Thursday, September 15, 2011
Austin Energy's GreenChoice Program Now Green-e Certified
Austin Energy's GreenChoice green pricing program is now Green-e Energy certified. GreenChoice provides wind from around the state of Texas and landfill gas from Austin and San Antonio. The Green-e Energy certification requires Austin Energy to meet certain disclosure and truth-in-advertising requirements. The GreenChoice program will also undergo an annual verification audit to determine whether Austin Energy has purchased and/or generated enough quantity and type of renewable to meet its customer demand and marketing claims.
News Release - Green-e Energy Certifies Austin Energy's GreenChoice Program
Contact: Jeff Swenerton, CRS, 415-561-2119; Carol Harwell, Austin Energy, 512-322-6562
Powered By WizardRSSCheap Electricity
Vaclav Smil's ?Energy Myths and Realities? - A review
Vaclav Smil, professor of Environment and Environmental Geography at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, has written a new book called ?Energy Myths and Realities.? In the book, he looks at a number of things he considers myths:
1. The future belongs to electric cars
2. Nuclear electricity will be too cheap too meter
3. Soft-energy illusions (local generation, etc.)
4. Running out: Peak oil and its meaning
5. Sequestration of carbon dioxide
6. Liquid fuels from plants
7. Electricity from wind
8. The pace of energy transitions
Smil is well-respected in the world of energy, so I think it is also worthwhile looking at what he has to say. I think that it is even worthwhile looking at what he has to say about peak oil, because it may give us some insights as to where our thinking needs to be refined, or better explained, if it is to be understood by the ?mainstream?.
I might note that Smil is not entirely in disagreement with peak oil. He says,
It is fairly probable that its [conventional crude oil?s] extraction will peak within the next two decades, and it is inevitable that its share of the world?s primary energy supply will continue to decline.
A major point he makes in the peak oil section is that he is not convinced that peak oil will have a terrible impact, even if the decline does occur in the near future?something that quite a number of Oil Drum readers would agree with.
Let?s look at a few things Vaclav Smil has to say:
Electric Cars
Smil points out that electric cars have been around a long time and are still expensive compared to internal combustion cars. But his major concern seems to be that the amount of additional electricity required would be more than could reasonably be added within a short time frame. And, given the limitations of renewables, there would probably need to be a big ramp-up in fossil fuel use, to accommodate the additional cars.
According to Smil:
An electric car whose size would correspond to today?s typical American vehicle (a composite of passenger cars, SUVs, vans, and light trucks) would translate to 3 MWh of electricity consumption.
In 2010, the United States had about 245 million passenger cars, SUVs, vans, and light trucks; hence, an all-electric fleet would call for a theoretical minimum of 750 TWh/year. . . The charging and recharging cycle of Li-ion batteries is about 85% efficient, and about 10% must be subtracted for self-discharge losses; consequently, the actual need to be close to 4 MWh/car, or about 980 TWh of electricity per year. This is a very conservative calculation, as the overall demand of a midsize electric vehicle would be more likely around 300 Wh/km or 6MW/year.
But even this conservative total would be equivalent to 25% of US electricity generation in 2008, and the country?s utilities needed fifteen years (1993-2008) to add this amount of new production. As this power for electric cars would have to come on top of the demand growth by households, services, and industries, it would be exceedingly optimistic to expect such an increment could be in place in less than twenty years.
He later goes to explain how much fuel would be needed for all this.
The average source-to-outlet efficiency of U. S. electricity generation is about 40 percent, and adding 10 percent for internal power plant consumption and transmission losses, this means that 11 MWh (nearly 40 GJ) of primary energy would be needed to generate electricity for a car with an average annual consumption of about 4 MWh.
This would translate to 2 MJ for every kilometer of travel, a performance equivalent to about 38 mpg (9.25L/100 km)?a rate much lower than that offered by scores of new pure gasoline-engine car models, and inferior to advanced hybrid designs or to DiesOtto designs. . .
He explains that there would be no CO2 savings in all of this, unless renewable sources were used for all of the additional energy required. He also notes that a European report by the European Federation for Transport and Environment called How to Avoid an Electric Shock offers analogical conclusions. A complete change to electric cars in the EU would increase European electricity consumption by 15%, and would not lower CO2.
Wind Power
Smil?s conclusion regarding wind is
Conversion of wind?s kinetic energy by large turbines by large turbines can become an important contributor to the overall electricity supply, but, except for relatively small regions, it cannot become the single largest source, even less so the dominant mode of generation.
One of the limits he sees on wind power is the quantity of roads needed to service all of the wind power sites. He says:
But even when assuming a large average turbine size of 2?3 MW, the access roads (which are required to carry heavy loads, as the total weight of foundations, tower, and turbine is more than 300 tons per unit) needed to build roughly 2 million turbines and new transmission lines to conduct their electricity would make a vastly larger land claim than the footprint of the towers; and a considerable energy demand would be created by keeping these roads, often in steep terrain, protected against erosion and open during inclement weather for servicing access.
He also sees wind intermittency as a limiting factor. He says that many studies have shown that these variations do not cause any unmanageable problems as long as the total power installed in wind turbines is no more than about 10% of the system?s overall output.
He quotes P. A. Ostergaard, in the 2008 Energy article ?Geographic Aggregation and Wind Power Output Variance in Denmark,? saying:
Drawing on the Danish experience, he finds, predictably, that demand and wind variations in different areas help even out fluctuations and reduce imbalances in systems with high reliance on wind power, and that exploiting these variations allows for reductions in reserve capacity in other modes of electricity generation. But, no less predictably, he also finds limits to what can be done: The average requirement for the reserve thermal capacity may drop, ?but the same is not generally the case with the maximum required condensing mode capacity. . . . There will simply be times with wind production in neither of the interconnected areas.?
He is also concerned about the high installation rates that would be required to reach high penetrations, and the fact that at this point we cannot be certain of average life spans of wind turbines and of their need for maintenance and replacement requirements, particularly in harsh and offshore environments.
Peak Oil and Its Meaning
In the chapter ?Running Out: Peak Oil and Its Meaning?, Smil starts by looking at individual peak oil predictions that turned out not to be exactly correct. He argues that contrary to the assumptions of Richard Duncan in his Olduvai Gorge theory, average per capita energy consumption did not peak in 1978. Instead, based on BP data for all types of energy and UN population figures, world per capita energy consumption was 10% higher in 2008 than in 1978. He also says,
but even a lower rate would not signify anything catastrophic; because of steadily falling energy intensity?the energy consumption per unit of economic product?of the global economy, it could be a sign of progress for the world to use less energy.
It would seem to me that this is one area where there is considerable additional work that needs to be done. Is oil a limiting factor on all other forms of energy use, or will efficiency and other changes lead to higher GDP relative to energy use? There is probably room for a range of views on this subject.
Smil also points out that the predictions of M. King Hubbert, Andrew Flower, Collin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes and others were not exactly right, partly because the estimates of ultimately recoverable oil were not correct and partly because the deterministic approaches being used were too simple. Smil says:
The fundamental problem with the notion of predicting a peak for oil extraction is that it rests on three simple assumptions?that recoverable oil resources are known with a high level of confidence, that they are fixed, and that their recovery is subsumed by a symmetrical production curve?which happen not to be true. These three claims mix incontestable facts and sensible arguments with indefensible assumptions, and they caricature complex processes and ignore realities that do not fit preconceived conclusions. There is, obviously, a finite amount of liquid oil in the earth?s crust, but estimates of this grand total remain uncertain.
He mentions Adam Brandt?s 2007 article ?Testing Hubbert? from Energy Policy. Smil says regarding Brandt?s article, ?the symmetrical model of oil extraction is just one of many possibilities, and we now have a rigorous quantitative proof that it is not either a dominant or a modal choice.?
He also mentions R. Nehring?s conclusion,
The task facing us now is not to continue to use an obsolete and irrelevant method [that is, Hubbert?s model] but to develop further understanding of recovery growth.
Smil also has sections on untapped resources and non-conventional oil reserves.
The point of all of Smil?s analysis is that the amount of oil available could very well be considerably more than what an analysis simply using a Hubbert curve would project. But I think an equally valid argument could be made in the other direction?the amount of oil that can actually be extracted may prove to be considerably less than what a Hubbert curve would project.
It seems to me that Hubbert curves are valuable as giving a first-order approximation to what may happen in the future. In that regard, Hubbert curves have been helpful in saying that the peak in conventional oil production is about now. Smil mostly agrees with this?he says that there is a high probability that conventional oil production will peak in the next 10 to 20 years.
But it seems to me that Smil is correct in saying that Hubbert curves really don?t tell us precisely what lies ahead. Smil lays out the favorable scenario, where untapped resources, nonconventional oil reserves, and higher percentages of oil recovery act to increase the total amount of oil available to society. But Smil never looks at what the real limiting factor is. It seems to me that this limiting factor is declining energy return from the oil that is extracted, and the impact that this has on the world economy and the ability to do reinvestment. After a certain point, net energy obtained is so low that it is not possible to justify the ever-higher energy investment required to maintain production.
If net energy is the limiting factor, one would also expect that Hubbert curves are, as Smil says, not very helpful in predicting what is likely to happen in the future. In the case of net energy being the limiting factor, the result could well be that the downslope is more severe than a Hubbert curve would suggest.
Perhaps we do need to back away from Hubbert curve as a primary way of estimating what will happen in the future. While that approach was valuable as a rough approximation in the past, now that we are approaching the down slope, maybe we need to be looking at other approaches, to give a more refined understanding of what limits we are really up against, and how these can be expected to affect the entire process. More refined approaches are also likely to give us more credibility with the non-peak oil community, who see Hubbert curves as discredited, and see analyses of demand as important as analyses of supply.
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy
1. The future belongs to electric cars
2. Nuclear electricity will be too cheap too meter
3. Soft-energy illusions (local generation, etc.)
4. Running out: Peak oil and its meaning
5. Sequestration of carbon dioxide
6. Liquid fuels from plants
7. Electricity from wind
8. The pace of energy transitions
Smil is well-respected in the world of energy, so I think it is also worthwhile looking at what he has to say. I think that it is even worthwhile looking at what he has to say about peak oil, because it may give us some insights as to where our thinking needs to be refined, or better explained, if it is to be understood by the ?mainstream?.
I might note that Smil is not entirely in disagreement with peak oil. He says,
It is fairly probable that its [conventional crude oil?s] extraction will peak within the next two decades, and it is inevitable that its share of the world?s primary energy supply will continue to decline.
A major point he makes in the peak oil section is that he is not convinced that peak oil will have a terrible impact, even if the decline does occur in the near future?something that quite a number of Oil Drum readers would agree with.
Let?s look at a few things Vaclav Smil has to say:
Electric Cars
Smil points out that electric cars have been around a long time and are still expensive compared to internal combustion cars. But his major concern seems to be that the amount of additional electricity required would be more than could reasonably be added within a short time frame. And, given the limitations of renewables, there would probably need to be a big ramp-up in fossil fuel use, to accommodate the additional cars.
According to Smil:
An electric car whose size would correspond to today?s typical American vehicle (a composite of passenger cars, SUVs, vans, and light trucks) would translate to 3 MWh of electricity consumption.
In 2010, the United States had about 245 million passenger cars, SUVs, vans, and light trucks; hence, an all-electric fleet would call for a theoretical minimum of 750 TWh/year. . . The charging and recharging cycle of Li-ion batteries is about 85% efficient, and about 10% must be subtracted for self-discharge losses; consequently, the actual need to be close to 4 MWh/car, or about 980 TWh of electricity per year. This is a very conservative calculation, as the overall demand of a midsize electric vehicle would be more likely around 300 Wh/km or 6MW/year.
But even this conservative total would be equivalent to 25% of US electricity generation in 2008, and the country?s utilities needed fifteen years (1993-2008) to add this amount of new production. As this power for electric cars would have to come on top of the demand growth by households, services, and industries, it would be exceedingly optimistic to expect such an increment could be in place in less than twenty years.
He later goes to explain how much fuel would be needed for all this.
The average source-to-outlet efficiency of U. S. electricity generation is about 40 percent, and adding 10 percent for internal power plant consumption and transmission losses, this means that 11 MWh (nearly 40 GJ) of primary energy would be needed to generate electricity for a car with an average annual consumption of about 4 MWh.
This would translate to 2 MJ for every kilometer of travel, a performance equivalent to about 38 mpg (9.25L/100 km)?a rate much lower than that offered by scores of new pure gasoline-engine car models, and inferior to advanced hybrid designs or to DiesOtto designs. . .
He explains that there would be no CO2 savings in all of this, unless renewable sources were used for all of the additional energy required. He also notes that a European report by the European Federation for Transport and Environment called How to Avoid an Electric Shock offers analogical conclusions. A complete change to electric cars in the EU would increase European electricity consumption by 15%, and would not lower CO2.
Wind Power
Smil?s conclusion regarding wind is
Conversion of wind?s kinetic energy by large turbines by large turbines can become an important contributor to the overall electricity supply, but, except for relatively small regions, it cannot become the single largest source, even less so the dominant mode of generation.
One of the limits he sees on wind power is the quantity of roads needed to service all of the wind power sites. He says:
But even when assuming a large average turbine size of 2?3 MW, the access roads (which are required to carry heavy loads, as the total weight of foundations, tower, and turbine is more than 300 tons per unit) needed to build roughly 2 million turbines and new transmission lines to conduct their electricity would make a vastly larger land claim than the footprint of the towers; and a considerable energy demand would be created by keeping these roads, often in steep terrain, protected against erosion and open during inclement weather for servicing access.
He also sees wind intermittency as a limiting factor. He says that many studies have shown that these variations do not cause any unmanageable problems as long as the total power installed in wind turbines is no more than about 10% of the system?s overall output.
He quotes P. A. Ostergaard, in the 2008 Energy article ?Geographic Aggregation and Wind Power Output Variance in Denmark,? saying:
Drawing on the Danish experience, he finds, predictably, that demand and wind variations in different areas help even out fluctuations and reduce imbalances in systems with high reliance on wind power, and that exploiting these variations allows for reductions in reserve capacity in other modes of electricity generation. But, no less predictably, he also finds limits to what can be done: The average requirement for the reserve thermal capacity may drop, ?but the same is not generally the case with the maximum required condensing mode capacity. . . . There will simply be times with wind production in neither of the interconnected areas.?
He is also concerned about the high installation rates that would be required to reach high penetrations, and the fact that at this point we cannot be certain of average life spans of wind turbines and of their need for maintenance and replacement requirements, particularly in harsh and offshore environments.
Peak Oil and Its Meaning
In the chapter ?Running Out: Peak Oil and Its Meaning?, Smil starts by looking at individual peak oil predictions that turned out not to be exactly correct. He argues that contrary to the assumptions of Richard Duncan in his Olduvai Gorge theory, average per capita energy consumption did not peak in 1978. Instead, based on BP data for all types of energy and UN population figures, world per capita energy consumption was 10% higher in 2008 than in 1978. He also says,
but even a lower rate would not signify anything catastrophic; because of steadily falling energy intensity?the energy consumption per unit of economic product?of the global economy, it could be a sign of progress for the world to use less energy.
It would seem to me that this is one area where there is considerable additional work that needs to be done. Is oil a limiting factor on all other forms of energy use, or will efficiency and other changes lead to higher GDP relative to energy use? There is probably room for a range of views on this subject.
Smil also points out that the predictions of M. King Hubbert, Andrew Flower, Collin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes and others were not exactly right, partly because the estimates of ultimately recoverable oil were not correct and partly because the deterministic approaches being used were too simple. Smil says:
The fundamental problem with the notion of predicting a peak for oil extraction is that it rests on three simple assumptions?that recoverable oil resources are known with a high level of confidence, that they are fixed, and that their recovery is subsumed by a symmetrical production curve?which happen not to be true. These three claims mix incontestable facts and sensible arguments with indefensible assumptions, and they caricature complex processes and ignore realities that do not fit preconceived conclusions. There is, obviously, a finite amount of liquid oil in the earth?s crust, but estimates of this grand total remain uncertain.
He mentions Adam Brandt?s 2007 article ?Testing Hubbert? from Energy Policy. Smil says regarding Brandt?s article, ?the symmetrical model of oil extraction is just one of many possibilities, and we now have a rigorous quantitative proof that it is not either a dominant or a modal choice.?
He also mentions R. Nehring?s conclusion,
The task facing us now is not to continue to use an obsolete and irrelevant method [that is, Hubbert?s model] but to develop further understanding of recovery growth.
Smil also has sections on untapped resources and non-conventional oil reserves.
The point of all of Smil?s analysis is that the amount of oil available could very well be considerably more than what an analysis simply using a Hubbert curve would project. But I think an equally valid argument could be made in the other direction?the amount of oil that can actually be extracted may prove to be considerably less than what a Hubbert curve would project.
It seems to me that Hubbert curves are valuable as giving a first-order approximation to what may happen in the future. In that regard, Hubbert curves have been helpful in saying that the peak in conventional oil production is about now. Smil mostly agrees with this?he says that there is a high probability that conventional oil production will peak in the next 10 to 20 years.
But it seems to me that Smil is correct in saying that Hubbert curves really don?t tell us precisely what lies ahead. Smil lays out the favorable scenario, where untapped resources, nonconventional oil reserves, and higher percentages of oil recovery act to increase the total amount of oil available to society. But Smil never looks at what the real limiting factor is. It seems to me that this limiting factor is declining energy return from the oil that is extracted, and the impact that this has on the world economy and the ability to do reinvestment. After a certain point, net energy obtained is so low that it is not possible to justify the ever-higher energy investment required to maintain production.
If net energy is the limiting factor, one would also expect that Hubbert curves are, as Smil says, not very helpful in predicting what is likely to happen in the future. In the case of net energy being the limiting factor, the result could well be that the downslope is more severe than a Hubbert curve would suggest.
Perhaps we do need to back away from Hubbert curve as a primary way of estimating what will happen in the future. While that approach was valuable as a rough approximation in the past, now that we are approaching the down slope, maybe we need to be looking at other approaches, to give a more refined understanding of what limits we are really up against, and how these can be expected to affect the entire process. More refined approaches are also likely to give us more credibility with the non-peak oil community, who see Hubbert curves as discredited, and see analyses of demand as important as analyses of supply.
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy
Solar Energy International Launches Free Introduction to Renewable Energy Online Course
Submitted on 01/24/11, 01:42 PM | Source AltEnergyMag.com
Introduction to Renewable Energy is Solar Energy International's NEW free online course for those who wish to learn the basics of renewable energy - including where it is found, how we can harvest it for use in our homes and how it can help ease pressures on the environment. You will not become an expert through this course, but you will get to know renewable energy in its many forms - helping you to decide whether solar, wind or other renewable technologies are right for you. If you've never taken an online course from SEI, this is a great preview into our online course structure and learning experience. We hope this will lower any inhibitions you may have in taking an online course by giving you this free opportunity to experience the SEI Online Campus. This free 10-lesson course includes education on conservation and efficiency, sustainable building, solar thermal, solar electricity, wind power, microhydro power, renewable energy for the developing world, and the economics of renewable energy.
Powered By WizardRSSGreen Energy Green Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator
Public health in the era of peak oil (Canada)
Introduction by EB contributor Dr. Dan Bednarz
Donald Spady, MD, discusses the potential impacts of peak oil on the social determinants of health in Canada. These are the factors that are associated with keeping people healthy and are critical to maintaining personal health in a post-peak world. They also are integral to the infrastructure of both the health care system and the public health system.
There are at least three salient differences between Canada the United States. First, Canada is geographically large with a relatively small population of approximately 34 million. Approximately 21 million live in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, with 13 million spread across the vast geography of the eight other provinces and three territories. The entire province of New Brunswick, for example, is 28,000 square miles and has approximately 750,000 residents; in contrast, Massachusetts has 6.5 million residents on 7,800 square miles. The point is that health care systems must cover wide expanses.
Second, Canada has a national health plan; anyone who has seen Michael Moore?s ?Sicko? will recall the scenes from the health clinic in Windsor, Ontario ?across the river from Detroit- in which Moore asks Canadians how much their medical care will cost; they don?t know and find his question humorous. In 2006 Canada spent US $3,678 per capita on health care, while the U.S. spent $6,714, per-capita for health care.
Third, Canada is a relatively energy rich nation and an exporter to the US. These importance differences shape Canadians vulnerability to the health consequences of peak oil.
Excerpts from the Interview
Human life is impossible without energy. It can indeed be understood as a process of energy exchange between human beings and their environment. Oil today is the single most important energy resource for the lives and the way of life of Canadians.
However, oil is a finite resource, and there is an ongoing debate surrounding what has been termed ?peak oil? . Current discussions are not so much focused on whether peak oil will happen, but rather, on when it will happen, and what will be the scope and range of its effects.
Some U.S. researchers have begun to examine how this phenomenon affects health outcomes and to consider possible responses by the public health sector. Many of these researchers attended a conference entitled ?Peak Oil and Health? organized by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in March, 2009. Canadian public health circles have thus far been less engaged with these issues. To begin to clarify what is at stake specifically for Canadian public health with regards to peak oil, Fran�ois Gagnon from the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP) interviewed Dr. Donald W. Spady, a paediatrician/epidemiologist in the Departments of Pediatrics and Public Health Sciences of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, who is keenly interested in this issue and has been following these debates and engaging in conferences and webinars about them for the past few years.
---
Fran�ois Gagnon (NCCHPP) ? Why should public health professionals be concerned with peak oil?
Dr. Donald Spady (DS) ? Since there are no clear and easy sources of energy to replace oil, and adequate amounts of affordable energy are essential to Canadian life, peak oil could affect the health of Canadians in significant ways. It will affect many parts of the infrastructure of Canadian society that largely determine the health of the Canadian population. For public health professionals, peak oil is significant because it will affect what are commonly called the social, environmental and economic determinants of health. For example, it will significantly affect, and require some reorganization of, our economic, transportation, and food systems. It is also important to public health professionals because it will very likely affect how health services are organized (the use of products and services dependent on petroleum permeates our health care system), but I understand the mandate of the NCCHPP does not cover this area and thus I will not expand on this now.
---
NCCHPP ? Can you share your thoughts on the links between peak oil, the food system and health outcomes?
DS ? Petroleum is used in virtually all aspects of food production and transportation, therefore peak oil presents a significant threat to Canadian food security. While this could pose a problem as petroleum supplies diminish, the immediate problem in Canada is not food production, it is food security; i.e. finding and buying adequate amounts of affordable and nutritious food. Peak oil will likely affect every component of food security: accessibility, availability, adequacy, acceptability, and agency. It will do so mainly and initially through economic factors, but ultimately also through the consequences of the lack of fuel and fertilizers which will be secondary to an absolute lack of petroleum. Food security is a common problem in an economic downturn where unemployment is high, but it is always and specifically the case in more remote areas of the country and on native reserves, where food is expensive and choice is limited. As well, some segments of the population, such as the elderly or single parent families, are always more exposed
to food insecurity because they may lack the ability to find and purchase adequate amounts of nutritious food.
The 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey found that 9.2% of Canadian households were food insecure at some point in the previous year and 8.8% of the population lived in food insecure households in 2004. It was the poorer person, often on social assistance, worker's compensation or unemployment insurance, who was at greatest risk. Another group, at risk for many problems besides food insecurity, was the Aboriginal household living off the reserve. Lone-parent families, larger families, and families with young children were at particular risk. Housing costs can play a role in determining food security status in low-income households and living in rental housing posed a particular risk. Quite possibly rent trumps food; these days a mortgage or a high energy bill may do the same.
In Canada in 2008, food prices rose 7.3% over the year, as compared to a rise in the Consumer Price Index of only 1.2%. Reasons for these rises include: high oil costs, climate change and associated crop losses and decreased yield, more land and food crops being used for biofuel production, and market speculation. It is reasonable to expect that these factors will persist over the next decades.
Depending on where you live, food prices in Canada can vary by as much as six-fold for the same product, and it has been reported that between 14% and 40% of Canadians face a problem of no or limited access to desirable nutritious foods, even when money is adequate. Food costs and value are particular problems in remote areas of Canada, especially Northern Canada, the high Arctic and on First Nations Reserves, where the types of food are less varied and the food is often of lower quality. For all Canadians, a lack of food access and variety may become a significant issue as long distance transport becomes increasingly expensive or even absent.
Two other issues that may affect the Canadian food supply are long-distance foods and corn-based biofuels. Much of our food travels thousands of kilometres to reach our table. These ?long-distance? foods may be more energy efficient and environmentally friendly than similar local foods, especially if foods are transported in large volumes, and thus long-distance foods should not be dismissed arbitrarily. Biofuels grown in North America are more problematic, with concerns about their energy benefits, their high fertilizer, fuel and water requirements, and their potential competition with food production contributing to concerns of food security. Other forms of biofuel, such as sugar cane and palm oil, are less 'food' based and have better energy characteristics; but, they also can have significant environmental impacts.
Full interview is here:
English: http://www.ncchpp.ca/67/New_Publications.ccnpps?id_article=541.
French: http://www.ccnpps.ca/88/Nouvelles_publications.ccnpps?id_article=542.
Powered By WizardRSSGreen Energy Green Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator
Donald Spady, MD, discusses the potential impacts of peak oil on the social determinants of health in Canada. These are the factors that are associated with keeping people healthy and are critical to maintaining personal health in a post-peak world. They also are integral to the infrastructure of both the health care system and the public health system.
There are at least three salient differences between Canada the United States. First, Canada is geographically large with a relatively small population of approximately 34 million. Approximately 21 million live in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, with 13 million spread across the vast geography of the eight other provinces and three territories. The entire province of New Brunswick, for example, is 28,000 square miles and has approximately 750,000 residents; in contrast, Massachusetts has 6.5 million residents on 7,800 square miles. The point is that health care systems must cover wide expanses.
Second, Canada has a national health plan; anyone who has seen Michael Moore?s ?Sicko? will recall the scenes from the health clinic in Windsor, Ontario ?across the river from Detroit- in which Moore asks Canadians how much their medical care will cost; they don?t know and find his question humorous. In 2006 Canada spent US $3,678 per capita on health care, while the U.S. spent $6,714, per-capita for health care.
Third, Canada is a relatively energy rich nation and an exporter to the US. These importance differences shape Canadians vulnerability to the health consequences of peak oil.
Excerpts from the Interview
Human life is impossible without energy. It can indeed be understood as a process of energy exchange between human beings and their environment. Oil today is the single most important energy resource for the lives and the way of life of Canadians.
However, oil is a finite resource, and there is an ongoing debate surrounding what has been termed ?peak oil? . Current discussions are not so much focused on whether peak oil will happen, but rather, on when it will happen, and what will be the scope and range of its effects.
Some U.S. researchers have begun to examine how this phenomenon affects health outcomes and to consider possible responses by the public health sector. Many of these researchers attended a conference entitled ?Peak Oil and Health? organized by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in March, 2009. Canadian public health circles have thus far been less engaged with these issues. To begin to clarify what is at stake specifically for Canadian public health with regards to peak oil, Fran�ois Gagnon from the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP) interviewed Dr. Donald W. Spady, a paediatrician/epidemiologist in the Departments of Pediatrics and Public Health Sciences of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, who is keenly interested in this issue and has been following these debates and engaging in conferences and webinars about them for the past few years.
---
Fran�ois Gagnon (NCCHPP) ? Why should public health professionals be concerned with peak oil?
Dr. Donald Spady (DS) ? Since there are no clear and easy sources of energy to replace oil, and adequate amounts of affordable energy are essential to Canadian life, peak oil could affect the health of Canadians in significant ways. It will affect many parts of the infrastructure of Canadian society that largely determine the health of the Canadian population. For public health professionals, peak oil is significant because it will affect what are commonly called the social, environmental and economic determinants of health. For example, it will significantly affect, and require some reorganization of, our economic, transportation, and food systems. It is also important to public health professionals because it will very likely affect how health services are organized (the use of products and services dependent on petroleum permeates our health care system), but I understand the mandate of the NCCHPP does not cover this area and thus I will not expand on this now.
---
NCCHPP ? Can you share your thoughts on the links between peak oil, the food system and health outcomes?
DS ? Petroleum is used in virtually all aspects of food production and transportation, therefore peak oil presents a significant threat to Canadian food security. While this could pose a problem as petroleum supplies diminish, the immediate problem in Canada is not food production, it is food security; i.e. finding and buying adequate amounts of affordable and nutritious food. Peak oil will likely affect every component of food security: accessibility, availability, adequacy, acceptability, and agency. It will do so mainly and initially through economic factors, but ultimately also through the consequences of the lack of fuel and fertilizers which will be secondary to an absolute lack of petroleum. Food security is a common problem in an economic downturn where unemployment is high, but it is always and specifically the case in more remote areas of the country and on native reserves, where food is expensive and choice is limited. As well, some segments of the population, such as the elderly or single parent families, are always more exposed
to food insecurity because they may lack the ability to find and purchase adequate amounts of nutritious food.
The 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey found that 9.2% of Canadian households were food insecure at some point in the previous year and 8.8% of the population lived in food insecure households in 2004. It was the poorer person, often on social assistance, worker's compensation or unemployment insurance, who was at greatest risk. Another group, at risk for many problems besides food insecurity, was the Aboriginal household living off the reserve. Lone-parent families, larger families, and families with young children were at particular risk. Housing costs can play a role in determining food security status in low-income households and living in rental housing posed a particular risk. Quite possibly rent trumps food; these days a mortgage or a high energy bill may do the same.
In Canada in 2008, food prices rose 7.3% over the year, as compared to a rise in the Consumer Price Index of only 1.2%. Reasons for these rises include: high oil costs, climate change and associated crop losses and decreased yield, more land and food crops being used for biofuel production, and market speculation. It is reasonable to expect that these factors will persist over the next decades.
Depending on where you live, food prices in Canada can vary by as much as six-fold for the same product, and it has been reported that between 14% and 40% of Canadians face a problem of no or limited access to desirable nutritious foods, even when money is adequate. Food costs and value are particular problems in remote areas of Canada, especially Northern Canada, the high Arctic and on First Nations Reserves, where the types of food are less varied and the food is often of lower quality. For all Canadians, a lack of food access and variety may become a significant issue as long distance transport becomes increasingly expensive or even absent.
Two other issues that may affect the Canadian food supply are long-distance foods and corn-based biofuels. Much of our food travels thousands of kilometres to reach our table. These ?long-distance? foods may be more energy efficient and environmentally friendly than similar local foods, especially if foods are transported in large volumes, and thus long-distance foods should not be dismissed arbitrarily. Biofuels grown in North America are more problematic, with concerns about their energy benefits, their high fertilizer, fuel and water requirements, and their potential competition with food production contributing to concerns of food security. Other forms of biofuel, such as sugar cane and palm oil, are less 'food' based and have better energy characteristics; but, they also can have significant environmental impacts.
Full interview is here:
English: http://www.ncchpp.ca/67/New_Publications.ccnpps?id_article=541.
French: http://www.ccnpps.ca/88/Nouvelles_publications.ccnpps?id_article=542.
Powered By WizardRSSGreen Energy Green Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator
Department of Energy Offers First Conditional Commitment for a Loan Guarantee for Advanced Biofuels Plant
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
January 20, 2011
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the offer of a conditional commitment to Diamond Green Diesel, LLC, the proposed joint venture between Valero Energy Corporation and Darling International Inc., for a $241 million loan guarantee. The loan guarantee will support the construction of a 137-million gallon per year renewable diesel facility in Norco, Louisiana, about 20 miles west of New Orleans. Valero Energy Corporation plans to direct the design, construction and operation of the project and market all of its output, while Darling International Inc. will supply feedstock to the project.
"Today's announcement reflects this administration's commitment to promoting the development of advanced biofuels," said Secretary Chu. "Strong biofuels projects like Diamond Green Diesel can help to diversify our transportation fuel supply while creating jobs and strengthening our economy."
"This announcement by the Department of Energy demonstrates the dedication of the Obama Administration to building a robust, domestic renewable fuels industry," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Made-in-America biofuels will increase our energy security, economic security and environmental security?while creating jobs?and help build a brighter future for all Americans."
"This announcement is a great example of something we have been saying at EPA for a very long time?we can protect our health, preserve our environment and improve our economy at the same time," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "Clear environmental standards and strong government support have given these companies the certainty they need to invest in new technology and new jobs. It demonstrates the power of American innovators to create a cleaner, healthier and more prosperous future."
"Today's announcement of a $241 million loan guarantee to Diamond Green Diesel in Norco is good for Louisiana and good for our nation's future," Senator Mary Landrieu said. "Oil has paid tremendous dividends to our country. It helped us win World War II, it helped create an industrial revolution and it built the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. But, as we move to new technologies beyond oil, we must embrace the transition to clean renewable energy. Projects like Diamond Green Diesel are a step in the right direction, and I appreciate the commitment Secretary Chu and Administrator Jackson are making to this effort."
The company estimates that the project will create 700 jobs during peak construction and over 60 jobs during operation. The project will reduce greenhouse gases by more than 80% over conventional petroleum-based diesel and is expected to nearly triple the amount of renewable diesel produced in the United States. In addition, the facility will fulfill almost 14% of a national mandate to boost production for biomass-based diesel. Approximately 95% of the project components are expected to be produced in the United States.
The project will produce renewable diesel fuel primarily from animal fats, used cooking oil and other waste grease streams. The project will be the first application of its kind in the United States to use an innovative hydrotreating/isomerization process from Universal Oil Products (UOP), known as Ecofining&0099;, and a pretreatment process from Desmet Ballestra Group, which converts processed feedstock into high-quality diesel.
As part of the Department of Energy's comprehensive strategy to support the production of advanced biofuels, Secretary Chu also announced the launch of a new online collaboration tool and data resource focused on bioenergy. The "Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework" allows researchers, policymakers and investors to share large data sets, as well as the latest bioenergy research. The Framework also facilitates collaborative production, integration and analysis of information. Registered users will be able to contribute data sets that can then be shared, expanding the body of knowledge, better informing this growing industry and eliminating "information silos." The Framework allows simultaneous geographic mapping of complex data sets such as biomass feedstock production, fueling stations and biorefineries on a national, state, and even county-level basis?providing the bioenergy industry an analytical tool for identifying new opportunities for research, supportive policies and project investment.
Through the Loan Programs Office, the Department of Energy has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees to support 18 clean energy projects totaling over $17.5 billion. Together, these projects will produce over 37 million megawatt-hours, enough clean energy to power approximately 3.5 million homes. Additional DOE-supported projects include two of the world's largest solar thermal projects, two geothermal projects, the world's largest wind farm and the nation's first nuclear power plant in three decades. For more information, please visit the Loan Programs Office Web site.
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources
January 20, 2011
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the offer of a conditional commitment to Diamond Green Diesel, LLC, the proposed joint venture between Valero Energy Corporation and Darling International Inc., for a $241 million loan guarantee. The loan guarantee will support the construction of a 137-million gallon per year renewable diesel facility in Norco, Louisiana, about 20 miles west of New Orleans. Valero Energy Corporation plans to direct the design, construction and operation of the project and market all of its output, while Darling International Inc. will supply feedstock to the project.
"Today's announcement reflects this administration's commitment to promoting the development of advanced biofuels," said Secretary Chu. "Strong biofuels projects like Diamond Green Diesel can help to diversify our transportation fuel supply while creating jobs and strengthening our economy."
"This announcement by the Department of Energy demonstrates the dedication of the Obama Administration to building a robust, domestic renewable fuels industry," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Made-in-America biofuels will increase our energy security, economic security and environmental security?while creating jobs?and help build a brighter future for all Americans."
"This announcement is a great example of something we have been saying at EPA for a very long time?we can protect our health, preserve our environment and improve our economy at the same time," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "Clear environmental standards and strong government support have given these companies the certainty they need to invest in new technology and new jobs. It demonstrates the power of American innovators to create a cleaner, healthier and more prosperous future."
"Today's announcement of a $241 million loan guarantee to Diamond Green Diesel in Norco is good for Louisiana and good for our nation's future," Senator Mary Landrieu said. "Oil has paid tremendous dividends to our country. It helped us win World War II, it helped create an industrial revolution and it built the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. But, as we move to new technologies beyond oil, we must embrace the transition to clean renewable energy. Projects like Diamond Green Diesel are a step in the right direction, and I appreciate the commitment Secretary Chu and Administrator Jackson are making to this effort."
The company estimates that the project will create 700 jobs during peak construction and over 60 jobs during operation. The project will reduce greenhouse gases by more than 80% over conventional petroleum-based diesel and is expected to nearly triple the amount of renewable diesel produced in the United States. In addition, the facility will fulfill almost 14% of a national mandate to boost production for biomass-based diesel. Approximately 95% of the project components are expected to be produced in the United States.
The project will produce renewable diesel fuel primarily from animal fats, used cooking oil and other waste grease streams. The project will be the first application of its kind in the United States to use an innovative hydrotreating/isomerization process from Universal Oil Products (UOP), known as Ecofining&0099;, and a pretreatment process from Desmet Ballestra Group, which converts processed feedstock into high-quality diesel.
As part of the Department of Energy's comprehensive strategy to support the production of advanced biofuels, Secretary Chu also announced the launch of a new online collaboration tool and data resource focused on bioenergy. The "Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework" allows researchers, policymakers and investors to share large data sets, as well as the latest bioenergy research. The Framework also facilitates collaborative production, integration and analysis of information. Registered users will be able to contribute data sets that can then be shared, expanding the body of knowledge, better informing this growing industry and eliminating "information silos." The Framework allows simultaneous geographic mapping of complex data sets such as biomass feedstock production, fueling stations and biorefineries on a national, state, and even county-level basis?providing the bioenergy industry an analytical tool for identifying new opportunities for research, supportive policies and project investment.
Through the Loan Programs Office, the Department of Energy has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees to support 18 clean energy projects totaling over $17.5 billion. Together, these projects will produce over 37 million megawatt-hours, enough clean energy to power approximately 3.5 million homes. Additional DOE-supported projects include two of the world's largest solar thermal projects, two geothermal projects, the world's largest wind farm and the nation's first nuclear power plant in three decades. For more information, please visit the Loan Programs Office Web site.
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources
eIQ Energy?s Parallel Solar Technology Chosen For 1.8 Megawatt Solar Power Install in Murrieta, CA
eIQ Energys Parallel Solar Technology Chosen For 1.8 Megawatt Solar Power Install in Murrieta, CA
Visit http://www.eiqenergy.com for further information
Six-figure up-front savings achieved by shifting array wiring away from traditional series-wired string architecture
Submitted on 01/25/11, 10:54 AM
SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 25, 2010 eIQ Energys Parallel Solar technology has been selected for a new 1.8 megawatt solar power installation at a Bee Safe Storage facility in Murrieta, Calif., creating significant up-front cost savings and ongoing energy harvest benefits. Installation will be completed by EcoOneEnergy of Escondido, Calif., using crystalline solar modules driving multiple inverters. An array of this size requires thousands of solar modules. Traditionally, they would have been connected in series-wired strings (each typically containing a dozen or two modules), with each string being wired to a combiner box and then routed to an inverter. By opting instead for the parallel wiring approach enabled by eIQ Energys vBoost DC-to-DC voltage optimizer, the need for cabling, combiner boxes, and other hardware is sharply reduced as is the amount of labor needed during installation. Hardware savings alone on the Bee Safe Storage project will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than offsetting the cost of the eIQ Energy vBoost, which are installed on each panel or group of panels. Over the lifetime of the installation, eIQ Energys Parallel Solar technology will also provide distributed MPPT, precision panel-level monitoring of performance, and Web-based access to operational data. The vBoost also eliminates power-sapping interactions between panels on the same string that have different output levels due to shading, soiling, aging, or other issues. The Parallel Solar approach was an obvious choice for this installation, said Eugene Wilkie, CEO of EcoOneEnergy. It freed up our designers to focus on what would provide the best power output, rather than having to worry about string architecture and voltage management. Were also saving a substantial amount on combiner boxes, cable and conduit, and the snap-together connection on the vBoost modules are a tremendous time-saver. As we approach the first anniversary of vBoosts entry into the market, were seeing Parallel Solar gaining increasing traction in the marketplace, noted eIQ Energy CEO Oliver Janssen. The Bee Safe Storage project is our largest to date, and an indicator of the interest were seeing in commercial-scale installations where the cost savings really add up. In addition to generating electricity, the trellis installation at Bee Safe Storage in Murrieta will provide valuable shading for a vehicle storage area located at the storage facility, stated Mike Delaney, CEO of Bee Safe Storage. About eIQ Energy eIQ Energy, Inc. uses unique power management technology to make solar energy more effective and affordable. The companys Parallel Solar technology, built around the vBoost converter module, reduces overall system costs and enables a true parallel architecture, benefiting system designers, installers and operators. eIQ Energy was founded in 2007 with the principal goal of improving the performance and the return on investment for clean energy sources such as photovoltaic systems. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., eIQ Energys executive team combines sophisticated knowledge of power supply design, semiconductors and energy management with broad entrepreneurial skills. For more information, please visit www.eiqenergy.com About EcoOneEnergy EcoOneEnergy, LLC is a renewable energy systems developer and integrator specialist focused on renewable energy projects (PV solar and wind) for power generation and the reduction of energy consumption in the industrial, commercial and educational markets. The company's target markets are the Southwest United States and Mexico. Projects range in size from commercial roof mount systems to utility size PV solar ground mount and wind farm systems, anywhere from 1MW to 1GW in size.
Powered By WizardRSSFree Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Sorry, readability was unable to parse this page for content.Cheap Electricity
Free Energy Generator
Magnetic Energy Generator
Magnetic Generators
Free Energy Home
Review: Twilight in the Desert by Matt Simmons
Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy
By Matthew R. Simmons
448 pp., hardcover. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ? Jun. 2005. $24.95.
A year ago peak oil author Dave Cohen christened 2009 "A Year We Will Live To Regret."1 But as it happens, 2010 has brought its own mother lode of discouragement, failure and tragedy. It began on the heels of the bungled climate change summit in Copenhagen, a major blackout in southern France and news of a disastrous crash in Yemen's oil revenues. Before the year had rounded its halfway mark, it had presided over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And as if all this weren't enough, 2010 also saw the sudden and unexpected death of one of the very icons of the peak oil movement, the revered Matthew R. Simmons.
It has been said of Simmons that no one in America was more influential in warning of the coming oil crisis, and that's surely true enough.2 Appearing in documentaries and in frequent TV and radio spots, he was a vital go-between for journalists reporting on the ever-escalating cost of fuel and a pained, bewildered public. He had even been a presidential energy advisor. But that description of Simmons only scratches the surface, for he did far more than simply raise awareness of oil depletion. Above all, he was the voice of informed reason in debates over whether Saudi Arabia, long the world's oil producer of last resort, could indefinitely continue to provide whatever quantities of oil the global economy may need.
His controversial bestselling book Twilight in the Desert represents the seminal attempt to answer this question. He began writing it in 2003, following a visit to the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. Simmons was then chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment banking firm that he'd founded in 1974 and that has since acted as financial advisor on more than $134 billion in transactions within the oil and gas services industry.3 During the visit, a Saudi Aramco senior manager explained that the company used "fuzzy logic" to maximize recovery from the nation's oilfields. That term didn't sit well with Simmons, and for the first time he became skeptical of Saudi Arabia's alleged oil potential.
His skepticism was confirmed when he came across an extensive collection of technical papers from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) offering an in-depth look into Saudi oil production over the past 40 years. This collection, containing more than 200 papers, documented a decades-long saga of technical difficulties that had taxed the talents and ingenuity of some of the world's foremost oil engineers. The picture that these documents painted was a far cry from the boastful claims long made by Saudi officialdom regarding the supposed robustness of its oilfields.
To date, Saudi Arabia's all-time record output was roughly 10 million barrels a day, achieved in 1981. Current production fluctuates between approximately 8 and 9 million barrels a day, according to demand. Yet many oil observers insist that the country could raise its output to 12, 16 or even 20 to 25 million barrels per day, and that it could sustain these rates for as long as 50 years into the future. After researching and writing Twilight, Simmons knew better. In my favorite Simmons quote of all time, he wryly remarked to radio talk show host Jim Puplava, "I can tell you on your program that, trust me, my net worth will exceed Bill Gates' by 2030, and you'd be a fool to believe it?unless Bill Gates had a terrible financial collapse. There's nothing illegal about me telling you that. I can want that. And that's kind of what the world has done."4 Simmons' wit was as quick as his energy savvy and wisdom were great.
The most troubling trends dogging Saudi Arabia's oilfields, as revealed in Twilight, are all textbook examples of what can happen when oil reserves are exploited too hastily or vigorously. According to our best current understanding of the science of oil production, Simmons explains, every oilfield has an ideal production rate. Exceeding this rate is known as "overproducing" a field, and it can cause irreparable damage resulting in far more oil being permanently left behind. In short, overproducing brings more immediate returns but reduces the longevity of a field and the amount of oil that can ultimately be recovered.
As the 40-year SPE paper trail attests, multiple generations of Aramco scientists and engineers have been struggling to address the classic signs of overproduction in some of Saudi Arabia?s great oilfields. These include dramatic drops in reservoir pressure, increasing quantities of water produced along with the oil and premature gas cap formation. Simmons argues that they represent the dear price that Saudi Arabia has had to pay for its otherwise commendable decision to assume the responsibility of world's chief swing oil producer.
Based on the available evidence, Simmons concludes that Saudi oil production is at or nearing its peak sustainable level, and that it's likely to start dropping irreversibly in the quite foreseeable future. Further, the decline rate promises to be quite steep because Aramco's experimental use of water injection to maintain reservoir pressure right at the start of the fields? development?rather than at the end, as is standard?has swept the proverbial cupboards bare. Worse yet, because Saudi Arabia is essentially the only oil-producing nation with any spare production capacity left, its peak also signals the world peak.
Twilight is organized into a neat, easy-to-follow structure with four main sections. Parts one and two supply background information that is crucial to understanding the technical discussions in parts three and four. This background includes an account of Saudi Arabia's brief national history and how it came to dominate the world oil market, a detailed run-down of Saudi Aramco's operations and a basic primer on the steps involved in discovering and developing oil reserves. The book?s third part is an exhaustive assessment of each of Saudi Arabia?s dozen or so major fields and their unique technical challenges. And finally, the last section of the book explores at length the social, institutional and economic implications of the waning of Saudi Arabia's oil bounty.
A common theme running through the oilfield analyses is that too much about these fields' geology and behavior remains poorly understood. The mighty Ghawar field is a case in point. Once having supplied as much as two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's total output and six percent of global production, Ghawar is believed to be the largest oil-bearing structure ever to have existed on planet Earth. And yet, only one northernmost region of this great field has proven relatively trouble-free, and has thus been the source of the lion's share of Ghawar's oil. The remaining 80 percent of Ghawar produces far more modest flows because of ?reservoir pressure anomalies" seemingly linked somehow to a baffling set of faults, fractures and other geological phenomena.
In addition to the SPE papers, Simmons draws on an array of other equally revealing primary sources, chief among them a Senate staff report released in 1979. This report seriously questioned Aramco's claimed sustainable peak rate of 12 million barrels a day and quite presciently concluded that 9.8 million barrels a day was probably a more realistic goal. Yet it warned that even at that level the major fields would have tipped into decline before the turn of the century.
One of Simmons' biggest peeves was the secrecy surrounding oil reserves and production not just in Saudi Arabia, but in all OPEC countries. Twilight recounts how OPEC countries once routinely reported field-by-field production figures to industry periodicals like the Oil & Gas Journal but stopped doing this when Saudi oil minister Zaki Yamani took office in 1982. The result was a confusing maelstrom of contradictory reserves and production numbers that continues to this day. Oil-producing countries have little to gain by dispelling this veil of secrecy, because doing so would reveal that the geese laying their golden eggs are steadily succumbing to old age. As a result, the policy of secrecy has stuck.
The book goes into great depth about the need to break this veil and how that might be done. It calls for an international forum for systematically collecting and reporting worldwide energy data, something for which Simmons had long agitated. Indeed, asked once how he would begin to address energy policy if elected president, Simmons began, ?Probably cry??and then, once the laughter had dissipated, added, ?I would basically hold my fireside chat after having the conversation all day with the 20 most important world leaders and saying we need tomorrow morning to slap a $20-a-barrel transportation fine on any producer of oil that will not release their basically field-by-field production statistics, because we have a week to figure out how bad this problem is."5 Witticisms aside, Simmons was so adamant about this need for an international energy forum that he felt Twilight would have done the world a great service if all it did was supply the necessary catalyst.
As an outspoken peak oiler, Simmons was always something of a provocateur. At the end of his life, however, he became a loose cannon. His own firm ended its association with him after he lambasted BP Plc. for its hand in the Deepwater Horizon spill and predicted that the spill would bankrupt BP within weeks. Then he shocked everyone with his suggestion that the wellbore be sealed through the detonation of a nuclear bomb. (He pointed out that the Russians had used this approach repeatedly?and he reasoned that we needn't worry about radioactive contamination because the seafloor well was even deeper than the old Nevada test sites?but his idea was nonetheless roundly attacked as insane.) After "retiring" from Simmons & Co., he devoted full time to the Ocean Energy Institute, a think tank and venture capital fund that he'd established three years earlier to pursue offshore wind energy. Just two months later, on Sunday, Aug. 8, he died of a heart attack in a hot tub at his home in North Haven, Maine, at the age of 67. His hard words for BP had gained him enough notoriety that in no time speculation, never substantiated, was flying around the Web that his death had really been an assassination carried out by some wronged party.6
In the years leading up to Simmons' death, there had been excited murmurings within the peak oil community over his plans to write a second book. According to one source, it was going to deal with the increasingly decrepit infrastructure and aging labor force of the oil industry, and how these threaten to bring about just as serious a collapse in oil production as the one imposed by Mother Nature.7 The world will never know what Simmons might have put in this unwritten book, nor what additional contribution it might have made to the literature. But Twilight remains an essential piece of scholarship that deserves to be remembered and read for decades.
1 Dave Cohen, ?2009 ? A Year We Will Live To Regret,? Energy Bulletin, Dec. 17 2009, http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51013 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
2 Steve Andrews, Sally Odland, John Theobald and Randy Udall and others, ?Remembering the remarkable Matthew R. Simmons,? Energy Bulletin, Aug. 19 2010, http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-08-19/remembering-remarkable-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
3 ?History and Purpose of EOCM,? Energy Opportunities Capital Management, http://www.energyocm.com/history.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
4 Matthew R. Simmons, interview with Jim Puplava, "Financial Sense Newshour," Financial Sense: Uncommon News & Views for the Wise Investor, Apr. 7, 2007, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/transcriptions/2007/0407.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
5 Simmons, interview with Puplava, "FSN Expert Roundtable: Energy Roundtable," Financial Sense, Feb. 2, 2008, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/Experts/roundtable/2008/0202.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
6 Braden Reddall and Kristen Hays, "Energy bank Simmons cuts ties to outspoken founder," Reuters, Jun. 16, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1617784120100616 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Rich Blake, "BP Shares Sink on Oil Spill Bankruptcy Worries," ABC News, Jun. 10, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/bp-survive-company-result-oil-spill-gulf-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Kent Bernhard, Jr., "Matthew Simmons Reflects On Deepwater Horizon Disaster: One Lesson From Pearl Harbor," Portfolio.com: a bizjournals property, Jun. 3, 2010, http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/energy/2010/06/03/matthew-simmons... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); ?Matthew R. Simmons Retires as Chairman Emeritus of Simmons & Company International to Dedicate his Full Attention to The Ocean Energy Institute,? Earth Times, June. 16, 2010, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/ocean-energy-institute,1348001.... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Scott Malone and Edward McAllister, ?Oil guru Matthew Simmons dies in Maine,? Reuters, Aug. 9, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/idINN0926746220100809 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
7 Totoneila, ?DrumBeat: November 8, 2006,? The Oil Drum, Nov. 8, 2006, http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/8/82046/5724 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy
By Matthew R. Simmons
448 pp., hardcover. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ? Jun. 2005. $24.95.
A year ago peak oil author Dave Cohen christened 2009 "A Year We Will Live To Regret."1 But as it happens, 2010 has brought its own mother lode of discouragement, failure and tragedy. It began on the heels of the bungled climate change summit in Copenhagen, a major blackout in southern France and news of a disastrous crash in Yemen's oil revenues. Before the year had rounded its halfway mark, it had presided over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And as if all this weren't enough, 2010 also saw the sudden and unexpected death of one of the very icons of the peak oil movement, the revered Matthew R. Simmons.
It has been said of Simmons that no one in America was more influential in warning of the coming oil crisis, and that's surely true enough.2 Appearing in documentaries and in frequent TV and radio spots, he was a vital go-between for journalists reporting on the ever-escalating cost of fuel and a pained, bewildered public. He had even been a presidential energy advisor. But that description of Simmons only scratches the surface, for he did far more than simply raise awareness of oil depletion. Above all, he was the voice of informed reason in debates over whether Saudi Arabia, long the world's oil producer of last resort, could indefinitely continue to provide whatever quantities of oil the global economy may need.
His controversial bestselling book Twilight in the Desert represents the seminal attempt to answer this question. He began writing it in 2003, following a visit to the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. Simmons was then chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment banking firm that he'd founded in 1974 and that has since acted as financial advisor on more than $134 billion in transactions within the oil and gas services industry.3 During the visit, a Saudi Aramco senior manager explained that the company used "fuzzy logic" to maximize recovery from the nation's oilfields. That term didn't sit well with Simmons, and for the first time he became skeptical of Saudi Arabia's alleged oil potential.
His skepticism was confirmed when he came across an extensive collection of technical papers from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) offering an in-depth look into Saudi oil production over the past 40 years. This collection, containing more than 200 papers, documented a decades-long saga of technical difficulties that had taxed the talents and ingenuity of some of the world's foremost oil engineers. The picture that these documents painted was a far cry from the boastful claims long made by Saudi officialdom regarding the supposed robustness of its oilfields.
To date, Saudi Arabia's all-time record output was roughly 10 million barrels a day, achieved in 1981. Current production fluctuates between approximately 8 and 9 million barrels a day, according to demand. Yet many oil observers insist that the country could raise its output to 12, 16 or even 20 to 25 million barrels per day, and that it could sustain these rates for as long as 50 years into the future. After researching and writing Twilight, Simmons knew better. In my favorite Simmons quote of all time, he wryly remarked to radio talk show host Jim Puplava, "I can tell you on your program that, trust me, my net worth will exceed Bill Gates' by 2030, and you'd be a fool to believe it?unless Bill Gates had a terrible financial collapse. There's nothing illegal about me telling you that. I can want that. And that's kind of what the world has done."4 Simmons' wit was as quick as his energy savvy and wisdom were great.
The most troubling trends dogging Saudi Arabia's oilfields, as revealed in Twilight, are all textbook examples of what can happen when oil reserves are exploited too hastily or vigorously. According to our best current understanding of the science of oil production, Simmons explains, every oilfield has an ideal production rate. Exceeding this rate is known as "overproducing" a field, and it can cause irreparable damage resulting in far more oil being permanently left behind. In short, overproducing brings more immediate returns but reduces the longevity of a field and the amount of oil that can ultimately be recovered.
As the 40-year SPE paper trail attests, multiple generations of Aramco scientists and engineers have been struggling to address the classic signs of overproduction in some of Saudi Arabia?s great oilfields. These include dramatic drops in reservoir pressure, increasing quantities of water produced along with the oil and premature gas cap formation. Simmons argues that they represent the dear price that Saudi Arabia has had to pay for its otherwise commendable decision to assume the responsibility of world's chief swing oil producer.
Based on the available evidence, Simmons concludes that Saudi oil production is at or nearing its peak sustainable level, and that it's likely to start dropping irreversibly in the quite foreseeable future. Further, the decline rate promises to be quite steep because Aramco's experimental use of water injection to maintain reservoir pressure right at the start of the fields? development?rather than at the end, as is standard?has swept the proverbial cupboards bare. Worse yet, because Saudi Arabia is essentially the only oil-producing nation with any spare production capacity left, its peak also signals the world peak.
Twilight is organized into a neat, easy-to-follow structure with four main sections. Parts one and two supply background information that is crucial to understanding the technical discussions in parts three and four. This background includes an account of Saudi Arabia's brief national history and how it came to dominate the world oil market, a detailed run-down of Saudi Aramco's operations and a basic primer on the steps involved in discovering and developing oil reserves. The book?s third part is an exhaustive assessment of each of Saudi Arabia?s dozen or so major fields and their unique technical challenges. And finally, the last section of the book explores at length the social, institutional and economic implications of the waning of Saudi Arabia's oil bounty.
A common theme running through the oilfield analyses is that too much about these fields' geology and behavior remains poorly understood. The mighty Ghawar field is a case in point. Once having supplied as much as two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's total output and six percent of global production, Ghawar is believed to be the largest oil-bearing structure ever to have existed on planet Earth. And yet, only one northernmost region of this great field has proven relatively trouble-free, and has thus been the source of the lion's share of Ghawar's oil. The remaining 80 percent of Ghawar produces far more modest flows because of ?reservoir pressure anomalies" seemingly linked somehow to a baffling set of faults, fractures and other geological phenomena.
In addition to the SPE papers, Simmons draws on an array of other equally revealing primary sources, chief among them a Senate staff report released in 1979. This report seriously questioned Aramco's claimed sustainable peak rate of 12 million barrels a day and quite presciently concluded that 9.8 million barrels a day was probably a more realistic goal. Yet it warned that even at that level the major fields would have tipped into decline before the turn of the century.
One of Simmons' biggest peeves was the secrecy surrounding oil reserves and production not just in Saudi Arabia, but in all OPEC countries. Twilight recounts how OPEC countries once routinely reported field-by-field production figures to industry periodicals like the Oil & Gas Journal but stopped doing this when Saudi oil minister Zaki Yamani took office in 1982. The result was a confusing maelstrom of contradictory reserves and production numbers that continues to this day. Oil-producing countries have little to gain by dispelling this veil of secrecy, because doing so would reveal that the geese laying their golden eggs are steadily succumbing to old age. As a result, the policy of secrecy has stuck.
The book goes into great depth about the need to break this veil and how that might be done. It calls for an international forum for systematically collecting and reporting worldwide energy data, something for which Simmons had long agitated. Indeed, asked once how he would begin to address energy policy if elected president, Simmons began, ?Probably cry??and then, once the laughter had dissipated, added, ?I would basically hold my fireside chat after having the conversation all day with the 20 most important world leaders and saying we need tomorrow morning to slap a $20-a-barrel transportation fine on any producer of oil that will not release their basically field-by-field production statistics, because we have a week to figure out how bad this problem is."5 Witticisms aside, Simmons was so adamant about this need for an international energy forum that he felt Twilight would have done the world a great service if all it did was supply the necessary catalyst.
As an outspoken peak oiler, Simmons was always something of a provocateur. At the end of his life, however, he became a loose cannon. His own firm ended its association with him after he lambasted BP Plc. for its hand in the Deepwater Horizon spill and predicted that the spill would bankrupt BP within weeks. Then he shocked everyone with his suggestion that the wellbore be sealed through the detonation of a nuclear bomb. (He pointed out that the Russians had used this approach repeatedly?and he reasoned that we needn't worry about radioactive contamination because the seafloor well was even deeper than the old Nevada test sites?but his idea was nonetheless roundly attacked as insane.) After "retiring" from Simmons & Co., he devoted full time to the Ocean Energy Institute, a think tank and venture capital fund that he'd established three years earlier to pursue offshore wind energy. Just two months later, on Sunday, Aug. 8, he died of a heart attack in a hot tub at his home in North Haven, Maine, at the age of 67. His hard words for BP had gained him enough notoriety that in no time speculation, never substantiated, was flying around the Web that his death had really been an assassination carried out by some wronged party.6
In the years leading up to Simmons' death, there had been excited murmurings within the peak oil community over his plans to write a second book. According to one source, it was going to deal with the increasingly decrepit infrastructure and aging labor force of the oil industry, and how these threaten to bring about just as serious a collapse in oil production as the one imposed by Mother Nature.7 The world will never know what Simmons might have put in this unwritten book, nor what additional contribution it might have made to the literature. But Twilight remains an essential piece of scholarship that deserves to be remembered and read for decades.
1 Dave Cohen, ?2009 ? A Year We Will Live To Regret,? Energy Bulletin, Dec. 17 2009, http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51013 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
2 Steve Andrews, Sally Odland, John Theobald and Randy Udall and others, ?Remembering the remarkable Matthew R. Simmons,? Energy Bulletin, Aug. 19 2010, http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-08-19/remembering-remarkable-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
3 ?History and Purpose of EOCM,? Energy Opportunities Capital Management, http://www.energyocm.com/history.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
4 Matthew R. Simmons, interview with Jim Puplava, "Financial Sense Newshour," Financial Sense: Uncommon News & Views for the Wise Investor, Apr. 7, 2007, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/transcriptions/2007/0407.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
5 Simmons, interview with Puplava, "FSN Expert Roundtable: Energy Roundtable," Financial Sense, Feb. 2, 2008, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/Experts/roundtable/2008/0202.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
6 Braden Reddall and Kristen Hays, "Energy bank Simmons cuts ties to outspoken founder," Reuters, Jun. 16, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1617784120100616 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Rich Blake, "BP Shares Sink on Oil Spill Bankruptcy Worries," ABC News, Jun. 10, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/bp-survive-company-result-oil-spill-gulf-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Kent Bernhard, Jr., "Matthew Simmons Reflects On Deepwater Horizon Disaster: One Lesson From Pearl Harbor," Portfolio.com: a bizjournals property, Jun. 3, 2010, http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/energy/2010/06/03/matthew-simmons... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); ?Matthew R. Simmons Retires as Chairman Emeritus of Simmons & Company International to Dedicate his Full Attention to The Ocean Energy Institute,? Earth Times, June. 16, 2010, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/ocean-energy-institute,1348001.... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Scott Malone and Edward McAllister, ?Oil guru Matthew Simmons dies in Maine,? Reuters, Aug. 9, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/idINN0926746220100809 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
7 Totoneila, ?DrumBeat: November 8, 2006,? The Oil Drum, Nov. 8, 2006, http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/8/82046/5724 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy
RHS urges gardeners to go green
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has urged gardeners to become more environmentally sustainable and help to combat climate change from their garden.It has issued advice to members, calling for homeowners to avoid using a hosepipe unless necessary for reducing water waste and avoid using peat as this releases greenhouse gases.Planting 'drought resistant' species will help gardeners conserve water.Speaking to the Telegraph, Roger Williams, head of science at the RHS, said: "Whether or not you accept climate change is man made there is lots of evidence that we have a more unstable climate and it is getting warmer. What will that mean for gardeners and how can we adapt to that?"Homeowners with greenhouses were advised to use climate controls and install double glazed cladding.City dwellers are also being encouraged to turn their patio into grassy garden space or plant trees to help absorb carbon dioxide emissions, while planting certain flowers can attract bees and insects to boost biodiversity.Posted by Mark Stephens Sign up for regular email updates to help you save money and energy
For more information please see: Sustainable gardening� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSFree Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator
For more information please see: Sustainable gardening� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSFree Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator
Can energy retrofit loans bring wonderful life to economy?
In Frank Capra's classic 1946 film It's A Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart as Building and Loan manager George Bailey discovers what the world would have been like if he had never existed.
Without George Bailey's heroic efforts to save the small lender that helped the middle class, Bailey's home town of Bedford Falls would have fallen into decay. Bailey's guardian angel Clarence shows him the town, renamed "Pottersville", under the control of evil slumlord and big banker Henry Potter. The crushing effects of poverty have destroyed the lives of many closest to Bailey.
Poverty Now Spreading in America. Much as in the Pottersville scene from the movie, hopelessness and poverty are now spreading across America. The most inclusive U.6 jobless rate is at 17%, the alternate measure calculated by Shadow Government Statistics shows there are 22.5% jobless, ominously close to the estimated Great Depression peak of 25% unemployment. One in eight Americans are now on food stamps, the highest percentage since records began in 1969. While Congress debates extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, unemployment benefits will expire for millions who still have no hope of finding work.
Most families and businesses are simply "Maxed Out" and at the limits of their budgets. To create jobs, Americans must spend money, but that money has to come from somewhere.
Chart: John Williams Shadow Government Statistics
Projects That Pay For Themselves. While American families and businesses may have little ability to spend more right now, the opportunity to spend less makes sense.
Energy saving and renewable energy projects can more than pay for themselves by cutting the energy expenditures of households and businesses. Though they take up-front dollars to implement, a steady monthly stream of utility bill savings pays off the cost of the project.
An energy loan on good terms can convert the cost of the energy saving and renewable energy projects into a monthly payment that is less than the savings. The family budget improves from Day 1 of project completion.
Creating American Jobs. While these projects pay for themselves with the same money people are already spending on utility bills, energy saving projects are not a "wash" for American job creation, for four reasons:
1. More money is spent now, on the project, than current year utility bills.
2. Energy saving and renewable industries are more labor intensive.
3. Many fuels are imported from other countries.
4. Most energy-saving products such as caulk & insulation are USA made.
The customer saves money, and the project creates jobs. If there was ever a definition of a "no-brainer" you've-got-to-do-this idea, this is the one.
We Need George Bailey. All of the above makes sense, but if your credit rating is shot, or your home equity is gone, your chance of getting an energy loan is nil. Even if you qualify, you may not do it as you don't know how long you will live in the house. If you are a renter, forget it completely.
To create American jobs doing these projects that pay for themselves, there are two proposals now afloat -- Federally Guaranteed Loans, and On-Bill Financing from utilities.
Federally Guaranteed Home Energy Loans. On November 9th, Vice President Joe Biden and the U.S. Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced a new pilot program for PowerSaver FHA-backed home energy retrofit loans.
In the small (only $25 million) pilot program, which will initially operate only in certain cities and states, homeowners would go through an energy audit that would rate their home's efficiency and recommend energy-saving and renewable energy measures.
Private lenders then would issue loans of up to $25,000 to the homeowner to perform the work. FHA would back up to 90% of the loans with a Federal guarantee. The $25 million spent by FHA will be spent primarily on incentives for private lenders to participate.
While this FHA initiative is a decent start, its limitations reduce its overall effectiveness. Borrowers must have enough equity in their homes to support both their existing mortage and the new energy loan. Borrowers must also have a minimum credit score of 660, and a maximum 45% overall debt-to-income ratio. No renters are covered.
While these rules are clearly designed to protect the FHA from backing loans that are too risky, they define a much smaller class of homes than the total number where energy savings could pay for retrofits.
The biggest limitation, however, will be the program's minimal funding. It is questionable how many PowerSaver loans will ultimately be made.
On Bill Financing. If the nation is ever going to seriously address the enormous amount of building energy retrofits that need to be done, utilities need to be brought into the game.
A proposal long advanced by energy efficiency advocates, including the National Small Business Association, and now included in UK government plans, is for utilities to finance energy saving projects. Customers repay the utility by including the monthly loan payment as a cost-of-service charge on the monthly utility bill for that address.
That last phrase -- for that address -- is the key advantage of On Bill Financing. Much like the other fixed charges on the monthly utility bill that reflect the cost of providing service to that address (e.g. the meter & lines), the loan payment for the energy retrofit would stay with the building and be charged to whomever uses the utility services.
On Bill Financing overcomes the major barriers to energy retrofits:
1. It funds the up-front costs and converts it into a monthly payment.
2. Customers who don't plan to stay long term can still benefit.
3. Energy savings and the loan payment are on the same billing.
4. If a customer is credit worthy for that utility billing, they qualify already.
5. Many utility customers with poor credit can now prepay their bill.
6. Renters can arrange for and benefit from energy retrofits.
7. Balance is not due when building is sold, so equity not an issue.
Utilities can benefit from On Bill Financing by dropping their existing giveaway energy-saving programs (charged to all utility customers), and instead pursuing a new line of profitable business. The energy savings achieved will also reduce the very high costs of building new power plants.
Combining Federal Guarantees with On Bill Financing. As noted above, the FHA PowerSaver Federally Guaranteed loans are far too limited in both scope and funding to achieve either the job creation or energy saving goals the nation needs.
WIth the nation already in a stubborn joblessness crisis, it is beyond time to consider aggressive actions to create jobs. This proposal can work, using private monies already being spent, with little or no government funding. No money needs to be "dropped from helicopters".
One of the advantages of utility On Bill Financing is that the utility sector still has ready access to financing and can raise the funds needed to perform the retrofits. Most of their customers, however, cannot raise the funds -- except to pay for the work out of energy savings, after it is done. In other words, On Bill Financing promotes job creation that would otherwise not happen, by an industry with the ability to finance it.
To encourage utilities to institute such programs, the Federal government may need to pass a National Renewable Energy and Efficiency Standard, a proposal now being contemplated in Congress. As customer billings are now governed by states, the Standard may need to mandate states to change utility billing practices to allow On Bill Financing.
With or without such a national Standard, if the Federal government wants to offer Federal guarantees of energy retrofit projects, it can support utilities who institute On Bill FInancing. Federal Guarantees could back utility bonds whose funds are used for such programs. This would be far bigger and more effective than expansion of an FHA-only program.
By their very nature, utility programs can reach far more customers. Yet, default rates for On Bill Financing are likely to be extremely low, as the loans would continue to be paid if anyone occupies the building and pays the utility bills. The only time a complete default could occur would be if a building was left vacant with no new occupant . The Federal Guarantee cost for On Bill Financing programs would thus likely be quite low.
Will We Fund Pottersville Instead?Federal Guarantees for Too Big to Fail Energy Projects. In stark contrast to the pittance now being put toward helping homeowners struggling to do energy retrofits, the Federal government is eager to spend billions of taxpayer funds on massive and highly risky energy projects.
Well-funded lobby groups from the nuclear power industry and the coal Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) lobby have convinced key members of Congress that billions of dollars of Federally guaranteed loans should be proferred for their highly risky projects.
These projects would be built by utilities, who normally have no trouble obtaining private financing to build power plants. However, the reason private bankers won't fund nuclear power or CCS is the projects are far too expensive to compete.
Just last month, both Exelon and Constellation Energy utility executives made major remarks about the cost of new nuclear power projects, noting that cheap natural gas makes new nuclear prohibitively expensive.
If these projects are Federally guaranteed, however, the market distortions opposed by conservatives may cause the projects to be built anyway, and their very high costs will be passed on to utility customers. If the projects fail, it will be customers again (in the role of taxpayers) who will pay.
Raising utility bills and taxes on the middle class is a prescription for further erosion of the middle class into poverty.
Who will receive the taxpayer billions from these Too Big to Fail projects? Nuclear and CCS promoters will of course walk away with large profits from building the projects. When the project fails, however, the Loan Guarantee from taxpayers would kick in. The Congressional Budget Office estimated this may be needed for over 50% of new nuclear projects built.
With a Federal Loan Guarantee, the funds do not go to utility ratepayers, or even utility shareholders. Rather, the taxpayer funds protect the loan made by the same Too Big to Fail Wall Street banks (the only ones large enough to fund such massive projects) who have already received hundreds of billions in TARP and Federal Reserve subsidies over the last two years.
Political Risks. Politicians see offering taxpayer monies to the banks and the nuclear industry as a way to stimulate the economy.
Yet, will Democrats who support these new subsidies be accused of once again bailing out the Big Banks? Will Republicans be seen as RINO's -- Republicans In Name Only -- willing to favor powerful Patrons with taxpayer funded bailouts that increase the Federal Deficit?
Pottersville or A Wonderful Life? In many ways, America is beginning to look more like the horrific vision of Pottersville than the happy town of Bedford Falls where George Bailey labored.
The American middle class is being destroyed, and hope is disappearing for tens of millions of Americans. Our children see a future less prosperous and more threatening than the present.
As with the vision of Pottersville, much of this has been brought on by the actions of a greedy few. If our actions moving forward continue to enrich the few at the expense of the middle class, there will be Pottersvilles all across America.
Using taxpayer funds to advance expensive Too Big to Fail projects will certainly help the special interest promoters. The Potters of America will thrive.
However, when those projects drastically raise utlity bills, it will further impoverish middle class families left living in inefficient, leaky homes.
(L) Clarence the MessengerWhere We Put Our Funds Matters. When George Bailey faced an anxious crowd of depositors to the Building and Loan wanting to withdraw their funds, he delivered the most memorable explanation ever given of our banking system. George explained "Your money's not here" --- it's in Mary's home, and Bill's business --- invested in making a better community.
Extending credit where it was most needed to the good citizens of Bedford Falls helped that community thrive.
The choices are just as clear for America now. If modest efforts are made now, we can find ways for middle class Americans to do energy retrofits for their homes and businesses. The jobless can go back to work. Family budgets can be protected from drastically rising energy costs. The crushing burden of poverty can be avoided for millions.
It will make a difference in the world that this was done.
Time to Jump in the River? We only need this message to get to our leaders. Now, where is that angel Clarence when we need him most?
Powered By WizardRSSGreen Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator
Without George Bailey's heroic efforts to save the small lender that helped the middle class, Bailey's home town of Bedford Falls would have fallen into decay. Bailey's guardian angel Clarence shows him the town, renamed "Pottersville", under the control of evil slumlord and big banker Henry Potter. The crushing effects of poverty have destroyed the lives of many closest to Bailey.
Poverty Now Spreading in America. Much as in the Pottersville scene from the movie, hopelessness and poverty are now spreading across America. The most inclusive U.6 jobless rate is at 17%, the alternate measure calculated by Shadow Government Statistics shows there are 22.5% jobless, ominously close to the estimated Great Depression peak of 25% unemployment. One in eight Americans are now on food stamps, the highest percentage since records began in 1969. While Congress debates extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, unemployment benefits will expire for millions who still have no hope of finding work.
Most families and businesses are simply "Maxed Out" and at the limits of their budgets. To create jobs, Americans must spend money, but that money has to come from somewhere.
Chart: John Williams Shadow Government Statistics
Projects That Pay For Themselves. While American families and businesses may have little ability to spend more right now, the opportunity to spend less makes sense.
Energy saving and renewable energy projects can more than pay for themselves by cutting the energy expenditures of households and businesses. Though they take up-front dollars to implement, a steady monthly stream of utility bill savings pays off the cost of the project.
An energy loan on good terms can convert the cost of the energy saving and renewable energy projects into a monthly payment that is less than the savings. The family budget improves from Day 1 of project completion.
Creating American Jobs. While these projects pay for themselves with the same money people are already spending on utility bills, energy saving projects are not a "wash" for American job creation, for four reasons:
1. More money is spent now, on the project, than current year utility bills.
2. Energy saving and renewable industries are more labor intensive.
3. Many fuels are imported from other countries.
4. Most energy-saving products such as caulk & insulation are USA made.
The customer saves money, and the project creates jobs. If there was ever a definition of a "no-brainer" you've-got-to-do-this idea, this is the one.
We Need George Bailey. All of the above makes sense, but if your credit rating is shot, or your home equity is gone, your chance of getting an energy loan is nil. Even if you qualify, you may not do it as you don't know how long you will live in the house. If you are a renter, forget it completely.
To create American jobs doing these projects that pay for themselves, there are two proposals now afloat -- Federally Guaranteed Loans, and On-Bill Financing from utilities.
Federally Guaranteed Home Energy Loans. On November 9th, Vice President Joe Biden and the U.S. Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced a new pilot program for PowerSaver FHA-backed home energy retrofit loans.
In the small (only $25 million) pilot program, which will initially operate only in certain cities and states, homeowners would go through an energy audit that would rate their home's efficiency and recommend energy-saving and renewable energy measures.
Private lenders then would issue loans of up to $25,000 to the homeowner to perform the work. FHA would back up to 90% of the loans with a Federal guarantee. The $25 million spent by FHA will be spent primarily on incentives for private lenders to participate.
While this FHA initiative is a decent start, its limitations reduce its overall effectiveness. Borrowers must have enough equity in their homes to support both their existing mortage and the new energy loan. Borrowers must also have a minimum credit score of 660, and a maximum 45% overall debt-to-income ratio. No renters are covered.
While these rules are clearly designed to protect the FHA from backing loans that are too risky, they define a much smaller class of homes than the total number where energy savings could pay for retrofits.
The biggest limitation, however, will be the program's minimal funding. It is questionable how many PowerSaver loans will ultimately be made.
On Bill Financing. If the nation is ever going to seriously address the enormous amount of building energy retrofits that need to be done, utilities need to be brought into the game.
A proposal long advanced by energy efficiency advocates, including the National Small Business Association, and now included in UK government plans, is for utilities to finance energy saving projects. Customers repay the utility by including the monthly loan payment as a cost-of-service charge on the monthly utility bill for that address.
That last phrase -- for that address -- is the key advantage of On Bill Financing. Much like the other fixed charges on the monthly utility bill that reflect the cost of providing service to that address (e.g. the meter & lines), the loan payment for the energy retrofit would stay with the building and be charged to whomever uses the utility services.
On Bill Financing overcomes the major barriers to energy retrofits:
1. It funds the up-front costs and converts it into a monthly payment.
2. Customers who don't plan to stay long term can still benefit.
3. Energy savings and the loan payment are on the same billing.
4. If a customer is credit worthy for that utility billing, they qualify already.
5. Many utility customers with poor credit can now prepay their bill.
6. Renters can arrange for and benefit from energy retrofits.
7. Balance is not due when building is sold, so equity not an issue.
Utilities can benefit from On Bill Financing by dropping their existing giveaway energy-saving programs (charged to all utility customers), and instead pursuing a new line of profitable business. The energy savings achieved will also reduce the very high costs of building new power plants.
Combining Federal Guarantees with On Bill Financing. As noted above, the FHA PowerSaver Federally Guaranteed loans are far too limited in both scope and funding to achieve either the job creation or energy saving goals the nation needs.
WIth the nation already in a stubborn joblessness crisis, it is beyond time to consider aggressive actions to create jobs. This proposal can work, using private monies already being spent, with little or no government funding. No money needs to be "dropped from helicopters".
One of the advantages of utility On Bill Financing is that the utility sector still has ready access to financing and can raise the funds needed to perform the retrofits. Most of their customers, however, cannot raise the funds -- except to pay for the work out of energy savings, after it is done. In other words, On Bill Financing promotes job creation that would otherwise not happen, by an industry with the ability to finance it.
To encourage utilities to institute such programs, the Federal government may need to pass a National Renewable Energy and Efficiency Standard, a proposal now being contemplated in Congress. As customer billings are now governed by states, the Standard may need to mandate states to change utility billing practices to allow On Bill Financing.
With or without such a national Standard, if the Federal government wants to offer Federal guarantees of energy retrofit projects, it can support utilities who institute On Bill FInancing. Federal Guarantees could back utility bonds whose funds are used for such programs. This would be far bigger and more effective than expansion of an FHA-only program.
By their very nature, utility programs can reach far more customers. Yet, default rates for On Bill Financing are likely to be extremely low, as the loans would continue to be paid if anyone occupies the building and pays the utility bills. The only time a complete default could occur would be if a building was left vacant with no new occupant . The Federal Guarantee cost for On Bill Financing programs would thus likely be quite low.
Will We Fund Pottersville Instead?Federal Guarantees for Too Big to Fail Energy Projects. In stark contrast to the pittance now being put toward helping homeowners struggling to do energy retrofits, the Federal government is eager to spend billions of taxpayer funds on massive and highly risky energy projects.
Well-funded lobby groups from the nuclear power industry and the coal Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) lobby have convinced key members of Congress that billions of dollars of Federally guaranteed loans should be proferred for their highly risky projects.
These projects would be built by utilities, who normally have no trouble obtaining private financing to build power plants. However, the reason private bankers won't fund nuclear power or CCS is the projects are far too expensive to compete.
Just last month, both Exelon and Constellation Energy utility executives made major remarks about the cost of new nuclear power projects, noting that cheap natural gas makes new nuclear prohibitively expensive.
If these projects are Federally guaranteed, however, the market distortions opposed by conservatives may cause the projects to be built anyway, and their very high costs will be passed on to utility customers. If the projects fail, it will be customers again (in the role of taxpayers) who will pay.
Raising utility bills and taxes on the middle class is a prescription for further erosion of the middle class into poverty.
Who will receive the taxpayer billions from these Too Big to Fail projects? Nuclear and CCS promoters will of course walk away with large profits from building the projects. When the project fails, however, the Loan Guarantee from taxpayers would kick in. The Congressional Budget Office estimated this may be needed for over 50% of new nuclear projects built.
With a Federal Loan Guarantee, the funds do not go to utility ratepayers, or even utility shareholders. Rather, the taxpayer funds protect the loan made by the same Too Big to Fail Wall Street banks (the only ones large enough to fund such massive projects) who have already received hundreds of billions in TARP and Federal Reserve subsidies over the last two years.
Political Risks. Politicians see offering taxpayer monies to the banks and the nuclear industry as a way to stimulate the economy.
Yet, will Democrats who support these new subsidies be accused of once again bailing out the Big Banks? Will Republicans be seen as RINO's -- Republicans In Name Only -- willing to favor powerful Patrons with taxpayer funded bailouts that increase the Federal Deficit?
Pottersville or A Wonderful Life? In many ways, America is beginning to look more like the horrific vision of Pottersville than the happy town of Bedford Falls where George Bailey labored.
The American middle class is being destroyed, and hope is disappearing for tens of millions of Americans. Our children see a future less prosperous and more threatening than the present.
As with the vision of Pottersville, much of this has been brought on by the actions of a greedy few. If our actions moving forward continue to enrich the few at the expense of the middle class, there will be Pottersvilles all across America.
Using taxpayer funds to advance expensive Too Big to Fail projects will certainly help the special interest promoters. The Potters of America will thrive.
However, when those projects drastically raise utlity bills, it will further impoverish middle class families left living in inefficient, leaky homes.
(L) Clarence the MessengerWhere We Put Our Funds Matters. When George Bailey faced an anxious crowd of depositors to the Building and Loan wanting to withdraw their funds, he delivered the most memorable explanation ever given of our banking system. George explained "Your money's not here" --- it's in Mary's home, and Bill's business --- invested in making a better community.
Extending credit where it was most needed to the good citizens of Bedford Falls helped that community thrive.
The choices are just as clear for America now. If modest efforts are made now, we can find ways for middle class Americans to do energy retrofits for their homes and businesses. The jobless can go back to work. Family budgets can be protected from drastically rising energy costs. The crushing burden of poverty can be avoided for millions.
It will make a difference in the world that this was done.
Time to Jump in the River? We only need this message to get to our leaders. Now, where is that angel Clarence when we need him most?
Powered By WizardRSSGreen Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator
A Bright Idea: Introducing ESL Light Bulbs from Vu1
When changing out incandescent light bulbs for energy efficiency, there are usually two options, CFL and LED. However, the start up company Vu1 is adding another light bulb option (not to mention acronym) to the mix, the Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL) bulb. The Vu1 ESL innovation re-purposes technology from our tried and true friend, the cathode ray tube (CRT) television. ESL uses accelerated electrons to stimulate phosphor and create light, thus making the bulb surface glow. It is astonishing to think that an energy efficient lighting inspiration and innovation has sitting right under noses.
ADVERTISEMENT
In terms of energy efficiency, the ESL bulb beats out the CFL and LED. ESL bulbs have a power factor rating of 0.95-0.99. CFL and LED lamps have a respective power factor 0.5 and .08. Suffice it to say, the higher the power factor, the more energy efficient the bulb.For the most part, the ESL bulbs are made of recyclable material, namely the plastic and the glass. But like many electronic devices today, the semi-conductors and electronic components are not as easily recyclable. The good news is that unlike CFL's, we do not have to worry about heavy metals such as mercury with the ESL.The ESL technology has also been nominated for a 2011 Edison Best New Product Award. It will be judged along side other nominees on several criteria including societal impact, marketplace innovation, and technological innovation.Article continues: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/01/light-bulbs-beyond-cfl-led-introducing-esl/ Powered By WizardRSSHome Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity
ADVERTISEMENT
In terms of energy efficiency, the ESL bulb beats out the CFL and LED. ESL bulbs have a power factor rating of 0.95-0.99. CFL and LED lamps have a respective power factor 0.5 and .08. Suffice it to say, the higher the power factor, the more energy efficient the bulb.For the most part, the ESL bulbs are made of recyclable material, namely the plastic and the glass. But like many electronic devices today, the semi-conductors and electronic components are not as easily recyclable. The good news is that unlike CFL's, we do not have to worry about heavy metals such as mercury with the ESL.The ESL technology has also been nominated for a 2011 Edison Best New Product Award. It will be judged along side other nominees on several criteria including societal impact, marketplace innovation, and technological innovation.Article continues: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/01/light-bulbs-beyond-cfl-led-introducing-esl/ Powered By WizardRSSHome Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Energy 101: Geothermal Heat Pumps
An energy-efficient heating and cooling alternative, the geothermal heat pump...
Powered By WizardRSSCheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home
Powered By WizardRSSCheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home
London shopping centre uses Europe's largest heat pump
A shopping centre in London has officially started to use the largest geothermal heat pump in Europe. Climate change minister Greg Barker unveiled the system, which will heat and cool One New Change in the heart of the City.The pipework is 60km long and it is hoped that it will reduce the carbon emissions of the building by at least ten per cent and save �300,000 on energy bills every year, its owners say.On opening the renewable energy technology, Mr Barker said: "This is British innovation at its best, using the earth's natural resources to solve our energy needs."Extracting warmth from the ground underneath London will help save on the building's heating bills and will cut carbon."In addition to the large-scale system, the building has solar-controlled glass, reducing the need for air conditioning, and green roof terraces to encourage biodiversity.It has also received an 'excellent' sustainability rating under the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method, which could signal the future of commercial buildings in achieving sustainability and reducing carbon emissions.Posted by Emily Thomas Sign up for regular email updates to help you save money and energy
For more information please see: One New Change� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources
For more information please see: One New Change� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources
UK leads Europe for off-shore wind power capacity
The UK has the largest off-shore wind power capacity in Europe, installing a total of 1,341 MW, highlighting the nation's firm position in renewable energy technology.Figures from the European Wind Energy Association show that Denmark has the second-largest capacity (854 MW), followed by the Netherlands (249 MW) and Belgium (195 MW).In addition, the statistics showed that Europe's total offshore wind power capacity has reached almost 3 GW, which could supply around three million households, while another 19 GW of offshore capacity has been consented.Peter Madigan, head of offshore renewables at RenewableUK, commented: "The UK's offshore wind roll out is continuing at full speed."He noted that the first turbines at Walney and Greater Gabbard have started delivering electricity to the grid, which once completed will see the UK generate a total of more than 2 GW nationwide."We now need to ensure that we are best poised to capture the full benefits such a massive infrastructure project offers, including increased employment and business activity," Mr Madigan said.Posted by Mark Stephens Sign up for regular email updates to help you save money and energy
For more information please see: European Wind Energy Association figures� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSHome Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity
For more information please see: European Wind Energy Association figures� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSHome Power Generator Green Energy Green Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity
The Peak Oil Catastrophe-in-waiting
Peak oil is the point at which global oil production reaches a maximum and then declines. The speed of the decline is a key unknown and if it is relatively fast, the results could be truly dire for economies around the world.�
We saw prices as high as $147 a barrel in mid-2008 (the dominant factor for gasoline prices well over $4 a gallon), which played a strong role, perhaps the dominant role, in the global Great Recession -- as high oil prices have in most recessions over the last fifty years. Once the recession hit, oil demand dropped and prices plummeted as low as $33 a barrel.
Prices steadily recovered since their low in early 2009 and are back to dangerous levels in early 2011 (about $90 a barrel). We can expect far higher prices as the global recovery continues. An increasing number of analysts are projecting prices as high or higher than the 2008 peak in the next couple of years.
More importantly, global net exports of oil continue to drop as major oil exporters increase their own consumption at the same time as their production is stagnant or falling. As a major oil-importing nation (about 2/3 of our oil is imported, by far the largest import dependency in the world), net oil exports are far more important to the U.S. than total oil production. Even if global oil production increases in the coming years, if there is less available for oil-thirsty nations like ours the situation will be far worse than total oil production figures would otherwise suggest. More on this below.
It is time for public discussion of this issue to reach the same prominence as climate change. Indeed, many solutions to these ?twin crises? are the same because reducing petroleum dependence will ameliorate peak oil and climate change.
This article is an update on the peak oil situation at the beginning of 2011 and a follow-up to my many previous pieces on peak oil (one with Nobel Prize winner Walter Kohn). First, some facts.
Global oil production has plateaued since 2004, despite the fact that oil prices have risen dramatically. Figure 1 shows this history, demonstrating that oil production has not been very response to market forces, suggesting strongly that we are at a global peak.
Figure 1. Global oil production and oil price 2004-2010. (Source: EIA, chart courtesy of www.TheOilDrum.com).
Bloomberg reported a summary of oil price forecasts for 2011, selecting for their summary those forecasters who have the most accurate track records. The dominant view was that average oil prices will rise almost as high in 2011 as seen in 2008 ? to $87 a barrel for the year as a whole (the average price for 2008 was $99). It?s likely, however, that the actual average 2011 price will be significantly higher because we are already over this price at about $90 a barrel in early January and the large majority of economic forecasts project a robust global recovery this year, with attendant increases in oil demand.
More anecdotally, but with perhaps more impact because of its source, Shell?s recent ex-president John Hofmeister predicts $5 gas by 2012 due to the global economic recovery and very tight supply.
A number of comprehensive reviews of the global oil supply situation have appeared in the last year.
Lloyds and Chatham House: ?We are heading towards a global oil supply crunch and price spike.? ?A supply crunch appears likely around 2013? given recent price experience, a spike in excess of $200 per barrel is not infeasible.?
The U.S. Department of Defense issued a stark warning in its 2010 Joint Operating Environment (JOE) report, including discussion of ?peak oil?: "By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day.?
Similarly, the German military is taking peak oil very seriously, made clear by a report leaked to Der Spiegel in 2010: ?[The report] warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the ?total collapse of the markets? and of serious political and economic crises.?
The same article reports on secret British government planning for peak oil: ?The leak has parallels with recent reports from the UK. Only last week the Guardian newspaper reported that the British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is keeping documents secret which show the UK government is far more concerned about an impending supply crisis than it cares to admit. According to the Guardian, the DECC, the Bank of England and the British Ministry of Defence are working alongside industry representatives to develop a crisis plan to deal with possible shortfalls in energy supply.?
The UK?s Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security (a non-governmental group) issued its second major report on peak oil in late 2010, concluding: ?[W]e face a situation during the [next few years] where fuel price unrest could lead to shortages in consumer products and the UK?s energy security will be significantly compromised. This has the potential to hit UK business and commerce as well as the most disadvantaged in society with yet another crisis.?
In August of 2009, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the official energy watchdog for the western world, was even more strident in its warnings. The UK?s Independent newspaper reported:
The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.
Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.
Later in 2009, two IEA whistleblowers went public and claimed that the situation was even worse than the IEA was stating publicly. The UK?s Guardian newspaper reported in November of 2009: ?A ? senior IEA source, who has now left but was ? unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organization was that it was ?imperative not to anger the Americans? but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as has been admitted. ?We have (already) entered the ?peak oil? zone. I think that the situation is really bad,? he added.?
IEA has changed its public tune yet again, however. IEA?s 2010 World Energy Outlook (WEO), a major forecast released each year, apparently ignored the IEA?s own previous analysis by reverting to its previous policy of simply assuming ? literally ? that projected petroleum demand will be met with the needed supply. IEA states in WEO 2010: ?Energy prices ensure that projected supply and demand are in balance throughout the Outlook period in each scenario?.?� In other words, IEA simply assumes that supply will meet demand due to market forces. This is obviously true at a very basic level: supply will always match demand if we define demand as that which is actually consumed. But if we define demand instead as the desired oil consumption, all else being equal, we reach a very different conclusion ? far more in line with the US JOE report that projects a possible 10 million barrel per day shortfall by 2015.
WEO 2010 does, however, include some discussion of peak oil and it projects that the 2006 peak in global conventional oil production will never be exceeded (p. 8 of the Exec. Summary). That is, IEA has officially concluded that 2006 was the annual peak for conventional oil production. We are, accordingly, past the point of peak oil if we define this term to include only conventional oil.
Even based on official IEA projections (which are likely far too rosy considering the whistleblower claims), we have a major problem facing us, made clear by the chart below. The key point from this chart is that IEA thinks we?ve already passed the peak for global conventional oil production, as just mentioned. As a consequence, a huge amount of new oil must be found to replace declining conventional oil production ? a deficit of about 75 million barrels per day by 2035. This is equivalent to nine new Saudi Arabias coming online by 2035 (Saudi Arabia currently produces about 8 million barrels per day).
IEA projects (Figure 2) that this new oil will come from a combination of new conventional oil production, from known fields yet to be developed and fields not even found yet; from natural gas liquids; and from unconventional oil like tar sands and oil shale.
Figure 2. IEA projections for oil supply through 2035 (Source: IEA WEO 2010.)
For those who worry about national security and energy dependence, the report offers an even more worrying conclusion: the large majority of new oil will come from OPEC nations, with only Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan as non-OPEC nations projected to have significant new production (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Sources of new oil by 2035 (Source: IEA WEO 2010).
We must keep in mind, however, that these new production figures don?t take into account the growing petroleum demand in these producing nations. The key issue, from a U.S. national security and energy dependence perspective, is not oil production itself but ?net oil exports.? The public version of the 2010 WEO does not discuss net oil exports, but private analysts Jeffrey Brown and Samuel Foucher have produced forecasts of net oil exports, concluding that the top five oil exporters will have literally zero oil for export by 2030. Even if, for some reason, their model is substantially off the mark (it?s not been peer-reviewed, to my knowledge), we must consider the net export issue in our analysis because any analysis that ignores rapidly growing consumption in oil-producing nations will be highly inaccurate.
Figure 4. Brown and Foucher?s 2008 projections for top five oil exporting nations? net oil exports by 2030, in millions of barrels per day (mbpd).
It?s not all bad, however. A more encouraging forecast from the IEA report can be found in their cost savings projections. They conclude that the ?new policies scenario? (what used to be called the ?reference scenario,? which codifies existing policies) and the 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent scenario (which codifies new policies required to prevent atmospheric emissions from reaching this level) result in very substantial net cost savings on a global basis and, in particular, for oil importing nations. This is the case because fossil fuel demand is dramatically reduced in these scenarios. This reduction in demand lowers both average prices for fossil fuels and the amount of fossil fuel that needs to be purchased.
Figure 5. Oil-import bills as share of gross domestic product in selected countries (Source: IEA WEO 2010).
It is time to get very serious about managing a reduction in petroleum demand in the U.S. and around the world. I write ?managing? because it is my view that this reduction in demand will happen whether we want it to or not due to declining oil supplies. The question, then, is how we best manage this decline. A high quality analysis of the possible scenarios for an oil-constrained world, by Oxford University professor J�rg Friedrichs, appeared in 2010. Friedrichs examines three possible trajectories: ?Predatory militarism,? ?totalitarian retrenchment,? and ?socioeconomic adaptation.?
At least two rigorous policy solutions have been offered in recent years. The Rocky Mountain Institute completed Winning the Oil Endgame in 2007, suggesting a suite of policy and technology solutions that can get the U.S. off oil, ?led by business for profit.? Richard Heinberg offered his own book-length solution, The Oil Depletion Protocol, in 2008, suggesting how the U.S. and other nations could manage declining oil supplies by achieving a three percent per year reduction in demand through various policies.
As we continue a global economic recovery in 2011, higher oil prices are inevitable, super price spikes are a strong possibility, and even shortages are not out of the question. We must ask ourselves: should we manage the decline in a way that avoids economic catastrophe or do we continue our generally laissez faire attitude toward this major problem?
Tam Hunt is president of Community Renewable Solutions, LLC, a renewable energy consulting and project development company. He is also a Lecturer in climate change law and policy at UC Santa Barbara?s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. His blog, Thought, Spirit, Politik, is at www.tamhunt.blogspot.com.�
Powered By WizardRSSGreen Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator
We saw prices as high as $147 a barrel in mid-2008 (the dominant factor for gasoline prices well over $4 a gallon), which played a strong role, perhaps the dominant role, in the global Great Recession -- as high oil prices have in most recessions over the last fifty years. Once the recession hit, oil demand dropped and prices plummeted as low as $33 a barrel.
Prices steadily recovered since their low in early 2009 and are back to dangerous levels in early 2011 (about $90 a barrel). We can expect far higher prices as the global recovery continues. An increasing number of analysts are projecting prices as high or higher than the 2008 peak in the next couple of years.
More importantly, global net exports of oil continue to drop as major oil exporters increase their own consumption at the same time as their production is stagnant or falling. As a major oil-importing nation (about 2/3 of our oil is imported, by far the largest import dependency in the world), net oil exports are far more important to the U.S. than total oil production. Even if global oil production increases in the coming years, if there is less available for oil-thirsty nations like ours the situation will be far worse than total oil production figures would otherwise suggest. More on this below.
It is time for public discussion of this issue to reach the same prominence as climate change. Indeed, many solutions to these ?twin crises? are the same because reducing petroleum dependence will ameliorate peak oil and climate change.
This article is an update on the peak oil situation at the beginning of 2011 and a follow-up to my many previous pieces on peak oil (one with Nobel Prize winner Walter Kohn). First, some facts.
Global oil production has plateaued since 2004, despite the fact that oil prices have risen dramatically. Figure 1 shows this history, demonstrating that oil production has not been very response to market forces, suggesting strongly that we are at a global peak.
Figure 1. Global oil production and oil price 2004-2010. (Source: EIA, chart courtesy of www.TheOilDrum.com).
Bloomberg reported a summary of oil price forecasts for 2011, selecting for their summary those forecasters who have the most accurate track records. The dominant view was that average oil prices will rise almost as high in 2011 as seen in 2008 ? to $87 a barrel for the year as a whole (the average price for 2008 was $99). It?s likely, however, that the actual average 2011 price will be significantly higher because we are already over this price at about $90 a barrel in early January and the large majority of economic forecasts project a robust global recovery this year, with attendant increases in oil demand.
More anecdotally, but with perhaps more impact because of its source, Shell?s recent ex-president John Hofmeister predicts $5 gas by 2012 due to the global economic recovery and very tight supply.
A number of comprehensive reviews of the global oil supply situation have appeared in the last year.
Lloyds and Chatham House: ?We are heading towards a global oil supply crunch and price spike.? ?A supply crunch appears likely around 2013? given recent price experience, a spike in excess of $200 per barrel is not infeasible.?
The U.S. Department of Defense issued a stark warning in its 2010 Joint Operating Environment (JOE) report, including discussion of ?peak oil?: "By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day.?
Similarly, the German military is taking peak oil very seriously, made clear by a report leaked to Der Spiegel in 2010: ?[The report] warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the ?total collapse of the markets? and of serious political and economic crises.?
The same article reports on secret British government planning for peak oil: ?The leak has parallels with recent reports from the UK. Only last week the Guardian newspaper reported that the British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is keeping documents secret which show the UK government is far more concerned about an impending supply crisis than it cares to admit. According to the Guardian, the DECC, the Bank of England and the British Ministry of Defence are working alongside industry representatives to develop a crisis plan to deal with possible shortfalls in energy supply.?
The UK?s Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security (a non-governmental group) issued its second major report on peak oil in late 2010, concluding: ?[W]e face a situation during the [next few years] where fuel price unrest could lead to shortages in consumer products and the UK?s energy security will be significantly compromised. This has the potential to hit UK business and commerce as well as the most disadvantaged in society with yet another crisis.?
In August of 2009, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the official energy watchdog for the western world, was even more strident in its warnings. The UK?s Independent newspaper reported:
The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.
Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.
Later in 2009, two IEA whistleblowers went public and claimed that the situation was even worse than the IEA was stating publicly. The UK?s Guardian newspaper reported in November of 2009: ?A ? senior IEA source, who has now left but was ? unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organization was that it was ?imperative not to anger the Americans? but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as has been admitted. ?We have (already) entered the ?peak oil? zone. I think that the situation is really bad,? he added.?
IEA has changed its public tune yet again, however. IEA?s 2010 World Energy Outlook (WEO), a major forecast released each year, apparently ignored the IEA?s own previous analysis by reverting to its previous policy of simply assuming ? literally ? that projected petroleum demand will be met with the needed supply. IEA states in WEO 2010: ?Energy prices ensure that projected supply and demand are in balance throughout the Outlook period in each scenario?.?� In other words, IEA simply assumes that supply will meet demand due to market forces. This is obviously true at a very basic level: supply will always match demand if we define demand as that which is actually consumed. But if we define demand instead as the desired oil consumption, all else being equal, we reach a very different conclusion ? far more in line with the US JOE report that projects a possible 10 million barrel per day shortfall by 2015.
WEO 2010 does, however, include some discussion of peak oil and it projects that the 2006 peak in global conventional oil production will never be exceeded (p. 8 of the Exec. Summary). That is, IEA has officially concluded that 2006 was the annual peak for conventional oil production. We are, accordingly, past the point of peak oil if we define this term to include only conventional oil.
Even based on official IEA projections (which are likely far too rosy considering the whistleblower claims), we have a major problem facing us, made clear by the chart below. The key point from this chart is that IEA thinks we?ve already passed the peak for global conventional oil production, as just mentioned. As a consequence, a huge amount of new oil must be found to replace declining conventional oil production ? a deficit of about 75 million barrels per day by 2035. This is equivalent to nine new Saudi Arabias coming online by 2035 (Saudi Arabia currently produces about 8 million barrels per day).
IEA projects (Figure 2) that this new oil will come from a combination of new conventional oil production, from known fields yet to be developed and fields not even found yet; from natural gas liquids; and from unconventional oil like tar sands and oil shale.
Figure 2. IEA projections for oil supply through 2035 (Source: IEA WEO 2010.)
For those who worry about national security and energy dependence, the report offers an even more worrying conclusion: the large majority of new oil will come from OPEC nations, with only Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan as non-OPEC nations projected to have significant new production (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Sources of new oil by 2035 (Source: IEA WEO 2010).
We must keep in mind, however, that these new production figures don?t take into account the growing petroleum demand in these producing nations. The key issue, from a U.S. national security and energy dependence perspective, is not oil production itself but ?net oil exports.? The public version of the 2010 WEO does not discuss net oil exports, but private analysts Jeffrey Brown and Samuel Foucher have produced forecasts of net oil exports, concluding that the top five oil exporters will have literally zero oil for export by 2030. Even if, for some reason, their model is substantially off the mark (it?s not been peer-reviewed, to my knowledge), we must consider the net export issue in our analysis because any analysis that ignores rapidly growing consumption in oil-producing nations will be highly inaccurate.
Figure 4. Brown and Foucher?s 2008 projections for top five oil exporting nations? net oil exports by 2030, in millions of barrels per day (mbpd).
It?s not all bad, however. A more encouraging forecast from the IEA report can be found in their cost savings projections. They conclude that the ?new policies scenario? (what used to be called the ?reference scenario,? which codifies existing policies) and the 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent scenario (which codifies new policies required to prevent atmospheric emissions from reaching this level) result in very substantial net cost savings on a global basis and, in particular, for oil importing nations. This is the case because fossil fuel demand is dramatically reduced in these scenarios. This reduction in demand lowers both average prices for fossil fuels and the amount of fossil fuel that needs to be purchased.
Figure 5. Oil-import bills as share of gross domestic product in selected countries (Source: IEA WEO 2010).
It is time to get very serious about managing a reduction in petroleum demand in the U.S. and around the world. I write ?managing? because it is my view that this reduction in demand will happen whether we want it to or not due to declining oil supplies. The question, then, is how we best manage this decline. A high quality analysis of the possible scenarios for an oil-constrained world, by Oxford University professor J�rg Friedrichs, appeared in 2010. Friedrichs examines three possible trajectories: ?Predatory militarism,? ?totalitarian retrenchment,? and ?socioeconomic adaptation.?
At least two rigorous policy solutions have been offered in recent years. The Rocky Mountain Institute completed Winning the Oil Endgame in 2007, suggesting a suite of policy and technology solutions that can get the U.S. off oil, ?led by business for profit.? Richard Heinberg offered his own book-length solution, The Oil Depletion Protocol, in 2008, suggesting how the U.S. and other nations could manage declining oil supplies by achieving a three percent per year reduction in demand through various policies.
As we continue a global economic recovery in 2011, higher oil prices are inevitable, super price spikes are a strong possibility, and even shortages are not out of the question. We must ask ourselves: should we manage the decline in a way that avoids economic catastrophe or do we continue our generally laissez faire attitude toward this major problem?
Tam Hunt is president of Community Renewable Solutions, LLC, a renewable energy consulting and project development company. He is also a Lecturer in climate change law and policy at UC Santa Barbara?s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. His blog, Thought, Spirit, Politik, is at www.tamhunt.blogspot.com.�
Powered By WizardRSSGreen Energy Sources Magnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator
RHS urges gardeners to go green
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has urged gardeners to become more environmentally sustainable and help to combat climate change from their garden.It has issued advice to members, calling for homeowners to avoid using a hosepipe unless necessary for reducing water waste and avoid using peat as this releases greenhouse gases.Planting 'drought resistant' species will help gardeners conserve water.Speaking to the Telegraph, Roger Williams, head of science at the RHS, said: "Whether or not you accept climate change is man made there is lots of evidence that we have a more unstable climate and it is getting warmer. What will that mean for gardeners and how can we adapt to that?"Homeowners with greenhouses were advised to use climate controls and install double glazed cladding.City dwellers are also being encouraged to turn their patio into grassy garden space or plant trees to help absorb carbon dioxide emissions, while planting certain flowers can attract bees and insects to boost biodiversity.Posted by Mark Stephens Sign up for regular email updates to help you save money and energy
For more information please see: Sustainable gardening� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSFree Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator
For more information please see: Sustainable gardening� The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited � and do not represent the views or opinions of the Energy Saving Trust.
Powered By WizardRSSFree Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators Free Energy Home Home Power Generator
Review: Twilight in the Desert by Matt Simmons
Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy
By Matthew R. Simmons
448 pp., hardcover. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ? Jun. 2005. $24.95.
A year ago peak oil author Dave Cohen christened 2009 "A Year We Will Live To Regret."1 But as it happens, 2010 has brought its own mother lode of discouragement, failure and tragedy. It began on the heels of the bungled climate change summit in Copenhagen, a major blackout in southern France and news of a disastrous crash in Yemen's oil revenues. Before the year had rounded its halfway mark, it had presided over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And as if all this weren't enough, 2010 also saw the sudden and unexpected death of one of the very icons of the peak oil movement, the revered Matthew R. Simmons.
It has been said of Simmons that no one in America was more influential in warning of the coming oil crisis, and that's surely true enough.2 Appearing in documentaries and in frequent TV and radio spots, he was a vital go-between for journalists reporting on the ever-escalating cost of fuel and a pained, bewildered public. He had even been a presidential energy advisor. But that description of Simmons only scratches the surface, for he did far more than simply raise awareness of oil depletion. Above all, he was the voice of informed reason in debates over whether Saudi Arabia, long the world's oil producer of last resort, could indefinitely continue to provide whatever quantities of oil the global economy may need.
His controversial bestselling book Twilight in the Desert represents the seminal attempt to answer this question. He began writing it in 2003, following a visit to the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. Simmons was then chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment banking firm that he'd founded in 1974 and that has since acted as financial advisor on more than $134 billion in transactions within the oil and gas services industry.3 During the visit, a Saudi Aramco senior manager explained that the company used "fuzzy logic" to maximize recovery from the nation's oilfields. That term didn't sit well with Simmons, and for the first time he became skeptical of Saudi Arabia's alleged oil potential.
His skepticism was confirmed when he came across an extensive collection of technical papers from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) offering an in-depth look into Saudi oil production over the past 40 years. This collection, containing more than 200 papers, documented a decades-long saga of technical difficulties that had taxed the talents and ingenuity of some of the world's foremost oil engineers. The picture that these documents painted was a far cry from the boastful claims long made by Saudi officialdom regarding the supposed robustness of its oilfields.
To date, Saudi Arabia's all-time record output was roughly 10 million barrels a day, achieved in 1981. Current production fluctuates between approximately 8 and 9 million barrels a day, according to demand. Yet many oil observers insist that the country could raise its output to 12, 16 or even 20 to 25 million barrels per day, and that it could sustain these rates for as long as 50 years into the future. After researching and writing Twilight, Simmons knew better. In my favorite Simmons quote of all time, he wryly remarked to radio talk show host Jim Puplava, "I can tell you on your program that, trust me, my net worth will exceed Bill Gates' by 2030, and you'd be a fool to believe it?unless Bill Gates had a terrible financial collapse. There's nothing illegal about me telling you that. I can want that. And that's kind of what the world has done."4 Simmons' wit was as quick as his energy savvy and wisdom were great.
The most troubling trends dogging Saudi Arabia's oilfields, as revealed in Twilight, are all textbook examples of what can happen when oil reserves are exploited too hastily or vigorously. According to our best current understanding of the science of oil production, Simmons explains, every oilfield has an ideal production rate. Exceeding this rate is known as "overproducing" a field, and it can cause irreparable damage resulting in far more oil being permanently left behind. In short, overproducing brings more immediate returns but reduces the longevity of a field and the amount of oil that can ultimately be recovered.
As the 40-year SPE paper trail attests, multiple generations of Aramco scientists and engineers have been struggling to address the classic signs of overproduction in some of Saudi Arabia?s great oilfields. These include dramatic drops in reservoir pressure, increasing quantities of water produced along with the oil and premature gas cap formation. Simmons argues that they represent the dear price that Saudi Arabia has had to pay for its otherwise commendable decision to assume the responsibility of world's chief swing oil producer.
Based on the available evidence, Simmons concludes that Saudi oil production is at or nearing its peak sustainable level, and that it's likely to start dropping irreversibly in the quite foreseeable future. Further, the decline rate promises to be quite steep because Aramco's experimental use of water injection to maintain reservoir pressure right at the start of the fields? development?rather than at the end, as is standard?has swept the proverbial cupboards bare. Worse yet, because Saudi Arabia is essentially the only oil-producing nation with any spare production capacity left, its peak also signals the world peak.
Twilight is organized into a neat, easy-to-follow structure with four main sections. Parts one and two supply background information that is crucial to understanding the technical discussions in parts three and four. This background includes an account of Saudi Arabia's brief national history and how it came to dominate the world oil market, a detailed run-down of Saudi Aramco's operations and a basic primer on the steps involved in discovering and developing oil reserves. The book?s third part is an exhaustive assessment of each of Saudi Arabia?s dozen or so major fields and their unique technical challenges. And finally, the last section of the book explores at length the social, institutional and economic implications of the waning of Saudi Arabia's oil bounty.
A common theme running through the oilfield analyses is that too much about these fields' geology and behavior remains poorly understood. The mighty Ghawar field is a case in point. Once having supplied as much as two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's total output and six percent of global production, Ghawar is believed to be the largest oil-bearing structure ever to have existed on planet Earth. And yet, only one northernmost region of this great field has proven relatively trouble-free, and has thus been the source of the lion's share of Ghawar's oil. The remaining 80 percent of Ghawar produces far more modest flows because of ?reservoir pressure anomalies" seemingly linked somehow to a baffling set of faults, fractures and other geological phenomena.
In addition to the SPE papers, Simmons draws on an array of other equally revealing primary sources, chief among them a Senate staff report released in 1979. This report seriously questioned Aramco's claimed sustainable peak rate of 12 million barrels a day and quite presciently concluded that 9.8 million barrels a day was probably a more realistic goal. Yet it warned that even at that level the major fields would have tipped into decline before the turn of the century.
One of Simmons' biggest peeves was the secrecy surrounding oil reserves and production not just in Saudi Arabia, but in all OPEC countries. Twilight recounts how OPEC countries once routinely reported field-by-field production figures to industry periodicals like the Oil & Gas Journal but stopped doing this when Saudi oil minister Zaki Yamani took office in 1982. The result was a confusing maelstrom of contradictory reserves and production numbers that continues to this day. Oil-producing countries have little to gain by dispelling this veil of secrecy, because doing so would reveal that the geese laying their golden eggs are steadily succumbing to old age. As a result, the policy of secrecy has stuck.
The book goes into great depth about the need to break this veil and how that might be done. It calls for an international forum for systematically collecting and reporting worldwide energy data, something for which Simmons had long agitated. Indeed, asked once how he would begin to address energy policy if elected president, Simmons began, ?Probably cry??and then, once the laughter had dissipated, added, ?I would basically hold my fireside chat after having the conversation all day with the 20 most important world leaders and saying we need tomorrow morning to slap a $20-a-barrel transportation fine on any producer of oil that will not release their basically field-by-field production statistics, because we have a week to figure out how bad this problem is."5 Witticisms aside, Simmons was so adamant about this need for an international energy forum that he felt Twilight would have done the world a great service if all it did was supply the necessary catalyst.
As an outspoken peak oiler, Simmons was always something of a provocateur. At the end of his life, however, he became a loose cannon. His own firm ended its association with him after he lambasted BP Plc. for its hand in the Deepwater Horizon spill and predicted that the spill would bankrupt BP within weeks. Then he shocked everyone with his suggestion that the wellbore be sealed through the detonation of a nuclear bomb. (He pointed out that the Russians had used this approach repeatedly?and he reasoned that we needn't worry about radioactive contamination because the seafloor well was even deeper than the old Nevada test sites?but his idea was nonetheless roundly attacked as insane.) After "retiring" from Simmons & Co., he devoted full time to the Ocean Energy Institute, a think tank and venture capital fund that he'd established three years earlier to pursue offshore wind energy. Just two months later, on Sunday, Aug. 8, he died of a heart attack in a hot tub at his home in North Haven, Maine, at the age of 67. His hard words for BP had gained him enough notoriety that in no time speculation, never substantiated, was flying around the Web that his death had really been an assassination carried out by some wronged party.6
In the years leading up to Simmons' death, there had been excited murmurings within the peak oil community over his plans to write a second book. According to one source, it was going to deal with the increasingly decrepit infrastructure and aging labor force of the oil industry, and how these threaten to bring about just as serious a collapse in oil production as the one imposed by Mother Nature.7 The world will never know what Simmons might have put in this unwritten book, nor what additional contribution it might have made to the literature. But Twilight remains an essential piece of scholarship that deserves to be remembered and read for decades.
1 Dave Cohen, ?2009 ? A Year We Will Live To Regret,? Energy Bulletin, Dec. 17 2009, http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51013 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
2 Steve Andrews, Sally Odland, John Theobald and Randy Udall and others, ?Remembering the remarkable Matthew R. Simmons,? Energy Bulletin, Aug. 19 2010, http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-08-19/remembering-remarkable-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
3 ?History and Purpose of EOCM,? Energy Opportunities Capital Management, http://www.energyocm.com/history.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
4 Matthew R. Simmons, interview with Jim Puplava, "Financial Sense Newshour," Financial Sense: Uncommon News & Views for the Wise Investor, Apr. 7, 2007, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/transcriptions/2007/0407.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
5 Simmons, interview with Puplava, "FSN Expert Roundtable: Energy Roundtable," Financial Sense, Feb. 2, 2008, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/Experts/roundtable/2008/0202.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
6 Braden Reddall and Kristen Hays, "Energy bank Simmons cuts ties to outspoken founder," Reuters, Jun. 16, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1617784120100616 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Rich Blake, "BP Shares Sink on Oil Spill Bankruptcy Worries," ABC News, Jun. 10, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/bp-survive-company-result-oil-spill-gulf-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Kent Bernhard, Jr., "Matthew Simmons Reflects On Deepwater Horizon Disaster: One Lesson From Pearl Harbor," Portfolio.com: a bizjournals property, Jun. 3, 2010, http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/energy/2010/06/03/matthew-simmons... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); ?Matthew R. Simmons Retires as Chairman Emeritus of Simmons & Company International to Dedicate his Full Attention to The Ocean Energy Institute,? Earth Times, June. 16, 2010, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/ocean-energy-institute,1348001.... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Scott Malone and Edward McAllister, ?Oil guru Matthew Simmons dies in Maine,? Reuters, Aug. 9, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/idINN0926746220100809 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
7 Totoneila, ?DrumBeat: November 8, 2006,? The Oil Drum, Nov. 8, 2006, http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/8/82046/5724 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators
By Matthew R. Simmons
448 pp., hardcover. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ? Jun. 2005. $24.95.
A year ago peak oil author Dave Cohen christened 2009 "A Year We Will Live To Regret."1 But as it happens, 2010 has brought its own mother lode of discouragement, failure and tragedy. It began on the heels of the bungled climate change summit in Copenhagen, a major blackout in southern France and news of a disastrous crash in Yemen's oil revenues. Before the year had rounded its halfway mark, it had presided over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And as if all this weren't enough, 2010 also saw the sudden and unexpected death of one of the very icons of the peak oil movement, the revered Matthew R. Simmons.
It has been said of Simmons that no one in America was more influential in warning of the coming oil crisis, and that's surely true enough.2 Appearing in documentaries and in frequent TV and radio spots, he was a vital go-between for journalists reporting on the ever-escalating cost of fuel and a pained, bewildered public. He had even been a presidential energy advisor. But that description of Simmons only scratches the surface, for he did far more than simply raise awareness of oil depletion. Above all, he was the voice of informed reason in debates over whether Saudi Arabia, long the world's oil producer of last resort, could indefinitely continue to provide whatever quantities of oil the global economy may need.
His controversial bestselling book Twilight in the Desert represents the seminal attempt to answer this question. He began writing it in 2003, following a visit to the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. Simmons was then chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, an investment banking firm that he'd founded in 1974 and that has since acted as financial advisor on more than $134 billion in transactions within the oil and gas services industry.3 During the visit, a Saudi Aramco senior manager explained that the company used "fuzzy logic" to maximize recovery from the nation's oilfields. That term didn't sit well with Simmons, and for the first time he became skeptical of Saudi Arabia's alleged oil potential.
His skepticism was confirmed when he came across an extensive collection of technical papers from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) offering an in-depth look into Saudi oil production over the past 40 years. This collection, containing more than 200 papers, documented a decades-long saga of technical difficulties that had taxed the talents and ingenuity of some of the world's foremost oil engineers. The picture that these documents painted was a far cry from the boastful claims long made by Saudi officialdom regarding the supposed robustness of its oilfields.
To date, Saudi Arabia's all-time record output was roughly 10 million barrels a day, achieved in 1981. Current production fluctuates between approximately 8 and 9 million barrels a day, according to demand. Yet many oil observers insist that the country could raise its output to 12, 16 or even 20 to 25 million barrels per day, and that it could sustain these rates for as long as 50 years into the future. After researching and writing Twilight, Simmons knew better. In my favorite Simmons quote of all time, he wryly remarked to radio talk show host Jim Puplava, "I can tell you on your program that, trust me, my net worth will exceed Bill Gates' by 2030, and you'd be a fool to believe it?unless Bill Gates had a terrible financial collapse. There's nothing illegal about me telling you that. I can want that. And that's kind of what the world has done."4 Simmons' wit was as quick as his energy savvy and wisdom were great.
The most troubling trends dogging Saudi Arabia's oilfields, as revealed in Twilight, are all textbook examples of what can happen when oil reserves are exploited too hastily or vigorously. According to our best current understanding of the science of oil production, Simmons explains, every oilfield has an ideal production rate. Exceeding this rate is known as "overproducing" a field, and it can cause irreparable damage resulting in far more oil being permanently left behind. In short, overproducing brings more immediate returns but reduces the longevity of a field and the amount of oil that can ultimately be recovered.
As the 40-year SPE paper trail attests, multiple generations of Aramco scientists and engineers have been struggling to address the classic signs of overproduction in some of Saudi Arabia?s great oilfields. These include dramatic drops in reservoir pressure, increasing quantities of water produced along with the oil and premature gas cap formation. Simmons argues that they represent the dear price that Saudi Arabia has had to pay for its otherwise commendable decision to assume the responsibility of world's chief swing oil producer.
Based on the available evidence, Simmons concludes that Saudi oil production is at or nearing its peak sustainable level, and that it's likely to start dropping irreversibly in the quite foreseeable future. Further, the decline rate promises to be quite steep because Aramco's experimental use of water injection to maintain reservoir pressure right at the start of the fields? development?rather than at the end, as is standard?has swept the proverbial cupboards bare. Worse yet, because Saudi Arabia is essentially the only oil-producing nation with any spare production capacity left, its peak also signals the world peak.
Twilight is organized into a neat, easy-to-follow structure with four main sections. Parts one and two supply background information that is crucial to understanding the technical discussions in parts three and four. This background includes an account of Saudi Arabia's brief national history and how it came to dominate the world oil market, a detailed run-down of Saudi Aramco's operations and a basic primer on the steps involved in discovering and developing oil reserves. The book?s third part is an exhaustive assessment of each of Saudi Arabia?s dozen or so major fields and their unique technical challenges. And finally, the last section of the book explores at length the social, institutional and economic implications of the waning of Saudi Arabia's oil bounty.
A common theme running through the oilfield analyses is that too much about these fields' geology and behavior remains poorly understood. The mighty Ghawar field is a case in point. Once having supplied as much as two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's total output and six percent of global production, Ghawar is believed to be the largest oil-bearing structure ever to have existed on planet Earth. And yet, only one northernmost region of this great field has proven relatively trouble-free, and has thus been the source of the lion's share of Ghawar's oil. The remaining 80 percent of Ghawar produces far more modest flows because of ?reservoir pressure anomalies" seemingly linked somehow to a baffling set of faults, fractures and other geological phenomena.
In addition to the SPE papers, Simmons draws on an array of other equally revealing primary sources, chief among them a Senate staff report released in 1979. This report seriously questioned Aramco's claimed sustainable peak rate of 12 million barrels a day and quite presciently concluded that 9.8 million barrels a day was probably a more realistic goal. Yet it warned that even at that level the major fields would have tipped into decline before the turn of the century.
One of Simmons' biggest peeves was the secrecy surrounding oil reserves and production not just in Saudi Arabia, but in all OPEC countries. Twilight recounts how OPEC countries once routinely reported field-by-field production figures to industry periodicals like the Oil & Gas Journal but stopped doing this when Saudi oil minister Zaki Yamani took office in 1982. The result was a confusing maelstrom of contradictory reserves and production numbers that continues to this day. Oil-producing countries have little to gain by dispelling this veil of secrecy, because doing so would reveal that the geese laying their golden eggs are steadily succumbing to old age. As a result, the policy of secrecy has stuck.
The book goes into great depth about the need to break this veil and how that might be done. It calls for an international forum for systematically collecting and reporting worldwide energy data, something for which Simmons had long agitated. Indeed, asked once how he would begin to address energy policy if elected president, Simmons began, ?Probably cry??and then, once the laughter had dissipated, added, ?I would basically hold my fireside chat after having the conversation all day with the 20 most important world leaders and saying we need tomorrow morning to slap a $20-a-barrel transportation fine on any producer of oil that will not release their basically field-by-field production statistics, because we have a week to figure out how bad this problem is."5 Witticisms aside, Simmons was so adamant about this need for an international energy forum that he felt Twilight would have done the world a great service if all it did was supply the necessary catalyst.
As an outspoken peak oiler, Simmons was always something of a provocateur. At the end of his life, however, he became a loose cannon. His own firm ended its association with him after he lambasted BP Plc. for its hand in the Deepwater Horizon spill and predicted that the spill would bankrupt BP within weeks. Then he shocked everyone with his suggestion that the wellbore be sealed through the detonation of a nuclear bomb. (He pointed out that the Russians had used this approach repeatedly?and he reasoned that we needn't worry about radioactive contamination because the seafloor well was even deeper than the old Nevada test sites?but his idea was nonetheless roundly attacked as insane.) After "retiring" from Simmons & Co., he devoted full time to the Ocean Energy Institute, a think tank and venture capital fund that he'd established three years earlier to pursue offshore wind energy. Just two months later, on Sunday, Aug. 8, he died of a heart attack in a hot tub at his home in North Haven, Maine, at the age of 67. His hard words for BP had gained him enough notoriety that in no time speculation, never substantiated, was flying around the Web that his death had really been an assassination carried out by some wronged party.6
In the years leading up to Simmons' death, there had been excited murmurings within the peak oil community over his plans to write a second book. According to one source, it was going to deal with the increasingly decrepit infrastructure and aging labor force of the oil industry, and how these threaten to bring about just as serious a collapse in oil production as the one imposed by Mother Nature.7 The world will never know what Simmons might have put in this unwritten book, nor what additional contribution it might have made to the literature. But Twilight remains an essential piece of scholarship that deserves to be remembered and read for decades.
1 Dave Cohen, ?2009 ? A Year We Will Live To Regret,? Energy Bulletin, Dec. 17 2009, http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51013 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
2 Steve Andrews, Sally Odland, John Theobald and Randy Udall and others, ?Remembering the remarkable Matthew R. Simmons,? Energy Bulletin, Aug. 19 2010, http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-08-19/remembering-remarkable-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
3 ?History and Purpose of EOCM,? Energy Opportunities Capital Management, http://www.energyocm.com/history.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
4 Matthew R. Simmons, interview with Jim Puplava, "Financial Sense Newshour," Financial Sense: Uncommon News & Views for the Wise Investor, Apr. 7, 2007, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/transcriptions/2007/0407.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
5 Simmons, interview with Puplava, "FSN Expert Roundtable: Energy Roundtable," Financial Sense, Feb. 2, 2008, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/Experts/roundtable/2008/0202.html (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
6 Braden Reddall and Kristen Hays, "Energy bank Simmons cuts ties to outspoken founder," Reuters, Jun. 16, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1617784120100616 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Rich Blake, "BP Shares Sink on Oil Spill Bankruptcy Worries," ABC News, Jun. 10, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/bp-survive-company-result-oil-spill-gulf-... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Kent Bernhard, Jr., "Matthew Simmons Reflects On Deepwater Horizon Disaster: One Lesson From Pearl Harbor," Portfolio.com: a bizjournals property, Jun. 3, 2010, http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/energy/2010/06/03/matthew-simmons... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); ?Matthew R. Simmons Retires as Chairman Emeritus of Simmons & Company International to Dedicate his Full Attention to The Ocean Energy Institute,? Earth Times, June. 16, 2010, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/ocean-energy-institute,1348001.... (accessed Dec. 6, 2010); Scott Malone and Edward McAllister, ?Oil guru Matthew Simmons dies in Maine,? Reuters, Aug. 9, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/idINN0926746220100809 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
7 Totoneila, ?DrumBeat: November 8, 2006,? The Oil Drum, Nov. 8, 2006, http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/8/82046/5724 (accessed Dec. 6, 2010).
Powered By WizardRSSMagnetic Generator Cheap Electricity Free Energy Generator Magnetic Energy Generator Magnetic Generators
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)