Clipmarks | kmcolo's 'energy' clips

Oil: $60/bbl. by next year (?)

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:01:06 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: I agree that the oil market has been driven by speculation. I'd _love_ to see $60/bbl. if only to screw the world's oil-dictators. But should it go that low again? The best way to screw the world's oil-dictators is to find a successful alternative energy source and $60/bbl. oil will only dampen demand for alternatives.

BTW, such wild price swings are a typical feature of an item whose supply is dwindling.

Clip Source: hussmanfunds.com

This Week:
The Outlook for Inflation and
the Likelihood of $60 Oil
In my view, the problem will emerge a few months from now, as a) economic demand softens further, b) planned production hikes actually emerge, and c) weakening price momentum encourages speculators to close long positions instead of rolling them forward. At that point, I expect that net speculative positions will plunge by 10-15% of open interest and we'll see a sudden glut on the market for spot delivery. It should not be surprising if this speculative unwinding takes the price of crude below $60 a barrel by early next year.
By John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
President, Hussman Investment Trust

Tags: energy, oil

Making and using a solar cooker

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:01:38 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.backwoodshome.com

Solar cooking is a delightful alternative to conventional cooking methods. The solar cookers available today really work and they deserve serious evaluation by a much larger audience. For 40 years, small groups of people have been using and refining some very good designs. But these designs have, for the most part, gone unnoticed even by those involved with alternative energy.

The people who have taken the time to integrate solar cooking into their lives find the motivation to keep refining the designs comes from the tools themselves: solar-cooked foods taste delicious and the ovens are fun and easy to use.

Tags: alternative energy, energy, food, cooking, solar

CFLs & Mercury: New Environmental Protective Technology

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:54:44 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: esciencenews.com

With rising energy prices and greater concern over global warming, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are having a successful run.

There's just one catch to this energy conservation story: Each CFL contains a small amount (3 to 5 milligrams) of mercury, a neurotoxin that can be released as vapor when a bulb is broken.

Now, a team of researchers at Brown University led by Robert Hurt, professor of engineering, and engineering student Natalie Johnson may have found a solution to the environmental conundrum.

The team has created a prototype – a mercury-capturing lining attached to the inside of store-bought CFL packaging. The packaging can be placed over the area where a bulb has been broken to absorb the mercury vapor emanating from the spill, or it can capture the mercury of a bulb broken in the box.

Tags: energy, environment

New super-sensitive explosives detector

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:25:45 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: esciencenews.com

Using a laser and a device that converts reflected light into sound, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory can detect explosives at distances exceeding 20 yards.

ORNL researchers are able to probe and identify materials in open air instead of having to introduce a pressurized chamber, which renders photoacoustic spectroscopy virtually useless for security and military applications.

While the researchers have been able to detect explosives at 20 meters, using larger collection mirrors and stronger illumination sources, they believe they can achieve detection at distances approaching 100 meters.

Tags: technology, physics, terrorism

Bioenergy potential of reviving abandoned agricultural land

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:12:58 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: esciencenews.com

Across the globe, hundreds of millions of acres of once-productive agricultural land lie abandoned

If this land was used to grow crops for conversion into biofuel, it could help ease the energy crunch without worsening the world food shortage or contributing to global warming.

"So this result is basically showing us that biofuels could be a meaningful, but a small portion of our total energy future."

Perhaps the biggest limiting factor with biofuel production is finding land to grow the biomass needed to produce the energy. Taking cropland out of food production clearly is not a good long-term answer. Nor is clearing forestland.

"Basically, what happens when you cut down forest is that all the carbon that was stored in those trees is released to the atmosphere,"

"If you put biomass energy in locations that previously had agriculture but don't now, you can avoid those problems."

Between 1- and 1.2-billion acres of abandoned agricultural land is lying fallow, according to the researchers.

Tags: climate change, global warming, alternative energy, energy, carbon, carbon cycle

Big changes are coming

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:26:31 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: rabett.blogspot.com

A principle driver for off-shoring production has been that the cost of transportation was pushed to zero by cheap energy prices and increased efficiency. This meant that cheaper labor costs in undeveloped or developed countries could be fully realized. That era appears to be coming to an end. Paul Krugman points to a paper by Venables and Limao about transportation costs and does a back of the envelop to estimate that current oil prices will cut world trade by 17%.

The same mechanism will cause changes within larger countries such as the US. We may be rapidly approaching the point where sending fruits and vegetables from California to the rest of the country will no longer pay. This together with the real estate bus might reruralize the exburbs.

Big changes are coming and those who don't catch on are going to lose big time.

Tags: global change, energy, economy

Webb splits with Obama over drilling

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:38:03 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: Thoughts on the federal ban on off shore drilling? I too wonder if it is not time to rethink this ban that was put into place by Bush Jr.'s father.

Clip Source: thehill.com

By pushing a bill that distances himself from the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate on offshore drilling, Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia is picking a curious time to exercise his well-known independence.

Webb wants his home state to have the right to explore for energy off Virginia’s coast. His staff insists his proposal pertains only to natural gas, and not oil, and that it is completely in line with the state’s other two leading Democrats — Gov. Tim Kaine and former Gov. Mark Warner, who is running for Senate.

Webb rejected the suggestion that his position differs from other Democrats’, saying that the bill calls for “a very careful approach,” state leaders would be a key part of the decision, and Virginia desperately needs the revenue stream for cash-starved transportation needs. Such decisions therefore should be made by Virginia, not Washington, he said.

Tags: oil, energy

MEND Makes Headlines With Most Ambitious Oil Attack Yet

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:34:47 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: newsecuritybeat.blogspot.com

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND, seen in the attached photo courtesy of ISN Security Watch) has attacked Nigeria’s oil infrastructure again, this time significantly enough to cause Royal Dutch Shell to completely halt its already limited production in the country. Worldwide crude price levels rose in the wake of the attack, as well as amidst concerns that a Nigerian oil worker strike could be imminent.

Tags: energy, war, conflict, oil, news

World Bank's climate funds finalised despite concerns

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:38:39 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.oneclimate.net

The World Bank and donors have finalised the design of the climate investment funds (CIFs) despite continued complaints over their governance and worries over their investment in non-renewable energy.

Both funds will be managed by trust fund committees rather than overseen by the Bank's board.

The SCF committee will include representatives of the UNFCCC, GEF, UNDP and UNEP as observers, while the CTF committee will include a GEF representative and a single UN representative. The SCF committee will invite civil society to identify a representative to observe but there was no specification of how the representative would be chosen.

Clean technology or business as usual?

Tags: climate change, global warming, alternative energy, world bank

Gore decreases energy usage: TCPR lies about it

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:39:35 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Last year the Tennessee Center for Policy Research made quite a splash with a press release on Al Gore's energy usage:

In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average.

They've just released figures for the past year

In the past year, Gore's home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

Feel free to check my calculations, but I think that 213,210 is less than 221,000. Honest folks who report this but want to criticize Gore might write something like: "Gore doesn't reduce his energy consumption very much." But the TCPR aren't honest folks. Here's what their report said:

Tags: gore, politics

New Frontiers In Wireless Energy Transfer

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:07:50 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.sciencefriday.com

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Move over Tesla - wireless energy transfer is making a move. In this segment, Ira talks with a researcher who lit up a 60-watt bulb from seven feet away -- with no wires. He thinks he's on to a way that laptops and cell phones could recharge themselves. Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.

Electric power was transmitted from the coil structure at left to the coil and attached lightbulb at right without wires. Aristeidis Karalis, MIT

Tags: podcast, science friday, energy, power

Energy or Food?

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:40:38 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: news.mongabay.com

World fertilizer prices surged by more than 200 percent in 2007, as farmers sought to maximize corn production for ethanol, according to the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC). Poor African farmers were hardest hit by the increase.

"Particularly hard-hit are farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers there need fertilizers desperately, to replenish their nutrient-depleted soils. But fertilizer use in Africa is the world’s lowest—about 8 kg per hectare. The lack of fertilizers in Africa accentuates hunger and poverty.

The rising price of fertilizers contributes to a positive feedback loop for grain prices. As the cost of inputs increase, so do prices of food.

"There was once a food economy and an energy economy—but the boom in biofuels is now merging the two,"

natural gas use are also influencing fertilizer prices. Gas that once went toward ammonia production in fertilizer manufacture is increasingly being liquefied (LNG) and used for energy.

Tags: energy, food, alternative energy, fertilizer, poverty, developing world

JatrophaWorld 2008: More alternative energy

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:34:32 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.futureenergyevents.com

Jatropha Curcas took center stage recently at JatrophaWorld 2008, which is being touted as the single largest international gathering of Jatropha entrepreneurs and financiers. Over 350 delegates from 40 countries convened in Jakarta, Indonesia on 23-24 January to be a part of the JatrophaWorld 2008 phenomenon.

JatrophaWorld 2008 attracted a wide portfolio of delegates including bankers, venture capitalists, investors, financiers, Biodiesel producers, plantation owners, entrepreneurs, scientists, agronomists and government officials.

Jatropha’s potential as Biodiesel feedstock and a source of renewable energy and poverty alleviation.

The social economics of Jatropha, and its impact on rural development was also examined and discussed with a wide variety of views expressed on Jatropha’s role as a tool for poverty alleviation.

Tags: alternative energy, energy, global warming, climate change

Jatropha: Plant fuels trucks?

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:30:58 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: No word on the climate impact of wide scale cultivation of this plant either.

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas L.), from the family Euphorbiaceae. Jatropha is native to Central America ^[1], and has become naturalized in many tropical and subtropical areas, including India, Africa, and North America. Originating in the Caribbean, the jatropha was spread as a valuable hedge plant to Africa and Asia by Portuguese traders. The mature small trees bear male and female inflorescence, and do not grow very tall.

Goldman Sachs recently cited Jatropha curcas as one of the best candidates for future biodiesel production.^[3] However, despite its abundance and use as an oil and reclamation plant, none of the Jatropha species have been properly domesticated and, as a result, its productivity is variable, and the long-term impact of its large-scale use on soil quality and the environment is unknown. ^[1]

Tags: alternative energy, energy, environment, global warming, climate change, biodiesel

Five 21st Century Challenges of Google.ORG

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:30:21 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.newpolitics.net

At the end of last week, the leaders of Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, finally announced the five areas that they will focus their money and attention in the coming years. In the language that we use around NDN and the New Politics Institute, the areas are five 21st century challenges that the old politics of the 20th century has ignored but that the new politics of this century needs to address.

“Developing renewable energy cheaper than coal.”

“Accelerate the commercialization of plug-in electric vehicles.”

“Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-sized enterprises in the developing world.”

“Inform and Empower to Improve Public Services.”

“Predict and Prevent.”

Onto this century’s challenges….

Tags: politics, society, energy, alternative energy