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Observing the renewable energy transition from a European perspective
Archive for the month “January, 2012”
The (End of the) Petrodollar System
[source]
To explain this situation [rise of the petrodollar] properly, we have to start in 1973. That’s when President Nixon asked King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to accept only US dollars as payment for oil and to invest any excess profits in US Treasury bonds, notes, and bills. In exchange, Nixon pledged to protect Saudi Arabian oil fields from the Soviet Union and other interested nations, such as Iran and Iraq.
2012 might end up being most famous as the year in which the world defected from the US dollar as the global currency of choice.
According to this video, that goes hand in hand with the previous article, the dollar will collapse when the petro-dollar system will collapse. Likely 2012 or a little later.
Discussion of the merits of this video in this [forum thread].
Electricity prices in the developed world
Prices in US$ cent/kwh and include taxes. Electricity in Denmark for example costs seven times the amount in Spain.
Most interesting, though, is that the there’s very little correlation between the fuel that a country uses for power and electric rates. Australia, like the United States, is heavily coal-based. Portugal gets a huge amount of power from wind and solar. Spain famously has invested heavily in solar power. Canada uses primarily hydropower. France, with rates about twice those of the United States, uses nuclear power.
It remains to be seen how accurate the data is. Here are figures from [eurostat] (in euro cent) and figures are vastly different.
Howard Kunster – Jive Talk
Howard Kunstler caustic as ever about American society, its leadership and its refusal to see what is coming.
[Kunstler.com]
Nicole Foss on Peak Energy
Nicole Foss, who under the pen name Stoneleigh co-edits the Automatic Earth website, just did a long-form interview with an Italian magazine where she lays out her peak energy, societal collapse thesis in the coherent, accessible way that fans of her writing have come to expect.
[Interview] with both Nicole Foss and Jeff Rubin.
[planbeconomics.com]
German industry starts raw materials alliance
[Wolfram halogen lamp][source]
Out of fear for coming raw material shortages the German industry starts an offensive to counter that threat organized by BASF, ThyssenKrupp and some ten other firms. In the coming 5-10 years investments are to be made in the order of one billion euros. The alliance will act in coordination with the federal government. Core materials of concern are: rare earths, wolfram and cokes.
Moody’s Credit Rating
On a site dedicated to geopolitics a chart like this can not be lacking. For extra interactive data go the Guardian to see the original map. Note that although Japan has a national debt of 200% GDP, it still is categorized as ‘high grade’ because it has a highly competitive economy. This cannot be said of the US but is even rated prime anyway because it own’s the world reserve currency, a left over of WW2. This way the US can export its inflation to the rest of the world.
Russian Energy Geopolitics
[Click to enlarge]
Moscow’s High Stakes Energy Geopolitics (summary) – by F. William Engdahl
Through the new North Stream and South Stream pipeline systems, Russia is clearly redrawing the energy map of Europe… energy is the lever for Russia’s return to the world stage and for checkmating Washington’s NATO encirclement strategy… On November 7 the first of two pipelines for Nord Stream, the huge Russian-German gas pipeline project, began delivery of gas. A 1224 km pipeline delivers gas from the Siberian Yuzhno-Russkoye field to Lubmin/Germany. Total cost: more than 12 billion $. After completion of the second pipeline by the end of 2012, 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas a year, almost ten percent the entire EU annual gas consumption, or roughly one third the entire current gas consumption of China. The EU is going for natural gas energy big time and Moscow intends to be a major, if not the major beneficiary of that push. Nord Stream will deliver to Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the Czech Republic. Read more…
Panic buying of fuel in the UK
Map of British oil refineries
One of the biggest British refineries in Coryton was closed today after its Swiss parent company went bust. With the current instability around Iran the only way for the prices is up.
Already Past Peak Oil?
[source]
Possibly the world is now living off an oil plateau—roughly 75 million barrels of oil produced each and every day—since at least 2005. The first trillion barrels of oil have been consumed, another trillion is still waiting in the earth. However, getting the next trillion is likely to cost a lot more than the previous trillion. Based on an analysis of oil data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration it can be concluded that since 2005 production has remained essentially unchanged whereas prices (a surrogate for demand) have fluctuated wildly. This suggests that there is no longer any spare capacity. The difference between this plateau of 75 mb and the actual production of 82 mb in 2010 can be explained by the production of “unconventionals”—Canadian tar sands or the natural gas liquids co-produced with oil extraction. Others like environmental scientist Vaclav Smil however argue against the existence of a plateau since the oil price, adjusted for inflation, is virtually the same as in 1981. And that enough oil has been produced to satisfy demandsof new consumers in India and China. Against that idea it can be argued that energy effficiency has greatly increased during that period.
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