Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category
April 4, 2012
Subsidies for renewable energy only distort the market and are counter-productive. The game in renewable energy (wind and solar) has become the extraction of subsidies rather than the production of electricity. The sooner they are dismantled the better.
Two developments in Italy (which is virtually bankrupt) and in India (where growth is slowing) – both driven by economic considerations – are indicators that that some of the artificial gloss around renewable energy may be peeling off. Exorbitant feed-in tariffs for renewable energy are to be curtailed in Italy while very attractive tax-breaks for wind-power in India are to be reduced.
Italy to cut renewable energy subsidies
Italy will move to reduce taxpayer subsidies to its renewable energy sector after last year’s boom in solar power, Industry Minister Corrado Passera says. The official said Saturday in Cernobbio, Italy, that taxpayer subsidies doled out to the wind and solar power industries had generated “excessive” investments in the sector, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Italy has important goals to meet and even surpass,” he said, but added, “we need to do so without over-reliance on taxpayer resources.”
The government, Passera said, will in the coming years “realign” the level of its incentives to those of other European countries. ….
The Hindu Business Line reports on the new budget measures in India. Windmill developers to lose tax breaks
Windmill developers will no longer enjoy lower tax outgo in the first year, for investing in windmills.
Effective April 1, accelerated depreciation – which allows the investing company to fast track the write-off of certain assets for tax purposes – will not be allowed to wind energy developers. The Income Tax department has amended the rules regarding this, through a notification.
Until FY-12, a deduction of up to 80 per cent was allowed if the wind project was commissioned before September of a fiscal. Projects commissioned in the next half of the fiscal got a 40 per cent deduction. Now developers will only be allowed 15 per cent depreciation.
But wind equipments will still enjoy the 20 per cent additional depreciation prescribed for power equipments in the recent Budget. That would make for an effective 35 per cent depreciation. …….
Tags:feed-in tariffs, India, Italy, Renewable energy, subsidies, tax-breaks
Posted in Energy, Renewable Energy | Comments Off on India, Italy to cut renewable energy subsidies
March 9, 2012
Karoo, South Africa: image Wikipedia
The Karoo is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa with two main sub-regions – the Great Karoo in the north and the Little Karoo in the south. The region is known to contain shale-gas deposits some 4,000m below the surface but the extent of the deposits have yet to be fully investigated.
Now Econometrix has published a new report on the potential for growth that Karoo shale gas could provide. The report is supported by Shell who are planning to explore the deposits. A pdf version of the report is available from Shell here: Karoo Shale Gas Report – February 2012
To put quantitities in perspective the 485 trillion cubic feet of gas (14 trillion cubic metres) thought to be in the Karoo compares with 25 trillion cubic metres in China and about 13 trillion cubic metres in the US. (The Age of Gas: China has enough shale gas for 200 years).
IOL, South Africa reports:
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Tags:Karoo, Natural gas, Royal Dutch Shell, Shale gas, shale gas reserves, South Africa
Posted in Business, Energy, Environment, South Africa | Comments Off on South Africa could join the shale gas band-wagon
March 2, 2012
The Age of Gas is not just dawning but is well and truly underway with China revealing reserves sufficient for 200 years. At 25 trillion cubic meters (875 trillion cubic feet) of recoverable reserves these could be almost twice the recoverable reserves in the US.
As shale gas comes into play all over the globe there is going to be a run on large gas turbines for power generation. Gas turbine manufacturers (and the big 4 are GE, Siemens, Alstom and MHI) can expect a sellers market within 2 or 3 years as the economic recovery pressurises generation capacity.
from Wikipedia
The Telegraph:
China is planning an investment blitz to unlock its vast reserves of shale gas, convinced it can match the energy revolution under way in the US and meet a significant part of its fast-growing fuel needs.
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Tags:Age of Gas, China, dash for gas, gas glut, gas turbines, sellers market, Shale gas
Posted in China, Energy, Engineering, Gas | 2 Comments »
February 22, 2012
If the 19th century was the dawn of the Age of Coal and the 20th century was the Age of Oil, the 21st century seems to be well on the way to being the Age of Gas.
Gas shales are being found all over the globe. The US has reserves of 860 trillion cubic feet of shale gas. In many countries gas-bearing shales have not yet been fully explored but known reserves include; in China (1,275tn cubic feet), Argentina (774tn), Mexico (681tn) South Africa (485tn), Canada (388tn), Libya (290tn), Algeria (231tn), Brazil (226tn), UK (200tn), Poland (187tn) and France (180tn). Exploration is still under-way in Russia, central Asia, India, the Middle East, south- east Asia and central Africa. New finds of Natural gas are being discovered off the coast of East Africa. Exploration is now extending to deposits of methane hydrates in the deep sea (>500m) and under permafrost. For electricity generation and large scale heating (district heating) gas is likely to be the preferred alternative. By 2030, gas will probably overtake coal and oil as an energy source. Compressed gas for transport is already in use. Wind and solar energy will not be insignificant but will remain expensive and just a minor contributor. Even where the renewables are used for political ends, gas will have to provide the necessary back-up.
The IEA called it in their special report: Are we entering a golden age of gas.
Reuters reports that new finds are converting East Africa into a gas hub: Statoil find adds to East Africa gas hopes
Martin Wolf writes in the Financial Times: Prepare for a Golden Age of Natural Gas
… the EIA notes that “the advent of large-scale shale gas production did not occur until Mitchell Energy and Development Corporation experimented during the 1980s and 1990s to make deep shale gas production a commercial reality in the Barnett Shale in North-Central Texas.” But, by now, it adds, “[t]he development of shale gas has become a ‘game changer’ for the US natural gas market.”
Tags:Age of Gas, dash for gas, gas glut, Natural gas
Posted in Energy, Gas | 1 Comment »
February 20, 2012
Oil production from oil shales in North Dakota is increasing rapidly and the much-heralded “peak” of oil production may have to be postponed. Alarmists will not be pleased.
“Peak Oil” and “Peak Gas” are the points in time where the production of oil and gas respectively reach a peak and then decline to zero. The concept is based on the normal production cycle of an individual well extrapolated to all the oil and gas existing. The fundamental flaw in these hypotheses when trying to apply them to “finite” and exhaustible resources of any product is of course that:
- new sources of the product are discovered
- new extraction technologies enhance what can be recovered from existing sources,
- new technologies make non-viable sources viable
- new technologies allow the synthesis or alternative production of the product (price driven)
- consumption is modified by pricing
Moving peaks
In recent times the development of fracking technology and the discovery of huge deposits of gas-bearing shales together with the discovery of new deep-sea sources of natural gas have pushed the “peak” for gas production beyond the visible horizon and into the distant future (a few hundred years). When – rather than if – methane hydrates become available for gas production, the “peak” will shift further into the future.
In the case of oil there are already many feasible alternatives which are technically feasible but where commercial production by these methods can only be triggered by the sustainable price being higher than the production cost. For example bio-diesel costs are commercial with oil prices above about $70 per barrel but there is a hidden cost in decreased or disrupted food production. Coal liquefaction would need oil prices above $120 per barrel while oil extraction from oil shales and oil sands become commercial at about $90 and $100 respectively. Deep sea wells (new exploration) are increasingly commercial as the price increases.
The alternatives are now coming into play:
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Tags:"Peak" gas, Energy, oil shale, Peak oil, Shale gas
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Gas, Oil, Oil price | Comments Off on “Peak Oil” hypothesis is following “Peak Gas” into oblivion
February 14, 2012
China has reserves of shale gas at least 50% greater than in the US and is the latest country hopping onto the fracking band-wagon. The Chinese are looking to acquire minority interests in technology companies owning fracking technology in the US and are pushing ahead with their plans for production of shale gas. It seems quite clear now that whenever the global economic recovery finally gets going, the availability of shale gas will be one of the contributing factors. I expect we shall see a boom in exploration for shale gas reserves, in increasing production of shale gas and a boom in gas-fired power generation. There may well be a boom in the sales of gas turbines for power generation within the next 2 -3 years.
“Peak” gas is nowhere in sight. And the fracking technology developments seem to have application even for the recovery of large amounts of gas from methane gas hydrates which are found under deep sea-beds (>500m deep) and even under thick layers of permafrost. While this may take another 10+ years to develop, it makes it even more unlikely that any “peak” gas scenario can develop.
Shale gas reserves: Reuters graphic
Forbes reports:
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Tags:"Peak" gas, China, fracking, Hydraulic fracturing, Natural gas, Shale gas
Posted in Business, China, Energy, Gas | 1 Comment »
January 18, 2012
The advent of shale gas has moved the peak of “peak-gas” into the future by some 250 years. This together with the fact that gas-fired power plant have the shortest construction times and the lowest investment costs of any form of power generation provides the possibility to hold down electricity generation costs. The increase in generation costs in recent times has been the natural consequence of the subsidy regimes for wind and solar power plants and the opportunistic rush to renewable power. Huge fortunes have been made by “green” developers as the subsidies have been milked – but consumers have only seen rising electricity prices.
Bloomberg reports:
A shale-driven glut of natural gas has cut electricity prices for the U.S. power industry by 50 percent and reduced investment in costlier sources of energy. With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), has shelved plans for new U.S. wind projects next year and Exelon Corp. (EXC) called off plans to expand two nuclear plants. Michigan utility CMS Energy Corp. (CMS) canceled a $2 billion coal plant after deciding it wasn’t financially viable in a time of “low natural-gas prices linked to expanded shale-gas supplies,” according to a company statement.
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Tags:Electricity generation, Energy, gas glut, Gas price, gas turbine boom, Natural gas, Shale gas, Utilities
Posted in Energy, Engineering, Gas | 2 Comments »
November 23, 2011
Data for 2010 is now available from the US Energy Information Administration. Solar and Wind power are still a long way from being commercial with just direct subsidies being equivalent to 7.8 and 5.6 cents/kWh respectively. Indirect subsidies and increased costs for alternate capacity are not included.
My view of subsidies in power generation is that they are usually counter productive and provide windfalls for developers and constructors but rarely lead to benefits for the consumers of electricity.
Factors Affecting Electricity Prices:
The average retail price of electricity in the United States in 2010 was 9.88 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). The average prices by type of utility customer were:
- Residential: 11.6¢ per kWh
- Transportation: 11.0¢ per kWh
- Commercial: 10.3¢ per kWh
- Industrial: 6.8¢ per kWh
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Tags:counterproductive subsidies, Electricity generation, electricity prices, Energy Information Administration, Renewable energy, Solar power, subsidies, United States
Posted in Economics, Energy, Renewable Energy, US | Comments Off on Subsidies for electricity production in the US show that renewables are far from commercialisation
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