tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195086992009-07-10T08:38:58.963+01:00energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.comBlogger459125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-12405414314785393262009-07-06T09:11:00.008+01:002009-07-06T16:08:07.771+01:00

Part 5. of an essay on Global Warming with A. Koewius, put here for comments.While accepting that the earth-system is a complex set of interacting mechanisms that transport heat from the equator and tropics toward the cooler polar regions, the influence of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere is expected to cause an accompanying elevation in the Mean Global Temperature (MGT) as its

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-75814724787712833792009-06-25T08:39:00.007+01:002009-06-25T09:33:54.475+01:00

Despite the new green revolution, which points to lofty targets to curb carbon-emissions and a future greatly underpinned by renewable energy sources, a Saudi oil-leader has said that when the situation of what can be provided by renewables is evaluated objectively, they can provide only a minute share of the total energy requirement. He told the Royal Academy of Engineering last week that oil,

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-42439757247202576442009-06-23T09:04:00.004+01:002009-06-23T09:33:15.555+01:00

According to Raffaello Garafalo, who is the executive director of the European Algae Biomass Association, it will take around 10 - 15 years to implement the production of fuel from algae on the large scale. Algae figure among some of the earliest living species on Earth, and it is speculated that crude oil (petroleum) may have originated from the decomposition ("cooking") of algae that had

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-74331459362091814992009-06-18T08:33:00.006+01:002009-06-19T08:28:32.588+01:00

As projected efforts to grab what is left of the world's bestowal of oil range to further extremes, and into the Arctic - the Antarctic remaining so far sacrosanct - the question arises of how much oil can really be recovered from the Arctic? One might view such schemes to drill in the most inhospitable places on Earth as an act of desperation, since it will not be an easy task to recover oil

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-52192082367866410272009-06-13T08:43:00.004+01:002009-06-13T11:05:54.929+01:00

Reckoned at 1.25 million barrels a day, the Khurais oil field will increase Saudi oil production from 11.3 mbd to 12.5 mbd. Situated 160 km south of Riyadh, oil is now being pumped into tanks there in a project that will move more oil than the output of Qatar or Indonesia, at a cost of 37 billion Suadi riyals ($10 billion) . By 2013, another project reckoned to produce 0.9 mbd from an expansion

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-56804078687980981162009-06-07T08:20:00.008+01:002009-06-07T08:46:29.427+01:00

A new oil well has been discovered under 2,210 metres (6.850 feet) of water off the Brazilian coast. The new find was reported by BG Group Ltd - who are the U.K.'s third largest producer of natural gas - is 250 km from Rio de Janiro and 33 km to the northwest of the Tupi well. BG are based in my own town, Reading, and are in partnership with the Portugal based Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Galp

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-42343881352091383792009-06-02T08:37:00.012+01:002009-06-11T10:05:59.341+01:00

I picked-up a copy of the Moscow Times during a recent visit to the city of that same name. The former USSR is a fascinating place, and where I have travelled extensively and have many friends there, extending from the edge of western Europe to the other side of Kazakhstan. For so many years we feared "The Russians", in the cause of the cold war and all other complexities that prevailed upon us

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-2673030630231932622009-05-30T08:27:00.009+01:002009-05-31T09:38:43.193+01:00

I returned last night from a round of trips, firstly in Bulgaria last week and then on to Yerevan in Armenia via. Moscow. I would advise that the security check in Moscow is rather draconian and I had my bottles of water, shaving foam and shampoo confiscated, as they were all greater in volume that the 100 ml allowed, beyond which one might apparently be considered liable to perpetrate an act of

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-19314785546988887302009-05-13T08:03:00.006+01:002009-05-13T09:51:29.773+01:00

Kurt Cobb has given a rather neat picture of a party that is about to be pooped [1]. He begins with discussion of balloons filled with helium which are a red-herring to the underlying connection of helium to natural gas, and that if helium is about to run short (so no more party-balloons), so is the world's provision of natural gas. Helium is a remarkable material, with some unique properties,

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-81700919651470546832009-05-12T09:30:00.005+01:002009-05-12T12:43:02.548+01:00

I have been invited to give a lecture at the Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia at the end of this month, on "Solar Energy and Space Applications", in which I plan to stress technology for keeping satellites going, and hence maintaining the global information function of the world, even if other aspects of its connectivity begin to fade. During the process, I came across "Quantum Dots" which

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-28406517584852379062009-05-07T08:56:00.003+01:002009-05-07T09:28:39.310+01:00

Industrial scale microwave ovens could be used to produce biochar on a large scale. Professor Chris Turner from Exeter University, has built a 5 meter long prototype device that can lock-up a tonne of CO2 by pyrolysing wood into biochar, at a cost of $65. Each crop of trees absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere through photosysnthesis while they grow, and much of that carbon can be stored in a form of

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-38805978048607788022009-05-04T08:18:00.009+01:002009-05-05T09:18:03.689+01:00

In its efforts to find oil and natural gas in the Arctic, Russia is looking to build floating nuclear power stations that can be propelled to strategic points to provide power for drilling etc. Five plants are planned, each carrying two reactors with a combined generating capacity of 70 MW. Since they are self-propelling, these vessels would enable the exploration of some of the most far-flung

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-6881499227567113532009-04-29T08:22:00.005+01:002009-04-30T08:57:36.437+01:00

In 2001 a paper was published about a farmer in Acutuba who had grown crops on terra preta soils for 40 years without needing to add any fertilizer. Astonishing as this seems, these "dark earth" soils possess a remarkable vitality and fertility, and it is speculated that along the Rio Negra the large populations described by Francisco de Orellana in the Chronicles of his 1542 quest to find the

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-20960784889401305622009-04-26T08:44:00.010+01:002009-04-26T11:27:28.474+01:00

A wind farm may be bulldozed to clear a site on which a new nuclear power station will be built. This seems to me a telling sign of the future, in that wind-farms are being marginalised in favour of the tried and tested, and it must be said, far more powerful. On average, a nuclear reactor produces around 1.2 GW of electricity, which allowing for a capacity factor of 30% is the equivalent of a

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-82338400694597712052009-04-25T07:42:00.004+01:002009-04-26T08:23:16.597+01:00

It is anticipated that beyond the point of peak oil, production of the world's oil will contract by around 3% per year. Widely, this is perceived as an unquenchable and imminent disaster of planetary proportions, and the "End Times" movement, mostly Christian fundamentalists in the US, are rubbing their hands in anticipation of such "proof" that God really did tell us that the Tribulation would

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-46580181230196534082009-04-21T09:05:00.006+01:002009-04-21T10:59:26.569+01:00

Norway's production of oil and gas is thought to run into trouble by the mid 2020's if currently off-limit areas are not developed. These include Nordland VI and VII and Troms II, which oil companies are currently banned from exploring since there are important fishing grounds and areas of natural beauty there. Since it can take 18 years from the granting of a license to actual onstream

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-66866915966609408842009-04-15T08:50:00.005+01:002009-04-15T11:34:14.382+01:00

George Monbiot has written a cracking article which I am paying tribute to. I don't always like his take on things but this time he has it just right. He points-out that although smallpox was eradicated in the western world many years ago, the British government has produced a 122 page document of central plans to deal with an outbreak of it, and there are smallpox centres running across the

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-22273970079466575342009-04-14T09:55:00.004+01:002009-04-14T10:51:55.781+01:00

Biofuels are often spoken of as "carbon neutral", meaning that only the same amount of carbon absorbed during their growth through photosynthesis is released when biofuels derived from them are burned. This is not strictly true since the fuel used to run tractors and processing machinery is not costed into this attractive but naive energy balance sheet. Furthermore, the impact of growing fuel

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-52878334818633245332009-04-11T10:44:00.003+01:002009-04-11T11:26:32.127+01:00

There is a great website (http://www.adoptafarmer.com.au/) about carbon farming in Australia. I have mentioned before Dr Christine Jones, who features on here, in her crusade to store carbon in soil by year-round cover-cropping and other regenerative methods. I like the term "pulse-grazing", since I always think of a pulse as a powerful burst of energy of short duration; maybe fraction of a

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-41125815870836525822009-04-08T10:55:00.006+01:002009-04-08T16:07:04.596+01:00

The Reichstag in Berlin will be fully powered by renewable energy, in the iconic intention that the rest of Germany will become the first fully renewably powered industrial nation. By projecting current momentum toward renewables, it is reckoned that by 2050, 100% of Germany's energy will be so provided. Immediately I wonder how they will get around the problem of replacing liquid fuels for

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-3299621563573293902009-04-07T07:22:00.009+01:002009-04-07T15:11:43.285+01:00

It is an illusion to think we can continue to use as much energy as we do now. No one can entirely rule-out that some extravagant technology will be forthcoming, e.g. solar power or nuclear fusion on the full-scale of 500 EJ/year as we get through now, but the particular issue of matching liquid fuels derived currently almost entirely from petroleum appears insurmountable. The "solution" is

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-36426321630342167492009-04-05T08:09:00.004+01:002009-04-05T09:58:39.587+01:00

The noisy debate over fuel-vs-food is rising in volume, but there is less spoken about the water required to irrigate the land on which the crops are to be grown. It is well-recognised that China is the new industrial nation, in an unparalleled phase of its economic and social development. This might be expected to continue for as long as the West can afford to buy its cheap goods, but in the

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-76720334760713002232009-04-01T11:09:00.008+01:002009-04-01T11:35:05.934+01:00

Permaculture is described as a low impact method which uses perennial cultivation methods to produce food crops in harmony with nature. This might sound a bit "new age", but since much of the energy used in mechanised agriculture is to drive processes that restrain the land from returning to its natural wilderness, if productive agriculture can be had at a minimum of this energy input it is a

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-17120327736808863792009-03-30T11:21:00.005+01:002009-03-30T15:27:57.887+01:00

I have given periodic mention to the unfolding aspect of adding "biochar" charcoal to soils, in an effort to recover some of the benefits of Terra Preta - highly rich and fertile dark soils found in South America, in which carbon (char) has been stored for hundreds of years. In addition to locking-up carbon over a long term, as noted, the soil is more fertile than the surrounding (lighter

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19508699.post-2652904475711143632009-03-28T10:15:00.011Z2009-04-04T10:37:09.170+01:00

Peak Oil is the global term used to describe an eventuality when world oil production reaches a maximum, and then relentlessly falls. Such "peak" models are based on an inexorable rise in demand for oil, against an infrastructural lack by which to meet that demand (i.e. you can't pump out more). Supply-demand gaps are to be expected en route but once the peak is reached, the shortfall in supply

energybalancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12060542089215379056noreply@blogger.com0