DrumBeat: November 15, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 15, 2006 - 9:26am
Shale offers U.S. rock-hard fuel prospects
OTTAWA — We should now be confidently able to push back "peak oil" by a few hundred years. In three western states alone, the United States has more than eight trillion barrels of hard-to-pump shale oil, which is roughly eight times the entire consumption of crude oil in human history. This oil has been commercially irrelevant because it is hard as rock and you can't put a furnace in every car. Now, though, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is on the job. This is the once-clandestine lab in New Mexico that delivered the world's first nuclear bomb. It is one of the world's great institutions of advanced scientific inquiry. Can shale be a tougher task than the Manhattan Project?You can't know for certain, but it's a good bet that, within a decade or two, the rock that burns will flow through pipelines in quantities large enough to make the United States self-sufficient in energy for a very long time.
Turkey can cut risks for Europe
On the issue of Europe's sense of vulnerability to the risk of interruptions in the supply of energy, based on a spike in hydrocarbon prices or a prolonged period of weakness vis-a-vis major energy suppliers, the report explains, "This is partly a function of higher global prices for hydrocarbons, fears over supply-chain weaknesses, increasing geopolitical competition for resources and growing debate over 'peak oil.'
Clean energy takes center stage
Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, spoke passionately about climate changes and his vision of a nation no longer reliant on fossil fuels.
U.K.: Polluting cars face charge rise
Vehicles causing the most pollution in central London are to face huge increases in the congestion charge, mayor Ken Livingstone has announced.
ANALYSIS: President-Elect Ortega Faces Daunting Energy Crisis
One of the main challenges facing Nicaragua's president-elect and former revolutionary leader Daniel Ortega is the country's energy crisis, which has caused daily outages in what is one of the western hemisphere's poorest countries.
Andes Strikes Deal, Ends Tarapoa Protests
Chinese oil consortium Andes Petroleum has struck a deal with residents from Ecuador's Sucumbíos province who occupied installations on the company's Tarapoa block last week, a hydrocarbons ministry spokesperson told BNamericas, confirming a Reuters story.
Unplugging Thailand, Myanmar energy deals
BANGKOK - Thai Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand says he intends to scrap the previous government's controversial multi-billion dollar plans to ramp up imports of hydroelectric power and natural gas from neighboring military-run Myanmar, signaling a potentially significant shift in which direction the region's energy flows and a possible new era of bilateral antagonism between the historical rivals.
Senegal’s Wade wants fairer oil share
DAKAR — Oil companies operating in Africa must plough part of their oil profits into fighting poverty there or risk being expelled from the continent by unrest and turmoil fuelled by inequality, Senegal’s president, Abdoulaye Wade, said.Wade said it was "indecent, immoral" that oil majors should be raking in multi-billion dollar profits from higher oil prices while poor, oil-importing African states saw their energy bills increase by tens of millions of dollars.
Ministry displeased with Sakhalin Energy ecological steps
Congressional peak oil caucus responds to CERA study
More green energy use could cut costs, study finds
Switching the U.S. economy to run more on renewable energy sources rather than traditional fossil fuels could save money and reduce pollution, and the benefits could be seen within a decade, a think tank said Monday.
OLF: Hunt for Oil Now Linked to Idle Assets Not High Price
A strong historical link between high oil prices and abundant exploration has disappeared, but attempts to increase circulation of idle acreage could begin to reverse the de-coupling and boost the search for oil, the managing director of Norway's Oil Industry Association, or OLF, said Tuesday.
Tap U.S. soil, seas for oil, gas; stop buying foreign energy
The public interest in lessening America's reliance on imported fuels requires that we adopt a more rational policy toward production of oil and natural gas on federal land and in coastal waters.
Vote on oil bill promised this year
WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders in the House of Representatives agreed Monday to take up legislation during a post-election lame-duck session that would expand offshore oil and gas drilling and provide the first meaningful sharing of federal royalty payments with Louisiana and other producing states, Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, said.Jindal said the GOP House leaders for the first time expressed a willingness to pass a Senate measure with more limited drilling options and less revenue sharing, at least for the near future, if no compromise can be reached with Senate leaders on a House version.
OPEC increases estimate of world oil demand in 2006
VIENNA (AFP) - OPEC has slightly increased its estimate of worldwide demand for oil in 2006 -- now expected to average 84.3 million barrels per day (bdp).The estimate is an upwards revision of 100,000 barrels per day from a previous forecast of 84.2 million bpd, the powerful cartel said Wednesday.
Russia to raise gas prices for CIS states
MOSCOW- The majority of the former Soviet countries are almost entirely dependent on energy supplies from Russia. Meanwhile, political realities and current trends on the global energy market do not make a fall in gas prices very likely.
California: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gas14nov14,1,1475055.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Meanwhile, a consumer group says only three automakers improved the fuel economy of their fleets since 1996.
Appliances to Face Tighter Energy Rules
New energy-efficiency standards for 22 appliances will be set over the next 4-1/2 years under an agreement settling a lawsuit brought against the Energy Department by the Natural Resources Defense Council, consumer groups and 15 states.
It heats. It powers. Is it the future of home energy?
Down in Bernard Malin's basement is a softly thrumming metal box that turns natural gas into hot water and generates $600 to $800 worth of electricity a year - a bonus byproduct of heating his home."It's like printing money," says Mr. Malin, the first person in Massachusetts - perhaps in the nation - to own a residential "micro combined-heat-and-power" system, also known as micro-CHP.
Annan: Cheaper to cut emissions now
Scientists: More research needed to balance food, energy needs
DES MOINES — A non-profit consortium of scientists says there is an urgent need to step up research on ethanol production to balance energy needs with climbing corn prices and pressure on food and feed supplies.
There should be no doubt that the United States has waged two Gulf wars largely, if not solely, for oil. To ensure that the Iraq war is the last Gulf war, the administration and the Democratic majority in the new Congress must work together to enact an energy-independence bill to address the root-causes of these wars and free America from the shackles of foreign oil.
Bulgarian nuclear shutdown worries Balkans
Gjergj Bojaxhi, Albania’s deputy energy minister, suffers from back pain that gets worse when he sits. He walks around the office, hunching and wincing, absorbing the twinges as he speaks. But one word makes him stand up straight – Kozloduy.
Head of Russian Oil Fund Shot Dead in Moscow
The head of a Russian fund that says it promotes the development of small oil and gas producers was shot dead on Tuesday in southwest Moscow, the Reuters news agency reports.Zelimkhan Magomedov, 50, general director of the National Oil Institute Fund, was shot twice in the head.
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'And then there was Iraq. There is much to say about America's most disastrous folly since Vietnam, but in some ways the most telling indictment is the response of ordinary Iraqis. As Richardson explains:
They find the claims that the United States is occupying Iraq to defend New York and deploying an army to import democracy to be so implausible that they do not believe them. Instead, they believe the claims of those who say the US Army is a self-interested army of occupation interested only in dominating the region and exploiting its oil wealth.
"In effect," she concludes, "they find al-Qaeda's propaganda more credible than ours."'
From the end of a review at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19657
A thought I have long held on the issue of energy security for the US: US miltary budget is just shy of $500 billion per annum, a large part of which appears to be for sustaining a sufficiently powerful military to protect US energy interests in the Middle East.
What would the impact on the price of oil be if the US were to reallocate 10% of that annual budget to the deployment of renewable energy schemes? $50 billion would build a lot of wind and solar farms and could also be used to fund wave and tidal projects that private equity will not touch for a host of reasons (technological uncertainty, long payback periods, planning concerns, etc), as well as providing a huge source of R&D funding for new technologies. By virtue of the fact that the funding would come from re-allocated federal budgets it would not be necessary to demonstrate private equity style rates of return. In theory it would not be necessary to show a demonstrable "return" at all.
It is estimated that there is in the region of 50,000 MW of tidal and wave resource on the west coast of North America, enough to provide for pretty much all current power consumption west of the Rockies. An example of the type of project that could be contemplated can be found at http://www.tidalelectric.com/ (although I personally do not believe that this would be the most economically efficient way to harness tidal power, it has the benefit of being sufficiently low-tech to be demonstrably workable)
Clearly such projects would not be like-for-like replacements for the majority of petroleum-based product consumption, but they would provide a huge future resource base for electricity-based replacements to the existing FF-based transport infrastructure.
Prioritization as it relates to DOD spending versus DOE spending is a topic I have touched on numerous occasion but keep in mind that Peak Oil is a Liquid Transportation Fuels crisis, not an electrical one.
Here's the tongue in cheek Oreo Cookie example I use: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-YzPuCGShI8
Luckily, I'll have the chance to address the above in Washington next year.
This is a bit misleading IMO. If for example we replace enough natural gas from electricity generation, it can be easily used directly to fuel the cars. The technology is there and can be applied to existing vehicles (at the cost of some 1-2000$, likely to drop with mass production).
Displaced coal can be liquified or maybe better - gasified with higher efficiency to be used the same way as NG.
The truth is that PO promises to be a crisis, because all of the fossil fuels seem to be reaching a logistic maximums for various reasons and to different extent. These maximums will likely convergate in time when various replacement processes start to be implemented. Another consequence is that the severity of PO will vary with the location, because coal and NG are not that fungible as oil. Coutries where coal or NG is still abundant or countries that rely on nuclear energy will be much better off.
It is very hard to build new gas docking terminal (NIMBYism and BANANA stuff)
BANANA is Build Absolutely Nothing Awfull Near Anyone.
Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything!
If you take ALL the natural gas that was used (in 2005) for electrical production and used it in place of gasoline, you would displace only 37.5% of all the gasoline used. Furthermore, I drive a NG car periodically. They burn NG or gasoline but not "both" so when you run out of NG (actually when the regulator cuts you off), unless you have some way to quick-connect a pressurized bottle of NG, you are stuck.
Our Hondas have a maximum fill pressure of 3200 psig. Our other larger vehicles have tanks pressures up to 3600 psig. Filling them is relatively simple with the quick connect system, but it is not fast. A near empty tank can take 20-40 minutes to fill to capacity with a large "fast" compressor station. Since you are compressing gas from a much lower "street pressure" to a much higher tank pressure, the compression causes the gas to heat. These compressors have a very large intercooler to drop the temperature back down to acceptable levels prior to filling the vehicle tank. Nonetheless, these tanks do get quite warm when filling. A "slow fill" system or systems with small intercoolers may take as long as eight hours to refill. Changes the experience of filling the tank to a "career."
Add to that the fact that electrical generation using natural gas primarily uses relatively new, high-efficiency simple cycle or combined cycle turbines that can only burn natural gas or distillate oil. So whatever gas you take away (and oil you save from automobiles) has to be made up by more oil use. These new simple-cycle CTs are much more efficient that just about any coal-plant except supercritical, double reheat EGUs with a nice cool lake for condenser water. And there aren't any coal-fired power plants that can match the current generation combined cycle CTs.
That's the principle behind IGCC...to gasify coal into a product that can be burned in a high-efficiency combined cycle CT that is more efficient than an equivalent coal-burner. You give up a substantial amount of the efficiency by using the coal's heating value to gasify it, but the operating at a net 40-45% efficiency compared to the more nominal 30-35% efficiency of a standard coal-plant may be worth the difference.
But the underlying point is that with 2% annual growth in various energy demands AND the need to change to a different distribution of fuels...well it's just not going to happen. Consider that without PO staring us in the face and we kept everything in it's current proportions (oil, gas, coal) that in 35 years we have to have the ability (and the infrastructure) to handle twice as much of EVERYTHING as we do now.
More over, the substitution of coal (or more clearly the liquifaction and gasification of coal) for other products we currently use won't be as much help as many think.
Thirty years ago, "we had" about 400 years of coal at the usage rate of the mid-1970s. Today we have between 250-275 years. Did we really use 125-150 years of coal in 35 years? Yes, mostly because we've doubled our rate of consumption and our estimates of the reserves (and their declining quality) have become more refined.
Currently, coal accounts for about 23% of our total energy use. With the combination of "normal growth" and susbstitution of coal products are we really likely to have enough coal for "hundreds of years?" Probably not.
Seamless transition between gas and gasoline is standard on the biogas cars sold in Sweden and its essentialy the same methane.
It would be a very good idea to build as manny nuclear powerplanst as you can and replace natural gas heating with heat pumps and any base load use of natural gas for electricity production.
Heat pumps only make sense for a portion of the US. Even with the higher COP that is possible with newer designs, they don't do well in cool moist winter environments. They spend too much time defrosting.
By seamless, do you mean that any vehicle is switchable between gasoline and methane? Do they have one injection system for gasoline and another for NG/methane?
The point I was making is that this is not a substitution. Robbing the NG from electric generation from high efficiency pre-mix NG turbines to burn in vehicles means that turbines must burn something else (distillate oil with diffusion combustion rather than pre-mix). Unless consumption is reduced, you end up with "no solution."
What about ground-exchange heat pumps?
"this is not a substitution. "
Any thoughts about substituting wind, and in the longer term solar, for coal and nat gas?
Only portions of the US have areas where wind is "reliable." It should be included in this mix, but you can't just turn the wind on. And as was demonstrated in CA this past summer and previously, heat waves tend to correspond with low wind just when you have the highest demand. CA's problems were also compounded by the NG compressor cooling issue.
As for solar, I think we are probably far enough along on higher efficiency PV cells that we should consider jumping forward with them. Solar thermal also has some promise in certain areas (e.g., Kramer Station in CA). A point worth considering about solar cells is that the higher efficiency cells require substantial initial energy input as well as fossil fuels. If we wait to long, solar will look like an alternative we wished we had taken and would then be tantilizingly "out of reach."
- An undersized geothermal heat pump (adequate for summer cooling load)
- A high efficiency condensing gas furnance (~94% AFUE but the c)
and3) A wood furnance with outside combustion air
as well as insulate & caulk/seal more.
She can "twitch between fuels". Currently a geothermal heat pump can probably supply all her heating down to 32-40F at the lowest cost (wood perhaps cheaper, but not dramatically). NG may be more expensive/BTU but not dramatically and the capital cost is much lower.
Wood is the emergency backup and potentially lowest cost but a hassle. Uneven heat as well w/o air circulation but when a blizzard hits, the grid goes down, it is good to have a pile of wood !
Alan
What went wrong? Were they unhappy overall - IOW, would they do it again?
The case for transitioning at least partially to gaseous fuels is not bad: we can obtain them from the ground, from coal, from biomass, we can even use electrolysis and mix the H2 in small proportions. The respective processes are much more efficient then turning them to liquids.
First a simple, high pressure quick connect would be possible for changing tanks, similar to how we currently fill these vehicles.
Second, a typical FRP tank (which is what our vehicles contain) take more vehicle volume than a gasoline tank. We can get about 200-250 miles per tankful. Even though methane is highly compressible (I mean that in the sense that it does not follow the ideal gas law), the combination of methane (at pressure) and tank weight required for a vehicle provides a limit to moving tanks around. You and I are not going to hoof one of these tanks around (even dividing the current single high pressure tank into two or three smaller tanks might make the individual tanks more manageable, though the total weight will increase and increases the number of connections required). Even an automatic "bottle replacement system" would require some sort of universal system for vehicles.
Third, bottle storage and inspection. It's one thing to have various LPG bottle redistribution points for gas grills and even for those systems that use a larger amount of LPG with larger truck transported replaceable bottles. But think of the footprint required for a typical "gas station" to store full, empty, and those bottles being refilled for the number vehicles served. Thats much different than underground storage tanks for liquid fuels.
Growth Rate Years Remaining
0% 90.4
2% 52.1
4% 39.0
VERY interesting for those that suppose that we can substitute (conversion losses like CTL up "consumption").
Renewables ARE needed !
Thanks,
Alan
At the end of the day, it will be easier and cheaper to convert one's F-150 to run on an EtOH blend with a smarter carb, then to try and change the entire motoring infrastructure.
And unlike the fossils, EtOH can be produced anywhere on the continent, from practically any carbonaceous material available.
Add conservation, electrification and other mitigation strategies to the mix and we should be able to keep up with a modest rate of decline.
Basic physics of moving mass does not change just because one changes fuel.
With infrastructure you might be able to produce EtOH anywherem but there are large swaths of the North American west that have low growth rate, limited biomass because they are high plains deserts. I just drove through the areas of Northern Colorado and across much of lower and middle Wyoming. There may be quite a number of gas and oil wells and much oil shale, but it's a fairly stark landscape most above 6,000 feet.
Down in Texas there's apparently 1000's of acres of mesquite that thrive in the low mositure environ and actually choke off the creation of natural water reservoirs.
There's been no way to harvest the mesquite until just recently as an outfit down there have created the first ever designated mesquite harvester.
The potential exists (and groups are working on it as we speak) to turn this unique and most unanticipated feedstock source into ethanol.
Good idea. When you gain control of the U.S. Congress, we should implement this plan.
I'd be careful with predictions. Personally the Democrats regaining the majority right now I think was a strategic mistake on their part. I don't think its a Republican conspiracy, but I can't help but think that the Dems may be walking into a trap set by fate. If the economy tanks into recession shortly after they take over in 2 months, and if they can't show progress on forcing the Republicans out of Iraq, or if Iraq improves due to Bush's plan, they could be setting themselves up for a nasty fall.
Not to mention, even in winning the democrats are acting like a pack of jackals, and some are calling for Dean to resign from the DNC because the Dems didn't capture "enough" seats. Gotta love it... win back a majority in both houses in a nation that is roughly 50/50 split, and its still not good enough.
When all is said and done, the Democrats will have picked up roughly 30+ House seats, which is about equal to the greatest margin the GOP ever enjoyed during their 12-year reign. As for Howard Dean, the man is now vindicated! His controversial "50 state strategy" was a stroke of genius, whereas the Republicans and their president were spending money in the most unusual places (i.e. solid red) during the waning days of the campaign. Clearly, the man's efforts paid off handsomely for his party, and they are in a much better position to parlay their success in 2008.
For environmental advocates, the election results clearly were beneficial. Two of the most dastardly villains in Congress were removed from their powerful positions as chairmen of influencial committees. Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Resources Committee and a sworn enemy of virtually every environmental law you could think of, lost his race. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will be in the minority party come January, thus losing his chairmanship (this dinosaur mocked global warming as the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon the American people", and was among the most prominent roadblocks in Washington regarding this issue).
Having purged these two individuals from their committee chairmanships made the election results all the more satisfying. :)
I would go further....
The 2008 electoral map is VERY friendly to the Dems in the senate. It is going to be very difficult for them to avoid picking up a seat or two. In the house, even if they lose a fair number of seats, barring some sort of tidal wave, they'll still have the majority. For state houses and governorships, they have a solid majority now that will last until 2010 (4 year terms), which means they automatically get to do redistricting in 2010 throughout most of the country (30 states, roughly, with the majority of the country's population, and thus House seats).
This means that in 2010, they will pretty likely gerrymander the remaining blue state republicans straight out of existence. This is exactly what gave the republicans their current majority, lots of (in their case mid-decade) redistricting. The Dems get to redistrict now, and the results will probably not be pretty.
In addition, we have two more years of bush being a total ass.
I think in 2008 the Dems will actually gain seats in both houses, and the white house.
The Democrats certainly can hold the Congress and take the White House but I do not see that as automatically assured as you seem to think. Rather, the Democrats are going to have to moderate their socially liberal positions somewhat, and be more fiscally conservative than Democrats have ever been before. Moderating social positions happens all the time and measuring how "liberal" or "conservative" one is on social issues is a very subjective thing. But the budget is not very subjective at all, at least to the man in the street.
I believe that the last Democrat controlled Congress to pass a balanced budget was under Nixon. The balanced budgets passed under Clinton were all Republican held Congresses. I firmly believe the budget is a major issue, almost as large as Iraq. If the Democrats can successfully force the White House into a withdrawal from Iraq and balance the budget, they will have 2 huge feathers in their cap for 2008. If they can do neither of these, I expect many of them to be replaced yet again, either by other more conservative Democrats, by Republicans, or by independents.
The Democrats are in a strong position, no question. But it's not a guaranteed win. They will have to work to continue to hold the Congress and take the White House. Adopting sane policies on energy would be a good start and there are many Democrat affiliated groups that are putting forth good proposals now rather than smoke-and-mirrors over ethanol and such.
That seems a little misleading: technically Congress controls the budget, but these days the President usually sets the agenda. Think about Reagan and GWB's tax cuts/deficits. It seems clear to me that the last 2 Dem presidents, Carter and Clinton, were much better deficit wise than their successors.
I agree that Dems are in a bit of a trap. I think their best bet is energy: oddly enough, that presents a much better win/win than an Iraq withdrawal or deficit reduction, either of which could have big unintended consequences.
The democrats are just as much a part of the problem as the republicans. If you think they are going to do anything that will upset the capitalist growth engine, think again. They may try to make it a little softer on the edges, like raising minimum wage, but they aren't going to threaten the whole set up.
Check your dictionary and a good history book.
Byzantine means 'complex and deceitful'.
Libertarians would simplify, but some of the problems are by their nature complex.
For example Global Warming: an unpriced economic externality with disastrous consequences for all.
Overfishing falls into the same camp.
Then there is nuclear terrorism, the dependence of the US on foreign oil, global problems like AIDS and flu.
Saying the Democrats are the same as the Republicans is so hopelessly out of touch with reality that I almost don't know where to begin. It's like talking with a creationist, can we accept that the earth is round, or do we need to start with turtles all the way down?
OR
one votes for one of the 2 main parties, and tries to work within the system for change.
Something like Richard Pombo losing his seat in CA was a big win for the environment, everywhere, not just in the USA. Taking out James Inhofe is as likely as a blizzard in mid August in New York City, but would have similar benefits.
Another important thing to do is to learn the issues and become an advocate for them. The internet allows a lot of grass roots communication to take place-- odd though it may sound, there are lots of people who think global warming is a distant problem that scientists are in disagreement about.
Because of the internet, it is possible to access directly the scientific knowledge and debate, and understand how wrong that viewpoint is.
So, while you might not know where to begin, I'll just right you off as hopelessly naive.
The Endangered Species Act
The Clean Water Act
Corporate Average Fuel Economy
These were all huge pieces of legislation, with significant effects for improving the environment of the United States.
What little alternative energy R&D and standards regarding appliance and home energy efficiency that has taken place.
the reality is it will take both Republicans and Democrats to achieve action on climate change.
Senators Lieberman and McCain proposed trading in CO2 permits. Whether they were serious or not is not clear, but it is certainly the case that the Gingrich-DeLay House of Representatives killed any chance of legislation of this nature.
Why did Republicans lose this time? A lot of polling data suggests its because Conservatives either didn't Vote(in disgust with the Republicans), or voted third party libertarian etc. Its a way to show that while a voter isn't ready to switch sides to the other major, they are dissastisfied with the current job.
Secondly, Independents and Libertarians have won seats. I think even a Green has been in Congress before too, but I'd need to double check that. Also many lower level government seats can often be picked up by third parties. They have a harder time, but it can be done.
Thirdly, Politcal Parties have been upended and phased out in our past. Where are the Whigs? They were a major party for a portion of American history. Eventually enough people are going to get tired to this never ending pendulum(sp?) of the Dems and Repubs. When that happens a new party will have a chance to emerge and become viable against the current 2 majors, or replace one of the 2 majors.
If you only think you have 2 choices all the time, then this country is really screwed. New ideas have to be brought into the fray, and a lot of times the two majors look at the surge in a particular minor party's popularity, and steal the idea that led to that popularity. Hurts the small party, but ultimately the idea gets pushed forward.
Their share of Republican voters even rose, by about as much.
What really happened was Independent voters shifted towards the Democrats, from the Republicans.
About zero.
If on the other hand, it were applied (consistently for 20 yearsr) to a fee-bate system to enhance, or replace the CAFE auto standards by favoring high efficiency vehicles, it would slowly have an effect over the lifteime of the vehicle fleet.
"$50 billion would build a lot of wind and solar farms and could also be used to fund wave and tidal projects..."
Yes, but how and where? Would we have the wind farms in nowhere----congressional pork to put wind farms in places with no wind and little electrical demand, but located in the Appropriations Committee Chairman's district?
OK, that's an exaggeration.
Note that one nuclear plant (Palo Verde) produces more power today than all the wind and solar in the US combined.
I understand Palo Verde produces about 3.4 MW on average. US wind is set to pass that by the end of this year, with about 3.7 MW average output and .8% of average US consumption. If all of the 12 GW of wind planned for 2007 actually gets installed that will double.
The impact of renewables on transportation largely depends on the electrification of transportation, though coal and gas displaced by renewables would then be available to displace oil (with substantial delays and capital investment, in the case of oil).
Seriously though. Heatwaves = no wind. It's just that simple. Wind is unreliable, and when you need it most, it's not there. You could ship it in from abroad, but if you don't have wind, then chances are your neighbor doesn't either. This would require a distribution grid on a scale far beyond anything contemplated today. It would have to readjust and send power from any part of the country to any other based on prevailing weather conditions. In addition, we'd need a VAST oversupply of wind so that the lights don't go out when SoCal experiences a heat wave. The european heatwave was made MUCH worse by the fact that it automatically knocked out their wind generation.
Wind as 10%, sure, because there's always some customers you can cut power to if you run short (industrial mostly). Wind as 50%, not likely.
Solar has exactly the same problem. Throw in a grid that can move this electricity all around the country based on the weather, and the ability to store enough to get us through a heatwave or excessively overcast weather in winter, and the scale of this project baloons out of all control.
Renewables probably won't work beyond 20-30% of demand, if you want more carbonless power, you have roughly 1 option, nuclear.
I'm all for getting that 30%, but lets not jump the gun here. When wind provides 20-30% and looks like it can make more without causing periodic blackouts, then lets talk about bashing nuclear. Until then, it's nuclear vs. coal for the remaining 70%, I know what I would prefer.
(gas tends to be peaking plant only).
however there is also carbon sequestration. Which will come, and will be important. Like nuclear, it leaves a long term waste problem, but hopefully if the CO2 leaks in 100 or 200 years, we will be able to deal with it.
On wind, all forms of power are intermittent. There haven't been 5 days in the last 20 years in the whole UK where the wind hasn't blown. So whilst wind has a considerable thermal backup requirement (or more pumped storage) intermittency is not the obstacle it is sometimes portrayed.
It's also worth knowing that the wind is much more constant offshore, any place on the planet. And you can build really big turbines there (wind is more constant away from the ground). This means there are substantial wind power opportunities in the South East USA, even though the onshore wind potential (except in the mountains) is relatively poor.
In the case of the US the US has a number of different 'wind basins'. This is very powerful, because when the wind is not blowing in one, it may well be blowing in another.
The energy treasure of the USA is the Great Plains-- fantastic and regular winds. A resource, in its own way, as rich as that of the Texan oilfields. The challenge is to harness that, and ship the power south to Texas and east to the Midwest.
I don't disagree that it is hard to see with current technology getting above 20-30% renewables. But there are some tweaks (using mines for pumped storage) that will help, as well as more advanced storage technologies (superconducting rings, flywheels etc.).
The future electric power system will be founded on a mix of renewables, and coal with carbon sequestration (capture and storage).
I can't see nukes ever being more than 30% of US consumption. Replace the 84 existing reactors (which has to be done over the next 25 years or so), maybe build a net 60 more, so 144 reactors or say, 4 a year* for 36 years. That is as fast as the US nuclear industry ever commissioned plants, even in the heights of the 60s and 70s.
* the new plants will average 1350MW, say, v. 750MW now, but total power consumption will also have risen.
A man was talking about building a new highway, he wanted it done quickly, maybe a few years. Someone jumped up and says "Wait a minute, this thing is 300 miles long, and you want it done in 10 years? That's 30 miles a year, nobody can build 30 miles a year...."
Of course, when we made the interstate system (hundreds of miles a year, maybe thousands), we didn't have guys with shovels start in New York wait for them to reach LA!
Just because historically we haven't built more than 4 reactors a year doesn't mean it can't be done, or is even very difficult. If there were 30 sites building reactors, why in a country of 300 million people would they interfere with each other?
Put another way, France went from nothing to basically 50% nuclear in about a decade. Why can we (starting with a huge installed base, and the world's best supply of nuclear engineers and technology) not do the same?
4 reactors a year would stress the capacity of the system.
Of course, over time, these things can be scaled. But you can't rapidly scale up complex manufacturing and construction processes.
These are far more complicated than building a road: the analogy is entirely false. These are enormous lump sums of complex technology and skills, costing $2-5bn each.
If the US does begin a new generation of reactors, then I don't expect construction to start on any before 2008 or 2010 (I'm not sure when the reactor certification hearings are scheduled). That would be 1-2 per annum.
To scale to 4, say, is certainly possible. But it won't get you to more than 120 units over 30 years-- at a cost of around $600bn (the likely range is $300bn-600bn). Talking about doing 6 or 8, which would put your completions at the highest levels achieved in the early 70s (I don't have that data-- does someone have a graph), seems to me to be very optimistic.
And of course none of this happens unless the Federal Government does something about long term waste disposal.
The nature of the modern electric utility is that it cannot put the financial risk onto the customer, purely, the regulators won't allow it (or conversely it sells into a deregulated electricity pool with fluctuating prices). So utilities are going to have to see guaranteed returns before they enter back into the nuclear market.
Note British Energy (operating under the latter regime, with 9 reactors) went broke, and had to be bailed out by the government, when the pool price crashed. Now if you have more nuclear power than baseload, you will get periods of near-zero electricity pricing (the nuclear plants will all be selling, and there will not be enough buyers). So the US will have to plan for the same eventualities.
Finland is unusual in that large industrial users have underwritten power contracts which will be sold at nil profit. There aren't many places in the US with that kind of industrial structure.
France is a vertically integrated utility, tied very closely to the French state in a way that wouldn't work in the USA (I can't see the Department of Energy building and operating reactors-- can you see that one getting by Congress?).
I think the industry projections for the US are for 20 reactors over the next 20 years. That seems to me to be sensible, especially given:
- many localities will fight against new nuclear plants (Indian Point in New York State for example)
- 3rd Generation is a new technology, and to some extent untested-- it will take a while to learn how to build and operate them efficiently and safely. Nuclear reactors have never scaled as smoothly as they were supposed to.
- the solution to the waste problem is not going to come quickly
- the industry will have to create a new generation of nuclear engineers and technicians, and association skillsets
- new uranium supplies will have to be identified and mined-- again a 10 year lead time business
After that, I am sure the US could build 100 reactors in the subsequent 20 years (ie 2026-2046) if there was a clear sense of national and political purpose to do so. I think that would require a really significant change in public opinion regarding global warming and a second Energy Crisis.However in that same timescale I would expect the US to move to 100% Carbon Capture and Storage on fossil fuel plants, and I would expect solar power to be a competitive generation technology.
So the 'best choice' or the path chosen, is not at all clear at this point.
I think the AP1000 will work out fairly well. Decades to observe a wide variety of plumbing designs (US nukes were often unique designs at detail level), refueling issues, etc. and the AP1000 makes a virtue of simplicity.
Not too large (not as efficient in kg of U > MWh) but right in the sweet spot of operating temps & pressures from an operating POV. (The Finnish 1,6 GW seems to be pushing it).
Designed for serial production, it opens the US up to the risk of common design flaws, it should be "easy" to build large #s of them.
And the same design with different ages of operation should benefit the younger AP1000s as the older ones age and gain operating experience.
Firat orders are likely to be singles and pairs, but I expect to see triplets (like Brown's Ferry & Palo Verde) and quadruplets thereafter.
Building 4 identical reactors at one site, spaced 18 to 24 months apart, minimizes the stress on personnel and other resources and hence maximizes the potential rate of installation. Such a site is also cheaper to maintain.
Best Hopes,
Alan
however nuclear power has never entirely fulfilled the promise expected of it: neither in cost of construction, nor reliability of stations (on average). It's always turned out to be an expensive technology.
And a good portion of the reactor is 'construction' rather than manufacture ie site specific. And construction can mean very long planning delays, especially if there is strong local opposition, as well as a good deal of tweaking.
The same cost inflation factors that hit other construction projects (steel, copper, skilled labour etc.) can and will hit nuclear projects.
So I am at best cautious on claims for superior performance by new nuclear plants.
And the waste issue looms out there, unresolved.
I think that an assumption that the US can build 120 reactors in 30 years is stretching it, in terms of what is possible politically and economically.
I don't deny if the lights started flickering out that things might change, with a change in the political climate: but then it takes up to 10 years to get a nuclear plant operational (and a minimum of 8 from drawing board) and so other forms of power (coal!) are going to be there first.
This is always the danger that people fall into. Take the present, project it far into the future, and think that this has some validity.
We have LOTS of nuclear engineers. I work with them everywhere, you can't swing a cat in a computer shop without hitting a nuclear engineer who left the field because EVERY SINGLE POLITICIAN in the country has sworn up and down to kill the whole lot of em and send em to the unemployment line. Given assurances, they would come back. Our nuclear fleet provides a pretty decent stock of nuclear engineers, and a decent stock of reactor construction as well, materials, etc...
As I said, france went from nothing to 50% in a decade. Are you saying we're just worse engineers than the french, or that there's some actual limitation? Basically, we all know there's no limitation. The day that coal has to pay to kill people is the day we go all nuclear.
We both know that sequestering carbon is a vastly larger undertaking, and it will never get off the ground. You think it's easier to bury a billion tons of gas a year than it is to build some metal pots to boil water? Seriously, turn that analysis on that project. Nobody has the faintest clue how they're going to sequester carbon. There's maybe a pilot plant here or there running at some meaningless level with massive subsidies. This is at the stage where nuclear was in the 50s, if not the 40s, and it's technically vastly harder as well. That is a pipe dream (literally) if ever there was one.
You are completely incorrect to say they did it in 10 years.
If you want to see how French engineering works, go and take a Train Grand Vitesse (TGV). There is nothing comparable in any Anglo Saxon country. They have been working at this technology, and the associated infrastructure, for 50 years. It is faster to get around France by train, than to fly.
Or look at Airbus. To build the world's number 1 or number 2 airliner manufacturer, from scratch, in 50 years.
They have a form of state-industrial cooperation that doesn't exist in Anglo Saxon countries, and a public trust in high technology.
So France is a bad example.
It wasn't politicians that killed the US nuclear industry. It was cost overruns and safety concerns.
On sequestration, the pieces of the puzzle all exist (Weyburn Sask, Sleipnir Norway etc.). What remains is to knit them all together.
To quote the recent 99 day head of Airbus "It will take at least 15 years for our products to catch up with Boeing".
Airbus has MASSIVE advantages with their gov't support over Boeing, but is failing ATM.
Once Boeing applies 787 technology to the 737 replacement, lights wil start going off in Toulouse :-)
Best Hopes for A380 = Concorde
Alan
Installed US wind at the end of the this year should = roughly 5 average US nukes. Add another 2 or so for 2007 installation.
Best Hopes,
Alan
If there is a major heat wave and wind isn't blowing, I could be certain that the sun is shining which means the solar systems could be kicking in to provide the lack from Wind.
If its cloudy and solar is running at efficiency, then chances are good, the wind is blowing those clouds in somewhere.
The trick with renewables is not to have a combined renewable package that equals 100% of our need. The trick is to have a combined renewables package that equals 150% or more of our need depending on conditions. You want overlapping coverage. Somedays you might be getting the bulk of your power from solar cause the sun is out, and on other from wind.
On top of that, our storage abilities need to improve. If we are in a season of abundant solar or wind, we need to come up with ways to take that excess and store a portion of it. It might be in the form of batteries, capitors or some other electrical storage device, or it might be in the form of pumped storage.
And even with all that, yes I fully expect we will need fossil/nuclear sources of energy, but if we can reduce the need for fossil energy to be even 50% of the total need, that would be a huge improvement over our current path.
I think too many people focus on the effort to just somehow instantly (and 20years is basically instantly when talking about civilizations) stop using all fossil fuels. Its not going to be like that, we will shift gradually from one to the other.
Anyhow, the dogging on renewables when you are considering them in isolated systems, is a stupid excercise. The solution is not a 1 size fits all type of thing. And so when looking at wind, yes look at the shortfalls, but then also include a realistic view of alternatives which could fill in when wind is down.
150%, try 300% or more. Wind power gets around 30% utilization on average, that's an emperical fact. If it gets 30% on average, then I contend that there are days in the continental US where the sum total of all our wind is getting less than 20%, so lets say as an absolute bare minimum, we'd need 500% of demand as installed wind capacity, and even then we'd have a blackout from time to time. What's really the number that the capacity in the US doesn't drop below? Is there never a day when our wind averages 10% of theoretical maximum? 5%? Where is the cutoff?
I grant you that the wind is always blowing somewhere, but is it blowing enough in enough places to keep the lights on throughout a country of 300 million people at all times? 365 days a year? Every day, every hour? Even a 5 minut blip in wind would cause blackouts.
Wind works in Denmark because they're hooked into the EU grid that is not powered by wind. When denmark has extra wind, they can sell it to Germany, when they don't have enough, they can buy some. Who would the US trade with? Sell to Canada when we have 6x as much electricity as we need? Buy from Mexico when we have 1/2 as much as we need?
To the extend that we have stuff that can be run at will (aluminum smelters, etc...) wind is the way to go. When the industrial customers run out, we need another solution for the rest.
I'm sure wind+solar does better than wind alone, but don't kid yourself. Yes, even in heatwaves the sun does not always shine. It's called night, and it always happens. Has never failed yet.
Your #s are way off in a realistic scenario.
Best Hopes,
Alan
The rule of thumb, from the National Grid Co here (they also own Niagara Mohawk Power) is that 25GW wind capacity will displace 5GW of other capacity.
The 'capacity credits' awarded to different forms of capacity bidding into the Electricity Pool are lower than the actual load factors achieved, because they include an allowance for unreliability.
(the UK uses a 'fixed one hour gate' ie to produce power at 9pm, you bid into the pool by 8pm)
CCs, are roughly:
Combined Cycle Gas Turbines - 90%
Coal fired - 80%
Nuclear - 70% (nuclear plants have a history of unplanned maintenance and safety outages)
Wind -20%
So as you increase the amount of wind in the system, you increase the amount of fossil fueled backup. Fortunately, most of that capacity already exists either as old coal fired stations or CCGTs.
And since you aren't running it very often, the backup capacity will last a long time.
You can either hold a coal station at ready spinning (using something like 10% of energy) or you can fire it up (takes hours, increases wear and tear due to the heating up of the steam system), and then bid it into the pool as and when.
Gas turbine (straight) you can fire up in seconds, the Combined Cycle part has longer delays (as above with coal).
Active demand management is also pretty crucial here: if you can shut down consumers on short notice (many big industrial customers are on interruptible power contracts) then your reserve margin problem is much less chronic. In Ontario, there is an electricity tariff where the utility can shut down your water heater or air conditioning plant for 30 minutes, every 2 hours.
Using a tradeable carbon permit system, each utility will make an economic calculation:
Nuclear is $0.04/KWh, roughly, if wind can get under $0.08 for reliable (emphasis on reliable, $0.08 for power when the customers want it, not when the windmill decides to generate it) power, then it's got a shot, if not, then I'm not sure it does, the future will belong to either coal or nuclear.
Palo Verde capacity is 3.6GW
production (2003) is 28.5 GWhrs.
The point about nuclear is that it is 8-10 years to build a nuclear station. Whereas it is 2-3 years to build a wind farm.
The two are complementary, in that nuclear is only economic as baseload power: if you have more nuclear than your baseload, you either have to sell it or throw it away.
Wind is intermittent, so it spreads across baseload, mid merit and peak.
"The two are complementary"
I would argue that the two are very similar, and therefore in competition with each other. Both are capital intensive, with very low operating costs; both generate electricity over 24 hours. When both are generating during baseload periods there will be conflict, and you're likely not going to want much more than about 35% of your generation from wind and nuclear combined. You can see this conflict from the steady stream of criticism of wind from nuclear advocates - just look at the Nuclear Energy Institute website, especially the blog.
Wind's disadvantage is intermittency. Wind's advantages are: wind is much faster to install; has much smaller increments; and installation costs are much more predictable than nuclear; and nuclear has externalities: radiation hazards, both during operation and after, and from weapons proliferation (which I feel is by far the most important).
10,492 MW as of September 30, 2006 per AWEA. Add 1.5 months since then. Figure 32% load factor and wind > Palo Verde when down time is figured in.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/palo_verde.html
Wind installed as of today should produce 30 TWh each year. In 2003 (latest #s) Palo Verde produced 28.58 TWh.
I do see wind as leaving the "Large Scale Test & Proof of Concept" mode and entering as a major source of new generation. As posted by others here on TOD, 40% of generation from new plants installed in 2006 will come from wind (another 4% from other renewables).
Best Hopes,
Alan
- will the US Congress extend the RPC subsidy (also granted to new nuclear plants) to allow the growth of wind power to continue in the US?
(as The Economist and many other publications point out, it would be far better for government to tax carbon emission (or auction permits to emit CO2) and let the market sort out the most efficient technology however at the moment that idea has about as much political currency as a snowball in downtown Manhattan in August or a winter's dip in Lake Superior in January)
- can we feasibly run electricity grids with 10%, 20% or more of terrawatt hours sourced from wind power?
In the long run Alan Drake feels that over 50% wind is possible. I think he's right, but I think the point of diminishing returns will be about 35%, with solar, nuclear, hydro and biomass providing the rest.
I think wind's intermittency won't be that hard to deal with - 20% will be pretty easy, but more will require some work and expense which will require a comittment to CO2 reductions.
I do not disagree. But the cost of alternative renewables (solar is the only other one that can scale up in large #s) make wind the preferred source even past the "point of diminishing returns". The delta in costs weighs towards some solar, but just a few % from solar and much more from wind.
Basically, I expect wind + pumped storage to be cheaper than solar PV alone in 2025.
I assume -20% in today's demand due to conservation. With higher population & electricity substituting for other energy sources, that seems close to the cost-effective limit.
And 23% nuke seems unavoidable to me without much higher costs.
Best Hopes,
Alan
First and foremost, in energy consumption and demand management. The average fall in energy consumption per unit of GDP is -1.6% (so total demand rises in any year where GDP growth is greater than 1.6%). This can, I believe, be doubled
http://www.pwc.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/docid/dfb54c8aad6742db852571f5006dd532
Second in energy generation and storage technologies.
When you realise an IGCC is 10% more efficient in energy conversion than a contemporary coal fired plant, 45% v. 30-35%, and IGCC is at the beginning of its evolutionary product lifecyle, you realise how much there is to be done, and what dividends it might pay.
There will need to be more energy R&D, the Stern Review points out this has halved since the early 1980s, worldwide, and that most of the innovative R&D was done under government auspices (industry tends to focus on what it does well already eg oil companies on oil extraction technologies).
The two best new renewables, wind and geothermal owe next to nothing to gov't R&D (what wind R&D was spent has had minimal impact on the WTs spinning today. Almost all from Denmark).
Solar PV is still far from general economic competiveness. And it has been the darling of gov't spending.
Yes, I support gov't R&D, but I have little hope of useful results from research grants.
I expect to be "surprised" by future solar PV. Surprised by how little the economics improve over time.
Alan
At that rate they halve every 10 years.
PV is fundamentally a materials technology, and you can make gains by:
- increasing the manufacturing yield
- manufacturing more cheaply
- getting more efficient power conversion
It seems to me the history of materials technology is one of success. Aluminium was once an expensive metal. Carbon fibres were once a lab curiousity, now they are heavily used in aircraft and there are some automotive applications. Transistors were once rare and expensive. Ditto any semiconductor.If the world semiconductor industry can ship $400bn of product pa, I don't see why the world PV industry can't ship on that order of magnitude.
I think government played a huge role in creating the wind industry: by financing R&D and, in the Danish case, by mandating demand.
In any case, what the Stern Review is talking about is doubling world energy R&D from £20bn pa to £40bn pa.
£20bn will buy you about 60 F22 fighter planes (which no one has a plausible, post Cold War reason to procure).
If you think how much of that is nuclear (perhaps 1/3rd) you realise how little we are actually spending on the greatest single threat this planet has faced in the lifetime of human civilisation (you could argue that nuclear war was greater: let's say I don't want to run the experiments to find out!).
Interesting the DOE has trashed its $25m pa research into geothermal, and $20m pa into hydro power. Both of which are technologies of which I am sure there are more gains possible.
Not that other gov't actions are not of value, just R&D selected & funded R&D.
Denmark had carbon taxes, built transmission as needed, mandated "must take" for wind power from utilties (I think), set up an easy legal framework for a co-op to own a few WTs, (often farmers or a farmer + cityfolk), had limited siting restrictions, and the gov't maintained a database of experience (crucial so good WTs got more orders, bad ones not).
And they had over 80% of the market a few years ago. The "Danish" model dominates (3 blade, up wind). And gov't R&D has had little effect on current designs. Commercial, mainly Danish R&D has.
I just do not think that gov't bureaucrats are very good at picking technologies or grant applications to fund.
Best Hopes,
Alan
And I question if that -7% pace can be maintained long term.
Thua I see PV solar as a niche product.
You quote a $ figure for ICs. But that is not the correct metric. How many square meters does Intel, AMD, Toshiba, etc. sell ?
Solar PV will be cheaper per square area, but area, not $ is is close to the correct metric (watts is best metric).
Best Hopes,
Alan
2nd, solar output is much more closely related to demand than wind (IOW it's closer to peak demand, which makes it more valuable per kwh), and appears to be somewhat negatively correlated with wind, which makes them complementary.
3rd, as generation equipment costs fall, Balance of System costs are becoming more important for both wind and PV, and they're easier to reduce for PV with Building Integration.
4th, just as wind is smaller & more modular than nuclear, PV is smaller & more modular than wind, which gives it faster generational turnover and easier project managment and financing: think integration into standard building developer plans (as is now happening in California), and 30 year mortgages.
Finally, PV doesn't have to compete with wind directly. Wind is wholesale, and PV is retail. That's why PV is now directly competitive in Japan and for some customers in California who pay more than $.25 per kwh. As PV prices fall they will be competitive in more places and there will be a clear tipping point - at $.125 per kwh (a 50% reduction) PV will be directly competitive in a very large fraction of markets. Already PV demand is close to doubling annually.
I think it will be a race to see whether wind or solar can cut costs faster. The newest proposed offshore WT designs (floating, much larger & further from shore) appear able to cut costs by 2/3 by reducing support costs and taking advantage of size-related efficiency & better wind.
I am NOT anti-solar PV !
I want a breakthroughs to happen quickly.
BUT, in my judgment, Wind Turbines will win the race with solar PV for the next couple of decades.
The world would be well served with two new renewable technologies that can scale up and economically replace fossil fuels. I think I see one such technology emerging in the near term and the other still on the edges.
I do hope that you are right !
Best Hopes,
Alan
But what % of US generation will come from such sources in 30 years (remember decay of solar PV) ?
My GUESS is about 4%. A useful extra source of renewable power.
Best Hopes,
Alan
In that spirit, how do you calculate 53% wind, 23% nuclear and 4% wind?
I should clarify that when I say "in the long run", I mean in about 50 years out for the status quo decentralized approach, and about 25 for a serious societal commitment.
For instance, Spain just legislated that all new construction must include a solar component (residential requires solar hot water heating, commercial/industrial needs PV). If we had such a requirement for PV in the US we could easily get to about 35% electricity from solar in in the long run: 125M buildings with an average of 5KW each and 20% load factor would generate 125GW on average.
Building owners would generate for $.07, sell through their time-of-day meters for $.15, and buy at night for $.05, and net a real profit on the deal.
Nuke provides base load in areas with poor to mediocre wind resources (that includes California and most large population centers). South & Central Florida may export nuke at night and import wind & pumped storage at peak.
Wind sources can be thought of as the Great Plains at the top (ND, SD, MN, IA, MO, WY, NE, CO, OK, TX) and as the "exporter". Offshore East & West Coast & Great Lakes will mainly serve localized markets and localized pumped storage.
(Some export, but a small %).
Low grade wind resources (load factors of 20% to 25% with oversized blades) will be used whereever possible to provide diversity and reduce transmission requirements. The same for rooftop PV (No solar PV in the Dakotas).
I take advantage of time zones "smearing" the peak for Great Plains exports. At least half of Great Plains wind exports would go to pumped storage at least halfway to final user than would be used directly though.
Massive pumped storage centers along Great Lakes, Rocky Mountains, Applachian Mts, and and slightly smaller centers in Ozarks and West Texas Davis Mts. Local ones using old mines, smaller hills, reversing hydro dams, etc. if good sites are rare.
An example. Chattanooga area has massive 30 GW pumped storage complex. Every night it gets excess nuke power from Florida and most nights from Oklahoma wind farms on HV DC.
During the day, local PV supplies 22% of peak demand in FL, nuke provides 55%, wind 6% (FL is poor wind site), and imports from pumped storage and/or OK wind farms (routed through Chattanooga) supply the balance.
I hope this helps conceptually.
Best Hopes,
Alan
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html
It indicates that there is a great deal of wind resource on all of the US coasts. The northeast and northwest are especially good, but California, Gulf of Mexico and southwest coast (including Florida) look good enough for large supplies.
Given that offshore wind is more reliable, I'd say that this suggests that we won't have to rely on the Midwest as much as we thought.
The added cost of insurance and social risk of extended blackouts make more than small and relatively minimal off-shore installations (note that Florida generates a few % from wind. Hopefully no more than 1% would be lost in any one year).
Unless they can create a WT that can survive 200 mph winds with comparable economics. Then yes. But I am loathe to assume such improvements.
Best Hopes,
Alan
It seems to me that hurricane risks are low. The Cape Wind turbines are rated to 150 MPH, which is Cat 4. Turbines are fairly widely spaced, so a whole farm isn't going to go out at once.
Oil rigs still operate in the GOM. WT's are going in off the Texas coast.
I suspect that you'd have a 1-2% per year chance of losing any individual turbine to a direct hit by a cat 5, which would raise costs by roughly the same factor.
Well, your annual capital cost is 10% or less of the total, so you costs might rise 10-20% overall. OTOH, this is an upper bound as wind turbine hurricane resistance is only going to rise. The penalty for transmission from the midwest, and pumped storage would be higher, so I would think that GOM turbines would be viable.
The first year there is a 4% of losing 24.5 years of service, teh second year a 4% chance of losing 23.5 years of service, ... Sum these up. The expected economic life of GoM hurricanes is cut in half !
The economic alternative for WTs is nukes. An mild excess at night that is exported to pumped storage (say Chattanooga), a shortage during the day that is made up, in part, by solar PV, , imports of Wind from elsewhere and Pumped Storage imports. (Pumped storage is also needed for WTs, no real difference for PS or transmission).
In addition, there is the social risk. A few years ago, GFlorida was hit by 4 hurricanes. A srong hurricane (not all were strong, but offshore hurricanes are stronger than on shore) and each can wipe out a 100 mile wide swath of WTs.
Note thst I included 6% from wind. Florida could lose half of that and, with proper planning, "get by". Not true for 50% of their power from wind.
Will WT maximumk wind resistance rise ? Only for speciality WTs. I expect the trend will be to drop, in order to lower weight, increase size, etc.
best Hopes,
Alan
Alan, how did you get this? The company installing WT's off of Galveston says their WT's will handle up to 155 MPH, which means it can handle anything but a direct hit from a category 5 hurricane.
That sounds to me like no more than a 1%-2% risk per year for any individual turbine, or roughly a 20% cost premium for hurricane risk, which seems to me tolerable. Certainly the company doing this windfarm seems to feel that way. How did you get 4%?
"Direct hits" (> 155 mph) by Cat 5 are quite broad. We seem to be entering a period of more intense hurricanes. At sea I remember Katrina >150 mph to be over 100 miles wide.
Remember, speed at landfall is NOT the issue for off-shore hurricanes. And any acturial calc will overestimate the risk and hence the premium.
And even a 1% risk of being w/o enough electricity for years is "not acceptable".
Alan
First, the Galveston WT's are rated for 155 MPH. With normal engineering safety margins that means that they are likely to survive higher speeds than that (with the cube law, 170MPH is 32% more powerful than 155 MPH, roughly a normal engineering safety margin) though the % likelihood of survival will begin to fall with rising speed. Katrina & Rita hit the coast at 125 and 115 MPH - were they over 155 just 10-20 miles from the coast?
2nd, wind damage to a turbine is unlikely to be a total loss. Steel tubes are very easy to engineer to any desired strength, so it's the blades that would be vulnerable to damage. They could be replaced relatively quickly and at only a fraction of the cost of the whole installation.
3rd, offshore techology is likely to go to floating platforms. Such WT's could be easily moved, and holes in a windfarm could be replaced with new ones, or ones from another even from another coast in a relatively short time (that's one of their selling points).
Finally, the Galveston project is going ahead. That area is as prone to hurricanes as any, and they clearly think the risk is acceptable.
We certainly live with the risk of a 1.3GW nuclear plant going out unexpectedly, and for an extended period. Individual wind farms are likely to be substantially smaller than that, and distributed over the coastline: would there be a significant risk of a large % of GoM WT capacity going out with one hurricane, or even one hurricane season?
As about CO2 increase from liquefaction, I'm not yet sure how this global warming thing will turn out (http://www.junkscience.com), and sequestration could be gradually introduced (and hopefully advanced to be economically feasible).
...
or for EV's. EV's are about 8x as efficient as the average gas car, and actually use less electricity than rail (at least directly - rail supports denser living, which helps some).
Conversion of all 210M light vehicles to EV's would require only about 13% more electricity from the grid, and save roughly 12M BPD.
Also, transit management today simply does not care about electrical consumption (MBTA in Boston would save a fortune by using standard fluorescent or CF bulbs, but they use incandescents 24 hours.day). A focus on electrical conservation (running single car trains off-peak if the demand is not there for example, station lighting or being concerned about weight for new cars, etc.) could drop the #s significantly.
Best Hopes,
Alan
But the question is: why don't they care? I suspect the answer is mostly that transit is already so efficient that it doesn't really matter that much - electricity costs just aren't that big as a % of the budget.
The same thing applies to EV's. If EV's reduce usage by 87%, there really isn't that much point to further reductions at greater marginal cost, (even though further efficiencies are certainly possible). Both transit and EV's solve the problem.
Put another way: gasoline vehicles currently cost about $.10 per mile. The electricity for EV's costs about $.02. Even if electricity doubles in price (which is very unlikely, even for 100% renewables), it will still only cost $.04 per mile. That's cheap enough.
He used to have a weekly or monthly column on the Fox News website.
He should definitely know something about junk science.
For actual science go read about climate change at http://www.realclimate.org
I wouldn't take anything it says, on anything, with any trust.
You may not be sure about how global warming will turn out, but the world scientific community is 99% agreed that:
- the world is warming up -- all of the challenges to that idea (eg the tropospheric mismeasurement problem) have been soundly defeated
- world atmospheric CO2 concentrations are at highs not seen in the last 500,000 years
- the main, primary or indeed only cause of global warming is human action due to greenhouse gas emission (and deforestation) (in the short run: no one serious disagrees that over the 1000s of years, the peturbation of the earth's orbit and the resultant change in solar intensity is a major factor in climate change).
Where there is disagreement is on the speed and the likely end point. There is a (growing) group of climate scientists (perhaps not yet the majority) who think it could be a lot worse, and a lot faster, than the existing consensus (as laid out in the IPCC reports). So the 2 degrees centigrade consensus (which assumes significant retarding action by humanity) could well be way, way, too optimistic.If you want true scientists who are global warming sceptics (and know anything about climate science, glaciology, oceanography etc.) you are down to a very small group.
Lindzen at MIT is the foremost. His main contention is that global warming (which he doesn't deny) will lead to more cloud formation, hence less solar radiation reaching the earth. He has, however, admitted that he doesn't know whether this will be the case, and that betting the future of the planet on that is something of a gamble.
Gray at Colorado is one of the world's leading storm experts. He says we are too reliant on our models. (Although Hansen's 1988 model (the central case, ie the one that his opponents deleted in repeating it) did indeed predict the world's temperature rise pretty exactly since 1988).
I've not found any other real climate scientists, with any track record in climate research, who doubt what I asserted at the start of this passage.
The time has moved past debate about the science.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/9A2/80/Ch_1__Science.pdf
The question now is what do we do about it, and how fast do we move?
As for the junkscience site, it appeals to those who like the sound of argument to fulfill some demand for absolute certainty in this and many other science issues. I find it appeals to the members of the church of "I don't wanna, you can't make me" when science might push us to confront our choices and our personal comfort levels with those choices.
But it also points out people's hypocrisy...they want absolute certainty on global warming (for example) but find ambiguity necessary for nearly every other aspect of their lives.
Ditto Tech Central Station (which I didn't know).
There is a massive disinformation campaign going on out there. Peer-reviewed science is essentially unanimous about the existence of Global Warming, and the likelihood that it is CO2 accumulation caused by human activity which accounts for it.
We know as much or more about global warming than we do about the ozone layer at the point we banned CFCs.
But the popular press acts as if there is still a meaningful scientific debate.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22jim+davis%22%2B%22swamp%22%2B%22garfield%22%2B%2 2sewage%22&btnG=Search
Someone knows what the noise in the machine is all about.
Sewage systems that work for home and profit. We can go local and always could we just did not think we could someone was selling us a bill of goods. The guys selling wanted us to believe that we had no choices.
200,000,000 million humans were supported on the system of the America's land masses, My source is a paradox, in a box and if you want to know what the answer to that littel ditty is, you have got to e.mail e.mail e.mail me, Leanan are you listening to it the noise im talking.
Ditto ditto ditto ditto dtito, did I mistake??? are you sure? LoL.
Thank I have been flying on the Rum in my gum, or the gum in my green, or the green in my gum or the hot air in my tummy and now the air is hot out both ends.
LOL I am an Author at Large
An Eagle eyed, Cat, who looks like a Bear and is as strong as an Ox.
http://www.dan-ur.blogspot.com
comments please????
Socially-conscious computer games
A comment and a question.
Is there ever any consideration given in any of these articles - maybe just a split second where the dots are connected (i.e. burning oil and climate change)- where even though we all simply marvel at the potential technology that could make it happen - well, maybe it's not the best thing to actually have it happen... I don't do predictions typically but I will go out on a limb and say that a couple hundred more years of business as usual does not paint a very optimistic picture for me...
The question: What quality oil does oil shale yield (relative to the sweet-light and sour-heavy scale) ?
Hence the need to enlist a national atomic laboratory in order to figure out a way we can convert it... so we can then burn it up in our cars...
Brilliant !
The real reason that oil replaced coal at the beginning of the 20th century is cost. Coal or tar or kerogen has to be mined, using coal miners, shipped, using railroads or trucks, and has an appreciable solid waste to be disposed of after the extraction process, requiring more transport. Allthese activities use a lot more labor than a refinery. The real, no joke costs, even ignoring the environmental costs, are 10 times that of even heavy oil.
In addition the mining and refining of bitumen or kerogen costs about $500,000 per barrel per day of production. Compare that with the cost of oil, which is maybe $50,000 per barrel per day at present-varying with each prospect, and has little waste disposal problem.
So the Cornucopians are comparing apples to oranges. Even biofuels and ethanol are closer to oil than kerogen or bitumen, and quite probably more economicially affordable
I have no idea on how to effectively confront Cornucopians on this issue. Their tactics of using fake definitions of oil are like those of the antiabortionists who call an undifferentiated mass of cells a baby. Kerogen and bitumen are just precursors to oil. Accepting them redefining oil is accepting the big lie.
For real though, I think it was alan drake posted about a huge wind farm solely to heat the kerogen and in peak hours sell electricity. I can't find the link. Even if it does not work, the prospect would still cause all those wind turbines to exist. Not bad.
The idea is take a high grade energy source and make a high grade power (electricity) then lower grade (heating)
Options: ICE - Internal combustion engine
Turbine
Stirling (what I wanted)
800 lbs 650 rpm 4.5 inch slow speed diesel (option I have)
ICE and turbines have "wear issues" because of the higher speeds they run at amd have more noise than Stirling Engines.
Stirling makers who were claiming a 5K price point:
http://www.whispergen.com/
http://www.microgen.com/
Whispergen knew people using biodiseel, but the power plant could not burn WVO like the lister-clone I ended up with.
And the latest "we are going to make a stirling engine based system"
http://www.openenergycorp.com/suncone/suncone.php
As with all things stirling - I'll believe it when I can buy it. (would have liked to owned an ST-5, but they are no longer made)
My opinion- the whispergen is a crank engine that has mechanical problems, and the microgen is a free piston that works but costs too much. The Honda CHP is on the market today and works- at a high price.
But, old jungle saying, if you can do it, you can do it better. Excelsior!
[ !!!Please forward to other lists!!! ]
I am going to host an informal social event at Kona Hawaii (airport
KOA), Feb 2007 to discuss the issues raised at "www.dieoff.com".
If you are interested in attending, please join
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KonaHi/ or send an email message to
KonaHi-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Everyone pays their own way. Only people who I have had some email
experience with over the years are eligible. The meeting will become
more clearly defined after I discover how many wish to attend.
Jay Hanson
Thxs for the headsup, but my Mom is too frail for me to go anywhere, and I cannot afford a Hawaii trip. Nonetheless, I am pulling for Jay's conference to be a big success as I consider him to be the WWWeb's original
Master-Blasterin regards to Overshoot & Peak Everything. Hopefully, those attending will do write-ups to post on TOD & EnergyBulletin [Nate, Darwinian, AMPOD?]Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington//16012061.htm
What do Pulitzers have to do with Geology?
(Remember, CERA is betting on Geopolitics... good luck DannyBoy Yerginz.)
=====America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It.
*"... the (european political) establishment has "come to regard the electorate as children."
*
The nanny state infantilized Europeans, making them worry about such pseudo-issues as climate change, while feminizing the males.* (Europe's economy depends on an) inter-generational Ponzi scheme
*
Eurabia." Europe's successor population is already in place and "the only question is how bloody the transfer of real estate will be."--------
Meanwhile, Some people think Radical Islam is "not a threat to Europe" ... and that Israel is "not sustainable."
Magic 8-ball says, "Time will tell..."
We all know where this one leads don't we, SOP?
Sounds like the same old song and dance we used in the biblical days.
This is exactly why shifting into a zero/negative growth paradigm will be next to impossible short of an event that imposes such a paradigm on people.
When one group/nation decides to slow their population growth rate, or power consumption, or economic growth, etc etc, they will be outpaced by groups that continue on a growth mindset. Eventually the growth oriented people will take over or push out the non-growth oriented people.
Its one of the reasons I think that I don't entertain the utterly romantically naive notions that some on these forums hold on to that we need to become a non-growth/negative growth culture. That path is guaranteed suicide and will lead another culture conquering ours.
No... We will and need to continue to grow... or at least continue to grow until we are the last ones standing. That or we had best figure out a way to make growth into space a feasible alternative. If we can push into space then we may have bought ourselves another several centuries worth to delay handling the problem. But given the current state of affairs I expect the world cultures to keep on growing until they physically can't.
Which is why it will never happen, there will always be a culture trying to increase in numbers, even other if cultures recognize the danger in non-stop growth. And as such the culture that grows will push out the cultures that don't.
This growth like I said applies to population, economic activity, and technological gains.
Now what may be possible is for a culture to somehow through the use of technology, maintain their hold on their land/resources by using that technology to allow a smaller population to accomplish the same things as a larger population with but fewer people. However, that culture would have to safeguard that technology and not allow access to it by the other cultures/nations.
A prime historical example of this is the arms race. Melee combat was the prodominant form of combat for a long time. When the first nation to perfect and mass deploy guns came along, it changed the rules of the game.
Going further down that progression, the development of the 6 shooter again revolutionized combat. It allowed one man to potentially take down 6 others before reloading. That has a huge impact when you are fighting against someone using a black powder weapon.
Taking it another step, the gatling and machine guns made a single nest of men, capable of shredding entire battalions of lesser armed men.
Chemical weapons allowed mass killing from a distance.
Nuclear weapons pushes this envelope even further.
But any time another culture can gain parity you've lost the edge, and more basic forms of growth kick in to be the dominant factor(population being chief amongst these). That's why I fear a nuclear armed China far more than a nuclear armed Russia. China has the bodies to absorb a massive devastation to its population. Russia didn't.
You destroy the largest 400 or so urban centres, you have killed several hundred million people, and industry and food production and distribution would collapse.
That would take 400 warheads: the US has over 10,000 in its stockpile, Russia has over 5,000, UK has about 400 nuclear weapons (give or take), France a bit more. Israel is estimated to have c. 250.
The US submarine missile fleet alone could destroy China as an advanced society. Each Trident sub has 16 missiles each with up to 3 (5?) warheads.
It's meaningless to talk about 'winning' a nuclear war. Any all out nuclear war will destroy the target society as a functioning civilisation.
That's the point, I'd say. Not whether you're prolific, but whether you can support your overflowing cup. As a Thurber story one concluded, 'There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.'
The argument of whether 'we' or 'they' will win is grown from an ancient xenophobia, but it is an illusion. We are all able to interbreed, and though most don't step that far afield, some always do, and that fact means we are still a single species and not (evolutionarily speaking) in competition) .. so then whoever is on the 'outs' with the mainstream 'ethnicity'culture.. will be that much more desirable a mate to some rebellious kid within the elite, and so everyone gets to genetically tag along.
I don't think we have much control over population, anyway (as you also said).. Human Capital is still priceless, /and
we have never come close to 'solving' the Urge to Merge.. I know people who were devoutly childless.. absolutely NO interest and even a pronounced revulsion to the idea of parenting. Then, a certain girlfriend or boyfriend enters the scene, and the music just starts, with no warning at all. Voila! Mother Nature takes that silly little chip off another shoulder.Crude a build of 1.3 million barrels.
Gasoline a draw of 3.7 million barrels.
Distillates a draw of 3.6 million barrels.
This is bullish all over. Crude, unleaded gas and heating oil are all up slightly on the news.
These numbers will be available at 1PM Eastern Time here.
Inventories in Gasoline and Distillates are probably way down because imports are down. At any rate that info will be available on the web in two and one half hours.
Ron Patterson
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending November 10, 2006
What's the weather forecast?
SAT - if your're round, this is my new disguise and this is the big day when the biggest commodities bull run in the history of the Universe resumes.
I could not agree more.
The last 6 months, everything has gone right in terms of driving down the cost of oil. No hurricanes, cool summer, warm winter predicted, slow down in the economy, and finally we hit the shoulder season etc...
Meanwhile oil is off it's high's but still on it's long term upward trend line.
Major Oil companies are at or near all time highs (XOM, CVX, SU).
There has been a burst of publicity for non-scalable solutions like ethanol and CTL and Oil Shale. A proverbial smoke screen if ever there was one.
The big oil fields are starting to show their age. Production from Cantarell and the North Sea are dropping.
The new big "finds" that are hyped to death are in reality quite small or incredibly difficult to produce or both. (Jack)
There's no doubt in my mind that prices are headed higher.
Then again - I'm often wrong.
- Don't want to lose any more than I invest (I believe I can accomplish this by using options instead of straight futures).
- I don't want to pay fees and commissions through the teeth.
- I don't want to have to manage the investments constantly. I'd like to go long on these commodities, so I'd like to just sink a bunch of money into them and wait 5 years, doing not much more than checking in once a month.
Is what I'm looking for out there? Any recommendations on how to proceed? Know any good brokers who will explain all this to me and help me out without taking my shirt?Thanks,
Tom A-B
Having said all that I would love to do the same as you only I'm limited by my demographic place in life. I am asking that all people who want to know what toget me, get me a silver liberty eagle coin or any pure silver coins in $20 denominations. I'll hang on as long as possible.
You may want to look into ETFs if you're going to buy and hold.
There is USO for oil, GLD & SLV for precious metals, and DBC for commodities. XLE is an energy ETF which has been doing pretty consistently well recently. You may also want to check out CPO for corn.
As for low commissions, I opened up a Scottrade account a couple of years ago because they were the best deal I could find. Low trades ($7 per) and no monthly/maintenance fees. You can basically just plop you're money in there and only worry about the market, not your broker siphoning monies.
I there's been a recent development with more budget brokers, so you may want to do more research. From what I've seen they charge monthly fees to give you low or zero per trade costs. (I'd be interested to hear from anyone on the budget broker front.)
As for a live broker, running trades through live brokers is usually pretty expensive. Compare $42 at Scottrade vs. $7 doing it yourself through their web interface.
Do your own research, get opinions, and execute the trades yourself.
On this board, SAT is probably one to talk to, but I have a feeling he keeps his cards to his chest. :)
Finally, it looks from where I'm standing we're seeing a resurgence in tech stocks, but with the economy and debt as it is, it may be risky. I just don't know enough to make that call.
Good luck!
gr1nn3r
http://www.dismally.com - Perspective from a currency trader. Interesting analysis, and doesn't look like he's out to sell you anything.
http://www.321energy.com
http://www.321gold.com
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/ - Really interesting to read and is definitely bearish. May lean a little towards tinfoilish, but very well written.
When reading online, always be careful of who is trying to sell you what. They may have a financial stake in convincing you of one thing while the market is doing something else.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone else can recommend more reading.
gr1nn3r
The problem is runs to refineries were running at 87.3% that's down about 6% or 1 million Brl's/d, had the extra 6% been run another 7million Brl's would have been required for the week. Then the Crude inventory build would not have been 1.3 million it would have been a 5.7 million Brl draw. Since production was about flat that means more imports were required. 5.7 million Brl's of crude will not provide 7.3 million Brl's of product to maintain product inventories. So currently we are not importing enough to cover our consumption.
- crude production: -96 kbpd
- crude imports: +71 kbpd
- NGL: +131 kbpd
- product imports: -156 kbpd
(Net -50 kbpd)So increases in crude imports and NGL production don't offset declines in crude production and product imports. Hence the draw of 17 Mb in total stocks (= approx 50 kbpd * 313 days)
YTD (313 days) 2006 v 2005. All units kbpd:
crude production: -96
crude imports: +71
NGL: +131
product imports: -156
----
-50
-50 kbpd * 313 days ~= storage drop of 17M barrels.
I also see the imports of finished gasoline at its lowest while the stock of finished gasoline is at a historical low of 110500 kb. This may not be worrysome as Robert Rapier said. Some of the blending components can readily been put through blenders to make the stuff in almost real time. But we should remind us that half of the blending components are ethanol, not so easily converted to gasoline. And still, the ultimate buffer of gasoline depletes fast ... policy or inability to keep up with consumption ?
P.S. I tried to correlate even and uneven years with the variation of the retail price of gasoline but I haven't found any correlation until now.
Gasoline and oil prices have not reconnected and resumed their long-term relationship, though they got close during the Katrina/Rita aftermath.
Other than the election campaign, I can't find anything that suddenly devalued gasoline relative to oil (or made other products more valuable).
The only other decouplings of gas and oil prices occurred in the late 1997 through 1998 period (gasoline prices were much higher relative to oil but that reflected the base of taxes incleded in gasoline's price as oil fell through $20/barrel) and during the first Gulf War. But for all other times gasoline and oil prices have been highly correlated.
Usins a simple proportionality gasoline prices should be more than $3.25/gallon. Using other least square regressions, gasoline should be anywhere from $0.25-0.40/gallon than they are currently.
But I have discovered something useful.
If you want to know what the average price of gasoline will be for the calendar year (nationally over all formulations), whatever the 15th week report of prices are will put you, on average, within 2% of the year long average. Even under the current decoupling, this relationship appears true.
The Oil Daily quotes the EIA a week or so ago as stating the 'drawdown of inventories over the next two months will be twice as fast as normal (16 million barrels)'.
The OPEC cutbacks haven't even shown up in crude imports yet (in the US). I think the EIA will be revising down their estimate of where inventories will be soon.
What fraction of oil is traded this way? How would it affect conclusions developed from your Declining Net Export analysis? I can only imagine it would make things worse in the US.
http://www.grinzo.com/energy/blog_entry_archive/2006/11/2006x11x15_1.html
No, I mean that literally. The weather is so unseasonably warm in Russia that the bears are not hibernating.
Given the need, I would favor a temporary shutdown to implement better safety systems and try to bring the plant (whose pressurized water design isn't inherently unstable like the RMBK's at Chernobyl) up to Western standards, myself.
I know almost from first hand what is the situation in Kozloduy, and I have also visited the plant personally. The truth is that units 3 and 4, that are about to be shut down are much more advanced designs that 1 and 2 which were shut down in 2004. The major difference is that 1 and 2 lacked containment vessels that would prevent radioactive material to escape into environment in case of a meltdown.
During the last 15 years a relatively poor country like Bulgaria invested some 1 bln.euro in the modernization of the plant and 3&4 were the most invested units. We have been heavily inspected by all the international agencies you can think of - IAEA, EU energy commission etc. The conclusion was the same after each inspection - the units are meeting the european standards for safety.
The current outcome was entirely politically motivated. The greens from Germany and our neighbour Greece, as well as the French which are building a nuclear plant in the northern neighbor - Romania forced it upon us as a condition for joining EU. The good news is that the Bulgarian government started the procedure of finishing the other nuclear plant that was started prior to the collapse of socialist countries in 1989 - the one in Belene.
It is a rarely spoken topic in western media, but it has been long suspected that within EU, Eastern Europe will be designated to take the burden of accepting more polluting or politicaly unacceptable productions, which on the other hand provides a good market for western companies. For us this is not so bad, as these countries are starved for investments, but it is not quite clear what will be the price for the enviroment.
<strikethrough>blast shield</strikethrough> containment vessel
We are posiioned very well for nuclear, because we have a long history of relations with Russia - they are providing us with the reactors and the fuel and are taking care of the spent fuel. A perfect example of what international nuclear cooperation should look like, and how a country like Russia can very well benefit from its specialisation.
When a foreigner reads such articles he/she maybe assumes that bears are roaming on streets in Siberia. I have to disenchant you. To meet a wild bear is extremely rare event in the life of average russian. I had been living in a small workers' settlement in the western Siberia for 11 years (all my school years) and never saw a bear (nor elk, lynx, sable...) - only hares and squirrels, despite the fact that me and my pals passed almost all the free time in the woods.
Encounters with wild bears are not unusual in the U.S. Though it's just black bears, mostly. They get in people's garbage, and excite motorists who drive by them on highways. Occasionally, one gets hit by a car. A friend of mine had her car completely totaled when she hit a black bear twice. She was going about 55 mph, hit the bear, then hit it again when it landed in front of her car. The bear got up and ran off so fast the wildlife officials couldn't track it.
And here's a photo of someone's family cat treeing a young bear:
Thxs for the picture--LOL! My guess is the young bear was more scared by the photographer, or other humans standing around off picture, than the cat. I think if conditions were different that cat would probably be a bear's snack! Hope the humans shortly ignored the bear so he could climb down and amble off into the woods--or did someone shoot him?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The neighbors actually saw the bear being terrorized by the cat, and went and knocked on the owner's door, so she could call her cat inside.
Thanks for the pic!
A major flaw in the CERA report is its reliance upon questionable assessments of global reserves by the USGS. USGS estimates of future world reserves equate a 50 percent probability with a 50th percentile or mean. That is a bizarre and totally inaccurate use of statistics.
(( meanwhile our scientifically illiterate congress awaits further reports:))
"I look forward to two forthcoming reports about peak oil to move this policy debate forward," said Congressman Bartlett. "A report that I requested from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is expected in early 2007."
Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman commissioned a report by the National Petroleum Council (NPC) expected to be released in mid-2007."
(( and in the meantime, CERA prays to the godz of "geopolitics, conflict, economics and technology"...))
http://divinelotus.freehostia.com/WordPress/2006/11/15/nuclear-spent-fuel-pools-vulnerable/
He was supposed to simulate a terrorist attack on the facility. However, his bosses told him to "go easy". Instead, he hit right to the greatest security flaw in the facility, the spent fuel pools. He came in on a boat from the Hudson bay, took out two guards, and lobbed a mock incendiary into the pool. I don't remember the issue, but the analysis showed that the entire new england area would be dead, and the entire eastern seabord would have dangerous radiation poisioning in a short amount of time.Antoher example of the 'failure mode' that gets ignored.
Terrorist action against the spent fuel storage facility could result in a catastrophic failure of the containment system. NRC has never established that the Indian Point spent fuel storage facility is secure against foreseeable attacks. Likewise, the Commission cannot be certain that the structure of the storage facility is sufficiently sound to preclude the possibility of a spent fuel fire in the event of an airborne, land, or water based assault.
NRC has not properly evaluated the consequences of terrorist attack on the spent fuel storage area. In a study conducted by the NRC in October 2000, it stated that:
the risk analysis in this study did not evaluate the potential consequences of a sabotage event that could directly cause off-site fission product dispersion, for example, a vehicle bomb driven into or otherwise significantly damaging the SFP [Spent Fuel Pool], even after a zirconium fire was no longer possible."[16]
A likely result of an aircraft crashing into a spent fuel storage facility, or of a truck bomb explosion similar to that which destroyed the Alfred E. Murrow Federal Building, would be a precipitous loss of cooling water in the spent fuel pools. During the course of normal operation, the presence of cooling water reduces heat produced by the decaying fuel rods and minimizes the potential for fire in the fuel cladding. In the absence of cooling water, adequate air circulation through the spent fuel storage racks is necessary to prevent such a fire.Partial dewatering of the storage pools will block this air flow, especially if the racks are damaged or obstructed by falling debris or the force of an explosion.
A reduction of cooling water in the spent fuel pools could lead to a catastrophic release of radiation. As the water in the fuel pool is reduced the remaining water will heat up and evaporate.This could expose the zirconium cladding which surround the spent fuel rods to oxygen and steam, resulting in an exothermic reaction that will lead to a spent fuel rod assembly fire. This event would release deadly amounts of radiological material and toxic fumes. The NRC October 2000 report stated:
This reaction of zirconium and air, or zirconium and steam is exothermic (i.e., produces heat). The energy released from the reaction, combined with the fuels decay energy, can cause the reaction to become self-sustaining and ignite the zirconium. The increase in heat from the oxidation reaction can also raise the temperature in adjacent fuel assemblies and propagate the oxidation reaction. The zirconium fire would result in a significant release of the spent fuel fission products which would be dispersed from the reactor site in the thermal plume from the zirconium fire. Consequence assessments have shown that a zirconium fire could have significant latent health effects and resulted (sic) in number of early fatalities.[17]
(Nov 2001 report on said location)
I've written about strong hybrids with a modular genset before - since on average one only needs perhaps 15 horsepower, battery techs are advancing,and most trips can be done on plug-in juice.
The barrier seemed to be finding an engine that can do 15 horsepower efficiently and still be vaguely man-portable for modularity, so everyone isn't forced to use a crane or a trailor every time they want to go to the beach for the weekend.
At some point between reading about the Bourke engine and a daydream about a magnetic coilgun, I came up with the idea of a two-sided combustion chamber with one cylinder, generating electricity by ping-ponging from one chamber to the other, moving through an inductive alternator. No lateral forces involved, no camshafts, no gears. Just a pair of intake and exhaust valves, fuel injectors, and perhaps a spark plug on each end of the cylinder.
Simplest generator imaginable in the electromagnetic age. Terribly high power to weight ratio since the vast majority of the parts of an engine or generator are eliminated.
And mostly impractical until we developed neodymium magnets and electronic ignition in the 80's.
After several hours of rabid googling, I found I'd been beaten on the idea by 7 years, by someone at Sandia.
And...
A prototype achieved fifty six percent thermal efficiency on propane and natural gas.
I wonder what it would get with BMW's Turbosteamer cogen system. The inventor seems to be pushing it as a way to kill NOX emissions, but those kind of thermal efficiency numbers are serious business in and of themselves. Particularly if the engine is tiny.
-------------------
In other news for the same target segment, the military has a strong hybrid jeep in the works, the MP Hybrid, using a new way of arranging a diesel engine which seems to shrink a diesel by 75% in volume and mass for the same power. It gets 50mpg. It uses the motor as a briefcase-sized luggable genset on a vehicle that's somewhere between a lowpowered utility microcar and a jeep, to be removed and used as a camp generator if needed. Imagine several of these engines being installable in your car, depending on the circumstances, and being able to start them up seperately.
They plan on doing dual commercial-military apps, with a pricetag of $20k.
There are several proposed engines that enter the acceptable power:weight ratio like the MYT's rotary approach, but none seem to be as far along as the MP Hybrid's engine.
www.cyclonepower.com
Kinda different... Don't know if it's applicable in the real world, but supposedly it's light, and can vary fuel consumption based on load. Probably still a pipedream in reality.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
But when it does, it's entirely dependant on temperature differences and compression ratios (pressure differences), not fixed at 50%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle
The problem is we use heat engines that have a hot end of maybe 1000C and a cold end of maybe 400, and of course we dont have perfect thermal transfers in the real world so we have other losses. We could do much better if we had materials that could stand up to the heat and not corrode, or if we can use electromagnetic confinement to spare the walls while doing magnetohydrodynamic energy generation. An interesting topic for the plasma core reactors of the far future perhaps.
Also, how are your Stirling experiments coming on?
Let the TRUTH come out! Let's have a shoot-out-drop-dead competition on a hot desert afternoon in New Mexico, and see who wins the solar-electricity competition. $/watt is the target, nothing else matters. Of course I am talking about REAL $, that is, sum of all costs to put the world back together after the thing is done.
I'm not sure who I would bet on. Way to find out -- in the rear view mirror after the contest.
As for my little recreational efforts- every day great idea, every next day, turned out to be stupid, day after, another great idea--------.
But it's my money, so, no worse than golf.
Executive summary. Did I really say one kilowatt? Don't look at that wattmeter- Actually, it's busted. Concentrate on how quiet the whole thing is.
The problems mentioned in the pdf involve the required airgap of a sterling piston, eddy currents in the steel casing (which can be mitigated by modern composites or non-ferrous metals), and problems with using weak magnets or moving coil alternators.
I don't see how anything but the eddy currents apply - and that could be dealt with in several ways.
http://www.baesystems.se/Hagglunds/default.asp
for the "Bonner" engine ..
Sounds like your idea ..
Triff ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car
It's well understood amongst historians of technology that 'the better guy lost' in the Otto cycle (Internal Combustion Engine) v. Steam Engine debate.
The big gain seems to be you don't need that transmission to gear down a 1000+ RPM engine to rotate the wheels. Steam power tractors also still win tug-o-wars against diesel powered ones at country fairs (more torque).
A steam-electric car could produce, I suspect, really extraordinary energy efficiencies.
More green energy use could cut costs, study finds
The RAND report is here:
Impacts on U.S. Energy Expenditures of Increasing Renewable Energy Use (PDF file)
It is a dense 93-page report, not a casual read. Here is the first paragraph from the executive summary:
Myth: Solar electricity is too expensive.
There is a huge public misconception that solar energy is
simply too expensive to bother with. The reality is that, both
on and off-grid, solar energy is cost effective in many
applications.
Right out of the gate, it's important to understand that
on-grid, a substantial amount of "smoke and mirrors" is
going on behind the scenes, making true energy cost
comparisons unfair at best. The historical trend shows
U.S. federal energy subsidies favoring mature energy
sources like coal and nuclear over renewable sources by a
factor of one hundred to one. A report based on U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) data by the Congressional
Research Service (CRS) states, "Because the great bulk of
incentives support mature fossil and nuclear equipment,
the existing subsidy structure markedly distorts the
marketplace for energy in a direction away from
renewables."
The bottom line is that renewable energy appears to be
more expensive than traditional electricity generation
sources, but the reality is that you pay the difference every
year come tax time. If you include the costs of increased
pollution, habitat destruction, health care costs, etc., then
RE looks even better. Fortunately, many individual states
are doing what the feds refuse to do, and are implementing
rebate programs for renewables that serve to even out the
financial playing field a bit. For some great economic
analyses of the cost effectiveness of grid-tied PV, see the
article by Greg Bundros in HP99 and the article by Paul
Symanski in this issue.
Off-grid, people have been realizing the financial
advantages of solar energy for more than a decade. Property
beyond the reach of the utility grid is typically undervalued,
and a great investment. We're not necessarily talking about
living "out in the sticks." A good rule of thumb is that a
solar-electric system costs less than a utility line extension of
a quarter mile (0.4 km) or more.
I had the local utility provide me with an estimate for
running a line to my off-grid home site (though I was
never going to take them up on it!). They came up with a
cost figure of US$32,000. I used this estimate as leverage
when I purchased the property, which substantially
lowered the seller's asking price. From day one,
renewable energy technology saved me over US$10,000
compared to bringing the grid in. How's that for an
incentive!
homepower.com (Issue #100)
Bob Fiske
Now, a dumb technical question on the EIA data:
Gasoline inventories down 3.7 million barrels (>500k b/d)
Yet, gasoline production + imports was 9.77 mb/d for the week while demand was only 9.11 mb/d for the week. What is the explanation for why their numbers would imply an increase in inventories though they actually decreased? The same is true for each of the past two months, so clearly there's an adjustment of some sort that's needed to interpret the different pieces of the report.
Thanks!
http://www.sociopathic.net/enter.htm
Funny and right up several folk's alleys. TOD centric post.........
The young lady is selling door to cleaning products and I ask her if I can drink it and she says no. I chuckle and hand the bottle back to her. Yummy eyes she had I love the eyes of the people I talk too. Anyway she gave me a list of things that were in it. I Laugh and hand the bottle back to her. Claim I will have to go through some people, My parents don't buy things from door to door. Yet if she were selling water everyone in town would buy it.
Water in the right form can wash anything clean. OIL is cut with steam, ICE cuts mountains, Water too, And the oceans hold every mineral known to man in them.
DO NOT GO OUT THERE ALONE take a FACT with you.
Be a Para-Docs and help the childern.
LOL I am an Author at Large
An Eagle eyed, Cat, who looks like a Bear and is as strong as an Ox.
http://www.dan-ur.blogspot.com
comments please????
In a reply above it was mentioned that road asphalt has more oil in it than kerogen. Sometime in the future (no predictions) our descendents will mine the pavement for the hydrocarbons, maybe to make waterproof roofing material, much the same as the Britons mined the old Roman roads for building material.
A promising geothermal energy development was shot down in the 9th circuit court because the Dept. of Interior extended the lease before doing the environmental studies. When the EIS was completed, some of the decision makers were leaning toward no action, but a department of justice memo said no-action was out of the question because that would make the government liable for breach of contract with Cal-Pine. In spite of the adverse impacts on one Indian tribe's sacred sites, I hope this is eventually straightened out and completed.
A question for the readers, energy related tho not oil.
My water system is gravity-fed spring water. It runs continously, and must to preclude winter freezeup(pipe travels a good distance over exposed bedrock) My water pressure is around 95 psi, with a flow of about 10 gpm. When I first looked into microhydro about 5 yrs ago, using a pelton wheel, I came up with with a production of about 50 watt and a installed cost of around 10,000 dollars. Not cost effective enough for me. Anyone know of new technologies that might make this system more cost effective?
Also Yahoo has Microhydro group (I am inactive member).
Join & ask there.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Ampair's 100 watt Aquair UW water generator for $1,280
Oops, you wanted gravity fed: upto 1 kW ES&D Dual Nozzle Stream Engine Turbine for $1,895
HTH
Alan
Ampair's 100 watt Aquair UW water generator for $1,280.
upto 1 kW ES&D Dual Nozzle Stream Engine Turbine for $1,895.
http://www.platypuspower.com.au/
with a choice of size and AC/DC.
Is a Ukrainian food vs Russian fuel war starting?This link is headlined, "Announcement of ambassadors of Germany, the USA and Netherlands concerning limitations for grain export introduced by Ukraine" :
--------------------------------------
We, the Ambassadors of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the United States of America wish to convey our concerns regarding the implementation of grain export restrictions by the government of Ukraine....
...While we understand the Ukrainian government's concerns for food security, the justifications for grain export restrictions have not been convincing. Estimates from a variety of credible sources indicate that this year's wheat harvest is in line with normal historical averages at around 14 million tons. Despite the availability of wheat, the State Grain Reserve made no new purchases grain in the month since the export restrictions were announced.
We also fail to understand how food security can explain the government's decision to limit exports of feed grains such as barley and corn. Ukraine's barley crop, according to all available estimates, is significantly higher this year than last year. Ukraine's farmers should be able to take full advantage of international markets to sell that crop.
We recommend that the government of Ukraine repeal the harmful export restriction policies.
Ambassador of Germany in Ukraine - Reinhard Schefers
Ambassador of the USA William Taylor
Ambassador of the Netherlands Ron Keller
----------------------------------------
From the [CIA Factbook https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/up.html] for Ukraine:
-----------------------------
After Russia, the Ukrainian republic was far and away the most important economic component of the former Soviet Union, producing about four times the output of the next-ranking republic. Its fertile black soil generated more than one-fourth of Soviet agricultural output, and its farms provided substantial quantities of meat, milk, grain, and vegetables to other republics. Likewise, its diversified heavy industry supplied the unique equipment (for example, large diameter pipes) and raw materials to industrial and mining sites (vertical drilling apparatus) in other regions of the former USSR. Ukraine depends on imports of energy, especially natural gas, to meet some 85% of its annual energy requirements. Shortly after independence was ratified in December 1991, the Ukrainian Government liberalized most prices and erected a legal framework for privatization, but widespread resistance to reform within the government and the legislature soon stalled reform efforts and led to some backtracking. Output by 1999 had fallen to less than 40% of the 1991 level. Loose monetary policies pushed inflation to hyperinflationary levels in late 1993. Ukraine's dependence on Russia for energy supplies and the lack of significant structural reform have made the Ukrainian economy vulnerable to external shocks. A dispute with Russia over pricing led to a temporary gas cut-off; Ukraine concluded a deal with Russia in January 2006, which almost doubled the price Ukraine pays for Russian gas, and could cost the Ukrainian economy $1.4-2.2 billion and cause GDP growth to fall 3-4%.
-------------------------
From this link:
----------------------------
In case we will be confident the country possesses enough grain supplies, we will abolish all the restrictions, introduced earlier, Mykola Azarov said. In turn, Vice Prime Minister Andriy Kliuyev stated his opinion, that licensing grain export enabled to avoid price hike for bread. Thus the Agrarian Policy Minister faced a choice, either to impose quoting and provide Ukraine with sufficient amounts of bread, or cut grain supplies, which will lead to twofold price boost for bread.
----------------------------
Are world grain supplies reaching a critical level where hoarding is now essential?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Here is another interesting link:
----------------------------
Russia will be a major agricultural power in the 21st century
Russian Agriculture Minister Aleksei Gordeyev talks with MN's Dmitry Dokuchayev about this year's harvest and national priority project.
Has the national project had any impact on the sector so far?
Needless to say, the project will not automatically resolve all problems that have accumulated in the agro-industrial sector. Furthermore, many of these problems remain outside the national project. For example, the so-called price disparity - i.e., the rapid rise in energy prices. Or the expansion of foreign producers on the Russian market - in other words, our dependence on imports. Or social programs in the countryside.
But at the same time, the national priority project helps address several key problems. For instance, modernization of the stock-raising sector: Investment in the sector has quadrupled so far this year. What is even more important is that private farmers have seen that they can rely on state support. This year the number of farmers who have received preferential loans has increased 900% on last year.
Furthermore, under the national project, young specialists working in the countryside are entitled to free housing.
It would be strange if I did not ask you about this year's harvest.
Generally, the results are quite good, especially considering bad weather conditions. We will harvest 73 million metric tons of grain. This is enough to meet our domestic needs and maintain our export potential (about 10 million tons). The vegetable, potato and sugar beet harvest will also be good. On the whole, gross agricultural produce will grow this year, even if slightly, compared with last year.
-----------------------
Ok, I admit that I am no ag-expert,
but with good harvests this year, why does he state Russian dependence on food imports?I am confused, just as I am confused why Ukraine needs to hoard their harvest, too. Any experts out there in TODland to clear this issue up for me?Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Grain stockpiles are gone, with Lester Browne stating a total window of only 57 days. This year the Australian drought cut grain yields dramatically in that country, forcing them to have very little for export. The markets in the US shot up. Soft white wheat topped 5.10 a bushel, hard red topped 5.80. Not since the Russian wheat deal of the 70's have wheat prices gone so high. Locally, most farmers are hedging their bets, holding their grain in case of higher prices. Even oats almost increased 50% this fall from prices last year. Last fall I bought local oats delivered at 100/ton, now you can't find them.
A compounding factor in the US grain markets is the number of ethanol plants started this year, projected to grow even more this winter and spring. Taking all that corn out of animal feedstuffs forces us to look to other grains, and their price rises.
Thxs for responding with the 57 days stockpile info. A Just-In-Time [JIT] food delivery system doesn't work when it takes more than 57 days to grow a grain crop.
This controversial link argues that TPTB have started
Globalization's Policy of Famine:--------------------------
Wheat Supplies Plunge
Each year, the October world harvest report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides an occasion to review the crop-by-crop status of global production, stocks, trade, and consumption. This year, alarm bells are ringing. The statistics in the Oct. 12 USDA's "World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates" show that the 2006 world production level for what's called, "total grains"--wheat and all other grains combined--is below the average annual level of world grain consumption, for the sixth year, out of the last seven. Therefore, world stockpiles have been drawn down to the level of shortages. In particular, wheat stocks are expected to drop to their lowest level in 25 years, in absolute tonnage terms. Therefore, on a per capita basis, even lower; i.e., below required human consumption levels.
Three features of the situation are important to grasp. First, the extreme dimensions of the crisis. Secondly, how globalization and the cartel "players" are acting to cause food insecurity. And lastly, how insane it is for policy-makers to propose using food and feed crops for biofuels, in the face of the current shortages.----------------------------------------
Here is a Canadian viewpoint too:
----------------------------------
Is Global Warming an Intentional "De-population" strategy?Harper Government's policies consistent with U.S. right wing "Brave New World" perspectives
Garth Turner, who is a Member of Parliament, rebelled against the Stephen Harper minority government policies on Global Warming.
It is apparent that the Stephen Harper minority government is well aware of the Global Warming phenomenon; but has refused to substantively redress this vital human survival issue.
EIR reported in its March 10, 1981 issue, on an alleged Haig-Kissinger "Global 2000" "de-population" plan. This alleged "Global 2000" report sought to reduce the world's population by 2 billion people "through war, famine, disease and any other means necessary...", including Global Warming. EIR also further reported in their submission that "There is a single theme behind all our work -- we must reduce population levels," as stated by Thomas Ferguson, the Latin American case officer for the State Department's Office of Population Affairs (OPA).
EIR further cites
"Civil wars are somewhat drawn-out ways to reduce population," the same OPA official added. "The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa [that would also be caused by on-going Global Warming related catastrophic climate change] or through disease."Our planet Earth is in danger from Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) Magazine, reported U.S.-led neo-conservative depopulation policies, which apparently include intentional Global Warming. Mr. Harper in Canada, appears to be copying these policies.
Apparent intentional Global Warming is also consistent with such alleged active "depopulation" policies cited by EIR, which are designed to pit group against group, in areas like the Middle East, and other parts of the World, where there are often precious natural resources.
Global Warming will cause our planet to become far less hospitable for billions of people, who will perish from such famine and related disease, and resulting "Wars for resources", which will apparently "free-up the world's dwindling resources for elites."
---------------------------------
So one website is far-right--the other website far-left, but maybe both are correct? I have no idea, but I am not happy about the razor's edge of only 57 days of global grains. Please read both links in their entirety, not just my quick summaries.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
GW is putting all sorts of water, HEAT, SNOW, something in the air we breath, It reminds me of High summer I have a cough and so does my dad, winter is our time of rest from the ailments of the summer heat. Low humidity and low heat great for us, LOL low temps and LOTS of water, not so great for us.
Hydro power on the river is high, North Little Rock gets Hydro power for some of its Electricity, We have stranded GAS I am sure in Arkansas and we have Nukes. GEE and localization is going on full stream ahead in North Little Rock, the downtown is totally Walkable, I did it yesterday at the job fair.
http://www.schwansjobs.com has jobs and they use Propane in their trucks have since the founding og the company the rep said. Lots of great things come in small localization packages.
Thinking about cooking digging in the files of my dad's big black books his personal collections of recipes, we are still planning Thanksgiving Dinner. After all I have a fully certified Chef living in my house, My DAD. What better way to download his experience into my head that cook on a daily basis with him, And he is also a Trained Dietitian, (( diet titan odd there ))So I am going to school for free, room and board profit magins not going to a school but to my parents in my experience in cooking in their diet, the fruits of the earth in their meals.
I'll have a recipe tested the first one I have that I copied off the back of a skippy jar. I think the recipe is flawed but Have to prove it. So well will be making it soon, next week. When the rain lets up we have a wall to put up for sorting the piles of screws we have in the carport and the other places. His collection is like most peoples sand collections. LOL If he has ever needed it, he has some of them, if he has never needed it and can't find it in the piles he goes and adds to the pile. LOL I am getting an education this year.
More Recipes from the PO Cliff EDGE Later.
LOL I am an Author at Large
An Eagle eyed, Cat, who looks like a Bear and is as strong as an Ox.
http://www.dan-ur.blogspot.com
comments please????
The answer:
Great. He could have elaborated on the policies though.
A senior minister said that it was serious problem and policies were under development. And the Defence Minister answered ! So this is not (my guess) a one portfolio policy.
I would NOT expect a detailed policy announcement on TV (just not how it is fone !)
Best Hopes,
Alan
Early in her presentation she dismissed discussion of peak by saying:
She seems more concerned about maintaining our access to the production/reserves we know about rather looking at peak oil - there is a small amount of logic in there somewhere.
At the same conference last year she said there would be a government investigation but when asked where it was she had to admit that it hadn't happened, suggesting that there wasn't the resources (people and budget rather than oil!) and that other things were high priority.
Maybe you didn't read this all the way through. Go
down about three paragraphs.
Greetings to your family,
This letter must come to you as a big surprise, but I
believe it is only a day that people meet and become
great friends/ business partners. I am DR. IDRIS RIMI,
currently Head of #1,593 Community Farm in Burkina
Faso.
I write you this proposal in good faith, believing
that I can trust you with the information I am about
to reveal to you.I have an urgent and very
confidential business proposition for you. On June
5th,2000, a German international goat herder, who is
the head the Smeely Cheese Company here in Burkina
Faso Mr.Christian Eich left 17,500 goats in my care.
These goats have since multiplide and are beginning to
overun all of Burkina Faso. Before this date, I have
tried my possible best to locate a Next of Kin to late
Mr. Eich, but all efforts prooved abortive, because
all his family, including his Son In-Law and children
died in the plane crash of Concorde
Air France Flight AF4590 which took place on 31st July
2000, some months after he left these damn goats in my
care.
You can read more stories about the plane crash by
visiting this
website,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm
With the recent deforestation of my country by these
goats and with their efforts to support the United
Nations in checkmating biological terrorism aid in
the Burkina Faso. By end of January this year, the
Federal Government and the Agricultural Government has
pass a new domestic animal terrorism Law which will
give the Government authority to interrogate all goat
owners of above 50 animals to explain the reason for
destroying our agricultural economy with these goats,
making sure it is not an act of terrorism.
If I do not move these damn goats out of the country
immediately, by December the Government will
definitely remove my precious testicles, because my
country cannot provide the people with their Playboy
renewal subscription which is a civil right in our
country. Long live Hugh Hefner!
I decided to utilize this life time opportunity,
instead of Government cutting off my cohonis, but a
foreigners instead. That is why I am contacting you
for an assistance. As the goat hereder to late Mr.
Eich, coupled with my present position and status in
the village, I have some vital informations that can
help any foreigner that comes up as the Next of Kin to
become the scapegoat. Then I shall give you up.
I shall supply you with a Visa, airplane tickets, and
the best medical care that Burkina Faso can provide
after they remove your nuts. The transaction will be
executed under a UV light that will protect you from
any bacteria. If you accept to scape goat for me, I
want you to state how you wish us to share the
funds of the procedes from the goat barbeque that will
be held in your honor. So that both parties will be
satisfied. I shall explain to you in details how we
shall handle the transaction once I receive your
response.
Thanking you in advance and May God blesses you.
Please, treat with utmost
confidentiality.
I wait your urgent response.
NOT MINE A FELLOW AUTHOR/
LOL I am an Author at Large
An Eagle eyed, Cat, who looks like a Bear and is as strong as an Ox.
http://www.dan-ur.blogspot.com
comments please????
On a more personal note, I had a goat curry dish at a Vietnamese cafe in Pearland, a Houston suburb. First grasy goat dish I ever ate and not good. So does your Dad make good goat curry?