The Cleantech Future

Youtube text: “What if we could live in a clean world?A world in which energy would be 100% renewable, water no longer polluted, transportation truly green and production methods clean and regenerative? There will be such a world. In this documentary VPRO Backlight explores the unprecedented possibilities of a new industrial revolution: Cleantech.Signs of a new future are visible everywhere, from China to the US and from Europe to Thailand. Green mobility powered by sustainable energy, clean drinking water for all thanks to nanotechnology, dyeing textiles using recycled CO2. All of this is possible and is happening successfully now! Working together with Cleantech-founder Nick Parker, this film shows what our world will be like in the decades to come.VPRO Backlight travels the world in search of a clean future” (uploaded 13 December, 2012)

Energy Watch Group Updates Its 2008 Scenario

In contrast to the jubilant voices in the media about the coming ‘oil glut‘, the Berlin based Energy Watch Group offers a much more sobering view on the energy situation, see graph above, which shows the projected global total energy production (carbon + nuclear). Peak energy: 2018. From their conclusion (p131):

According to our study, coal and gas production will reach their respective production peaks around 2020. The combined peak of all fossil fuels will occur a few years earlier than the peaking of coal and gas and will almost coincide with the beginning decline of oil production. Therefore, the decline of oil production – which is expected to start soon – will lead to a rising energy gap which will become too large to be filled by natural gas and/or coal. Substituting oil by other fossil fuels will also not be possible in case gas and coal production would continue to grow at the present rate. Moreover, a further rise of gas and coal production soon will deplete these resources in a way similar to oil.

[energywatchgroup.org] – “Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the Supply Outlook” pdf, 178p
[wikipedia.org] – Hans-Josef Fell, founder of the EWG
[energywatchgroup.org] – People behind EWG

P.S. The report does not mention methane hydrates.

Britain on the Brink of Gas Rationing

Reason: unusual cold weather, the breakdown of a pipeline with Belgium and most important, surprisingly little gas storage capacity. One expert said that Britain had less than 36 hours left and that rationing was a real possibility if the cold weather would continue. Gas prices increased with 50% overnight. Gas stores are 90% empty. Britain’s only sources are pipelines from Norway, Holland and Belgium as well as liquid gas from Qatar. A trip from the Middle East takes about 2.5 weeks. Sometimes the destination changes at full see, because some other country is willing to pay more. Power stations will be the first to be rationed, households last. International comparison storage capacity in days: UK-20, Italy-70, Germany-92, France-103, USA-180, Holland-23,000.

[dailymail.co.uk]

Peak Oil Infographic

[source]

Complete infographic below gives a stylish overview of the (peak) oil situation:

Peak Oil Arrives At European Parliament

Youtube text: Benoît Thevard presents the conclusion of the report “Europe facing peak oil” at the European Parliament in November 2012. This study, commissioned by the MEP Yves Cochet, aimed to clearly redefine the contours of the oil situation, to place them in the current geopolitical and economic contexts, and to consider the potential impact on Europe (uploaded March 1, 2013).

[peakoil-europaction.eu]
[findupetrole.canalblog.com]

VW Up Electric

81 hp, topspeed 84 mph, 0-62 mph in 14 seconds, 18.7 kwh battery, enough for 90 miles. 80% charge in 30 minutes. Expected autumn 2013.

Let’s calculate… 18.7 kwh * 20 euro cent = 3.74 euro ‘fuel price’ for 90 miles. A Dutch train ticket covering the same distance would cost about 18 euro.

[gas2.org]

E-bike Enorm V2 Custom Cruiser

Range 100 km, motor 0.25 kW, 30Ah battery, 48V circuit, $5200.

[enorm-ebike.at]

Solar Rush In Holland

[source]
Government subsidies (650 euro max.), ever lower solar panel prices as well as low VAT tariffs, have induced the Dutch to embrace local production of electricity and harvest kilowatthours simply from their own roofs. Typical investment for 100% selfsufficiency: 4500 euro. In combination with zero net payments to utilities companies (Dutch feed-in tariff system described here), this comes down to a return on investment of a spectacular 17%. Currently a solar kwh costs 7 cent, dramatically lower than the 23 cent for a kwh from the grid. In Holland, the birthplace of modern capitalism (17th century), people can calculate. Currently 100,000 roofs are covered with solar panels, 6.9 million more roofs to go. Timothy John Berners-Lee came up with the HTTP protocol in 1989 and it took six years before the internet started its meteoric rise in 1995. Then it took another six years before the first signs of internet saturation appeared with the popping of the .com bubble in 2001. Holland was always at the global forefront of internet adoption (50% penetration in 2002), and it will not be different with the adoption of solar power, especially as with solar panels money can be made, in contrast to the internet. Although the Germans currently have a clear lead in a per capita adoption of solar compared to Holland, rooted in a geo-strategic motivation of energy independence and rejection of nuclear power, the Dutch will catch up quickly, from a financial motive. Expect financial service companies to emerge offering packages, where it will suffice for a household to make a simple phonecall in order to earn thousands of euro’s, without having to do anything but making coffee for the workers of the solar panel installation company and start paying monthly fees to the financial service company, which will more than compensated by the reduced bills from the utility company. Once two or three roofs in a typical Dutch street are covered with panels, others will follow quickly. Monkey see, monkey do.

[nu.nl]

Abu Dhabi Opens World’s Largest CSP Plant

100 MW, $750 million, 768 adjustable parabolic “trough mirrors”, located about 75 miles southwest of Abu Dhabi, will result in 7% renewable energy for this desert nation.

[npr.org]
[wikipedia.org]

Klaus Wallman SUGARcoats Methane Hydrates

Prof. Dr. Klaus Wallmann (IFM-GEOMAR Research Center in Kiel) presented the SUGAR project. Launched in the summer 2008, the SUGAR project (Submarine Gas Hydrate Reservoirs) aims to produce natural gas from marine methane hydrates and to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) from power plants and other industrial sources as CO2-hydrate in marine sediments. This large-scale national project is funded by two federal ministries and German industries. The total funding is 13 Mio. € over an initial funding period of three years. Klaus Wallman highlighted the existence of vast amounts of natural gas (methane) bound in marine gas hydrates (~3000 Gt of carbon) as large as the total inventory of carbon in all known coal, oil, and gas deposits. In addition, Prof. Wallman stressed the win-win nature of such a project as it combines methane extraction and CO2 injection in the seabed reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere. Additionally, recent studies showed that the methane hydrates are less and less stable due to increase of sea temperature liberating more and more methane. He concluded, however, that this technology is an early stage of development and would benefit from a European wide research effort as it is been the case in Germany. A mapping study on the location and potential of methane hydrates in the seas of Europe could be a good start.

[ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/] – Energy from the ocean -Emerging technologies