Energy efficiency acts fast....
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-16-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
The bad news is that it’s going far to slow -- both beginning to charge fossil fuels and the businesses that produce them more of their true costs to make them less competitive & slow their use -- and adding the massive amounts of renewable energy, new transmission lines; & some nuclear it will take to use less fossil fuels without harming the economy.
The good news is that energy efficiency can act to help solve this because it acts so much faster.
Two examples are that:
1. It’s been found that a complete energy systems overhaul for many if not most commercial buildings can slash their annual energy use AND to such an extent that the cost savings per year once it’s done will be as great as the initial investment needed to do it.
Adobe in San Jose, California did exactly that. They invested about a million dollars in it for their headquarters building and then found they realized a million dollars a year in savings.
2. The highest peak electric demand in areas that have air conditioners in commercial and residential buildings is on the hottest days each summer.
But as much as 90 % of that electricity demand is removable by better heat proofing of buildings; better insulation; and by running the airconditioning if still needed early in the morning when there is less competing demand and the efficiency of the air conditioning is greatest due to the lower outside temperature.
We almost eliminated the need for air conditioning in a house we once owned by adding more intake vents around the base of our peaked roofs and installing convection powered turbines that enabled the solar heat in our attic to escape. Since that heat no longer came into our house, we had no further need to remove it by using air conditioning to remove it and use electricity to do so.
Now I’ve found a company in San Jose, California, NuLight Solutions, Inc. that makes a solar powered attic fan for the same purpose.
(Since this peak demand occurs when there is robust solar thermal and photovoltaic energy available, the other way to avoid the need for adding fossil fuel plants to provide for it, is to add more solar energy installations that produce peak electricity at the same time as this peak in demand.)
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have an innovative program to save energy in similar ways that you would like funding or publicity for, check this out soon.
(The deadline to apply for one of them is 9-28-2009, just 12 days from now.)
From the CEN Weekly Intelligence Update for 9-15-2009 see http://www.cleaneconomy.net/
1. Yesterday, the Department of Energy announced a $450 million Retrofit Ramp-Up Program. Funded under the Recovery Act, the program will support innovative models for rolling out energy efficiency technologies to homes and businesses on a large scale. DOE envisions an energy upgrade that will save up to $100 billion annually in household and small business utility bills.
DOE issued a Request for Information, seeking local energy efficiency projects. Applications are due September 28, 2009.
For additional information, see http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=237.
2. On September 14, DOE announced more than $354 million in awards to 22 states to support energy efficiency and conservation activities under the Recovery Act-funded Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. For additional information, see http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=238.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
2 stories with large scale good news....
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-9-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
That makes 2 stories that appeared in the last few days -- huge good news!
1. First Solar has signed a deal to build a 2 gigawatt solar installation in an appropriate desert region of China. This 25 square mile solar array will produce enough electricity to power 3 million homes, and – at least during the day on sunny days, it will provide as much power as two large coal burning plants.
It remains to be seen how successfully this project can be built and if it lives up to its potential. First Solar is one of the largest and most successful solar companies; and its technology works. So, it has a good shot at success.
But the two outstanding pieces of good news in this story are these two.: Finally a solar installation is being planned on a scale that measures up to the need and the opportunity. And, second, China is not only getting serious about adding renewable energy, it is providing a very positive example for other countries to follow. Since China is the largest emitter now of CO2, this is the first sign that the Chinese are seriously trying to do something to build the renewable energy they’ll need to stop doing so.
2. The portion of the stimulus package that was passed that targets energy efficiency and renewable energy has of necessity had a slow start according to a story titled,
“A Turning Point For Green-Energy Stimulus Projects?”
by Kevin Whitelaw that appeared, yesterday, Tuesday, 9-8-2009, on NPR’s online news.
The good news is that money and the resulting jobs from the stimulus package devoted to clean energy will soon begin to kick in on a very large scale. It may well eventually rival Eisenhower’s Interstate Freeway building or JFK’s Race to the Moon as one of the most significant programs ever initiated by a President of the United States or during his time in office.
This NPR story points out that the very small initial impact has been largely because so little was happening at first -- and it certainly didn’t help that the other economic news has until recently been so bad.
The NPR story explains that this is about to change dramatically and on a large scale.
Here are the key quotes.:
“The Energy Department was authorized to spend $36.7 billion, much of it on clean-energy programs. To date, however, only about $461 million has been spent. But officials say the pace will really start to pick up this fall.”
“In the 2009 fiscal year, only 1 percent of the stimulus funds being spent will go toward energy and the environment. By 2012, that figure will rise to 17 percent.”
“The various grants and projects are just now being awarded. "The next three months will be the most exciting time for the clean-technology industry in the last decade," …. "Every 10 days to two weeks, we will have another big block of funds going out the door." “
And, in addition to the other money spent on “weatherization” programs these funds will go for solar technology, wind power technology, & the next-generation smart electrical grid.
The article points out that the $2.4 billion in grants for advanced batteries and electric vehicles that was announced last month will start delivering new jobs between this November and next February
The article points out that the Energy Department has awarded some $9.9 billion in loans and contracts which will begin to add a significant number of new jobs in the same time period.
This stimulus spending will continue increasing for nearly 3 years. And, some of the companies and technologies funded will begin to deliver large scale results by 3 years from now while others will keep growing for 10 to 15 years after that.
To turn down our production of CO2 and avoid economic downturns or collapses from run ups in the prices of fossil fuels or from shrinking supplies, we must have a more energy efficient economy and massive amounts of new renewable energy.
These two stories show there is now beginning to be hope that we will be able to transition enough of our economy to these other sources to prevent the worst of the CO2 effects and keep our economy & us going.
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-9-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
That makes 2 stories that appeared in the last few days -- huge good news!
1. First Solar has signed a deal to build a 2 gigawatt solar installation in an appropriate desert region of China. This 25 square mile solar array will produce enough electricity to power 3 million homes, and – at least during the day on sunny days, it will provide as much power as two large coal burning plants.
It remains to be seen how successfully this project can be built and if it lives up to its potential. First Solar is one of the largest and most successful solar companies; and its technology works. So, it has a good shot at success.
But the two outstanding pieces of good news in this story are these two.: Finally a solar installation is being planned on a scale that measures up to the need and the opportunity. And, second, China is not only getting serious about adding renewable energy, it is providing a very positive example for other countries to follow. Since China is the largest emitter now of CO2, this is the first sign that the Chinese are seriously trying to do something to build the renewable energy they’ll need to stop doing so.
2. The portion of the stimulus package that was passed that targets energy efficiency and renewable energy has of necessity had a slow start according to a story titled,
“A Turning Point For Green-Energy Stimulus Projects?”
by Kevin Whitelaw that appeared, yesterday, Tuesday, 9-8-2009, on NPR’s online news.
The good news is that money and the resulting jobs from the stimulus package devoted to clean energy will soon begin to kick in on a very large scale. It may well eventually rival Eisenhower’s Interstate Freeway building or JFK’s Race to the Moon as one of the most significant programs ever initiated by a President of the United States or during his time in office.
This NPR story points out that the very small initial impact has been largely because so little was happening at first -- and it certainly didn’t help that the other economic news has until recently been so bad.
The NPR story explains that this is about to change dramatically and on a large scale.
Here are the key quotes.:
“The Energy Department was authorized to spend $36.7 billion, much of it on clean-energy programs. To date, however, only about $461 million has been spent. But officials say the pace will really start to pick up this fall.”
“In the 2009 fiscal year, only 1 percent of the stimulus funds being spent will go toward energy and the environment. By 2012, that figure will rise to 17 percent.”
“The various grants and projects are just now being awarded. "The next three months will be the most exciting time for the clean-technology industry in the last decade," …. "Every 10 days to two weeks, we will have another big block of funds going out the door." “
And, in addition to the other money spent on “weatherization” programs these funds will go for solar technology, wind power technology, & the next-generation smart electrical grid.
The article points out that the $2.4 billion in grants for advanced batteries and electric vehicles that was announced last month will start delivering new jobs between this November and next February
The article points out that the Energy Department has awarded some $9.9 billion in loans and contracts which will begin to add a significant number of new jobs in the same time period.
This stimulus spending will continue increasing for nearly 3 years. And, some of the companies and technologies funded will begin to deliver large scale results by 3 years from now while others will keep growing for 10 to 15 years after that.
To turn down our production of CO2 and avoid economic downturns or collapses from run ups in the prices of fossil fuels or from shrinking supplies, we must have a more energy efficient economy and massive amounts of new renewable energy.
These two stories show there is now beginning to be hope that we will be able to transition enough of our economy to these other sources to prevent the worst of the CO2 effects and keep our economy & us going.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
China and coal and CO2 reduction targets....
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-2-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Unfortunately, one resource many countries have turned to instead of using petroleum is burning coal. That both releases huge amounts of CO2; and, when the resulting exhausts allow particulates and other pollutants to escape when coal is burned, even worse problems are created.
Now China has added electric generation capacity by building new coal fired plants for this purpose so fast and for so long, China is now the largest emitter of CO2 in the world.
Now China is doing two things.:
1. They are delaying dealing with the problem much more than they should do for controlling global warming and insisting that the United States do more than is likely feasible in the next few years to lower its CO2 emissions before they fully begin.
2. They ARE beginning to ramp up decent looking long term programs to increase renewable energy enough to allow them to burn less coal or at least stop building new coal fired plants.
Here are my two conclusions:
First, I think that China needs to do far more in China’s own best interests alone than they have done or have in the pipeline to do now.
Global warming and huge amounts of particulates from the coal they burn and do not filter out of the exhaust generated are harming the health of China’s people; reducing the yields from their agriculture; & reducing their amount of sun enough to hamper solar sources of renewable energy.
Even if they weren’t harming the rest of the world also due to their size, they need to clean up the exhausts of their existing coal fired plants; begin building a huge amount of clean sources of energy -- renewable sources for sure and perhaps nuclear as well so that they can immediately stop building new coal fired plants; & begin adding some kind of CO2 sequestration to all their existing coal fired plants. (As I posted last time, since we may be running out of oil soon and need to be cleaning the exhaust of coal fired plants for other reasons, setting up immediate plans to sequester all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil would also make excellent sense.)
Secondly, as a strategic way to avoid some of the political friction and make faster progress, I wonder if it might not make sense to set up international agreements based on:
a) setting up action programs now to get much more done that will lead to more renewable energy and less CO2 release;
and
b) to get agreement on very large reductions in C02 for 50 years from now;
and
c) begin to spend a LOT less time and emphasis on agreements on CO2 reductions sooner than that.
If we get agreement (& we don’t look at all likely to do so) for targets for 15 or 20 years from now; but do NOT get agreements that lead to massive action right away, the hassles of getting agreements for targets for 15 or 20 years from now; will be wasted anyway. Without the action to support them, they won’t happen on schedule. So why bother?
However, since it is the actions that will eventually do the job by 50 years from now and might reach the goals we’re hassling about now in 15 or 20 years, I think that asking for agreement on adding policies and programs similar to those used with great success in Germany over the last 15 years plus companion policies to clean up coal now in use and begin to stop using more of it is the set of goals where agreement is most needed.
And, this can be done by one country at a time or by small groups of countries. It may not be necessary or doable to get all countries to agree.
1. For example, both the United States and China now burn quite large amounts of coal.
Why not set up a joint venture between the United States and China to develop and roll out cost effective technologies to clean the exhaust generated and to sequester all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil?
2. For example, United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, and many other countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe, and elsewhere have abundant amounts of sun generated heat that can be used to power solar thermal power plants.
Why not set up a joint venture between the United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, and any other countries that wish to participate, to develop the relevant technologies and roll out large amounts of solar thermal plants?
3. Germany has put a set of policies in place that have produced great progress just in the last 15 years in building new solar photovoltaic installations, wind power installations, and innovative ways to become more energy efficient that have proven to work.
Why not have a program that every country in the world is invited to participate in to do the same in the next 15 years?
If we do those things right away, we will make the progress we need to make -- while if we continue to argue over short term goals, it seems unlikely to me that we will.
Since these same things also protect the economies of the countries that do them, the larger countries that have been hassling about goals, I think should work together on those sorts of programs and to take the lead in doing so.
And that specifically includes China, the United States, India, and the countries of Western Europe both individually and as a group.
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-2-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Unfortunately, one resource many countries have turned to instead of using petroleum is burning coal. That both releases huge amounts of CO2; and, when the resulting exhausts allow particulates and other pollutants to escape when coal is burned, even worse problems are created.
Now China has added electric generation capacity by building new coal fired plants for this purpose so fast and for so long, China is now the largest emitter of CO2 in the world.
Now China is doing two things.:
1. They are delaying dealing with the problem much more than they should do for controlling global warming and insisting that the United States do more than is likely feasible in the next few years to lower its CO2 emissions before they fully begin.
2. They ARE beginning to ramp up decent looking long term programs to increase renewable energy enough to allow them to burn less coal or at least stop building new coal fired plants.
Here are my two conclusions:
First, I think that China needs to do far more in China’s own best interests alone than they have done or have in the pipeline to do now.
Global warming and huge amounts of particulates from the coal they burn and do not filter out of the exhaust generated are harming the health of China’s people; reducing the yields from their agriculture; & reducing their amount of sun enough to hamper solar sources of renewable energy.
Even if they weren’t harming the rest of the world also due to their size, they need to clean up the exhausts of their existing coal fired plants; begin building a huge amount of clean sources of energy -- renewable sources for sure and perhaps nuclear as well so that they can immediately stop building new coal fired plants; & begin adding some kind of CO2 sequestration to all their existing coal fired plants. (As I posted last time, since we may be running out of oil soon and need to be cleaning the exhaust of coal fired plants for other reasons, setting up immediate plans to sequester all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil would also make excellent sense.)
Secondly, as a strategic way to avoid some of the political friction and make faster progress, I wonder if it might not make sense to set up international agreements based on:
a) setting up action programs now to get much more done that will lead to more renewable energy and less CO2 release;
and
b) to get agreement on very large reductions in C02 for 50 years from now;
and
c) begin to spend a LOT less time and emphasis on agreements on CO2 reductions sooner than that.
If we get agreement (& we don’t look at all likely to do so) for targets for 15 or 20 years from now; but do NOT get agreements that lead to massive action right away, the hassles of getting agreements for targets for 15 or 20 years from now; will be wasted anyway. Without the action to support them, they won’t happen on schedule. So why bother?
However, since it is the actions that will eventually do the job by 50 years from now and might reach the goals we’re hassling about now in 15 or 20 years, I think that asking for agreement on adding policies and programs similar to those used with great success in Germany over the last 15 years plus companion policies to clean up coal now in use and begin to stop using more of it is the set of goals where agreement is most needed.
And, this can be done by one country at a time or by small groups of countries. It may not be necessary or doable to get all countries to agree.
1. For example, both the United States and China now burn quite large amounts of coal.
Why not set up a joint venture between the United States and China to develop and roll out cost effective technologies to clean the exhaust generated and to sequester all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil?
2. For example, United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, and many other countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe, and elsewhere have abundant amounts of sun generated heat that can be used to power solar thermal power plants.
Why not set up a joint venture between the United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, and any other countries that wish to participate, to develop the relevant technologies and roll out large amounts of solar thermal plants?
3. Germany has put a set of policies in place that have produced great progress just in the last 15 years in building new solar photovoltaic installations, wind power installations, and innovative ways to become more energy efficient that have proven to work.
Why not have a program that every country in the world is invited to participate in to do the same in the next 15 years?
If we do those things right away, we will make the progress we need to make -- while if we continue to argue over short term goals, it seems unlikely to me that we will.
Since these same things also protect the economies of the countries that do them, the larger countries that have been hassling about goals, I think should work together on those sorts of programs and to take the lead in doing so.
And that specifically includes China, the United States, India, and the countries of Western Europe both individually and as a group.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Very bad & some good news about coal....
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-26-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
In addition, the United States will not be in as good a position as might be desirable when that happens. A recent story says that China has been buying oil supplies and reserves world wide and on a large scale.
So, taken together, it’s quite clear that we need to find ways to use much less oil without harming our economy and begin to really expedite doing so.
In part because of this and because of the increasing importance of electricity generation in our modern economy, in the United States and particularly in China, we have been burning a lot of coal to generate electricity and adding new coal burning plants.
This is releasing huge amounts of pollution from burning coal and is the largest single largest cause of global warming caused by increases in CO2 emissions.
And, in China, the increase in coal burning has been on such a large scale that it is causing serious health problems from particulates and is reducing sunlight enough to harm the potential for solar energy and to produce reduced agricultural yields.
Recently, I’ve gotten both some horribly bad and even frightening news and some much better and more promising news about coal.
Here’s the horribly bad and even frightening news first.:
In the health news in the last few days I saw a story twice that reported research that the inorganic mercury detected in women in their blood went from “two percent of women in the 1999-2000 study” to “30 percent of women studied in 2005-2006.”
And, one story noted that the rate of mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants was driving this by dramatically increasing the amount of mercury emissions into the atmosphere.
Since mercury tends to harm nerve development in unborn children and children as they grow up and to trigger mental decline in older people, this is an extremely serious concern.
The news that this problem got 15 times worse in just 7 years is truly scary.
Taken together, this set of facts means that our current method of burning coal is extremely undesirable. In fact, that may be an understatement!
At the same time, a huge part of our economy is now powered by the electricity we get by burning coal. And, we don’t yet have the renewable or even nuclear resources in place to substitute for it.
That literally puts us into a nearly no win situation. The status quo will ruin our health, our agriculture, and our ability to think and remember; but stopping all coal burning immediately would totally crash our economy world wide.
There has been some talk of sequestering CO2 by storing it underground. It is even being tried. And, in controlling the exhaust gases to do this, it may become considerably more economic to remove the particulate pollution and to sequester the mercury emissions than it would be if we weren’t adding this exhaust gas processing equipment necessary for sequestering CO2.
The bad news in that is that there is no guarantee the CO2 will stay underground without escaping; and we may simply not have enough places to store all the CO2 this method would need to store to be a real solution.
However, I’ve noted that it may be possible to use all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil.
And, just as in the other kind of CO2 sequestration, in controlling the exhaust gases to do this, it may become considerably more economic to remove the particulate pollution and to sequester the mercury emissions than it would be if we weren’t adding this exhaust gas processing equipment necessary for sequestering CO2.
In fact, to protect the algae from being harmed, it may be mandatory to remove these pollutants before the exhaust reaches the algae.
Since we still would release the CO2 when those biofuels are burned, it’s clear to me that this would be a temporary solution.
But since we don’t yet have virtually every car and truck running as all electric vehicles or as plug-in hybrids, we still have quite a bit of coal, and we are running out of oil – plus we don’t yet have renewable and nuclear electricity generation in place sufficient to replace coal, it looks as if making biofuels with algae fed from the CO2 created by burning coal may be an extremely good near term solution.
This biofuel sequestration would solve several problems now while we await those changes. And, even better, its rapid, world-wide, and universal adoption would put a screeching halt to mercury and particulate pollution of our atmosphere.
That means that a proven way to covert CO2 from coal burning plants to biofuels using algae would be hugely valuable.
The much better and more promising news is that we may already have that under successful development.
While reviewing green energy stories listed in Nanosolar’s news section on its website, I found an article from the February 25, 2009 of Politico called, “Whither energy industry's Bill Gates?” written by Erika Lovley.
One of the parts of that story covered a very promising effort to make and begin to roll out biofuel sequestration of CO2.
A company called Ternion Bio Industries co-founded by Kyle McCue and Chris Schuring
recently built a full-scale industrial pilot reactor in California.
They just managed in time to lobby for stimulus funds for carbon capture and sequestration technology by using algae carbon capture to make biofuels.
The story then said this:
“With the help of stimulus funds, McCue estimates he can have a full carbon capture demonstration built in about 18 months that could capture nearly all the emissions of a mid-sized, coal-fired power plant.”
I then went to their website at: http://www.ternionbio.com & found this:
http://www.ternionbio.com/ternion-bios-technology //
"Closed-loop bioreactors are not subject to weather changes (heavy rain, snow, heat, freezing, etc.) or contamination (from pollution, rogue algae species or wind-borne contaminants)."
“Ternion Bio Industries has created a number of innovative technologies designed to optimize both maximum CO2 recycling capability and maximum algae output, while also operating significantly more cost-effectively and efficiently than other algae recycling systems.”
“For recycling greenhouse gases, Ternion Bio’s primary technology advances are contained in our Photo BioReactor.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Ternion Bio will be the number one company in this space when this industry is farther along or that rolling out using algae carbon capture to make biofuels world-wide and universally used can be done in 5 years as is needed.
But it does mean that at least one company sounds like it may be able to do the job. And, if that’s accurate and we follow up on it well, it will help enormously to clean up our air, use less petroleum for fuels, and reduce CO2 emissions. It will enable us to use oil more slowly; and it will help hold down the run up in oil and gasoline prices that we will have if it isn’t used.
It will enable us to more safely continue to burn coal to make electricity while we do not yet have substitutes in place. Lastly, it will help preserve the jobs and economies in regions that mine coal and soften the transition for them. And, it will have similar value for the coal companies.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-26-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
In addition, the United States will not be in as good a position as might be desirable when that happens. A recent story says that China has been buying oil supplies and reserves world wide and on a large scale.
So, taken together, it’s quite clear that we need to find ways to use much less oil without harming our economy and begin to really expedite doing so.
In part because of this and because of the increasing importance of electricity generation in our modern economy, in the United States and particularly in China, we have been burning a lot of coal to generate electricity and adding new coal burning plants.
This is releasing huge amounts of pollution from burning coal and is the largest single largest cause of global warming caused by increases in CO2 emissions.
And, in China, the increase in coal burning has been on such a large scale that it is causing serious health problems from particulates and is reducing sunlight enough to harm the potential for solar energy and to produce reduced agricultural yields.
Recently, I’ve gotten both some horribly bad and even frightening news and some much better and more promising news about coal.
Here’s the horribly bad and even frightening news first.:
In the health news in the last few days I saw a story twice that reported research that the inorganic mercury detected in women in their blood went from “two percent of women in the 1999-2000 study” to “30 percent of women studied in 2005-2006.”
And, one story noted that the rate of mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants was driving this by dramatically increasing the amount of mercury emissions into the atmosphere.
Since mercury tends to harm nerve development in unborn children and children as they grow up and to trigger mental decline in older people, this is an extremely serious concern.
The news that this problem got 15 times worse in just 7 years is truly scary.
Taken together, this set of facts means that our current method of burning coal is extremely undesirable. In fact, that may be an understatement!
At the same time, a huge part of our economy is now powered by the electricity we get by burning coal. And, we don’t yet have the renewable or even nuclear resources in place to substitute for it.
That literally puts us into a nearly no win situation. The status quo will ruin our health, our agriculture, and our ability to think and remember; but stopping all coal burning immediately would totally crash our economy world wide.
There has been some talk of sequestering CO2 by storing it underground. It is even being tried. And, in controlling the exhaust gases to do this, it may become considerably more economic to remove the particulate pollution and to sequester the mercury emissions than it would be if we weren’t adding this exhaust gas processing equipment necessary for sequestering CO2.
The bad news in that is that there is no guarantee the CO2 will stay underground without escaping; and we may simply not have enough places to store all the CO2 this method would need to store to be a real solution.
However, I’ve noted that it may be possible to use all the CO2 generated by burning coal to feed algae that would then be harvested to make biofuels and substitute for oil.
And, just as in the other kind of CO2 sequestration, in controlling the exhaust gases to do this, it may become considerably more economic to remove the particulate pollution and to sequester the mercury emissions than it would be if we weren’t adding this exhaust gas processing equipment necessary for sequestering CO2.
In fact, to protect the algae from being harmed, it may be mandatory to remove these pollutants before the exhaust reaches the algae.
Since we still would release the CO2 when those biofuels are burned, it’s clear to me that this would be a temporary solution.
But since we don’t yet have virtually every car and truck running as all electric vehicles or as plug-in hybrids, we still have quite a bit of coal, and we are running out of oil – plus we don’t yet have renewable and nuclear electricity generation in place sufficient to replace coal, it looks as if making biofuels with algae fed from the CO2 created by burning coal may be an extremely good near term solution.
This biofuel sequestration would solve several problems now while we await those changes. And, even better, its rapid, world-wide, and universal adoption would put a screeching halt to mercury and particulate pollution of our atmosphere.
That means that a proven way to covert CO2 from coal burning plants to biofuels using algae would be hugely valuable.
The much better and more promising news is that we may already have that under successful development.
While reviewing green energy stories listed in Nanosolar’s news section on its website, I found an article from the February 25, 2009 of Politico called, “Whither energy industry's Bill Gates?” written by Erika Lovley.
One of the parts of that story covered a very promising effort to make and begin to roll out biofuel sequestration of CO2.
A company called Ternion Bio Industries co-founded by Kyle McCue and Chris Schuring
recently built a full-scale industrial pilot reactor in California.
They just managed in time to lobby for stimulus funds for carbon capture and sequestration technology by using algae carbon capture to make biofuels.
The story then said this:
“With the help of stimulus funds, McCue estimates he can have a full carbon capture demonstration built in about 18 months that could capture nearly all the emissions of a mid-sized, coal-fired power plant.”
I then went to their website at: http://www.ternionbio.com & found this:
http://www.ternionbio.com/ternion-bios-technology //
"Closed-loop bioreactors are not subject to weather changes (heavy rain, snow, heat, freezing, etc.) or contamination (from pollution, rogue algae species or wind-borne contaminants)."
“Ternion Bio Industries has created a number of innovative technologies designed to optimize both maximum CO2 recycling capability and maximum algae output, while also operating significantly more cost-effectively and efficiently than other algae recycling systems.”
“For recycling greenhouse gases, Ternion Bio’s primary technology advances are contained in our Photo BioReactor.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Ternion Bio will be the number one company in this space when this industry is farther along or that rolling out using algae carbon capture to make biofuels world-wide and universally used can be done in 5 years as is needed.
But it does mean that at least one company sounds like it may be able to do the job. And, if that’s accurate and we follow up on it well, it will help enormously to clean up our air, use less petroleum for fuels, and reduce CO2 emissions. It will enable us to use oil more slowly; and it will help hold down the run up in oil and gasoline prices that we will have if it isn’t used.
It will enable us to more safely continue to burn coal to make electricity while we do not yet have substitutes in place. Lastly, it will help preserve the jobs and economies in regions that mine coal and soften the transition for them. And, it will have similar value for the coal companies.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Misguided politics & some favorable politics ….
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-19-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
In addition, the United States will not be in as good a position as might be desirable when that happens. A recent story says that China has been buying oil supplies and reserves world wide and on a large scale.
So, taken together, it’s quite clear that we need to find ways to use much less oil without harming our economy and begin to really expedite doing so.
In the long run, cap & trade or other methods of adding taxes to oil, coal, and other fossil fuels or beginning to withdraw subsidies, all of which will add to the cost of using these fuels will speed up this process.
It’s also clear that this needs to start very slowly while such increased costs will be applied to most of the energy used by our economy.
Lastly, it’s quite clear that the largest priority needs to be to add massive amounts of renewable energy and ways to substitute it for energy from fossil fuels.
The Clean Economy Network sends out an email with regular updates on clean energy related government actions and debates.
The most recent one yesterday had some very bad news and some very good news.
Here’s the bad news:
"Energy & Climate Reform Opponents Take Cues From Health Care Reform Foes to Manufacture "Grassroots" Opposition.
Having observed the tactics deployed by opponents of health care reform, the American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, and others are funding rallies in 20 states during the August Congressional recess. The groups have founded EnergyCitizens, which is warning that "Climate change legislation being considered in Washington will cause huge economic pain and produce little environmental gain."
Discussing the rallies, the Washington reports that the American Petroleum Institute is asking oil companies to recruit employees and retirees to attend the rallies to put "a human face" on opposition to energy reform."
Instead of putting their money into lobbying for well thought out ways to minimize the initial economic impact of the different ways of putting the brakes on fossil fuel consumption and on how to actually make money from helping to build the alternatives needed, the Petroleum industry is trying to use it’s influence to disrupt the process entirely. Even worse they are doing it in a way that usually causes more friction and negative fallout than useful compromises.
I think this is extremely bad management on the parts of the companies involved.
It’s similar to taking their shareholder’s money to hurl insults at an oncoming tsunami while spending no money – or far too little money -- on getting out of its way or harnessing its power.
In the early stages of the switchover from sailing ships to steam powered ships, the Clipper ships were a very elegant and successful design that represented the state of the art in sailing ships. The steam ships were klutzy and were often dangerous and somewhat unreliable.
But the underlying fact was that once steam ships evolved just a bit more, Clipper ships became obsolete.
The ship builders who stuck with only building Clipper ships and other sailing ships went out of business while the ship builders who began work on building the best steam powered ships they could survived and often prospered.
Would it have helped if the sailing ship builders had set up pressure groups to try to ban steam ships?
Nope. Even had they succeeded, steam ships built in other countries would have taken over their markets anyway.
The management analyst Peter Drucker points out that a classic cause of failure in once successful companies is to focus all the resources of their company on defending and supporting the old and once successful product even after it begins to decline while starving their efforts to profit from the growing opportunities in the products that are beginning to take over the market.
He points out that all too often, the money spent to support “yesterday’s bread” winds up being mostly wasted. Then when the company needs to transition to “tomorrow’s bread”, too little has been invested in it to work & the company fails.
Having grown up in an area where I benefitted from the success of the oil companies of that day as everyone who lived there did, I’d much rather the oil companies redefined themselves as energy companies that began in oil and started making much greater efforts to become part of the new energy economy and completely stop trying to save the waning part of their business.
I’d much rather they continue to prosper. But if they persist in acting like clueless fools, they won’t make it.
The very good news in the Clean Economy Network email yesterday was this.:
"Democratic Senators Move to Disentangle Climate & Energy Aspects of Legislation. The Business Insider reports that a group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Blanch Lincoln (D-AR) recommends cleaving energy legislation from cap-and-trade provisions and passing a bill this year that establishes only a renewable energy mandate.”
Since the very clear priority is to add massive amounts of renewable energy and ways to substitute it for energy from fossil fuels, regardless of how cap & trade turns out, a bill that focuses on creating much more renewable energy and that alone would be very valuable.
And, since the wasted heat and hassle apparently now being generated plus the very legitimate concerns of starting cap & trade very slowly until we have more renewable energy in place to switch to will result in no cap & trade bill or one that is both too harsh in some ways and way too little, too late in others, having a strong & separate bill mandating much more renewable energy would make the probable bad or no cap & trade bill much more safe and OK.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-19-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
In addition, the United States will not be in as good a position as might be desirable when that happens. A recent story says that China has been buying oil supplies and reserves world wide and on a large scale.
So, taken together, it’s quite clear that we need to find ways to use much less oil without harming our economy and begin to really expedite doing so.
In the long run, cap & trade or other methods of adding taxes to oil, coal, and other fossil fuels or beginning to withdraw subsidies, all of which will add to the cost of using these fuels will speed up this process.
It’s also clear that this needs to start very slowly while such increased costs will be applied to most of the energy used by our economy.
Lastly, it’s quite clear that the largest priority needs to be to add massive amounts of renewable energy and ways to substitute it for energy from fossil fuels.
The Clean Economy Network sends out an email with regular updates on clean energy related government actions and debates.
The most recent one yesterday had some very bad news and some very good news.
Here’s the bad news:
"Energy & Climate Reform Opponents Take Cues From Health Care Reform Foes to Manufacture "Grassroots" Opposition.
Having observed the tactics deployed by opponents of health care reform, the American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, and others are funding rallies in 20 states during the August Congressional recess. The groups have founded EnergyCitizens, which is warning that "Climate change legislation being considered in Washington will cause huge economic pain and produce little environmental gain."
Discussing the rallies, the Washington reports that the American Petroleum Institute is asking oil companies to recruit employees and retirees to attend the rallies to put "a human face" on opposition to energy reform."
Instead of putting their money into lobbying for well thought out ways to minimize the initial economic impact of the different ways of putting the brakes on fossil fuel consumption and on how to actually make money from helping to build the alternatives needed, the Petroleum industry is trying to use it’s influence to disrupt the process entirely. Even worse they are doing it in a way that usually causes more friction and negative fallout than useful compromises.
I think this is extremely bad management on the parts of the companies involved.
It’s similar to taking their shareholder’s money to hurl insults at an oncoming tsunami while spending no money – or far too little money -- on getting out of its way or harnessing its power.
In the early stages of the switchover from sailing ships to steam powered ships, the Clipper ships were a very elegant and successful design that represented the state of the art in sailing ships. The steam ships were klutzy and were often dangerous and somewhat unreliable.
But the underlying fact was that once steam ships evolved just a bit more, Clipper ships became obsolete.
The ship builders who stuck with only building Clipper ships and other sailing ships went out of business while the ship builders who began work on building the best steam powered ships they could survived and often prospered.
Would it have helped if the sailing ship builders had set up pressure groups to try to ban steam ships?
Nope. Even had they succeeded, steam ships built in other countries would have taken over their markets anyway.
The management analyst Peter Drucker points out that a classic cause of failure in once successful companies is to focus all the resources of their company on defending and supporting the old and once successful product even after it begins to decline while starving their efforts to profit from the growing opportunities in the products that are beginning to take over the market.
He points out that all too often, the money spent to support “yesterday’s bread” winds up being mostly wasted. Then when the company needs to transition to “tomorrow’s bread”, too little has been invested in it to work & the company fails.
Having grown up in an area where I benefitted from the success of the oil companies of that day as everyone who lived there did, I’d much rather the oil companies redefined themselves as energy companies that began in oil and started making much greater efforts to become part of the new energy economy and completely stop trying to save the waning part of their business.
I’d much rather they continue to prosper. But if they persist in acting like clueless fools, they won’t make it.
The very good news in the Clean Economy Network email yesterday was this.:
"Democratic Senators Move to Disentangle Climate & Energy Aspects of Legislation. The Business Insider reports that a group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Blanch Lincoln (D-AR) recommends cleaving energy legislation from cap-and-trade provisions and passing a bill this year that establishes only a renewable energy mandate.”
Since the very clear priority is to add massive amounts of renewable energy and ways to substitute it for energy from fossil fuels, regardless of how cap & trade turns out, a bill that focuses on creating much more renewable energy and that alone would be very valuable.
And, since the wasted heat and hassle apparently now being generated plus the very legitimate concerns of starting cap & trade very slowly until we have more renewable energy in place to switch to will result in no cap & trade bill or one that is both too harsh in some ways and way too little, too late in others, having a strong & separate bill mandating much more renewable energy would make the probable bad or no cap & trade bill much more safe and OK.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Renewable energy & electric transport....
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-12-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
Electricity generated by solar or wind power or by using heat from geothermal energy to generate electricity AND electricity generated by nuclear power all avoid releasing CO2 and using oil.
(If coal to generate electricity can be burned in a way that allows the CO2 to be sequestered or converted to biofuel that also would replace oil and allow for more electric transport. Very soon electricity generated from coal and nuclear will cost more than from solar and wind. But now it may cost slightly less; and clean coal and nuclear will need less new transmission lines as they are or can be located next to existing transmission lines.)
That puts a very high premium on electric and/or plug-in hybrid cars and trucks and on electrically powered mass transit and trains.
And to build such cars and trucks and to allow electricity needed but not currently being generated by wind or solar or to allow excess electricity generated by wind or solar at other times to be stored all require reliable, fast charging, batteries that tend not to wear out or to require replacement only after extended use.
Also, for transport, having light and compact batteries is very important.
From large companies such as SONY to smaller startups such as Tesla and Imara Corporation in the Silicon Valley and in other parts of the world, many companies are working on such improved battery technology. (Mobile electronic devices share similar battery needs with the battery needs of electric transport. So battery advances for either use may well be used by the other use as well.) We may also see the use of combinations of capacitors that can be very rapidly charged and discharged with relatively faster discharging and charging batteries that are changed more often with batteries that discharge and charge more slowly but last far longer.
In addition, the electricity for this transport will begin to need more electricity generation which increases the need for a massive increase in solar and wind and new smart grid transmission lines to connect these new sources to users. In the earlier stages this need will fortunately be less acute since car batteries in electric cars and plug in hybrids can be charged at hours of the day other uses tend to be at their lowest so existing generation capacity can be used.
Tesla, with its good looking model S all electric sedan and GM with its plug in hybrid Volt are pioneering this market. But in the same way most car companies now make hybrid cars, soon most car companies will make all electric cars or plug-in hybrids or both.
So, it looks like the market for batteries to go in these cars looks like it will be very, very big within 2 to 5 years and then grow even more.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-12-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
Electricity generated by solar or wind power or by using heat from geothermal energy to generate electricity AND electricity generated by nuclear power all avoid releasing CO2 and using oil.
(If coal to generate electricity can be burned in a way that allows the CO2 to be sequestered or converted to biofuel that also would replace oil and allow for more electric transport. Very soon electricity generated from coal and nuclear will cost more than from solar and wind. But now it may cost slightly less; and clean coal and nuclear will need less new transmission lines as they are or can be located next to existing transmission lines.)
That puts a very high premium on electric and/or plug-in hybrid cars and trucks and on electrically powered mass transit and trains.
And to build such cars and trucks and to allow electricity needed but not currently being generated by wind or solar or to allow excess electricity generated by wind or solar at other times to be stored all require reliable, fast charging, batteries that tend not to wear out or to require replacement only after extended use.
Also, for transport, having light and compact batteries is very important.
From large companies such as SONY to smaller startups such as Tesla and Imara Corporation in the Silicon Valley and in other parts of the world, many companies are working on such improved battery technology. (Mobile electronic devices share similar battery needs with the battery needs of electric transport. So battery advances for either use may well be used by the other use as well.) We may also see the use of combinations of capacitors that can be very rapidly charged and discharged with relatively faster discharging and charging batteries that are changed more often with batteries that discharge and charge more slowly but last far longer.
In addition, the electricity for this transport will begin to need more electricity generation which increases the need for a massive increase in solar and wind and new smart grid transmission lines to connect these new sources to users. In the earlier stages this need will fortunately be less acute since car batteries in electric cars and plug in hybrids can be charged at hours of the day other uses tend to be at their lowest so existing generation capacity can be used.
Tesla, with its good looking model S all electric sedan and GM with its plug in hybrid Volt are pioneering this market. But in the same way most car companies now make hybrid cars, soon most car companies will make all electric cars or plug-in hybrids or both.
So, it looks like the market for batteries to go in these cars looks like it will be very, very big within 2 to 5 years and then grow even more.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Renewable energy & oil replacements are critically needed now....
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-5-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
OR, we can massively increase our supply of renewable energy and other replacements for petroleum fast enough to avoid that problem crashing the world’s economy.
That clearly was going to become extremely important at some point.
A recent analysis suggests that we may either be at that point right now or we will be within 10 years.
Last Sunday AFP online news had this story.:
“ A disastrous energy crunch is looming because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading economist warned…..”
The chief economist for the International Energy Agency, said that as soon as 5 years from now that might stop the recovery from the current world wide recession.
As the economy recovers, demand will go up; & if he’s correct that global oil production will begin to peak in 5 years and then peak in 10 years, the price of oil, hit by both slightly lower supply or inability of supply to increase plus rising demand may cause a very sharp run up in prices.
Mr Birol said he believes that oil is running out faster than previously predicted; and peak oil production will occur in 10 years, at least 10 years earlier than previous forecasts.
He said that "….we have to leave oil before oil leaves us….”
He also said
"The earlier we start, the better, because all of our economic and social system is based on oil….”.
He said that just in the last two years it looks as if many of the world’s largest fields of oil have already hit peak production. That suggests his analysis may be correct.
So, we need to make a lot of progress fast in many areas!:
1. Clearly we continue to need a massive effort to increase solar and wind generated electricity and accelerate building plug-in hybrid and all electric cars. But this forecast suggests we need to at least triple the amount of emphasis we put on that now.
2. It certainly looks like we now know what we can do with the coal we no longer should be burning to generate electricity. We need to be using it plus massive amounts of biofuels to make substitutes for gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel to keep our existing economy going until biofuels and renewable energy can do the job.
3. A separate story came out this week stating that by burning coal while trapping and storing the CO2 released and more nuclear power would lower the dollar costs of the energy source transition.
Given the very high dollar costs:
to mine coal if we stop mining it in ways that destroy the communities near where it’s mined and to do this “sequestration” of CO2;
& to fully fund enough extremely reliable security for new nuclear plants,
…I think this hope of reduced costs from these two sources is simply & totally wrong. In fact it may well cost somewhat more.
BUT, given how much new energy we need and how fast we now look to need it, the conclusion that we need to use coal while sequestering the CO2 and to increase our use of electricity from nuclear reactors IN ADDITION to massive increases in renewable energy is quite correct.
4. We clearly also need to replace gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel from petroleum to keep our existing economy going until renewable energy can do much more of the job -- with the energy and cost efficient production of biofuels from algae and from non-food plant sources that avoid cutting down forests or displacing food crops.
In conclusion, his forecast, which may well be correct, means that government policy needs to do much more in this area; and the immediate potential for venture capital for clean tech energy investments is far larger than we might have imagined.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-5-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
OR, we can massively increase our supply of renewable energy and other replacements for petroleum fast enough to avoid that problem crashing the world’s economy.
That clearly was going to become extremely important at some point.
A recent analysis suggests that we may either be at that point right now or we will be within 10 years.
Last Sunday AFP online news had this story.:
“ A disastrous energy crunch is looming because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading economist warned…..”
The chief economist for the International Energy Agency, said that as soon as 5 years from now that might stop the recovery from the current world wide recession.
As the economy recovers, demand will go up; & if he’s correct that global oil production will begin to peak in 5 years and then peak in 10 years, the price of oil, hit by both slightly lower supply or inability of supply to increase plus rising demand may cause a very sharp run up in prices.
Mr Birol said he believes that oil is running out faster than previously predicted; and peak oil production will occur in 10 years, at least 10 years earlier than previous forecasts.
He said that "….we have to leave oil before oil leaves us….”
He also said
"The earlier we start, the better, because all of our economic and social system is based on oil….”.
He said that just in the last two years it looks as if many of the world’s largest fields of oil have already hit peak production. That suggests his analysis may be correct.
So, we need to make a lot of progress fast in many areas!:
1. Clearly we continue to need a massive effort to increase solar and wind generated electricity and accelerate building plug-in hybrid and all electric cars. But this forecast suggests we need to at least triple the amount of emphasis we put on that now.
2. It certainly looks like we now know what we can do with the coal we no longer should be burning to generate electricity. We need to be using it plus massive amounts of biofuels to make substitutes for gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel to keep our existing economy going until biofuels and renewable energy can do the job.
3. A separate story came out this week stating that by burning coal while trapping and storing the CO2 released and more nuclear power would lower the dollar costs of the energy source transition.
Given the very high dollar costs:
to mine coal if we stop mining it in ways that destroy the communities near where it’s mined and to do this “sequestration” of CO2;
& to fully fund enough extremely reliable security for new nuclear plants,
…I think this hope of reduced costs from these two sources is simply & totally wrong. In fact it may well cost somewhat more.
BUT, given how much new energy we need and how fast we now look to need it, the conclusion that we need to use coal while sequestering the CO2 and to increase our use of electricity from nuclear reactors IN ADDITION to massive increases in renewable energy is quite correct.
4. We clearly also need to replace gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel from petroleum to keep our existing economy going until renewable energy can do much more of the job -- with the energy and cost efficient production of biofuels from algae and from non-food plant sources that avoid cutting down forests or displacing food crops.
In conclusion, his forecast, which may well be correct, means that government policy needs to do much more in this area; and the immediate potential for venture capital for clean tech energy investments is far larger than we might have imagined.
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