The UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarcozy have agreed joint strategies regarding nuclear power and illegal immigration. The two nations will undertake the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants with the aim of curbing CO2, and will export the technology around the world. Almost 80% of France's electricity is made from nuclear energy which is a mature industry, while 20% of the UK's power is made from nuclear, but from reactors that are due for decommissioning within 10 - 15 years, once they reach their working lifetime.
The proposal will doubtless prove unpopular with many who regard nuclear as dangerous, not only per se, but in terms of the radioactive waste that it produces. There are strategies to deal with the latter which essentially involve sealing it into metal (copper) canisters and burying them underground in concrete bunkers, although time will prove the effectiveness of this which will be known only to future generations. It is hoped to create a new nuclear work-force which will be necessary to take nuclear-power into this next and challenging phase, since there is a shortage of nuclear engineers in the U.K., at least so colleagues in that industry tell me.
We can't have it both ways - i.e. maintain current energy use purely using renewables, at least not in short order. Hence, despite the "dirty" image of nuclear power in some quarters, there is an increasing view within the energy industry that "nuclear" could provide a lucrative energy market, certainly if the technology is indeed sold around the world. The nuclear agreement is one of a number of Anglo-French collaborations being discussed.
Another potential cooperation is a new initiative against illegal immigration. Britain is the last link in the European chain of movement and indeed trafficking of people, and many Britons feel that border-controls should be tightened and that this nation and France should act jointly to remove "failed" asylum seekers, who end-up in the U.K. via France. It is all a contentious issue, but the following actions have been identified:
Joint flights are proposed from Britain, stopping in France and then taking migrants back to various countries including Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, alongside more checks being made on lorries at both UK and French ports. There is also an increase planned in the number of French officers working undercover to intercept gangs smuggling people into Britain.
My feeling is that the price of oil and hence the availability of lorries and other forms of transport will impact on the movement of people in general, illegal or legitimate, and populations will become increasingly more restricted as the cost of fuel continues to soar.
Related Reading.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/22/nuclearpower.energy1
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Grangemouth may Foretaste Peak-Oil.
The strike at the Grangemouth oil-refinery in Scotland has gone ahead, and while its duration is set for just 48 hours, it is debatable for how long the plant will be closed, in its wake. The news this morning on the BBC was optimistic and seemed to indicate that sufficient operations would be maintained that it could be brought back on-line within days, rather than the month or so originally feared. The whole business reminds me of the year 2000, when I was working in Switzerland, and my wife sent me regular e.mail-updates of the precarious situation in the U.K. at the time. On returning home, there was an "edge" to this normally apathetic and peaceful society, and I realised just how close we are to that fine-blade that divides civilization from anarchy.
At that time, it was a case of active-protest - unusual over here, as noted - that lorry-drivers had marched in London over rising fuel prices (I laugh at this one considering the price of fuel now!) and refineries and fuel-suppliers were blockaded resulting in the temporary but effective closure of 3,000 garages which were starved of fuel. To bring that number into reckoning, there are around 10,000 garages in the U.K. altogether, so it was a significant proportion and as I say, a very edgy time when I first began to realise the underlying fragility of my country, and by implication the entire world, being so entirely dependent on fuel. I must qualify the latter by saying that it is "oil" upon which we depend so much, since only 70% of it is refined into fuel while the rest (apart from a small amount in Europe that goes for heating-oil, and far less than is the case in the U.S.) serves as a chemical feedstock for industry.
The closure of the Grangemouth facility, since it is the only one of its kind in Scotland, will restrict supplies of fuel across not only that country but northern Ireland and the north of England. To cope with the shortfall, imports of fuel have been arranged from Gothenberg and Belgium, among other sources. The reason for the strike is dissatisfaction with changes in the pension-scheme for workers at the refinery, of whom 1,200 are involved. This is not uncommon, and similarly other organisations are abolishing so-called final-salary pensions, at least for newly appointed employees.
All in all, I see the combined-elements of this situation as both a metaphor and an inauguration for the post peak-oil time which I have termed the "Oil-Dearth Era" (http://www.scitizen.com). I am not as pessimistic as James Howard Kunstler that we are on the edge of an apocalypse and I believe we can survive, but forget about pensions, final-salary or of any kind. Dismiss too the transportation-driven economy and manner of living we are all used to in the West, whose prosperity has been literally fed by oil. "Literal" since all modern agriculture depends on oil and natural gas to run tractors and to synthesise fertilizers and pesticides. If transportation fails, people will tend to stay where they are and the morning and evening commute will be relegated to the pages of history. Paper-pages at that, once computers are crashingly expensive along with all other commodities.
Instead, the whole of civilization will take-on a more localised focus, while the concept of the mythical global village recedes into memory. We will depend on local economies, farms and businesses and what we can produce or grow for ourselves. Now there I do agree with Kunstler, as in his novel World Made by Hand, and I expect some of the nastier aspects he imagines will not prove to be far off the mark either, knowing human nature and the well-recorded history of inhumanity when the rules no longer can be enforced. I am thinking of former Yugoslavia, for instance and many African states.
I hope that chaos will not ensue in Scotland and the north, in some microcosm of the oil-dearth era. It is unlikely to be so severe because everybody knows that the refinery will come back on-line at Grangemouth within a short time, bringing back business as usual. But what will happen when there is nothing left or cheap enough to refine, there or anywhere else? We are not merely characters in a novel, all 6.7 billion of us.
At that time, it was a case of active-protest - unusual over here, as noted - that lorry-drivers had marched in London over rising fuel prices (I laugh at this one considering the price of fuel now!) and refineries and fuel-suppliers were blockaded resulting in the temporary but effective closure of 3,000 garages which were starved of fuel. To bring that number into reckoning, there are around 10,000 garages in the U.K. altogether, so it was a significant proportion and as I say, a very edgy time when I first began to realise the underlying fragility of my country, and by implication the entire world, being so entirely dependent on fuel. I must qualify the latter by saying that it is "oil" upon which we depend so much, since only 70% of it is refined into fuel while the rest (apart from a small amount in Europe that goes for heating-oil, and far less than is the case in the U.S.) serves as a chemical feedstock for industry.
The closure of the Grangemouth facility, since it is the only one of its kind in Scotland, will restrict supplies of fuel across not only that country but northern Ireland and the north of England. To cope with the shortfall, imports of fuel have been arranged from Gothenberg and Belgium, among other sources. The reason for the strike is dissatisfaction with changes in the pension-scheme for workers at the refinery, of whom 1,200 are involved. This is not uncommon, and similarly other organisations are abolishing so-called final-salary pensions, at least for newly appointed employees.
All in all, I see the combined-elements of this situation as both a metaphor and an inauguration for the post peak-oil time which I have termed the "Oil-Dearth Era" (http://www.scitizen.com). I am not as pessimistic as James Howard Kunstler that we are on the edge of an apocalypse and I believe we can survive, but forget about pensions, final-salary or of any kind. Dismiss too the transportation-driven economy and manner of living we are all used to in the West, whose prosperity has been literally fed by oil. "Literal" since all modern agriculture depends on oil and natural gas to run tractors and to synthesise fertilizers and pesticides. If transportation fails, people will tend to stay where they are and the morning and evening commute will be relegated to the pages of history. Paper-pages at that, once computers are crashingly expensive along with all other commodities.
Instead, the whole of civilization will take-on a more localised focus, while the concept of the mythical global village recedes into memory. We will depend on local economies, farms and businesses and what we can produce or grow for ourselves. Now there I do agree with Kunstler, as in his novel World Made by Hand, and I expect some of the nastier aspects he imagines will not prove to be far off the mark either, knowing human nature and the well-recorded history of inhumanity when the rules no longer can be enforced. I am thinking of former Yugoslavia, for instance and many African states.
I hope that chaos will not ensue in Scotland and the north, in some microcosm of the oil-dearth era. It is unlikely to be so severe because everybody knows that the refinery will come back on-line at Grangemouth within a short time, bringing back business as usual. But what will happen when there is nothing left or cheap enough to refine, there or anywhere else? We are not merely characters in a novel, all 6.7 billion of us.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Concentration vs Mixing-Ratio.
Here is a reply to a colleague on the matter of "concentration" versus "mixing ratio" (as in my previous posting "Carbon in the Sky", Saturday, January 6th, 2007) which some readers might find interesting.
Dear Alexander,
I agree with your comments about the complexity of "concentrations". Chemists do indeed have various ways of expressing these things! Let's not mention "molality" versus "molarity" to describe the concentrations of solutions of various substances in liquids!
However, so as not to confuse the issue, it is probably better to refer to the amount of CO2 etc. in the atmosphere as "concentration" rather than as "mixing ratio". Yes, both terms are standard throughout the Anglo-American speaking world as far as I know.
For gas-phase species, the most commonly used units are ppm, ppb and ppt. These units express the number of molecules of pollutant found in a million, billion or trillion molecules of air. (Billion and trillion are US, not British). There is also pphm (parts per hundred million) which is sometimes used if the actual amounts of particular species make it a convenient unit. Alternatively, because numbers of molecules (or moles) are proportional to their volumes according to the ideal gas law: (PV = nRT), these units may be thought of as the number of volumes of the pollutant found in 10^6, 10^9 or 10^12 volumes of air, respectively.
This ratio of moles, molecules or volumes of the species to the number of moles, molecules or volumes of dry air is more commonly known as the "mixing ratio".
The use of mixing ratios is widespread for expressing the relative amounts of species at various altitudes throughout the atmosphere. Since the total air pressure and hence the number of molecules in a given volume decreases with altitude, a constant mixing ratio does not imply a constant concentration (i.e. as expressed in moles or molecules per unit volume).
Although not expressly stated in most cases, mixing ratios are usually referenced to dry air. If water vapour is included, the mixing ratio would vary with humidity, which could induce a variation of a few percent.
Although the term "concentration" is used frequently, if the units are ppm, ppb or ppt, it should be understood that this is really a mixing ratio. Some journals emphasize this by writing these units as ppm (v:v) etc. (i.e. to denote volumes explicitly)."
Related Reading.
"Chemistry of the Upper and Lower Atmosphere" written by Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts and James N. Pitts, Jr. Published by Academic Press, New York, 2000, p 33, which puts the matter succinctly.
Dear Alexander,
I agree with your comments about the complexity of "concentrations". Chemists do indeed have various ways of expressing these things! Let's not mention "molality" versus "molarity" to describe the concentrations of solutions of various substances in liquids!
However, so as not to confuse the issue, it is probably better to refer to the amount of CO2 etc. in the atmosphere as "concentration" rather than as "mixing ratio". Yes, both terms are standard throughout the Anglo-American speaking world as far as I know.
For gas-phase species, the most commonly used units are ppm, ppb and ppt. These units express the number of molecules of pollutant found in a million, billion or trillion molecules of air. (Billion and trillion are US, not British). There is also pphm (parts per hundred million) which is sometimes used if the actual amounts of particular species make it a convenient unit. Alternatively, because numbers of molecules (or moles) are proportional to their volumes according to the ideal gas law: (PV = nRT), these units may be thought of as the number of volumes of the pollutant found in 10^6, 10^9 or 10^12 volumes of air, respectively.
This ratio of moles, molecules or volumes of the species to the number of moles, molecules or volumes of dry air is more commonly known as the "mixing ratio".
The use of mixing ratios is widespread for expressing the relative amounts of species at various altitudes throughout the atmosphere. Since the total air pressure and hence the number of molecules in a given volume decreases with altitude, a constant mixing ratio does not imply a constant concentration (i.e. as expressed in moles or molecules per unit volume).
Although not expressly stated in most cases, mixing ratios are usually referenced to dry air. If water vapour is included, the mixing ratio would vary with humidity, which could induce a variation of a few percent.
Although the term "concentration" is used frequently, if the units are ppm, ppb or ppt, it should be understood that this is really a mixing ratio. Some journals emphasize this by writing these units as ppm (v:v) etc. (i.e. to denote volumes explicitly)."
Related Reading.
"Chemistry of the Upper and Lower Atmosphere" written by Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts and James N. Pitts, Jr. Published by Academic Press, New York, 2000, p 33, which puts the matter succinctly.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Cancer from Global Warming and Russian Peak Oil.
New research indicates that global warming may increase the risk of developing skin-cancer. The incidence of cancer measured in 10 separate regions of the US was found to be strongly correlated with both the local amount of sunlight falling per unit area and average maximum summer daily temperatures. The incidence of one type of skin-cancer called squamous cell carcinoma, was found to increase by 5.5% for every degree centigrade (C) rise in temperature. Similarly, basal cell carcinoma increased by 2.9%/degree C. This epidemiological data accords with previous tests on UV-irradiated mice which showed a 3 - 7% increase in the effect of the UV (e.g. in the "effective dose") per degree C rise in temperature.
Dr Jan van der Leun who conducted the research, concluded that only 80% of the variation in skin-cancer in the study could be accounted for by the local UV intensity alone. Additional factors, including genetic make-up and obviously how long people stay out in the sun for, and now it seems, temperature must be considered. The authors conclude that a 2-4% increase in mean summer temperatures could produce "substantial increases in incidence of skin-carcinomas", which among white-Caucasians have already increased dramatically during the past century.
If it is true that it is human-induced CO2 emissions that are responsible for increased global-warming, the following piece of news might appear as "good news". Namely that oil-production in Russia, second only to Saudi Arabia, has now peaked and is likely to decline during the coming years, according to Viktor Vekselberg, a co-owner of BP's TNK-BP venture company.
Russian companies are seeking tax-breaks to urge exploration and the development of new fields to prompt growth in production. Meanwhile, oil-production has fallen for the first time in the past 10 years as Soviet-era wells begin to dry-up and the likely costs of extracting oil from more challenging deposits, such as the Arctic, rally. In March, Russia produced 9.76 million barrels a day to be compared with 9.83 million barrels a day in December 2007. Such a fall in annual production would bring to an end a 58% increase in output since 1998, a point at which Russia defaulted on about $40 billion of domestic debt and devalued the Rouble. In 1998 a barrel of oil cost $12 while now it is almost $112 a barrel, in line with rising world oil prices.
As noted, cuts in oil-production and other fossil fuels might be taken as good news in terms of reducing global-warming and its effects, including more of us developing skin-cancer. The less carbon we have available to burn, the less CO2 we pump into the sky. However, by the time this offset helps reduce atmospheric CO2 levels, it is hard to see how civilization will be maintained, as these underpinning sources of energy to do so are depleted. We need a grand plan to address both and more immediately the latter.
Related Reading.
[1] "Russian oil has peaked". By Greg Walters and Maria Kolesnikova. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601013&sid=abvPbR0TjuME&refer
=emergingmarkets
[2] "Global warming cancer warning." By Jon Edwards. http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2008/GlobalWarmingCancer.asp
[3] Jan C. van der Leun, Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2008, DOI: 10.1039/b719302e
Dr Jan van der Leun who conducted the research, concluded that only 80% of the variation in skin-cancer in the study could be accounted for by the local UV intensity alone. Additional factors, including genetic make-up and obviously how long people stay out in the sun for, and now it seems, temperature must be considered. The authors conclude that a 2-4% increase in mean summer temperatures could produce "substantial increases in incidence of skin-carcinomas", which among white-Caucasians have already increased dramatically during the past century.
If it is true that it is human-induced CO2 emissions that are responsible for increased global-warming, the following piece of news might appear as "good news". Namely that oil-production in Russia, second only to Saudi Arabia, has now peaked and is likely to decline during the coming years, according to Viktor Vekselberg, a co-owner of BP's TNK-BP venture company.
Russian companies are seeking tax-breaks to urge exploration and the development of new fields to prompt growth in production. Meanwhile, oil-production has fallen for the first time in the past 10 years as Soviet-era wells begin to dry-up and the likely costs of extracting oil from more challenging deposits, such as the Arctic, rally. In March, Russia produced 9.76 million barrels a day to be compared with 9.83 million barrels a day in December 2007. Such a fall in annual production would bring to an end a 58% increase in output since 1998, a point at which Russia defaulted on about $40 billion of domestic debt and devalued the Rouble. In 1998 a barrel of oil cost $12 while now it is almost $112 a barrel, in line with rising world oil prices.
As noted, cuts in oil-production and other fossil fuels might be taken as good news in terms of reducing global-warming and its effects, including more of us developing skin-cancer. The less carbon we have available to burn, the less CO2 we pump into the sky. However, by the time this offset helps reduce atmospheric CO2 levels, it is hard to see how civilization will be maintained, as these underpinning sources of energy to do so are depleted. We need a grand plan to address both and more immediately the latter.
Related Reading.
[1] "Russian oil has peaked". By Greg Walters and Maria Kolesnikova. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601013&sid=abvPbR0TjuME&refer
=emergingmarkets
[2] "Global warming cancer warning." By Jon Edwards. http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2008/GlobalWarmingCancer.asp
[3] Jan C. van der Leun, Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2008, DOI: 10.1039/b719302e
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Saudi to Keep Oil for Itself.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has commanded that some recent finds of crude oil be left untapped to preserve the nation's oil-wealth for future generations. Saudi is the world's greatest producer of oil at 11.3 million barrels per day which is predicted to be increased to 12.5 million bpd next year. The king is quoted as saying: "When there were new finds, I told them, 'no, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it'." World eyes are turned to Saudi to increase production to meet an inexorable thirst for oil, but when asked about the maximum likely production, the king said: "We'll get to 12.5 million barrels a day and then we'll see."
There is no longer any talk of output rising to 15 million bpd, and more likely, if the 12.5 million bpd is achieved, holding back 1 - 2 million bpd worth of spare-capacity, for the foreseeable future Saudi output is likely to be at around 9 - 11 million bpd. The vice president of Merrill Lynch, Tom Petrie commented: "The Saudis and other exporters are placing a new emphasis on elongating the petroleum exploitation and depletion cycle [i.e. the Hubbert Peak]. This stems from a growing awareness of the challenges of conventional resource maturity, as well as rising resource nationalism. This is likely to result in an earlier occurrence of global peak oil output than many customers yet recognize." With various existing estimates of the peak in world oil production at around 2012, this implies that a gap between supply and demand for world oil might occur within just a couple of years.
It is also possible that the Saudi fields are in reality approaching their maximum production, and there are varying estimates of how much oil they do have, with some commentators holding the opinion that Saudi has less recoverable oil than has been claimed, and that production of e.g. the giant Ghawar field has already peaked. Only time will tell, as it will over output from Russia, which according to Yuri Trutnev, the Russian Minister for Natural Resources, will fall this year, for the first time in 10 years. He believes that exports from OPEC, Russia and Mexico will in fact fall by 2.5 million barrels a day between now and 2012, which sounds to me that peak oil has arrived, to all intents and purposes.
All the countries in the Gulf have increased their own domestic use of oil and by 2015 Iran is predicted to use as much oil as they sell. It seems clear that the West simply has to find other ways to keep going that do not depend on oil, although as noted in many previous articles here, this is not an easy task. The major problem is transportation and the adaptation of modern civilization to use less of it. This is not a welcoming thought, including to this writer, but what other choice is there? Hydrogen is acknowledged to be years away if it will ever become a wholesale reality given its many challenges that need to be hence overcome and the world simply can't grow enough biofuels to replace the amount of oil-based fuels it gets through, even by severely compromising food production. Other possible technologies e.g. making diesel from algae and biomass-to-liquids (BTL) conversion are not available on the grand scale, as yet, and might also take years to implement.
Meanwhile oil, food and food prices rocket. Energy costs in general are on the up, notably in the United Arab Emirates (UEA) which apparently plans to double its energy use by 2015, and treble it by 2020. However, it appears very dubious what the actual state of play will be in the world by then, for any of us.
Related Reading.
[1] "Cheap energy in UAE is over." By Gundi Royle, Special to Gulf News. http://gulfnews.com/business/money/10206645.html
[2] "Saudi King Abdullah drops quiet bombshell; U.S. media sleep through it." By Steve Andrews and Randy Udall. http://www.energybulletin.net/print.php?id=43048.
There is no longer any talk of output rising to 15 million bpd, and more likely, if the 12.5 million bpd is achieved, holding back 1 - 2 million bpd worth of spare-capacity, for the foreseeable future Saudi output is likely to be at around 9 - 11 million bpd. The vice president of Merrill Lynch, Tom Petrie commented: "The Saudis and other exporters are placing a new emphasis on elongating the petroleum exploitation and depletion cycle [i.e. the Hubbert Peak]. This stems from a growing awareness of the challenges of conventional resource maturity, as well as rising resource nationalism. This is likely to result in an earlier occurrence of global peak oil output than many customers yet recognize." With various existing estimates of the peak in world oil production at around 2012, this implies that a gap between supply and demand for world oil might occur within just a couple of years.
It is also possible that the Saudi fields are in reality approaching their maximum production, and there are varying estimates of how much oil they do have, with some commentators holding the opinion that Saudi has less recoverable oil than has been claimed, and that production of e.g. the giant Ghawar field has already peaked. Only time will tell, as it will over output from Russia, which according to Yuri Trutnev, the Russian Minister for Natural Resources, will fall this year, for the first time in 10 years. He believes that exports from OPEC, Russia and Mexico will in fact fall by 2.5 million barrels a day between now and 2012, which sounds to me that peak oil has arrived, to all intents and purposes.
All the countries in the Gulf have increased their own domestic use of oil and by 2015 Iran is predicted to use as much oil as they sell. It seems clear that the West simply has to find other ways to keep going that do not depend on oil, although as noted in many previous articles here, this is not an easy task. The major problem is transportation and the adaptation of modern civilization to use less of it. This is not a welcoming thought, including to this writer, but what other choice is there? Hydrogen is acknowledged to be years away if it will ever become a wholesale reality given its many challenges that need to be hence overcome and the world simply can't grow enough biofuels to replace the amount of oil-based fuels it gets through, even by severely compromising food production. Other possible technologies e.g. making diesel from algae and biomass-to-liquids (BTL) conversion are not available on the grand scale, as yet, and might also take years to implement.
Meanwhile oil, food and food prices rocket. Energy costs in general are on the up, notably in the United Arab Emirates (UEA) which apparently plans to double its energy use by 2015, and treble it by 2020. However, it appears very dubious what the actual state of play will be in the world by then, for any of us.
Related Reading.
[1] "Cheap energy in UAE is over." By Gundi Royle, Special to Gulf News. http://gulfnews.com/business/money/10206645.html
[2] "Saudi King Abdullah drops quiet bombshell; U.S. media sleep through it." By Steve Andrews and Randy Udall. http://www.energybulletin.net/print.php?id=43048.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)