Good News first? Okay
Battery Power
USA Today reports on a new, room sized battery using NaS, technology is capable of storing very large amounts of electrical energy. Utilities which installed them could store a tremendous amount of electricity for use in high demand periods. Way it works now, power plants have to be constructed for any imagined load required by patrons, and those plants have to keep their boilers equipped with a full head of steam if there is any possibility they might be called into service.

That removes a huge design problem for the electric powered rail transit system proposed by O-STAR. With one of those babies on hand, solar energy could be stored during the day to be used after dark. Beats the pants off any other scheme for using solar power, such as generating hydrogen by hydrolysis to operate turbines after dark. Huge potential for good in that development. USA Today mentioned the battery’s ability to smooth out wind power generating It occurs to us its equally valuable for use with wave and tidal power.

The First Commercial Wave Generated Power Plant Is To Be In Spain
Or so it is called by the Basque Energy Board, Ente Vasco de Energia. Siemans is involved, and they are using the Oscillating Water Column technology, which has been successfully field tested in Scotland for seven years.

And in the U.S.
A bill has been introduced in Congress to provide a quarter billion dollars toward development of wave and tidal power in the U.S. A quarter billion is something less than a day’s occupation of Iraq. We suppose the President might veto the bill, should it get to him, as being too expensive.

Geothermal in the Gulf of Mexico
Hot water coming up the pipe along with the oil is a well known problem for petroleum producers. They cuss the stuff, and have to force it back deep underground. Southern Methodist University researchers have documented how much hot water – up to 200 degrees f – is brought up by the wells and could be put to work generating power. Geothermal power production is a commercially viable and successfully developed resource, representing an essentially cost-free source of clean electrical power once the power plants are installed.

The Rebirth of the Streetcar
Congressman Peter DeFazio takes modest credit for earmarking the construction of the first streetcar to be built in the US for the better part of a century. It will be built in the Portland Metropolitan area, and will be installed on tracks in Portland. Way to go! We believe it will prove to be welcome – perhaps not initially, but when we go over the cliff on gasoline availability I dare say attitudes will change.

Not only is Portland installing its first street car in decades, but Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams, addressing the Portland City Club said he wants the city laced with street car lines, which is a brilliant ambition as far as this writer is concerned. Quoting from the article in EB on July 22, “What would Portland look like if we implemented solutions to global warming and peak oil?” Adams said, “It would look a lot like Portland circa 1920 , a time when the main means of motion were your feet, streetcars and bikes”.Sam Adams is thought to be wanting higher office. May he rise to great heights indeed. Just our kind of guy.

Bad News Department
The Price of Bread
Quoting from an article found in www.energybulletin.com:
The price of wheat (in Israel) shot up 30% last week….

The spike in wheat is a hot-button topic on the global agenda. What happened?

Experts say that the global stockpile of wheat has fallen to its lowest level in 26 years. Global warming is changing weather patterns. Harvests are down and in parallel, the explosive economic growth in China has increased consumption of “western items”, and guess what, that includes wheat.

Some also blame speculators, hedge funds specifically, for increasing the volatility of commodity futures.

When it comes to agricultural commodities, you can’t ignore the effect of global warming. The weather is changing. Floods and droughts are not good for crops.

The U.S. is the biggest wheat exporter and its main cultivation areas are Kansas and Oklahoma.

“The last winter was a terrible one. The ground froze. A week ago the region was swept by rainstorms that turned the ground muddy and impossible to harvest,” describes Ron Eichel, the chief international markets strategist at Israel Brokerage & Investments. It’s still raining, too and the crops are rotting. Only 9% of the crop is rated as being in excellent condition, the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service said this week, adding that 37% is in horrible condition.”

From Tom Whipple’s July 10 report in EB:
“In recent weeks, there have been an increasing number of reports concerning serious electricity and gasoline shortages in no less than 24 countries around the world. In many cases, the leaders of these countries have announced that the situation is critical while at the same time offering assurances that they have plans to improve the situation shortly.

In about half the countries, the problem is simply not enough electricity capacity to meet growing demand sparked in part by rising world temperatures. In many cases, urban population is increasing so fast that investment in new infrastructure is not keeping up. In those countries which depend on hydro dams for a significant portion of their electricity, droughts have lowered water levels to the point where generators are being shut down. Countries that use oil for thermal or diesel power generation are finding their customers simply can’t afford electricity from $70 oil. Finally, in a few places such as Iraq and Nigeria, insurgents keep blowing up fuel lines to the generating stations. Rolling blackouts ranging from a few hours to most of the day are becoming far more common around the world than most of us realize.

Incidences of oil and gasoline shortages are becoming more common too. Nepal is completely out of retail gasoline and diesel as they can’t afford to pay India for their imports. A few weeks ago, Gambia nearly shut off all electricity production as the country could no longer afford the fuel. This list of woes goes on and on.

For most, there is little prospect that the situation will improve in the foreseeable future. Blackouts will grow longer and more widespread. Gasoline shortages will increase and supplies increasingly will be sold at black market prices.”

The Outlook for Petroleum
The National Petroleum Council this month predicted that petroleum supples from this point forward will be increasingly problematic, requiring great effort to obtain sufficient supplies. The Petroleum Council represents the energy companies of the United States. The Wall Street Journal responds to that group, and they consequently look to petroleum supply difficulties in the future. The International Energy Agency, representing energy firms worldwide, announced similar conclusions last month.

That puts just about everyone in agreement on a rather major problem – how to move goods and people, how to heat homes in the east and midwest, how to support the chemical industries, and so on as oil becomes less available. Everybody, that is, but ExxonMobil, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the White House, who insist there is no problem. Oh – and all the people who are willing to listen to them or willing to absorb their “information” from their television set.

You Decide What Kind of News Department
The great big article on the front page of Eugene’s Register-Guard on Sunday, July 22, was entitled “The Cold Truth,” and observed that a carbon tax was the best hope of averting a disaster that could begin in six years. You can look it up on the net – The Register-Guard is not at all hard to find.

Author Tom Giesen noted the 3.1 percent increases in carbon dioxide emissions during the first years of this century. Six years is how long it will take to reach the first doubling of the carbon load in the atmosphere, beginning from pre-industrial levels. You may recall that “Inconvenient Truth” gave us 20 years in which to bring ourselves under control. That estimate was based on doubling the pre-industrial level also, but those scientists were assuming a one percent annual increase, the levels of the ‘90s. Necessarily I think, given that the more recent rate was only recently discovered. By an unimpeachable source, let us add.

Gieson’s carbon tax is meaningful. He would place the tax at the source of the fuel, the minehead, oil well or petroleum unloading terminal, avoiding any further discussions on where to place the tax and who didn’t need to bother paying it. And Tom is talking serious tax. Initially a buck a gallon or equivalent, rising another buck every year for six years.

It will be a bold politician who dares touch it. Can you imagine the screams of motorists, the anguish of corporations, the to-the-death opposition of the GOP? But I’m sure glad somebody else noticed how serious that 3.1 percent annual growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Can it be done within six years? We for sure can’t even get started on the national level with the present bunch in the White House.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 6:55 am and is filed under Energy Future, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.