Some Basic Energy Information

Since the middle of the last century there has been an enormous rise in energy demand. This demand keeps on rising especially due to the Grow lands like Russia, China, and India.
More then 90% of the energy that is spent this day comes from non-renewable sources. The main reasons why people use non-renewable sources are because they don’t know the alternatives or the alternatives are too expensive.
So let’s highlight some of the renewable energy sources:

Hydropower:

Energy can be produced by channelling the flow of rivers or by storing water in reservoirs behind dams and directing it through turbines. This doesn’t cause any pollution, Hydropower is clean and renewable, yet it supplies less than 20 percent of the world's electricity.
But not everything is good about Hydropower, dams disrupt river ecosystems. It affects many habitats and can make it impossible for certain fish such as salmon to travel upstream to spawn. Fortunately technology doesn’t stand still and in the article about “Ending a dammed nuisance” you can read how they are trying to get rid of this.

Solar Energy:

Since centuries people use sunlight to cook food, heat water and homes. Today, solar energy is used for more then just those purposes. For example it’s used to provide hot water for industries such as laundries. Also well known are the solar panels, in sunlight these panels generate electricity. This is also clean/renewable energy, but the cost of solar panels is still too high.

Wind Energy:

This is now one of the fastest-growing energy sources worldwide. The tall wind turbines make use of the wind to generate electricity. The problem with wind mills is that they may cause environmental concerns. However it’s also a clean and renewable energy source.

Geothermal Energy:

Geothermal energy is probably not very well known. It comes from intense heat within the Earth, which also produces hot springs, geysers, and volcanoes.
The only widely used type of geothermal energy is hydrothermal, this is produced when subsurface water contacts hot rock and turns to steam, which is piped to the surface. In a geothermal electric plant, steam is piped to a turbine to power an electrical generator.
This type of energy doesn’t produce pollution when used, but to generate this energy there’s a lot of oil and gas needed especially for getting this energy above the ground.

Bio fuels:

Crops can be fermented to produce liquid bio fuels, the most common of which are ethanol and methanol. Today these alcohols are relatively high-cost but with the extremely high oil prices of today this can make them a good alternative. The air pollution savings from the increased use of ethanol are significant.


Source

Air pollution from electricity-generating large combustion plants

Courtesy of European Environment Agency (EEA)
May 2008

The Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (IPPC) did a study that assesses the potential to reduce air emissions. The results occurred that the best techniques were described in the large combustion plant reference document, introduced in electricity-generating large combustion plants within the European Union in 2004. The study reveals that more than 70% of the emissions are included in EPER for the LCP sector.

Several issues have not been considered to be within the scope of the study. These include consideration of ongoing changes that have occurred in the sector since 2004.

Due to the implementation of IPPC legislation (even if not considering such factors as fuel mix changes, closures or economic growth), emission reductions can be reached in the practice. Because of that, there can’t be drawn conclusions concerning compliance with legal requirements. The study can be viewed as a what-if study that wants to show how we can reduce the emissions. We can do it by using the techniques that are now identified in the large combustion plants. This is the best available technique in the large combustion plants sector as it was done in 2004.

Source: http://energy.environmental-expert.com

Double or nothing

The uncertain future of emissions trading.



Emission traders visited last week "the Carbon Expo". This annual jamboree says a lot about the peculiar state of the business of fighting global warming.
Projects that would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, financing for and auditing of such projects, and advice about how this whole burgeoning new business works. All this kind of wares you could find there.

And this new business realy works! In 2007, emissions trading grew into a $60 billion business. Ofcourse the European Union has a lot the do with this. It capped the emissions of big factories and power plants, but allows firms that exceed their allocation to buy unused pollution rights from those that have some to spare.
Also the "Clean Development Mechanism" has a big part in that $60 billion.

The crowd who visited this jamboree was resolutely international. Which is again another aspect that shows that the emissions trading business is a subject where a lot of people give attention to.
Maybe interesting to say is that the most visitors were bankers and not development types. This new form to invest will certainly be a popular and good business to spend your money.

But it's not all positive news that comes from the jamboree.
At this moment there are allready enough projects underway to provide all the offsets needed by the rich countries under the Kyoto treaty, which expires in 2012. So the market for voluntary offsets is growing fast but still remains small.
Also there is no guarantee that the world will agree on a replacement to Kyoto, or that a new deal will preserve the CDM.

Conclusion, the future of emissions trading can be very rosy or none at all...

SOURCE

Backing greens with greenbacks

May 8th 2008
It takes patience and guts to invest in the environment





Illustration by Satoshi Kambayashi

AL GORE, well known from his movies about climate changes, has also other things to do. He has also a fund-management firm, Generation Investment Management. It has just raised $683m for a fund that will have climate solutions. He hopes that these principles will produce strong profits.

So far, environmental investors should feel green with nausea. The Impax ET50, index of leading environmental shares peaked at the end of 2007 and then plunged by only a forth in January. However, it’s still down 10% on the year, in spite of a recovery.

People think that most green companies just consist of some geeks and a website, but the reality isn’t like that. They have to invest billions of dollars for building a wind farm, new technologies such as cellulosic ethanol or thin-film solar panels. With big investments, they don’t even know for sure if they will make profits. It can take many years and maybe there even won’t be a profit what means that it’s certainly not simple to invest in environmental companies.

The Bush administrations, whose drive for energy independence is big, invested a lot in bio fuels. Investors got disillusioned because there are a lot of doubts about the green credentials of bio fuels. Now, they hope that there will be a new generation of bio fuels that’s better than the current, who are still far away from perfection.

Source: the economist

Labour pains

A talent shortage hits green start-ups

A couple of venture-capital firms out off New England have set up an executive-education program about renewable energy. The idea after the course is to teach the participants about how they can make use of renewable energy. Renewable energy is popular at the moment, last year global investment in renewable-energy businesses alone rose by 60%, to $148.4 billion, according to New Energy Finance (NEF), a research firm.

The most participants don’t have any experience in renewable energy, but the fact that the course is going to learn them about saving money using renewable energy while helping the planet makes this course very popular.

But starting with clean-technology isn’t cheap, that’s way the course also contains sessions on project finance and government regulations. Because it’s difficult to keep up with all the new technologies and inventions on green energy they also give an overview of the latest scientific research.
At the moment all over the world there’s a battle for engineers and scientists. It’s hard for firms to found qualified engineers who can help them saving money on the energy issues. A lot of companies use headhunters to find their engineers and/or scientists. But companies also want that they have some international experience.

Source

Priming the pump

All three candidates promise to lower petrol prices.

A poll organized by Public Agenda and Foreign Affairs says that six out of ten Americans think that the national security "a great deal" could be helped by reducing energy dependence. Although global warming is a "hot" item these days, the Americans are most worried about putting cheap petrol in their cars.
This means that the immediate political imperative is to get the petrol price down.

From the three president candidates, Hilary Clinton came with the biggest promises.
She wants to suspend the federal petrol tax even as she wants to ban petrol-price “gouging” and go after “speculators” because she thinks that they are driving prices up. Another promise of Clinton is to haul OPEC before the WTO for anti-competitive behaviour.
It is now ofcourse unclear whether much of that is going on anyway. And, if it is, what effect it is having on the oil price.
So the most obvious thing the government could do is to get the petrol taxes down.
On the other hand, when you cut the petrol taxes people will drive more. And when people drive more, they pollute the environment and send more profits to the oil companies.



It seems that the recent "high" petrol prices are not the problem, but the cheap oil price in the past is the problem. People think that those prices were normal prices, but in fact, those prices were very low. The prices of today and tomorrow are quite normal prices. Ofcourse it will be difficult to explain this to the Americans...

SOURCE

Candidates' views on oil and the climate

Apr 30th 2008 | NEW YORK

The race to be president



I wonder if voters worry about the climate change, America’s dependence on oil or the cost of filling their petrol tanks? A poll released that he cost of filling their petrol tanks will cause the most concerns. The president of OPEC (Chakib Khelil) raised the prices of a barrel of oil.

Of course, the president candidates try to use these concerns in their advantage. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, both say that they will work on the climate change and energy security. Not only them, but also John Mcain, the Republican, says that he will do something about it. Foreign policy types worry about America’s reliance on oil from the Middle East.

The ways the candidates want to work on it are new fuels and greener cars. They also would cap carbon emissions and for the introduction of a system for trading carbon permits.

They also give examples of solutions for the cost of petrol. Mrs Clinton gave a lot of ideas on Monday. She wants to suspend the federal petrol tax for the summer driving season. A windfall-tax on oil companies should be paying this. Exxon wants to announce bumper profits on Tuesday. She would like to ban the gouging of the gasoline-prices and she would go after speculators who drive up prices.

It’s typical that the president candidates make all kind of promises, but let’s hope that this time, they will make their promises true, because it’s about the world and its environment now. It’s something you can’t just let go on.

Source: Economist.com

Germany's car industry

The European Commission introduced new emission limits for carmakers.
It seemed that the German carmakers will have the most work. The new limits brought howls of protest and not least from the German chancellor, Merkel. Now the proposed ceiling was raised a little, to 130 grams of CO2 per kilometre to be met by 2012.

However, the makers of the well known prestigious German cars, have still the most work because in the European Unio only six German-made models meet the target. And this is nothing compared with the cars made by competitors. 34 non-German models stay under the new emission limit.
Of course this is not nice to hear. Although the German cars are really beauties.. If you look from the green side, the score very badly.
Also for a country that likes to lead the way on the environment isn't this good news.
Spending more money to research and development instead of making greater volume of cars can be a solution, but that seems not quite easy for most of the German constructors, like BMW or Mercedes.
In the future the rules for carmakers will definately become more strictly, so it's a must for the carmakers, en in special the Germans, that they keep going on with finding solutions for the huge CO2 emissions of cars.

SOURCE

A region awash with oil money has one or two clouds on the horizon

THE Gulf is full of towers that measure more than 600 metres like hotels that will be suspended under the sea. Like that, people can’t see the resonance of Imperial College London’s gleaming diabetes centre in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The building is decorated with tessellated plates of aluminium.

The hospital (since 2006) now cares for 6,000 patients, who pass through its chain of tests and treatments in a single visit. Almost a fifth of the UAE's native population suffers from diabetes.

The sickness is a consequence of the region's economic transformation. Before 1961, Abu Dhabi lacked even a paved road. Since then, it has enjoyed a startling transition from pearling to petroleum, from souk to mall and from sand to glass.
This prosperity has bought a sedentary lifestyle and a sugary diet, which may have triggered a genetic predisposition to diabetes among Arabs. In the neighbouring emirate of Dubai shoppers are invited to enrol in “Mall Walkers”, a power-walking club that promises to give more than your credit card a workout.

Diabetes is a big problem for the Gulf. The region is struggling to absorb petrodollars without thinking about the consequences, it shouldn’t go like that, but nowadays, money is the most important for many people.

Source: The Economist

Crude estimates

On April 16th, in nominal terms, the oil prices reached a new record of of $115.07 a barrel. We say in nominal terms, because by other measures oil is not so expensive as it seems. Although these high prices were unimaginable a few years ago, the demand for oil continues to rise in many countries.

Research compares past and present oil prices. About inflation, you can compare with two price indexes. If historic prices are inflated in line with America's producer-price index, the previous record (1980s) would be the equivalent of $94 in today's money. But if you take the consumer-price index than the oil price has to rise just to $118 to hit a new record.
Of course wages in Western Europe are also increased in the past years and in that way, we can conclude that oil isn't that much more expensive as a few years ago.


A member of Deutsche Bank, who did this survey, notices that if the spend of energy would be to the same level as in the 1980s (8% against 6,6% now - USA), the price of crude would be rise to $145!

Although almost everybody complains about the prices of oil these days, we can conclude that those high prices are just not more than normal. It's even positive to see that the spending on energy is going down. And this certainly will continue for the near future!

SOURCE

Power plays

More cross-border energy deals are in the pipeline

The Energy map of Europe is heading towards a new formation again this summer. The reason of this redrawn is France EDF, the biggest European energy group. The greatest strength of EFD is the fact that 85% of its shares are held by the French government. That’s why they can spread out their wings all over the continent. To improve their dominance they first tried to gain control in Italy but since that failed they have turned their attention to Spain and Britain.

In order to protect the two main Spanish firms (Iberdrola and Gas Natural) against EFD the prime minister of Spain wants them to merge and protect themselves with a bunch of loyal shareholders so that they can fend off EDF. Especially Iberdrola is interesting for EFD because it’s the world leader in wind-power generation.
In Britain EDF is interested in buying the stakes that the British government’s wants to sell. But there are others who are also interested. The British government prefers a consortium of bidders, to avoid that one foreign firm gets to powerful on the British energy market. The most suitable alternative is that a big British firm teams up with an experienced nuclear operator such as EDF.
The government however is planning to invest in more nuclear plants because it is worried about climate change. It’s a fact that nuclear energy is clean but it isn’t always safe and it produces a lot of garbage. So for EFD it would be better to invest in new nuclear plants then in the old ones because they will last longer.

Source

A warm welcome

Peru's prime minister says that his country will be a net exporter of energy.
Instead of tightening the screws of foreign investment in oil and gas, Peru is courting it.

The government decided to open up swathes of the country tot exploration, and spend $1 billion to modernisate a state-run oil refinery and the construction of an export terminal for a huge liquefied natural gas project. Those investments would be the biggest in the history of the country, Peru.
Peru's president (Garcia) has a clear vision. He dreams of a petrochemical industry that creates thousands of new jobs. All this he will finish by mid-2011, because than he leaves office.
Big dreams, but if all this will become real... We'll see in the future.
Ofcourse not everybody is so enthousiastic as the president is. People of the environment think that the rush to develop Peru's oil and gas, will endanger the Amazon and coast, and also the welfare of some of the country's citizens.
Understandable that some people react like that, because when a country becomes more industrial, mostly the positives are highlighted but the many negatives will not have enough attention. And some people than will have difficulties in their lifes...
On the other hand, it's good that a country as Peru will make their country stronger and more open.
The future brings us more information if the plans will work or not ...

SOURCE

Protectionism is adding to Japan's expensive electricity bill

Apr 10th 2008 | TOKYO

Akira Amari, Japan's trade minister, says that Japan is open to foreign investments. He says also that J-Power, a wholesaler of electricity, is different. They deserve a special treatment because of their strategic importance: they are building a nuclear reactor.

Japan is a country that has to import all their needs so they are sensitive about investments in energy. The country is devoid of oil, gas, uranium and other fuels.
The European Commission is struggling to persuade the governments of European Union countries that they should allow foreigners to buy their national energy champions. But Japan's energy sector seems particularly in need of the fresh capital and new ideas that outsiders might provide.

Energy prices in Japan have a fall thanks to deregulation, they are still among the highest in the world. Between 1995 and 2005 they fell by almost 40%, even as consumption rose by around 20%.

In 2003, the government privatised J-Power in the hope that the rigours of the market would instil greater efficiency. Ten private firms now handle generation, transmission and distribution in specific regions, supplemented by two big wholesalers, of which J-Power is one.

J-Power shares have sunk by one-third over the past year. It included recommendations to sell directly to large customers, eschew minority stakes in overseas ventures for majority control, and shed its cross-shareholdings, which total ¥68 billion. Many of the ideas seemed sensible. Yet they were immediately dismissed by J-Power's president, Yoshihiko Nakagaki.

Source: the economist

The hot air of hypocrisy

One year ago the European Union leaders reviewed their plan to lead the world in the fight against climate change. They agreed to make deep cuts in carbon emissions, even if other rich countries did not follow. They put out a signal to the rest of the world: "Europe will start saving the planet now, even if the selfish Americans are not ready." Bigger cuts were promised if other countries joined in.

But that was then. A year on, leaders from countries with powerful heavy-industry lobbies called for explicit measures to “protect” European firms, in case talks on a global climate-change deal failed. The most important European countries all asked the EU to plan for failure, insisting that defensive measures must be agreed before climate-change talks in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.
Demanding “certainty” today for businesses that have to make long-term investment decisions, the heads of governments asked for a list of energy-intensive industries “particularly exposed to international competition”. Industries making steel, aluminium, paper, chemicals and bricks were all cited.
The excuses were that heavy industry would move to countries with “lower standards” unless helped to stay. Witch really means that they are afraid that the carbon-spewing firms might move to places with weaker environmental laws.
If Europe lets favored industries fight Chinese or Indian rivals with a “race to the bottom” on emissions, that means other bits of the economy must slash emissions even more. If you do the right thing, you will not be on a level playing-field with those doing the wrong thing.

Hopefully Europe will change their attitude of today and try to realize the words they’ve said last year.

Source

How green is the world?

Evaluating Dubai's island-reclamation project.

New artificial islands, known as “The World”, are part of a plan to create hundreds of kilometres of new waterfront for Dubai, attracting visitors and wealthy home-owners from around the (real) world. These 300 islands you can find just off Dubai's coast.


All of the artificial islands are built (by Nakheel) the same way. Masses of sand are gathered from the seafloor of the Arabian Gulf. The sand is then brought to Dubai and sprayed in a giant arc onto the shallow (10.5 meter) seabed off the coast. The sand piles up until it breaks through the surface of the water and forms an island about 4.5m high. Then a massive breakwater is built around the islands to protect them from the stiff local sea currents. It is expensive work: each development typically costs billions of dollars.

But those gigantic works bring some negative effects with them :
The intensive construction of Palm Jumeirah created vast plumes of sediment that turned blue seawater milky and temporarily damaged marine life. It also destroyed turtle nesting sites and the only known coral reef along Dubai’s coast.
However, Nakheel says that, in the end, the balance will be positive. He promisses that the environmental impact will be better than before..
Of course we have to wait and see that first.

The question that most people will have is of course :
"Do artificial structures in the ocean actually promote more life, or do they simply attract it?"
It's difficult to give an answer to that question, because people have a different idea of this situation. What we can say is, that those artificial islands will always be good for one thing but bad for the other...

We can't say that The World and the other islands are a green paradise at this time, and
as our climate continues to change, thanks at least in part to the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, sea levels will probably keep rising, turning low-lying islands into something less than a paradise...

SOURCE

Please buy our dirty oil

Mar 13th 2008 OTTAWA

A new American law could limit oil-sands production in Alberta.

There will appear an American law to prohibit American government agencies from buying crude produced in the oil sands of the western province. Canada, biggest supplier of oil in America, wasn’t meant to be discriminated by the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007. It’s just the effect of banning federal agencies from buying alternative or synthetic fuel if their production and use results in more greenhouse gases than conventional oil.

The Canadian government wants to secure an exception. The Canadian ambassador, Michael Wilson, has written to the secretary of defence stressing American dependence on Canadian oil, electricity, natural gas and uranium imports and noting that the biggest players in the oil are American companies.

John Baird, the Canadian environment minister, has new proposals to reduce industrial emissions in Canada, including the oil sands by 20% by 2020. I guess it would be very good if that works. It’s a good action of Mr Baird. He says also that oil sands were an important national resource, but it had to be expanded in a nice way for the environment.

Canadians fear that the American purchasing restrictions is the start of a wholesale shift to greener as well as more protectionist policies that will be controlled by the Democrats. Also because energy exports drive the Canadian economy.

Source: www.theeconomist.com

Where is everybody?

Manufacturers struggle in southern China's industrial belt.

Nike factory in Dongguan (Guangdong province)

Throughout Guangdong province the managers of the factories thought that the lack of returning workers after the Chinese New Year break in early February was because they had been delayed by the huge blizzard that disrupted rail and power lines, and left roads impassable.
But now, when the mess is cleaned up, it's clear that the vast annual migration is beginning to diminish. Now the question is : What's the reason for this?

Research reckons that between 10% and 30% of the workers did not return after the holiday.
So many factories are reeling. Wages, who were already rising, will surely go up further, adding to surging costs for credit, materials, energy, environmental compliance and health care.
The situation looks not so positive at the moment, meanwhile revenues are falling due to slowing demand from America and a reduction, following pressure from other countries, in China's complex system of export subsidies.
Estimations say 10-20% of the 70,000 factories in Guangdong province had closed in the past year, and expected a similar number to close within the next two years. Two-thirds of those polled said they were unsure whether to invest more in the region; one-third planned to cut investment. There are not a lot op positive reactions from the factories in that area.

The hope is that the gaps in Guangdong will be filled by factories producing more sophisticated, high-value products (instead of dirty, low-paying industries) that are cleaner and less energy-intensive to produce. There are signs that this is indeed happening.

But what is now the reason of the reduced flow of migrant workers?
Factories are opening up in China's interior, providing opportunities for those in rural areas to find employment closer to home, rather than having to leave their families for an entire year.
This is more than probably the main reason, but other reasons are not excluded, such as the poor working conditions..

Hopefully this situation is getting back stable for the future, because China is ofcourse a very important trade partner for the entire world!

SOURCE

China must learn to do more with less

Since the late 1970s China’s energy intensity began to fall due to the replacement of the heavy industry by the export sector that used far less power. Between 1978 and 2000 the energy intensity dropped by two-thirds. That is why the policymakers did not even have to try to encourage sparing use of resources, it just happened naturally.

Until 2002 when the virtuous cycle went into reverse. The energy consumption suddenly began to grow one-and-a-half times as fast. The authorities were taken by surprise and didn’t react immediately. But not only the authorities were surprised, so were the global commodities markets. Resulting in rapid inflation continues to this day.
Although the authorities should have seen this coming, between 2000 and 2005 the share of metal-processing doubled and that of petrochemicals rose by two-thirds. Cement, glass, paper and other energy-intensive industries also boomed.
But why was there such a booming of the heavy industry? Economists offer two opposing, some believe that China has reached a stage in its development when labour becomes scarce and growth begins to rely more heavily on investments. The other opposing is that raising wages leads to higher incomes which leads to more spending power. So the people start to buy homes, cars and televisions. Resulting in a bigger need of natural resources.

For a lot of people economic growth is their first priority and not sparing energy. Do now China is importing even more environmental and social pressures along with the raw materials with which it fees its hungry industries.

Source

A bag full of sunshine

Portable light, when you hear this term you will probably think it’s about a flash light or something. But it’s a new invention to capture the sun’s rays by day and release them by night as useful light. It can be used wherever it’s needed. It’s a bag with solar cells with light-emitting diodes attached.
The bag can be carried around during daylight hours. In sunlight, the cells generate electricity that is stored in batteries. The solar cells themselves are made from a substance called copper indium gallium diselenide. Even though this is not quite as good at capturing sunlight as silicon, the material from which solar cells are usually made, but it’s less rigid and easier to work with. A working cell can be made by spreading a thin layer of the stuff on another material, such as a sheet of plastic. This results in a flexible and robust plastic bag.
The electricity that is generated by the solar cells is captured in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. They can store more energy per unit weight than other types, and do not lose their charge too rapidly if they go unused for long periods.

But when the bag is carried around parts of it will be in the shade while others are overwhelmed with sunlight. So the engineers devised a way to direct the energy where it is most needed together with a device that can stash away enough electricity to power the light-emitting diodes for ten hours after three hours in full sunlight.

Source

From geeks to greens

Feb 28th 2008 NEW YORK
Executives are switching in droves from the computer industry to clean-technology firms. Do they have what it takes to succeed?
Shai Agassi, long the heir apparent at SAP, doesn’t become chief executive and so he quit in the company. In January, he will have his first deal in partnership with Renault and the government of Israel. They want to get an entire country off its addiction to gasoline by switching to electric cars.

Mr Agassi will work together with Elon Musk, a co-founder of PayPal who is now chairman of Tesla Motors, an electric-car start-up. Another partner will be Vinod Khosla, a legendary venture capitalist who has switched his focus from dotcommery to greenery. Adam Grosser, a partner at Foundation Capital, said that there’s an unbelievable migration of talent from traditional technology to clean technology. They have had their social conscience energized and they believe that there is a lot of money to be made.

The most of these techies are being recruited by the same venture firms that had successive generations, from PC-makers to software companies to two waves of internet firms. Along with Foundation Capital, several of the leading venture firms are now betting on green.
There are questions if the skills that make somebody a successful entrepreneur or investor in digital technology also work with green technology. People also wonder if it will be possible to build an electric car in a garage? What a software guru brings to biofuels?

With this article, there are more good alternatives to lower the unhealthy gases. Cars cause a lot of gases so if they would be electric, it would be much better. Companies that bet more and more on green energy is how it should be by all the companies so the future looks good if they go on like that.

Source: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10766460&CFID=8239820&CFTOKEN=6e4ce695eccc402e-938CD191-B27C-BB00-01430E2B051409A4

In search of the perfect battery.

Energy technology: Researchers are desperate to find a modern-day philosopher's stone: the battery technology that will make electric cars practical.


A couple of years ago eletric cars were supposed to herald a revolution. Many people thought this was the start of the modern mass-production of electric cars.
But its limited range, and the fact that it took many hours to recharge, among other reasons, convinced GM and other carmakers that had launched all-electric models to abandon their efforts a few years later.

Yet today about a dozen firms are once again developing all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles (a well known example is the Toyota Prius - picture) capable of running on batteries for short trips (and, in the case of plug-in hybrids, firing up an internal-combustion engine for longer trips). So what has changed? Aside from growing concern about climate change and a surge in the oil price, the big difference is that battery technology is getting a lot better.

But the technology is not good enough. In fact, compared with computer chips, battery technology has improved very slowly over the years. The next step is rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which helped to make the mobile-phone revolution possible in the past decade, are now expected to power the increasing electrification of the car.
A big market awaits the firms that manage to adapt lithium-ion batteries for cars. Between now and 2015, 'insiders' saying the worldwide market for hybrid-vehicle batteries will more than triple.

Lithium-ion technology has a lot of advantages, but it still has weaknesses that makes those batteries not the perfect sollution for the future. Hopefully, one day, the scientists will finde a "superbattery" that is able to give power for a very long time and that will stay stable for a long period..
I certainly agree with people who say that, until now, batteries are one of the most hatefull things that are ever invented. Say your self, how many times is there a situation that, when you need those batteries, and there are out of power..

SOURCE

http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789409

New Brunswick: project to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions for Nepisiguit-Chaleur Solid Waste Commission

FREDERICTON (CNB) – The Department of Environment is supporting with the New Brunswick Climate Action Fund. They have a new landfill gas flaring system and like that gas-emissions will be reduced.
The Nepisiguit-Chaleur Solid Waste Commission is getting an investment of $635,500 of the fund. In support of the construction of the new landfill gas flaring system at the Red Pine Landfill in Allardville, Environment Minister Roland Haché announced today.He says that their government is very pleased to invest in this green project which will bring a lot of reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. The project will help them to be sustainable as well as keep their province positioned to become self-sufficient by 2026. It has also the potential to be expanded in a later phase to produce energy for electricity and heating buildings.
Haché says also that the New Brunswick Climate Action Fund is a financial resource that allows stakeholders to play a greater role in ensuring a sustainable environment. He encourages all the stakeholders in public and private sectors to help with the project so greenhouse-gas emissions in New Brunswick can be reduced.
The government launched the five-year plan in June 2007 and by these initiatives, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by 5.5 megatonnes in 2012. With the addition of federal initiatives, the plan will result in a reduction to 1990 levels in 2012. These achievements will position New
Brunswick to realize further reductions of 10 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

It's a very good project by my opinion. All the projects that are done to help the environment are very well, because it's good for us all. Like that their will be less pollution and less gas-emissions and that's how it should be.

Source: http://www.theenergynews.com/news/article.php?storyid=2395&newstype=gov

The power of concentration

A new type of power plant harnesses the sun—and taxpayers.

Acciona, a Spanish conglomerate, is due to inaugurate a new power plant a few miles from Las Vegas. The technology it uses, known as "concentrating solar power" (CSP), is hot right now, as the Hollywood luminaries might put it.
This all sounds really nice,but now we take a look how this system works, and which advantages it has..

Acciona's new plant, called "Nevada Solar One", can generate up to 64 megawatts (MW) - enough, it says, to power more than 14,000 homes. And.. More CSP plants, with a total capacity of 4,000MW, are in the pipeline and have signed contracts to sell their future output.
It looks like that those "powerplants" are going to be a big success!

As their name suggests, CSP plants generate electricity by concentrating the sun's rays, usually to boil water. The resulting steam drives turbines similar to those found at power plants that run on coal or natural gas. And there is not only one design, but there are more..
The Spanish plant uses a forest of smaller mirrors to focus light on a tower in their midst.

And what about pollution?
Solar power, of course, does not produce climate-changing greenhouse gases. But it also excites utilities because it generates the most power just when it is needed: on hot, sunny days when people turn on air conditioners.
But there is more. Some designs provide power round the clock, not just when the sun is shining, by storing energy in the form of molten salt. This means, that you don't really need the sun to provide solar power, which is offcourse a big advantage!

And maybe the most important thing, what does it cost?
CSP is still not as cheap as coal- or gas-fired plants, but in the long run, costs should come down.
And if fossil-fuel prices continue to increase and American power-plants have to start paying for their greenhouse-gas emissions, CSP might just achieve "grid parity" with the wholesale power price. That really would be an excuse for a party..

This kind of solar power, in a way that we didn't know it, is another great invention in our mission to use a much as possible green energy in this world. Offcourse we hope, and there's no doubt about it that, more of these inventions will follow...

SOURCE
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=8780295&story_id=10727996

Ending a dammed nuisance

A Green world with a green way to produce energy that’s the purpose for the next years. But it’s not because a source is renewable that this means it’s also a green way.
The power of hydroelectric dams is renewable and the energy that’s produced is carbon-free. But there are also bad things about them. First of all they block a river which means they block the movement of fish upstream to spawn and the movement of silt downstream to fertilize fields. And the rising water overwhelms the vegetation and forms methane which is far worse than carbon dioxide.
But until now the dam was necessary to house the turbines that create the electricity and to provide a sufficient head of water pressure to drive them. Until now because they have developed a turbine that doesn’t need such a water-head to operate.
Alexander Gorlov was the first to create a turbine that could extract power without building a dam, in 2001 he won an award for his invention. Since this invention engineers have been improving his design.
The latest design is produced by OpenHydro, an Irish company. They have designed a new kind of turbine but also a new design of underwater electric generator. It looks like an open-centre turbine contained within a tube. The generators do not need lubricant, which considerably reduces the need for maintenance.
A lot of companies are already prepared to invest in new ways to generate green energy, so let’s hope this leads to a greener world.

Source: The economist

Panning for black gold, a global challenge

February 13 2008: 3:07 PM EST

HOUSTON (CNNMoney.com) Oil industry executives and experts are gathering here this week for the Cambridge Energy Research Associates' annual conference, one of the sector's most impressive showings of energy industry clout outside of an OPEC meeting. The backdrop of the meeting is tight supplies and rising demand for crude. Executives said, the industry faces serious challenges getting oil to market.The consensus is that the world has enough oil to meet growing demand, but that the industry must focus more attention on harvesting the oil.

John Hess, chief executive of Hess Corp, says that an oil crisis is coming, and sooner than most people think. He also says that all oil producers are not investing enough today while there is enough oil in the ground.

A small but growing number of analysts disagree with Hess' assertion that there is enough oil in the ground. They say production of oil has peaked or will peak soon, and it will cause a major social unrest. Mark Albers, a senior vice president at Exxon Mobil says that there is no question oil is a finite resource, but it's far from finished. He says the world has three trillion barrels of oil left but it's just hard to reach. He also says that producers have to work closely with countries that hold a significant chunk of the remaining supplies. One of those countries is Saudi Arabia. The head of the Saudi state oil company said his firm is making the necessary investments to increase oil production to 12 million barrels a day by 2009, up from between 9 million and 10 million barrels a day currently.
Abdallah Jum'ah, chief executive of the Saudi Arabian National Oil Company, believes that if the prevailing confusion over energy policy continues, there is considerable risk the expansion of resources will be compromised. Jum'ah didn't specify which policies he was referring to, but cautioned against putting too much faith in alternative energy. He also believes that there are expectations for an unrealistic development rate for such resources and that the world cannot afford to leave massive quantities of oil in the ground and move to uncertain technologies.

In this article they ask themselves if renewable energy will cause the problems. The U.S. government says that, under current policies, renewable energy will only meet 2 to 5 percent of the country's total energy needs by 2030. But supporters of renewable energy say it could be much higher up to 50 percent.
Jum'ah said that global warming demands our most serious attention but that we cannot afford to abandon fossil fuels. Because oil helps drive the economic growth and lifts people out of poverty.
Other executives were more forceful in pushing the industry to address the climate change challenge.

James Mulva, chief executive conocoPhillips of the third largest oil company in the U.S., believes that if the industry doesn't engage we'll lose the option of influencing policy.
Mulva chastised the U.S. government for not taking a more active role in dealing with greenhouse gasses. He finds that the United States failed to ratify the Kyoto treaty.
Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said a mandatory target to reduce greenhouse gasses may not solve the global warming problem.
Tanaka outlined a plan calling for massive reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, a big jump in energy efficiency along with big investments in conventional energy infrastructure.
The plan would be costly $50 trillion by 2050. And the investment would cause a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 and avoid the most serious effects of global warming such as widespread flooding and drought.
"The primary scarcity facing the planet is not resources, it's not money," said Tanaka. "It's time."

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/13/news/economy/oil_conference/index.htm

Power from the people
Now you can recharge things just by walking around

Wind-up radios have turned into consumer products in rich countries too, along with wind-up torches, wind-up mobile-phone chargers and wind-up music players. But all these gadgets rely on people having to do some specific work in return for their entertainment.

So many things work with batteries, but in fact, batteries are probably the most problematic things ever made. Thats what I think about it..

Now, there is (maybe) a nice alternative.

Max Donelan of Simon Fraser University and his colleagues introducing the "energy harvester". It looks like an orthopaedic knee-brace. It tucks behind its wearer's knee and has extensions that strap around the front of his calf and his thigh. When the wearer walks, the knee's motion drives a set of gears which turn a small generator.
On the face of it, that sounds like a recipe for making walking difficult. Surprisingly, it is not.
It looks a promising invention to me and probably to many other people too. At the first sight it looks very easy to use, and when it will be finetuned that you almost don't even feel it when you wear it, it will be a big succes!

With the generators in the harvesters engaged all the time, walking produced seven watts of power. When the generators were engaged only during deceleration, however, they produced almost five watts (enough to power ten mobile phones simultaneously). Moreover, in that second case, the amount of extra energy used by walkers wearing the harvesters was insignificant, since the harvesters were absorbing energy that would otherwise be dissipated as heat—which is exactly the principle used by regenerative braking in a petrol-electric hybrid car.

So.. Wouldn't it be great to just walk around with your I-Pod when its recharging at the same time and, more important, when you help to save the world by this way?! This is definately not the last thing that we heard about this way of producing green energy and it certainly has a very big potential, don't you think?

SOURCE
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10640707

US gas prices hit highest level since June, high supplies could pull prices down

NEW YORK _ Nowadays, it’s known that gasoline prices are on their highest level ever. This is also the case in the U.S. The gasoline prices are on their highest level since June. Many analysts predicted that there would be a record spike in pump prices this spring so it looks like they will be right.

Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, said that they have got a major supply cushion.

Gas prices rose 2.9 cents overnight to a national average of $3.115 a gallon at the U.S. pumps. In Canada, retail pricing is different because of taxes, currency fluctuations and other factors. A litre of gasoline costs about 111.673 Canadian cents now while a year ago the price was standing on 94.748 cents a litre. Again an example that it’s not normal anymore how prices keep on rising. In London, April Brent crude futures rose 77 cents to settle at $97.01 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Analysts think that new records will still be made in the future, but Ritterbusch doesn’t agree with that. He thinks the high level of supplies will lower the prices. He doubts because prices won’t rise if there isn’t a major overseas supply disruption or domestic refinery outage.

Source: http://www.theenergynews.com/news/cp_article.php?storyid=2319
INDEX: BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL OIL&GAS
© 2008 The Canadian Press

Going solar is a luxury few can afford

Today everybody knows that there’s something wrong with the way our climate changes. But the question is what are we going to do about it …
One of the solutions is to generate power from renewable sources of energy, for example solar power. But this must be stimulated by the governments because for the moment it’s a luxury only few can afford.
The problem is that the solar-energy technology keeps improving but the costs are falling down slowly.

For example people in the United State even those with the best intentions aren’t going to switch onto solar energy. This would cost up to $65,000 at best with a $12,000 worth of local assistance plus a $2,000 federal grant. All this for saving $75 electricity a month. It’s more like a status symbol then it’s about being concerned about our climate.
Nevertheless now is the moment to try and persuade people to switch over to solar-energy because of the high energy prices and the fact that global warming is more in the media than ever. A lot of people are willing to adjust their way of live but it has to be at a reasonable price. So it’s up to the governments to stimulate this as much as possible. Like the Belgian governement who gives out green certificates to support solar-energy.

Source

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