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DrumBeat: November 22, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 22, 2006 - 9:30am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending November 17, 2006
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) jumped by 5.1 million barrels compared to the previous week. At 341.1 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories remain well above the upper end of the average range for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 1.4 million barrels last week, but remain in the lower half of the average range. Distillate fuel inventories fell by 1.2 million barrels, but remain in the upper half of the average range for this time of year. A decline in ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel inventories more than compensated for a slight increase in low-sulfur diesel fuel (15 ppm to 500 ppm sulfur), while high-sulfur distillate fuel (heating oil) inventories inched slightly lower. Total commercial petroleum inventories rose by 3.8 million barrels last week, and remain above the upper end of the average range for this time of year.
Gasoline prices see abnormal rise
Refinery maintenance and tight supplies drove the uncharacteristic mid-November surge as the price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in California rose 3.1 cents to $2.495, the third straight weekly increase, according to the Energy Department's weekly survey of filling stations. The price was 4.2 cents higher than in the same period in 2005.
Inch by inch, car by car: Incremental improvement isn't sexy, but when you turn it into a way of life, you can achieve astonishing results.
Fast Company senior writer Charles Fishman wrote a very good book about Wal-Mart (excerpted in Salon) and, more recently, a feature about Wal-Mart's plans to push compact fluorescent lightbulbs that caught the imagination of the entire enviroblogosphere. Now he has a new story, on how Toyota unflaggingly works to constantly improve its manufacturing processes, that is likely to be of interest to How the World Works readers.
Company vows to take ethanol to next level: Iowa plant will use not just corn kernels, but stalks and leaves
Stover to fill part of ethanol goal
Estimates of 5 billion gallons of fuel per year from stalks and cobs fall well short of 60 billion gallons by 2030.
BIO Releases New Report On Sustainable Agriculture To Support Growing Biofuel Industry
Urban railway, not highway, is Lehigh Valley's future
First, world oil production has probably peaked, and in 2030 may be 30 percent less than today. Alternative fuels like bitumen and ethanol, which will have to make up the difference and meet increased demand, are energy-intensive and will not be cheap substitutes for conventional gasoline. People will continue to drive cars as long as they can afford it, but it's not certain that individuals or society will be able to afford it much longer (i.e., 10 to 20 years).
Nigeria: Gunman seize seven from Italian vessel
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - Gunmen have seized seven hostages from an Italian oil supply vessel off the coast of southern Nigeria, police and company officials said Wednesday.
Opec quota pledges lift oil price
Oil prices are back above $59 a barrel, after confirmation from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that it will follow Saudi Arabia and cut output next month.
Bulgaria’s EU accession threatens to grow into an energy catastrophe for the Balkans – as Romania will be the only one to win from that. The Balkan states are expecting the planned closing of two units of Kozloduy nuclear power plant on Dec. 31st with anxiety. Today, the plant, which was built with the help of the former Soviet Union, supplies electricity to the whole Balkan Peninsular and no one knows yet how these supplies will be compensated.
Twin pipeline to Turkey rendered useless, says minister
The twin pipeline which once used to carry more than 1 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil to terminals in Turkey is no longer of any use, according to Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani.Repeated rebel attacks and lack of repairs have rendered the pipeline useless, he said.
Global copper thefts on rise. Also...peak copper?
Jeffrey J. Brown: A Tale of Four Predictions – Hubbert, Deffeyes, Yergin & Jackson
Environmental cost of Sweden's imported food
Zimbabwe launches campaign to save energy
Harare - Energy-starved Zimbabwe has launched a campaign to save electricity, urging locals to switch off lights, hot water tanks and computers to stave off more frequent power cuts, it was reported Wednesday.
Putin says 370 arrested in energy sector anti-crime operation
The main goals of the operation are to prevent tax crimes committed by oil and gas companies, as well as economic and corruption crimes among federal, regional and local authorities.
U.S. report raps Chinese energy tactic
OTTAWA -- China is increasingly challenging U.S. interests around the world with its aggressive effort to lock up foreign energy resources for its rapidly growing economy, a report from a congressionally appointed commission says.
Africa Seen as Potential Leader in Biofuel Production
NAIROBI, Kenya -- For a number of reasons, including an agricultural sector that enjoys relatively low land and labor costs, many see sub-Saharan Africa as well suited to pioneer the development of biofuel as an alternative energy source for the continent and the world.
More cities reject coal-fired power
In forsaking their largest power source, the cities will be gambling on the availability of adequate alternative energy from cleaner sources by 2027, after their current contracts with the Utah facility expire.
Africa: Carbon Credit Trade Already Worth $5 Billion
Developing nations could earn as much as $100 billion annually by 2050 from selling carbon credits, according to an analysis released by the World Bank at the United Nations conference on climate change that ended in Nairobi last week.
The New World Oil Order, Part 1: Russia attacks the West's Achilles' heel
Russia has found the Achilles' heel of the US colossus. In concert with its oil-producing partners and the rising powerhouse economies of the East, Russia is altering the foundations of the current US-led liberal global oil-market order, insidiously working to undermine its US-centric nature and slanting it toward serving first and foremost the energy-security needs and the geopolitical aspirations of the rising East.All this is at the impending incalculable expense of the West. What is increasingly at stake is secure US access to global energy resources - strategic US energy security - because the West's traditional control respecting those global resources is seriously faltering in the face of the compelling strategies undertaken by Russia and its global partners.
Tom Whipple - The Peak Oil Crisis: Picking the Peak
Last week Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) who characterize themselves as "a leading advisor to international energy companies, governments, financial institutions, and technology providers," sent out a press release announcing that they had a new report on peak oil for sale. For some time now, CERA has been the leading debunker of the notion that world oil production might just peak in the near future, so their reports are always of interest.
Survey: 3 Out of 4 Americans Want Detroit and Washington to Impose 40 MPG Fuel-Efficiency Standard
Fully 78% of Americans want Washington to impose a 40 mile per gallon (mpg) fuel-efficiency standard for American vehicles, according to a new Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) national opinion survey released by the nonprofit Civil Society Institute (CSI).
The economist argument long standing on world oil markets is that fungibility is a given because a producer would always want to get the best price for their product. But really they want to maximize everything - economics, security, political alliances, other trading agreements, etc.
Any student of world history before World War II will know that the more common trading relationships were either between military and political allies or master & servant type relationships where the master protected the servant from outside invaders (when it suited them). Even in the post WWII era the cold war and other political conflicts have caused the severing of economic ties between rivals.
My first thought after I realized the full impact of peak oil at the international level, was that the world oil markets would collapse and become regionalized or based on political / military / economic blocs. Oil will become too valuable a resource to export to one's rivals. Furthermore, the USA's hegemony is very tenous right now. Once other regional powers start assert themselves one of the first things they will do is seek to control the regional bloc's oil market.
Global Events Magazine
Edited by W. Joseph Stroupe with the mission of explaining correctly world events via strategic analysis & forecasting
Evidence for credibility among those with expertise in this arena?
May you live to see the end of the world and the lights in the skys of heaven fall to the ground and shake your faiths and may the noise you hear be the death of your heart as you fear the death of all, May you fear death now, and fear death in the future. May you cry at night and nash your teeth and suck your toothless gums in fear.
Quote,,,, Me,,, Right now,,,, a Poem of pain of Peak Oil failings.
Hey it might be a curse, it might be a joke, you might want to flame me, After all I am a pyro, send me e.mail and don't clutter the forum up.
Don't read my posts again, I tell you, don't you might go blind, deaf and dumb all at once.
Have a good day, I am going to be Post in the open tomorrow, see you on the downside I am going to enjoy the falling off this cliff or the slow ride down, or the steady even plat-toe of level travel.
What are you going to do?
I suppose that there are two models: (1) Available exports always go to the highest bidder and (2) Available exports go to preferred buyers, not just to the highest bidder.
I suppose that we will see something in between these two extremes. In any case, the US is in trouble with either model.
Regarding #1, exporters are going to wonder about the wisdom of exchanging BTU's of energy for dollars.
Regarding #2, we can't take on the whole world. What do we do? Threaten to nuke anyone who cuts in on our "rightful" share of total world petroleum exports?
The analogy has been used thousands of times, but I think that we (regarding our auto/real estate driven economy) are in the last stages of Tulipomania here in the states--right at the point when the Dutch began to realize that the world would not beat a path to their door offering ever higher prices for tulips. Increasingly, the US economy is going to be restructured into an economy focused on meeting needs--and not wants (like Tulips and McMansions, with SUV's out front.)
The collision of personal and gov't US debt./ declining energy suplies/ dollar devaluation will start to gain momentum.
I hate the thought of what we are in for.
Pres. Carter was so vilified - how he looks now...
My buddy thinks that in 2-4 years we are going to be demanding another GW...
The 4 horsemen and will I live long enough to see it? Probably...
Jeffery - I admire your courage. Best of luck to you and your family in the coming years.
Thanks for the kind words. We are in for "interesting times."
Things are going to get very interesting when things get actually bad. And we'll elect our Hitler or Mussolini, and people will natter on about how this has never happened before, first time in history, etc.
Model 1 describes a free market. Model 2 describes a command economy.
The only way you can convince a company not to maximize its profits is to remove the profit motive by directing its operations to satisfy criteria besides profit. Keeping oil at home to satisfy domestic needs will amount to accepting a lower price than might be available on the world market. The only way I can see of doing this is by nationalizing the oil companies.
Am I missing something? Is there any other way to accomplish this short of outright nationalization?
Even if there is, I expect we will see a wave of nationalizations sweep the industry as the decline starts to bite.
I would add a third model to the #1 and #2 above, and this has an impact on the "export land" model. The #2 above says "Available exports go to preferred buyers, not just to the highest bidder." In the export lands model the domestic users are considered the "preferred buyers". But the problem with this, and with many assumptions I've seen in discussions here about geopolitics, is that it is assumed that a "country" is a unified block acting as one individual, or family, or tribe, would. In reality, TPTB in a given country may see their own interests as higher than that of "the peasants" within their borders, and may see certain other, nonlocal, world powers as the "preferred buyers".
Of course, keeping the peasants from turning to barricades and pitchforks is part of the calculations of TPTB, but only part, and they only need to dedicate part of the oil and gas towards that end. Thus model #3 is that "preferred buyers" are chosen on a playing field that may ignore national boundaries.
That plan may or may not suceed. E.g., in Nigeria TPTB rake in the billions while the peasants only get oil stains on their clothes (when they wash them in the river). But this arrangement is getting more and more tenuous. So the question is: who will win this game, fascism/organized crime or local popular pressure.
As for the USA, I think it is clear that TPTB care not for the locals. Their plan, as brought into action over the last 20 years or so, was to move manufacturing elsewhere, eventually impoverishing the locals (once their purchasing power is no longer needed to keep the global rich getting richer). Now, even our fertilizer is made overseas, where the natural gas is.
The answer is an export duty. In Russia if you want to export a ton of crude oil you must pay $237.6 to the state budget (from December 1 it will be $180.7), thus the internal price is much lower. If the government want to increase internal supply it can raise a duty to the prohibitive level.
That plan, for some strange reason (sarcasm), is not working very well. And now since we bet the whole bank and political capital on that game, the other pathways to securing energy resources have all been cutoff. Russia watched it all and let it happen, all the while moving their chess pieces into position against western oil companies, unruly neighbors siding with the West, and building alliances with emerging, sympathetic economies (i.e., China).
So, BushCo has played it's game, short of nuclear confrontation, and has gotten us...further in debt and more relient on a southern neighbor that is losing ground on the energy treadmill, finding it hard to keep its own population in check.
Oil in the ground is like money in the bank - you don't have to spend it today.
They sell NG to friendly ex-bloc countries at below market prices. And the opposite is true, when the relationships are more beligerent, they cutoff/reduce supply.
Venezuela is another obvious example of #2 as well.
=======It's all about population!
I wonder if he has changed his mind a tad since the time he was knocking Peakists and peddling abiotic oil?
http://www.multi-science.co.uk/whycarbon.htm
And if he was the man who adivsed Tony Benn and UKGOV on Energy in the early days of the North Sea, then that tells me why we are up shit creek without a paddle.
An electric assisted tricycel suddnely seems more appealing and MUCH more energy efficient.
BTW, the overall energy efficiency of a compressed air car wil not be much better than a Prius. Somewharm but not greatly.
Adiabatic heating & cooling.
Alan
Imagine an accident with a hydrogen-powered car. Not much better.
I think spring-powered car, something like kid's toys, is more likely scenario. Advances in material engineering are awesome in recent years, so a spring with sufficient characteristics is achievable in the not-so-distant future.
On the other hand, hydrogen is very easy to ignite. Something like a 2% mixture of hydrogen in air will ignite.
I heard on the radio yesterday morning of hydrogen spill snarling traffic in Sunnyvale, CA. I wonder if it really was hydrogen. More likely a typo. I can't imagine the actually spilled liquid hydrogen and anything else with hydrogen in the title would be quite toxic, wouldn't it? Hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen bromide.
I'm sure there is danger involved in compressed air, but let's not pretend that we're not driving around in vehicles with 10-15 gallons of explosive liquid on board.
What is the efficiency of the Drive system?
What is the weight of an 80 gallon tank that can safely handle 4300 PSI?
Who wants to ride around with an 80 gallon air bomb beside them?
How often do you drain the water from the pressure tank?
How do you keep the decompression coils from freezing up in a low temperature environment?
How do you keep warm during decompression in cold weather?
What becomes of all the water and heat during compression in a 90 degree 90% humidity environment? This is just for starters. Perhaps you could assist in the design.
The main problem with power assist bikes is that the assist motor quickly becomes the primary motor. With an electric this means a heavy battery, a heavy bike. Or no range.
The upside of electric bikes is they're simple. I've watched bike shop mechanics put together specials for over 40 years and every single one of them worked.
A power assist ICE bicycle could use a tiny engine. The old model airplane .049 engine would be enough. Those little things put out a quarter horse (190 watts equivalent) which is enough to get your bike down the road. But without torque not nearly enough to get the bike moving. Or to keep it going up hills. So the rider has to pedal. Human muscle puts out vast amounts of torque relatively easily. Simply making the rider pedal from time to time means a tiny tiny emgine could be used. And it would be more like a bicycle and less like a two wheel electric wheelchair.
Closest examples of anything familiar to Americans would be the old VeloSolex or the Schwinn-based Whizzer. Which used huge low-tuned engines and 1930's technology. Both those started life assuming the rider would pedal and compromised as the years went on.
Designing a transmission is not easy for home mechanics. All model size engines still mostly use exotic fuels. But conceptually ICE is the way to go
http://www.bikeengines.com/
In their formula they neglect that they are expanding against atmospheric pressure.
I get full expansion to atmospheric pressure Pa and volume Va gives
W =P1.V1(ln(V1/Va)-1) + Pa.V1
at P1 = 30.1MPa (301 bar absolute, 300 bar gauge)
Pa = 0.1MPa (1 bar) and V1 = 0.3m³ (300 litre)
and for isothermal expansion of an ideal gas V1/Va = Pa/P1
I get 42.53MJ ideal energy rather than their 46MJ
If you could get about 75% efficiency to the wheels
you might get about 32MJ
32MJ is enough to give 8kW of mechanical power for 1 hour 10 minutes. For this you would need say four cylinders quarter metre diameter by a metre and a half long made out of carbon fibre or similar strung along the bottom of the vehicle.
This energy is about equivalent to 18 car batteries at 40Ahr and 12V and, in carbon fibre, the tanks would weigh less than the batteries but take up more room.
Such a system might have some application in things like very clean vehicles to drive inside hospitals or airports but it is not a candidate for general road transport.
It is pretty useless but perhaps not quite as useless as you initially thought.
Is this likely to be feasible with a moving vehicle ? The speed of heat transfer to meet the energy demands of movement and the associated heat exchangers (weight !) mean that you cannot so easily zero out adiabatic heating then cooling.
Alan
I've seen some things about MDI before, and briefly reviewed the MDI website you linked.
As best I can tell, they've developed a very innovative compressed air engine that is probably a very efficient converter of the energy in compressed air to mechanical energy. Regardless, such a scheme is still limited by some very fundamental thermodynamics.
If this thing has a 300 liter pressure vessel that is filled with air pressurized to well over 4,000 psi, then the energy storage of 46 megajoules that they cite appears to be in the right ball park.
(However, I think you made an error in the conversion to BTUs. As 1 BTU is equivalent to 1,055 joules, 46 megajoules is equivalent to only 43,600 BTUs, not 92,000. So, the gasoline equivalent is even worse, at only about 0.37 gallons.)
If indeed that is the configuration they're talking about, then their claim of a range of over 200 km, or 125 miles, looks to be just a little far-fetched, as that would require an equivalent 'mileage' of about 340 miles per gallon. As their vehicle is not even all that light, I don't see how such a range could be possible. Even if one could attain 100% efficiency, there is still some minimum amount of power required just to overcome the rolling friction of even a very slow-moving vehicle.
The other thing to consider with this whole concept of a car run on compressed air is the energy losses incurred when you compress the air in the first place. Much energy is lost through the heat of compression, which if not largely dissipated before the air enters the pressure vessel will result in the pressure vessel initially filled with very hot air at a high pressure. As the air cools within the pressure vessel, the final pressure will decrease to some level significantly lower than the initial pressure. Energy is therefore lost.
While the efficiency across the air engine by itself may be very high, it is highly misleading to only consider that part of the system. Somewhere upstream, someone has to burn coal or natural gas in a power plant to generate electricity that is needed to run the air compressor that compresses the air for the air en