DrumBeat: July 11, 2006
Posted by threadbot on July 11, 2006 - 9:22am
Topic: Miscellaneous
"We in OPEC do not subscribe to the peak-oil theory." They just need transparency from consumers.
Oil cartel OPEC scolded consuming nations on Tuesday for forcing it to spend billions on spare crude production capacity while sending confusing policy signals on future demand.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has an estimated 100 exploration and production projects with investment in the region of $100-billion to meet rising demand, but justifying spare capacity to calm oil market nerves was difficult, said acting secretary general Mohammed Barkindo.
As far as alternative fuels are concerned, biodiesel from soybeans is the better choice compared with corn-produced ethanol, University of Minnesota researchers concluded in an analysis Monday.And prices for edible oils are already rising.But "neither can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies," the researchers concluded in the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Politics Of the Pipelines: U.S. Seeks Ways to Route Natural Gas Around Russia.
IEA Calls on China to Rein in Electricity Use
Peak uranium? (PDF)
... Assuming world nuclear generating capacity remains at 2005 levels, after about 2016 the mean grade of uranium ore will fall significantly from today's levels, and even more so after 2034. After about 60 years the world nuclear power system will fall off the 'Energy Cliff' - meaning that the nuclear system will consume as much energy as can be generated from the uranium fuel. Whether large and new uranium ore deposits will be found or not is unknown.
Robert Feldman gives us The bad, worse and awful news for energy prices. Actually, the news is not that awful from his view. He thinks it's just a supply lag problem, like the "hog cycle" of the '30s.
Venezuela struggles to plug natural gas deficit
"All these gas pipeline projects are strange, because Venezuela does not have enough gas (production) to fill them," said Miguel Octavio, an analyst with Caracas-based brokerage BBO Servicios Financieros.
Oil Prices: How High Can They Go?
More on our crumbling highway infrastructure: So Many Cars, So Little Money
Every dime of California's $116-billion plan to shore up levees, schools and other eroding facilities could be spent on the state's overtaxed transportation system.Now it's time to panic: Climate change threatens wineries.And it still wouldn't be enough.
Climate warming could spell disaster for much of the multibillion-dollar U.S. wine industry. Areas suitable for growing premium wine grapes could be reduced by 50 percent — and possibly as much as 81 percent — by the end of this century, according to a study Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[Update by Leanan on 07/11/06 at 12:58 PM EDT]
"Price is causing some substitutions, but in my opinion it's not enough, " said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist for ARC Financial and author of the book A Thousand Barrels a Second.
http://en.rian.ru/business/20060711/51183613.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/william_mcdonough.php
From bioneers 2000. Totally worth watching, IMO.
http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek06/0616/0616satspeaker.cfm
http://www.sundayherald.com/56617
That the future is increasingly nuclear is hardly a news for anyone thinking pragmatically.
The news is that the rich guys intend to overcome local NIMBYsm by selling the "sweet part" - reactors, know-how and enriched fuel to the developed countries, who in turn will be designated for the "dirty part" - producing the electricity, taking the risks and the responsibility for waste management. The latter will then sell back to the rich guys the energy produced and everyone will be happy, especially if it is named Westinghouse or Haliburton.
The question that comes to mind is how long is this schema going to work? How long until China (or Iran or whoever) figure out how to build the things themselves? I would say - not too long and then it may turn out that somebody has layed out the fact for actual switching the places of the developed and the developing worlds. Anybody know where I can learn chinese?
You would want to have the reactors close to home in a post peak oil future to get reliable electricity, high paying jobs and to utilize high grade heat from the next generation of reactors for hydrogen production and low grade heat for district heating.
It is actually a pity the Swedish opinion isent a few years more advanced along the current trend. I would love to have German or Danish intrests building reactors in southern Sweden to export electricity to their owners. There is a public opinion window for getting these goodies before the German opinion probably changes and they want them at home. And the Danes would not have to start all the supporting institutions if they build in their neighbouring country.
30 years should be plenty of time for developing new breeders and reprocessing technologies if we start right away.
This means that Finland and Sweden probably will have started their repositories for used nuclear fuel a few years before a possible breeding boom. But 500 m deep bedrock caverns are usable as overdesigned repositories for fission products.
Wonder if the G8 would trust the nordic countries with their own reprocessing plant in Sweden or Finland? I guess it would be wise to participate in research and the building of pilot plants within G8 countries. We probably have a reputation of being dependable but other countries might complain if they dont get the honour. And we had a nuclear arms program in Sweden in the 50:s and 60:s that dident go as far as producing weapons, that might make someone uncomfortable.
IMO long before hydrogen, nuclear power will be used to produce liquid fuels - for example nuclear-assisted CTL or methanol from coal. This will make the schema export reactors to China - import methanol, borrowing the difference (OK, again from China) work for a while. IMO, EU politicians will resist local nuclear power till it becomes impossible to avoid it - there is too much inertia in the system and nobody is willing to risk his cosy chair for problems far beyond his/her election horizon.
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FRANCE : July 11, 2006
PARIS - France's wind power share in electricity consumption could jump to 30 percent by 2030 provided the government removes bureaucratic hurdles, France's wind power association said on Monday.
Wind power makes up 0.25 percent of French electricity consumption with a production capacity of 1,000 MW.
A 2001 European Union directive requires EU members to bring their green electricity share to 21 percent of their power mix by 2010.
"The potential we have in France and the government-set tariffs allow us to believe that wind power could make up 30 percent of French electricity consumption by 2030," Jean-Yves Grandidier, head of the FEE union, told Reuters.
He said that the newly-set government's aim to reach 13,500 MW of wind power by 2013 was realistic provided Paris acts to remove administrative obstacles blocking the sector's progress.
"The biggest hurdles in developing wind power in France are the delays in granting building permits, the price rise of turbines and the acoustic laws which are badly adapted to our industry," Grandidier said.
He said that local authorities were taking up to two years to grant building permits of wind farms that should normally take five months.
"Local authorities are struggling to position themselves with regards to wind power projects," he said. "In some regions we are experiencing unofficial moratoriums," he added.
Wind power has come under fire in many regions where turbines are blamed for destroying landscapes and for noise.
"But recent opinion polls show that 80 percent of the public now supports the development of wind power so I'm confident we will progress fast," Grandider said.
The French government has set since 2001 fixed rates for land-produced wind power to incite companies to invest in the renewable energy.
The government on Monday fixed the new purchasing of land-produced wind power tariff at 82 euros (US$104.8) per megawatt hour (against 83.6 euros previously) and a newly-set offshore wind power tariff of 130 euros.
"Fixed tariffs provide a real incentive to produce but the lowering of the land-produced wind power tariff could harm units based in low wind areas," Grandidier said.
"But wind power is the electricity sector growing the fastest in the world so we are very optimistic," he said.
Grandidier said he believes that France could soon catch up with Germany and Spain, which have Europe's largest wind power sectors.
"Spain has 10,000 MW already installed and a target to double that figure by 2010," he said. "So I don't think our forecast is unfeasible," he concluded.
Story by Muriel Boselli
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37189/story.htm
at least in the region I live in, the main opposition to nuclear power is the waste disposal question - and this cuts across essentially all political parties. (I wrote a bit about this in a comment below). Whether this disgust at creating such a long term environmental problem will be overcome by a desire to keep the lights on (plus lots and lots of lobbying by companies like Siemens) is an open question.
However, you are quite correct in assuming that Germans will happily buy nuclear generated electricity - EnBW is technically one of Germany's largest electrical companies, but it is actually owned by Electricite de France - and the French are massively nuclear in terms of generating electricity. Surprisingly, much of EnBW's electricity just magically appears, without anyone asking where it comes from - though it is not a secret. Better, recently a national Green political figure just joined EnBW's board - nothing like putting an environmentally sound face on a massive nuclear electrical generation company.
If anyone wishes to call the Germans hyprocritical NIMBY types, please be my guest - but also notice that France generally placed as many of its nuclear reactors as close to the German border as possible decades ago, so that if an accident happened, the wind might spare the French having to clean up the results.
Eurpeans are cynical, pragmatic, and always looking out for their own best interests. No wonder OPEC is complaining about how Europe is discriminating against oil through high taxation - it wasn't supposed to work that way in our modern globalized capitalist world. Everyone was just supposed to buy OPEC's oil until it ran out - which it isn't, by the way, according to OPEC.
If you are interested, by the way, Schroeder tried to sell off an old breeder facility to the Chinese - it was cancelled due to massive pressure, more or less equally balanced between domestic and international concerns.
Maybe the Swedes can pick up one unused breeder reactor cheap - something like 1.5 billion euros is the number I vaguely remember. The Germans are getting good at this shipping old industrial facilities to other places - old coal fired steel mills, coking plants, oil refineries (one near Karlsruhe was sent to India maybe 7 years ago). What the Germans aren't selling are the wind turbine production facilities or the solar cells fabs.
You may see a pattern here - dirty, old industrial facilities are being sold to countries without much concern about trivialities like air or water pollution, and cleaner alternatives are being built up.
Of course, there is a fair amount of doubt whether alternative energy forms like wind will actually be able to power an industrial society - and Germans do know their engineering. I too expect Germans to use some form of nuclear power in the future - I just doubt that it will resemble the dinosuar technology which is happily being revived by companies with excellent political connections.
No thanks, I would prefer one done with new calculations and lessons learned from previous builds. But I would not say no to a breeder in Sweden.
I like breeders.
But then again, I used to hang out with nuclear engineers, and perhaps they are biased.
The fact the technology is generally so bad (though different breeder designs have worked, even over years, it must be noted) is one reason the Germans wanted to get rid of theirs, actually.
Breeder reactors, producing ready made material for bombs, are opposed for reasons which go to one of the main problems with any nuclear program - you get more bang for your buck with nuclear than any other option. Just ask the Iranians or North Koreans or Pakistanis or ....
We have learned much from our (and others') mistakes with breeders.
My engineer friends and I may be all wet, but IMO, the time of the breeder is here and now.
Easy?
No.
Complex and expensive safeguards needed?
You bet.
Nevertheless, on a cost-benefit basis, when I do the numbers, breeders look good.
Other people start with different premises and come up with different numbers.
I could be quite wrong. But at least, please let us seriously consider breeders--along with wind, solar, old-fashiond nuclear power generation, coal sequestration, biofuels, and whatever else we can think of.
There is (obviously) no one "solution."
Silver BBs, not one silver bullet.
IMO, breeders are one more silver BB.
Nuclear could be an issue that unites the world, because it best results (in terms of costs and safety) will be reached if we achieve a much higher level of international cooperation. IMO the coming years will decide whether we will get there the easy way or the hard way.
We believe what we believe to a large extent based on who we talk to. From age 22 to 30, a majority of my friends were nuclear engineers and nuclear physicists working at the Lawrence Radiation Lab and also Livermore.
I'd be delighted to tell you some funny stories about Site 300, but the Fibbies (F.B.I.) already claim that my dossier exceeds 2,000 pages, and IMO, that is enough.
I have associated with a great many people: Mainly for that reason the Fibbies keep my prints on file and (probably) somehow monitor (most likely through the NSA) all of my TOD comments.
Ho hum.
I lived through the Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover eras. Times now are way way way much better.
I leave it at 50/50 FBI incompetence or you making up a good story wishing that you are important. Truth or fiction, either way you write well.
Any intelligence service analyzing me are welcome to call if you wonder about anything. laughs
Intelligence is big business in the U.S. I asked the IRS agent for a favor in regard to finding out about my file. In return, I visited his mother in a nursing home and sang songs to her.
CANDU is a very safe design. Just a fuel hog (unimportant with used fuel) and low heat densities (smaller reactors).
The residual uranium and new plutonium once cleaned is still more reactive than the natural uranium which CANDUs are designed to use.
However, the CANDU is a sow of a reactor. I've worked on them and they are complicated, expensive, and low performance compared to modern light water reactors. Throughly engineered, I will say, but hardly of interest to US utilities given current and projected yellowcake and SWU costs.
Just design the CANDU to use a common Westinghouse or GE diameter fuel.
If fuel stays cheap, there will be limited appeal, I agree. But we have LOTS of "free fuel" and cheap thorium.
The U233 bred from Th could be used in LWR (perhaps 70% breeding factor). A solution to the uranium "shortage".
You bet.
Complex and expensive == Doomed to fail
..and expensively.
SXR buys uranium assets
http://transcripts.businessday.co.za/cgi-bin/transcripts/t-showtranscript.pl?1152569676
NEAL FRONEMAN: Uranium has increased from when we got into the uranium market in 2003 at around $11 to about $46 a pound today - so there have been very significant increases. Our expectations are that the uranium price will continue to increase quite substantially - $50 a pound is a very conservative target, and that's based on the supply and demand gap that's easily demonstrable. In terms of our assets - if you could buy a producing uranium mine in the world now you would be very lucky - they just don't exist. In fact Dominion would probably be one of the first new ones to come into production - a three year lead time for a brand new mine is very short, so people should really just watch us.
--How do Uranium prices track against oil prices? Does there seem to be a correlation beyond the obvious surface comparison? $11:$46 - $28:$75 (in loosely the same timeframe)
"- as long as they promise not to use them for making nuclear bombs." Promises, promises..
The problem is that, despite high prices it needs technological time for new supplies to come online. Historically, invesments in Uranium exploration and mining have been several orders of magnitude less then oil & gas but this is obviously about to change. In the meantime buying uranium mining stock would be a very good idea, IMO.
It sounds an awful lot like Saudi Princes talking..
I think it is counterproductive to draw analogies between oil and uranium.
Extrapolation is a dangerous thing to do.
tonnes coal reserves R/P 52 years
only 62200 is anthracit or bituminous and 95%
of production is mined from anthracit or bituminos
coal. So the best coal will be run out in 28 years
i.e 2034. But their coal production has increased
buy over 100 million tonnes a year, for the last
3 years, and they have not started to use the
coal for liquid fuel yet but plans are well in
hand. which means that the good quality coal
will be used up in 20 years. Except that they
will hit peak coal before that and not be able
to continue to expand coal use. Then where will
they get the extra fule from.
Of course the reserves in the BP review for
coal have not changed from the 2005 report
so how did they produce 1800 short tons last
year.