Very interesting Daily Mail article about Britain's Electron Model of Many Applications (EMMA) ring accelerator, and its potential in both energy generation and medicine:
"One ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, or 3.5 million tons of coal, and the thorium deposits that have already been identified would meet the entire world's energy needs for at least 10,000 years. Unlike uranium, it's easy and cheap to refine, and it's far less toxic. Happily, it produces energy without producing any carbon dioxide: so an economy that ran on thorium power would have virtually no carbon footprint.
Better still, a thorium reactor would be incapable of having a meltdown, and would generate only 0.6 per cent of the radioactive waste of a conventional nuclear plant. It could even be adapted to 'burn' existing, stockpiled uranium waste in its core, thus enormously reducing its radioactive half-life and toxicity."
The technical catch?
The Competitive Enterprise Institute plans to recognize "Human Achievement Hour" between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on March 27, 2010 to coincide with Earth Hour, a period of time during which governments, individuals, and corporations have agreed to dim or shut off lights in an effort to draw attention to climate change.
So instead, leave your lights on between 8:30-9:30pm. I think it's a great idea. Not just as a celebration of the human achievement and technological progress that has given us lives without parallel in human history, though it is that. Those space shots of North vs. South Korea say it all.
But it's also something that every single environmentalist out there ought to celebrate, as an environmentalist.
Quick question - before the incandescent bulb, what did people use for lighting? Because it was quite widespread, even on public streets. The answer is...
Reuters: "No boon for U.S. firms in Iraq oil deal auction."
"United States oil majors were largely absent from an Iraqi auction of oil deals snapped up instead by Russian, Chinese and other firms.... The Oil Ministry on Saturday ended its second bidding round after awarding seven of the oilfields offered for development, adding to deals from a first auction in June that could together take Iraq up to a capacity to pump 12 million barrels per day....
So, who won?
From: Phil Jones To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000 Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxxThis is mindblowing.
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers Phil
Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx NR4 7TJ UK
A pair of interesting pieces at The Oil Drum, a site whose views lean strongly toward Peak Oil. One is a reproduced letter to The Guardian by Colin Campbell, one of the worlds preeminent depletion analysts, and co-author of the 1998 Scientific American article, "The End of Cheap Oil." He's not a crank - read his pedigree, and the background information he brings to his commentary. It is remarkable, and the letter offers a good short summary of his analysis.
Which brings us to the second, related topic. The Jevons Paradox (sometimes called the Jevons effect) is the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, tends to increase, rather than decrease, the rate of consumption of that resource. It's counter-intuitive, but sometimes true.
The second piece is an interesting "what if" look at oil demand in the OECD countries, and outside of it. "A New Geopolitical Jevons Paradox? A Look at Non-OECD Oil Demand" assumes slightly rising production, but wonders if a series of recessionary shocks that drive down oil demand in 1st and 2nd world countries might just result in substitution by demand from non-OECD countries.
Read my 2002 post "Pipeline Politics: The Caspian Front" for an intro, and "NATO's German/Eastern Question" to understand the limits of American power and influence. Now, RIA Novosti RussiaProfile.org's July 24/09 "Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: A Battle of the Pipelines"...
"The last three weeks have been rich in developments in the unfolding "battle of the pipelines" to supply natural gas to Europe. Russia, the EU and the United States are locked in a tough struggle to secure domination over the natural gas supply lines to Europe from Russia and Central Asia. Why is there such heated competition for building alternative gas pipelines to Europe? What are Russia's objectives in the "battle of the pipelines"? What are the EU and American objectives? Why is the United States trying to play such an active role in decisions that will not in any way affect the energy supplies to the United States?"
"In the late 1970s, the state of California enacted tougher energy-efficiency policies," Obama said, noting that the state and its residents use less energy today per capita than the national average. "Think about that," he said, "California producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country and yet they've been able to maintain their energy usage in a much lower level than the rest of the country."
Sounds like that idiot Kevin Drum. Now, the national average is also pushed up by more poor people in southern states getting things like air conditioning, and other salutary developments. But it would appear that isn't how California did it...
"Obama might want to rethink his choice of a model state because it is easy to understand how California has curbed its energy use. Between 2000 and 2007, before the current recession, the state shed nearly 21 percent of its manufacturing jobs, driving down its industrial electrical consumption by 21 percent. California's industrial users pay electric rates twice as high as their Midwestern counterparts - which helps explain why so much heavy industry has fled the state. In addition to alienating its industry, California has also curbed energy use through exorbitant residential electric rates (50 percent higher than the national average) and massive net out-migration. Between 2005 and 2007, 2.14 million Californians moved to other states, while only 1.44 million people from elsewhere moved to the Golden State, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Don't be surprised when the 2010 Census finds even more people leaving to escape California's 11.5 percent unemployment. And, as jobs and residents fled California, its tax revenues have declined, while its politicians went on a spending binge, creating a severe budget crisis."
I should add that from January 2001 to June 2009, California lost 425,800 private sector jobs, while adding 163,700 government jobs, Oh, wait. That is the Obama economic model...
New Zealand is zooming ahead with smart meters - but the implementation may not be very smart. Different utilities are paired with different vendors. The features and approach look set to ensure that improvements are more modest than they should be. And what is implemented will mostly benefit the utilities, rather than the homeowners being charged for them.
That experience may help to explain why California's PG&E thinks it's smarter to hold out for true open standards.
Thing is, both jurisdictions are still thinking from a utility perspective. But successful smart grids are going to require a lot of rewiring - in utility executives' heads. Utilities are not customer-oriented companies. But there's a good argument that smart grids are going to force them to have far more dealings with their customers. If they're not proactive, and careful about how they handle that, they're going to find that browned-off can be at least as dangerous as brownout.
"Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture. The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria."Uh huh. "No, no, it's Frahnk-en-shteen..."
"Foreign Oil: Is It Time For Congress To Act?"
Started by T. Boone Pickens, and taken up by an array of people with real expertise, and a genuinely diverse set of views. National Journal is just there to coordinate the conversation, and get out of the way. It's a very intelligent conversation, and air time/ attention is dependent on what the participant's put into it, rather than a journalist's filter.
Journalism should do more of this.
