Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:18:10 GMT | 1 comment
The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.
“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day,” says the Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command.
It adds: “While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India.”
(From: guardian.co.uk)
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:32:54 GMT | 3 comments
There was an interesting article today on The Oil Drum today titled Using heat to refine kerogen from oil shale. The basic idea is that in order to get oil out of shale you need to heat it up, but then the oil can flow away and water can flow in. So first, it is necessary to create an ice wall around the site.
However, both the freezing and the heating takes tremendous amounts of energy. The article states:
“It has been suggested that the technology would need a dedicated power source of some 1.2 gigawatts, in order to yield a production of 100,000 bd.”
Let’s look at these numbers: 100,000 barrels of oil contains 4.2 million gallons of oil and if this were all converted to gas and used in standard cars that get 20 miles per gallon, it would power cars 84 million miles.
However, a 1.2 GW power plant would produce about 28 million kWh of electricity per day and if used for a standard electric vehicle (EV) which gets about 3 miles per kWh (plant to wheels) then it would power cars for 86 million miles.
So why spend all that effort and energy to extract oil from shale when the same amount of energy would power EVs farther?
Posted in Electric Vehicles, Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:01:57 GMT | no comments
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery prices are dropping rapidly and automakers are already seeing quotes of $450 per kWh for next year.
This is a huge drop from the historical price of $1,000 per kWh and even better than this year’s price of $650 per kWh.
In addition, this new report by Deutsche Bank not only predicts that performance of Li-ion batteries will double in the next 7 years, they also predict the price will decline by another 50% in the next 10 years.
At $450 kWh, the 16kWh battery in the Chevy Volt would add only an additional $7,200 to the price of the car which will pay for itself in the gas savings after 90,000 miles – or sooner if gas rises above $3 per gallon.
(Source: GM-Volt.com. Report Reveals Lithium-ion Battery Prices Already Dropping Steeper Than Expected.)
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:10:06 GMT | no comments
I have often thought that the recession was really caused by the high price of oil and not by subprime mortgages. However, I haven’t seen any credible source to back this up until I read a post by Jeff Rubin today called: We’re all PIGS now.
Rubin worked for nearly 20 years as the chief economist of CIBC World Markets and here is what he believes:
It wasn’t subprime mortgages but triple-digit oil prices that brought down the world economy.
And unless that economy started to wean itself off an ever-depleting supply of affordable oil, there would be other recessions to follow as economic recoveries would simply push oil prices right back into triple-digit range.
While I took exception with a lot of what Rubin said in Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, here he is in the territory he knows best – economics – and I think his conclusion that record oil prices caused the recession is right on the money.
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:10:55 GMT | no comments
Electric utilities are are scared of plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles (EVs) – scared they will all plug-in to recharge after work on a hot summer day and bring down the grid.
As long as EVs are charged off-peak, there is more than enough power to charge about 160 million EVs without building any new power stations. Below is an outline of some of the ideas I have about making sure EVs don’t charge during peak times but instead, actually help the electric grid.
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:51:56 GMT | 2 comments
The CEO of Petrobras gave a presentation in December of 2009 which shows world oil capacity peaking in 2010 because new oil projects won’t be able to offset the decline in existing oil fields.
These statements are in line with other oil company like Aramco that believes world oil production is on a peak plateau, and Total that doesn’t see global oil production ever exceeding 89 mbd.
(Reference: The Oil Drum: World Oil Capacity to Peak in 2010 Says Petrobras CEO)
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:25:59 GMT | 8 comments
There is more evidence coming out that some of the catastrophic claims put forth by global warming advocates and the IPCC do not have a lot of scientific basis.
The Globe and Mail just published ‘The great global warming collapse’ by Margaret Wente that posits: “as the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement.”
Walter Russell Mead agrees that “the global warming movement as we have known it is dead.”
Regarding the IPCC claim that the Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035, Wente states that “the claim was rubbish, and the world’s top glaciologists knew it.”
Wente describes Climategate as “a snakepit of scheming to keep contradictory research from being published, make imperfect data look better, and withhold information from unfriendly third parties.”
Wente continues:
“Meantime, the IPCC – the body widely regarded, until now, as the ultimate authority on climate science – is looking worse and worse. For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming . . . but the sole source for that claim . . . was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article ‘a mess.’”
“None of this is to say that global warming isn’t real, or that human activity doesn’t play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren’t valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.
“By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they’ve discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe.”
Unfortunately, I have to agree with her conclusion.
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:26:54 GMT | no comments
The Nissan Leaf electric car is making a 22 city tour and stopped at Stanford yesterday for a lecture and viewing of the car (although we didn’t get to drive it). The car looked – well, like a car – and the most of the information was standard electric car stuff. For instance, a 24kWh Li-ion battery pack with a 80 kW (106 HP) motor will propel it up to 100 miles with a top speed of about 90 MPH. They covered the usual stuff about 95% of all trips in the US being less than 100 miles and 80% of the charging will be at work and home. The also estimated that it will save about $1,400 a year in gas costs, which just about covers the cost of the battery over the 10-year life.
They are working hard to be the first affordable EV. They expect to start taking orders in Spring of 2010 and start delivering cars later that year.
For me, the most valuable information from this lecture is that they are collecting zip codes of people interested in the Leaf on the web site and sharing these statistics with the electric utilities and some utilities are starting to upgrade the transformers in the areas that will likely have a lot of EVs. They also mentioned that some places can be very difficult to get permits to install the charging stations in personal garages. They said that the Mini-EV program gave up trying to setup the electric car program in New Jersey because of these problems. The reason this was interesting to me is that it points to a possible business opportunity!
For more information, see my detailed notes.
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:21:40 GMT | no comments
Oil demand is predicted to rise by 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) next year to 85.9 million bpd, according to a Reuters poll of the ten top oil-tracking analysts and organizations. This bodes ill for the prospect of meeting the world’s oil demand, which is feared to erode the huge crude stockpiles which resulted from the global recession.
Even though major US crude ETFs like the United States Oil Fund LP (NYSE: USO) and oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) are not showing robust results today, if the demand curve beats the supply curve next year, these stocks will see a major upgrade. "The key question for prices is supply," Barclays Capital analyst Costanzo Jacazio said.
Investment banks Goldman Sachs and BofA-Merrill Lynch have the most bullish outlook for demand, projecting 86.4 million bpd and 86.7 million bpd respectively. This is good news for the likes of USO and XOM.
(Posted on 11/24/09 at 1:45pm by Ed Liston on Benzinga: The Stock Idea Network. Demand For Oil Will Likely Beat Supply Next Year)
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:12:50 GMT | 2 comments
What is better – to save water or to save electricity? This is a tradeoff that businesses and industry concerned about sustainability often need to make, and it is not an easy one.
However, an article in the November 6th, 2009 edition of The Economist called Current thinking: Cheaper desalination provides this tidbit: “Even the best reverse-osmosis plants require 3.7 kWh of energy to produce 1,000 litres of drinking water.”
Converting to gallons, this means that 70 gallons of water can be produced from salt water with 1 kWh of electricity. So there we have it – a way to compare water savings to electricity savings.
Posted in Sustainable Energy
