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.
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 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!
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 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 by Max Dunn
Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:27:41 GMT | no comments
Here is a study that looked at Energy Return on Invested (EROI) of windmills and found they returned over 20 times the energy use to make them, which is favorable with fossil fuels, nuclear and solar power.
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:22:53 GMT | no comments
Many business are built entirely around extrinsic motivators – carrots and sticks. That’s actually fine for many kinds of 20th century mechanistic tasks. But for 21st century cognitive tasks, monetary rewards just don’t work.
This has been confirmed over and over again. Dan Ariely found that when tasks called for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance. The London School of Economics reports: “We find that financial incentives can result in a negative impact on overall performance.”
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:34:37 GMT | 1 comment
Some people claim that more energy goes into making a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel than it will ever produce. While years ago that may have been the case, it certainly isn’t true any longer.
The US Department of Energy looked at several studies and concluded that multi-crystalline PV has an energy payback of less than 4 years and this will likely go down to below 2 years soon. Thin-film technologies have an even shorter payback period. With an estimated 30-year life, solar PV is actually a very good energy investment!
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:07:11 GMT | no comments
John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, has a great definition of what a business should be:
“Business has noble purposes: to provide goods and services that improve its customers’ lives, to provide jobs and meaningful work for employees, to create wealth and prosperity for its investors, and to be a responsible and caring citizen.”
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:57:33 GMT | no comments
What would you think is the safer car to drive – the Toyota Camry at 3300 pounds or the Ford Explorer at 4800 pounds. Would you believe the lighter Camry?
Safety statistics show this to be true. For every million Camrys on the road, 41 Camry drivers perish in crashes and an additional 29 people die in accidents involving Camrys. However, for every million Ford Explorers on the road, 88 Explorer drivers die and it kills 60 other people. So driving an Explorer is twice as dangerous as driving a Camry!
Why is this? The bigger Explorer can’t avoid accidents as easily as the nimbler Camry and is more prone to rollovers.
So next time someone says they feel safer in a big car, point out that the smaller car is actually safer.
