Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category
December 8, 2010
Image via Wikipedia
While visiting relatives in Bangalore I notice that all their solar powered lamps – installed a year or so ago in a surge of environmental consciousness – are all just ornaments on the garden path and provide no light any more. Any talk about them is somewhat embarassing and discouraged!!!
But at least in India the incandescent light bulb is not banned as it is in the environmentally alarmist EU.
As I have posted before I find the entire low energy lamp movement totally unconvincing and whenever I do the sums I find the environmental impact on reducing carbon footprint (which in any case is of little importance) to be quite insignificant.
Moreover, I find the low energy lamps cold and unattractive compared to the simple old-fashioned, incandescent light bulb.
Now comes confirmation that in fact the low energy lamps are not that environmentally friendly:
Consumer protection organisations have demanded a suspension of the EU ban on incandescent light bulbs, citing official tests that showed the new compact fluorescent lamps to be dangerous if broken.
The energy saving bulbs show mercury levels 20 times higher than regulations allow in the air surrounding them for up to five hours after they are broken, according to tests released Thursday by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA).
“If the industry can’t manage to offer safe bulbs, then the incandescent bulbs must remain on the market until autumn of 2011,” said Gerd Billen, the leader of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZVB).
I for one would be very happy to see their return.
Tags:Alarmism, global warming, Incandescent light bulb
Posted in Alarmism, Business, Energy, Environment | 4 Comments »
November 22, 2010
From Wattsupwiththat:
Former Vice President Al Gore has admitted that his “support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was “not a good policy”, weeks before tax credits are up for renewal.”
Gore was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate mandating the use of ethanol in 1994.
From Reuters:
“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol,” said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.
“First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.
“It’s hard once such a programme is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”
He continues (admitting more of the obvious):
“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”
He never did get a Nobel prize for his vote in 1994, so
……….. don’t make the mistake that he has had an epiphany on climate change:
Read the whole post at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/22/gore-admits-the-obvious-us-corn-ethanol-was-not-a-good-policy/
Tags:Al Gore, ethanol, ethanol from corn, U-turn on ethanol
Posted in Business, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Renewable Energy | Comments Off on Al Gore does a U-turn and admits the obvious
November 22, 2010
Swedish P1 Radio had a broadcast this morning where wind turbine owners in southern Sweden were interviewed. Wind turbines in Southern Sweden operate at an average capacity of about 25% but when the wind blows in in Sweden it usually blows in Denmark as well. As Denmark builds more subsidised but intermittent wind turbines they become more dependant upon the import of hydro and nuclear power from Sweden and Norway.
It could be a dark future for wind power, at least for wind power owners in southern Sweden. As wind turbines multiply, the surplus power when the wind blows reduce prices and wind turbine revenues are reduced drastically.
The Marketing Director for Lunds Energi said that they had no plans for building any more wind turbines to add to the 6 small wind turbines they already had. There was no chance, he said, of the Danes importing wind power from Sweden when the wind was blowing for then they had their own power. And when the wind was not blowing and prices were better there was no power to sell!
Wind power plant in Lake Vännern. Foto: Fredrik Sandberg/Scanpix
Kjell Jansson, the Managing Director of Svensk Energi was also interviewed and pointed out that electricity could not be stored except as hot water. Therefore using surplus wind energy to store in heating systems was at best a partial solution but did not help the fact that industry and people needed electricity as electricity – and not just as hot water. Even the planned Danish solution of using surplus power to “charge up” heating systems for district heating as hot water or for “charging up” electric cars relied on having electricity – from nuclear and hydro power from Sweden and Norway – available to be imported for the Danish electricity system.
Therefore, he continued, when the wind did not blow in Denmark – and then usually did not blow over the whole of Scandinavia – the high electricity price was an advantage for the hydro and nuclear generators. In any case this would require much more investment in transmission systems and in hydro power generation.
But I can see a situation where Denmark will pay swingeing prices for imported electricity when the wind is not blowing and a cold wave is sweeping across Europe. And if it is a really severe cold wave then there may be no electricity available for import.
Tags:electricity prices, Energy, Energy storage, Sweden, wind power
Posted in Business, Economy, Energy, Environment, Sweden, Wind power | Comments Off on Bleak future for wind power generators in Sweden
November 19, 2010
Kang Rixin: photo china-defense-mashup.com
In August 2009 China National Nuclear Corporation’s head Kang Rixin (born 1953), was suspended and put under investigation for misusing $260 million that was earmarked for the construction of three nuclear plants and allegedly used for playing the stock market sustaining heavy losses. Kang Rixin was also accused of accepting bribes of several million dollars of corrupt payments from Areva, a leading French nuclear engineering company.
Sun Qin was appointed President to replace the suspended Kang Rixin.
Today Xinhua reports
that a Chinese court sentenced Kang Rixin, a former head of Chinese nuclear giant China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), to life imprisonment Friday for corruption and accepting almost one million U.S. dollars in bribes. Kang, CNNC’s former general manager, was also deprived of his political rights for life and had his personal assets confiscated, a statement from the Beijing No.1 intermediary court said.
Kang, 57, was convicted of having abused his power to enable others to profit. He accepted bribes totaling 6.6 million yuan (970,000 U.S. dollars) between 2004 and 2009. The sentence was lighter because Kang cooperated with investigators and returned all his ill-gotten gains.
Kang became a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in October 2007. He was stripped of his post in and membership of the CPC for “serious violations of the law and discipline breaches” in December 2009.
Tags:Areva, China, China National Nuclear Corporation, corruption, Kang Rixin
Posted in China, Corruption, Energy, Ethics, Nuclear Power | Comments Off on Former head of Chinese Nuclear corporation sentenced to life for corruption
November 13, 2010
Reuters
State-run Coal India (COAL.BO) is in talks to buy mines from U.S.-based Peabody Energy and Massey Energy , according to a media report citing the company’s chairman. “They expressed interest in offering certain mines to us and we are looking at that,” Partha Bhattacharyya said in a report by the Associated Press carried in the Economic Times newspaper on Saturday. “The discussions are continuing,” the report quoting him as saying. He declined to provide further details.
The Economic Times:
Coal India has budgeted $1.2 billion to buy assets in the US, Indonesia and Australia during the year ending March as it battles a widening gap between domestic coal supply and demand. The company, which last month raised $3.4 billion in the nation’s biggest-ever initial public offering, has near-monopoly control of India’s coal market. Indian companies are increasingly turning to the US to secure vital commodities to fuel the nation’s breakneck growth.
This year, Reliance Industries — India’s most valuable company by market value — bought stakes in three US shale gas companies for a combined $3.4 billion, the largest Indian investment in the US ever made. In 2007, India’s Essar Group acquired Minnesota Steel and is investing over $1 billion to build two plants and run its iron ore mine near Nashwauk, in northern Minnesota. This March, the company spent $600 million to acquire US-based Trinity Coal with mines in Kentucky, West Virginia.
St Louis, Missouri-based Peabody Energy says it is the world’s largest private sector coal company, with 9 billion tonnes of reserves. Richmond, Virginia-based Massey Energy says it is the largest coal producer in the Central Appalachian region, which accounted for 20% of United States coal production in 2007.
Tags:Acquisitions, Coal India, Essar Group, Massey Energy, Peabody Energy, Reliance Industries
Posted in Business, Energy, Environment, India, International Trade, Investing | Comments Off on Coal India looking to acquire mines in US, Australia and Indonesia
November 12, 2010
Natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe: image via Wikipedia
“Peak gas” like “peak food” and “peak resources” and like all “peak scenarios” keeps getting postponed. The US is awash with shale gas and has started re-exporting LNG it had contracted for to Europe challenging the dominance of Russian supplies of natural gas.
Money control reports:
The United States may play a role this winter in loosening Russia’s grip on the European market for natural gas by shipping liquefied natural gas across the Atlantic. Awash with domestic shale gas and with little need to import extra fuel, the United States has started re-exporting LNG cargoes, which firms had previously imported under contract, to countries where gas prices are much higher.
Such shipments could contribute to a growing pool of cheaper LNG going to Russia’s biggest export market this winter. In the longer term, U.S. plans to build plants to liquefy shale gas could create another rival to Russian pipelines. The first re-export cargo from the United States to Britain — a key access point for LNG into northern Europe via an Interconnector pipeline to Belgium — is set to sail over the weekend. “It is a landmark shipment,” said Zach Allen at NATS LNG analysts in Raleigh North Carolina. “LNG has, through the Interconnector, played a major role in reducing intake of Russian gas into western Europe.”
U.S. shale gas has already forced many LNG producers that had hoped to supply the North American market to find alternative buyers, with many cargoes ending up in Europe and driving spot gas prices below the price of oil-indexed Russian gas.
US re-exports to Europe are the latest sign that increases in shale gas production have transformed the global gas market. The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday that a decade-long period of oversupply was likely to push oil-indexed gas sellers to accept lower prices.
In February, Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom postponed it’s Shtokman LNG project because the United States, its target market, did not need more imports. Major European pipeline gas supplier Statoil has been forced to find alternative markets for LNG it had hoped to send to the United States, often selling it into Europe. Qatar, the world’s largest producer and exporter of LNG, has also pushed into both Norwegian and Russian markets by making large deliveries of cheap LNG into Britain and Belgium. US LNG imports have fallen to contractual minimums as gas prices have sagged, forcing importers whose terminals are sitting idle to change strategy and re-export to make the most of higher prices overseas.
US gas at USD 4.1 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) was about USD 3.3/mmbtu below UK prices on Tuesday and just under half the price of Russian gas in Europe in October, according to International Monetary Fund data. About 20 billion cubic feet of gas has already been re-exported from the United States this year, with some sent to Asia, where buyers have paid nearly USD 10 per mmbtu, and some to Latin America and the Middle East.
More of those US loaded cargoes could head to Britain over coming months, given that winter price increases are sharper in northern Europe than in the United States and that imports by South American and Middle Eastern buyers are usually confined to summer.
“US exports to Europe will remain rather exotic, but they underline once again the big risks for Russia of focusing some of its future projects on US markets,” said Valery Nesterov, energy analyst at Moscow-based Troika Dialog brokerage.
Cheniere Energy, operator of the Sabine Pass import terminal in Louisiana, announced plans in June to build a liquefaction plant at the terminal. It said on Tuesday that US bank Morgan Stanley hoped to secure some of its export capacity. Pending approval, the plant would export US-produced shale gas to markets all over the globe from 2015. It would be the first US LNG export plant in 40 years — following the old Kenai facility which supplies Asia from Alaska — and would be well placed to supply Europe. “LNG supplies from the United States can help lower gas prices in Europe and Asia and ultimately help lift prices in the States,” said Mikhail Korchemkin from Pennsylvania-based East European Gas Analysis.
Tags:Europe, Gas price, Liquefied natural gas, LNG re-export, Russia, Shale gas, United States
Posted in Energy, European Union, International Trade, Investing, Technology, US | 2 Comments »
November 11, 2010
Further confirmation that subsidies in general are counter productive and in the case of solar panels in Australia were misguided:
From ABC News:
A new report has found the Federal Government’s billion-dollar subsidies for solar energy favoured the wealthy and barely reduced Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past decade, successive federal governments have provided generous subsidies to households installing solar roof-top panels.
But the cost effectiveness and fairness of the solar voltaic rebate program is being questioned. Andrew Macintosh, the associate director of the Australian National University’s Centre for Climate Law and Policy, has reviewed the program. He says it has barely reduced Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, and it has favoured the rich. “What we found was that the cost of the program was very high,” he said. “It cost the government about $1.1 billion. For that we got about a six-fold increase in solar generation, but still solar constituted only 0.1 per cent of total generation, so a relatively small technology in the overall grid,” he said.
“We’ve been handing out a lot of subsidies for solar systems, but the most people who pick up these subsidies tend to be from wealthier households … and as a result we’re basically providing middle and upper class welfare.”
In June last year the Federal Government cancelled the program at short notice.
Tags:Australia, counter-productive subsidies, Solar power, subsidies
Posted in Alarmism, Economics, Energy, Renewable Energy, Subsidies | Comments Off on Misguided solar subsidies favoured the wealthy
November 8, 2010
Reality and common sense are returning to dampen the mad rush to wind power. The fact that connecting intermittent power sources to the grid is a source of dangerous instabilities and that intermittent power sources do not actually contribute to any secure generating capacity are bringing a “cap” into play. Following the drop of orders in the US, the UK is also expecting sharp reductions in installations.
From The Guardian:
Britain recently overtook Denmark to become the world’s largest offshore windfarm player, implying the tripling of capacity in the next two years. But new projects will dry up in 2013. Only 90 megawatts (MW) of newly installed capacity, which is enough to supply 30,000 homes when the wind blows, is being forecast compared with 1,368Mw the year before. Analysts are forecasting a 93% drop in the installation of new offshore windfarms in 2013 compared with the previous year. As orders for cables, foundations and other equipment are typically made two to three years ahead of the project being completed, the slowdown will start to bite among UK suppliers next year.
There are other extra projects on the drawing board which are supposed to fill this gap. But planning problems, difficulties securing finance and cost overruns on existing projects mean that these plans could be scaled back. Swedish firm Vattenfall said last month that it would not take up the option of expanding its Thanet windfarm – the largest offshore project in the world – blaming problems securing access to the grid.
The availability of bank finance for offshore projects – at least twice as costly as onshore windfarms – has still not returned to pre-credit crunch levels. Now there are only 10-14 banks actively lending, compared with almost 40 before 2008, each lending about half what they were lending before.
Just a few days ago Reuters reported:
The wind energy industry continues to struggle and Vestas Wind is confirming what General Electric is seeing… weak demand. GE went so far as to say the US wind energy market has collapsed. Vestas hasn’t made similar claims, but their actions speak much louder than words.
The company is cutting 3000 jobs and shutting plants due to shrinking power demand, rising component costs and uncertain US policy. While the company posted a smaller than expected loss in 3rd quarter profits, they indicated that the European wind energy market won’t live up to expectations either. Shares of Vestas were down nearly 10 percent Tuesday despite beating analyst earnings estimates and trading very close to the 2008 lows.
Tags:Vattenfall, Vestas, wind power, Wind power difficulties
Posted in Business, Energy, Engineering, Environment, Renewable Energy | Comments Off on Reality check: Orders for wind turbines to fall by 93%
November 8, 2010
From Pajamas Media:
Global warming-inspired cap and trade has been one of the most stridently debated public policy controversies of the past 15 years. But it is dying a quiet death. In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on Oct. 21 that it will be ending carbon trading — the only purpose for which it was founded — this year.
Although the trading in carbon emissions credits was voluntary, the CCX was intended to be the hub of the mandatory carbon trading established by a cap-and-trade law, like the Waxman-Markey scheme passed by the House in June 2009.
At its founding in November 2000, it was estimated that the size of CCX’s carbon trading market could reach $500 billion. That estimate ballooned over the years to $10 trillion.
The CCX was the brainchild of Northwestern University business professor Richard Sandor, who used $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based left-wing Joyce Foundation to launch the CCX. For his efforts, Timenamed Sandor as one of its Heroes of the Planet in 2002 and one of its Heroes of the Environment in 2007.
CCX’s panicked original investors bailed out this spring, unloading the dog and its across-the-pond cousin, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), for $600 million to the New York Stock Exchange-traded Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) — an electronic futures and derivatives platform based in Atlanta and London. (Luckier than the CCX, the ECX continues to exist thanks to the mandatory carbon caps of the Kyoto Protocol.)
The ECX may soon follow the CCX into oblivion, however — the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. No new international treaty is anywhere in sight.
While we don’t know how well Al Gore and Goldman Sachs fared on their investments in the CCX, we do know that there’s no reason to cry for Sandor. He received $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake in CCX when it was sold. Not bad for a failure that somebody else financed.
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/market/data/daily.jsf
Carbon Financial Instruments – Nov 5, 2010
| Product |
Vintage |
Open |
High |
Low |
Close |
Change |
Volume |
| Total Electronically Traded Volume |
– |
| CFI |
2003 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| CFI |
2004 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| CFI |
2005 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| CFI |
2006 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| CFI |
2007 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| CFI |
2008 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| CFI |
2009 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| CFI |
2010 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
$0.05 |
– |
0 |
| Price and volume reported in metric tons CO2 |
Tags:Carbon Trading, Chicago Climate Exchange, European Climate Exchange, fraud, Kyoto Protocol
Posted in Energy, Environment, Ethics, Fraud, International Trade, Investing | Comments Off on Carbon Trading dies quietly in the US; time for Europe to follow suit
November 7, 2010
Guiyang-skyline: Image via Wikipedia
Xinhua reports on a diesel shortage because electricity consumers are forced to use diesel generators as authorities shut down power generation to reach “emissions targets”. Needless to say the emissions from the diesel generators are a lot worse than the forced power shut-downs they replace!
An unprecedented diesel shortage is sweeping through Chinese cities, as numerous enterprises have to resort to diesel fuel to generate electricity to continue operation during periods of forced power outages. Local governments are rushing to switch off electricity as part of their commitment to the central government on energy conservation and emissions reductions.
However, the blackouts have apparently led to the linking effect of the diesel shortage. Long queues of cars and even “Sold-out” signs at gas stations are increasingly common scenes in many cities. Additionally, the market monitoring of the China Chamber of Commerce for the Petroleum Industry has acknowledged that more than 2,000 privately-owned gas stations in southern China had shut down due to their not having diesel fuel to sell.
During the period of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), China sought to reduce energy consumption per GDP unit by 20 percent. In the first four years of the 11th five-year plan, a 15.6 percent reduction (compared to between year 2005 and year 2009) was reached. But energy consumption per unit of GDP increased 0.09 percent in the first half of 2010, year on year. In a hurry to meet their regional targets assigned by the central government, many local governments chose the blackout method for enterprises in the remaining two months. This method quickly spread to many provinces around China.
In Wenzhou city of Zhejiang Province, with China’s most prosperous private economy, power supplies for some enterprises will be cut for two to four days following one day with electricity. “My company’s electricity consumption is about 150,000 kw-hr, but the local government’s allotment is only 60,000 kw-hr.” said the owner of an export-oriented farm products deep-processing company, who only gave his surname, Ye. Just as is being done by many of his peers, Ye had to purchase a diesel generator with 200,000 yuan (about 30,000 U.S. dollars). It will cost him an additional 10,000 yuan (about 1,500 U.S. dollars) to generate electricity, twice the normal cost for electricity.
“The irrational blackout policy by some local governments is contrary to the energy conservation and emissions reduction target as was set by China’s 11th Five-Year Plan,” said Dr.Zhang Jianyu, China Program manager of the U.S. Environmental Defense Fund. Also, more emissions and fuel consumption might be produced by the diesel generators. “The blackout is not a wise choice. What the local governments need to do now is to pay attention to change the mode of economic growth with high efficiency and low energy consumption,” said Zhong Yongsheng, deputy director of the Center for China’s Urban-Rural Development Studies.
Environmentalism gone mad.
Tags:Air pollution, China, diesel use, emissions, forced power outages
Posted in Air pollution, China, Energy, Environment | Comments Off on China: Cutting power generation to cut emissions makes things worse
The k2p blog 