Clipmarks | JICWyllie's 'energy' clips

E.P.A. Declines to Reduce the Quota for Ethanol in Cars

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:23:48 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie
clipper's remarks: Let them eat gas. At least, cake can be eaten.

The Environmental Protection Agency rejected on Thursday a request to cut the federal government’s quota for the use of ethanol in cars, concluding, at least for now, that the national goal of reducing oil use trumps any effect on food prices from making fuel from corn.

The agency’s administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said the mandate was “strengthening our nation’s energy security and supporting American farming communities,” and that the mandate was not causing “severe harm to the economy or the environment.”

Recently, high oil prices have led to even more ethanol production than the quota required. On the other hand, rising corn prices made some ethanol operations unprofitable, especially as oil prices started to fall.

“The food inflation that you’ve seen now, at least in the meat and poultry sector, probably is mild compared to what may be coming in the future,” said Joel Brandenberger, president of the National Turkey Federation.

Legislators from farm states applauded the ruling.

Tags: energy, renewables, biofuels, i-policy, i-subsidy, i-consequences

Per capita US military energy consumption

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:32:50 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: energybulletin.net

We all know that energy consumption per capita in the U.S. is amongst the highest in the world. To be precise, per capita energy consumption in the U.S. is 337 million Btu per year per resident. How much is the DoD’s? Well, 25 per cent more than the U.S. average, or 422 million Btu per person.

The DoD energy consumption and oil consumption per capita follows more or less the same path? Why? Because oil accounts for 78% of the DoD energy consumption. That simple.

I wrote it here million times and I repeat again, if the DoD wants to reduce its energy consumption it has to concentrate on oil consumption by tactical vehicles and stop wasting money for the gadget projects,

How much is then the US military oil consumption per capita compared to the US oil consumption per capita? Remember that per capita oil consumption in the US is verrryy high. In 2007, it was 25 barrels (per year) per person. How about the U.S. military? Only 59 barrels per DoD employee

Tags: energy, oil, i-demand, i-defense

Inflation Takes Steam Out of Rise in Spending

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:41:46 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Consumers spent more in June, but only because the things they bought cost more.

Driven primarily by energy and food prices, inflation grew 0.8 percent over May, the biggest monthly increase since September 2005, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on Monday. Spending, by comparison, grew just 0.6 percent in June.

current measure of food and energy prices kept by the bureau, adding in items like clothing — recorded the biggest year-over-year increase since July 1981.

Oil fell $3.69, to $121.41 a barrel, partly on anticipation that struggling consumers would not be buying as much,

“This is a kind of ‘Honey, inflation ate my rebate check’ story,”

Tags: economy, currencies, i-inflation, i-increase, i-record

Don't make the consumer pay for these inflated fuel prices

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:01:23 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

If you want to criticise the free market, look at the design of Britain's energy markets, particularly the wholesale market for gas where the big companies buy and sell to one another. As gas prices shadow every movement in oil price, other European countries have carefully built a substantial infrastructure to hold sufficient reserve stocks of gas in their systems to smooth price changes. Not in free-market Britain.

Amazingly, as North Sea gas production declines and we become more dependent on imports, we have capacity to store only 13 days' worth of gas. Germany has 99 and France 122.

So as wholesale gas prices have risen, the British system has offered no buffer to smooth the impact.

The so-called London loophole, created by the Labour government, excuses the London oil market from independent and transparent oversight.

Speculation is part of the oil price rise, and most of it is rooted in out-of-control London.

Tags: energy, natural gas, i-supply, i-prices, i-policy, i-failure

South Stream Russia-Europe Pipeline to Cost $20B

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:46:21 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.rigzone.com

Russia's Energy Ministry has announced a preliminary cost assessment of the South Stream pipeline project, a major gas export route to Europe, at $20 billion,

The pipeline, which according to plan should carry 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to Europe starting in 2013, will be built jointly by Russia's gas export monopoly OAO Gazprom and Italy's Eni SpA.

The initial assessment of the project cost, reported by Eni at the beginning of 2008, was about $10 billion.

The pipeline is to extend under the Black Sea, from Russia's southern port of Novorossiysk to Bulgaria, and then onwards to Austria and Italy.

It is meant to become a gas transportation route bypassing Turkey and Ukraine, which pose potential transit risks for Gazprom.

Analysts regard the cost increase as negative for Gazprom. Construction of the pipeline would mean a 3% increase in Gazprom's capital expenditure from 2010 to 2013, which would lower the company's fair value by about 1.5%,

Tags: energy, oil, pipelines, i-cost, i-increase, i-record

Oil falls futher ahead of inventories data

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:53:49 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.ft.com

Oil prices continued their three-week slide on Wednesday as traders waited for weekly US oil stocks data, released later in the session, to give the market firmer direction.

Analysts expect US crude stocks to fall this week, while they predict gasoline and distillate inventories to rise. Any numbers sharply below or above the consensus forecasts could prompt a sharp move in energy prices.

Oil prices have fallen more than 17 per cent since their peak above $147 a barrel on July 11. Fears that global demand is slowing have dominated since then, though analysts were divided on where oil prices would go from here.

Tags: energy, oil, i-prices, i-decrease, i-reported

OPEC 2.0

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:06:01 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

AMERICANS today spend almost as much on bandwidth — the capacity to move information — as we do on energy. A family of four likely spends several hundred dollars a month on cellphones, cable television and Internet connections, which is about what we spend on gas and heating oil.

Like energy, bandwidth is an essential economic input.

A future possibility is to buy your own fiber, the way you might buy a solar panel for your home.

The solution is to relax the overregulation of the airwaves and allow use of the wasted spaces. Anyone, so long as he or she complies with a few basic rules to avoid interference, could try to build a better Wi-Fi and become a broadband billionaire. These wireless entrepreneurs could one day liberate us from wires, cables and rising prices.

Americans are as addicted to bandwidth as they are to oil. The first step is facing the problem.

Tags: technology, internet, i-bandwidth, i-prices, i-policy, i-deregulation

Will clotheslines turn dryers into relics?

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:19:59 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.chicagotribune.com

nothing made such a dent in our power bill as abandoning the dryer. That simple change dropped our average monthly bill by more than $100.

Dryers use nine times the energy of a washing machine. And a heat-generating appliance is obviously the wrong direction to turn on a hot summer day.

Why haven't we heard more about this? Because no organized interest profits from line drying.

Tags: energy, electricity, i-prices, i-increase, i-consequences, i-behaviour change

Rising Energy, Food Prices Major Threats To Wetlands As Farmers Eye New Areas For Crops

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:13:15 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.terradaily.com

Critical food shortages and growing demand for bio-fuels and hydro-electricity due to high fossil fuel prices rank among the greatest threats today to the preservation of precious wetlands worldwide as farmers and developers look for new areas for agriculture, energy crop plantations and hydro dams.

However, resisting pressures to convert wetlands is vital to avoid destroying ecosystems that provide a suite of services essential to humanity, including safe, steady local water supplies, preserving biodiversity and the large-scale capture and storage of climate warming greenhouse gases, according 700 leading world experts concluding a week-long meeting in Cuiaba, Brazil.

The statement stresses the rising value of wetlands in an increasingly urbanized world, especially such services as water storage and purification, and recreation.

Wetlands are under assault, however, due to agriculture, grazing, aquaculture, dams, waste disposal, invasive species

Tags: environment, water, i-extinction, i-degradation, i-risks, i-increase

How to get oil from Canada's Tar Sands

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 15:20:20 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

1 / 6

irst, buy several dozen 797B Caterpillar heavy hauler mining trucks. Each of these machines can carry up to 400 tonnes of sand, which can produce 200 barrels of oil

Photograph: John Vidal /Guardian

Tags: energy, oil, tar sands, i-extraction, i-process

The Vanadium Battery: The Ultimate Energy Storage Solution

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:30:15 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

A new mass energy storage technology is on the cusp of entering mainstream society. The Japanese are currently using it on a grand scale, the Canadians have comprehensively evaluated it and soon Australians will have the opportunity to replace their old lead-acid batteries with a Vanadium Redox Battery alternative.

There are no emissions, no disposal issues, no loss of charge, the construction materials are 'green' and the battery can be charged and discharged simultaneously.

The potential of this system can be easily summed up in one word: 100% recharge/discharge.

As Japan is demonstrating, the amount of energy that their power stations produce can be cut by 1/3 simply by storing their previously dumped excess nightly energy into huge Vanadium Batteries. This form of load-levelling can be utilised by every power station throughout the world.

perhaps your next car might be using charged Vanadium as fuel, which has been the case for a few University of New South Wales professors

Tags: energy, electricity, i-storage, i-breakthrough

Lehman slashes world oil demand growth forecast

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:31:56 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: uk.reuters.com

Investment bank Lehman Brothers (LEH.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said Wednesday it slashed its forecast for 2008 world oil demand growth due to a steeper-than-expected slowdown in energy consumption in the United States and other OECD countries.

Lehman added it believes the oil market is "approaching a tipping point" with prices expected to decline to an average of $90 a barrel in the first quarter of 2009.

"We now forecast annual oil demand for 2008 at 86.3 million barrels per day, a growth of 790,000 bpd from 2007. The growth has been revised down from projections of 1.5 million bpd in December," Lehman said in a research note titled 'Demand Demolition'.

Oil prices struck a record over $147 a barrel on July 11 --

But prices have dropped about $20 since then, the steepest decline in dollar terms in the market's history, amid mounting evidence of a consumption slowdown in the United States and Europe due to economic turmoil and high fuel prices.

Tags: energy, oil, i-prices, i-decrease, i-forecast, i-reported

Speech of the Week - Gore's Energy Challenge: 'The Future of Human Civilization Is at Stake'

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:36:01 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

"Al Gore took a big risk when he called on us to get 100% of our electricity from cheap, clean sources within 10 years.

It's an achievable goal, but it's already under attack from the oil and coal companies. They're calling his plan unrealistic, impossible, and crazy. We're in a crisis. If this is the fate of any new idea to get us out of this crisis alive, we're toast. Gore's challenge will live or die on the reaction of people like us.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says "it is absolutely possible" that Congress will accept Gore's challenge. But to make it happen, we'll need to show Congress just how many people want bold action.

In Gore's words: "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.

Crisis brings opportunity.

Tags: energy, oil, renewables, i-policy, i-initiative

Costly biofuel support offers few benefits-OECD

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:06:22 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Public support for biofuels is costly and has little impact in cutting greenhouse gas emissions so governments would do better promoting lower energy consumption to fight climate change, the OECD said on Wednesday.

Governments should also boost the so-called second generation biofuels that do not use food crops,

The study comes as the latest blow to biofuels, made from grains, oilseeds and sugar, which were once hailed for providing a clean alternative to fossil fuels but are now blamed for a surge in food prices.

Many European Union countries including Britain, Italy or France recently for a review of the EU's ambitious and sometimes confusing blending targets -- notably that 10 percent road transport fuel be derived from renewable sources by 2020.

Rather than promoting biofuels, governments should spend their money on projects that consume less energy, it said.

"The primary focus for fossil energy saving needs to be redirected from alternative fuels towards lower energy consumption,"

Tags: energy, biofuels, i-costs, i-increase, i-consequences

Europe told to expect doubled gas price

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:24:45 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Clip Source: www.ft.com

The price of natural gas in continental Europe is to double in the space of a year as a result of the rise in oil prices, according to a leading consultancy.

Such an increase would put a further squeeze on hard-pressed European consumers and businesses, and add to the upward pressure on inflation in the eurozone, which has been estimated at 4 per cent in June.

According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates (Cera), a US-based consultancy, the rise in the oil price from about $70 a barrel a year ago to about $145 today will result in the gas price rising from about $350 per thousand cubic metres at the start of the year to about $730 by April 2009.

“As the eurozone’s exports slowed, people thought it would be compensated for by a consumer spending spree. But what’s happened has been a sharp rise in inflation that has hurt consumers’ spending power, hit their confidence and limited their spending,” said Howard Archer of Global Insight, another consultancy.

Tags: energy, natural gas, i-prices, i-increase, i-record, i-forecast