The gift of coal

I was given a bar of ChoCOALate in my stocking this Christmas. Much amusement was had by all. But the growing dependence of the world on coal, is beginning to get a recognition that has been more evident in the denial of it’s long-term role as a base fuel for the last couple of years. And so, in leading up to a pleasant meaning which exists for a gift of coal let me chat a bit more about coal’s future.

Just this past week George Will noted that Cowlitz County in Washington had approved a coal terminal that would allow the shipping of coal from the United States to China. About 5 million tons a year of coal would be moved by train to Longview from either Montana or Wyoming, and then be exported.

So it's a major new development for the region to begin with. And they are talking about a significant amount of coal – more than 5 million tons a year to start with, which is about twice what the Boardman coal-fired power plant burns in a year. And opponents suspect that number could grow.

But I think the biggest attention-getter is what's driving this proposal, which is growing demand for energy in China and other growing Asian countries.

It is anticipated that coal will start to move through the terminal by the end of 2011. However the environmental concerns have already led the State Department of Ecology to become involved, noting:

In October 2010, Ecology suggested Cowlitz County officials expand their greenhouse gas emissions analysis more broadly in their environmental review. The final review did provide additional evaluation, but Ecology believes it did not go far enough in considering greenhouse gas emissions outside the immediate boundaries of the project.

Yet disallowing the terminal will have little if any impact on the Chinese use of coal. Coal is already being exported through Vancouver in Canada, to the tune of some 26 million tons a year. China is increasing the amount that it imports. By selling into that Asian market Australia was able to avoid the recent recession that hit most of the rest of the world, and while it exports coal to China, Japan and India, it is the growth in Chinese orders that have caught attention recently.

And that demand will not diminish in the reasonable future, despite those who cite the Patzek paper on coal’s imminent decline. For, as even “The Atlantic” magazine noted this past month, in talking about clean coal:

But two ideas that underlie the term are taken with complete seriousness by businesses, scientists, and government officials in China and America, and are the basis of the most extensive cooperation now under way between the countries on climate issues. One is that coal can be used in less damaging, more sustainable ways than it is now. The other is that it must be used in those ways, because there is no plausible other way to meet what will be, absent an economic or social cataclysm, the world’s unavoidable energy demands.

For as the article points out

The journalist Robert Bryce (ed - in the book Power Hungry) has drawn on U.S. government figures to show that between 1995 and 2008, “the absolute increase in total electricity produced by coal was about 5.8 times as great as the increase from wind and 823 times as great as the increase from solar”—and this during the dawn of the green-energy era in America. Power generated by the wind and sun increased significantly in America last year; but power generated by coal increased more than seven times as much. . . . . .(he) describes a visit to a single coal mine, the Cardinal Mine in western Kentucky, whose daily output supports three-quarters as much electricity generation as all the solar and wind facilities in the United States combined.

And in China it takes about 21 months to install a new coal-fired power plant. To supply those power stations they are seeking additional suppliers of coal from around the world.

Arch Coal has just bought the lease to 587 million tons of coal in the Otter Creek reserve in Montana. The company already owned rights to 731 million tons , and it is suggested that the deposits will be mined at the rate of around 22 million tons a year, although mining may not begin for five years.

In the meanwhile, even if the folks in Washington don’t want the terminal, CN would be happy to ship it through terminals at Vancouver and Prince Rupert. Trains take 45 hours from the mines in BC to Ridley at Prince Rupert, and 70 hours to Vancouver, while they take 55 hours from Alberta. It then takes 2 weeks for the ships to get to Tianjin, Shanghai, Quingdao, Guangzhou or Hong Kong. (Give or take a day, and assuming an average speed of 13.5 knots).


Getting coal out of Montana would require improved rail linkages, but one 35-mile link has already been installed to allow the Signal Peak Mine to be developed in the short term, raising Montana production from the 45 million tons produced in 2008. Plans to increase Montana production include a new line known as the Tongue River Railroad which would connect into the Miles City BNSF line that goes up to Glendive, whence it could easily move on into Canada, if it could not move west to Washington.

Planned Railroad relative to mine development

It has taken since 1983 to get planning for the railroad extension this far. And it is still being protested.

Even without the Montana production and even if the Australian mine production is constrained by transient floods, there are lots of other sources that the Chinese could use. These include Mozambique, where plans are moving ahead to increase local mine production up to 20 million tons a year from an estimated 9 billion ton deposit. There are both Chinese and Indian investors in this project, which will occur as the Minas Moatize mine also expands production up to 11 mt/year. Mine development will require improved railroad and port facilities, but it is likely that these can be implemented more rapidly in Africa than they can, presently, in the United States.

The point of which is that there are many places that China and Asia can purchase coal from. There are several places along the Western seaboard from which American coal can be shipped, and large deposits that can be mined to supply that coal. It may even come from those resources that are, in “peer reviewed” papers, considered to be insignificant. But it will get to China, and it will be used to sustain and grow that economy.

With which thought I wish you all a Happy New Year. In my youth the first to come through the door after midnight was to bring in some shortbread or black bun, a couple of pennies, and a piece of coal – and the “first foot” was then rewarded with a tot of, what we called “tea without milk or sugar.” (Good Scottish whisky). The coal was for a wish of enough fuel to keep you warm and fed through the year, the shortbread/black bun represented that food, and the money was for prosperity. Virtually therefore, let me offer you those gifts for this year, and for the years to come.

Peak Oil, the DOE and interesting times ahead

There is a certain sector of public opinion, including the President, that apparently feels that for the sake of taking appropriate precautions, even if the current scientific thinking on climate change is wrong, we should act as though it is right. The problem that there is, however, in the way that the argument has been accepted, is that it has led to demands for dramatic change in the way that the Federal Government is looking at future energy supplies. I was talking with a colleague today who commented on how much the conventional research funding for fossil energy fuel production is being cut. And the problem with that is that you can’t have a baby in a month by making nine women pregnant.

What do I mean by that? Well the production of energy at the level of scale that is needed for the United States (let alone the world) is difficult for many people to grasp. And making a change that will have a significant impact on that supply, in a positive sense, requires an effort that is correspondingly large. Changes do not happen overnight. As the Hirsch Report noted, it will take up to 20 years to find and install a replacement for the falling world production of oil. Yet the technologies that were advocated in that document, written in 2005, were not that revolutionary.

Besides further oil exploration, there are commercial options for increasing world oil supply and for the production of substitute liquid fuels:
1) Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) can marginally increase production from existing reservoirs; one of the largest of the IOR opportunities is Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), which can help moderate oil production declines from reservoirs that are past their peak production:
2) Heavy oil / oil sands represents a large resource of lower grade oils, now primarily produced in Canada and Venezuela; those resources are capable of significant production increases;.
3) Coal liquefaction is a well established technique for producing clean substitute fuels from the world’s abundant coal reserves; and finally,
4) Clean substitute fuels can be produced from remotely located natural gas, but exploitation must compete with the world’s growing demand for liquefied natural gas.
However, world-scale contributions from these options will require 10-20 years of accelerated effort.

And they certainly aren’t being given a crash priority for funding from the Department of Energy. The Department, sadly, still seems to feel, complacently, that there is no critical need to be concerned about fossil fuel supplies, and that it is only the need for precautions to guard against producing too much greenhouse gas that drives the path forward with any urgency. There is nothing about taking enough precautions to protect against fuel shortages in the future.


Well, as I noted the other day, Asian and Third World use of coal is rising very rapidly, so that from that point of view I suspect that the Department is riding a crippled nag that is not going to help keep American industry competitive. Robert Rapier posted, the other week, on the costs of producing a million Btu from various sources. These were his numbers:

Powder River Basin Coal - $0.56
Northern Appalachia Coal - $2.08
Natural gas - $5.67
Ethanol subsidy - $5.92
Petroleum - $13.56
Propane - $13.92
#2 Heating Oil - $15.33
Jet fuel - $16.01
Diesel - $16.21
Gasoline - $18.16
Wood pellets - $18.57
Ethanol - $24.74
Electricity - $34.03

The electricity price is the EIA average retail price to customers. He provides both the sources for the quotes, and the energy conversion rates between fuels. (Powder River Coal from Wyoming runs at 8,800 Btu/lb or thinking of it another way a ton of coal produces 17.6 million Btu). You will note how cheap the coal is.

Is it any wonder that the Chinese are trying to negotiate a 20-year supply of coal from Australia to the tune of around $60 billion. The coal will come from the Galilee Basin in Queensland and will run at 30 million tonnes of coal a year for 20 years.

The China First project will be located in the Galilee Basin region near Alpha, west of the town of Emerald, and will include four underground mines, two surface mines, plus associated handling and processing facilities.

It will be linked to a coal terminal on the Queensland coast at Abbot Point by a new 490 kilometre railway line. The company says the project, which is awaiting final approval by the Queensland government, will create 6,000 jobs during construction and 1,500 when operational.

Some of the confusion in the current press is that while there is a letter of intent and a framework agreement, there is not yet a defined price for the coal.

Again, however, to put that in context, China uses coal both for industrial use (steel making) and for electricity generation with about half going to each at the moment. The EIA anticipates that in 2015 it will use 37 quads for electricity production, 30 quads for industry and 3 for other uses, for a grand total of 70 quads. A quad is a thousand trillion, or a million billion Btu’s. Dividing by the 17.6 million Btu’s per ton, means that by 2015 China will be using roughly 4 billion tons of coal a year. (The USA for reference produced 1.46 billion tons in 2008). So the Chinese are going to have a supply (though not that much of their needs) of relatively inexpensive coal. And there is a lot more coal in the Galilee Basin (more than 4.5 billion tons).

Here in the United States one of the current thoughts is to keep investing in ethanol production, which is impacting corn use. For example, of the 11.11 billion bushels total, 5.56 billion bushels go to food, seed and industrial use, 4.3 billion goes to Ethanol; 2 billion bushels to exports; and there are 1.7 billion in year-end stocks. (Note: this table as been corrected, and the source, following the comment below).

The numbers that are being used are measured (coal or corn) in billions. The top producer of corn in the United States last year produced 314 bushels of corn from an acre (the national average last year was 162 bushels/acre so to produce that much ethanol requires a lot of acres. And it has taken a significant amount of time to plan, fund and install the refineries – and in poor economic times some of those have gone bankrupt.

But we are not looking for innovative fossil fuel production, this complacency flies in the face of an increasing number of voices, Richard Branson being one of the latest, who have discovered that we don’t have 20-years. His figure for Peak Oil is five years. That may be optimistic, and may be within the continued term of an Obama Administration. So how are they preparing?

Realistically they aren’t. What they are funding cannot be brought to the level of production that can have any impact on supply within the five or ten year period. And when the crisis comes you can’t find the answer in the short term by just throwing money at it, and getting the fast result (the baby model).

As they say, life is going to get interesting. (Wait a minute, wasn’t that part of some curse or other?)

The other meaning of "Clean Coal", and related mineral preparation

There is a lot of talk about Clean Coal these days. The Federal Government are issuing, though DoE, a significant number of requests for proposal (RFP’s) seeking those ideas to improve the combustion and reduce the carbon dioxide emissions when coal is burned. Largely these are related to the combustion process itself and the consequent separation of the carbon dioxide, which is where there is a relatively large body of expertise within the Universities, and where progress is likely to be incremental, given that most of the technologies in place are relatively mature and well-known.

Of lesser importance, it would appear, are the pre-cursor parts of the coal cycle that prepare coal for combustion, or those post-combustion parts where the gas, after concentration, is to be sequestered. Part of this lack of interest, I suspect, comes from the lack of experience within the Government and the funding agencies in these areas. Thus there is no-one to speak for them when the funding pie is divided and money is allocated to the different processes seen to be contributing to solving the problems.

Yet in the end these are the parts of the process that will prove to have as great a contribution to the solution of the problems as any. Coal is inherently a dirty fuel – by which I mean that is it virtually impossible to go into a coal mine or operation where coal is being processed without the dust leaving a residue on your skin, requiring that you either wash or take a shower to become clean again. That dust is part of the coal structure – we used to call it fusain – and it is defined as

the only constituent in coal which blackens objects with which it comes in contact.

In that classification the other constituents are clarain, durain and vitrain.

But most coal isn’t found as just a mix of these four parts. Coal was formed as vegetation (including trees) collapsed into the mud, and other plants grew on top of it. Mud got into the layers between the plant remains, and occasionally local water floods would carry sand and other material in and over the plants. As the swamps sank, and the vegetation grew thicker the band of material thus had thin layers of other material interspersed with the coal itself. As the layer was buried beneath later sediments (deposition was largely during the Carboniferous era, some 300 million years ago, or roughly a little longer ago than the time it takes the Solar system to go once around the galaxy). it was compressed and while the vegetation turned, in the end, to coal the included beds became shale, and sandstone or limestone layers within it.

When coal was mined a century ago the miners filled tubs of coal that held roughly a ton, with each tub marked with the miner’s “token”. When the tub came to the surface it was judged by management and if it was felt that it contained too much rock, then the tub was not counted as part of the miner’s production for the day. Thus there was a reliance on the miner himself to make sure that the coal being “loaded out” was just coal and did not contain rock, or dirt as it became colloquially known.

As mining became more automated, the pick of an individual miner was replaced with the multitude of picks that are mounted on the rotating drums of most mining machines. These drums are alternately raised and lowered to mine out the full section of the coal, and they indiscriminately mine, break up and load onto shuttle cars, or conveyors, the resulting mixture of small coal with some waste rock. Now there is little control of the coal quality at the face (apart from making sure that little of the rock above and below the coal is also mined). The coal, as a result, comes to the surface with the contained dirt still in it, and in many parts of the world that is what is then sold to the customer.

However the rock contents don’t burn well, and the residue can fuse to form clinkers that clog furnaces and reduce firing efficiency. So as the market grows for the mine from local consumption to a larger market, pressure comes to bear to “clean” the coal by “washing” it. In a simple form this involves running the coal through a bath that contains fluid of a carefully selected density. Coal floats in that medium, while the rock settles to the bottom. And thus the two are separated and the washed coal can then be sold to the customer as something that will burn in a cleaner way.

So why write about this tonight, rather than holding it over for a technical talk on a Sunday? Well the problem comes down to this – in the past the job of cleaning up the minerals that came out of the ground – whether separating the coal from the waste, or getting the valuable mineral components out of the different ores and waste rock in which they are found was allocated, at most universities to the Mineral Preparation division, which often ended up as a sub-group of Metallurgy.

Skip forward a decade or two and now Metallurgy departments have been merged, often with Ceramics, into Mineral Engineering or Science, and it is these departments where some of the more exciting research is done on nano-materials and the components that go into the electronic circuits on which we all rely. These folk also work on materials such as those sought to improve the operational lifetime of existing and planned power plants. Hiring new faculty into these departments will usually bring on board faculty that work at these cutting edges of those areas, and the world makes considerable progress from their efforts. But in the process, since in many departments total faculty numbers remain fixed, this has come at the cost of not replacing those who are experts in the fields of Extractive Metallurgy. Nor has the field of Coal Preparation seen strong support, as other issues have claimed greater visibility and funding.

So now here we are – we need cleaner coal to be supplied to the power stations, so that it can reduce the burden of dealing with the combustion products. As the ores from which valuable minerals come become leaner (the richer veins having been mined) it becomes more important, as part of the economic operation of the mine, to get the most mineral for the least cost from the ore. (Mines have closed when they could not do this well).

Who will provide that knowledge? Who is funding the research to advance it? Sadly the answers in both cases are likely to be almost no-one. It is a critical part of the continuation of our industrial society, but, being neglected, it has lost its voice and champions.

Sadly it takes more than the stroke of the pen by the Administration to create or recreate that collection of experts and as the current generation now retire, we will all, in time, mourn in one way or another, their passing.

Reserves and Resources

In trying to estimate the size of the problem that will face the world as the available reserves of fossil fuel begin to decline, one has to make some assumptions about the size of the volumes that are available. It is a debate that can lead to people talking past one another if they make different assumptions about the size of those reserves. This holds true in discussions that dot the web sites of those that write about energy, whether writing about oil, natural gas, coal or uranium.

This current post was motivated by a couple of different stimuli, firstly there was an article on Seeking Alpha about the natural gas reserves of the USA and then I was asked a question about the coal reserve assumptions for Alaska.

The natural gas article illustrates, in some ways, the problem of discussing the remaining gas that the United States has available, and whether we have a problem in future supply. With a consumption of around 23 tcf per year, it questions whether the remaining gas reserve is 337 tcf or 1,747 tcf. It was followed, interestingly, by a second article on natural gas that points out the folly (as it turns out) of being in the natural gas market this past year, as an example of the “no free lunch” argument.

“Natural gas is probably the best demonstration of the ‘no free lunch’ law in commodity indexing, as evidenced by the S&P GSCI Natural Gas Index which commenced at 100 in January of 1994, ended September at 2.63. Over the same period, the natural gas future has increased about 125%. While 2008 served as a strong reminder ‘to know what you own,’ 2009 has reminded investors ‘to know how to be properly exposed to commodities.’”

This ties into estimating the size of the reserve, because, in raising money to develop reserves, you have to be confident that the money that you invest will give you a financial return on that investment. If the price of natural gas has tumbled to $3 or less (per kcf) then you may not make that return, and may even lose money. You will therefore look more cautiously at what are potential sources and be more selective on where you drill. Some of the more questionable areas will no longer be sites that justify the investment. And thus these areas move from being in the reserve account into that of being a resource that is available, but not justifiable as being exploitable AT THE PRESENT TIME.


Yes I know I was shouting, I did because it is that qualifying clause that gets overlooked time and again when discussions arise over what the fossil fuel base is for the world. The condition as to whether the volume has enough worth to justify being developed changes with conditions. Coal in the UK had a considerable future before the oil and gas reserves of the North Sea were developed. At that time the reserve was proven at over 45 billion tons and the coal was being mined at around 200 million tons a year - but times change, and the cheapness of the liquid fuels, relative to the cost of mining, meant that a lot of the coal, although still there, is currently too expensive to produce – relative to the alternative. It is thus no longer counted as being part of the reserve.

Now this gets into the climate change debate a little, since one of the arguments that are raised is that the users of coal do not pay the full price, since the price they do pay does not include some of the social and environmental costs associated with burning the product. Since the customer ultimately pays for the product, this seems in part to be an argument to justify raising the price of coal based energy to the point that other sources become cost effective. The problem is that in some locations it is hard to find current technologies, even at cost equality, that can provide a replacement for coal as oil and natural gas supplies run down.

Which gets us back to the question as to how much of a reserve of oil and gas we have, and how long will it last before we have to face the reality of a return to coal.

And this is where the price of the product controls, transiently, the volume of fuel available. In the short term natural gas prices are down and it becomes harder to justify continuing to drill new wells, if they aren’t going to make money. But as more folk stop drilling, then with the very transient life of the existing wells, the supply will shorten, and after the stored volumes begin to be used up, then prices will rise to the point that an effective market can be reestablished. How long will that take?

Probably until sometime next year is my current guess, though it depends in part on how hard a winter Europe and North America experience this year. (And since that is weather and not climate I’ll hold off on making that prediction today).

In the longer term there are so many power plants that now rely on natural gas that demand will sustain a higher price, and lead to an increase in the drilling rate, until price:supply and demand reach a more stable platform. At that time the reserve volumes that are currently moving into the resource category will start to move back and the projections for a longer “age of Natural Gas” will start to assume a little more reality.

However I would like to throw a small caveat into that debate, at the beginning of the year the SEC changed the rules for counting the validity of an oil or gas resource, loosing the requirement that the fuel be “proved” to be there. The ramifications of that decision are likely to have some impact on this debate.

Coal, water and an Afghan problem of reality

It has been the first full day of the conference on innovations in coal production, and by the evening we delegates were ready for our evening meal. The papers today included the one from Vietnam that concluded that by 2020 the country would produce around 75 million tons of coal a year, but would still need to import another 120 million tons to meet the needs that are already predictable to meet future power needs.

It was another delegate that pointed out that by far the majority of folk were over 40, and so it was no surprise that in the evening, in a field above the village, we sat in an open wooden pavilion, and after bigos, beer, sausage, and other Polish food, sat around the fire and sang.

Around the fire

The photo does not do the group justice, since with a 3-man folk band playing trumpet, accordion and bass, the density of folk was soon about 3-times that shown, and even those of us with no Polish were singing along, as someone else said, “in French” (la, la la!)

But for a little while I, and the sole Afghan delegate, sat in a relatively quiet corner and chatted over (at least for me) a beer. And I came to an appreciation of one of the problems that I had not thought about for that country, and that I will, as a result share.

We went through the usual talk of Afghanistan being an unconquerable country (vide Alexander the Great, the British and the Russians to name but three). But then we talked about what could, realistically, be done to help the country.

I have just ( in Tuesday’s post) quoted figures on electricity availability in the country – at around 10 – 12% percent. “No”, he said sadly,”it’s about eight.”

One of the reasons that I write the Tech Talks on Sundays is that unless you understand some of the “behind the scenes” ways in which things work, you can’t understand why certain “logical” answers actually won’t.

So it is in Afghanistan. With so little available electric power (and this is not the place to explain why that is a critical rung in the ladder of progress) the thing that would cement the local affection for any “invader” would be the provision of power to the populace.

But there is a rather large snag – the operation of a significant sized power station requires a lot of water. (And the TT on that will explain why). But the one thing that Afghanistan does not have is copious amounts of water. It is not part of the world that sees the seasonal rains of the monsoon. Rather it relies on the melting of the snows that fell in the winter and the storage of water in underground tanks and cisterns. (See, among others, Kipling).

Such provision works well for individual homes, it can – under the right circumstances – store enough water for a 40-acre farm that will keep the family alive (different world - different agriculture) – but it can’t meet the needs of a 100 MW coal-fired power generating plant without a whole lot of changes.

(Oh, and a brief aside to Jerome – wind turbines are, in their place, a great alternative source of needed electricity, but in Afghanistan the winds bring the sands from the surrounding desert and in the abrasion of surfaces under wind, sand and rain attack is where I can raise a knowledgeable question of reality).

The coal in the country is found in the North and swings around the edge of the country on the East.

Coal deposits in Afghanistan (USGS)

Because of the growth of the Himalayan mountains the seams are now left in a steep (about 45 degree) incline that makes it more difficult to extract the coal. The immediately logical method of mining in such conditions is to use hydraulic monitors, as they do in New Zealand, but one gets back to the water availability problem.

Water is much more a right that is owned in Afghanistan than it is, in many other parts of the rest of the world. It is a topic that already is capable of stirring riots and anger – even in the United States, where water provision in California is now becoming a major problem.

But in the drier places of the world, such as Afghanistan (but also neighboring Pakistan) the lack of water comes at the same time as the maturing of a great increase in population ( from 24 milion in 2003 to 35.5 million in Afghanistan in 2015) and some attempt to bring industry to the country – both greatly increase water demand, while supply remains relatively flat.

It is a very difficult problem, there is coal for power, not really enough firewood for the future population demand for fuel, and there is not a lot of alternative choice. But other than burning the coal for domestic heating and cooking, how can they use it? How do they find the way to generate the electrical needs that the country has, and without which the future of the country is going to be as restricted as it might have been in the times of Alexander. The need for water is almost ubiquitous to the provision of so many forms of power, and so how do we circumvent it? Or can we?

An international shortage

I am currently at a meeting in the Carpathian Mountains along with some 160 mining engineers from various parts of the world, and they are talking about what must be done in the future to ensure that coal can be mined effectively and efficiently to meet the coming demands for energy as other fuels pass their peak, and alternate sources of energy likely fail to meet the needs that society has for energy.

Most of the attendees are from Poland – a country that has one of the more detailed programs for educating the engineers that the industry needs. Within the comprehensive group of disciplines defined as mining, but including mining machines, robotics, geological engineering etc this country produces a significant part of the total number of global mining engineers that graduate each year. Yet even here academia is struggling to meet the needs that industry has for new engineers. We heard tonight that one company alone would like to hire 300 new engineers – which equates to more than the total graduating class in the country. But to also put that in context it is about equivalent to the total number of mining engineers that are graduated in most of the Western countries including Australia that also produce mining engineers. (The numbers do vary somewhat, however, depending on definition, since in Eastern Europe there are a sufficient number of sub-specialties that accurate counts between countries become more difficult because of problems of cross-discipline identification).

Why do they need these engineers – well consider that, apropos my post from last night on the gas from Turkmenistan, Poland is going to be one of those countries hurt if Russia cannot provide enough gas to meet the levels of import the country needs to meet demand. With little choice Poland must fall back on the resource that allows it to help itself.

Sitting on an estimated 140 years' worth of coal reserves, Poland . . . . which has a population of 38 million, generates 96 percent of its electricity in power stations fired by coal, much of it from the country's still-plentiful Silesian reserves in the south.

In contrast, the proportion in neighbouring Germany is 60 percent, and in France, 10 percent.
. . . . "Poland won't be in a position by 2020 to make significant changes to this dominant technology," said Wladyslaw Mielczarski, an expert from the European Energy Institute think-tank.

So what can the country do? Like so much of the rest of the world it is hard to attract students into this discipline, which still has the image of primitive force – despite the introduction of a variety of technological developments that have considerably “modernized” the field. Those that graduate are still finding enough job offers to go around – within the global market place.
But with demand for new engineers at about twice the supply rate the prospects for dramatic modernization and change are limited at best. Why ? Because there is not enough of a trained workforce with enough time to do the research. And mining is not a major research area of interest in many countries (The United States, for example, closed the Bureau of Mines and the support for research that the agency had, until then, provided).

Is the industry concerned about the problems of carbon dioxide? Well consider that it just sold a large quantity of carbon credits to Japan.

The European Union's largest coal miner Kompania Weglowa will sell carbon dioxide offsets to Japanese utility Chugoku Electric Power, Kompania Weglowa's chief executive said on Tuesday.

Kompania Weglowa will sell 944,000 tonnes of offsets, called Emissions Reduction Units (ERUs), over three years for about 8 million euros ($11.71 million), Miroslaw Kugiel told a news conference.

Yes the industry has problems, and this, one of at least three meetings on Mining Technology in Poland in the next ten days, is trying to bring together those that have chosen to address those problems with technical advances. But in much the same way as in other countries it is much more fashionable, at least publically, to talk about the risks of climate change, than it is to be concerned that the policies that are being put in place will deny the world the energy supplies that are available and that it needs in the short term to sustain society until realistic alternatives can be developed.

There seems to be, from conversations with participants, less money available for research to answer the problems that the industry has to solve. Even with enough reserves, Poland must mine thinner seams at greater depths, and the most productive technologies of today should perhaps be replaced since there may be better alternative methods for those changing conditions. But where is the money to fund those developments?

And who will there be to work on them, when the industrial demand for graduates exceeds (even today) the supply and so salaries rise, graduate student numbers fall, and replacements for faculty become much harder to find.

I suspect that very few, if any, commentators are aware, let alone care about these issues. But these are the problems that will control the fuel bills of the next two decades – and so commentators should be aware at least of the current damage being done to that future.

A neglected form of Administrative Insurance for the future

There is an almost rhetorical question that comes up repeatedly when one talks with those demanding strong action to reduce the possible outcomes of the change in climate that are claimed to be due to increases in greenhouse gases. It is that we cannot afford not to take out insurance in case the theoretical prognostications are correct. And the argument is often made that there is little downside to this.

I was at a talk by Paul Lang, who is the Senior Vice –President for Operations of Arch Coal tonight, and he spoke of a definite and clear downside that the general public is certainly not aware of, and very likely fails to even remotely understand the consequences of. It is this.

Some 50% of the electrical energy in this country is produced from coal. In the MidWest this number rises, to 85% in Missouri, as an example. But over 100 coal-fired power stations have been cancelled or postponed because of the general attitude to coal by the current Administration and the political climate engendered by the furor over the possible AGW effects. We, this nation and the world need energy. At the moment, other than ourselves, nations such as Russia, China, India and Africa rely on coal for significant portions of their energy supply. That demand is not going to go away, and in one of the few likely accurate predictions of the Wicks Report they anticipate that coal production will rise from 4 billion tons a year to 7 billion tons a year, in order to meet this demand.

To produce the coal that the world needs, the industry must have engineers. That supply is beginning to vanish. In a typical year at the moment the industry needs about 750 new mining engineers globally. (This is not just for coal, you name the mineral – it came out of the ground and some form of mining was involved in extracting it). But globally there are about 350 students graduating. The work force in the industry is aging (over 60% of those in the industry are getting close to retirement) and then there are those below 35 in age who relatively recently joined the industry. There is a “missing generation” between the two groups, marking the years when there appeared to be no future going to work in the fossil fuel industries.


The public relations exercises that we see today that tout the “Climate Change” message project a strongly negative image of the fossil fuel industries to the general public, discouraging students, both in the United States and abroad, from going after careers in the industries involved. The nation already has had a more general problem in that less than 6.2% of incoming college freshmen in 2007 were anticipating careers in engineering. This has however recently risen with 7.5% of 2008 freshmen expressing an interest in going on to an engineering job, but given the national need, that is still a pathetic percentage.

For the fossil fuel industry the numbers are smaller and with limited demand for places, at a time where other disciplines were flourishing, University Administrations put their resources where the demand was. As a result while there are nominally about 12 accredited schools of mining, there are viably only around 6 that have what might be considered an adequate to good program. Others have below minimal levels of the faculty numbers required to teach an adequate range of courses, let alone also do the research critical to the advancement of the industry.

To maintain an industrial standard of safety that has now been achieved; to keep the production cost levels down and thus meet the prices for the fuel and electricity supplies that society expects, rather than the prices that will stagger and halt future industrial growth, and to keep the nation out of continued recession requires that the industry be staffed by engineers who know what they are talking about.

Projecting an image of a “evil” industry that will be “taxed out of existence” is fine if there is a viable alternative – but what if there isn’t? It would seem that the Administration might want to consider “insurance” in case their ideas don’t turn out to be right. In case the nation really has to fall back on coal for a viable economic future. If all the billions of dollars that are now being spent to study and suggest steps to take to lower global warming have been put in place because of insurance in case the AGW argument is correct (Joe Aldy made that point at the EIA Energy Conference in April.) then it makes sense to take out similar insurance in case the argument is wrong.

Is that likely ? Are we going to see greater investments in technology to produce fossil fuels at a greater rate, so as to meet demand and help sustain the economic recovery? Somehow I suspect that this, more realistic sort of insurance is unlikely to happen. But we shall see.

In the meantime the world still needs more qualified engineers in the fossil fuel extraction industries than those industries can find and hire. Plans will therefore be delayed, needed research will not get done, (the historic record shows that giving money to the National Labs to find answers to fossil energy problems is a highly expensive way of trying to solve the problem.) We are, therefore likely heading into a really serious problem time - isn't that insurance is supposed to help get you through?
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The Wicks Report - a gentle cough

Last week a report went to the British Government suggesting that nuclear power is an answer to their coming energy shortfall problems. The report is known as the Wicks report, and discusses Energy Security for the UK. In light of their transition from energy independence to the point where current imports of 25% of natural gas supply will rise to somewhere between 45 and 70% of supply by 2020 the report is timely. (That being now just over ten years away). The report would suggest that there is no need to panic – that renewable energy is on target to provide 15% of all energy by 2020, Increasing the contribution from nuclear power will take a little longer and it is suggested that a program be put in place to get 35 – 40% of UK electricity from nuclear by 2030. However in para 2.27 it states as one of the assumed conditions for the future it predicts that

In contrast North America becomes much less dependent on imports, dropping by almost a half, as production from Canadian oil sands increases.

Given the current level of US imports (recognizing that some come from Canada) the questionable reality of this assumption brings the value of the rest of the report also into question. (The US imported roughly 12 mbd of crude in May, of which roughly 2.2 mbd came from Canada, and unlike the report - see below - I do not see US current production being sustainable that long).

The report recognizes that, for the next decade, the UK will still rely on fossil fuels, demand for which will accordingly increase. And so what is the UK Government to do? The report suggests that the first step is to reduce demand, the second to move to adopt technologies that don’t rely on oil and gas – while reducing carbon emissions, and thirdly it recommends mitigating the energy security risks inherent in the use of fossil fuels. The scope of the problem is illustrated with this figure.


As you may note, UK production is dropping rapidly as a percentage of total use.

Unfortunately the report is better at stating objectives such as these than in providing realistic ways in which they can be accomplished. As an example it talks about the desirability of opening a “Southern Corridor” that will allow natural gas to be brought into Europe from the Caspian and Central Asia. This is, no doubt, a reference to the Nabucco pipeline that is being pushed as a way of bringing, among other things, Turkmen gas into Europe through a pipeline that bypasses Russia. The problem is that while the customers for such a pipeline are all very keen on the idea and sign promising proclamations the folks that would supply the natural gas are being strongly “courted” by Russia and so far have not actually agreed to provide all the gas required to make Nabucco a reality.

Coal is largely written off as a resource with the report noting

In 1954, production peaked at 227 million tonnes from around 900 pits employing some 700,000 miners. By 2008, a deep-mine workforce of 3,660 produced some 8 million tonnes from 18 underground mines.

In regards to oil and natural gas the national supply peaked in 1999 and is now declining at some 5 – 8% a year, so that imports now account for 26.5% of energy used. This is in spite of:

2007 saw the highest number (111) of offshore exploration and appraisal wells drilled since 1996. 2008 saw almost as many (105), with a strong emphasis on exploration. Over the past three years this strong drilling has resulted in more than 400 million boe being discovered each year. And the latest licensing round produced, at 171, the highest number of licences ever offered, to 99 companies.

One of the problems that the UK face (and others have the same issue) relates to the desire to cut carbon emissions. Thus the present energy plans see a cut in the UK use of coal – interestingly enough, however, the report notes “coal projects can be producing within two to five years of an investment decision should high growth in coal demand resume.” So this remains a rabbit that can be pulled from the hat, when circumstance dictates, and internationally the report projects an increase in global coal use going from the current roughly 4 billion to 7 billion tons by 2030, though the growth rate is anticipated to decline over time, as carbon concerns grow.

Coal imports and exports by region through 2030

In terms of oil and natural gas the report has no problem in projecting global oil demand at 106 mbd by 2030. Given that they project both China and India increasing the number of vehicles in each country by a factor of 10 that seems remarkably low. (I was going to say optimistic but I suspect that depends on how you view the number).

To meet that demand the report recognizes that production outside OPEC has probably peaked and thus all the increase will come from just some of the OPEC members. (There is that "small" caveat mentioned at the beginning – the US need from OPEC is seen to decline since the report projects that half the US need will be met from the Canadian oil sands – para 2.27). The following graph comes from the IEA (but last year).

Oil imports and exports by region through 2030.

Given that increase in production, and the growth of the biofuels industry to reach 3.2 mbd in 2030 (the IEA figure) , although there is some question left floating in the report about the reality of both sets of numbers

Natural gas will be one of the big winners. While increases in US domestic production remain uncertain as to size, and Russian production is unlikely to increase much, there are anticipated to enough supplies on the global market through 2030 to meet the international need. This transfer between countries is to be facilitated by a significant growth in the LNG market.

Natural gas exporters through 2030.

It is interesting to note, under the category of risks, that the report says:

For all three fuels, physical supply risk due to geological constraints may be effectively ruled out as a serious concern since there are sufficient proven reserves and even larger remaining resources.

However, the geopolitical and economic risks are such that the large sums of investment needed to exploit these reserves may not be made or may not be timely, meaning some markets are potentially left undersupplied or prone to volatile or high prices. In addition, as resources become more concentrated, supply disruptions in certain regions may have a larger impact on physical availability.

2.59 The consequences of a supply disruption for oil are generally considered less grave than for gas delivered by pipeline since in the event of a disruption of one source, the liquid nature of oil – both literally and figuratively in terms of the global oil market - mean that supplies can be shipped from other regions and purchased from sellers with relative ease on the spot market.

And for those of us concerned about peak oil, it has the following words of wisdom:

Firstly, the peak oil debate tends to focus on conventional oil production and often excludes natural gas liquids (NGLs) and other unconventional sources such as oil sands, and oil shales.

Secondly, the fundamental constraint on production is typically considered to be the geological scarcity of oil, leaving out other important factors such as technological progress, future demand for oil and its link to the oil price, access to and investment in the development of existing resources, and political instability or resource nationalism that limits the amount of recoverable oil.

All I can say is that he doesn’t read the same sites, and follow the same debates on the issues that I, and most of the folk that I talk with about this, read. Most of the subjects that he says that we ignore are covered, from time to time, in these pages. This is the global projection for oil production in 2030.

Oil reserves by country Source: BP Statistical Review 2009 for 2008 production and exports; and IEA World Energy Outlook for 2030 production estimate reference scenario

Now if you want to go down to the second line you will note that it says that Canada will export 943,000 bd in 2030 and produce 1,900,000 bd I am going to presume (given the statement about America getting half its oil from the Alberta sands) that this is conventional oil – though when I see that the US is still supposed to be producing 6.5 mbd I don’t see how it can be.

One of the interesting curves in the report is how the UK is supposed to get to the low carbon emission rates that are being promised. The following figure shows the relative proportions of different fuels that are anticipated to be needed for the different scenarios.



Now if the far left column is the base case, you can see how much other sources are going to have to contribute to bring the overall figures down. And you can see the advantages that adding more nuclear power will bring to those columns and the overall number.

The report is not confident that, in the intermediate term (that covered by the report) the UK will be able to provide all the renewable energy supply that it needs. It may however be able to provide enough biofuel. Bear in mind the recent start of the wood-fired station fed from plantations in the UK.

In terms of the overall picture in both the short and long term the report concludes that the UK cannot become energy independent but must import the oil it needs for transportation. (Electric cars won’t have a significant impact). Talk of independence is “unrealistic.”

And so the final conclusions are – become more efficient and save energy, develop technologies to minimize oil and gas use, and to allow coal use without generating GHG. (One concept that is proposed is underground coal gasification – which I will put on the list for a Sunday Tech discussion).

There are some nice graphs, and some philosophy, but unfortunately I think that some of the projections in the report are considerably over-optimistic, particularly those dealing with oil supply. Given that the rest of the report has a significantly reduced value.

Turns out that I wasn't the only one that is not impressed. The Economist even went so far, in commenting on the bleakness of the picture, to tie the story to "posturing politicians."

Energy Summit - the last talks

The final part of the Energy Summit in Columbia began with a series of talks from faculty on the four campuses. It was divided into four tracks, Power Generation (which I was at and will write about); Transportation and Biofuels; Energy Infrastructure; and Materials for Energy Applications. Although not up yet, the main site for the Summit is adding videos of the different sections, and I will add those references behind the track titles as they become available. At present the Keynote by Boone Pickens ; the Governor’s remarks and the first day’s speakers after 3 pm (covering my third post) are available. I will list the other posts from earlier in the Summit at the end of this piece.

I was the first of the speakers up in the Power Generation track, and spoke about the predictions that have been made concerning the life of fossil fuels, focusing on that of David Rutledge , which predicts that peak coal will come sooner than is currently anticipated. I expressed some doubt that his predictions are correct, with similar concerns regarding the work of Dr Hall and his students, about the increasing energy cost to mine future coal. To illustrate why I briefly covered the development of three mining machines, that which we call Hydrominer, (a longwall waterjet machine concept that moved from the lab to surface trials to underground trials in Germany); that which we call Rapiers, which was developed in collaboration with folk at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and a waterjet assisted auger. By cutting a deep slot around the outer perimeter of the coal mass to be removed, the constraining surrounding pressure is removed, and the coal is more easily removed and fragmented, with lower energy cost.

I was followed by Mark Prelas, of UMC Nuclear Engineering, who talked (the links are to the paper abstracts) about nuclear energy conversion. The basic method of extracting power from nuclear energy has focused on the steam cycle for 150 years, and he is looking to using a photon path to achieve a better efficiency in energy extraction. It is, perhaps, the equivalent of the nuclear light bulb. The concept has been used by the military, and would go through the stages of fuel to fluorescer to photons to either chemical, laser of electrical energy. He discussed various fluorescers which could be matched with PV cells to improve efficiency of transfer. I this way he could move from 50% plant efficiency to 70% (At present the Calloway nuclear power plant at Fulton, MO operates at around 37% efficiency). Even with pebble bed reactors, and higher temperatures a 50% efficiency is likely to be tops conventionally. This new concept would, however, require a new build and is unlikely to be around before 2040.

Anthony Caruso from the Kansas City Campus then talked about the need for neutron generation detection. He showed that it only required less than 1% of waste to go astray and there would be enough plutonium out that could get into the hands of terrorists and provide a major problem. A racquetball sized sphere would hold 2.7 kg of plutonium and would be safe to carry but small enough and easy enough to conceal to cause serious problems. He then elaborated on the potential risk, and the need to develop more effective detectors (which he is doing).

Jimmy Adegoke from Kansas City, then talked about a program that is being run to assess climate change risks commenting that “we are beyond debate that we have global warming!” (If you look at the top right of the three curves shown on the main page of the Climate Research Unit at Hadley (the main British Climate monitoring site), you will see that all three curves – for Northern, Southern and Global temperature – have been trending down (showing global cooling) for about the last ten years). His group does a carbon footprint assessment with the intent of helping local industry both understand the impacts of legislation, at the local level. He discussed work with Congressman Markey’s subcommittee to establish the impact of climate change on the economy of the Midwest. He is assessing the effects of change on agriculture, water, energy and health at the local level. In his regional assessment he found that the carbon footprint broke down to roughly 2 million tons of Residential; 3 million tons of commercial; and 1.5 million tons of industrial generation. He has a carbon footprint calculator which helps identify where savings can occur for individual operations.

We broke for lunch, and then returned to hear first Lea Kosnik, from UMSL, who had accompanied me to the radio station on the first day and whose subject is small and microturbine use to generate hydropower without the need for the dams across the waterways that are a pre-requisite for larger schemes. Their small size makes them easier to install, and to construct using easily available components of proven reliability. As I corrected back at the original post, there are some 5,000 sites, in Missouri alone, that could be used as installation sites for the technology. This gives a more reliable feed, when needed, to backstop some of the more intermittent sources, such as wind and solar. It also does not require the considerable planning of larger systems, and is unlikely to meet the local resistance that dams not generate.

Curt Elmore of MO S&T was next, talking about an emergency method of creating potable water in crisis. He and his colleagues set out to provide another source of water, after a natural disaster, other than military convoys handling out bottled water. He started looking at alternatives and found that UV is an effective disinfectant for water, and so designed a portable system (running at about $40k at the moment) to run from renewable sources. He began with hopes for a wind turbine as part of the package, but came to realize that this did not contribute enough, and that simple solar panels were adequate to provide the power to run the system and provide a clean water supply. Because it does not leave disinfectant in the water it cannot treat a recontamination problem, short of running the water back through the system. By using an ultracapacitor they were also able to get rid of batteries, and by using the pump on a water bowser that would bring water to the unit, it could be made smaller and more inexpensive. It was simple to get to 10 gpm, and with an individual using about 2 liters/day this would be more than adequate for a community. They are currently investigating commercialization.

The final speaker in the track was S.K. Loyalka from Columbia, describing a $3 million program that they have looking at very high temperature nuclear reactors. These are generally either Prismatic or Pebble Bed reactors, with the pebbles being spheres about the size of a tennis ball and stacked at around 400,000 in the reactor itself. In the process of passage they undergo some degradation and the study is looking at the fate of this dust, as well as “ball” behavior.

There was now a break, after which I wandered into the Clean Coal breakout panel, under the Vice Provost for Research at MO S&T, Dr Krishnmurthy. . Although less structured, with the panelists first making short remarks, before engaging in Q&A with the audience, Wandering in after the introductions I missed who was who, but there were some very realistic views presented from venture capitalists, a state senator, and others. After Dr Al-Dahhan had described some of the paths forward to generate clean coal, one of the panelists commented that this is not the sort of environment a venture capitalist likes to work in. He contrasted it with medical investment, where the funds required are reasonable (say $75 million) and the risk and rate of return are acceptable. In contrast CCS is larger by two orders of magnitude and this takes it beyond the interests of the venture capital market. This is a tough space to live in, and there are very few (2 out of 300) who might be interested in playing in this sandbox.

The Navy panelist (John Pazik) noted because of the way military budgets are constructed, rapid rises in fuel prices come out of the operating budgets of the commanders, and thus require sacrifice of something else.

Senator Shaefer, in looking at the political side, commented on how hard it is to get legislation through. Missouri relies on coal for 82-86% of its energy. With EPA mandated to rule on CO2 that leaves the state very vulnerable. And he commented that “scientists may say that this is the right thing to do, but politically it may not be possible.” He thinks that soon it will be impossible to build a coal-fired power station, and that the best CCS injection sites are shallow enough that the CO2 won’t stay liquid.

Vic Svec from Peabody pointed out that natural gas generates carbon dioxide, just as coal does. It is becoming the new method of power generation, but bear in mind that while we pay $0.065 per kWh, CA and NY are paying around $0.15 - $0.20 per kWh. We are going to continue to use coal, it is just going to stop being cheap to do so. He talked of doing CO2 injection to help oil EOR and that Missouri had the potential to do this in the Western part of the state. We have lost a decade however in making progress on this issue, where there are also concerns such as “can I inject CO2 under your house ? How deep? Etc” We need technology and technicians to control and bring down the price to make systems viable.

In the wide ranging Q&A the need for better communication was emphasized but the problems of finding qualified people remain, at all levels. And it was clear that campaigns to wean the country from coal in the next 10 years are unrealistic.

The final panel I went to was on infrastructure under Dr. Mariesa Crow of MO S&T.

Linda Martinez of MO DNR pointed out that with Missouri seeing 261,000 unemployed, the emphasis in getting jobs with green technology is paramount. Retraining is essential but we need to get all stakeholders involved in the planning of that. There are only a limited number of green jobs at the moment and we need to find how to grow them.

Barbara Kenny of NSF spoke of the goals of the Administration, and that the new stimulus money to NSF that would be used to give a higher success rate to proposals sent in to the agency. There is an interest in Renewable Energy Storage and in Green Building Technology.

In discussion the panelists concurred that improving Energy Efficiency is the first priority for moving forward and having a success. The State has just produced a wind may, and thus wind may be the second stage in the process.

Bill Downey of Kansas City Power and Light, looked at building a new plant, and how they assessed viable alternatives. He has been impressed with the speed of growth of renewable sources, and expects that they will generate 20% of power in the future. However getting public policy changed is a long struggle, even with gains in efficiency, though that is a bridge forward.

Brian Clevinger is a Venture Capitalist and he talked of the technologies at Universities and that “it was the worst of times, it was the even worser of times.” Venture Capital is down 40% in general but clean coal investments dropped 80%. New creative money is almost non-existent.

We have failed to focus on replacement energy for the systems that we currently use, so that, since the population has doubled, and is on its way to double again it is going to take all that we have got. Unfortunately many of the answers are yet to be palatable politically.

Given that many of the panel had mentioned efficiency as the logical first step and the low hanging fruit, I raised the question of Jevons Paradox. Which it appeared that no-one had heard of. (Which means that I will try and make it my topic for a tech talk tomorrow).

Similarly raising the question of Peak Oil and oilfield declines such as in Cantarell got no response. Rather they talked to public policy and how to get jobs. They talked of smart metering and some of the complexities of running controls on home energy systems from a central system. The comment was that, to date, the incentives are not enough to drive behavior.
And then we were done.

Earlier posts in this series covered the program; the keynote address by T. Boone Pickens; and the first invited speakers; the end of the first day; and the first part of the second day.

Energy Summit - the third part (end of day 1)

This is the fourth part of coverage of the Missouri Energy Summit, with the earlier posts listed at the end of this one. This post covers the final session of the first day.

The first speaker was Karen Harbert of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for the 21st Century., and she spoke of Energy and Climate Change realities. For her Energy Security means affordable, reliable supply and the reality is that to get that we need to establish our position, at a time when the world is growing and with it demands for energy. She pointed out that at present 1.6 billion people do not have access to electricity, and that will change. As it changes, and 70% of the demand for power will come from developing nations where most of these folk live, so it will become harder to both get energy supplies and to also get the credit to pay for them.

New production, and new sources of power will need time, the right policies and lots of money if they are to be realized. But even then “we cannot mandate what technology cannot deliver.”

Singing a song after the hearts of the academics in her audience, she noted that we need new talent to develop these new sources, yet we are graduating a lower number of engineers. That must be switched around, and while the optimal product might be an Engineeer with a Masters in finance, there is not yet enough incentive in the path to get many students to follow it, and without them the path will stretch longer before we have the supplies that we need.

(Ed. Note: To reply to a comment the top left section of the graph (though in another version) has been expanded and added to the bottom of the post. This is so that I can try and give a better explanation of what I am talking about).
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She was followed by Himadri Pakrasi, of Washington University in St Louis. Washington U has recently got a significant infusion of money for bioenergy production, with a total commitment of some $55 million. This has created the Center that Dr. Pakrasi runs and which is dedicated to bioenergy production. He spoke of the availability of tall grasses in the mid-West and of algae, and the recent consortium that had created the Clean Coal Consortium on campus.

Bob Dixon followed with a talk entitled “The Perfect Storm meets the Global Tsunami.” Lest there be any doubt as to his position on global warming, his first remark was a question to the audience on whether they believed the world was warming, and when a lone dissenter raised a hand at the front, his response was that “he was not willing to take the risk.” (I will comment in a later post about the risks that he is quite happy to incur to avoid that of global warming). To show that the world was warming he contrasted winter pictures of the Arctic ice cap in 1990 and 1999 with the summer ice cap in 2007.

And since ex-Vice-President Gore mentioned the same thing in his testimony before the House Committee today, let me just put up the graph of Arctic ice cap size, so that you can judge their remarks against the truth. And it is also here because porsena referred to earlier plots, that only go up to 2005.


Source IARC – JAXA

You will note that the current size of the Arctic Ice field is larger than it has been at this time in any other year of this century. It is actually (as of yesterday) within the range of variability of the average field size over the past 28 years, and if the current trend continues, will exceed it by the middle of May.

Bob Dixon, having made his points about the Arctic ice, went on to talk about the need to conserve energy through better building design. He noted that 40% of energy expended goes into buildings and homes. And while we have standards for the performance of many things, and tests for their efficiency, we do not have any for buildings. Yet we are approaching a time where utilities will increasingly be able to turn off our air conditioners, for 10-minute periods, in order to conserve their energy outputs, when loads approach brownout conditions.

We are now at a time that there is a program to weatherize, where homeowners are encouraged to improve building efficiency, but the question is, who verifies that what is done is right, and that the costs will be recovered as promised?

Yet he gave an example of a program that works. The Australian Government rents office space, but will only do so if the building is energy efficient. By creating that demand, and then competition for its business, the Government has ensured that private owners are motivated to move forward and change, overall, the design and efficiency of business construction.

Michael Chesser of Great Plains Energy came back to talk about the punitive effects of cap and trade legislation. He noted that, on average, it will raise electricity rates 40% and there should be a wide ranging debate before such a step is undertaken. He expects that “the next ten years will see more change than has occurred since Edison invented the electric light.” But this requires that the partnership of players be expanded, and both utilities and customers must be willing to step up and be partners.

Te stability of energy prices over the past years has been an asset to the economy and American business. This has required that the utilities provide enough capacity to meet the maximum demand, but bear in mind that the average load is only 50% of capacity and it goes above 75% of capacity about 10% of the time. Thus the utilities have a large investment that rarely is fully paid for, and really does not address the efficiency of supply and demand. He again drew attention to the EPRI PRISM site (3.5 meg pdf).

And while bearing this in mind, remember also that there are now parts of California where there is sufficient wind energy available that the price of electricity goes negative in the evening. In that circumstance it would be nice to have a number of plug-in hybrids sitting ready to download the excess. Yet there are safety issues for such types of systems, and a central control of them.

The final speaker of the evening was Bob Kruze of GM. He noted that the study of physics saves lives. (It keeps the idiots out of Medical school). He looked into the future and sees some 900 million vehicles which are currently owned by only 13.5% of the global population, but by 2020 this will rise to where 15% of the populace will own a car. That rise in demand will consume a lot of transportation fuel. But we cannot pump enough oil to meet it. (He was one of very few who bent a nod in the direction of Peak Oil). We can, however displace some of the demand with efficiency and diversity. From the point of emission control cellulosic ethanol would be a winner, since it would lower carbon demand by 85% on a well-to-wheel basic comparison. He expects that ethanol will replace 40% of gasoline demand by 2030., and GM is partnering with two efforts, one thermo-chemical and one biological, to produce ethanol, with Coskata and Mascoma, the latter looking at prairie grasses. He anticipates there is enough off-peak capacity to power 30% of commuter demand. He claimed that GM did not kill the electric car, but talked about the Volt, the Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV).

He also spoke up for hydrogen, and that there is plenty being made today, that could provide a fuel. (Neglecting that it is used to help refine hydrogen deficient crude in refineries at a considerable cost). He felt (neglecting that) that hydrogen could be competitive at around $2 - $3 a gallon (untaxed). Hydrogen would be generated from Natural Gas. And just recently one of their card did a 300-mile trip to Terrytown NY.

Earlier posts in this series covered the program; the keynote address by T. Boone Pickens; and the first invited speakers.

Current Ice coverage in the Arctic - April 2009 Detail showing recent changes in slope

The Missouri Energy Summit

This is the season where Conferences seem to thrive. Thus, having recently got back from the EIA Energy Conference in Washington (that had, I believe some 1,200 attendees) this week sees me driving up North to the Missouri Energy Summit. Although taking place on the Columbia campus of the University of Missouri, the event is chaired by Jack Carney, the Chancellor of Missouri University of Science and Technology and runs for Wednesday and Thursday of this week. It is suggested that there will be over 2,000 folk at the meeting, and the Keynote Address by T. Boone Pickens is already sold out.

As with the earlier conference I will be trying to put up a couple of posts decribing what goes on, however, in contrast with the Washington meeting I am scheduled to take part in the Poster Sessions, and am also giving a paper (on coal use, mentioning in passing recent comments on the size of American and global coal reserves and the EROI on coal as it moves forward). But then I check the Website and lo! The breakout sessions at which I am speaking are also now sold out. So if you don’t have a seat, then, other than watching live video of the presentations through the Conference Website this may be your only other source of information – though we will see what sort of press we draw.


The meeting starts at 11:45 am on Wednesday with Mr. Pickens talking at 12:15 in Jesse Auditorium. This will be followed by a review of some of the Energy Related Research that is being carried out by the four campuses of the University system, and then a panel of invited speakers.

These include:
Hon. Dale Klein, chairman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Joan Woodard, Ph.D., executive vice president and deputy laboratory director for integrated technology programs, Sandia National Laboratories: "The Dimensions of Energy Security"
Daniel F. Cole, senior vice president, Ameren Corp.
Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy
Himadri Pakrasi, director, International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability, Washington University
Bob Dixon, senior vice president and global head of efficiency and sustainability, Siemens Building Technologies; industry vice chair for the Alliance to Save Energy
Michael Chesser, chairman and CEO, Great Plains Energy and KCP&L
Bob Kruse, executive director of global vehicle engineering for hybrids, electric vehicles and batteries, General Motors.

On the Thursday the program starts at 7:30 am with:
Robert K. Dixon, leader, Climate Change and Chemicals Team at the Global Environment Facility
Mark Templeton, director, Missouri Department of Natural Resources
The Governor will then speak, followed by:
Richard Sayre, director, Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
Robert Duncan, vice chancellor for research and a professor of physics, University of Missouri-Columbia: Prospects for Discovery of New Energy Science


From 10 am there are then four concurrent tracks (on Power Generation, Transportation and Biofuels, Energy Infrastructure and Materials for Energy Applications) in the sessions through lunch.

In the afternoon there are break-out panels that run consecutively on Clean Coal; Transportation and Biofuels; Nuclear Energy and Infrastructure Development with the meeting closing at 5 pm.

I’ll let you know how it goes.