Ghawar Guzzler

On Vacation, Getting Ready for Grad School

2009-09-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

Hola everyone,

I've been on vacation for the past several weeks for a much needed break from work, and for a final respite before grad school. I am very much looking forward to the challenge, education and opportunities that should present themselves over the next several years. However, considering the fact that I will be working while attending school, I would like to mention that while I'm not going away, I will regrettably have a lot less time for blogging.

That being said, I would like to cover some basic themes:

Peak oil will invariably occur someday, anybody with at least a few brain cells will concede this. However, the severity of decline rates is up to considerable dispute, and many - including Jean Laherrere, King Hubbert and Kjell Aleklett - have argued that peak oil will result in a slow decline in oil produciton, not a hard crash; and my work demonstrating non-OPEC crude's apparent peak in 2004, plus its snail-pace depletion rate (remember, non-OPEC crude represents a slight majority of global crude production) seems to offer strong support for this argument. Non-OPEC crude, even with drastic drops in Canterell and North Sea production, has been dipping at 1% annual depletion rates at worst; with this going rate, the world will be more than capable to adjust accordingly.

Oil's repeated price increases have more to do with manipulative speculation, not supply-and-demand fundamentals. Major banks buying and hording oil is a practice that started in 2004, just as oil began its price climb. As Philip K. Verleger Jr. said fairly recently, the ongoing oil glut: "is the largest and longest continuous glut of supply that I have seen in 30 years of following energy prices."

Disruptive technologies are not necessarily overrated. Sure, plenty of them are "flash in the pan" ideas that don't pan out; I personally expect many such works listed on my blog to fizzle out; and no, I'm not counting on fusion-powered hovercrafts anytime soon. However, breakthroughs do occur and they can change the world. Shale gas extraction is one such example: several years ago, the US was suppose to be heading off of a "natural gas cliff," with production going into a nose dive, thus forcing us to become dependent on imported gas overseas. Now thanks to "fraccing," the US has more natural gas than it knows what to do with - 100 years worth - and nations are taking note. Oil Drum writer and energy guru Robert Rapier, a talented individual whom I do respect, is vocal for his frequent skepticism of disruptive technologies; and yet he took nearly a year to finally admit shale gas would provide the US with ample gas supplies, stating that "we have enough natural gas available that civilization isn't going to end any time soon due to lack of energy supplies." Anyway, when one considers disruptive technologies, the difficulties of developing them, remember this: how many pilots had to die to break the sound barrier? While many such developments will fizzle, remember, it only takes one to have a major impact.

The peak oil community by in large has a porous, humiliating record of prophecies that's nearly as old as the oil industry is itself. Not much has changed with these goons; they refuse to learn from their mistakes. Ghwar Guzzler, Peakers' Hall of Shame, Peak Oil Debunked and Freddy Hutter's site, Trendlines, goes into into great detail exposing the hype, the far misses and repeated blunders of these goons. Somebody might say: "But Ken Deffeyes is a professor in geology, he has a successful record of assisting drilling companies finding natural gas." I will not dispute this; however, this doesn't help the fact the man has nine failed peak oil predictions to his name. Certain people, when contemplating the future, have a habit of falling for panic first without taking in smart consideration of rationalizing the details; and after all, it was computer geniuses with PhDs who warned us in the '90s of the imminent dangers of Y2K.

The peak oil community has a bad habit of greatly underestimating technology. As I've demonstrated on my blog before, the Oil Drum - vaunted haven of peak oil high priests - stooged badly denouncing the prospect of shale gas; here's Oil Drum writer Nate Hagens burying the prospect of gas a month before the Drum admitted their mistake.

And that's it in a nutshell. While the posting will be much more sparse, I'm defiantly not going away and hope you'll pop in from time to time. That being said, I'd like to close with this: the only thing peakers get correct is that oil will peak someday. As you well know, it's paltry beyond that; and that's my theory as to why the peakers are dead wrong, and why we'll shoot for the moon and beyond: judging from the peakers' current record, if they have this much trouble getting much right in the pre-peak world, they're not going to get much right in the post peak world either.

Peace.

- Brewskie

Plants "Calls in Sick" to Avoid Lunch

2009-08-19T15:15:00.001-07:00

Now for a story that's obscure yet entertaining, minute but informing. Here we have exotic plants that fools hungry critters into thinking they're sick, thus avoiding becoming lunch. Read below to learn of its trickery (link):

Found in the rain forests of Ecuador these sick-looking plants appear to have already been attacked. As a rule of (green) thumb, plants that compromise their ability to transform sunlight into energy via photosynthesis die out. However, in this case the survivors seem to be those that sacrifice light-harvesting capacity for a clever camouflaged appearance.

Typically, the top predator of this particular plant lays its eggs on the leaves , which in turn hatch into larvae that leave a trail of white behind as they feast on the leaves. By displaying a white pattern from the outset, however, these plants look already-inhabited and thus further egg-laying moths are deterred from laying their own offspring.

Nice trick. It would be nice if that worked for humans, but instead, we have hangovers.

- Brewskie

An Interesting Explanation for the US Inventory Drop

2009-08-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

The markets were shocked to learn of a steep drop in US inventories last week, a 8.4 million-barrel drop as a opposed to the 1.5 million-barrel expected. Turns out demand had little do to with it:

The surprise drop fed into expectations that the U.S., the world's biggest
oil consumer, would start using more crude as the country's economy pulls out of
recession.

However, a big decline in oil imports, to an 11-month low, had more to do with the decline in U.S. inventories than rising demand. Owners of oil being stored in tankers at sea had little incentive to bring their cargo to shore last week, as the front-month futures contract traded at a big enough discount to outer months to make it more profitable to store oil for future sale.

"This rally may not be sustainable until the demand side of the equation has improved, and we haven't seen that yet," said Gene McGillian, an analyst with Tradition Energy in Stamford, Conn. Still, he said the market's rebound on the data "is a little stronger sign of confidence developing and I think there's more risk of upside than downside at this point."

U.S. demand for refined products averaged over the last four weeks did rise to its highest point since March 20, though consumption was still down 2.2% from a year earlier, the DOE said. Even after the big drop last week, inventories are still 16% above this time last year.

The failure of futures to set a new 10-month high indicates that some skepticism remains over whether a recovery will begin to reduce the oil glut in the next few months.

- Brewskie

"Green Shoots of Investments" in the Green Sector

2009-08-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

After being the sacrificial lamb during the height of the economic crisis, green companies are again becoming hot investment commodities:

Promising startup firms and cleantech companies who had postponed plans for public offerings are now seeing renewed interest and an influx of venture capital.

In general, these investments are trending away from capital-intensive energy generating technologies such as wind and solar, and moving instead toward those in the areas of efficiency, energy storage and transportation, Reuters said.

Investors seem to be betting that makers of lithium-ion battery and startups in the smart grid sector will do well in the years ahead.

[...]

Experts and industry executives are predicting a significant pickup as early as this fall in green technology investments, with continued improvement through 2010. However, the level of activity is not likely to hit the $2.6 billion peak seen in the third quarter of 2008, they warn.

[...]

Total green technology venture investments surged 73 percent to $572 million in April to June from the previous quarter, according to the Reuters report citing data from Ernst & Young.

[...]

Investors now are more interested in less capital-intensive technology such as those associated with energy efficiency and smart grid technology, Vollen said.

"Everybody still recognizes that energy storage is the holy grail of the sector," he told Reuters.

Inventing in less costly ways to store energy has been a major hurdle in the widespread adoption of renewable energy.

- Brewskie

Putin Promises Venezuela First-Rate Oil Technology

2009-08-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

In the latest show of goodwill between the Russian-Venezuelan alliance, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has pledged splendid Russian oil technology for Venezuela's oil fields.

Russia will use the most modern oil extraction and processing technology if it wins access to Venezuela's oil deposits, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a Venezuelan official delegation on Tuesday.

Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA and a consortium of Russian firms expect next month to present a joint venture that aims to develop the Junin 6 block in the Orinoco oil belt, which Venezuela says has the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves.

[...]

"If we will work in Venezuela and realise all our plans, the technology and equipment which will be used in Venezuela will be even more modern," Putin said.

"The Russian companies will use the latest technology available in global markets," Putin said.

A formal contract to jointly develop the Junin 6 block with an estimated production capacity of 200,000 barrels per day should be signed before the end of the year.

- Brewskie

Australia Becoming World's Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas Suppliers

2009-08-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Australia has been a real mover with inked deals aimed at supply other nations with LNG:

Western Australia is set to become the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas" as other deals follow the signing of a A$50 billion (US$41.315 billion) agreement to supply liquefied natural gas to China, Premier Colin Barnett says.

The Chevron-led joint venture contract with Chinese energy giant PetroChina to supply LNG from the Gorgon development off the West Australian coast is Australia's biggest ever resources deal.

It comes a week after the signing of a A$25 billion contract to supply gas to India from the same project, breaking the A$12 billion record set a few years ago by the North West Shelf Pluto LNG project, now under construction.

Barnett said it appeared a "whole series of projects is queueing up."

"What you are seeing now is that the future production of Gorgon is being purchased around the world -- China, India, Japan and Europe and other places," Barnett told Fairfax Radio Network.

"Today I'm about to go to a signing between a major French group and Santos, who are are developing a relatively small field right up off the Kimberley coast.

[...]

This is for 2.25 million tonnes of LNG a year."

He said the Gorgon project would produce many times this amount and several other contracts were being pursued. He said while the state government had already given its final environmental approval to the project, the commonwealth had agreed on the issue of long-term liability for the carbon dioxide to be extracted from the gas.

The carbon dioxide would be reinjected below the surface as part of the largest geosequestration project ever implemented. Barnett said while the process was already being used in the North Sea, it was "world-breaking technology."

"The Gorgon gas reservoir, which is in commonwealth waters, has a 12 per cent carbon dioxide content that's naturally occurring," Barnett said. "

One of the conditions is that as the gas is brought on shore to Barrow Island, the gas is separated and reinjected hundreds, maybe even thousands of meters, below the surface into a porous body that's got a sealed structure above it. "

It will stay there during the life of the project, which will be 60 to 100 years.

- Brewskie

G. Allen Brooks Ponders Possible Blue Gas Market Meltdown

2009-08-19T11:57:00.001-07:00

Okay, I feel pretty ballsy making the gas glut call earlier in the year; I'm by all means not a ball hog, though. I feel obligated - honored, actually - to hand over the privileged baton to G. Allen Brooks, of Parks Paton Hoepfl & Brown, who is forecasting a nat. gas meltdown due to rampant supply, lackluster demand, and a bull-headed devotion by rig workers to fester for their "queen bee" CEO.

Click here or read below...

Natural gas prices after rallying on surprisingly strong labor market news have retreated in recent days as the prospect of full storage suggests the industry will be forced to curtail production unless demand picks up. At the end of July, natural gas in storage was almost 3.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), or about 25% above the 5-year average for volumes at this time of year. Estimates of full storage capacity range from 3.7 Tcf to 4.1 Tcf. At the date of this report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), there were 10 weeks left to the storage injection season meaning that without a strong pick up in gas demand or a collapse in production, domestic gas producers are facing the eventuality of all having to curtail their production. When that happens, we should expect a meaningful drop in natural gas prices.

Chesapeake, you're not planning to do what?

This industry-wide predicament was highlighted by Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy (CHK-NYSE) on his company's earnings conference call. Mr. McClendon, the poster child for aggressive gas production management during periods of weak gas prices, announced his company was not planning to curtail production since it expected storage to max out and thus they, along with all
other producers, would be forced to shut in flowing gas volumes. For the first
time, Chesapeake was not about to exhibit discipline in supporting gas prices for the benefit of producers who did not curtail their production. Does this suggest that leaders of the natural gas industry are prepared to ignore production economics to demonstrate a point to their fellow producers?

Moving on.

The May 914 gas production was 62.84 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), down from the revised April monthly data showing production of 63.35 Bcf/d. Many analysts, gas producing company executives and forecasters jumped on this decline as confirmation the long-anticipated gas production decline was underway. On closer examination, however, we can't be totally sure because there have been a number of other recent months when the initial monthly gas production estimate was revised lower. The initial May production estimate now is virtually identical to the revised December 2008 estimate.

The initial gas production estimate for April was revised down, but only from 63.37 Bcf/d to 63.35 Bcf/d. The revised April production estimate was down from the March revised figure by approximately 200 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), but it was essentially flat with the revised February production estimate of 63.58 Bcf/d. Can we take solace in the May production estimate decline? Is the recent monthly revision pattern being reduced a sign that when the May estimate is revised it too will show even lower production?

Since January 2005, there have been 52 revisions to the initial monthly production estimate. One revision showed no change. Of the remaining revisions, 33 were higher than the initial estimate and 18 were lower. Increased estimates were made nearly two-thirds of the time. Admittedly, there were stretches when the revisions were always up, just as there were stretches when they were all lower. At the moment, we appear to be in a period marked by mostly lower revisions, but we can't find
any rhyme or reason why historical patterns of revisions shifted from mostly up to down or vice a versa.

Given the data history showing such a strong bias in favor of increased monthly production estimate revisions, we remain skeptical in calling for a further reduction for May's initial estimate.

Do you love shale gas? Read the end of this paragraph and you'll love it even more!

One aspect of the drilling industry decline that has been of particular significance for the gas business has been the difference in the type of drilling rigs that were being laid down. This interest has gained significance by the emergence of the gas-shale plays. Data has shown that wells drilled horizontally in these gas-shales have tended to be more prolific than wells drilled vertically. The guiding principal behind the significant initial production volumes coming from gasshale wells has been the successful marriage of horizontal drilling technology with improved formation fracturing capability. Drillers have been able to rapidly drill long lateral well sections in the heart of many of the gas-rich formations. Well stimulation technology has enabled the development of multiple stage fracturing applications within the same well bore. Together these technologies have produced gas wells with initial production volumes multiples of conventionally drilled and completed gas well volumes.

Getting into the thick of things,

Given the growing importance to the nation's production of natural gas from wells drilled horizontally, we examined overall gas production figures versus measures of drilling rig activity. When gas production is paired with gas-oriented drilling rigs, one sees a dramatic fall-off in rigs since last fall with barely any movement in the Form 194 monthly gas production volumes so far this year, based on the initial monthly production estimate.

Check these three graphs out:

Gets very interesting, doesn't it? Some predicted months ago that natural gas may drop to $2 per MMbtu.

- Brewskie

US Doesn't Need Mexican, Venezuelan Oil

2009-08-19T11:42:00.001-07:00

While Mexico's largest oil field, Cantarell, makes fantastic belly-flop dives straight from the diving board, onto the sun-bathed pavement, I've made this assertion in the past: Who needs Cantarell anyway? With declining oil consumption, increased exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico, plus our friendly neighbor to the north (along with investments for pipelines running that way), I say let Cantarell crap out, let Hugo Chavez fester. This Reuters commentary strongly agrees:

Growing volumes of crude oil from Canada and the Gulf of Mexico should assure U.S. Gulf Coast refiners adequate supplies for years to come despite fast-declining imports from Mexico and Venezuela.

Imports from the two major Latin American suppliers have dwindled by 24 percent in the past four years, but the huge refining region they serve is unlikely to run short due to billions of dollars planned for new pipelines from Canada and exploration in the deepwater Gulf, analysts said.

Canadian oil sands production alone could make up for both losses, said analyst Martin King of Calgary-based FirstEnergy Capital Corp. "You're essentially switching to Canadian crude from Mexican and Venezuelan," King said.

In its June forecast, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said it expects output from northern Alberta's vast oil sands to nearly double to 2.2 million barrels a day by 2015. Weak oil prices and the credit crunch led numerous companies to delay development projects, forcing CAPP to cut expectations from its previous forecast.

Still, pipeliners have zeroed in on the Gulf Coast -- site of 40 percent of U.S. refining capacity -- as the next big market for Canadian oil. There, Mexican and Venezuelan imports have fallen by 700,000 bpd since 2004, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.TransCanada Corp's (TRP.TO) proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline expansion would ship as much as 500,000 bpd to Gulf Coast refineries by 2012.

Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO) and BP Plc (BP.L) are working to develop a 250,000 bpd system to the Gulf Coast by that same year at a cost of up to $2 billion.

Several other proposals, including one to move Canadian crude to the region by rail, are on the drawing board.

U.S. Gulf output is expected to rise 300,000 bpd to 1.5 million bpd by 2013, largely due to deepwater expansion, and could grow to 1.9 million bpd if ultradeep discoveries prove out, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said.

Twenty-eight offshore Gulf projects are expected to come on line by 2015, more than a dozen of them in waters below 5,000 feet, the accepted threshold for ultradeep water, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

The expected growth in Gulf production is an expectation I highlighted a while back...

- Brewskie

Potentially Game-Changing Battery May Make Smart Grid Unnessary

2009-08-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

(Hat tip: Peak Oil Debunked)

Now this is a paradigm shift: instead of blowing a wad remolding our antiquated grid system, gearing it to become "smart," perhaps, instead, we should let individual homes become their own power stations, generating and storing their own power. That's the fantastic idea behind this new battery. Great article.

In a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago.

The prize is the culmination of 10 years of research and testing -- a new generation of deep-storage battery that's small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home.

It promises to nudge the world to a paradigm shift as big as the switch from centralized mainframe computers in the 1980s to personal laptops. But this
time the mainframe is America's antiquated electrical grid; and the switch is to
personal power stations in millions of individual homes.

[...]

Taking a load off the grid through electricity production and storage at home would extend the life of the system and avoid the expenditure of tens, or even hundreds, of billions to make it "smart."

The battery breakthrough comes from a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices. It promises to reduce dependence on the dinosaur by hooking up with the latest generation of personalized power plants that draw from the sun.

Solar energy has been around, of course, but it's been prohibitively expensive. Now the cost is tumbling, driven by new thin-film chemistry and manufacturing techniques. Leaders in the field include companies like Arizona-based First Solar, which can paint solar cells onto glass; and Konarka, an upstart that purchased a defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Mass., and now plans to print cells onto rolls of flexible plastic.

The convergence of these two key technologies -- solar power and deep-storage batteries -- has profound implications for oil-strapped America.

"These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables," said Daniel Nocera, a noted chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec's science advisory board. "They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 -- a 110-year-old approach -- and turn us forward."

[...]

Inside Ceramatec's wonder battery is a chunk of solid sodium metal mated to a sulphur compound by an extraordinary, paper-thin ceramic membrane. The embrane conducts ions -- electrically charged particles -- back and forth to generate a current. The company calculates that the battery will cram 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy into a package about the size of a refrigerator, and operate below 90 degrees C.

This may not startle you, but it should. It's amazing. The most energy-dense batteries available today are huge bottles of super-hot molten sodium, swirling around at 600 degrees or so. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity but it's both toxic and corrosive. You wouldn't want your kids around one of these.

The essence of Ceramatec's breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.

Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours -- how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That's a pretty exciting place to live.

And then you recharge. With a projected 3,650 discharge/recharge cycles -- one per day for a decade -- you leave the next-best battery in the dust. Deep-cycling lead/acid batteries like the ones used in RVs are only good for a few hundred cycles, so they're kaput in a year or so.

A small three-bedroom home in Provo might average, say, 18 kWh of electric consumption per day in the summer -- that's 1,000 watts for 18 hours. A much larger home, say five bedrooms in the Grandview area, might average 80 kWh,
according to Provo Power.;Either way, a supplement of 20 to 40 kWh per day is
substantial. If you could produce that much power in a day -- for example through solar cells on the roof -- your power bills would
plummet.
Ceramatec's battery breakthrough now makes that possible.

Clyde Shepherd of Alpine is floored by the prospect. He recently installed the second of two windmills on his property that are each rated at 2.4 kilowatts continuous output. He's searching for a battery system that can capture and store some of that for later use when it's calm outside, but he hasn't found a good solution.

"This changes the whole scope of things and would have a major impact on what we're trying to do," Shepherd said. "Something that would provide 20 kilowatts would put us near 100 percent of what we would need to be completely independent. It would save literally thousands of dollars a year."

Shepherd is connected to the grid through Rocky Mountain Power, which charges a variable rate for power depending on demand during a given 24-hour period. With his windmill setup, Shepherd has what's called "net metering" -- an electric meter that spins both ways. He pays for electricity coming in, but gets a credit from Rocky Mountain for any excess power generated by his windmills that flows back onto the grid. Already, he's cut his power bills in half, and with good storage batteries he thinks he could reduce the bill to zero.

While Shepherd opted for windmills over solar at the time he was planning his alternative energy installation, he said he would reconsider that decision today as the bottom continues to fall out of the cost of solar cells.

"Batteries and PV are about to merge," said MIT's Nocera, using the shorthand for "photovoltaics" or solar power. "First Solar is now saying that it takes $1 a peak watt to manufacture, and another 80 cents for installation. So they're saying that you can get PV for under $2 a watt. That's a reduction of cost by a factor of four. Only a few years ago, it was $8. If CoorsTek and Ceramatec come up with a good battery, the market will develop quickly."

[...]

In 2000 Ashok Joshi, a native of India, took the helm at Ceramatec. His international reputation in ion technology and fuel cells kept the company among the first rank of innovators.

Joshi (he prefers A.J.) looked to the potent combination of sodium and sulphur for the basic components of a new battery. That was known chemistry. But while he wanted to achieve a high energy density offered by those elements, he also wanted to get rid of the extreme heat, corrosion and toxicity of liquid sodium batteries.

The key would be found in a paper-thin, yet strong and highly conductive, electrolyte material -- an advanced ceramic -- to serve as the barrier between the battery's sodium and sulphur. The thinner the barrier, the cooler the battery can operate. If you can get below the melting point of 98 C, sodium stays in its solid state, and you've got enough energy to run a house with safety.Charged particles of sodium and sulphur -- ions -- now scoot so effortlessly through the new ceramic wafer that the sodium doesn't even approach 98 C, let alone 350.

I like the closing quotes of the article. "What we're talking about is the ability to take the edges off," Hunter said. "We're at a tipping point for alternative energy."

And

In Salt Lake City, Grover Coors agrees: "This will be the largest industry of all time," he said. "But it's all about cost and reliability."

- Brewskie

Honda Betting on Hydrogen Only

2009-08-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

Honda has long been a maverick in the auto industry. It currently does not produce a V-8 engine; years back, during SUV's heyday, an American Honda dealership begged Honda America to consider a V-8 block for its pickup trucks or SUVs. The dealership recieved a box of V8 tomato juice.

Going further against the vehicle mainstream, Honda is also staying away from EV development, instead focusing on hydrogen only. Is this a good decision? Is hydrogen more practical; will it not matter, meaning we'll use both; or is Honda on the path of foolhardiness?

Read below or click the link.

Despite recent blows to hydrogen infrastructure development, Honda this week reaffirmed that it will be mass-produced. The automaker still has plans to make a future version of the FCX on a mass-production scale within ten years.

California has kept with that long-term vision, along with a short-term one to build up the infrastructure before the vehicles. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been bullish on hydrogen, pushing ahead for more hydrogen vehicles and an expanded infrastructure, and even declaring his love for the FCX. And that was after the Obama administration had made some strong moves away from federal funding of hydrogen projects and toward battery technology and charging infrastructure, with Energy Secretary Steven Chu declaring that hydrogen vehicles were still 10 to 20 years from viability.

[...]

Toyota president Akio Toyoda last week said that the company also plans a publicly available fuel-cell car within six years, according to Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi and Nissan are betting on electric cars, with Nissan recently unveiling its LEAF, a car that will be mass-produced in the U.S. beginning in 2012. General Motors is preparing its much-publicized extended-range electric vehicle, the Volt, but it's also still moving ahead with fuel-cell development, says Automotive News, despite tremendous cost hurdles to overcome.

An important point to remember is that these two technologies aren't completely independent. However, a Honda engineer explained to TheCarConnection.com earlier this year that electric-vehicle technology is a building block for hydrogen tech. Honda is working on lithium-ion batteries, motors, and charging as part of its fuel-cell development, so if electric vehicles end up being the popular solution, the company will be prepared.

- Brewskie

Sony Offers New, Improved Lithium-Ion Battery

2009-08-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

(Note: Before you get too excited, it should be noted that Sony's improved battery is for motor-driven devices, not EV's)

Sony announced an improved lithium-ion battery. This battery offers a lifespan four times greater than current lithium-ion batteries, possessing a retention capacity of 80% after 2,000 charge-discharge cycles (link).

Without getting too technical about the whole thing, the new battery uses as its cathode material olivine-type lithium iron phosphate, which Sony says is ideal for the job "due to its robust crystal structure and stable performance, even at high temperatures."

The material also apparently contributes to the battery's faster charging time--it can hit 99 percent of its full capacity in 30 minutes (approximately half the charge time of Sony's current lithium ion battery line, which mainly use cobalt oxide-based cathodes).

For the moment, the batteries will just be showing up in motor-driven devices like power tools--so if you own a cordless band saw, you're in luck. Those of us who just need to worry about powering our iPods and laptops, however, will have to wait a little while.

- Brewskie

Ford's "Smarty Pants" Hybrid Plug-In System

2009-08-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

An interesting article of Ford's new, "intelligent" hybrid plug-in system that communicates with the electric grid (link):

Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) announced today that it has developed an intelligent vehicle-to-grid communications and control system for its plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that "talks" directly with the nation's electric grid.

This new technology - which builds on Ford's advancements such as SYNC(R), SmartGauge(TM) with EcoGuide and Ford Work Solutions(TM) - allows the
vehicle operator to program when to recharge the vehicle, for how long and at what utility rate.

"Electric vehicles are an important element of our strategy for improving fuel economy and reducing CO2 emissions," said Bill Ford, Ford's executive chairman. "This vehicle-to-grid communication technology is an important step in the journey toward the widespread commercialization of electric vehicles."

All 21 of Ford's fleet of plug-in hybrid Escapes eventually will be equipped with the vehicle-to-grid communications technology. The first of the specially equipped plug-in hybrids has been delivered to American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio. Ford's other utility partners' vehicles will also be equipped with the communications technology.

When plugged in, the battery systems of these specially equipped plug-in hybrids can communicate directly with the electrical grid via smart meters provided by utility companies through wireless networking. The owner uses the vehicle's touch screen navigation interface and Ford Work Solutions in-dash computer to choose when the vehicle should recharge, for how long and at what utility rate.

For example, a vehicle owner could choose to accept a charge only during off-peak hours between midnight and 6 a.m. when electricity rates are cheaper, or when the grid is using only renewable energy such as wind or solar power.

"We are designing what plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles will be capable of in the future," said Greg Frenette, manager of Ford's Battery Electric Vehicle Applications. "Direct communication between vehicles and the grid can only be accomplished through collaboration between automakers and utility companies, which Ford and its partners are demonstrating with this technology."

Over the past two years, Ford and its energy industry partners have logged more than 75,000 miles on the plug-in hybrid test fleet. The plug-in hybrid research focuses on four primary areas: battery technology, vehicle systems, customer usage and grid infrastructure.

"Broad commercialization of electric transportation is not something a car company can achieve on its own," said Nancy Gioia, Ford director, Sustainable Mobility Technologies. "Developing and producing the vehicles is just one part of the electric transportation equation. We are well on our way to delivering the vehicles, but for widespread adoption the infrastructure to support the technology needs to be in place and we need to ensure that the national electric grid can support increased electric demand."

Real-world usage and laboratory research is helping to accelerate the advancement of electrified vehicles. Ford and its research partners are now focusing on ways to make the recharging process easy and efficient for consumers. In addition to low-cost recharging at home through the use of a smart meter, Ford researchers say recharging away from home - whether at work, in a shopping mall parking lot or at a curbside station - needs to be as simple as plugging in and swiping a credit card.

- Brewskie

OPEC's Reserves Climb Past 1 Trillion Barrels

2009-08-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Due to a boost in Venezuela's proven reserves (primarily from unconventional sources, such as heavy oil located in Orinoco Belt), OPEC's cache now stands at 1.02 trillion barrels:

The OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin for 2008 released recently now claims that proven oil reserves of the group has gone up by more than 75 billion barrels in 2007 to reach 1.02 trillion barrels in 2008. The main source of the increase is Venezuela increasing its reserves to 172 billion barrels, a rise of about 73 billion barrels over 2007.

The ASB said that this makes Venezuela the second largest crude holder within the OPEC after Saudi Arabia. And with some minor adjustments in the reserves of the rest of the world, the OPEC's share of world oil reserves after this adjustment is seen going up to over 79%. Indeed the development could be unsettling for some, one has to concede.

The increase in Venezuela's reserves in recent years has been very sharp from the 76 billion barrels in 2003, as the country now adopts the policy of adding non conventional heavy oil deposits to its conventional oil reserves.

And interestingly, if a similar practice is adopted by the US and Canada, the reserves picture in the world would alter completely. However, the world still lacks an agreed way of assessing a country's reserves independently and therefore, reports like the ASB take whatever a country claims to be its reserves, one needs to point out.

[...]

Venezuela claims that at "USD 50 per barrel, a portion of the Orinoco tar sands becomes commercially viable; enough to bring the country's proven reserves up to 312 billion barrels."

That's a lot of oil. Too bad Venezuela is infected by a Putin wannabe dick head: Chavez gunning to strong arm media critics.

And what's this? Amy "I heart Fidel Castro" Goodman sycophantically chatting with Mr. Chavez.

Amy, your stoic, depressed face needs some endorphins. Go flock to your solidarity bros. in Cuba, Ms. Goodman. Sweat, farm, help purge the scoliosis-infected state farms and help Cuba wean itself off of the capitalistic decadents in the US of whom Cuba so desperately needs to eat.

- Brewskie

CO2-to-Plastic Magicians Gets $14 Million

2009-08-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

Demonstrations of converting CO2 into methane, gasoline and plastics have been successfully demonstrated. In better attempt to demonstrate the CO2-to-plastic scheme, Novomer has received a $14 million cash injection (one obstacle: it isn't cheap):

The Cornell spin-out has devised a catalytic process that it believes could potentially solve a few big waste problems. The company effectively transforms captured carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into binders and other chemicals for the plastics industry.

Thus, in one swoop, you get reduction of atmospheric carbon, carbon credits in jurisdictions that recognize them, reduced demand for oil, and a method for giving captured carbon an economic value beyond carbon credits.

Industrial chemicals also often sell for far higher prices than oil or gas. Thus, companies like algae makers like Biolight Harvesting are focusing more on chemicals than fuel.
The sticking point, as seen with other bioplastic and green chemical companies, is the price. Making binders from pollution isn't cheap. Novomer's binders, which contain 40 percent carbon dioxide, cost between $50 and $200 per pound in 2008, compared with an average cost of between $50 and $125 per pound for traditional electronics-industry binders.

- Brewskie

China Puts the Heat On Germany's Solar Industry

2009-08-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Only a few years ago, Germany was the declared leader in the world's solar industry. This is no longer the case. Asia, China especially, is where the hot solar action is at, being able to produce solar cells quicker and cheaper (link):

Q-Cells, the world's biggest solar cell producer, last week issued a far from glowing set of results, with losses of 700 million euros (984 million dollars) in the first half of the year.
As a result, the German firm said it would cut 500 jobs from its workforce of 2,600 and put others on part-time working arrangements.
The crisis in the German solar industry is affecting small companies as well as giants such as Q-Cells. Only three months ago, start-up Sunline declared bankruptcy with the loss of all its 78 employees.
A glance at the TecDax, Germany's tech-heavy stock market index, nicknamed
"SunDax" for the predominance of solar firms, tells the story, with some companies losing around 30 percent of their value since the start of 2008.
"The fact is that Germany is losing more and more of its market leading position in renewable energy production to the United States and China," said Matthias Fawer from Swiss bank Sarasin, quoted in German weekly Die Zeit.
"Asian cell and module producers are going to squeeze out the Germans," Anne Kreutzmann, the chief editor of solar trade newspaper Photon, told the Financial Times Deutschland.
The main reason is simple: Chinese solar power companies are able to produce cells much more cheaply, due to lower labour costs and also the plummeting price for silicon, the raw material for solar cell manufacture.
Whereas German firms are tied in to long-term contracts for silicon deliveries, Chinese firms have been sourcing it from the spot market, where the price has dropped by around 70 percent in the past few months.
According to a survey from Photon Consulting, while it costs a German firm such as Ersol 1.01 dollars per watt to produce a solar cell, Chinese company Suntech can manufacture the same cell for 35 cents per watt.
All in all, production costs for the solar industry are as much as 30 percent lower in
China than in Germany, according to a UBS study.
Chinese firms also benefit from state support and the effect has been to push prices for solar cells down significantly in the past few years.
Adding to its troubles, the German solar industry's export market, which accounts for over 40 percent of turnover, is beginning to dry up in key areas.

- Brewskie

China's Water Battles

2009-08-18T09:32:00.001-07:00

Economic growth, rampant industrialization and overutilization of agricultural soil has loaned China a prospective water dilemma. Here's some creative steps being taken to combat the problem:

With less water, Chinese cities are forced to get creative. Brewery capital Qingdao is using seawater to flush its toilets. A pilot project is underway to use Pacific waters in the city’s commodes, saving potable water for a thirsty population. Across the country, one-third of household water consumption goes down the drain every time a toilet goes flush.

Qingdao wouldn’t be the first Asian city to look to the sea to clean its pipes. In Hong Kong, 80% of the city’s population relies on seawater to take care of their flushing needs.

Already, China has some 20 desalination plants operating around the country to help alleviate water shortages in 400 of the country’s more than major 600 cities, according to China Daily.

- Brewskie

"Flying Taxi" Flunks Test Flight; Inventor Killed in Crash

2009-08-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

A "flying taxi" prototype crashed during a test flight, killing its inventor Michael Robert Dacre:

A prototype of the ‘flying taxi’ belonging to British-based Avcen Ltd crashed and burst into flames during a test flight from Tekah airstrip, killing its inventor Michael Robert Dacre.

Dacre, 53, who is also Avcen’s managing director, died in the 12.30pm crash yesterday. He was piloting the newly-assembled Jetpod.

Avcen Limited Malaysia is based at Patimas Technology Centre, Technology Park, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur and Dacre had intended for the eight-seater flying taxi to be ready in 2010.

- Brewskie

Weird Science Leads to Weird Theoretical Shield

2009-08-17T12:05:00.001-07:00

Imagine a field that protects buildings from earth quakes, makes subs undetectable to sonar, protects coastal structures from hurricanes. Well, the technology isn't here yet; instead, researchers have demonstrated the mathematical possibility of it:

We have shown that it is numerically possible to cloak objects of any shape that lie outside the cloaking devices, not just from single-frequency waves, but from actual pulses generated by a multi-frequency source," says Graeme Milton, senior author of the research and a distinguished professor of mathematics at the University of Utah.

"It's a brand new method of cloaking," Milton adds. "It is two-dimensional, but we believe it can be extended easily to three dimensions, meaning real objects could be cloaked. It's called active cloaking, which means it uses devices that actively generate electromagnetic fields rather than being composed of 'metamaterials' [exotic metallic substances] that passively shield objects from passing electromagnetic waves."

Milton says his previous research involved "just cloaking clusters of small particles, but now we are able to cloak larger objects."

For example, radar microwaves have wavelengths of about four inches, so Milton says the study shows it is possible to use the method to cloak from radar something 10 times wider, or 40 inches. That raises hope for cloaking larger objects. So far, the largest object cloaked from microwaves in actual experiments was an inch-wide copper cylinder.

A study demonstrating the mathematical feasibility of the new cloaking technique – active, broadband, exterior cloaking – was published online today in the journal Optics Express. A related paper was published online Aug. 14 in Physical Review Letters.

[...]

Compared with passive cloaking by metamaterials, the new method – which involves generating waves to protect or cloak an object from other waves – can cloak from a broader band of wavelengths, Milton says.

"The problem with metamaterials is that their behavior depends strongly on the frequency you are trying to cloak from," he adds. "So it is difficult to obtain broadband cloaking. Maybe you'd be invisible to red light, but people would see you in blue light."

Most previous research used interior cloaking, where the cloaking device envelops the cloaked object. Milton says the new method "is the first active, exterior cloaking" technique: cloaking devices emit signals and sit outside the cloaked object.

[...]

"We proved mathematically that this method works when the wavelength of incoming electromagnetic radiation is large compared with the objects being
cloaked, meaning it can cloak very small objects," Milton says. "It also can
cloak larger objects."

Because visible light has tiny wavelengths, only microscopic objects could be made invisible by the new method.

"The cloaking device would have to generate fields that have very small wavelengths," Milton says. "It is very difficult to build antennas the size of light waves. We're so far from cloaking real-sized objects to visible light that it's incredible."

But imagine incoming waves as water waves, and envision breakwater cloaking devices that would generate waves to create a quiet zone that would protect oil rigs or specific coastal structures against incoming tsunami waves. Or imagine cloaking devices around buildings to generate vibrations to neutralize incoming seismic waves.

"Our method may have application to water waves, sound and microwaves [radar]," including shielding submarines and planes from sonar and radar, respectively, and protecting structures from seismic waves during earthquakes and water waves during tsunamis, Milton says. All those waves have wavelengths much larger than those of visible light, so the possible applications should be easier to develop.

"It would be wonderful if you could cloak buildings against earthquakes," Milton says. "That's on the borderline of what's possible."

The new method's main disadvantage "is that it appears you must know in advance everything about the incoming wave," including when the pulse begins, and the frequencies and amplitudes of the waves within the pulse, Milton says. That might require placement of numerous sensors to detect incoming seismic waves or tsunamis.

- Brewskie

New Polymer Semiconductors Allows Positive and Negative Charges

2009-08-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

New organic electronics allows charges to run both ways:

A major drawback with existing organic semiconductors is most transmit only positive charges (called "holes" because the moving areas of positive charge are
actually places where an electron is missing). In the last decade a few organic
materials have been developed that can transport only electrons. But making a
working organic circuit has meant carefully layering two complicated patterns on
top of one another, one that transports electrons and another one that
transports holes.

For more than a decade Jenekhe's lab has been a leader in developing organic semiconductors that can transmit electrons. Over the past few years the group has created polymers with a donor and an acceptor part, and carefully adjusted the strength of each one. In collaboration with Watson's lab, they have now developed an organic molecule that works to transport both positive and negative charges.

"What we have shown in this paper is that you don't have to use two separate organic semiconductors," Jenekhe said. "You can use one material to create electronic circuits."
The material would allow organic transistors and other information-processing devices to be built more simply, in a way that is more similar to how inorganic circuits are now made.

The group used the new material to build a transistor designed in the same way as a silicon model and the results show that both electrons and holes move through the device quickly.

The results represent the best performance ever seen in a single-component organic polymer semiconductor, Jenekhe said. Electrons moved five to eight times faster through the UW device than in any other such polymer transistor. A circuit, which consists of two or more integrated devices, generated a voltage gain two to five times greater than previously seen in a polymer circuit.

- Brewskie

Lunar Nuclear

2009-08-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

How will we one day power our moon colonies? Nuclear power is a given option. NASA and the DOE have recently tested key technologies that could one day make this a reality:

Now nuclear power is being considered for lunar and Mars missions because, unlike alternatives such as solar power, it can provide constant energy, a necessity for human life-support systems, recharging rovers, and mining for resources. Solar power systems would also require the use of energy storage devices like batteries or fuel cells, adding unwanted mass to the system. Solar power is further limited because the moon is dark for up to 14 days at a time and has deep craters that can obscure the sun. Mars is farther away from the sun than either the Earth or the moon, so less solar power can be harvested there.

The new nuclear power system is part of a NASA project started in 2006, called Fission Surface Power, that is examining small reactors designed for use on other planets. While nuclear power remains controversial, the researchers say that the reactor would be designed to be completely safe and would be buried a safe distance from the astronauts to shield them from any radiation it would generate.

The recent tests examined technologies that would see a nuclear reactor coupled with a Stirling engine capable of producing 40 kilowatts of energy--enough to power a future lunar or Mars outpost.

[...]

To generate electricity, the researchers used a liquid metal to transfer the heat from the reactor to the Stirling engine, which uses gas pressure to convert heat into the energy needed to generate electricity. For the tests, the researchers used a non-nuclear heat source. The liquid metal was a sodium potassium mixture that has been used in the past to transfer heat from a reactor to a generator, says Palac, but this is the first time this mixture has been used with a Stirling engine.

"They are very efficient and robust, and we believe [it] can last for eight years unattended," says Lee Mason, the principal investigator of the project at Glenn. The system performed better than expected, Palac says, generating 2.3 kilowatts of power at a steady pace.

The researchers also developed a lightweight radiator panel to cool the system and dissipate the heat from the reactor. The prototype panel is approximately six feet by nine feet--one-twentieth the size required for a full-scale system. Heat from a water-cooling system is circulated to the radiator where it dissipates.

The researchers tested the radiator panel in a vacuum chamber at Glenn that replicates the lack of atmosphere and the extreme temperatures on the moon--from over 100 degrees Celsius during the day to below 100 degrees Celsius at night. The panel dissipated six kilowatts of energy, more than expected--a "very successfully test," says Palac. On the moon, the panel must also survive the dusty environment cause by the regolith.

Lastly, the researchers tested the performance of the Stirling alternator in a radiation environment at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. The objective was to test the performance of the motor, ensuring that the materials would not degrade. The alternator was subjected to 20 times the amount of radiation it would expect to see in its lifetime and survived without any significant problems.

Mason says that the tests are very important in showing the feasibility of the system and that the next step is for the researchers to conduct a full system demonstration, by combining a non-nuclear reactor simulator with the Stirling engine and radiator panel. He says that these tests should be completed in 2014.

- Brewskie

"Krap Out" Kunstler Blows 5th Dow Meltdown Call

2009-08-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

Interesting news from Mark Perry at Carpe Diem today: the ECRI Weekly Leading Index, a U.S. future economic growth gauge, rose to its highest level in 26 years, suggesting economic recovery could be its strongest since the early '80s recession.

Mark Perry has been consistently predicting, since the beginning of the year, the current recession would bottom out around mid- to late-summer. Factoring in improvements in the housing market, the Dow's accession above 9,000, China's prelude to promising growth and Europe's recent revitalization, it seems safe to say - even a few months early - that James Kunstler has officially blown his 5th Dow Jones meltdown call.

Aside from prophesying a crash of 4,000 for this year, "Kaptain Krappy" has also made these fabulous Dow forecasts:

Predicted the Dow cratering to 4,000 in 2005,

2006,

2007.

And in his most Joe Montana-like effort ever, James predicted a thousand-point drop during Thanksgiving week of '07. The Dow jumped up 1,000. Did I write Joe Montana? I should have wrote Dr. Wirth=)

Now naturally, this recession has been brutal, and we're not quite out of the woods yet. But for peakers to make comparisons to the Great Depression seems absurd. For a contrast of the two downturns, let's consider...

The Great Depression:

Number of bank failures: 9,000.

Unemployment peak: 25%.

GDP losses in first three years: -8.6%, -6.4% and -13%.

Versus the current recession:

Peak unemployment: 9.5% (so far).

# of bank failures: 109 (the S&L Crisis experienced nearly 3,000).

GDP of last, this and next year: -1.3%, -2.0% (projected), +2.2% (projected).

Also, has anyone seen this natural phenomenon?

I heard a while back that James is writing a sequel to his most recent book, "World Made by Hand." Judging from how his and the peakers' fame has swirled down the toilet recently, it may be more suitable for James to hide in a dark corner, and remorsely fiddle "World Stroked by Hand."

- Brewskie

Added: The federal government's spendthrift policies are scary, yes, but for those concerned about drowning in an ocean of inflation, check out another excellent post by Mark Perry. Accompanied by promising graphs.

Energy-Efficient Port Cranes

2009-08-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

A post on port cranes using less fuel:

What kind of power can a 30-ton shipping container generate?
Roughly 100 kilowatts to 200 kilowatts, says Louis Romo, the vice president of sales for Vycon Energy.

In one of the more titanic examples of energy harvesting on the market, Vycon has created a flywheel that captures the energy contained in cargo containers being lowered by cranes and feeds it back to the crane for the next hoist.

Port operators using the system have managed to cut diesel consumption by 30 percent on average with the company's REGEN system and in some cases by 45
percent. Maintenance and downtime is also improved.

In California, the technology is seen as a way to reduce emissions. Groups have formed to lobby federal and state agencies to clean up ports and use them as incubators for new technologies.

[...]

The system essentially exploits the unusual circumstances of the cargo business. Cranes need large amounts of power in rapid bursts in quick succession for several hours a day. A single hoist might require 160 kilowatts to 300 kilowatts, take about 30 seconds, and get repeated every five minutes, says Octavio Solis, a product manager for the company.

Although cranes now mostly run on AC motors, they aren't grid connected, he noted. The constant movement (and gigantic power requirements) wouldn't allow that. As a result, cranes derive their power from smoke-belching diesel generators. And because cargo loads vary in size, port operators have to install generators for the worse case scenarios, leading to more fuel consumption and emissions that are warranted in most circumstances. Some of the generators are capable of generating 500 kilowatts to 800 kilowatts.

Besides needing power for the lift, cranes burn diesel when lowering cargo to control the descent. On the drop, the AC motor is run in reverse. In a Toyota Prius, that generates power for the battery. On a cargo crane, the power is burned off as waste heat.

"You generate 200 kilowatts of power when lowering a container but you have to use it immediately," Solis said.

In Vycon's system, the energy is absorbed into the rotating mass of the flywheel, which stores the energy and feeds it back into the system. The fuel saving largely come in through the fact that port operators can employ smaller generators once they have a flywheel.

- Brewskie

Carbon Nanotubes Can Now Sprout Independent of Metal Catalyst

2009-08-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

Lab rats have learned how to grow carbon nanotubes without metal catalysts:

Carbon nanotubes — tiny, rolled-up tubes of graphite — promise to add speed to electronic circuits and strength to materials like carbon composites, used in airplanes and racecars. A major problem, however, is that the metals used to grow nanotubes react unfavorably with materials found in circuits and composites. But now, researchers at MIT have for the first time shown that nanotubes can grow without a metal catalyst. The researchers demonstrate that zirconium oxide, the same compound found in cubic zirconia "fake diamonds," can also grow nanotubes, but without the unwanted side effects of metal.

The implications of ditching metals in the production of carbon nanotubes are great. Historically, nanotubes have been grown with elements such as iron, gold and cobalt. but these can be toxic and cause problems in clean room environments. Moreover, the use of metals in nanotube synthesis makes it difficult to view the formation process using infrared spectroscopy, a challenge that has kept researchers in the dark about some of the aspects of nanotube growth.

[...]

The conventional model for nanotube growth goes like this: A substrate is sprinkled with nanoparticle seeds made of a certain metal, of the same diameter of the desired nanotubes. The substrate and nanoparticles are heated to 600 to 900 degrees Celsius, and then a carbon-containing gas such as methane or alcohol is added. At the high temperatures, molecules break apart and reassemble. Some of these carbon-containing molecules find their way to the surface of a nanoparticle where they dissolve and then precipitate out, in nanotube form.

The researchers found that if they just used zirconium oxide nanoparticles on the substrate, they could coax carbon into nanotubes as well. Importantly, the mechanism for growth seems to be completely different from that of metal nanoparticle-grown tubes. Instead of dissolving into the nanoparticle and precipating out, zirconia-grown nanotubes appear to assemble directly on the surface.

In collaboration with Professor Stephan Hofmann at the University of Cambridge in England, the MIT researchers took images of the oxide-based nanotubes using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy during growth. This allowed them to see that when nanotubes formed, zirconium oxide persisted, and didn't form into a metal, bolstering their conclusions.

One of the most exciting implications of the finding is that it means that carbon fiber and composites, used to make different types of crafts, could be strengthened by nanotubes. "Composites are durable, but fail under certain loading conditions, like when plywood flakes and splinters apart," says Stephen Steiner, an MIT graduate student and the study's first author. "But what if you could reinforce composites at the microlevel with nanotubes the way that rebar reinforces concrete in a building or a bridge? That's what we're trying to do to improve the mechanical properties and resistance to fracturing of carbon composites."

Steiner says the reason that planes like Airbus' A380 and Boeing's new 787 are made of only 40 percent composites and not 90 percent is because composites aren't strong enough for all parts of the craft. But if they were bolstered by nanotubes, then the planes could be made of more composites, which would make them lighter, and less expensive to fly because they wouldn't need as much fuel.

- Brewskie

Quantum Leap in Superconducting Circuitry

2009-08-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

UC Berkley researchers have developed a new superconducting circuit that acts quantum mechanically, but takes a nice leap in energy levels (link):

These circuits act like artificial atoms in that they can only gain or lose energy in packets, or quanta, by jumping between discrete energy levels. "In our previous work, we focused on systems with just two energy levels, 'qubits,' because they are the quantum analog of 'bits,' which have two states, on and off," said Matthew Neeley, first author and a graduate student at UCSB.

He explained that in this work they operated a quantum circuit as a more complicated artificial atom with up to five energy levels. The generic term for such a system is "qudit," where 'd' refers to the number of energy levels –– in this case, 'd' equals five.

"This is the quantum analog of a switch that has several allowed positions, rather than just two," said Neeley. "Because it has more energy levels, the physics of a qudit is richer than for just a single qubit. This allows us to explore certain aspects of quantum mechanics that go beyond what can be observed with a qubit."

Just as bits are used as the fundamental building blocks of computers, qubits could one day be used as building blocks of a quantum computer, a device that exploits the laws of quantum mechanics to perform certain computations faster than can be done with classical bits alone. "Qudits can be used in quantum computers as well, and there are even cases where qudits could be used to speed up certain operations with a quantum computer," said Neeley. "Most research to date has focused on qubit systems, but we hope our experimental demonstration will motivate more effort on qudits, as an addition to the quantum information processing toolbox."

- Brewskie

Proglonged Lithium-ion Battery Life Hangs by the Nanowire

2009-08-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

A look at nanotechnology is touching lithium-ion batteries:

A new type of nanowire electrode developed by materials science and engineering professor Yi Cui at Stanford is a step toward that goal.

The new electrodes, discussed in last week's Nano Letters, can store six times as much charge as the graphite electrodes in current lithium batteries--that means electric cars that give more mileage per charging session.

When a lithium battery is charged, lithium ions move from the positive electrode (cathode) to the negative anode. Silicon is a promising material for anodes because it can store over 10 times as many ions as graphite at the same weight. But when silicon absorbs charge, it swells to four times its original volume, cracking after a few charging cycles.

The new nanowires exploit the properties of silicon and graphite. Cui and his colleagues make the material by depositing amorphous silicon on carbon nanowires. The wires can store a charge of about 2,000 milliamp hours per gram, while graphite anodes store less than 360 milliamp hours per gram. Meanwhile, the carbon core makes them robust. "Lithium ions can also get absorbed into carbon," says Cui, "but the volume expansion of carbon is 10 percent or smaller, so it provides a stable backbone." In tests, the nanowires performed well for more than 50 charging cycles.

- Brewskie

Germany Contemplating Unmanned Moon Mission by 2015

2009-08-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

Economy Ministry State Secretary Peter Hintze thinks Germany should shoot for the moon by 2015 - manless:

In an interview with ZDF television, Economy Ministry State Secretary Peter Hintze said a German moon landing could be feasible "within the next decade, around 2015," and urged cooperation with other European countries and the United States.

The enterprise would likely cost around 1.5 billion euros ($2.12 billion) over five years and could encourage industry to develop new technologies, said Hintze, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

[...]

It would be up to the next government to decide on such a project, the former pastor said. Germany holds a federal election on September 27, and latest polls show Merkel's conservatives have a big lead over their Social Democrat rivals.

- Brewskie

Clunkers' Fair Success

2009-08-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

The CARS or "Clunkers" program seems to be having modest success as evidenced from new car sales in July:

The average mileage for new vehicles rose from 21.4 miles per gallon in June to 22.1 mpg in July. That may not sound like much, but it’s the highest mileage that researchers at the University of Michigan have seen since the Environmental Protection Agency reconfigured mileage estimates in October 2007. It’s also the biggest one-month jump.

Study co-author Michael Sivak, a professor at the university’s Transportation Research Institute, noted that the improvement came even as gas prices fell and unemployment levels shrank somewhat. Normally, those factors lead to the purchase of more gas guzzlers.

The higher mileage shows the effect of Cash for Clunkers, said Sivak, who said he expects the jump to be even bigger when August figures come out. That’s because the trade-in rebate program got going only in late July.

- Brewskie

America's First EV Battery Recycling Facility

2009-08-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

The DOE has granted $9.5 million to a California company to build America's first facility devoted to recyling EV batteries:

Anaheim-based Toxco says it will use the funds to expand an existing facility in Lancaster, OH, that already recycles the lead-acid and nickel-metal hydride batteries used in today's hybrid-electric vehicles.

[...]

The Trail facility is also the only one in the world that can handle different sizes and chemistries of lithium batteries. When old batteries arrive they go into a hammer mill and are shredded, allowing components made of aluminum, cooper, and steel to be separated easily. Larger batteries that might still hold a charge are cryogenically frozen with liquid nitrogen before being hammered and shredded; at -325 degrees Fahrenheit, the reactivity of the cells is reduced to zero. Lithium is then extracted by flooding the battery chambers in a caustic bath that dissolves lithium salts, which are filtered out and used to produce lithium carbonate. The remaining sludge is processed to recover cobalt, which is used to make battery electrodes. About 95 percent of the process is completely automated.

The DOE grant will help Toxco transfer the Trail recycling process to its Ohio operations, laying the foundation for an advanced lithium-battery recycling plant that can expand to accommodate expected growth in the US electric-vehicle market. The electric-car maker Tesla Motors, like most major automakers, already sends old or defective battery packs to Toxco's Trail facility for recycling. "It's very important for us," says Kurt Kelty, director of energy storage technologies at Tesla. "The recycling issue is a key issue and we need to get it right."

- Brewskie

Efficient Diesel Fuel-Injection

2009-08-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

New York researchers have developed an efficient, supercritical diesel fuel-injection system which cuts emissions 80%, while increasing fuel-economy by 10% (link).

A fluid becomes supercritical when its temperature and pressure exceed a critical boundary point, causing it to take on novel properties between those of a liquid and a gas. George Anitescu, a research associate at the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at Syracuse University in New York state, who developed the new engine design, says that supercritical diesel can be burned more efficiently and cleanly.

By raising diesel to a supercritical state before injecting it into an engine's combustion chamber, viscosity becomes less of a problem, says Anitescu. Additionally, the high molecular diffusion of supercritical fluids means that the fuel and air mix together almost instantaneously. So instead of trying to burn relatively large droplets of fuel surrounded by air, the vaporized fuel mixes more evenly with air, which makes it burn more quickly, cleanly, and completely. In a sense, it is like an intermediate between diesel and gasoline, but with the benefits of both, says Anitescu, who presented his work last week at Directions in Engine-Efficiency and Emissions Research, a conference held in Dearborn, MI.

[...]

In order for the diesel to reach a supercritical state, Anitescu's fuel system has first to heat it to around 450 degrees Celsius at a pressure of about 60,000,000 Pascal. Achieving the pressure is not a problem, Anitescu says, but increasing the temperature is more demanding.

Because fuel systems usually operate at temperatures below 80 degree Celsius, Anitescu and his colleagues used the heat from the engine's exhaust to raise the fuel's temperature. This causes further complications. "You need to prevent it from coking," he says. Coking occurs when hydrocarbons in the fuel react, producing sticky deposits that can lead to fuel-system failures. The phenomenon can be avoided by diluting the fuel with an additive, such as carbon dioxide or water. In the Syracuse engine, a small amount of exhaust gas is introduced to act as an anticoking agent, a technique known as exhaust-gas recirculation.

- Brewskie

Quenching Thirsty Crops' Thirst with Salt Water

2009-08-13T10:44:00.001-07:00

Big Gav of Peak Energy and the Oil Drum sniffed out this interesting bit: an irrigation system that can grow crops with salt water.

A British company has created an irrigation system that can grow crops using salt water. The dRHS irrigation system consists of a network of sub-surface pipes, which can be filled with almost any water, whether pure, brackish, salted or polluted. The system can even take most industrial waste-water and use it without the need for a purification process.

The pipes are made from a plastic that retains virtually all contaminants while letting clean water through to the plants' roots.

It was designed by Mark Tonkin of Design Technology and Irrigation, which is based in Brighton. He says that once the pipes have been laid, the system will require little maintenance and therefore no significant costs. This is partly because it's fed by gravity from an elevated supply tank, and partly because water diffuses through the porous pipe walls, so there are no holes to get blocked up.

The farmer will occasionally have to flush the pipes to clean out salt crystals and dirt, but Tonkin says this is a simple process.

The article goes on to say...

The system has so far supported the growth of tomatoes, radishes, courgettes, peppers, lettuce, strawberries and beans as well as three different types of tree - cherry, olive and prosopis. The company is now trying to grow acacias, oaks and banana trees among others.

It has also won international recognition for its work, most recently at the international Water Technology Idol event in Switzerland, organised by Global Water Intelligence magazine and the International Desalination Association.

- Brewskie

US Oil Inventories Up 20%

2009-08-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

Amid lackluster demand, US oil inventories are up 20% over last year:

While the market positions itself for a recovery, oil and fuel continue to pile up in storage. U.S. oil inventories have increased for three consecutive weeks, and are nearly 20% above last year's levels, the Department of Energy said Wednesday in its weekly inventory report.

Gasoline demand fell 2.7% last week, and was at its lowest point for the week since 2001, the department's Energy Information Administration said.

"The [oil] market shrugged off a bearish [inventory] report and traded more as a financial asset instead of an actual industrial commodity," said Stephen Schork, editor of the energy newsletter The Schork Report.

The world's storage terminals have been overwhelmed with unwanted oil and fuel for months, but this week's data pointed to an even bigger and persistent glut than many in the oil market had anticipated. Although U.S. refiners cut back a full percentage point on crude processing, distillate inventories, including heating oil and diesel, rose by more than analysts expected, while gasoline stockpiles fell by less than the average forecast in a Dow Jones survey.

Distillates inventories are at the highest level for the week since 1982 as the recession has cut demand for the fuel, which is commonly used in shipping goods around the world.

- Brewskie

Three Trillion Cubic Feet

2009-08-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

That's how much natural gas the US has in storage, 3.153 tcf to be precise - that's 19.7% above the five-year average and 23.2% above last year's level. (link)

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is expected to report that 64 billion cubic feet of gas were added to storage during the week ended Aug. 7, according to the average prediction of 17 analysts and traders in a Dow Jones Newswires survey. The storage estimate surpasses last year's 51-bcf build in storage and the five-year average injection, which was 42 bcf.

The EIA is scheduled to release its storage data Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EDT.

If the storage estimate is correct, inventories as of Aug. 7 will total 3.153 trillion cubic feet, 19.7% above the five-year average and 23.2% above last year's level.

Added: US gas demand is expected to decline 2.6% this year.

- Brewskie

Non-OPEC Producers Sqeeuze More Crude

2009-08-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

Taking note from the graph in my last post, it's interesting to scope this WSJ blog: it too has taken notice to the slight increase of non-OPEC crude produciton.

Non-OPEC supply fell about 300,000 barrels a day last year, but the IEA now expects it to increase by about 400,000 barrels this year. Since January, the Paris-based agency has upped its non-OPEC forecast by 940,000 barrels of oil a day. Russia alone accounts for 360,000 of that increase with new fields in Western Siberia entering service.

That could be a sign that marginal producers, aided by higher crude prices and falling production costs, are switching on the taps at wellheads previously shut-in because of poor economics.

Of course Sanford Bernstein has to rain in on the parade:

That has other analysts, like the folks at Sanford Bernstein, a little more gloomy. They expect non-OPEC production this year to total 49.57 (Note: this is total liquids) million barrels a day—or 1.43 million barrels less than the IEA estimates. Next year looks even worse, the analysts say, with non-OPEC production falling more than 1 million barrels to 48.46 million barrels per day.

Considering non-OPEC's track record, the 1 mbpd estimated drop of next year may be over- shooting. Cantarell is running out of gas, and without her help, non-OPEC's production (which lost 300,000 bpd last year) would have been at or near the break-even point last year.

- Brewskie

Non-Opec Crude Contiues its Glacial Descent

2009-08-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

(Note: Sorry about the small graph. Blogger is demonstrating the wrath of her bugs again.)

The peakers are certainly counting their chickens until peak oil fiesta kicks in. 5%, 8% - who knows, maybe we'll have double-digit decline-rates dragging us down to hell! The only problem is if the decline in non-OPEC crude production is a sign of things to come - the 2004 non-OPEC peak, after all, was an event that threw the peakers into an ecstasy of orgy four years back - it's likely they're going to be very disappointed.

I peaked over at the most recent issue of Oil Watch Monthly to see how things were going; pretty slow as expected, and as evidenced from the graph above, production is a smidgen up this year. From 2005 to 2008, production fell - at worst - a rough 1% - a far cry from the 5%+ dreams of many peakers.

Naturally if non-OPEC production was falling at 5% annually, we would have a load boat of problems: this would translate into about 6 mbpd of loss production, not the rough 1 mbpd. And remember - this is factoring heavy losses from both Canterrell and the N Sea.

The game of the debunkers has never been about denying peak oil, but rather, sifting through the hype, paranoia, rank facts and outright lies to bring a better sense of rationalization of things to come, of how the era of peak oil will materialize.

One should run under this theory to determine the world's fate: if peakers have been dead wrong for the past 100 years in the pre-peak world, they're going to be just as wrong in the post-peak era. If non-OPEC production is any indicator, we can rest assure that when worldwide conventional crude enters its decline, the human race will have plenty of time to adjust, thus preparing itself for the next phase of its energy destiny.

God, we should all be delightful.

- Brewsie

Chevron Makes "Significant" Oil Find Near Angola

2009-08-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

(Posting will still be light until Wednesday, but I'll do what I can when possible.)

Chevron announced a "significant" oil discovery offshore of Angola. Chevron didn't divulge the details of the find, but "significant" oil discoveries often mean at least 500 million barrels.

Chevron Corp. said Friday it has made a "significant" oil discovery in Angola's offshore waters, underscoring the West African nation's growing significance to Chevron and the country's rising stature as an energy producer as neighboring Nigeria copes with militant attacks.

A Chevron spokesman declined to estimate how much oil and natural gas the discovery might hold, but it comes as the San Ramon, Calif.-based company is set to start pumping crude in coming days from a separate, $3.8 billion project also in Angola's offshore waters.

The recent find, based on a single discovery well, still needs further drilling to be confirmed, Chevron said. Oil discoveries pegged as "significant" by major oil companies such as Chevron often imply crude and gas resources of at least 500 million barrels.

Chevron's latest find marks the latest in a flurry of discoveries off Angola in the past few years that have made it Africa's biggest oil producer, with output of around 1.85 million barrels a day in July.

- Brewskie

Light Posting Until the 12th

2009-08-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

Hola, amigos. I thought I'd get more posting in this week, but I've been dead wrong. Although I'll try to squeeze some stuff in, it's likely posting will remain light until next Wednesday. So hang in there until then!

- Brewskie

WTF, Leanan?? Fire Kills Six Saudi Oil Workers...

2009-08-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

What's this about? A bad day for Leanan, the Drum's Drumbeat editor? She's got the most tedious job in peak oil=(

Anyway, I've remarked about the lack of women in peak oil as proof that it's a doom day-based religion: religions with apocalyptic endings - i.e., Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. - are male-dominated; pagan beliefs, dominated by female stature, have traditionally shown greater respect for life, greater tolerance for humanity. And isn't this just a coincidence(?): Leanan, one of peak's best known ladies, gets the tedious, but all-important job of hauling doomer feed to the pig trough for the doomers' daily tasting - all while her doomer buddies (big, boastful males) get the glory jobs of presenting "exciting" analysis, scenarios.

Plus, isn't it interesting, that, all the other doom-themed cults of recent memory - Y2K, Heavens' Gate, Jim Jones, etc. - are too male-dominated? So folks, if you want to find out if a cult is worth its merit in deadly prophecy, all you have to do is search for the priestesses in high places. Rare sightings probably means your life is safe; but such a clique, likely, is not a good place to get laid...

- Brewskie

Morbidly Obese Algae

2009-08-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

A California group has discovered a metabolic trigger in algae cells that "would substantially increase lipid production and lead to high yield." They're calling this, in other words, "fat" or "obese" algae (link).

In California, Sustainable Green Technologies announced that SGT scientists have uncovered a “lipid trigger” in green algae. Under certain conditions, many microalgae had appeared to “flip a switch” that increased production and storage of oils instead of starch. SGT said that it is able to activate the switch and to create “obese algae.

“We found the waste from our biohydrogen system sparked tremendous growth of our green algae, and more importantly, massively increased lipid production and storage within our algae,” said SGT CSO Dr. Elmar Schmid. SGT’s CSO. In other words, our algae became obese within one week! We now have a highly efficient, cost-effective way of producing large amounts of algae oils for biodiesel fuel production. On top of that, we can produce clean biohydrogen from the resulting biodiesel refinery waste!” exclaims Dr. Schmid.

SGT’s biohydrogen-producing microbes can convert a variety of feedstock into biohydrogen energy including glycerol waste, sugars derived from sugar cane and sugar beet, brewery waste. SGT said it had also applied for a DOE grant for its biohydrogen and algae system.

- Brewskie

Japan Exploring EV Charging Stations

2009-08-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

Japan is exploring how to set up a grid of EV charging stations:

Three Japanese electric car makers teamed up with the country's largest power company Wednesday to study ways to building a grid of battery charging stations for zero-emission vehicles.

Nissan Motors, Mitsubishi Motors and Subaru-maker Fuji Heavy Industries said they would set up a committee with Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) to discuss ways to standardise and promote their battery-charging technology.

The four companies said they were "aiming to standardise the power charge method and to popularise fast-speed charge stations, which are absolutely essential in promoting electric vehicles in Japan."

The three automakers have separately developed lithium-ion batteries together with TEPCO, the largest utility in Asia, for their plug-in electric vehicles, which started hitting the market this year.

- Brewskie

Nanotubes Presented as Effective Kidney Tumor Pest Control

2009-08-05T13:01:00.001-07:00

Cancer will one day have no where to hide from nanotechnolgy's Orwellian (Orwellian in a good way, that is) eyes:

By injecting man-made, microscopic tubes into tumors and heating them with a quick, 30-second zap of a laser, scientists have discovered a way to effectively kill kidney tumors in nearly 80 percent of mice. Researchers say that the finding suggests a potential future cancer treatment for humans.
[...]

Using a mouse model, researchers injected kidney tumors with different quantities of MWCNTs and exposed the area to a three-watt laser for 30 seconds.

Researchers found that the mice who received no treatment for their tumors died about 30 days into the study. Mice who received the nanotubes alone or laser treatment alone survived for a similar length of time. However, in the mice who received the MWCNTs followed by a 30-second laser treatment, researchers found that the higher the quantity of nanotubes injected, the longer the mice lived and the less tumor regrowth was seen. In fact, in the group that received the highest dose of
MWCNTs, tumors completely disappeared in 80 percent of the mice. Many of those mice continued to live tumor-free through the completion of the study, which was bout nine months later.

- Brewskie

Chesapeake Bracing for Haynesville's "Big One"

2009-08-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, enough with the fart jokes. But in reality, Chesapeake is expecting a hurricane out of Haynesville's "rear:"

Chesapeake Energy Corp. expects to hike its Haynesville shale gas output to a gross operated 575 MMcfe/d at the end of 2009 and as much as 1.025 bcfe/d by the end of 2010. The production rate in late July was 175 MMcfe/d net and 285 MMcfe/d gross operated. The company plans to average 33 operated rigs in the second half of 2009 and 36 rigs in 2010 compared with 29 currently active. Chesapeake has added 40,000 net acres since Mar. 31, 2009, and is now the play’s largest leasehold owner at 510,000 net acres. Plains Exploration & Production Co., Houston, Chesapeake’s 20% joint venture partner, owns another 113,000 net acres.

[...]

Chesapeake recovered 35% of its $4.7 billion Haynesville leasehold investment with the sale of a 20% interest to Plains, bringing Chesapeake’s net investment in Haynesville leasehold to $6,000/net acre.

- Brewskie

Solar Industry to Researchers: Go Ahead, Slack Off

2009-08-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

There's no big hurry to generate photovoltaic breakthroughs. Go ahead, vacation like the Europeans do, surf the net all day for porn, hog the bong and dirty up your Che Guevara shirt. Solar's gonna take care of itself in good time, that's what the industry is saying. Hmm... we have a robot that can now play Frogger; maybe it'll perform a "Lawn Mower Man" jump in processing capability, build an array photovoltaic-powered "death satellites" that will burn the infidel species...

Whatever. You can read the bible of the solar industry here, or you can go on
a horrific acid binge with the rest of the photovoltaic engineers, envisioning a
giant preying mantis biting your head off. Grooovy...

The federal government is behind the times when it comes to making decisions about advancing the solar industry, according to several solar-industry experts. This has led, they argue, to a misplaced emphasis on research into futuristic new technologies, rather than support for scaling up existing ones. That was the prevailing opinion at a symposium last week put together by the National Academies in Washington, DC, on the topic of scaling up the solar industry.

The meeting was attended by numerous experts from the photovoltaic industry and academia. And many complained that the emphasis on finding new technologies is misplaced. "This is such a fast-moving field," said Ken Zweibel, director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University. "To some degree, we're fighting the last war. We're answering the questions from 5, 10, 15 years ago in a world where things have really changed."

[...]

Meanwhile, says Zweibel, conventional technologies "have made the kind of progress that we were hoping futuristic technologies could make." For example, researchers have sought to bring the cost of solar power to under $1 per watt, and as of the first quarter of this year one company, First Solar, has done this.

These cost reductions have made solar power cheaper than the natural-gas-powered plants used to produce extra electricity to meet demand on hot summer days. With subsidies, which Zweibel argues are justified because of the "externalities" of other power sources, such as the cost from pollution, solar can be competitive with conventional electricity even outside peak demand times, at least in California. And projected cost decreases will make solar competitive with current electricity prices in more areas, even without subsidies.

Representatives of the solar industry say the federal government should do more to remove obstacles that are slowing the industry's development. One issue is financing for new solar installations, which can be much more expensive if lending institutions deem them high risk. A recent extension of federal tax credits and grants for solar investments is a step in the right direction, many solar experts say. But more could be done. A price on carbon would help make solar more economically competitive and more attractive to lenders.

- Brewskie

Mighty Ghana to Produce a "Mighty" 240,000 BPD by 2013

2009-08-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Ha-ha! Yeah, it sounds like pittance, but as accountants say: nickels add up to dollars. 'Sides, gotta give this impoverished African country some revenue (just don't go government gangbusters with it like Nigeria).

Pump, little baby, pump:

The country will produce 240,000 barrels of oil and 240,000 million standard cubic feet of gas per day under the second phase of the Jubilee Field project which is expected to commence in 2013, the Deputy Minister of Energy, Dr Kwabena Donkor, has disclosed.

According to him, “the appraisals so far conducted indicate that the Jubilee Field contains expected recoverable reserves of about 800 million barrels of light crude, with an upside potential of about three billion barrels”.

Dr Donkor, who made this known when he opened a two-day seminar on oil and gas for youth activists in Accra last Saturday, said there were greater prospects for the discovery of more oil.

- Brewskie

Gone Monday and Tuesday

2009-08-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

There will be no posting for August 3rd or 4th. I'll be back on the 5th.

- Brewskie

Towering Statement: 32-Story Condo, One Tenant

2009-07-31T19:02:00.001-07:00

Lol! Send this guy a neighbor.

- Brewskie

Cash-for-Clunkers' Impact

2009-07-31T18:47:00.000-07:00

Here's some info. of CARS' recent impact:

--Roughly two thirds of deals have resulted in consumers receiving $4500 credit, which applied to only the most fuel efficient trades.

--During the week that the 'Cash for Clunkers' program was launched, GM's small car sales increased 54.8 percent over the preceding week.

--Toyota moved 78 percent of their Cash for Clunkers volume on vehicles that together average 30 mpg, and 39 percent of volume on the Corolla and Prius, which together average 39.5 mpg.
--Ford has seen an average of 7 mpg improvement on Clunkers trades, which represents an estimated annual fuel savings of 228 gallons per customer. The 28 mpg (EPA) Ford Focus is nearly 30 percent of all Ford's Clunker sales.

--Mazda, as of yesterday, saw 57 percent of transactions reported by dealers to be for the purchase of the MAZDA3, the brand's most fuel efficient model at 27 mpg (EPA).

- Brewskie

Media Matters to Run Anti-Lou Dobbs Ads on CNN

2009-07-31T17:04:00.000-07:00

Lou Dobbs is cankerous, he is old. He is a true idiot. His true political affiliations long guessed, at best, uncertain - he goes up and down the dial to suit his purposes, his ratings - Lou has made a true fool of himself by becoming the bull horn for the birthers movement.

Now there's plenty of people who dislike Obama, but even some of his most ardent critics, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly, have denounced the birthers movement, bringing into question the rationality of their paranoid thesis.

Media Matters is plenty pissed about this; in fact, they recently bought air time for anti-Lou Dobbs adds... on CNN!

A Media Matters spokesman tells me the group has bought a week of ad time on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News in D.C., New York, and Atlanta, beginning Tuesday. The catch: Media Matters has specifically purchased time to air the ad during Dobbs' show -- putting CNN in the position of either running the spot or nixing it and making this a bigger story.

And Lou's recent rants haven't been good for ratings, either:

Yesterday we noted that CNN host Lou Dobbs' "birther" obsession -- the right-wing theory Dobbs has been trumpeting that President Obama has no U.S. birth certificate, is an "undocumented" alien, and his presidency is "illegal" -- has been good for creating controversy and hot feelings but bad for CNN's ratings. In short, since Dobbs began talking Obama birth certificate conspiracy theories on his radio show, his audience on CNN has decreased by 15 percent.

Interesting - did you know Lou Dobbs graduated from Harvard? Finally, someone who makes the peakers look scholarly. There's certainly a fair amount of Obama I don't like, but this reeks of racism. Please... can anyone envision a white American woman flying to Africa, getting knocked by a tribesman, and trusting primitive 1960s tribal health care over America's?

BTW - in case any birther idiots are reading this, here's Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate. Move on, losers.

- Brewskie

Fusion on the "Cheap"

2009-07-31T16:20:00.001-07:00

Vancouver-based startup General Fusion says it can build fusion power plant on the "cheap:" $1 billion; and its says it can do it in a decade.

Read below or click here for the full breath:

Unlike the $14 billion ITER project under way in France, General Fusion's approach doesn't rely on expensive superconducting magnets--called tokamaks--to contain the superheated plasma necessary to achieve and sustain a fusion reaction. Nor does the company require powerful lasers, such as those within the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to confine a plasma target and compress it to extreme temperatures until fusion occurs.

Instead, General Fusion says it can achieve "net gain"--that is, create a fusion reaction that gives off more energy than is needed to trigger it--using relatively low-tech, mechanical brute force and advanced digital control technologies that scientists could only dream of 30 years ago.

It may seem implausible, but some top U.S. fusion experts say General Fusion's approach, which is a variation on what the industry calls magnetized target fusion, is scientifically sound and could actually work. It's a long shot, they say, but well worth a try.

[...]

The prototype reactor will be composed of a metal sphere about three meters in diameter containing a liquid mixture of lithium and lead. The liquid is spun to create a vortex inside the sphere that forms a vertical cavity in the middle. At this point, two donut-shaped plasma rings held together by self-generated magnetic fields, called spheromaks, are injected into the cavity from the top and bottom of the sphere and come together to create a target in the center. "Think about it as blowing smoke rings at each other," says Doug Richardson, chief executive of General Fusion.

On the outside of the metal sphere are 220 pneumatically controlled pistons, each programmed to simultaneously ram the surface of the sphere at 100 meters a second. The force of the pistons sends an acoustic wave through the lead-lithium mixture, and that accelerates into a shock wave as it reaches the plasma, which is made of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium.

If everything works as planned, the plasma will compress instantly and the isotopes will fuse into helium, releasing a burst of energy-packed neutrons that are captured by the lead-lithium liquid. The rapid heat buildup in the liquid will be extracted through a heat exchanger, with half used to create steam that spins a turbine for power generation, and the rest used to recharge the pistons for the next "shot."

The ultimate goal is to inject a new plasma target and fire the pistons every second, creating pulses of fusion reactions as part of a self-sustaining process. This contrasts with ITER, which aims to create a single fusion reaction that can sustain itself. "One of the big risks to the project is nobody has compressed spheromaks to fusion-relevant conditions before," says Richardson. "There's no reason why it won't work, but nobody has ever proven it."

[...]

General Fusion's basic approach isn't entirely new. It builds on work done during the 1980s by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, based on a concept called Linus. The problem was that scientists couldn't figure out a fast-enough way to compress the plasma before it lost its donut-shaped magnetic confinement, a window of opportunity measured in milliseconds. Just like smoke rings, the plasma rings maintain their shape only momentarily before dispersing.

Nuclear-research giant General Atomics later came up with the idea of rapidly compressing the plasma using a mechanical ramming process that creates acoustic waves. But the company never followed through--likely because the technology to precisely control the speed and simultaneous triggering of the compressed-air pistons simply didn't exist two decades ago.

Richardson says that high-speed digital processing is readily available today, and General Fusion's mission over the next two to four years is to prove it can do the job. Before building a fully functional reactor with 220 pistons on a metal sphere, the company will first verify that smaller rings of 24 pistons can be synchronized to strike an outer metal shell.

Good luck!

- Brewskie

House Approves Additional $2 Billion for Clunkers

2009-07-31T16:11:00.000-07:00

Due to popular demand, the US House of Representatives approved legislation to give an additional $2 billion to CARS.

The US House of Representatives passed legislation Friday that willcontinue a program designed to trade in inefficient cars for new ones, justone day after the week-old $1 billion effort exhausted its funds due tocustomers rapidly trading in their old vehicles.

The "Cash-for-Clunkers" legislation gives $2 billion to the Department ofTransportation out of the Obama administration's $787 billion economicstimulus
bill. The lopsided 316-109 vote showed huge support for a program,which is supported by auto manufacturers, unions, and dealers.

DOT launched the program last week after the legislation became law this summer.It originally included $1 billion to get 250,000 cars traded in fornew ones, but DOT and the White House informed Congress Thursday the money wasexhausted.

"This is an unprecedented success," said Representative Betty Sutton, an Ohio Democrat who introduced the original legislation creating the program.

Consumers could get $3,500 or $4,500 rebates to hand in their old car.The size of the rebate depends upon the fuel economy of the original vehicleand of the new vehicle, with more money going toward a greater difference inthe two.

The money to keep the program alive will be taken out of the $6 billionrenewable energy loan guarantee program run by the Department of Energy. The$2 billion taken out of the renewables program was intended to be spent nextyear but Democratic leadership determined that it could be better spent now oncash-for-clunkers.

- Brewskie

Oil's Artieries Getting Clogged

2009-07-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

(Big warning: Wheeww... this went far further than originally envisioned, but it's worth it. Grab some potent caffeine or relax with some fine wine, sit back and learn.)

Demand is down, supplies are bloated but price seems to defy conventional wisdom. This blog has been adamant of an inevitable price drop. Perhaps some think Brewskie's a crazy fool: "That coot has no idea what he's talking about!" Be as it may, the law of ECON 101 is this: an entity or entities - be it government authority or manipulative market speculators - can defy "supply and demand" fundementals for a while, but in the end, fundementals always comes back to bit you.

Here's several articles predicting a looming drop.

OPEC is beginning to think the supply waves are making the rats sea sick:

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is bracing for a sharp drop in crude prices in coming weeks, as huge reserves of oil-based fuels continue to pile up and the space to store them runs out.

Stockpiles of fuels such as diesel and heating oil are at a 24-year high in the U.S. because of tepid demand from industries and consumers hammered by the global economic downturn. Conditions in the futures market have also made it very profitable for traders to store these fuels, known as distillates.

So far OPEC has been able to head off a sustained collapse in oil prices through big production cuts, and U.S. oil prices have shrugged off the excess supply, taking their cue from rising stock markets and investors' expectations of an economic recovery.

But if the anticipated economic turnaround doesn't materialize to soak up the growing distillate glut, as some OPEC officials fear, supplies will grow even larger, dragging down oil prices despite the cartel's efforts.

[...]

This concern is prompting some at OPEC, whose 12 members pump about four of every 10 barrels of oil consumed around the world every day, to consider further output reductions. The OPEC official wouldn't rule out an agreement to cut production at the group's next policy meeting Sept. 9.

But any further announced cuts may not have much market credibility. Some OPEC members, including Angola, Iran and Venezuela, are already selling more barrels than they agreed to in order to capture more revenue. Some members, like Saudi Arabia, may have no appetite for more reductions when other OPEC nations are shirking their commitments.

[...]

Although refiners have been running their plants well below last year's levels for some time, the cuts haven't been enough to offset dismal demand for diesel and other fuels. Last week, distillate demand dropped 15% from the same period in 2008.

Futures prices have also contributed to the build-up in U.S. fuel supplies. Prices for heating-oil deliveries farther out into the future have been sharply higher than prices for near-term contracts. The wide difference in prices, plus low interest rates, has encouraged traders to buy distillates, store them and enter into contracts to sell them in the future for a higher price.
"They've got huge forward premiums," said Jim Ritterbusch, who runs an oil-trading advisory firm in Galena, Ill.

As a result, distillate stocks surged to 160.5 million barrels last week, 25% higher than during the same period last year and the highest level since 1985.

Here's another blip of OPEC getting jittery:

Well, OPEC is not relaxing. This summer, the oil cartel is concerned about a substantial drop in the price of oil in the weeks ahead. That's correct: OPEC is concerned about prices plummeting.

The price of oil has risen 20 percent in two weeks to over $68 per barrel. It shows no sign of a sustained easing, despite the global recession, and yet producers of 40 percent of the world's oil are fearing a price collapse. Is OPEC disconnected from reality or are they on to something?

U.S. inventories of key fuels such as diesel and heating oil are at 24-year highs, according to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Agency. Meanwhile gasoline demand remains flat to barely rising, on a year-over-year basis. Demand for all of the above has been hurt by the recession, and OPEC fears if demand soon doesn't materialize to use the record-high stored oil, a major price break to the downside will ensue.

OPEC is predicting it will be at least four years before oil demand recovers to 2008 levels:

OPEC says that demand for its crude has fallen so sharply because of the
world recession that it will take another four years to recover to 2008 levels.

The forecast is one of several in OPEC annual report on oil supply and demand outlook to 2030 that reflects how the global recession has crimped the world's appetite for energy.

The report says the world will need 87.9 million barrels of crude a day by 2013 — nearly 6 million barrels less than previously expected. OPEC would need to produce 31 million barrels a day for its share compared to a daily 31.2 million barrels last year.

Let's not forget University of Calgary professor Phillip Verleger's latest bet that oil is set to crater:

A crude surplus of 100 million barrels will accumulate by the end of the year, training global storage capacity and sending prices to a seven-year low, said Verleger, who correctly predicted in 2007 that prices were set to exceed $100. Supply is outpacing demand by about 1 million barrels a day, he said.

“The economic situation is not getting better,” Verleger, 64, a professor at the niversity of Calgary and head of consultant PKVerleger LLC, said in a telephone nterview yesterday. “Global refinery runs are going to be much lower in the fall. If the recession continues and it’s a warm winter, it’s going to be devastating.”

Getting sick of dirty speculation? So is Washington:

Federal regulators moved closer on Tuesday to issuing new rules to limit oil speculation, addressing concerns that Wall Street firms may have manipulated
the price of oil through financial trading.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission held the first of three hearings to explore ways to keep financial firms from amassing such large positions in energy markets that they have outsized power to affect prices.

[...]

Concerns that speculators were influencing oil prices bubbled up last summer when the price of a barrel of oil spiked to an all-time high. At the time, the CFTC leadership was not interested in pursuing new regulations to limit speculation. And the agency issued a controversial report suggesting that the rising oil prices were the result of natural factors of supply and demand.

Gensler, who became chairman in May, has said he thinks speculators
have helped to boost the price of oil. In the interview, he said he hopes that his agency could officially propose new rules in the fall to govern energy speculation. The price of oil has increased by about 50 percent this year.

One factor that may play into the debate is a report the CFTC is scheduled to release next month about the types of firms, such as banks and hedge funds, that hold big positions in energy investments. CFTC officials said the report, which will be updated periodically, is not expected to cast judgment on whether speculation is influencing oil prices. If, however, it shows that few players dominate the market, the information could be used by those who support curbs on oil speculation.

[...]

Testifying at Tuesday's CFTC hearing were several key market participants,
including the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, which represents companies that buy fuel. The association endorsed new limits.

"It is abundantly clear that large-scale, institutional investors speculating in the energy markets continue to act as the driving force behind energy prices," said Sean Cota, treasurer of the association.

Just how big of finks are the rats?

This time, Wall Street speculators — some of them recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayers' bailout money — may be to blame.

Big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and others are able to sidestep the regulations that limit investments in commodities such as oil, and they're investing on behalf of pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and other big institutional investors, in part as a hedge against rising inflation.

These investors now far outnumber big fuel consumers such as airlines and trucking companies, which try to protect themselves against price swings, and they're betting that the economy eventually will rebound, that the Obama administration's spending policies and Federal Reserve actions will trigger inflation — or both — and that oil prices will rise.

I posted this 60 Minutes clip about last year's speculative-fueled oil price climb several times; here's some noteworthy words...

"Approximately 60 to 70 percent of the oil contracts in the futures markets are now held by speculative entities. Not by companies that need oil, not by the airlines, not by the oil companies. But by investors that are looking to make money from their speculative positions," Gilligan explained.

Gilligan said these investors don't actually take delivery of the oil. "All they do is buy the paper, and hope that they can sell it for more than they paid for it. Before they have to take delivery."

"They're trying to make money on the market for oil?" Kroft asked."Absolutely," Gilligan replied. "On the volatility that exists in the market. They make it going up and down."

Here's an article from last year that describes how active Morgan Stanley is in oil speculation ALONE:

Morgan Stanley is now a major provider to wholesalers of heating oil in the Northeastern U.S. It has custody of a quarter of America's strategic reserve of
home heating oil. And it is the second-most-active U.S. seller of electric power, ahead of scores of utilities, according to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rankings.

Here's an article I found off of Peak Oil Debunked. Isn't this a coincidence? Major Wall Street banks started getting into the oil game around 2004!

A LARGE WAREHOUSE in Amsterdam may seem an unusual place to attract the City’s top traders and hedge funds. But, in the past few months, Morgan Stanley has been accumulating warehouse space in the Netherlands to store its hottest new property — oil.

[...]

Morgan Stanley may be among the most advanced of the new breed of oil speculators, but, over the past year, many banks and hedge funds have joined the
“black gold rush”. With the stock market proving lacklustre, the oil market has been a godsend for the banks, which describe it as the “new Nasdaq”.

Speculators have helped to drive oil prices to near record levels — peaking at almost $50 a barrel last month. Oil is the talk of the City with many millions of pounds being made every day, and oil traders are among the most sought-after employees.

[...]

However, this traditional equilibrium has been rocked by short-term speculators dipping in and out of the futures market. This has led to sharp rises in the price and far more volatility. Meanwhile, banks such as Morgan Stanley are also beginning to move into the physical market to buy oil — or even entire oilfields.

Morgan Stanley recently won the contract to supply fuel to United Airlines, and Goldman Sachs recently bought 10m barrels of oil.

A senior oil company executive said: “Even within this firm, the mechanics of the market are not widely understood. When oil prices go up, everyone talks about fundamentals and geopolitics, but the role of speculators and banks is now very significant.”

Brewskie thought: Again, it will be made very clear that oil's recent price climb has had nadda bearing on my life. In fact, as I've posted in the past, the $100+ bs of last year was something barely noticed in my budget, so I could care less if oil sits in the $60-$70 price-range; it can sit here permanently for all I care. In fact, if you look on the bright side, higher energy prices increase people's interest and motivation in energy, in alternative energy. Let's not forget what happened last fall when oil dropped below $100 per barrel: people thought it was a bargain. So is $60-$70 oil expensive? Hardly, please.

In the end, I'm simply making a logical argument that, oil's recent price has been tied to manipulative market speculation, not true supply and demand fundamentals; thus, it's in my strongest belief oil's price will inevitably drop.

Thanks for your distracted attention!

- Brewskie

Chesapeake's Gas Production Growth Continues Unabated

2009-07-31T14:46:00.001-07:00

So much for cheap gas and oversupply: Chesepeake Energy Energy Corp., America's largest independent gas producer, saw production grow 5% in the second-quarter compared to a year ago:

Production grew 4% from the first quarter of the year, and proved reserves grew 5.7% from a year ago.

The increase signals that Chesapeake is apparently abandoning the strategy it adopted earlier this spring of turning off some of its wells due to low prices. Prices haven't improved much since April, when the company said it was shutting down about 13% of its production, but the company has nonetheless turned those wells back on.

[...]

Chesapeake warned, however, that the industry may be forced to shut off some wells later this year as storage facilities and pipelines fill up, leaving no room for more gas. Earlier on Thursday, the Energy Information Administration reported that the amount of gas in storage had risen 71 billion cubic feet in the past week to more than 3 trillion cubic feet, 19% above normal.

Storage levels are rising because U.S. companies are continuing to produce more natural gas even as the recession has driven down demand for the fuel, which heats more than half of American homes and generates roughly a quarter of the nation's electricity. The glut of gas has driven the price down to under $4 per million British thermal units, from a high of more than $13 per million BTUs last year.

But in recent days, companies that have reported big production gains have seen their share prices rise, despite fears that increased supplies could keep prices low. Newfield Exploration Co., for example, saw its stock jump 11% Thursday after it reported unexpectedly large production growth.

[...]

Chesapeake saw some of its biggest production gains in the Haynesville Shale, a massive natural-gas field in northern Louisiana and East Texas that the company discovered last year. Chesapeake's production there grew 85% in the second quarter from the first quarter.

- Brewskie

Planck's Law Breaks at the Nanoscale

2009-07-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

Planck's Law has long been the final word on the transfer of heat between two objects. Physicists, however, have long predicted this law breaks down when objects are very close. Now amidst the heavenly glow of Next Big Future, researchers have found heat transfers can be 1,000 times greater than Planck's Law allows:

The new findings could lead to significant new applications, including better design of the recording heads of the hard disks used for computer data storage, and new kinds of devices for harvesting energy from heat that would otherwise be wasted. By using the glass (silica) beads, they were able to get separations as small as 10 nanometers (10 billionths of a meter, or one-hundredth the distance achieved before), and are now working on getting even closer spacings.

The new findings could also help in the development of new photovoltaic energy conversion devices to harness photons emitted by a heat source, called thermophovoltaic, Chen says. "The high photon flux can potentially enable higher efficiency and energy density thermophovoltaic energy converters, and new energy
conversion devices," he says.

Next Big Future had a post on micron gap thermal photovoltaics, an obvious beneficiary of this discovery, posted earlier.

Thermal photovoltaics use solar cells to convert the light that radiates from a hot surface into electricity. The first applications will be generating electricity from waste heat, eventually the technology could be used to generate electricity from sunlight far more efficiently than solar panels do. In such a system, sunlight is concentrated on a material to heat it up, and the light it emits is then converted into electricity by a solar cell.

In a thermal photovoltaic system, light is concentrated onto a material to heat it up. The material is selected so that when it gets hot, it emits light at wavelengths that a solar cell can convert efficiently. As a result, the theoretical maximum efficiency of a thermal photovoltaic system is 85 percent.

In practice, engineering challenges will make this hard to attain, but DiMatteo says that the company's computer models suggest that efficiencies over 50 percent should be possible. The prototypes aren't this efficient: they convert about 10 to 15 percent of the heat that they absorb from the glass-factory exhaust into electricity, which DiMatteo says is enough to make the devices economical.

- Brewskie

FedEx to Convert "Beater" Delivery Trucks into Hybrids

2009-07-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

FedEx plans to convert older delivery trucks into hybrids.

The company chose 92 of its 2000 and 2001 model trucks with 300,000 - 500,000 miles on them to be fitted with new hybrid drivetrains. So, not only does this approach have the benefit of reduced fuel consumption and emissions from those
92 trucks, but it also prevents 92 trucks from ending up in a trash heap.

FedEx says the upgraded trucks will have a 44 percent increase in fuel economy, a 96 percent decrease in particulate matter and a 75 percent decrease in smog-causing emissions like NOx. The trucks will be used on routes in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

- Brewskie

Energy Recovery Thirsty for New Desalination Markets

2009-07-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

The desalination guru company, Energy Recovery, has a parched throat for other things...

The Norwegian-American-Kuwaiti company – which held one of the few IPOs in greentech last year – today unfurls the PX-300, a larger, fine-tuned version of its energy capture devices for desalination plants. The PX-300 can process 300 gallons per minute, or more than its earlier versions.

The new device will likely be deployed in arrays in the large seawater desalination plants being currently constructed or planned in Australia, the Middle East and China where the flow can reach tens of thousands of gallons per minute. Energy Recovery commands approximately 70 percent of the market for its component, said Richard Stover, the company's CTO.

Resorts on the Red Sea and Baja are big purchasers of the systems. "In some of these places, there is no infrastructure," said Stover, adding that the company is also examining new markets.
Energy Recovery wants to start making equipment for brackish water desalination plants, which are more common in the U.S., as well as the emerging forward osmosis systems championed by, among others, Yale spin-out Oasys.

It is also working with Starkraft Energi in Norway to generate power through osmosis. Starkraft, optimistically, believes it could generate most of Norway's power through osmotic pressure gradients created where Norway's many streams and rivers meet the sea. The initial stage of a pilot will begin later this year.

[...]

Energy Resources in a lot of ways can be considered the weirdo of desalination. Reverse osmosis desalination is effectively an energy-intensive pressure play: Water gets forced through a fine membrane that removes seawater. Energy Recovery's machines do not remove salt. Instead, they harness the pressure in the wastewater stream that flows from reverse osmosis systems and then feed it to the pressurizing machines at the front of the process, thereby lowering the total energy required.

Exploiting this pressure drastically reduces the amount of energy required to purify water, which in turn lowers the cost. Energy costs have been the Achilles' heel of desalination.It took around 20 kilowatt hours per cubic meter to desalinate water with traditional multi-stage systems, he said. Reverse osmosis membranes dropped that to 8 kilowatts to 10 kilowatt hours per cubic meter.

Putting a turbine in the waste stream and turning the pressure into waste stream drops it to 5 kilowatts to 6 kilowatts per cubic meter.

Energy Research's pressure harvesting technique drops it to 2 kilowatts per cubic meter. The system is also 97 percent efficient on average, which in turn makes the reverse osmosis process 60 percent efficient. Turbine systems – which convert hydraulic power to mechanical power and then to electricity – can't match that, he argued.

- Brewskie

EPA's CNG Conversion Fees are a Ripoff

2009-07-30T09:57:00.001-07:00

I noticed this little bit in a forum today. One reader commented the high cost of converting a car to CNG (an explanation of why this is is posted here) and linked a report (it's in German, sorry)about European CNG conversion which can be done for 2,000-3,000 Euros. If the federal government wants to get on the global energy playing field, plus get serious about CNG, it needs to seriously scale back those ridiculous certification fees ($100,000 per engine type; do you wonder why CNG conversion is expensive?) and encourage additional mechanics to become certified.

- Brewskie

Gas Reserves Continue to Grow

2009-07-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Pass the Beeno; US natural gas reserves continue to grow:

The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that natural gas inventories held in underground storage in the lower 48 states grew by 71 billion cubic feet to about 3.023 trillion cubic feet for the week ended July 24.

Analysts had expected an injection of between 70 billion and 74 billion cubic feet, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

The inventory level was 18.8 percent above the five-year average of about 2.545 trillion cubic feet, and 23.3 percent above last year's storage level of about 2.452 trillion cubic feet, according to the government data.

- Brewskie

Venezuelan Block May Hold 6 Billion Barrels

2009-07-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

A Venezuelan oil block, Junin 7, is being studied for resource potential; it may hold 6 billion barrels of recoverable reserves.

A Venezuelan oil block being studied by Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, and Spain's Repsol YPF SA has up to 6 billion barrels of recoverable reserves, and production at the site could begin by 2012, Venezuelan officials said Wednesday.

[...]

The so-called Junin 7 block, Chavez said, will be developed by a joint Venezuelan-Spanish company, and it will produce up to 200,000 barrels of crude a day. It will require upgrading facilities to improve the tar-like crude, he added.

PdVSA and Repsol agreed to start working together on Junin 7, located in the Orinoco oil belt in eastern Venezuela, in 2005. The Orinoco area is considered to be one of the main reserves of heavy and extra heavy crude in the world.

Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said the studies on Junin 7 could be finished this year. Once the joint-venture company is approved sometime next year, production could begin two years after that, he said.

Brewskie comment: Great, Hugo, your country found more oil. Now why don't your let your oil companies fill their vital posts with skilled oil personnel, rather than your sycophantic thugs. Oil is the lifeblood of your economy, you don't have a supply problem, or any difficulty finding oil. Have you figured out why production is around 2 mbpd, down from 3.5 mbpd before you entered power?

- Brewskie

Cranking Out Technology for More Oil

2009-07-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

Contrary to public perception, abandoned oil wells and fields still have plenty of oil in them - the problem is its heavier stuff with a thicker viscosity, making it more difficult to extract, more difficult to refine. The truth is roughly a 1/3rd of all the oil in a field is ever extracted with today's technology. Oil companies have dreamed for decades that - if the remaining 2/3rds, or even partial fraction could be extracted - it would be an industry boon that would last for decades. Here's an article that describes just such attempts:

One of the latest attempts to learn where the oil is hiding would involve injecting hundreds of millions of tiny carbon clusters deep into natural underground reservoirs, where changes to their chemical makeup would signal whether they've come across oil, water or other substances.

The clusters, referred to as "nanoreporters" and roughly 30,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, also can tell the temperature, pressure and other factors that can help a company zero in on more oil.

Major oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Marathon, are funding the research at Rice University. Scientists at Rice say they hope to begin field tests in the next year.

[...]

If oil companies could recover 50 percent of the crude in their fields instead of 35 percent, it would double the world's proven reserves of about 1.2 trillion barrels, the IEA says.

Though it could take a couple of decades to reach 50 percent, even a modest increase in the amount of oil recovered in coming years will alter the debate about peak oil — the point at which half the world's reserves have been depleted.

The debate pits those who say there's enough oil to last a hundred years or more against those who see a looming scramble for a shrinking supply. The latter group foresees supply shortages and price spikes that could cripple the global economy (pfffft... whatever).

Nansen Saleri, the former head of reservoir management for Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, said improving worldwide recovery rates by 10 to 15 percent could provide an additional 50-year supply of oil at current consumption rates.

"I'd say 15 to 20 percent (recovery) is doable, especially if you assume we're going to be in a robust price environment," said Saleri, whose Houston-based consulting business, Quantum Reservoir Impact, helps producers improve recoveries.

[...]

As they're [nanoreporters] pumped with water through a reservoir's nooks
and crannies, the molecular makeup of the Rice University nanoreporters is designed to change depending on what they encounter — petroleum, hydrogen sulfide, other substances.

The nanoreporters have tags similar to bar codes on retail packages that will tell scientists how long they've been underground — three months, six months, nine months, longer. Companies can then pinpoint where oil might be trapped. For example, if a large number of nine-month nanoreporters come across oil while three-month nanoreporters don't, scientists can assume the crude is deeper in the reservoir.

[...]

BP says advancements in technology — including gas injection — will likely allow it to recover 60 percent of the oil at its massive Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska. The original estimate three decades ago was 40 percent.

- Brewskie

Saudi Armaco Getting Smarter with Water

2009-07-29T12:07:00.001-07:00

Water injection, or waterflooding, is standard operating procedure with oil extraction: it's a way to sweep out oil in reservoirs and to maintain pressure. Don't let Matthew Simmons's freak attack of "Saudi Arabia is injecting millions of gallons of water into Ghawar" scare you; oil fields typically don't deplete until water cuts (the percentage of water the oozzes out of an oil well) crosses the 50% threshold; Ghawar's is roughly 28%.

Saudi Aramco is betting on new research to eviscerate (such a harsh, unusual term for this matter) more oil out of reservoirs. Armaco's new mojo - "Smart Water." It is indeed smart: the thought is by manipulating particular water properties - say, salinity and ionic content; the need of foreign fluids and chemicals are minimal for this - waterflooding can be enhanced by "coercing" the stubborn, rather difficult oil that prefers to stay in place by coming out, rather than staying put like a fat welfare queen stuck to a fat welfare magnet (her couch).

Read below or catch the whiff here.

Oil reservoirs are made of porous rocks, and from their microscopic pores, oil is extracted. Injecting conventional seawater displaces significant amounts of the oil from the pores. But some immovable oil remains, clinging to the rock.

Tuning water properties such as salinity and ion composition can change the tendency of remaining oil to cling to reservoir rocks, leading to additional oil recovery. That is one of the potential mechanisms that could explain the substantial increase observed in recent research.

- Brewskie

Marcellus Balloons

2009-07-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Marcellus Shale got a super size upgrade: 500 tcf.

New calculations show the Appalachian Basin's Marcellus Shale formation could yield enough natural gas to supply all U.S. needs for nearly two decades -- dramatically more than previous estimates.

Penn State University geosciences professor Terry Engelder projects nearly 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be produced from the entire formation, which is found in portions of five states, including most of Pennsylvania. Engelder published his latest estimate in the August issue of Fort Worth Oil and Gas Basin magazine.

"If the natural gas from the Marcellus could be extracted on demand, the Marcellus alone would last the U.S.A. more than 19 years, producing 489 trillion cubic feet of gas," Engelder said Monday. It was Engelder and Gary Nash, a professor at State University of New York at Fredonia, who stirred interest in the natural gas industry early in 2008 when they projected that production in the Marcellus Shale formation could bring massive expansion of the industry.

Late last year, Engelder made news with an estimate that 392 trillion cubic feet could be produced -- 13 times the amount the nation uses on an annual basis. Western Pennsylvania's average natural gas consumer uses about 98,000 cubic feet annually.

Brewskie thought: more upgrades are likely on the way.

- Brewskie

IFC to Drill More $$$ into African Oil

2009-07-29T11:42:00.001-07:00

The IFC plans to increase investment in sub-Saharan African oil and gas; it sees "'significant' opportunity in Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania."

"Africa is a focus region for us,” Kamal Dorabawila, the IFC head of oil and gas in Africa, said in an interview from Cape Town today.

The lending arm has invested in $400 million to Africa, about 19 percent of its global oil and gas total, he said.

Ghana expects to pump 500,000 barrels of oil a day by 2014 as it seeks to boost supplies to the domestic market and become Africa’s newest crude exporter. Tullow Oil Plc. has drilled 25 wells in the Lake Albert Rift Basin in Uganda since January 2006, of which 24 found oil and gas.

IFC, Standard Chartered Bank Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Societe Generale SA, Absa Group Ltd. and Calyon are among financial institutions that helped Kosmos Energy LLC get a $750 million loan to fund Ghana’s Jubilee Field phase one development.

Jubilee “is a world class oil discovery” and Ghana’s offshore is a highly prospective area, Dorabawila said.

- Brewskie

Shanghai Says to Couples, "Relax and Get Busy."

2009-07-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

Shanghai is relaxing China's One Child Policy and is encouraging couples to go for doubles.

Fears that an ageing population could be left unable to support itself mean that China's biggest city and financial centre, Shanghai, is overhauling the decades-old One Child Policy and encouraging couples to have a second baby.

Many couples will be excluded from the new diktat, but if both parents were an only child, like most newly-weds in the city, they will be encouraged to conceive again, in an effort to ensure that the city's workforce is not outnumbered by its pensioners.

The rules are already in place, but so far not enough families have taken advantage of the exception. As a result, family planning authorities are going on the offensive, putting flyers under doors and making home visits to make the case for a second baby.

- Brewskie

OriginOil's Algae Biofuel Breakthrough

2009-07-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

Yup, yup... I'm 100% cocksure that breakthroughs will make algae biofuel viable on a cost-competitive scale. It may be a few years away, perhaps as far as 10, but some herd of eggheads is going to nail this. I'm putting my ego's stock in this like I pumped it into shale gas: betting it would be abundant, it would become cheaper to produce, that it would be a viable energy source far past our lifetimes (and look what happened). So, without further ado, let's check into OriginOil's latest proclamation:

OriginOil, based in Los Angeles, just announced another potential breakthrough in getting oil from pond scum. One big difference from the spate of recent announcements in the algae-sphere: Origin’s new technology promises a better way to “milk” algae to extract their natural oils.

The upshot is that Origin uses electrical pulses to get at the oil inside algae without killing them, leaving them alive to produce more oil. Other processes rely on “harvesting” the algae, extracting the oil, then waiting for a fresh batch of algae to grow. Origin plans to merge the two methods—culling part of the algae and milking part of it.

The company says it is a low-tech and thus lower cost solution than other ideas that have been making the rounds. Most of those rely on genetically-engineering algae to excrete hydrocarbon-like liquids. And cost is still a huge issue for algae-to-oil operations, even if the cavalry is coming in the form of more government goodies.

- Brewskie

Solar Prices Shine in the Solar Glut

2009-07-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

Solar's taken a beating this year, but there's one bright spot: cheap polysilicon, thus cheap solar products. Go shoppin', frugal "stingies..."

Prices for polysilicon, the raw material used in photovoltaic solar cells, keep plunging thanks to abundant supply and weak demand. It’s not just spot prices that are falling, but renegotiated contract prices also, says New Energy Finance, London-based clean-energy analysts.

“The new contract price of silicon for delivery in 2009 is down some 50% on that contracted for a year ago and now close to the spot price of $67/kg, equivalent to $0.50 per watt,” wrote NEF in a note today. The old contract prices averaged $150 per kilogram, while spot prices had jumped to $300 per
kilogram.

That may be bad news for the companies that process silicon—they’ve been squeezed by falling prices for their product since the credit crunch and a collapse in key solar markets. But it could be good news for the sector as a whole, notes NEF:

These prices suggest that leading manufacturers of crystalline silicon PV modules can afford to sell below $2/watt and still make a small profit. This is half the price of modules in 2008, making PV much more competitive with fossil fuel-generated electricity and much more attractive under subsidy regimes designed for 2008 prices.

- Brewskie

N Dakota May Have Another Bakken

2009-07-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

Oil industry workers now speculate N Dakota may have another Bakken-like formation within her arms, the Three-Forks Spanish Formation:

The Three Forks-Sanish formation is made up of sand and porous rock directly below the Bakken shale. But geologists don't know whether the Three Forks-Sanish is a separate oil-producing formation or if it catches oil that flows from the Bakken shale above.

Fort Worth, Texas-based XTO Energy Inc. has reported to the state that one of its Three Forks wells pulled more than 2,100 barrels a day. An ETO Energy spokeswoman said the company does not comment on its operations publicly.

State and industry officials are conducting a study to determine whether the Three Forks is a unique reservoir. The plan is to compare results from closely spaced wells, one aiming for the Three Forks, and the other at the Bakken. Researchers will look at pressure changes in the formations to determine if they are connected.

Results from the study could be ready later this year, officials say. It already is spurring some speculation that the state has billions of barrels more in oil reserves.

"Eventually it could equal the Bakken, which is remarkable, and that's an understatement," Helms said.

"Is it the same or is it a separate formation? I think everybody is hoping for the latter," Harms said. "That could literally double the potential we have — a Bakken 2, if you will."

Kelso, of Whiting Petroleum, said his company's drilling activity shows that Three Forks likely is a separate formation. He said core samples taken from the Bakken and Three Forks show more hydrocarbons in the latter.

"From the core samples, Three Forks looks better for us than the Bakken," he said.

Promising production results from the Three Forks could mean that companies that come up empty in the Bakken could use existing leases to drill in the same area for Three Forks oil.

In regards to the Bakken, the latest production statistics I've crawled upon were posted in an article by Platts, stating production was at 202,000 bpd in June, thus making N Dakota the nation's fifth-largest oil producer. For a little memory recap, let's consider an assessment performed by the Oil Drum last year:

If total production amounts to only 500 million barrels, as I have suggested, this would equate to about 23 days worth of United States oil usage, spread over many, many years.

Looking at future production another way, the recent peak in production has been 75,000 barrels of oil per day (discussed in more detail below). Even if operators are able to triple this amount, the resulting production of 225,000 barrels a day (which would be a considerable challenge), will amount to only about 1.1% of US oil consumption, assuming the US uses about 20.7 barrels of oil a day, based on EIA data.

If we can reach 225,000 barrels of oil per day, the history of Bakken suggest this level would be short-lived - the peak production will probably last for a year or less - because as we shall see below, total Bakken production can be expected to decline to 50% or less of its peak rate within a few years, because of the steep decline rate of individual wells.

The 202,000 bpd production is N Dakota's share alone; the Bakken Formation stretches into Montana and Saskatchewan. Although production statistics of the two territories have not been found, it seems safe to assert 24,000 bpd has been squeezed between the two, and the Drum's bumbling forecast has turned out naught. Even if Bakken's ultimate production turns out modest - say, 400,00 bpd - this will still incinerate the Drum's seasoned forecasters; and now, it seems, Bakken has a big sibling.

- Brewskie

Turning Crusty Mines into Geothermal Powerhouses

2009-07-27T11:21:00.003-07:00

Research suggests one way to help former mining towns, economically depressed from a mine's closure, is to turn the once sure-fire cash source into a geothermal power source.

"One way of making use of low-intensity geothermal energy is to convert mine shafts into geothermal boilers, which could provide heating and hot water for people living nearby", Rafael Rodríguez, from the Oviedo Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering, tells SINC. This type of energy, which is hardly used in Spain, is obtained from the internal heat of the Earth.

The engineer and his colleague María Belarmina Díaz have developed a "semi-empirical" method (part mathematical and part experimental) to calculate the amount of heat that could be produced by a mine tunnel that is due to be abandoned, based on studies carried out while it is still in use.

[...]

The study looks into geothermal exploitation of a two-kilometre-long mine shaft, in which the temperature of the rocks 500m below the surface is around 30º C. This is typical of many of the mining areas in Asturias, although it could also be applied to other parts of the world. Water could be forced in through tubes at 7º C and return at 12º C, a big enough heat gain to be of benefit to towns located above the mines.

Rodríguez and Díaz highlight the benefits of building geothermal boilers in mine shafts in that, aside from their predictable energy production levels, they also function practically as an open tube system "but without any risk of heat
contamination of aquifers".

- Brewskie

Can Hydrocarbons Form Deep in the Earth Without Organisms?

2009-07-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

Weird science now suggests the possibility that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons do synthesize in the upper mantle:

The research was conducted by scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues from Russia and Sweden, and is published in the July 26, advanced online issue of Nature Geoscience.

Methane (CH4) is the main constituent of natural gas, while ethane (C2H6) is used as a petrochemical feedstock. Both of these hydrocarbons, and others associated with fuel, are called saturated hydrocarbons because they have simple, single bonds and are saturated with hydrogen. Using a diamond anvil cell and a laser heat source, the scientists first subjected methane to pressures exceeding 20 thousand times the atmospheric pressure at sea level and temperatures ranging from 1,300 F° to over 2,240 F°. These conditions mimic those found 40 to 95 miles deep inside the Earth. The methane reacted and formed ethane, propane, butane, molecular hydrogen, and graphite. The scientists then subjected ethane to the same conditions and it produced methane. The transformations suggest heavier hydrocarbons could exist deep down. The reversibility implies that the synthesis of saturated hydrocarbons is thermodynamically controlled and does not require organic matter.

[...]

The hydrocarbon products did not change for many hours, but the tell-tale chemical signatures began to fade after a few days.

Professor Kutcherov, a coauthor, put the finding into context: "The notion that hydrocarbons generated in the mantle migrate into the Earth's crust and contribute to oil-and-gas reservoirs was promoted in Russia and Ukraine many years ago. The synthesis and stability of the compounds studied here as well as heavier hydrocarbons over the full range of conditions within the Earth's mantle now need to be explored. In addition, the extent to which this 'reduced' carbon survives migration into the crust needs to be established (e.g., without being oxidized to CO2). These and related questions demonstrate the need for a new experimental and theoretical program to study the fate of carbon in the deep Earth."

- Brewskie

Holy Fast Fracin'

2009-07-27T10:38:00.000-07:00

"Faster-cheaper, faster-cheaper." It sounds like a train going over railroad tracks. That's the new-borne and permanent fate of shale gas. ExxonMobil is brandishing a shale gas fracing technique, one that significantly cuts shale gas drilling costs, and cuts fracing time from weeks down to mere days (link):

In the 1980s, frac jobs could take months. Now a complicated frac typically takes a couple of weeks. Exxon's Tolman developed a method to fracture a Piceance Basin well in three days, and he thinks he can compress it to 24 hours.

The key is to conduct every activity simultaneously. Everybody thought that was impossible until Tolman persuaded his colleagues to experiment.

While working on a natural gas well in La Barge, Wyo., in the 1980s, Tolman noticed something strange. Natural gas was flowing out of the well without pushing out or damaging the wire that operators had dropped into the well.

Years later, while descending an elevator at Exxon's corporate building in Houston, Tolman had an idea. Why not use this phenomenon to perform simultaneous functions on a well? That's exactly what he is doing at the site in Colorado.

Plenty of other natural gas producers operate wells in the Piceance Basin, but Exxon controls the sweet spot on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management.

The company has been producing small amounts of natural gas in the basin since the 1950s, with interests on 300,000 acres, holding enough gas to heat 50 million homes for a decade.

Exxon began a significant expansion here in 2007, after scientists developed drilling and fracing methods that could make the operations profitable. Exxon now operates seven rigs in the Piceance Basin and produces 100 million cubic feet a day. Project executive Branch said the company could eventually increase to 1 billion cubic feet a day.

- Brewskie

The Biofuel Breakthrough to End All Biofuel Breakthroughs?

2009-07-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

I'm called a cornucopian in the subject of our planet's energy matters; however, Joule Biotechnologies, you guys take the cake. These guys could be geniuses or fools... a process, apparently, that can make 20,000 gallons of biofuel per acre, per year, and is supposedly cost-competitive with $50 oil. Is this too good to be true?

Read below or assimilate the full info. here.

Joule Biotechnologies grows genetically engineered microorganisms in specially designed photobioreactors. The microorganisms use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into ethanol or hydrocarbon fuels (such as diesel or components of gasoline). The organisms excrete the fuel, which can then be collected using conventional chemical-separation technologies.

If the new process, which has been demonstrated in the laboratory, works as well on a large scale as Joule Biotechnologies expects, it would be a marked change for the biofuel industry. Conventional, corn-grain-based biofuels can supply only a small fraction of the United States' fuel because of the amount of land, water, and energy needed to grow the grain. But the new process, because of its high yields, could supply all of the country's transportation fuel from an area the size of the Texas panhandle. "We think this is the first company that's had a real solution to the concept of energy independence," says Bill Sims, CEO and president of Joule Biotechnologies. "And it's ready comparatively soon."

The company plans to build a pilot-scale plant in the southwestern U.S. early next year, and it expects to produce ethanol on a commercial scale by the end of 2010. Large-scale demonstration of hydrocarbon-fuels production would follow in 2011.

[...]

The new approach would also be a big improvement over cellulose-based biofuels. Cellulosic materials, such as grass and wood chips, could yield far more fuel per acre than corn, and recent studies suggest these fuel sources could replace about one-third of the fossil fuels currently used for transportation in the United States. But replacing all fossil fuels with cellulose-based biofuels
could be a stretch, requiring improved growing practices and a vast improvement
in fuel economy.

Algae-based biofuels come closest to Joule's technology, with potential yields of 2,000 to 6,000 gallons per acre; yet even so, the new process would represent an order of magnitude improvement. What's more, for the best current algae fuels technologies to be competitive with fossil fuels, crude oil would have to cost over $800 a barrel says Philip Pienkos, a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. Joule claims that its process will be competitive with crude oil at $50 a barrel. In recent weeks, oil has sold for $60 to $70 a barrel.

Joule's process seems very similar to approaches that make biofuels using algae, although the company says it is not using algae. The company's microorganisms can be grown inside transparent reactors, where they're circulated to ensure that they all get exposed to sunlight, and they are fed concentrated carbon dioxide--which can come from a power plant, for example--and other nutrients. (The company's mioreactor is a flat panel with an area about the size of a sheet of plywood.) While algae typically produce oils that have to be refined into fuels, Joule's microorganisms produce fuel directly--either ethanol or hydrocarbons. And while oil is harvested from algae by collecting and processing the organisms, Joule's organisms excrete the fuel continuously, which could make harvesting the fuel cheaper.

David Berry, one of the company's founders and a board member, says the organism they use was selected and modified to work well in a bioreactor, and the bioreactor was designed with the specific organism in mind. He adds that the company carefully considered issues such as the organism's response to heat, and the reactor was built to keep the heat within bearable limits. Overheating has been a problem with
bioreactors in the past.

This is an entertaining read; however, until fate is fully able to judge the merits accordingly, I'm choosing to default to the skeptic's chair. This is way too pollyanish. Regardless, let's hope fate
reflects your proclamation. If so, you'll put me out of business far earlier than expected...

- Brewskie

Halliburton Goes Gangbusters in Chicontepec

2009-07-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

(Blogger's note: It will be made very clear that Halliburton - a virus of a company that nefariously piggy-backs Uncle Sam's dime in the Iraqi War, and under some operations, actually costs the taxpayer more money (than if than if the matter was conducted by the military itself) - is a company not endorsed by the blog. Again, while it shall be stated that Ghawar Guzzler is not a political blog, the blogger never endorsed the Iraqi War, nor the war-profiteers who've gained from it)

Halliburton plans to drill 170 wells in Chicontepec:

Petroleos Mexicanos has awarded Halliburton Co. a $159 million contract to drill 170 wells in Mexico's Chicontepec region, marking the Houston-based company's debut in an area where its main competitors have an established presence.

Pemex, as Mexico's state oil company is known, said the contract will last three years and involve four drilling rigs. Mexico is ramping up activity at Chicontepec to compensate for declining production at the country's traditional oil fields.

Pemex expects Chicontepec to pump 40,000 barrels a day in August and 60,000 barrels a day by the end of the year. At the start of 2009 the company had higher expectations of 70,000 barrels a day on average; it expects over 700,000 bpd by 2017.

- Brewskie

14 Trillion Cubic Feet: Namibia's Blue Gold Strike

2009-07-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

I won't have much news today, but here's a gold strike: Russian oil and gas exploration company Sintezneftegaz discovered what could be a 14 trillion cubic feet gas reservoir off the western coast of Namibia.

Russian oil and gas exploration company Sintezneftegaz (also rendered as Sintezneftgaz in western script) has discovered what could be a major natural gas reservoir off the coast of Namibia. According to Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy Petroleum Commissioner Immanuel Mulunga the find could be a “gas resource of up to 14-trillion cubic feet”.

Quoted by upstreamonline.com, he added that it “was not possible to fully evaluate the hydrocarbon potential of the penetrated sections due to operational problems during testing.

The reservoir quality of the tested zones was not very good, perhaps due to nearby igneous activity.”If the estimated size of the new discovery proves to be accurate, it will be some ten times larger than Namibia’s Kudu gas field, which has reserves of some 1,3-trillion cubic feet. Kudu is expected to come into production in 2013.

The strike was made by the Kunene-1 well in offshore exploration Block 1711 in the Kunene Prospect region of the Namibian Basin. This lies on the northern part of Namibia’s continental shelf and forms part of the Kwanza-Cameroon oil and gas-bearing province.

- Brewskie

Recharge Your Nissan EV Via Wireless Recharger

2009-07-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Nissan wants to leapfrog its competitors and gun for EVs that can be recharged without a cord. Good, bad?

Nissan wants to follow the route of the electric toothbrush – that is, invent a way for us to charge EVs (or their EVs, at least), using a wireless charger. Electric toothbrush batteries are refueled by inducing a charge without actually making contact between battery and electricity source.

So, too, Nissan hopes that one day we can park electric cars over a scaled-up version of the same charger, and refuel them without lifting a finger.However, there’s a reason that we only use induction chargers for the occasional piece of technology such as the toothbrush, and don’t use them for most mobile electronic devices (ok, with the exception of the Palm Pre): they take longer to charge, and they are more expensive and complex than a simple wire plug.

Obviously, though, Nissan’s engineers know all that. And Nissan is certainly going to be sticking to conventional plugs for now – they are unveiling their 2012 model EV on August 2, and although they claim that it was designed to be compatible with future induction technology, it will be charged by a regular plug. And Nissan’s partner Renault is busy designing cars to work with Better Place’s system, which most certainly involves a physical cord.

[...]

In fact, Nissan’s vision goes beyond just parking spots. Nissan sees an even wider system of wireless charging, built into the very roads that we drive on, so that we can refuel as we drive. Sound farfetched and inefficient? Perhaps, but what if you got stuck in a traffic jam, and your battery began to dwindle? Would you pay a little extra to be able to charge on the go in those situations?

- Brewskie

Columbia Announces Largest Oil Field in its History

2009-07-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

It's oil, oil, oil today; burning petroleum is blazing up the bandwidth. Columbia announced an upward reserve projection of an oil field: 500 million barrels, up from 100 million (link).

A Colombian oil field, operated by state petroleum company Ecopetrol ECO.CN and Canada's Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp, is estimated by the government to have 500 million barrels in reserves.

If the estimate is correct, it would make the field, located in the southern province of Meta, the biggest in Colombia. The Andean country is in a race against time to discover reserves in order to avoid becoming a net petroleum importer.

"Rubiales' reserves, which were initially estimated at 100 million barrels, today are estimated at 500 million barrels," Energy Minister Hernan Martinez said late Wednesday.

- Brewskie

46 Fields: Iran's Caspian Sea Blowout

2009-07-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

Despite its reputation as an oil development headache, Iran has recently reported the discovery of 46 oil fields within the Caspian Sea:

Iran's Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said that his country located 46 oil fields in the Caspian Sea, the satellite Press TV reported on Thursday.

"Eight of the fields (out of 46) are presently ready for exploitation," Nozari was quoted as saying.

On Thursday, Iran launched its domestically-built semi-submersible drilling rig in the Caspian Sea for the exploration of oil and gas reserves.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad participated in the inaugural ceremony of the semi-submersible rig called Iran-Alborz, the largest in the Middle East, according to another report by Press TV.

Reportedly, the semi-floating rig weighs 14,000 tons and will facilitate oil exploration in the southern part of the Caspian Sea. It can operate at water depths up to 1,030 meters and can drill down to 6,000 meters under the seabed.

After winning the international tender offered by the National Iranian Oil Company for the construction of the Iran-Alborz platform in 2002, the (Iranian) Sadra Group, with a 95 percent of share, kicked off the project in a joint venture with the Swedish company GVA, which held another 5 percent of share, Press TV said.

Iran also plans to build a new oil pipeline linking the northern port of Neka in the Caspian Sea to the southern port of Jask in the Sea of Oman, Press TV quoted Nozari as saying.

According to the report, Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Noureddin Shahnazizadeh had said earlier that initial studies for the 2-billion-U.S.-dollar pipeline had been concluded and that the ministry would move to sign a contract soon.

Earlier in the year, Iran reported whopper-sized mega-finds, and years prior, made headlines with the discovery of the Ferdows and Mound/Zageh Fields.

- Brewskie

Single Atom Substitution in Water Purfication Process Gives Purified Water Long Shelf Life

2009-07-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

Amazing what a persnickety touch to the science of the minute yields:

By substituting a single atom in a molecule widely used to purify water, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created a far more effective decontaminant with a shelf life superior to products currently on the market.

The water-treatment reagent, known as a coagulant, is made by substituting an atom of gallium in the center of an aluminum oxide cluster — itself a commonly used coagulant in water purification, says Nyman.

The substitution isn’t performed atom by atom using nanoscopic tweezers but rather uses a simple chemical process of dissolving aluminum salts in water, gallium salts into a sodium hydroxide solution and then slowly adding the sodium hydroxide solution to the aluminum solution while heating.

“The substitution of a single gallium atom in that compound makes a big difference,” said Nyman. “It greatly improves the stability and effectiveness of the reagent. We’ve done side-by-side tests with a variety of commercially available products. For almost every case, ours performs best under a wide range of conditions.”

[...]

The Sandia coagulant attracts and binds contaminants so well because it maintains its electrostatic charge more reliably than conventional coagulants made without gallium, itself a harmless addition.

The new material also resists converting to larger, less-reactive aggregates before it is used. This means it maintains a longer shelf life, avoiding the problem faced by related commercially available products that aggregate over time.

“The chemical substitution [of a gallium atom for an aluminum atom] has been studied by Sandia’s collaborators at the University of California at Davis, but nobody has ever put this knowledge to use in an application such as removing water contaminants like microorganisms,” said Nyman.

- Brewskie

Gas Glut Can't Stop Gas Development

2009-07-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

The WSJ has a post on the gas glut. It lists three impressive gas developments in process:

» If the emergence of big new gas fields such as the Haynesville, Barnett and Horn River weren’t enough, now comes the Granite Wash. It’s not a newfangled nconventional gas field, but its yielding some big wells. Newfield Exploration said on Wednesday night that its first seven horizontal wells in the Granite Wash play that straddles the Texas/Oklahoma border had average initial production rates of 22 million cubic feet a day. Those are big, big wells.

» Add another growing gas field that you probably never heard of: the Eagle Ford. Down in South Texas, near Laredo, companies are beginning to drill horizontal wells into the shale formation with encouraging results. A couple weeks ago, St. Mary Land & Exploration said one well was flowing at the oil and gas equivalent of 5.6 million cubic feet a day. More news should be coming when Petrohawk, an Eagle Ford participant reports its earning in the next few weeks.

» Range Resources recently said that its development of the Marcellus Shale, a big wedge of gas-bearing rock that covers much of Pennsylvania and bits of adjacent states, was going very well. The company is producing the oil and gas equivalent of 50 million cubic feet a day from the Marcellus – and expects to nearly double that by year-end 2009 and double it again by year end 2010.

- Brewskie

Occidental Nails California's Largest Discoveries in Decades

2009-07-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, before we get ahead of ourselves, let's first clarify this is not Prudhoe Bay, the East Texas Oil Field, Wilmington or even Thuderhorse. But it's a respectable find, particularly for a state long past its oil glory: 150 million to 250 million barrels of oil equivalent reserves, the bulk of it in natural gas. Located in Kern County, it's the state's largest find in over 35 years.

Occidental reported earlier they were bucking conventional wisdom, looking for California crude where others saw dirt. That was July 25; who would have guessed they would strike this lucky, this quickly? And good timing, too: their second-quarter profit slumped 70%.

California-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. announced a significant discovery in the south of the state that it says is among the largest finds in 35 years.

Occidental said it made new discoveries in Kern County, Calif. The U.S. energy giant said it believes there are between 150 million and 250 million barrels of oil equivalent reserves in the discovery area.

Ray Irani, chairman and chief executive officer at Occidental, said it is "probable" there are additional resources in place outside the delineated area, which it plans to explore within the next five years.

The bulk of the reserves in the discovery zone are in natural gas. Irani lauded the discovery as one of the biggest finds in decades.

"We believe this to be the largest new oil and gas discovery made in California in more than 35 years," he said.

- Brewskie

DNA-derived LEDs

2009-07-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

You first heard of the florscent green monkey; now we have this - light bulbs made from DNA.

By adding fluorescent dyes to DNA and then spinning the DNA strands into nanofibers, researchers at the University of Connecticut have made a new material that emits bright white light. The material absorbs energy from ultraviolet light and gives off different colors of light--from blue to orange to white--depending on the proportions of dye it contains.

The researchers, led by chemistry professor Gregory Sotzing, create white-light-emitting devices by coating ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with the material. They are even able to fine-tune the white color tone to make it warm or cold, as they report in a paper published online in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

The new material could be used to make a novel type of organic light bulb. The light emitters should also be longer-lasting because DNA is a very strong polymer, Sotzing says. "It's well beyond other polymers [in strength]," he notes, adding that it lasts 50 times longer than acrylic.

The color-tunable DNA material relies on an energy-transfer mechanism between two different fluorescent dyes. The key is to keep the dye molecules separated at a distance of 2 to 10 nanometers from each other. When UV light is shined on the material, one dye absorbs the energy and produces blue light. If the other dye molecule is at the right distance, it will absorb part of that blue-light energy and emit orange light.

- Brewskie

America's "Phantom Oil"

2009-07-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Robert Rapier is an all-star today... two posts from the venerable energy guru. This goes way back to 2006, and you have to give kudos for this: Robert Rapier's accidental extra credit homework deserves a gold-plated grade "A."

Skeptics a plenty have long not trusted Saudi Arabia - or other OPEC members, for that matter - for their subterfuge data, that is, not openly revealing hard data to back reserve claims. "If Saudi Arabia really has 262 bb of oil," they say, "why are they so ambiguous about revealing their data; why don't they cough up proof if they really have oceans of black goo?"

While surreptitious statistics are fair to question, America's own production statistics, Rapier indicates, haven't exactly mirrored its reserve estimates. Robert goes into detail,

In 1982, U.S. reserves were 27.858 billion barrels. In 2005, U.S. reserves were 21.757 billion barrels. So we drew down our reserves by 6 billion barrels. Imagine my shock to discover our production over that time period. What would you guess? Six billion barrels? Ten? In fact, oil production from these reserves since 1982 totals 56.9 billion barrels! Amazingly, in the past 24 years we have produced 57 billion barrels of oil and pulled our reserves down by only 6 billion barrels. That seems incredible, but it appears that this is what has happened.

Amazing, isn't it? From 1982 to 2005, the US managed to produce 56.9 billion barrels of oil, despite only "using" 6 billion barrels of official reserves. We had over 50 bb sitting under our dirt we didn't know about.

Considering Saudi Arabia has additional fields in development, more offshore fields in its grasp (including Safaniya, the world's largest), and considering America's own "oil miracle" derived from 27.8 bb of official reserves, the concept of Saudi (and OPEC in general) still loaded with plenty of oil doesn't seem so far fetch. While it's possible Saudi Arabia doesn't possess 262 bb, my wager says its reserves are a lot higher than Jeffrey Brown's guesstimate of 70 bb.

- Brewskie

House Okays $150 Million CNG Program; Why CNG Conversion is Expensive

2009-07-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

Several bits on natural gas. First, the US House of Representatives passed a $150 million for a five-year program aimed at CNGV research:

By a vote of 393-35, the House passed the bill that authorizes the Energy department to conduct a five-year program of natural gas vehicle research, development and demonstration, authorizing $30 million annually starting in the
2010 budget year.

The research program is to aid "the continued improvement and development of new, cleaner, more efficient light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty natural gas vehicle engines."

The bill also seeks to improve the reliability and efficiency of natural gas fueling station infrastructure and boost the use of natural gas engines in hybrid vehicles.
The bill was written by Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla.

Secondly, Robert Rapier recently posted an email from Marc J. Rauch, Executive Vice President of the Auto Channel, explaining why CNGV conversion is so costly:

One thing that I would like to add (assuming that you didn't already know this or learn it since posting your piece), is that the cost of CNG conversions for existing vehicles is as high as it is because of EPA licensing requirements. For an individual (or shop) to be licensed to do a conversion, the person must pay $10,000 per year, per engine type, per year of manufacture. So that if a conversion shop wanted to do conversions in 2009 for Camrys for the years 1995 to 2005, the shop owner would have to pay the government $100,000 in licensing fees. Then, if he wanted to do conversions on the same models in 2010, he would have to pay the $100,000 again, even though they are the exact same models and engines that he has been licensed on already. And if there is more than one engine involved, i.e., a 6-cylinder and 8-cylinder, the cost would double.

Therefore, if a shop owner wanted to do 10 model years of Camrys and Corollas and Celicas, and well as Honda Accords and Civics, unless there were common engines being used in these five models the licensing cost (for just one engine per) would be a half million dollars, which would have to be paid again in 2010. These fees are, needless to say, ridiculous and are only there to ensure that many don't get done (thanks to the gasoline lobby). The cost of the conversion kits are actually relatively inexpensive. If there was a sensible licensing fee (or no fee) the cost for the work could be just a few hundred dollars.

Marc also goes further saying there is a relative shortage of trained CNGV mechanics, though there's no shortage of mechanics willing to learn, and academic programs are in already in place, or are coming in place.

Several readers of this blog are adamant of integrating additional CNGVs, and CNG fueling stations. This is of the blogger's opinion, but if the federal government wants to get real about instituting CNGvs, it should greatly relax the EPA's stringent licensing fees to further encourage additional shops to become CNGV certified (though tax credits for fueling stations should be wholesomely welcomed). Otherwise, CNGV certified shops will likely gear themselves to the conversion of fleet vehicles, where money can be made, and be slow to warm to commuter vehicle conversion. This, rather than the research program, will likely spurn better health into the CNGV market.

- Brewskie

Reva, the $12,000 Electric Car

2009-07-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

Yup, this car too is manufactured in the land of Tata Motors, the maker of the Nano - India (link).

Family-owned Reva Electric Car is building a new factory 25 miles (40 km) south of its Bangalore headquarters to mass-produce the Reva hatchback, a two-passenger city car priced at little over $12,000 that the company has been selling in India and Europe since 2001. When production begins next January, the new factory will be the world's largest for low-cost electric cars; annual capacity is expected to hit 30,000 cars within three years. "The opportunity today is very high," says Chetan Maini, Reva's vice chairman and chief
technology officer.

[...]

The Indian company, however, aims to leverage low production costs to build simple, cheap vehicles and sell them in India, Europe and, within five years, the U.S. The Reva, branded the G-Wiz in Europe, costs about $12,200 there and about $7,000 in India. The pint-size commuter vehicles are powered by lead-acid batteries, which provide about 50 miles (80 km) of driving per charge. Top speed is about 50 m.p.h.

The cars haven't exactly taken the world by storm. Reva — which has received venture capital from Draper Fisher Jurveston, the Global Environment Fund and Mellon HBV Master Global Event Drive Fund — has sold only 3,000 cars over the past eight years. Half of those have been exported to Europe, mainly to London.

But Reva officials say they are improving their cars and plan to sell 8,000 vehicles next year after the new factory opens. In May, the company began equipping Revas with more-powerful lithium-ion batteries that increase range to 75 miles (120 km). A new model with sportier looks and upgraded electronics is expected to be launched by 2010.

- Brewskie

BP Burns the Jatropha Mirage

2009-07-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

I may be eventually proven wrong, but I've never had any faith that jatropha would prove itself as a viable biofuel crop. Kids can grow on a marginal diet; that doesn't mean they thrive (link).

BP has indeed given up on jatropha, the shrub once touted as the great hope for biofuels, and walked away from its jatropha joint venture for less than $1 million.

Speculation abounded this summer that BP was ready to jettison its participation in the project with British partner partner D1 Oils. The original plan called for the investment of $160 million to turn the jatropha tree into feedstock to make transportation fuel. Now, BP will turn its alternative-fuel efforts toward ethanol in Brazil and the U.S., as well as biobutanol.

The not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper end to BP’s jatropha adventure underscores a couple of key points. First, the inedible but hardy plant that just a few years ago seemed like it could revolutionize biofuels has turned into a bust. The initial attraction was that it grows on marginal land, so it wouldn’t compete with food crops. But marginal land means marginal yields. And jatropha turned out to be a water hog as well, further darkening its environmental credentials.

Second, for all the ink spilt over jatropha—and Big Oil’s interest in biofuels in general—the value of some of those investments really is miniscule. D1 Oils will buy out BP’s half of the venture for 500,000 pounds—less than the price of a nice apartment in London—even though the joint venture is apparently worth more than 7 million pounds.

And this wasn’t a piddling venture, as far as jatropha experiments go: Reuters notes that BP and D1 Oils planted more than 200,000 hectares of the stuff—25% of the worldwide jatropha planting.

Twenty-five percent? That's a lot.

- Brewskie

Europe Goes Unconventional

2009-07-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Nubucco Pipeline, the Middle East, N Africa and now shale gas. Russia, Yugoslavia - you guys better work out your differences, or Europe is going to leave you out in the cold (link).

Exxon Mobil Corp. is now exporting expertise and technology it developed in North America to gas markets in Europe. In Germany, for example, drilling and testing activity on licenses covering 1.3 million acres of the Lower Saxony Basin started in 2008.

The company also has a joint exploration program with MOL Hungarian Oil & Gas PLC in the Mako Trough in southeast Hungary. It will evaluate its findings for two to three years before deciding whether production would be commercially viable, the company said.

Meanwhile, the U.K.'s biggest gas supplier, Centrica PLC is moving beyond its traditional emphasis on searching for gas under the sea by looking to former mines to tap coal-bed methane.

It plans to drill two exploration wells in 2010, rising to eight by 2014. It has three onshore U.K. licenses in South Wales. Centrica cautions there is still a long lead period before coal bed methane, or CBM, can be produced on any commercial scale.

[...]

The volume of unconventional gas isn't yet significant on a U.K.-wide scale, supplying enough electricity for only 1,200 homes, but the potential is there, analysts say. Some forecasts suggest unconventional gas could make up 10% of U.K. supplies by 2020.

A recent report by energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie said production of CBM in the U.K. is commercially feasible at the current gas price as well as under longer-term projections. The report estimated there could be as much as four trillion cubic feet of gas available in the Cheshire Basin, at the heart of the U.K. gas market.

Another independent, 3Legs Resources from the Isle of Man, has licenses covering more than a million acres in the Baltic Basin region of Poland, where it is targeting shale gas. Company Director Kamlesh Parmar said that 3Legs has started field work to obtain seismic data in the region and plans to drill its first exploration well in early 2010.

Despite uncertainty over the scope of European resources, Wood Mackenzie's manager of unconventional gas research, Rhodri Thomas, said "there could be a material impact on European markets in 10 years plus if unconventional gases do take off."

- Brewskie

OPEC: World Will Need Less of Our Oil

2009-07-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

OPEC believes the world will be less reliant on the group's crude oil for a while...

OPEC says the world will need less crude oil from the group in 2013 than it did last year as the lingering impact of recession crimps demand and rising biofuels supply makes up for shrinking production elsewhere.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose members supply about 40 percent of the world’s oil, slashed its forecast for global oil consumption in 2013 by 5.7 million barrels to 87.9 million barrels a day. OPEC will have to produce 31 million barrels of crude daily in 2013 to satisfy demand, compared with 31.2 million barrels last year, it predicted in an annual report today.
“There is a growing perception that the economic slowdown will be U-shaped,
that is the recovery will gather momentum only gradually,” the group’s Vienna-based secretariat said in its World Oil Outlook published today. OPEC sees demand for its crude “rising slowly over the medium term, returning back to 2008 levels by around 2013.”

- Brewskie

Super-Sipping Data Centers

2009-07-20T11:34:00.001-07:00

Data centers are known for their energy hog reputations. Doomers' Armageddon energy-depletion scenarios envision data centers, known for their finicky dependence on generous air-conditioning, sparking out because a lack of power, or the grid giving out, thus cutting off air-conditioning and fizzling out the Internet like a B&W TV shutting off. A Saratoga-based startup has developed a splendid memory chip, which they claim can replace data centers' hard drives, and use only 5% of the power of the drives. If true, you won't believe the electric bill savings (link).

And not any kind of flash memory. Sandforce's chip is particularly designed to allow multi-level cell (MLC) flash to take on corporate jobs. MLC flash can hold two or more bits in a memory cell and is the cheapest kind on the market. It's the stuff you find in cameras and MP3 players.
"Storage will be free if they [corporate owners] take the total cost of ownership into account," said CEO Alex Navqi. "Over five years, they amount of power saved will pay for itself in five years."

A traditional datacenter with 240 high-end drives holding approximately 73 gigabytes each could be replaced by one with 9 Sandforce-enabled drives, he said. The energy cost for storage in the traditional datacenter would cost $50,000 over five years. The Sandforce-enabled one would have a cumulative energy bill of $250.

Put another way, total storage costs per gigabyte, including energy, would come to $3.16 for hard drives and $1.43 per gigabyte. The math assumes fewer flash drives would be needed because of better input/output, he argued. On a straight comparison, a high-end 73-gigabyte hard disk would need $211 in power-including air conditioning power-over five years. A 73-gigabyte flash drive would get by on $52 of power.

[...]

The key to Sandforce's processors is that they effectively mask the technological shortcomings of MLC. Like all flash memory, MLC essentially stores data by brute force. A flash memory cell consists of a sealed silicon dioxide, or glass, tube, similar to the flask inside of a thermos. To write data to a flash cell, an electrical charge is applied that leaves a set number of electrons inside the sealed tube. To erase data, another charge is applied. Flash engineers describe the process as violent.

The problem is that the tube is getting thinner and smaller with each turn of the Moore's Law crank. Flash chips made on the 20 nanometer process, coming in a few years, may only accommodate about 20 electrons, said Navqi. Escaping electrons in turn leads to errors and data corruption.

"Every time you hit the oxide, you damage it," he said. As a result, a conventional flash drive (without the company's chips) would have to be replaced every 30 days because of the number of data rewrites.

The company's DuraClass technology gets around the problem by only rewriting the cells that require an update. An entry in a Social Security file, hypothetically, might contain 100,000 bytes. An update to the data might only affect 100 bytes. Traditional flash drives would rewrite the whole entry. DuraClass organizes the data and functionality of the chip so that only 100 bytes get impacted. In all, a DuraClass-enabled drive could last over five years with equal or better performance when it comes to data reliability under ordinary corporate pounding.

- Brewskie

US Possesses 8.3 Million Smart Meters

2009-07-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

Roughly 6% of US households now have smart meters, up from 4.7% of last year; and the number is expected to quadruple by 2011 (link).

The 8.3 million smart meters installed as of May 2009 make up more than 6 percent of the total number of residential electricity meters in the United States.

That's up from 4.7 percent penetration as of 2008, according to a December report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see Smart Meter Installations Grow Nearly Fivefold).

But the real growth is set to come in the next few years, as large-scale smart meter deployments by the country's biggest utilities - as well as smaller scale installations by hundreds of smaller cooperative, municipal and public utilities – continue, according to Bill Ablondi, Parks Associates' director of home systems research.

Smart meter penetration is expected to grow to 13.6 million by next year and more than 33 million by 2011, he said.

- Brewskie

Wind Power Potential Greater Than Initially Conceived

2009-07-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

(Big thanks to Big Gav for spying this)

A new study, according to Harvard University, suggests wind power potential greater than initially thought:

Using data from thousands of meteorological stations, the Harvard team estimated the world wind power potential to be 40 times greater than total current power consumption. A previous study cited in the paper put that multiple at about 7 times.

In the lower 48 states, the potential from wind power is 16 times more than total electricity demand in the United States, the researchers suggested – significantly greater than a 2008 Department of Energy study that projected wind could supply a fifth of all electricity in the country by 2030.

While remote regions of Russia and Canada have the greatest theoretical potential, the Harvard study pointed out that there are real gains to be made in high-emission nations, especially China, which has been rapidly constructing coal plants. “Large-scale development of wind power in China could allow for an 18-fold increase in electricity supply relative to consumption reported for 2005,” the Harvard study said.

The findings are “further validation of what we’ve been saying – that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind,” said Michael Goggin, an electricity industry analyst for the American Wind Energy Association.

The authors based their calculations on the deployment of 2.5- to 3-megawatt wind turbines situated either in accessible rural areas that are neither frozen nor forested, or relatively shallow offshore locations. They also used a conservative 20 percent estimate for capacity factor, a measure of how much energy a given turbine actually produces.

In an example of how renewable energy potential can be a moving target, Mr. Goggin explained that the growth in the forecasts can be attributed to the increasingly common use of very large turbines that rise to almost 100 meters.

Wind speeds are greater at higher elevations. Previous wind studies were based on the deployment of 50- to 80-meter turbines.

- Brewskie

Some CNG Conversion Efforts

2009-07-20T10:45:00.001-07:00

Here's an article of energy companies jumping on the CNG vehicle bandwagon:

Denver’s EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. recently converted four Ford F-250 pickups, which the company bought for the Denver-Julesburg basin north of Denver, to run on natural gas as well as gasoline. It also plans to convert the company’s 52 trucks in the area to dual-fuel capability by 2011. EnCana also has bought seven Honda Civic GXs — the only car manufactured to run on natural gas — for its employees in Colorado, Wyoming and Texas to use on the job.

• Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (NYSE: PXD), based in Irving, Texas, last winter converted 25 Ford F-250s it runs in southern Colorado’s Raton Basin to operate on natural gas as well as gasoline. In February, the company installed a refueling station for the vehicles.

• The Governor’s Energy Office has applied for a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s share of the federal stimulus package to help pay for a $27.6 million natural gas vehicle project. The money would be spent on 68 heavy-duty vehicles, such as trash trucks and buses capable of running on natural gas, and building five new natural gas refueling stations across Colorado, according to the office, which expects an answer in August.

Colorado has 18 natural gas fueling stations — 12 in the Denver area — selling compressed natural gas for as low as 80 cents for the equivalent of one gallon of gasoline.

For a little recap, let's not forget AT&T's CNG conversion effort.

- Brewskie

Range Resources Reports 14% Production Increase

2009-07-20T10:25:00.001-07:00

This article is relevant because it indicated the production potential of shale gas fields, despite what the skeptics have said. Range Resources have reported a 14% increase in production, namely from Barnett and Marcellus Shales, despite scaling back on gas drilling by HALF.

Here's the scoop:

Despite cutting drilling in half in response to a deep downturn in natural gas prices, Fort Worth-based Range Resources Corp. says its second-quarter production is up 14 percent compared to a year earlier.

The Fort Worth-based natural gas and oil exploration and production firm said it achieved the production gains primarily as a result of “better than expected drilling results” in the Barnett and Marcellus shale-gas plays, two of the nation’s primary hotbeds for drilling activity.

“Our second-quarter production and drilling results were superb,” Range Chairman and CEO John Pinkerton said in a company announcement described as an
“operations update.”

Oh well, they lost money...

Despite the strong producton numbers, Range Senior Vice President Rodney Waller said the company expects to report a net loss as a result of depressed natural gas prices and a corresponding $22 million writedown in the value of leases in the Barnett Shale.

But they're not losing gas:

Range has recorded 26 consecutive quarters of production growth, the company said. Its second-quarter production averaged the equivalent of 434 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

It is drilling in the Barnett Shale in North Texas and in the Marcellus Shale in southwestern Pennsylvania. Range has drilled and completed 46 horizontal Marcellus gas wells, of which 41 are on production.

The company estimates that 24 of the wells that have been on production for at least four months and as long as two years will yield an average of 4.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas over their producing lifetime.

- Brewskie

Brewskie Wins the Shale Gas War

2009-07-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

(Fair warning: another long one, but stay true. The peakers' shale gas argument has been buried into the peak oil landfill of failed prophecies)

Anybody who follows shale gas knows who this man is. If you don't, his name is George P. Mitchell, not to be confused with Middle East special envoy George J. Mitchell. If you see this person, you're going to run up to him and kiss him on both cheeks; the next time you hear him talk, you're going to break out in joyous tears. Why? He is the real deal. This man founded Mitchell Energy Development (now part of Devon); him and his stable of engineers pioneered modern shale gas drilling techniques, "hydraulic fracturing,"or simply, "fracing." Nobel Peace Prize, anyone?

Forbes has a great interview with the shale gas godfather. Why is this relevant? Because this man fired the final volley, the final strike, the last shot into the hearts of skeptics who say shale gas is too expensive; he vindicated Brewskie's prophecy. In a matter of months, the Barnett Shale will be cheap to produce. If the costs of Barnett can be made cheap, the cost of other shale plays can be made frugal, too.

Here's the coup de grace, peakers:

Any advice?

You've got to get your costs down. The drilling costs got out of sight. Fracturing costs got out of sight; you've got to have $4 gas to go 8,000 feet [in the Barnett]; Haynesville is more than that. ... We think we can get down from $4 to $2.50.

How long is that going to take?

I would say within eight months. I know that Devon right now is working very hard to get their costs down from $4 because a lot of their wells have to be horizontal.

Let's not forget my previously linked Robert Auilra interview, one of shale gas's most foremost experts, giving an appraisal of acceptable production costs:

ET: Speaking of prices, what is a sustainable price for natural gas? I ask because I’ve heard some producers insist that shale gas wouldn’t be profitable when prices are under $8. Now, I’m hearing $5. What’s your take on the relationship between the relatively high cost of drilling for tight gas and the market price which has been so volatile lately?

RA: My take is that $5 to $6 will work in most cases and will make most shale plays competitive.

So there you have it. Shale gas production costs are expected to come down to manageable levels, just like I prophesied. Within eight months, Barnett's production is expected to be profitable even in the current $3-something per mcf environment. This guts the peakers' final stand-by of "shale gas is too expensive." If they can slash Barnett's price-support, they can do it elsewhere. It turns out, in fact, Petrohawk was making a profit with its Haynesville wells (which Mitchell says is more costly than Barnett) at $4 mcf.

The peaktards are out of ammunition. They blew a WWII arsenal of emotion and devotion on Natural Gas Purgatory. For a trip down memory lane, let's reminiscent the Oil Drum's failed prophecies...

Here's the Drum firing the warning shot back in 2006:

Simply put, by 2010 Conventional Gas production can be half of what is today in worth America, falling from 20 Tcf/a to 10 Tcf/a. Jean doesn't hesitate to say that shortages will soon occur in this part of the world. Production already peaked in 2001, declining 5% up to 2005, so a downward trend is already there, but will that cliff unfold? Unconventional Gas production has been rising too slowly to avoid the peak, can it avoid the cliff?

Here's the Drum telling us last year, "Don't ditch the Amish farm, kid, shale gas is a false hope."

But until some solid, repeatable well data emerges, the Haynesville will remain more diamond in the rough than diamond ring.

[...]

So there you have a brief explanation of how the new technology is slowing, though it won’t stop, the declining gas reserve in the United States.

Later in the year, news of shale gas's contributions, its assistance of increasing America's natural gas production by 9% (the biggest since the late 1950s) hit the newswire. The Drum ghouls admitted their goof-up (but only a month after Nate Hagens ignorantly proclaimed increased drilling wouldn't increase gas production much):

My analysis indicates that NCI is correct in some respects. There is indeed a great deal of unconventional natural gas resources in the United States, and recent improvements in technology point to the possibility of significantly greater production.

[...]

EIA has recently reported a big increase in US natural gas production (8.8%, comparing the first five months of 2008 with the first five months of 2007). Some have suggested that the EIA numbers must be wrong. It seems to me that what we may be seeing is the effect of a recent technological breakthrough.

It's over, peakers. You've lost. You could "drum boot" me out of the Drum's forums, you could censor my now vindicated gas prophecies, you could incinerate my proclamations of shale gas's impact and how it would become cheaper to produce, you could atomize my heads' up of the gas glut (something I spoke of weeks before the mainstream press), but you cannot censor the right hand of reality. Take in the wise words of a fellow colleague, Robert Rapier: "we have enough natural gas available that civilization isn't going to end any time soon due to lack of energy supplies."

Isn't this picture beautiful?

Added: an older post, "Drum Goonies Stooged on Shale Gas," is number four on a Google search of "Oil Drum Shale Gas." Common sense is prevailing over the Oil Drum's propaganda machination.

- Brewskie

Glenn Beck Has a Meltdown

2009-07-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

Radio talk show host and Fox News resident idiot, Glenn Beck, had an episodic meltdown on his radio program yesterday. A confrontational female caller so vexed Glenn, he reduced himself to screaming at the caller, in a high-pitched fit, "GET OFF MY PHONE! GET OFF MY PHONE!" A recording of the episode can be found here.

Glenn Beck is truly something special. Who can forget his drug-induced haze when he had "butt surgery?"

Oh... and here's something interesting. Last year, during the height of peak oil hysteria, one dumb nut was interviewing a doomer dumb nut - James Kunstler, back when he was doing a book tour for "World Made by Hand."

Oh Rubert Murdoch, why didn't you buy the Oil Drum? It's reporting standards are no different from Fox News; it would have been a match made in heaven.

- Brewskie

EU Biodiesel Production Increased 35% in 2008

2009-07-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

Mind you, I find some of the current biofuel-derived sources controversial; I'm much more optimistic of future-generation biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol or algae biofuel. Never the less, Ghawar Guzzler reports the news; no bias, no bull (link to article).

In Belgium, the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) said that European biodiesel production increased 35 percent in 2008 over 2007, despite reductions in production in Germany and Austria. The group said that production increased to 7.76 million tonnes, or 65 percent of global market share, but added that half of the biodiesel pants in Europe have been idled by poor demand.

- Brewskie

Oil to Crash to $20 Later This Year?

2009-07-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

I've written a few posts about the ongoing oil glut, the current manipulative oil speculation, that the current oil price has nothing to do with supply and demand fundamentals; I've been betting for some time oil will go down. How low? I haven't said for certain. University of Calgary professor Phillip Verleger sees it heading to $20 a barrel:

A crude surplus of 100 million barrels will accumulate by the end of the year, training global storage capacity and sending prices to a seven-year low, said Verleger, who correctly predicted in 2007 that prices were set to exceed $100. Supply is outpacing demand by about 1 million barrels a day, he said.

“The economic situation is not getting better,” Verleger, 64, a professor at the niversity of Calgary and head of consultant PKVerleger LLC, said in a telephone nterview yesterday. “Global refinery runs are going to be much lower in the fall. If the recession continues and it’s a warm winter, it’s going to be devastating.”

He adds,

“OPEC don’t realize the magnitude of the cuts they need to make,” which would total about a further 2 million barrels a day, Verleger added. “Storage is going to become tight. It’s not clear if there’s going to be enough storage available.”

- Brewskie

Dow Chemical to Demonstrate Algae Biofuel Plant

2009-07-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

As reported earlier, ExxonMobil announced it was pumping big money into algae biofuels, and now, Dow Chemical is announcing it will partner with Algenol to demonstrate an Algae Biofuel plant:

Florida startup Algenol Biofuels says that it can efficiently produce commercial quantities of ethanol directly from algae without the need for fresh water or agricultural lands--a novel approach that has captured the interest and backing of Dow Chemical, the chemical giant based in Midland, MI.

The companies recently announced plans to build and operate a demonstration plant on 24 acres of property at Dow's sprawling Freeport, TX, manufacturing site. The plant will consist of 3,100 horizontal bioreactors, each about 5 feet wide and 50 feet long and capable of holding 4,000 liters.

The bioreactors are essentially troughs covered by a dome of semitransparent film and filled with salt water that has been pumped in from the ocean. The photosynthetic algae growing inside are exposed to sunlight and fed a
stream of carbon dioxide from Dow's chemical production units. The goal is to
produce 100,000 gallons of ethanol annually.

[...]

Blue-green algae do produce small amounts of ethanol naturally, but only under anaerobic conditions when the cyanobacteria are starved or in the dark. Paul Woods, cofounder and chief executive of Algenol, says that his company has modified its algae so that it can produce ethanol under sunlight through photosynthesis, first by turning carbon dioxide and water into sugars, then by boosting and controlling the enzymes that synthesize those sugars into ethanol.

Another big difference for Algenol is that it doesn't have to harvest its algae to extract the ethanol, eliminating a step that has proved costly and complex for other algae-to-biofuel startups. John Coleman, chief scientific officer at Algenol and a professor of cell and system biology at the University of Toronto, says that the ethanol produced within the algae will seep out of each cell and evaporate into the headspace of the bioreactor.

[...]

Dow is particularly interested in Algenol's process because ethanol replaces fossil fuels in the production of ethylene, which is a basic chemical feedstock for making many types of plastics. Oils from algae are less useful, says Steve Tuttle, business director of biosciences at Dow. "Biodiesel doesn't necessarily fit in with what we'd want to use as a downstream product," he says.

Tuttle says that Dow, on top of leasing land and supplying a source of industrial carbon dioxide, will also assist with process engineering and help develop advanced plastic films for covering the bioreactors. Other partners in the project include the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Algenol has applied for a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy that would help fund the demonstration project.

Woods is convinced that the process can be scaled up, and at a favorable cost of production. "It's our expectation to produce ethanol for $1.25 a gallon," he says, adding that the resulting ethanol gives back 5.5 times more energy than what it takes to produce it, making the renewable fuel competitive with cellulosic ethanol production. Woods notes that Algenol's approach offers another bonus: "Every gallon of ethanol made creates one gallon of fresh water out of salt water."

- Brewskie

Hugo Chavez to Oil Workers: Socialism or "Death"

2009-07-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

South America's latter-day reactionary, the Guevara-wannabe Hugo Chavez, has offered this ultimatum to Venezuela's oil workers: take up the brotherhood of socialism, or become leeches in the streets (link).

Employees of oil companies in Venezuela have protested against an ultimatum by President Hugo Chávez's government to embrace the socialist revolution or face the sack.

Hundreds of workers picketed a refinery yesterday and said they would mobilise next week to challenge the politicisation of the state oil company, PDVSA.

The unrest followed a government warning this week that employees would be suspected of subversion unless they joined pro-Chávez trade unions and community groups.

[...]

The minister said the nationalised oil industry, which drives Venezuela's economy, must advance the president's radical agenda. "The oligarchy has to fear us, because we hate the oligarchy.

PDVSA will be here at the forefront of the revolution under the leadership of Commander Chávez." Oligarchy is government shorthand for opponents.

The minister, who doubles up as head of the oil company and is a close ally of the president, added that he would not negotiate a collective labour
contract "with any enemy of Chávez".
Union leaders condemned the comments as an attack on workers' political rights and said they would march in protest.

[...]

The oil industry has been at the heart of Venezuela's transformation under Chávez since he defeated a strike by PDVSA workers in 2002-03. Thousands of employees were sacked and replaced with government supporters, who swelled the payroll to 80,000.

To bypass inefficient ministries, Chávez entrusted the company with an operating income of $126bn (£77bn), with multiple tasks such as adult education, food distribution and bicycle manufacturing.

But production has slumped by a quarter and after prices tumbled from last year's peak and the company, once an Opec powerhouse, has struggled to pay creditors and employees who were absorbed by PDVSA after recent state takeovers of private oil contractors.

It's worth noting that Venezuela's oil production is expected to drop another 9% this year. Since Hugo Chavez taking office, the South America country's oil production has gone from 3.2 mbpd (during the late nineties, when oil was dirt cheap), to 2.4 mbpd in 2008.

- Brewskie

China Has More Electric Bikes Than Germany Has People

2009-07-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

Next Big Future has this interesting bit: China has 100 million bikes - that's 27 million fewer than Japan's population. China's new car sales now exceeds America's; how long will it be before its electric bike "population" surpasses that of the Rising Sun?

Take a gander at this excerpt:

Last year (2008) Chinese bought about 90% of the 23 million e-bikes sold worldwide. Experts say that next regions to likely embrace e-bikes are Southeast Asia, where gas-powered scooters are popular, and India, where rising incomes mean personal transportation is starting to be in reach of hundreds of millions. Japan has seen steady annual sales of about 300,000 for several years, and in the cycle-crazy Netherlands e-bikes are beginning to take off. In the U.S., where bikes are still overwhelmingly used for recreation rather than transportation, e-bike sales are expected to break 200,000 this year, or about 1% of China's sales.

They constituted 90% of worldwide e-bike sales? Our sales constitute 1% of China's? Geesh, thunder thighs, put down the Pringles and get your fat ass in shape.

Here's a description of the typical e-bike sold in China:

Typical e-bikes in China have 100 km on a full charge.

Official top speed is 12mph but many go 30 mph.

Typical e-bikes in China cost 2000 RMB (USD290).

In 2006 there were 2,700 licensed manufacturers, and countless additional smaller shops.

Leading manufacturer Xinri makes 1.6 million e-bikes per year.

Here is a description of the Aston Martin of e-bikes, the ErockIT. 50 mph can be yours for only $39,000.

- Brewskie

US Oil Imports Fell 7.6% During 1st Half of the Year

2009-07-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

Oh red, white and blue, you have a problem, a glutenous problem. You've been slurping down oil like a fat, diabetic Texan slurps down 7-Eleven Slurpee's by the six-pack load. But you're coming to grips; you realize you're a fat, sweaty, Ford Excursion-driving idiot who breaks the oil buffet's bank with your five daily return trips; you know the world grimaces at you as you waddle in your torn, sweaty, XXXL Old Navy Sweats. Oh red, white and blue, you can do it. You can show the world that the fat man can regain his WWII fighting shape.

As the title states, US oil imports dropped 7.6% the first half of the year.

Imports of crude oil and products to the US in the first half of 2009continued a string of three straight years of year-to-year declines, fallingby 7.6% to 12.048 million b/d, the American Petroleum Institute reportedThursday.

API, in its latest monthly statistical review, said the fall put total imports 12% below the same period three years ago.

It linked the continued declines to "slumping demand and increases in domestic supplies."

The slump continued into the middle of this year, with API noting that for "the second quarter alone, total imports dropped by more than 12% comparedwith a year ago, with crude oil imports reaching the lowest second-quarterlevel in over a decade at 8.95 million b/d."

Crude oil imports in June were down by 12.2% at 8.754 million b/d from 9.974 million b/d in June 2008. For the January-June period, crude importswere down by 6.2% at 9.191 million b/d versus 9.801 million b/d in the prior period, according to API's estimate.

Product imports in June were also mostly lower. For instance, imports of gasoline fell by 27.5% from a year earlier to 981,000 b/d from 1.353 million b/d.

"Gasoline imports (including blending components) were down by more than one-third from their historical peak in May 2007 of nearly 1.5 million b/d,"API said in its statistical summary.
"Gasoline imports in the first half of this year fell by 7.0% comparedwith the first half of last year. On a quarterly basis, gasoline imports inthe second quarter of this year saw a significant drop of 11.7% compared withthe first quarter of this year."

Jet fuel imports were also sharply lower, falling by 57.1% to 39,000 b/d from 91,000 b/d in June 2008. API said the decline from the year earlierfigure was "the lowest for any month since 1992."
Bucking the trend were distillate imports, which rose in June by 28.9% to232,000 b/d from 180,000 b/d, but API said that despite the rise, "they amounted to only about 23% of the volume of gasoline imports."

API noted rising US crude oil supplies in June, supported by its estimate that crude oil production rose 1.7% to 5.183 million b/d from 5.098 million b/d a year earlier. Of the latest total, Lower 48 States production was 3.3% higher at 4.588 million b/d, while Alaska production fell by 9.2% to 595,000b/d.

Added: US June oil demand was down 5.4% a year ago.

- Brewskie

Get Recognized on the Peakers' Hall of Shame

2009-07-15T14:23:00.001-07:00

Whether it's Deffeyes's old-age lunacy, or Matthew Simmons's greed-infested apocalyptic forecasts, the peakers' incompetent fortune telling must be brought out to broad daylight for global judgment.

I've been updating the Peakers' Hall of Shame with new quotes, plus several graphs. I'm also looking for some juicy bits. Know something good? Throw me a bone and I'll post it up to your credit. Help bring these goons out for searing condemnation.

Never forget. Never forgive.

- Brewskie

Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles' Nifty Cell Repairmanship

2009-07-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

The news of using nanotechnology to repair human cells isn't something new. This is an article that explores some ongoing research, particularly cerium oxide nanoparticles:

Seal is a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Central Florida (UCF), and several years ago, he and his colleagues engineered nanoparticles of cerium oxide (CeO2), a material long used in ceramics, catalysts, and fuel cells. The novel nanocrystalline form is non-toxic and biocompatible--ideal for medical applications.

Since then, the researchers found that cerium oxide nanoparticles have two additional medical benefits: they behave like an antioxidant, protecting cells from oxidative stress, and they can be fine-tuned to potentially deliver medical treatments directly into cells.

Oxidative Stress = Major Headache

Oxidative stress has been implicated as a cause of arthritis, heart disease, and even aging. It also plays a role in several incurable blinding diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, and retinal degeneration.

Oxidative stress occurs when too many reactive oxygen species (ROS) are present. These powerful molecules are generated by exposure to ionizing radiation and by commonplace reduction--oxidation reactions within cells. (Peroxide and free radicals are two examples of ROS.)

Usually, enzymes known as antioxidants protect cells from oxidative stress by disarming ROS and minimizing their toxic effects. But sometimes, the number of ROS overwhelms a biological system, causing damage to proteins, DNA, and other cellular materials.

Engineering Nanoparticles With Antioxidant Powers

Seal and his colleagues--James McGinnis, a vision scientist at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Artem Masunov, a theoretical chemist at UCF, and William Self, a molecular and micro-biologist at UCF--engineered special cerium oxide nanoparticles, which they call nanoceria, for tailored biomedical applications.

In a nanocrystalline form, cerium oxide is a powerful antioxidant because its latticework crystal structure has many vacancies that can capture oxygen, and the material has a large surface area. Self showed that nanoceria mimic the activity of superoxide dismutases (SOD), an antioxidant that can stop the deadly chain reactions caused by ROS.

Nanoceria are also able to regenerate their antioxidant abilities. "Due to this catalytic property," explains Seal, "repeated dosing with nanoceria may not be needed, as it is with certain antioxidant vitamins.

"In a biological paradox, ROS are actually required for some beneficial cellular reactions. Fortunately, nanoceria do not deactivate all ROS. Rather, says Seal, "they reduce the amount of ROS to a certain low level, thus striking a perfect balance."

Stopping Eye Damage

Because they are bombarded by light and have a very high rate of oxygen
metabolism, cells in the retina encounter relatively high numbers of ROS. Seal and his colleagues hypothesized that ROS may represent an "Achilles' heel" of blinding diseases, which can be specifically targeted using cerium oxide nanoparticles.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers used mice whose eyes have retinal defects similar to those found in patients with age-related macular degeneration. They treated some of the mice with nanoceria and then compared the number of lesions that occurred in their retinas. The researchers' results, published in Nature nanotechnology, indicate that the nanoceria prevented about 85 percent of the damage to the retina.

Through a newly launched company, McGinnis is pursuing the development of anoceria medical treatments for several causes of vision loss: the genetic eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP), age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy.

- Brewskie

Happy Days Ahead for US Solar Manufacturing

2009-07-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

One analyst foresees a boom in America's solar manufacturing.

The heady cocktail of generous federal and local government incentives and
renewable energy mandates in the United States could create a new manufacturing hub in a country that often talks about losing manufacturing jobs to Asia.

In fact, cell and solar panel manufacturing capacity is likely to grow roughly 50 percent annually between 2008 and 2012, said Shyam Mehta, senior analyst at GTM Research, Tuesday at Intersolar North America in San Francisco.

The U.S. market demand for solar panels could grow from 342 megawatts in 2008 to 2.13 gigawatts in 2012, he added. That appetite is driving companies such as SolarWorld and Schott Solar, both in Germany, and Japan's Sanyo to set up factories in the United States.

[...]

The country produced 499 megawatts of solar panels in 2008, 70 percent of which were thin-film panels. Ninety percent of those thin films came from factories owned by First Solar and United Solar Ovonic.

Mehta, who provided some key figures from his upcoming report on photovoltaic manufacturing in the United States, predicted that the country will likely be able to produce more than 2.7 gigawatts of cells, as well as panels, by 2012.

Thin-film manufacturing would play a big role in the growth. By 2012, 66 percent of the factory capacity would be devoted to making thin-film panels, including those that use cadmium-telluride, amorphous silicon and copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS).

CIGS companies are likely to expand their production capacity from 32 megawatts in 2007 to about 1.3 gigawatts in 2012, Mehta said. His bullish outlook, which he expressed previously, has raised eyebrows because most of the CIGS companies in the United States are in early stages of commercial production.

[...]

Mehta argued that it would only take a few successful CIGS companies out of the current crop of eight to 10 businesses to make a significant contribution to the solar market in 2012. He conceded that tough challenges remain for these companies to be able to mass-produce products at competitive costs.

He expects a big boost for producing crystalline silicon solar panels. The factory capacity devoted to making this type of solar panels could expand from 389 megawatts in 2008 to about 1.23 gigawatts in 2012.

- Brewskie