P54. Pick Points

So here it is the weekend, and I would usually be putting up Saturday Pick Points, and the Saturday post, with Sunday’s Tech Talk in the wings. However, since I am still wandering around Europe (tonight I am in London, but leave early in the morning for Dumfries and Burns Country) I am, instead going to take a quick peak around and do sort of an abbreviated Pick Points, looking at some half-a-dozen or so stories that are worth a quick look.

Getting around as I do involves a fair bit of travel by plane, and I’ve noticed that the planes seem to be getting smaller, and thus fuller, as the economy spins away. Of course the increased traffic might be because some travelers, can’t have a new jet of their own, though I doubt it. China is now providing its suppliers with increasing quantities of jet fuel, perhaps suggesting that while the rest of the world is cutting back , they continue to grow. Cutting back is almost the universal cry, and certainly the restaurant business has to be hurting. And I have eaten in a number of places recently where I was one of only few customers. Of course sometimes it is because, when I go to places like the Fem Sma Hus in Stockholm I show up at American dinner times not European (most of my meal I was alone in the cellar, but just before I left it became crowded). This lack of demand hurts chef employment, in NYC the restaurant trade lost more than 10,000 employees in the three months over the end of the year, nationally the drop has been more than 100,000. And with reduced waitstaff, in more popular places this can catch management out when there is an evening surge in demand. Which may “earn” you a free glass of wine as it did for me tonight in London. Sadly, however, sales of alcohol often pick up in troubled times, as they are now in Russia, while the harsher economic environment means that the smaller firms are pushed out of the trade.

Robert Rapier has noted that this is a good time to pick up alcohol – though he is talking of the ethanol variety in his most recent column at R-Squared Energy Blog: Valero Now in the Ethanol Business. As he notes VeraSun, the nations second largest ethanol manufacturer, filed for Chapter 11 at the end of October. The corporate assets are now on the block, and Valero Energy stand to pick up the seven ethanol refineries, at a quarter of the construction costs. Other ethanol companies have already filed for bankruptcy protection, and it appears Aventine may soon be in similar straits. Yet even as these sales start, the scale of the volume that ethanol will contribute, relative to the coming need is small, and while it provides, as Robert notes, an easy way to pick up a fuel that is being mandated as part of future supply, for small change to the oil companies, it is not going to be more than a contributory part to the answer. Yet, at the moment, despite that mandate, farmers are planting a greater fraction of the crop in soy beans this year, anticipating a bust in corn prices (which prophecy might be self-defeating). On the other hand if the import tariffs are reduced, as some in the Senate suggest, we may be able to import all we need. (But wasn’t there this slogan about freeing ourselves from imported fuel dependency?) Even the Wall Street Journal has weighed in against ethanol, though that also gives me the chance to make a small technical note. Unless I am doing something stupidly wrong (not unlikely) American Kindles can’t yet pick up magazines and papers in Europe (neither Sweden nor the UK). So much for my plan to save weight in my carry-on baggage by just loading the papers to it – Rabbits! Though I guess they may have other bigger troubles.

Solar panel advocates can no doubt breathe a sigh (though they said it was rather a shout) as the final Space Station panels were successfully installed. The station now has enough power to allow double the crew. Down on Earth the Administration is making its first Federal loan guarantee for alternative energy. The guarantee is for $535 million and will help construct a PV facility that can generate panels to produce up to 500 MW per year. The panels are designed for use on rooftops. The world’s solar PV installations are stated to have reached a combined total of almost 6 GW by the end of last year with Europe getting 82% of the business to date. (The ranking by country is Spain, Germany, USA, Korea, Italy and Japan). Sales are thus on a positive upward trend, with DuPont estimating a trebling of sales by 2012. First Solar have also just announced that they have now produced 1 GW of their solar modules, so with manufacture gearing up, all we need now is the market growth.

The other major renewable, wind power, is also gaining market, with a new effort to put turbines into South Africa. The country, as you may remember, has had problems with suppling power, not only for its own needs, but that of its neighbors. The first 30 MW farm is not scheduled until 2011, which won’t help the intervening shortages. It will, however, quadruple capacity. Eskom – the main SA power provider needs a rate increase, but is having trouble getting its act together, and having a power failure at a rally to improve their public posture sure doesn’t help. It is frustrating enough to Botswana, who got most of their power from SA, that they have started seeing pink elephants. (Would I lie to you ?). Of course it’s not just the South Africans that can run into infighting over turf relative to wind power, though the new Interior Secretary promises to get it stopped.

And finally (as the clock kicks over here in London) it is 4 years ago that Kyle Saunders and I first posted our collaborative effort that was, and is, The Oil Drum. I have posted a short history of the site, over there, and repeat the very best wishes that I have for the site. It has filled a valuable need, and that will not diminish in the months and years ahead, and so my wish that the site “Live long, and Prosper.”

More stories can be found at The Energy Bulletin and Drumbeat at The Oil Drum.

P39. Pick Points

Half-a-dozen or so stories of interest:

China is going to need a lot of oil, and to ensure it gets it, it has just loaned the Russian oil companies Rosneft and Transneft (who runs the pipelines) $25 billion, and for this they get an annual delivery of 15 million tons of oil (300,000 bd) for 20 years. Of the sum Rosneft will get $15 billion. The first pipeline heading that way will carry up to 0.6 mbd, but needs a spur to carry the oil to China. The oil will likely come from the Vankor field in the Tyumen region of Siberia, with the pipeline running from Taishet in Siberia to Skovorodino, a town of about 10,000 people, on the border, and in Amur province. Overflying part of the route on Google Earth, it doesn’t look quite as uncivilized as the articles make out. There is a Youtube video of the town of Tynda, for example.

Despite the problems that they are having with the California budget, customers of the Southern California Gas Company are getting a 20% drop in their heating bill. The average winter bill of 75 therms per month is expected to be in the $70-80 range. However there is a drive to change the gas hot water heaters to solar heating, given that about 38% of the home power goes to heating water. Unfortunately I suspect that the $250 million price tag will be too much for the state right now, even though it would be through rebates. Oddly Government support for such a move in Australia is meeting some opposition from Greenpeace, on the odd argument that they don’t generate electricity. It was only last week that tentative agreements were signed for solar-thermal power for Southern California Edison, with Brightsource Energy building 7 plants for a total of 1,300 megawatts over the next seven years. though the first 100 MW unit, in the Mojave Desert won’t be ready until 2013. SCE states that it now gets 16% of its energy from renewables. (Though by next year the state target is 20%).

BrightSource CEO John Woolard said the 400-MW Ivanpah project will create about 1,700 full-time jobs in construction and another 3,500 jobs to last the 40-year life of the plants.

The technology uses the tower approach rather than the trough shaped collector idea used by Acciona in Nevada. Israel contrarily has just approved the connection of a photo-voltaic power station to their national grid, though it will take 4 years to install the connection.

Perhaps the money put into the stimulus package for high-speed rail might head toward maglev. China is looking to start a new project next month although there is already one system in operation in Shanghai, that uses German technology. Plans for high speed rail systems in California are being debated even though no-one knows where the stimulus money is going yet.

While recent talk has focused on a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and on to India, and recent reports have been either favorable or discouraging, Bangladesh remains strapped for energy, and so there is now talk of a pipeline from Myanmar, through Bangladesh to India.. However economic reality, and the fact that coal is indigenous to many in the region is causing the countries of South Asia to seriously consider switching to coal. India, for example, is now seeing a gap of some 5.7% between available supply and demand and needed the pipelines that had been planned, since even now gas can only meet 60% of industrial demand.

There have been concerns in the past over the ability of wind turbines to operate in cold climates, but with turbines now working successfully in Alaska those days may be over. It may still take about 17 years to pay for the installation, however, on an expected life of 20-25 years. Yet with that promise there is still uncertainty over the future of wind in Canada. In the UK permission was given to install ten new wind farms around Scotland. Britain currently generates some 3 GW from wind, and these farms may add double that amount.

And the EU has just released the Market Observatory for Energy report looking at energy generation in the EU. However since the range of oil prices assumed go from $61 to $100 per barrel for oil in 2020 it may still be a little unrealistic – but I will take a look!

More stories can be found at The Energy Bulletin and Drumbeat at The Oil Drum.