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A blog about building solar power into or onto your home.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
EcoLeaf: Green Energy Innovation and Communication
Description:
ECOLEAF delivers insights on clean energy through consulting and speaking engagements. Our civic duty is to provide powerful insights into the world of dirty energy…and the corresponding need for clean energy. It’s a vital-yet–misunderstood facet of our world: while energy is the source of modern civilization, it has also spawned a carbon crisis. The current crisis is primarily a result of a widespread adoption of traditional power plants—coal, petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear energy—and the harmful by-products they produce. As more and more global communities enter the world stage, traditional carbon-based energy systems are being adopted making the carbonized energy an even greater issue.
They offer speaking "engagements" on the global carbon crisis, the green energy gap, etc.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Algae Fuels the Future
Description:
This video discusses our mission to decrease our dependence on fossil fuel and create a path to sustainable, renewable and carbon-neutral energy independence, with processes that are good for the environment. Algae oil does not suffer from the sort of social and environmental issues that have been discussed in other biofuel industries. Algae biodiesel does not compete with the food business. It is "grown" without the use of farmland and we recycle 98% of the water we use. Each year the United States and European Union consume over 100 billion gallons of diesel fuel. There simply is not enough available land to grow the volume of oil seed crops required for biodiesel to meet this demand. Algae harvesting can produce more than 200 times as much oil per acre than traditional biofuel crops. Algae requires a small fraction of the land required of traditional biofuel crops and can be harvested every 24 hours, unlike other biofuel crops that can only be harvested once a year. Algae does not require arable land or potable water and algae strains are not only a great natural oil source, but also capable of being used to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and contaminants from waste water. Our mission is to create the opportunity to produce a cost effective alternative to traditional oil supplies.
The Energy Dude
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A dude working on alternate energy of some kind. It's not real clear from the website what the heck he's doing.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Wind energy factoids from the American Wind Energy Association
In 2008 the wind energy industry brought online over 8,500 MW of new wind power capacity, increasing total capacity by 50% in one year. Phenomenal growth!! Keep it up!!
The U.S. market for small wind turbines (capacity less than 100 kW) grew 96% in 2008. There were 19 MW of additional small wind turbines installed.
Wind turbine or component manufacturers added or expanded over 70 facilities during 2007-8.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 includes a three year extension of a production tax credit (PTC) and a new program that allows renewable energy developers an option of securing a grant from the Treasury Department in the amount of a 30% investment tax credit. It also authorises an additional $1.6 billion of new renewable energy bonds for tribal governments, public power providers, and electric cooperatives.
Wind energy now contributes over 42% of all non-hydro-electric renewable energy generation.
The U.S. Department of Energy has a goal that 20% of U.S. electricity needs be met by wind power by 2030. A report: 20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply found this could be met in one scenario. That by 2018 installations of new wind power capacity would have to increase to more than 16,000 MW per year and continue at that rate through 2030. A total of 300,000 MW of onshore and offshore wind power capacity would have to be installed.
Fortunately the actual rate of new installations in 2008 exceeded the required level to meet the 2018 target.
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Friday, April 10, 2009
Economic woes causing falling oil demand... how does this affect the peak of oil?
The economy in a bad shape right now. That's caused a global economic slowdown and.. it has resulted in lower demand for oil. While it's not quite good for the oil companies (not that I care about their wellbeing) it offers us a breather in the peak oil scenario and offers an illustration of some economic facts related to oil. If nothing else this demonstrates a statement by Peter Wells at the 2008 ASPO conference. He described the oil producing countries, especially Saudi Arabia, as knowing very well there's a fine line to tread in setting the oil price, make it too low and the oil gets used up rapidly (and their income is low), set it too high and the customers either go out of business or start looking for alternatives, and therefore they look for a middle ground in pricing oil to make enough profit to keep themselves happy while keeping it low enough to keep their customers from looking for alternatives.
One thing this means is that with lower current demand for oil indicates a possible "plateau peak". In The Shape of Oil to come I discussed the shape of the peak of oil production. Some people are "sharp peak" thinkers, saying the peak of oil production will be followed by a drastic reduction in oil production, whereas others are "plateau peak" thinkers saying the decline in production will be gradual. If the peak which occurred a couple years ago is truly the peak of oil production, a decline in oil demand due to economic woes will contribute to a gradual decline hence put us in a plateau peak scenario.
Having a decrease in oil production because of lower demand is preferable to a production decrease because the oil fields are physically incapable of producing more oil. It means there is still spare capacity in the oil fields in case the economy recovers and again increases demand for oil.
Demand for oil drops as outlook for G7 remains grim
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The global crisis is sharply reducing demand for oil, and oil consumption is reaching levels last seen in the early 80s, a report from the International Energy Agency showed. The agency slashed its economic forecasts for the fourth time since October and now expects the world economy to contract by 1.4% this year, a sharp reversal from its previous forecast of modest growth.... The IEA is now forecasting that oil demand will fall by 2.4m barrels a day this year from 2008. The agency estimates that the world economy will need 83.4m of oil a day, 1m less than its previous forecast and the lowest level since 2004.... Oil inventories have built up to cover a "giddy 61.6 days" of consumption, the highest level since 1993. In response, producers have cut back output...The IEA expects producers outside Opec to pump about 50.3m barrels a day this year, down 300,000 from 2008.
Oil Prices: Is Crude Demand Collapsing or Not?
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But do the new IEA numbers really mean that the global oil-demand picture is getting worse? ... In the IEA’s view, oil demand is collapsing a lot faster than supply, setting the stage for lower oil prices in coming months. ... weaker demand is partially offset by a big slump in crude production. The more that supply picture tightens—as oil companies postpone expensive new investments, for example—the likelier it is that oil prices will rebound, recession or not. ...
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Believe it or not, there may be one compelling reason why we'd rather not crawl out too quickly from the economic crevasse into which we've fallen. Remember less than a year ago when crude was flirting with $150 a barrel? A sudden solution to our mounting economic difficulties in the face of declining oil production just might slingshot prices higher than we'd like to have them.
World is awash with oil as demand sinks: IEA
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The world is awash with oil despite a price rally but the glut is hampering investment in fields which will be needed when demand pulls out of a "relentless" plunge the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.... Oil producers were "scrambling" to cut back on deliveries to limit a build up of inventories which were "now at a giddy 61.6 days (of consumption) for February", the highest level since 1993. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had cut its output overall by "an unprecedented" actual 3.36 million bpd since September to below 28 million bpd, the lowest level since just after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. While the prospects for lower demand have muted concerns about a "supply crunch," the IEA warned that resulting low oil prices could undercut investment in future production.
Monday, April 6, 2009
OPEC's "Who Gets What"
I've been browsing the OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) website and came across a pamphlet they publish every year titled "Who Gets What from Imported Oil". This turns out to be a breakdown of which country gets what revenue from importing oil produced by OPEC countries.
Since "There are still many misconceptions surrounding crude oil prices and the prices of products made from oil, such as gasoline" the kindness and generosity of their hearts leads OPEC to give us this pamphlet to make it clear.
It's a short pamphlet and the key statement is this: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA) made a total of $2,585 billion from oil taxation. This compares with the revenue of just $2,539 billion for the OPEC Members over the same period. In addition, while the $2,585 billion in oil taxation by the G7 is pure profit, this is not the case for the OPEC nations, who must meet the cost of finding, producing and transporting that oil from their $2,539 billion income.
This shows the breakdown of the final cost going to the various countries (or companies) along the delivery channels. Their point being that a large portion goes to taxes in the destination country.
Those poor countries of OPEC, they only see a portion of the final cost. One must feel sorry for them.
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