million acres planted, 48.8 acres harvested, 1.812 billion bu. Harvested, 38.7 bu/acre.
Here's the gif for wheat stocks to use ratio.
It might as well be the CRB.
It tracks it like a railroad.
http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/static/files/w_usplantacres.gif
With that in mind, to get to 1981 planting levels you should
need about $20 the bushel.
Which should then make about $10 Corn and $30 beans.
$3 the lb cotton, BTW.
Roughly 15% of all wheat planted is actually harvested. Does this percentage hold for other crops?
Perhaps you meant 85 %. Corn last year was 92% and I would suspect most other crops are 90+%
I forgot the 'not'.