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
Jaguar Land-Rover has not merely survived under Tata ownership, it has thrived in a way few would have believed possible in 2008 when Ratan Tata acquired JLR from Ford. It’s profits are soaring and has contributed 78% of the parent company’s profits. And investments and jobs in JLR’s UK operation are growing.
Dow Jones reports:
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Tags: India, Jaguar Land Rover, Range Rover Evoque, Ratan Tata, Tata Motor, UK
Posted in Automobiles, India, UK | Comments Off on Jaguar Land-Rover soars even higher with Tata Motors
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 »
February 13, 2012
Lately, I have been delving into the fascinating – but somewhat arcane – fields of paleo-anthropology and genetics and biology and archeology. I find I am constantly trying to create a narrative which hangs together and looking for the little details which can enable me to personalise and identify with the narrative. It is a search for little “hooks” onto which I can hang my “hats” of understanding. And one such “hook” which both anchors and enables my imagination is that when looked at in the perspective of individuals in a particular line of descent, the ancient past is not as intangible and unreachable as it might seem.
from Wikipedia
It is only simple arithmetic but it seems to me quite remarkable that the long journey from the dawn of anatomically modern humans (AMH) some 250,000 years ago, when considered along any particular line of descent, contains not more than some 12,000 individuals. So the right 12,000 names, if I knew them, would suffice to describe all the individuals on any specific line of descent from my origins as an anatomically modern human. Twelve thousand is not so great a number of people. It is less than the population of the little town I live in and it is a number that would be comfortably handled by even quite a small database. I even hear that some people boast more than 12,000 followers on Twitter and others have more than 12,000 “friends” on Facebook! It does not take many minutes to set up an Excel sheet with 12,000 line items, each line then representing one individual on one of my particular lines of descent.
So I have started a new blogsite called 6,000 Generations to provide an outlet for my speculations about individuals from my Ancestral Generations (AG’s).
Tags: AMH, Anatomically modern humans, ancestors, Ancestral Generations, generations, Paleoanthropology
Posted in Anthropology, Archeology, Biology, Evolution | Comments Off on 6,000 generations since Out of Africa
February 13, 2012
Dassault’s success in being selected as the lowest bidder for the Indian MMRCA competition with the Rafale aircraft seems to be having a significant impact in other deals. The Rafale is now the most likely winner of the Brazilian contract for 36 aircraft. The
aggressive pricing by Dassault and the active (and very effective) lobbying by the French government is a potent combination. The Rafale has not yet been sold outside France and the Indian and Brazilian deals are critical for the future export life of the Rafale.
In Brazil the Rafale is competing against Boeing’s F-18 and Saab’s Gripen. Though Saab is also desperately looking for export orders for the Gripen, it is unlikely that it can afford to drop its prices by the levels that Dassault obviously can. Boeing on the other hand is not so dependent on the Brazilian orders and is unlikely to drop its price by very much – especially since they will not wish to disturb the already very high price levels they enjoy for exports to the Middle-East. And that probably leaves the Rafale sitting very pretty.
Svenska Dagbladet reports (freely translated):
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Tags: Boeing, Brazil, Dassault Rafale, India, MMRCA, Rafale, SAAB, Saab Gripen
Posted in Aviation, Brazil, Business, Defense, India | Comments Off on Following Indian MMRCA success, Dassaut’s Rafale also tipped for Brazil
February 12, 2012
Al-Qaeda has come out in strong support of the Syrian opposition and becomes a strange bedfellow for the US and Western European nations who have aligned themselves more against President Assad than for anybody in particular.
Just how the US and France and UK and others will now be reconciled with Al-Qaeda jumping into bed with them remains to be seen. But it seems that Al-Qaeda has been fostering the rebellion in Syria for well over a year. Perhaps they have always been in that Syrian bed and have only recently been joined by the others?
Last week the Russians and Chinese exercised their vetoes in the UN to stop a resolution against the Syrian regime and which called for President Assad to step down. Initially I felt that the Russians and Chinese had balked at the idea of supporting any resolution supporting regime-change since this could someday be turned against them. They claimed that their vetoes were primarily because the resolution was unbalanced since it did not condemn opposition groups for the use of violence and for causing some of the bloodshed. Now with the Al-Qaeda support for the opposition “giving” them the right to use whatever means they saw fit to get rid of a “cancerous regime”, it begins to look as if the picture in Syria is not as one-sided as it has appeared.
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Tags: AlQaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bashar al-Assad, Syria
Posted in Politics, Syria, UN | Comments Off on “The enemy of my enemy …” makes for strange bedfellows in Syria as AL-Qaeda joins with the US
February 11, 2012
zu Guttenberg is back and has friends in high places. Baron Cut and Paste rides again.
This might be considered ironic but being the European commission I put it down to plain stupidity. To have a plagiarist who was brought down by net activism but who then bought his way out of criminal prosecution (by paying €20,000) as a special advisor on net activism illustrates the stupidity and the corruption at the centre of the European Commission.
Stupid is as stupid does.
From TechDirt:
European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes has invited Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a former Federal Minister of Defence, and of Economics and Technology, in Germany, to advise on how to provide ongoing support to Internet users, bloggers and cyber-activists living under authoritarian regimes. This appointment forms a key element of a new “No Disconnect Strategy” to uphold the EU’s commitment to ensure human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected both online and off-line, and that internet and other information and communication technology (ICT) can remain a driver of political freedom, democratic development and economic growth.
Of course, that’s rather rich coming from a region where France already allows disconnections as punishments (HADOPI), and where the UK has legislation in place that will allow it to do the same (Digital Economy Act). But it turns out that the ironies are even deeper.
The reason that Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg — once seen as a likely successor to Germany’s current Chancellor, Angela Merkel — is no longer the Federal Minister of Defence, and of Economics and Technology, is that he resigned when it emerged that he had plagiarized significant parts of his doctorate.
After initial denials, Guttenberg was forced to admit the extent of his plagiarism thanks largely to a crowdsourced wiki called GutenPlag (original German) offering “collaborative documentation of plagiarism”, which went through his thesis searching for passages taken from elsewhere without acknowledgement. In total, it claims to have found “1218 plagiarized fragments from 135 sources, on 371 out of 393 pages (94.4%), in 10421 plagiarized lines (63.8%).” There’s even an interactive, color-coded visualization of what happened where.
A petition against this stupidity can be found here: zu Guttenberg must leave the European Commission
Tags: corruption, European Commission, European Union, Germany, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Neelie Kroes, Plagiarism
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, European Union, Germany | Comments Off on Plagiarist zu Guttenberg invited to join the European Commission
February 10, 2012
Though David Cameron and the other leaders of the four country consortium which manufactures the Eurofighter Typhoon (UK, Germany, Spain and Italy) have all been somewhat whiny about the selection of the French (Dassault) Rafale for the 126 aircraft Indian MMRCA deal it seems highly unlikely that the Typhoon can make a comeback.
The life-time cost of the contract is evaluated at about $20 billion with an initial contract value of about $10-12 billion. The ToI reports that the Rafale deal was evaluated as being $5 billion (about 25%) cheaper than the Eurofighter. Though the evaluation probably considers a total of about 189 aircraft (126 +63 in phase 2) it still represents a life-cycle cost difference of some $26 million per aircraft and not just the $4-5 million lower initial acquisition cost per aircraft (bid-price). It seems almost impossible for the Eurofighter to match this difference. The first 18 aircraft have to be delivered in “fly-away” condition from mid-2015 onwards. The next 108 aircraft will have to be delivered from HAL in India at about 6 per year initially going up to 20 per year.
Exclusive negotiations between Dassault and the Indian Ministry of Defence start next week.
Times of India:
It was the “substantially higher cost” of acquiring and operating the Eurofighter Typhoon that led to its ejection from the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to supply 126 fighters to IAF.
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Tags: Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, India, MMRCA competition, Rafale, Typhoon
Posted in Aviation, Defense, India | 1 Comment »
February 9, 2012
What now Pachauri?
Back in November 2009, Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC were accusing those who were not true believers in climate scientology and the loss of Himalayan ice as being “arrogant”.
This article in The Guardian today reports on new measurements which show zero loss of ice over the last 10 years.
Perhaps the climate scientologists and the global warming brigade should pause to consider their own amazing arrogance of belief (and by corrollary – their lack of science).
(Image above from EU Referendum)
Tags: climate scientology, Glaciergate, global warming, Himalayan glaciers, IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Science | Comments Off on The arrogance of belief: What now Pachauri?
February 8, 2012
This is probably something characteristic of tax authorities and not just the crazy Russian legal system at work. The unfortunate Sergei Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention 2 years ago after being denied urgent medical care but a presidential human rights commission found last summer that charges against him had been fabricated. But the taxman won’t give up.
It does seem like a case of “kill him in detention” and then sue him!!!
Reuters:
MOSCOW PLANS TO PUT DEAD LAWYER ON TRIAL
Russian investigators have said they may prosecute a dead lawyer who worked for a foreign investment fund in the latest bizarre twist to a case that has come to exemplify investor fears about Russia’s rule of law.
Source: Financial Times: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef3b4172-51b5-11e1-a30c-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1llc77Qbh
Tags: behaviour, Russia, Taxation
Posted in Behaviour, Russia | Comments Off on Russian taxman sues dead lawyer
