DrumBeat: September 1, 2006
Posted by threadbot on September 1, 2006 - 8:12am
Topic: Miscellaneous
[Update by Leanan on 09/01/06 at 9:16 AM EDT]
United States faces bigger worries than ‘hot’ fuel
We’ve all heard the term “peak oil” but “net exports” are an even graver oil market fundamental. Current statistics (not projections) indicate global oil exports are falling three to four times faster than oil production, which is down 1.3 percent since the start of the year.
Preparing for a Crash: Nuts and Bolts
This essay is intended to address the serious “peaknik,” that is to say a person who accepts as axiomatic that Peak Oil will occur and that the consequences will be devastating for most of the world’s Homo sapiens sapiens. As one of these people, I am often frustrated by the lack of practical suggestions for what to do to survive the Peak and the Crash.
Nigerian Oil Workers Declare 'Warning Strike'
Nigerian oil unions have declared a three-day 'warning strike' to protest worsening violence and kidnapping of workers in the Niger Delta. The unions are demanding steps to improve the situation or they may withdraw their members from the region, indefinitely.
Eni declares force majeure on Nigeria oil field
Italy's Eni declared a force majeure on 50,000 barrels of crude lost at its Brass River oil field in Nigeria after a sabatoage attack late last month damaged its pipelines, a company official said on Friday.
The Curse of Natural Resources
Many countries with enormous reserves of oil, gas or precious metals, are plagued with disproportionate poverty, corruption and mismanagement. Would the people in Nigeria, Congo or Russia be better off without their natural gifts?
Unlike Germany, the world's largest wind-power generator, Japan lacks the national grid needed to iron out supply fluctuations from wind projects.
Gulf Oil Discovery Lifts Hopes for New Geological Play
A deepwater discovery reported Thursday underscores the growing importance of a geological formation in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico that's only recently become accessible to crude oil and natural gas producers.
'Probably the demand (from solar companies) is twice the current supply,' he said.This imbalance makes prices high, and is part of the reason photovoltaic solar energy, which converts sunlight into electricity by chemical reaction, must be heavily subsidized to compete with the price of electricity from fossil fuels.
The wrong road to fuels of the future
Not sure if it has been discussed (I can barely keep up with what day it is lately), but here is an excerpt:
I know the feeling. There is so much reading from the previous day's drumbeat alone when I come in the office in the morning that my work gets sloppy. Nothing like "pulling up a chair, grabbing a cold one, and watch".
BTW, there was an article on the energybulletin the other day arguing that the Soviet Union dissolved because of PO. That is a totally different argument then what you quote. And I have read many other reasons too.
But when you think of actually building the whole infrastructure, I dont think it's worth it.
But anyway, us (like in very well educated us) know that it's not the solution. For the layman, I think they feel it is. So this Idea will keep up until 2 things happen :
- Gov subsides shrink to none (companies goes bankrupt)
- Oil go on rising and shortage in diesel makes growing stuff more of a challenge.
If you take a look at the last ethanol discussion we had here (boy it was an hard discussion) common sense won't restrain people from believing in anything.I have to admit that I was surprised at how confused people got over this issue. A small percentage didn't seem to get it, no matter how many different ways we tried to explain it. But Michael Wang did ultimately write back to me and agree with my premise. I am trying to decide whether to post one more essay on our last exchange. It is a matter of me explaining why it is important that we get it right - the consequence of failure will be huge in a Peak Oil world. In his response, he agreed that I am correct about the efficiency argument, but says we have to look at other things. I told him that I agree that this is not the full sum of the debate; I was just addressing 1 false claim that is often repeated.
But, my next essay is going to be a guest essay from a very well-connected (politically) person who is supporting California's Prop 87. It is essentially a rebuttal to some Prop 87 essays that I wrote. I think it should generate some interesting discussion, especially from people who are sick of hearing about ethanol. I have the essay, but I will probably wait until early next week to post it.
If organized opponents of Prop 87 could find someone extremely knowledgable about the problems with ethanol and highly credible, it might help them stop the proposal. If you do get involved, you may find yourself the subject of a smear campaign. At least, they will paint you as the stooge of the oil industry. You no doubt know this. Good luck, and watch your back.
To my understanding, this means that more btus are needed for max. temp and optimum combustion thus efficiency of gasoline as a motor fuel then ethanol.
And if that's the case, could engines not be specifically designed to run on E100 thus overcoming a large portion of the BTU deficiencies you oft mention?
The second issue is obviously the more difficult design change. A modern engine can probably change its fuel/air ratio with a simple parametric tweak to its software.
I think the most important is the compression ratio. Increasing the compression ratio has been shown to improve gas mileage of E85 vehicles. Instead of a 25% drop in fuel efficiency, they only have a 15% or so drop.
I'd think we'd want to know the conversion efficiency from chemcial potential energy to practical kinetic energy.
What's the story with Cilion? San Jose Merc News (Business section) today says they can be profitable with corn based ethanol production even if oil drops to $40/barrel. Have you covered Cilion before?
Everyone looks to France beacuse it has almost 80% of its electricity coming from nukes, as a result of strategic public policies.
I'll bet that the Danish government is behind their wind power development.
The "solution" presented by Steve Chapman is pure government planning, of the same kind he's rejecting. [ironic]How does the government know that fossil fuel are bad? The market are asking for more, how is it that taxes are needed to foster alternative energies? Let the market decide how and when and leave it to its own. [/ironic]
And how is it that USA has become the biggest energy consumer in the world? How come those wasteful SUVs in the first place? Maybe through the "market". People want SUVs let them have them!
So what's the answer? IMHO markets AND governments. Maybe through taxes on fossil fuels, maybe through direct investing (as France did with nuclear energy).
Best
Fernando
You might lose that bet !
Only indirectly is the Danish Gov't behind their remarkable wind industry.
- The Danish Gov't published a survey of in-service performance for various wind turbines. This brought more orders to the good models; and bankruptcy to the poor performers.
- They enacted a carbon tax. An indirect wind subsidy.
- They made it easy (via laws) for a co-op of farmers or city-dwellers + a farmer to buy & operate wind turbines. At one time, almost half of the WTs were owned by these co-ops.
- The national grid was encouraged to take wind power, even when additional lines were required.
Denmark did NOT spend massive amounts on R&D, or have gov't owned WTs. Rather they provided fertile ground for the industry to grow. Quite different from France.But, part of the argument still holds. How does the Danish government know that "Wind is better". Why is it "distorting" market signals to provide "fertile ground"? The Danish government HAS diverted resources from some part of their economy to another place, probably a different one the market would have chosen.
How is subsidizing wind energy different from subsidizing corn ethanol?
What the government (the public) should subsidize in our society is a pretty fundamental expression of our values I suppose. We should ask this question honestly in a broader sense.
We seem to value mobility, in fact we have become dependent on being mobile in order to survive - in this way we are like the nomadic people, except that we return to the same bed every night. Is it possible that we will every come back to seeing the value in living in place, without he need for so much mobility? If that happened, I think then the questions over what the public should subsidize would change quite a bit.
Are we dependent on independence? What a conundrum!
('Conundrum' - this could be Canada's Oil Drum!)
As far as valuing mobility. I don't really dispute that, but it makes me think about how much we seem to strive for 'safe isolation' .. gated communities, soundproof cars, personal entertainment systems, .. there is a lot of great comradery in our culture, too, but I think of the millions of people sitting together or apart, and all watching TV. When I was a little kid, I wasn't allowed to watch TV until my folks realized it was all the other kids in the carpool were talking about, and my brother and I were miserable outsiders..
Well for the direct answer, subsidizing Wind, I contend, is one, wise direction to move our energy resources towards. There is a great return, simple proven technology, and the likelihood of a long future for this abundant resource, without serious downsides like soil depletion, increased water dependency and need for signifigant inputs like NG or Oil to produce it.
From another side, many see the benefits of wind without the helping hand of a gov't grant, so it could be it'll move forward fine without it.. that is, unless it needs it just to Compete with other subsidies like Corn, Ethanol, life-supports for GM and Exxon and the Contras.. See how Amtrak's subsidy could hardly be expected to armwrestle with The Auto Industry's favors, sweetheart deals in Saudi, the Highway system and the Airports..
Who's grant buried Grant in Grant's tomb?
Bob Fiske
Apart from point 4 (The national grid was encouraged to take wind power, even when additional lines were required.) this doesn't look like a subsidy, rather, facilitation of the "market rules" (point 1), removing red tape (point 3) and having a general incentive to carbon free energy (point 2) NOT specifically wind.
And this last may even have covered the costs of point 4 at least in part.
While subsidizing corn ethanol means gobs of money, even more so for subsidizing nuclear.
probably a different one the market would have chosen
Does this means you assume that "the market" choose wisely?
The market actually "choose" SUVs!
In my opinion the important choice is not what alt-energy you fund, but: do you fund just research, or also production?
I'd say fund a broad array of research, but stay out of production funding. That messes up the market and prevents us from knowing what is working.
"The Market", as you refer to this construct anthromorphicly, is composed of advertisers (aka persuaders, mind manipulators). They are the ones who "mess" with our minds and thus determine what "works" in the market place (albeit to a limited extent) and what doesn't. Ultimately, the things that "work" are those that pander to the irrational, child like desires of the masses.
Do I have a solution?
Sorry, no.
That is why I revisit TOD so often.
I keep hoping some of the way smarter people here will offer insights.
But ah, you got an alternative other than central planning?
Did the "free market" build our road network? I always found the case of Thomas Paine Bridge Designer, not revolutionist writer, to be very instructive.
http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/policy/renewableenergy/subsidies/wind/denmark/index.shtml
Unfortunately I could not find a source for the exact amounts envolved but I could guess they are in the billions.
http://www.aweo.org/ProblemWithWind.html
And another one:
http://www.countryguardian.net/denmark.htm
However, market mechanisms and Social Democrats don't mix.
Basic supply and demand. It's the same reason that wee-hours off-peak rates are low and afternoon rates are high.
Whereas the current situation is that utilities are selling off very expensive peak power at a loss, and subsidizing it with far higher-than-cost rates on cheap off-peak power, wind power, etc.
If you want people to invest in the infrastructure required to shift demand to periods of surplus (wee-hours or high winds, either way) you have to make it pay for them to do so.
My understanding is that at absolute zero, there's effectively little loss, and the power could be stored indefinitely until needed. This would seem to answer the problem of the erratic nature of wind power generation.
Flavius Aetius
My guess is that this would be work out to be a very expensive way of storing energy.
This is always the problem with energy, there are no lack of clever ideas for storing energy or converting it from one form to another. However, unlike manufactured goods which gain value by having more work done on them energy loses value the more you do to it. This is what makes oil such a miracle fuel. It is has extremely high energy density, it takes very little effort to get it (most of the time), you can carry it and store it in a bucket and you get the energy out by putting a match to it.
Other ideas for storing energy are pumping water uphill to a higher level reservoir and then running that water downhill through a turbine to retrieve the energy. High tech fly wheels can store energy. Splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen so that they can be recombined later in a fuel cell is another. There is also talk of solar power generators in which a large collection of mirrors focus sunlight on an absorber which becomes very hot. This heat is transferred to a pool of molten salt. This pool of salt is used to heat a fluid to drive a turbine and generate electricity. This way the periodic inputs of solar power are converted to electricity available on demand.
We can take it one step further by lisiting the storage techniques more abstractly as:
- Static potential energy (i.e. water behind a dam)
- Kinetic energy (i.e. a flywheel)
- Chemical energy (i.e. combustible hydrocarbons)
- Thermal energy (i.e. molten salt)
- Radioactive decay energy (i.e. U238)
Anyone out there who can think of other generalized forms of energy storage?Click on picture for article on magnetic superconducting storage
For more on energy storage concepts, try here:
