OGPSS - The dangers of complacency

Perceptions based, perhaps on too small a collection of information, can lead into opinions that, on investigation, turn out to be incorrect. Just recently a couple of friends had mentioned that charities that they are associated with were seeing a decline in donations. I built this into a picture of the general public being less able to afford earlier levels of giving, perhaps because of the continued impact of higher costs of fuel. The perception is, however, as a general statement wrong, and (Via the National Park Service from The Giving Institute I learn that:

Americans gave more than $298.42 billion in 2011 to their favorite causes despite the economic conditions. Total giving was up 4 percent from $286.91 in 2010. This slight increase is reflective of recovering economic confidence.

The greatest portion of charitable giving, $217.79 billion, was given by individuals or household donors. Gifts from individuals represented 73 percent of all contributed dollars, similar to figures for 2010.

In the perception that is becoming increasingly prevalent on the future of energy supplies, and particularly crude oil, the current adequacy of supply is projected forward to anticipate no problems with supply in the future. Peak oil is now being suggested to occur, not because the supply is limited, but because, with the increasing use of renewable energy, demand will peak, and then decline. Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich is quoted as projecting that the growth in fossil fuel use will almost stop by 2030, while Citi Commodity Researchers are suggesting that the increases in prices will drive increases in efficiency that will bring a peak in oil demand “much sooner than the market expects.”


Figure 1. Projected changes in global oil demand from Citi Commodity Researchers)

This anticipation of future gains in efficiency of use is a common thread to pictures of the future from the three major oil companies that I recently reviewed. All three, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP expect that energy efficiency gains will have a major impact on demand. BP, for example, anticipates that through 2030 energy demand will increase 36%, but that without this improvement in efficiency global energy would have to double by 2030.

One of the problems in assessing the changes in efficiency over time is that, when looking at the past decade, one has to recognize the significant impact of the recession. For example, the Odyssee project looked at energy use in Europe and clearly showed the impact of the recession on demand.


Figure 2. Changes in electricity use in the countries of Europe following the start of the recession. (Odyssee)

What also caught my attention in looking where most of the energy savings were occurring was that it was in countries catching up to Western Europe, rather than in the more established West, and that when the overall savings are totaled these appear to have slowed significantly.


Figure 3. Overall energy savings in the EU relative to a 2000 baseline (Odyssee)

The second problem with the curve that Citi projects lies in the rate at which vehicles are switched from diesel and gasoline to natural gas power. There is currently an economic incentive in parts of the world to make this change, it currently sells at around the equivalent of $2.10/gallon in the USA. Yet it requires both infrastructure and an investment of capital to make the change at any level of significance. Nevertheless it remains a key ingredient of the Pickens Plan that Boone Pickens has been selling around the country for a number of years now.

The fact that Clean Energy Fuels can list all 22 stations that added natural gas pumps along the “Natural Gas Highway” in the November-January period, does not indicate a great rush to build that infrastructure. It is easier to change the local distributor networks, with companies such as Waste Management indicating that they will use CNG in 80% of their new trucks, than it is to see the rapid change of the longer distance haulers, and for passenger vehicles. A recent article in the Washington Post noted that only 20,381 vehicles ran on natural gas of the 14.5 million new cars and trucks sold last year. Further not only does a CNG vehicle cost more to purchase, it also has a lower range, although for some applications that may not be much of a handicap.


Figure 4. Average Annual Vehicle miles travelled by category (Alternate Fuels Data Center )

Yet, at the moment, it is the use of ethanol that is having the most impact on alternate fuel use. Other than that there has been little indication of much change in the market.


Figure 5. Alternate Fuel Vehicles in use from 1995 to 2010. (Alternate Fuels Data Center )

And in this regard Europe has also seen little movement toward the use of natural gas, in contrast with the use of biofuels, and neither has made large gains.


Figure 6. Comparative penetration of liquid fuels market in Europe by biofuels and natural gas (Odyssee)

The problem, of course, is that if these improvements in efficiency and switches to alternate fuels do not occur, then the demand will continue along the Business-As-Usual line, and, as BP forecasts, demand will double by 2030.

The question as to what will be available to meet that enhanced demand remains one of the great imponderables that folk seem, again, unwilling to face. Certainly with a steadily increasing demand, and the constraints on supply that these pages have continued to document over the years, it becomes very difficult to see how price stability can be maintained, where demand exceeds supply at a given price. The problems that this will bring, particularly those nations that now subsidize fuel, a policy that is unlikely to change in Asia, are likely to be major. Yet for countries such as India, which last year has spent the allocated fuel subsidy budget for the year by the end of July the political costs of change remain very high and could well remain in place until the financial burden becomes intolerable. Unfortunately, with the current complacency, at that point it will then be too late to start searching for alternate answers.

Changing Light bulbs at the White House

Last Friday the House passed the Waxman Markey bill on energy and climate change, establishing, among other things a cap and trade system for carbon, although the details and the timing are not as yet such that the true impact of the legislation can be accurately estimated. I say that in part because the bill must be approved in the Senate and then the two versions reconciled, but also because I rather suspect that one the basic legislation gets put in place it will be modified and tweaked until something with a little more teeth finally emerges. Thus while the current step is significant, I don’t really expect that it will be close to what we ultimately have to live with.

But the Senate vote is not here yet, and after trying, with remarks, to help encourage the bill through the House, the President was in the Grand Foyer of the White House, this afternoon, with Secretary of Energy Chu to add a little more encouragement. He noted:

this is a moment where we've been called upon to cast off the old ways of doing business, and act boldly to reclaim America's future. Nowhere is this more important than in building a new, clean energy economy, ending our dependence on foreign oil, and limiting the dangerous pollutants that threaten our health and the health of our planet.

And that's precisely what we've begun to do. Thanks to broad coalitions ranging from business to labor; investors to entrepreneurs; Democrats and Republicans from coal states and coastal states; and all who are willing to take on this challenge -- we've come together to achieve more in the past few months to create a new, clean energy economy than we have in decades.

But his remarks today were more than just an encouragement to the Senate to get on board after the House action, he also announced an effort by the Department of Energy to increase energy efficiency of appliances. He started with light bulbs, which he noted were more financial rewarding that might at first appear

The first step we're taking sets new efficiency standards on fluorescent and incandescent lighting. Now I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses. Between 2012 and 2042, these new standards will save consumers up to $4 billion a year, conserve enough electricity to power every home in America for 10 months, reduce emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 million cars each year, and eliminate the need for as many as 14 coal-fired power plants.

The President went on to talk about the need to impliment technologies that will improve the efficiency of buildings -

We're talking about technologies that are available right now or will soon be available -- from lighting to windows, heating to cooling, smart sensors and controls. By adopting these technologies in our homes and businesses, we can make our buildings up to 80 percent more energy efficient -- or with additions like solar panels on the roof or geothermal power from underground, even transform them into zero-energy buildings that actually produce as much energy as they consume.

He ended with a comment that I will also quote, but which (when juxtaposed to apply to the climate change debate) could equally apply to the tactics of his supporters.

But the fact is we're not lacking for ideas and innovation. All we lack are the smart policies and the political will to help us put our ingenuity to work. And when we put aside the posturing and the politics; when we put aside attacks that are based less on evidence than on ideology; then a simple choice emerges.

We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc, or we can create jobs utilizing low-carbon technologies to prevent its worst effects. We can cede the race for the 21st century, or we can embrace the reality that our competitors already have: The nation that leads the world in creating a new clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.

I would disagree about the level of ideas and innovation that are really out there. Many of the new ideas get caught in the net of surveys carried out by blogs and newspapers seeking new topics for stories. Thus if the idea is out there and viable then in today’s electronic age odds are that we would be hearing of the potential. (We hear a surprising amount of what is going on from quite a few people thanks to the grace of e-mail etc). From that there really are not that many outside-the-box creative ideas that are that dramatic, and yet likely to succeed in changing the way the world gets energy.

It is easy to say that we have these talents and dedicated engineers, but we don’t have enough of them, and the protocols can slow rather than accelerate developments. Many of the new ideas have been submitted to NSF who must now review them on their merits to select the best. NSF does this with physical panels of folk that meet, and discuss a set of the proposals over a day, generally ranking the proposals with only the top one, historically, being in the ballpark to get funding. Now with all the packages, the numbers of proposals have driven dramatically (into the thousands) and still the panels must meet and evaluate. But the numbers of people not involved in one proposal or another rise to a higher level of the available scientific populace, given the new opportunity, so finding the right reviewers and dividing up the proposals into packages of a reasonable size, is likely to be a huge undertaking, especially with the demand for rapid decisions in order to get the money from the Stimulus out into the community. (So raise your glass to those willing to serve on those panels (I may be one) since it is otherwise a relatively thankless job with little tangible reward). And I am also a little cynical that we will see many truly innovative ideas. I would be delighted to be proved wrong, but when the dust settles I fear that all we will see is more of the same.

To finish on a personal note, we did take delivery of the Fusion Hybrid this afternoon, and are still trying to remember which button operates what. It looks very much on a par with the Camry apart from the TV camera that comes on when you are backing up, and the collision alarm when there is a car/truck in your blind spot. Both have proved their value already. Now if we could just work out how to play music . . . . .

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 second morning

The second day of the Summit began early, but still had all four University Chancellors and the University President in the room at 7:30 am although it took a fair while longer for the body of the room to start to fill. In his welcoming remarks the Chancellor of the University of Missouri-Columbia noted that by changing to burning tires, switchgrass and an assortment of waste, the campus had cut its coal consumption by 5% this past year.

The first speaker of the day was Robert Dixon of the Climate Change and Chemicals of the Institute for Environmental Security. He was a member of the IPCC, and has been Head of the Energy Technology Policy Division of the IEA. (A glitch meant we did not see his opening slides). He began with the point that the world has areas of extreme energy poverty and that we need to change the way in which we do business. Indonesia will soon pass the United States in the amount of GHG that it emits, yet all our economies are built around the use of petroleum, and this is not a sustainable base.

Having been part of the IPCC and the IEA he commented on the difficulty in explaining positions to world leaders when you only get ten minutes of their time. At the moment we are not on a path to a sustainable future, and that message cannot be conveyed in that small an amount of time.

The world needs not only new technologies, but also a new system that should include energy efficiency, since that is the gift that keeps on giving. Yet, if we are to reduce GHG we need some 24 – 32 new nuclear plants a year, and the world is only installing 1 or 2. To force the change he feels that we should have cap and trade with a $50/ton cost for allocations, but if the world is to get down to the carbon dioxide levels required, then the cost should rise first to $200/ton and then to $500/ton. (On an editorial note, based on Missouri consumption, where a $50/ton carbon cost doubles our electricity price, this is calling for pricing that will take it up, first by a factor of 4 and then 10 – so that electricity will approach $1.00 per kilowatt hour, and if your bill is now $200 it will become $2,000 a month).

Replacing coal will require ALL technologies be advanced forward, and they should be funded, but there are many pathways being proposed and these must be co-ordinated to give a viable roadmap for the future. They will provide many opportunities for investment, but given that the current system has had its investment cost covered there is a challenge to find the funding for replacements. Public sector R&D is down, and so politicians must work to reverse this trend if we are to find the answers that we need. An energy revolution is urgently needed, but there are barriers of funding and timeliness so we must take action to induce change.


Mark Templeton has recently been installed as the new Missouri Energy Czar (coming from heading up Yale Law School). He began by listing some pluses including the first city (Rock Port) that is powered entirely by wind. Yet at the moment Missouri ranks 45th in Energy Efficiency and so there is a need to communicate to the public, giving them ways that they can save. If we could just save 15% of our electric use, and 10% of our natural gas use, this would, over time, add up to $2.8 billion in savings.

Yet we cannot only address the problems of the past (by weatherization etc) but we also have to find new future answers. Missouri is 49th in use of renewables, and 18th in use of wind power. (Ed note: Possibly because we don’t have enough of the higher speed winds we need?) In summer we get as much sun as Florida, and while biomass is not that far along, it is an indigenous resource. If Washington is going to push us, then we might as well move ourselves.

He noted that fuel prices are going back up and we are now at a time where OPEC cuts in supply are controlling cost. Missouri is seeing record unemployment, we need to find and develop the next generation of green jobs. To this end they are working with the Office of Economic Development.

The University President. Gary Forsee, then introduced the Governor of the State, Jay Nixon. The Governor picked up on the theme carried by Mark Templeton, tying Education and the Economy together, and stressing that we need a trained workforce, in the right areas, to move us out of the recession. We need to change our economy but must recognize that the energy demand per capita will not go away, though improved efficiency and conservation are going to be vital parts of the future economy.

He cited the new wind farm, and work on batteries to store excess wind energy, as current indicators of progress, but justified his continued investment in education and retraining . He noted that while normal drivers brake around a curve, NASCAR drivers accelerate so that they can take advantage of the coming straight stretch. He views Missouri’s economy in the same way.

He drew attention to his program to fund young interns to work in future areas of renewable energy with the comment, in passing, that giving kids money was sure to stimulate the economy, since they were certain to spend it. We must both walk and talk the talk, and so, at the podium, he signed an Executive Order lowering the energy use in state buildings.

The Governor was followed by Richard Sayre of the Danforth Center who spoke of the benefits of algae, and some of the paths that are being taken, including using algal species that weep oil and can be milked (using alkanes) and then put back out to pasture, rather than internally producing it and having to be destroyed to recover the oil. He again commented that ice caps could be gone in the summer before long (no I’m not going to put the reality graph up again).

Energy from biomass has the potential to create more “green” jobs than other renewables, and he noted that the United States already produces more ethanol than Brazil. But the parts of the country that have highest solar intensity to help plant growth also have poor soils and a lack of water. He showed a map for the country locating the 30-inch rainfall line as running down almost through Columbia, and questioned, based on it, which biofuels we should focus on. Since oil crops have more energy than starch, biodiesel producers are more logical. At present oil costs from algae are divided with slightly more than half in production, and slightly under half for harvesting. With a pond only containing 0.1% useful product there is obviously a need to reduce the latter costs. Interestingly he noted that, growing algae in Missouri, it is not the cold of the winter that is the problem, but rather the warmth of the summer. He then went on to make a number of the arguments that I have made when I talk of the advantages of growing algae underground (light spectra control, use of the full amount and at levels that algae will grow at optimally). By adding sugars to the water, they have found a dramatic increase in the oil production rate, and by changing the algae to use lower light levels they have doubled the production rates from deep ponds. With the additional change to “weeping” algae they have had a 3-fold increase in biomass production and a 40% increase in the oil production rate.

Rob Duncan the Vice Chancellor for Research at UMC, was on 60 Minutes (video report ) last week talking about cold fusion. He gave an expanded talk on the subject, noting that he had gone from being a cynic to a believer.

After reviewing the history he went on to share some of the photos and experiences from his visit to the Israeli lab doing the work. And in the process of explanation he may have made a number of other converts. When there has been talk before of energy output being greater than input in the experiments, I always got the impression that it was not that much. But he talked of vessels boiling over, and getting a MegaJoule of energy, where there should have been a hundred joules. But more convincing to me was the surface of the palladium rod, which, after the experiment had small “volcanic” pits with molten ejecta.

He could not yet explain it, but he noted that at this stage it does look real. However there is a huge gap between discovery and useful engineering application and so the topic must be approached with less hype and more focus on a scientific method for determining evolution of the technology.

Dr Duncan was the last of the Invited Speakers, and the Summit then broke into two consecutive parts. In the first there were four sets of concurrent papers by Missouri research groups talking about their work, and this was followed by two sets of two panels where there was discussion on Clean Coal, Transportation and Biofuels; Nuclear energy; and Infrastructure. Since this post is getting a bit long, I will summarize these in the next post.

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

Energy Summit - a radio visit and the Keynote

Today was the first of the 2-day Missouri Energy Summit but before I could go and grab my seat for the Keynote (covered below the fold), three of us were invited to a local radio station, KFRU, to appear on the Morning Meeting with Simon Rose and Renee Hulshof. Being a little unfamiliar with the town we barely got there, when we were on the air, talking about what had brought the three of us to the meeting. Lea-Rachel Kosnik was there to talk about her work with micro-hydro. Given that both wind and solar energy are variable producers, small scale-hydro provides a resource that can readily be brought on line when needed as backup. Further, as a mature technology, the parts are available and are thus more "shovel ready" than many alternatives. She had found some 5,000 locations in Missouri where this might be a viable option, without running into controversy over environmental problems, and where the plant could produce more that 1 MW. Lea is an economist, and was less concerned that some of us about the imperatives of finding an early solution to energy supply, feeling that as the price rises again so market economics will restrict demand and encourage alternate supplies.

Byran Becker from UMKC talked about energy efficiency, and gave the example of food storage in supermarkets. Where the cold food is stored behind doors, he noted that the conventional wisdom was that this would reduce sales, in fact their study showed that sales increased. (Tip - take the food at the back of the shelf since it has seen less temperature fluctuation) In addition he noted that the store would save 2/3 of the storage energy bill, where these displays were closed. Were this to be adopted nation-wide then we would save the equivalent output from 2.5 250 MW coal-fired power plants.

I talked a little about my day job, and the energy saving value of putting high-pressure waterjets on mining machines to reduce the overall energy cost of mining, but really also tried to turn the discussion to recognition that while solutions were evolving, the time for answers is much closer than the discussion would suggest. But when I pointed out that Cantarell was dropping in production by 250,000 bd/year and that Ghawar had very few years left, I got the feeling that I was the only one in the room who knew what I was talking about. (I did check with the one person I thought might, and he didn’t). Simon and Renee were gracious hosts, and kept the discussion moving in such a way that at the end they had us agreeing that we needed all forms of energy as soon as possible, to help. (But I did get a sense that they had the odd concern over ethanol, and Renee did note that with prices falling for ethanol, food prices were still up).

Yet the conversation prefaced my sense of the whole meeting, that then followed. The atmosphere seems to be that we have survived the energy crisis. That little blip when the oil price went so high, well that was it, and now we can sit back, relax and take the time to work out what we need to do next. No hurry! (At least over oil supplies, global warming is entirely another issue).

(Ed. note: The paragraph above on Dr Kosnik's work has been corrected to reflect the immediacy of application of the technology, and that here are 5,000 sites in Missouri, and not as originally written in the country. My apologies for the inaccuracy).

When I. later, mentioned Jevon’s Paradox, this was not something that folk were aware of. (Basically the paradox was noted back in the 1830’s as railway locomotives were made more efficient coal demand still went up.)

Jevon’s Paradox tells us that when we increase the efficiency of the use of a resource, we initially decrease the demand for that resource, but that ultimately this lower demand reduces price, which causes a “rebound” of increasing demand. When applied specifically to energy efficiency, this is commonly referred to as the “Rebound Effect.”

But hurry we did, to get back to the main campus, in time to hear T. Boone Pickens, come out to talk about Pickens Plan. As he admits in his video he is giving much the same presentation to folk around the country, seeking support for H.R. 1835, which has the following key parts.

Title I: Promote the purchase and use of NGVs with an Emphasis on Heavy Duty Vehicles and Fleet Vehicles
Title II: Promote Production of NGVs by Original Equipment Manufacturers
Title III. To Incentivize the Installation of Natural Gas Fuel Pumps and Service Stations and Depots and Domestic LNG Production Facilities for Small Energy Producers
Title IV: Natural Gas Vehicles (Not later than 2014, at least 50% of all new vehicles purchased by the US Government shall be capable of operating on natural gas.)

From which you might be able to guess why it is called the Natural Gas Act, and since Boone has a company Clean Energy Fuels that is “the largest provider of natural gas for transportation in North America” why he is that excited to get his “Army” to support it.

He noted something that I had not thought of. Until now Venezuela has been selling their heavy oil into the United States, not because they love us, but because we have the refineries that can process the heavy crude, and then sell it into the American market. However last May the Chinese signed an agreement with President Chavez, and will be building a refinery in China that will be able to refine 400,000 bd of Venezuelan crude. Apparently this number is now confirmed, but the deal has grown to include Total, and the construction of an upgrader facility in Venezuela to clean up the oil before it is shipped. Boone thinks that this prefaces a total coming sale of Venezuelan oil to China at 1 mbd, which will dramatically cut into the oil that we get from there.

It is information like this that has Boone predicting that we will soon be importing 75% of our oil, and that it will be costing us $300 a barrel. Money that we should be spending on health care and education will all go for oil. And if we are now willing to sit back and let this happen, then we should be filed under “stupid” in the drawer. (His humor was much better than this, I’m just a slow writer). He is not impressed with how much oil is left offshore in the US, where the “Drill, Baby, Drill” crowd want to drill, and when he looks at the future picture, only natural gas is going to be available to balance out declining fuel supplies, and to power an 18-wheeler. (That was his criterion for a replacement fuel, since without that power the fuel hasn’t enough practical value). He felt that with enough incentives natural gas could replace enough transportation fuels that we could be independent of foreign oil in 10 years.

He then took a few questions from the floor (when asked if he would have done things differently knowing what he does now, he commented that he thought things hadn’t turned out too badly.) He sees his plan as a way of spreading information about the coming crisis, and plans to continue and expand the activity. And then he was off.

I will cover the next part of the meeting in the next post, it having been a long day.

P43. Pick Points

I mentioned in Monday’s post that I have an interest in algae, and so I will put up a couple of items that caught my attention this weekend. The first deals with the possibility of using wind power to provide some of the energy that algae need to foster growth Some of the European wind farms have been up for a while, and one in Denmark, that was installed in 1990, is looking at using some of the extra power to encourage algae growth. The algae, through the generation of biofuel, would thus act as a form of “battery” for the wind. One problem, however, is to ensure biological security, since the escape of algae species into a favorable place, such as in Hawaii, can have negative results, and require costly capture and remediation. The use of algae for flue gas cleanup has inspired a number of efforts, from Israel to MIT (who use it to make hydrogen), to Missouri . There is also the blog Oilgae, which carries the MIT report on the topic.


Developers of the Shtokman project are talking about using CCS as part of the strategy for development at the site. There is anticipation that the cost of the project will decline with the poor economy. More details of the loan from China to encourage a pipeline and oil supply to that nation are now emerging. The change in investment strategy has the advantage of getting a good price now for the oil, and securing it into the future. Russia is also trying to find a way to improve the efficient use of energy, with planning for a new law on the way, and an example of how it might be done, comes from a dairy. In the United States homeowners can look at the Home Energy Rating System which compares the energy use of a house with a standard. Based on the result that you get different approaches may be needed to lower the number (a 200 means you use twice the standard). Oregon is moving to have the state provide loans to encourage upgrading of homes in a way that would make them more energy efficient. As I noted in Monday’s post, this is something that we are seeing in an increasing number of states.

St Mary Land and Exploration is drilling horizontal wells into the Woodford, and Haynesville shale and while cutting the number of rigs back to 7, from 16 at the peak of last year, one or two of the rigs will shuttle between the Haynesville, the Eagle Ford and the Marcellus shale sites. The lateral section of the well is around 3,300 ft, and with 10 slick-water fracs will use some 3,000,000 lb of resin coated sand proppant. There is some move in Pennsylvania to require that drilling records for the Marcellus be made public (including production data) every six months. Other states such as Louisiana and Wyoming post such production on Web sites. Chesapeake, who is drilling both Marcellus and Hanesville is currently getting a favorable press. With natural gas prices projected as perhaps falling as low as $2 per MMBtu due to lack of demand and overproduction, this years prospects don’t look good for the industry.

Scotland is looking for new ways to develop marine energy, the target being some 60,000 MW. The current projects are based in Orkney, and the European Marine Energy Centre. The current targets are sites around Britain and Ireland that are capable of producing more than 1,000 MW each, largely from wave and tidal energy.

The State Governors are asking Presidential help in promoting biofuels hoping to see approval, for example, of ethanol blends above 10% and as high as 30%. (This was something Dr Chu was asked about last week).

Because of the global financial problems Russia and Kazakhstan are considering slowing the development of the Karachanganak project (which is reputed to have 47 trilion cubic ft of gas).

P31 Pick Points

Half-a-dozen or so stories of interest:

Sweden has just lifted its ban on nuclear power growth, with the intent of increasing from their current 10 nuclear reactors. Last October the NEA published its first Nuclear Energy Outlook with predictions up to 2050, and with the renewed interest and this global switch to a more favorable atmosphere concerns about supplies of uranium are rising. India has just signed agreements with Kazakhstan to assure its supply. With as many as 300 new reactors planned around the world, assuring supplies is becoming more necessary. India alone will bring four new reactors on stream this year. And just this week Areva has agreed to supply $6.3 billion worth of uranium to France. It will likely come from Canada, Kazakhstan and Niger. In regard to the weapons side of uranium purchases Iran is apparently finding it more difficult to find supplies. There is however a prediction that supplies of uranium (once mined) may well last 200 years though that carries the usual caveat of “at current levels of consumption.” With the growing number of reactors, that prediction becomes increasingly meaningless.

China is also pressing ahead with its nuclear power program, doubling its nuclear power target for the next decade. The country currently has 11 reactors generating about 1% (9 Gigawatts) of the countries needs. By 2020 the new target is 70 Gigawatts. Construction planned for this year will add over 8 Gigawatts alone. It may need the power since hydroelectric sources will be hurt as the country sees a lack of rainfall since October that has caused China to declare a state of emergency in eight provinces. 40,000 sq miles of wheat and red seed, about half the crop, are at risk.

It has been suggested that the creation of the Zipingpu dam triggered the Wenchuan major earthquake in China last year, this is a concern, since China is still building hydroelectric dams. This dam was set to generate 760 megawatts of electricity. That report is not stopping China Hydroelectric from raising $200 million to help with hydroelectric projects. China is also investing heavily in wind energy aiming for an installed capacity of 122 Gigawatts (the size of five Three Gorges Dam outputs) by 2020

The Xinjiang region of China found more gas in the last year than in the previous 50, and now considers that with 11 trillion cu m it has a quarter of the Chinese reserve. China used 76 billion cu m in 2008, up 12.3% over 2007. Note that this was down from the 23% growth rate of 2007, when it used 67.3 billion cu. M. China is expecting that its economy will lead the world out of recession. One way of doing this is to subsidize the purchase of appliances, particularly in rural communities.

Along those lines President Obama is raising the standards for energy efficiency in appliances, bringing the regulations into line with Congressional will. “We will save in the next 30 years, the energy produced over a 2-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in the United States.” (Incandescent bulbs are to be phased out by 2014). It is a message that more companies are hearing, and increasing renewable energy power, even though it is more expensive. A move to capture carbon dioxide in rock, however, may need to burn 40% more coal to power it (reducing reserves from 200 years to 100).

Iran is making some noises about being a possible source of gas for the Nabucco pipeline. And speaking of pipelines there is talk of providing load guarantees for an ethanol-only pipeline in the United States.

Interestingly just as Pakistan is seeing serious problems with shortages of natural gas , the onset of more LNG trains and the slowing economies of he world may be leading to a world gas glut, at least according to Platts.

For more stories see The Energy Bulletin and Drumbeat at The Oil Drum

P27. Pick Points

Half-a-dozen or so stories of interest:

Somewhere in Washington they are looking for incentives for us to buy a new car. The Germans have seen it work by providing 2,500 euros to everyone who replaces a car at least nine years old with a new one. The need for this can be seen by the continued decline in sales, even as industry incentives have risen to an average $2,902. Well maybe we should hold-off on a replacement until they decide ?

Having set some of the standards for automobiles that will likely soon impact the rest of the country, it is now California’s turn to go after energy inefficient appliances, such as TV’s, which can account for 10% of a home electricity bill. The Department of Energy is running a campaign to improve residential water heaters. Yet the amount set aside in the stimulus package is relatively quite small. Though that has not stopped some entrepreneurs. There are the standard steps that one can take to save energy but if the economy is to rebound, then the scale of increase that California has achieved needs to be applied, even perhaps in Italy.

One of the features of the Medieval Warming Period was the extensive and long-lasting droughts that hit Southern California. Trees grew where now lakes and rivers run, it was so dry. Now California is again facing severe drought. There are already campaigns to reduce water usage . With the snow pack only 61% of normal this could be the third year in a row where water runs short, and this is beginning to have serious consequences for agriculture . While the snow situation is a little better in Nevada, it too is facing problems. On the other hand Utah’s nine-year drought came to an end last June, and Arizona is seeing a moderate drought in Navajo County.

Following the Russia:Ukraine dispute over natural gas the relatively small volumes that could be sent around Ukraine through the North and South Stream pipelines is getting another look. In the South Gazprom is considering increasing capacity by 50% to 47 bcm. Coming the day after the meeting on the Nabucco pipeline, its major competitor, the response is quite quick. Germany points out that one can support both. But it may be Prime Minister Putin who makes the next move.

MidWestern Senators are urging a reconsideration of the FutureGen project. This plan to build a demonstration coal-fired power plant that would capture and sequester carbon dioxide was “restructured” by the last DOE Administration, and thus killed. This could not, perhaps have had anything to do with it being proposed for Illinois, where the junior Senator at the time had announced his support.

In order to help provide more electricity to Nepal, the price is to be raised and in this way load shedding can drop to 12 hours a day “soon” and to 6 hours a day by the end of February. There is s Singaporean there blogging about the problems.

For more stories see The Energy Bulletin or Drumbeat at The Oil Drum