Home » Posts tagged 'Euan Mearns' (Page 3)

Tag Archives: Euan Mearns

The economies of the European Union have centrally planned energy delivery strategies where the amount of electricity to be generated from a particular source by a particular time is planned in minute detail by legions of civil servants and academics.

This post summarises some of the scenarios for 2030 from The UK Committee on Climate Change and discusses the consequences for the grid, companies and consumers.

Dieter Helm’s recent independent review into the UK’s Cost of Energy (big pdf) provides a stark reminder of the scale of State intervention into the electricity generation sector. Figure 1 (Helm p40) summarises the various State sponsored organisations involved.

Figure 1 17 State-sponsored organisations involved in the centralised planning and delivery of UK electricity supplies.

Helm also reminds us of the Committee on Climate Change (COCC) plan for the UK 2030 (Figure 2) which forms the basis of the analysis presented in this post.

Figure 2 The plan for the fifth carbon budget ~ 2030 (Helm p11) showing scenarios for installed generation capacities.

With four scenarios offered, and 12 months/year to analyse, this presents a total range of 48 monthly scenarios to evaluate. In this post, I have reduced this to 4 monthly scenarios looking at the High Nuclear (High N) and High Renewables (High RE) scenarios for the months of January and July.

Notably the COCC has a low electricity demand scenario simultaneous with the policy of electrifying motor vehicle transport and heating.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Record surge in atmospheric CO2 seen in 2016

November 3, 2017

Record surge in atmospheric CO2 seen in 2016

Last week the BBC carried another scare story on climate change, this time citing a report on CO2 from the World Meteorological Organisation:

“Concentrations of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere surged to a record high in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Last year’s increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years.

Researchers say a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather phenomenon drove CO2 to a level not seen in 800,000 years.

Scientists say this risks making global temperature targets largely unattainable.”

Since this reporting is from the BBC, my default reaction is to treat it with a good deal of scepticism. So I decided to check out the numbers.

To my surprise the “50% higher than the average of the past 10 years” appears to be correct (Figure 1). The mean dCO2 2006-2015 was 2.1 ppm. The 2016 figure of 3.4 ppm is indeed 62% higher than the prior 10 year mean. We need to ask the serious question if this is a cause for concern?

Figure 1 Annual dCO2 from Mauna Loa based on monthly data downloaded from WoodForTrees. Annual means were calculated and annual dCO2 equals arithmetic difference from year to year.

The arrows on Figure 1 point to strong to very strong El Niño events. The very strong El Niño of 1982 / 83 does not register a CO2 spike, but the CO2 spike of 1988 does coincide with a strong El Niño. We are on fairly safe ground saying that the three marked and one unmarked CO2 spikes are linked to El Niño. We know that ocean surface warming will lead to reduced capacity to absorb CO2.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

d surge.

Australian Energy Policy – an open letter to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition

October 23, 2017

Australian Energy Policy – an open letter to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition

In this post I publish an open letter submitted by seven retired Australian scientists and engineers to the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition in Australia (h/t to Jimbro). It captures quite succinctly many of the burning questions posed on this blog.

The inset image (left) says “Replace Hazlewood, Australia’s Dirtiest Power Station with RENEWABLE energy” and comes from Climate Action Moreland. This is fairly typical of Green propaganda that is being effectively promoted by growing numbers of activist groups. The question is why governments the world over are listening to this scientifically illiterate advice?

Begins

We are a group of retired scientists and engineers in Queensland, and we are alarmed at the direction our country is being taken through your respective policies, which are virtually identical, on renewable energy. Our names are listed here. We have studied this issue for years now, and we have here outlined the serious defects in your energy policy, and asked some questions which have thus far remained unanswered.

Energy Policy. By far the greatest risk to Australia’s electricity supply is the false belief that renewables (wind and solar) can be a like-for-like replacement for dispatchable fossil fuelled generators. They are not, and can never be. A One- MW wind or solar plant does not replace a One- MW coal plant. Not even close. Solar plants will produce electricity on average at 20% of their installed capacity. They produce power for little more than eight hours per day and none at all at night or on rainy days. Wind plants can be expected to produce electricity on average 25% to 30% of installed capacity, but output can be as little as 2% or as much as 70% with little warning.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mendacity, Duplicity and Scaremongering

October 9, 2017

Mendacity, Duplicity and Scaremongering

In this post I depart somewhat from our usual format to cover three stories from last week that have a common theme of underlying chaos in and manipulation of energy policy. I begin with veteran SNP politician Jim Sillars (now aged 80) who in a letter to the Scottish Daily Mail launched a scathing attack on the SNP government’s ban on fracking.

“This brings me to the second concern: the consequences of the fracking ban. We have some 900,000 Scots living in fuel poverty, which means they freeze at home in winter. That means children in deprived areas being cold as well as hungry.”

I follow with excerpts from the Tory Party conference and with multinational utilities and foreign state-owned companies plastering the London underground with propaganda.

This jpeg copy of the letter from Jim Sillars, complete with several typos, landed in my mail box a couple of days ago. I cannot verify its authenticity but it came from a trusted source and this press reader link refers extensively to it.

The reason this caught my eye is that it makes several hard-hitting points that I happen to agree with:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Terrifying Risk of Climate Change in Scotland

September 6, 2017

The Terrifying Risk of Climate Change in Scotland

“Major parts of Scotland’s vital infrastructure are under threat from coastal erosion and flooding, according to the latest government assessments of the dangers of climate change.

Thousands of homes and businesses and long stretches of roads and railway lines are also at risk. So are power stations, wind farms, sewers, bridges, and farmland, as well as many other crucial facilities and even golf courses.

Seabirds, fish and plants are endangered, as well as butterflies, food crops and peat bogs. Scotland can expect more rain, more droughts, more storms, more wild fires, more landslides, more pests and more diseases – and snow is disappearing from the mountains.”

I don’t know if its my imagination, but the media seem to have gone into overdrive reporting the terrifying risks of climate change alongside too-cheap-to-meter solar and wind power that is to be our salvation. Last week, the Sunday Herald carried one of the worst pieces of climate change doomer porn I’ve ever seen: Revealed: climate change and the terrifying risk to Scotland. One problem I have with this post is that The Herald article does not link to the reports cited. Reference is made to Scottish National Heritage (a government agency) and The UK Committee on Climate Change. Friends of The Earth and World Wildlife Fund are also mentioned. Roger Andrews helped me out and compiled the references listed at the end of this post upon which I assume Rob Edwards reporting for the Sunday Herald used in compiling his article.

In my last post on UK flooding I felt inclined to forgive the BBC for simply reporting the dross published by accademics in Science. However, I will not forgive Rob Edwards and the editorial staff at The Herald for uncritically hyping the contents of what appear to be wildly inaccurate government and NGO reports.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The High Cost of Renewable Subsidies

April 17, 2017

The High Cost of Renewable Subsidies

I have for some time wanted to get to the bottom of renewable subsidies and their impact upon electricity prices. But the complexity and opacity of the system has always defeated me. And then last week a report titled “Status Review of Renewable Support Schemes in Europe” landed in my inbox and it seemed to contain much of the information I was seeking. The headline numbers: the weighted average subsidy paid to renewable generators in EU 26 in 2015 was €110 / MWh. The maximum was €184 / MWh in the Czech Republic and the minimum €16.2 / MWh in Norway and the UK came in at €75 / MWh.

Considering that the wholesale price of electricity in Europe is typically €40 to €60 / MWh we can see that renewables are costing on average about 3 times as much as conventional power (wholesale~50, subsidy~110, total~160). And politicians, who have mandated the use of renewable electricity, are wondering why electricity prices are rising.

The report was published by the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) on 11th April 2017. But since it summarises a vast amount of complex data that has taken considerable time to compile, the reference years reported are 2014 and 2015. The report can be downloaded here.

Figure 1 [Report Table 4] Total renewable electricity produced that received subsidy support in 2015 in MWh.

Figure 2 Sorting total subsidised generation from Figure 1 shows Germany way out in front with 162 TWh of subsidised renewable generation followed by the UK, Italy, Spain and France.

Figure 3 The 4 largest RE producers with categories of generation broken out and normalised to 100% shows different solutions for different countries. Germany relies mainly on bio energy, solar and onshore wind. The UK on bio energy onshore and offshore wind. Italy on bio energy solar and onshore wind, rather similar to Germany but with more solar and less wind. Spain on solar and onshore wind. It is notable how important bio energy has become. Only time will tell if this leads to deforestation. There seems to be a lot of woodland disappearing in Scotland right now.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Production Vital Statistics February 2017

March 5, 2017

Oil Production Vital Statistics February 2017

Joint post with Neil Mearns who made all the graphs (CV for Neil).

January was the month that OPEC was supposed to reduce production by 1.2 Mbpd and Russia + others were supposed to cut a further 0.6 Mbpd. Now that the January production data are in we can see that OPEC cut by 1.04 Mbpd and that Russia + FSU cut by 0.1 Mbpd (well within the noise of revisions) and well short of the 0.3+ Mbpd expected. But global C+C+NGLs were down 1.46 Mbpd suggesting that other countries may have intentionally or unintentionally chipped in. Brent began January on $55.05 and ended the month on $54.77. Today it is $55.56. As explained in the feeble OPEC deal the depth of proposed cuts were to shallow when compared to the scale of over-supply and stocks to make a decisive impact on the direction of the oil price.

In January, Libya produced 690,000 bpd, up 70,000 bpd on the month but well short of their target of soon reaching 1 Mbpd. But if Libya (inset map up top) does manage to keep growing production throughout this year this will continue to undermine OPEC efforts to support price.

On 24 February there were 602 oil rigs operating in the USA up from 529 on 6th January as reported last month (Figures 4, 5, 6 and 7). Rising oil drilling activity in the USA will inevitably lead to more oil production at some point. US production was 12.48 Mbpd in January down from 12.51 Mbpd in December (Figure 12). Middle East drilling remains on a cyclical high (Figure 9) while drilling remains in the doldrums everywhere else (Figures 8 and 10).

The following totals compare January 2016 with January 2017:

World Total Liquids 96.62/96.39/ -230,000 bpd
OPEC 32.00/31.86/-140,000 bpd
Russia + FSU 14.19/14.43/ +240,000 bpd
Europe OECD 3.55/3.55/ no change
Asia 7.67/7.42/ -250,000
North America 19.81/19.48/ -330,000 bpd

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blackout

November 12, 2016

Blackout

Last week I gave a talk at The Scottish Oil Club in Edinburgh that was well received. The slide deck can be down loaded here. Since then we have been on high blackout alert since the UK weather has turned cold, wet and snowy with little wind at times. And there are 20 nuclear power stations closed in France creating an import shortage. This post summarises my talk using 14 out of 36 slides.

Privatisation of the energy companies led to regulation and political interference. Once run by engineers, energy policy is now dictated by arts graduates. The three figures are Alex Salmond, former leader of the SNP, Baroness Worthington who was the lead author on the UK 2008 climate change act and member of Friends of The Earth and Lord Deben (John Gummer), chairman of the Climate Change Committee that informs energy policy.

We are in an era where energy policy is dictated by treaties and targets, none of which are rooted in science, engineering, physics or economics. It’s all made possible by simply demanding that the public pays. This is a game played by elite bureaucrats at the expense of public well-being, and wrecking energy security. The public have begun to fight back!

Scotland currently leads the World in tennis and in bidding for the highest percent possible of renewable energy production. Erecting solar panels on north facing roofs in one of the darkest countries on Earth epitomises how low the intellectual level of our politicians and academics has sunk. Wind turbines everywhere are despoiling our landscape that was once one of our main assets. David MacKay did us a great service in his final interview before he died earlier this year stating “The idea that renewable energy can power the UK is an appalling delusion” from which I conclude that the fools in Holyrood and Westminster are deluded.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Age and Future Size of the Global Nuclear Fleet

September 17, 2016

The Age and Future Size of the Global Nuclear Fleet

This is the last in my mini-series on global nuclear power. There are 441 reactors operational world wide today with an average age of 29.3 years. The current fleet is ageing. The oldest reactors in service today are 47 years old. By assuming that reactors will close aged 50 and by making simple assumptions about the commissioning of reactors under construction and those planned I estimate that come 2036 the fleet will comprise 424 units. The number is slightly down on today but the increase in mean power rating suggests that installed capacity will increase by about 25%.

Let me begin by thanking Russian commenter Syndroma for extracting the reactor data for me from the World Nuclear Association web site.

A good starting point is to look at the age distribution of the current fleet of 441 operational reactors* (Figure 1). With a mode of 31-35 years and a life expectancy of 50 years the fleet is getting rather long in the tooth. With only 12 reactors in the 6 to 10 year category it did look as though the global nuclear industry was going to die. But there has been a renaisance in recent years, especially in countries like China, India and Russia. But is this going to be sufficient to turn nuclear fortunes around?

[* note by using the term reactor I mean a nuclear power station that may contain more than one reactor. For example, in the UK today, most nuclear power stations have two reactors.]

Figure 1 The current age distribution of the global nuclear fleet.

Table 1 The current distribution of global reactors by design type.

Table 1 shows that the current fleet is dominated by pressurised and boiling water reactors. The majority of these are Generation II reactors though some Generation III boiling water reactors were operational in Japan.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blowout Week 123

May 8, 2016

Blowout Week 123

A few careless campers who forgot to extinguish their campfire, or maybe a few kids playing with matches, or a cigarette, or an arsonist, a piece of glass, whatever, have in the last few days done more to bring the global oil market back into balance than OPEC and the rest of the world’s producers put together:

The raging wildfire burning through vast areas in and around Fort McMurray has forced more nearby oilsands companies to shut down their operations and forced staff and output reductions at more far-flung facilities in northern Alberta.

Analyst estimates on Thursday put the total amount of oil shut in from the fires at one million bpd, or roughly 40 per cent of total oilsands production. But the amount of production affected is now expected to exceed those numbers as the fire grew significantly into Friday and as additional companies have reduced production. “When we’re talking about a potential shutdown of up to a million barrels per day, that’s very serious business for the global oil market if it persists,” BMO Capital Markets chief economist Douglas Porter said Friday.

We continue with the usual story mix, including how AGW contributed to the wildfires, industry responses to David Mackay’s comments, Exxon’s novel CCS technology, EU CO2 emissions rise, Indonesia likes thorium, UK short 87,600 nuclear technicians, Belgium hands out iodine pills, EU’s percent renewable numbers not reliable, problems with perovskite PV panels, Saudi Arabia fires Oil Minister al-Naimi, moving day for Halley Base and the world’s first certified climate refugees – from Louisiana.

El Niño and ongoing climate change have both contributed to the devastating Alberta wildfires according to experts. The weather phenomenon has caused much drier conditions than normal, leading to a massive increase in the number of fires in the province.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Production Vital Statistics April 2016

May 7, 2016

Oil Production Vital Statistics April 2016

Most regions experienced production losses in March with the exceptions of Iran (+80,000 bpd) and Europe (+90,000 bpd compared with a year ago). Total liquids were down -260,000 bpd for a loss of -990,000 bpd since the peak last July. The oil price rally has continued with WTI on $44 as I write. While many signs point to the worst of the rout being over it remains premature to declare that it is over.

Drilling continues to decline across the board with US oil+gas rigs = 420, this is the lowest level of US drilling for over 20 years. Two strongly opposing forces control the near and medium term destiny of the oil market. The collapse in drilling must surely lead to an acceleration of production decline near term. Offset by the ever present risk of shale drillers returning to action on the back of a continued price rally.

The following totals compare March 2016 with February 2016:

World Total Liquids down 260,000 bpd
USA down 90,000 bpd
North America down 220,000 bpd (includes USA)
OPEC down 100,000 bpd
Saudi Arabia down 40,000 bpd
Iran up 80,000 bpd
Russia + FSU down 30,000 bpd
Europe up 90,000 bpd (YOY)
Asia no change.

This article first appeared on Energy Matters.

EIA oil price and Baker Hughes rig count charts are updated to the end of April 2016, the remaining oil production charts are updated to March 2016 using the IEA OMR data.

Figure 1 The oil price rally is losing momentum and may form another head. The day that supply and demand come into balance is drawing ever closer. But there is the overhang of crude oil stocks and the risk that higher prices send frackers back to work.

Figure 2 At this scale, the oil price recovery is brought into perspective. The price needs to break above $50 to be “sure” that the current price crisis is over.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Drought, El Niño, Blackouts and Venezuela

April 13, 2016

Drought, El Niño, Blackouts and Venezuela

It’s fashionable these days to blame everything that goes wrong with anything on human interference with the climate, and we had yet another example last week when President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela fingered drought, El Niño and global warming as the reasons Venezuela’s lights keep going out. In this post I show that his Excellency has not a leg to stand on when he makes these claims, but that because no one ever looks at the data everyone believes him.

International Business Times: Venezuelan Leader Blames El Niño And Global Warming For Nation’s Energy Crisis

The fierce El Niño event under way in the Pacific Ocean and warming global temperatures have helped create the brutal drought now racking Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro said Wednesday night. Venezuela is facing its worst drought in almost half a century. The nation depends on hydropower for nearly two-thirds of its electricity, but the reservoirs that fuel its facilities are evaporating. Power outages in recent weeks have forced factories to send workers home early, slowing production, and many residents are now scrambling to secure enough drinking water supplies.

The fierce El Niño created the brutal drought now racking Venezuela, the worst in almost half a century. No pulling of punches. Boiled down to essentials, however, there are three issues here – a) is there really a “brutal” drought in Venezuela, b) if so, did the “fierce” El Niño cause it and c) has global warming made it worse? We’ll take a look at these issues shortly, but first it’s important to note that about 70% of Venezuela’s electricity comes from one massive installation, the Guri dam on the Caroni River (officially the Simon Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant) which holds back a 4,000 square kilometer lake, about the same size as Rhode Island or Somerset.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bond Cycles and the Role of The Sun in Shaping Climate

April 11, 2016

Bond Cycles and the Role of The Sun in Shaping Climate

Bond cycles are defined by petrological tracers from core samples in the N Atlantic that link to the pattern of drift ice distribution. They provide a record of shifting ocean currents and winds, in particular periodic weakening of the North Atlantic current and strengthening of the Labrador current. These cycles shape what we perceive as climate change in the circum North Atlantic realm, for example the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period. They leave a small mark on global average temperatures that are difficult to resolve in the proxy temperature records

Bond Cycles correlate with cosmogenic 10Be suggesting that variations in solar and terrestrial magnetic field strength somehow link to changes in atmospheric circulation and ocean currents. My favoured explanation is changes in solar spectrum that accompany changes in the magnetic field.

With tens of thousands of papers published in climate science, it is possible to pick any 50 and come up with almost whatever narrative one wants. In this post I focus on evidence from ice rafted debris (IRD) dispersed in the N Atlantic from drift ice as presented by Bond et al 2001 [1]. I like the data because it is coherent with what is known about historic climate change in the N Atlantic realm (Figure 3).

Bond Data

Glaciers entrain rocks and rock fragments from the bedrock across which they grind and when they enter the sea to become icebergs and begin to slowly melt this detritus rains down to the sea bed (see inset photo up top). This ice rafted debris (IRD) can tell us something about where the icebergs came from. If the fragments are of granite or schist then this does not tell us anything specific about the source since granite and schist is common in many bedrock areas. But if the fragments are of volcanic glass, then they can only come from Iceland in the North Atlantic realm.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is large-scale energy storage dead?

April 8, 2016

Is large-scale energy storage dead?

Many countries have committed to filling large percentages of their future electricity demand with intermittent renewable energy, and to do so they will need long-term energy storage in the terawatt-hours range. But the modules they are now installing store only megawatt-hours of energy. Why are they doing this? This post concludes that they are either conveniently ignoring the long-term energy storage problem or are unaware of its magnitude and the near-impossibility of solving it.

The graphic below compares some recent Energy Matters estimates of the storage capacity needed to convert intermittent wind and solar generation into usable dispatchable generation over different lengths of time in different places. The details of the scenarios aren’t important; the key point is the enormous differences between the red bars, which show estimated future storage requirements, and the blue bars, which show existing global storage capacity (data from Wikipedia). It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the amount of energy storage capacity needed to support a 100% renewable world exceeds installed energy storage capacity by a factor of many thousands. Another way of looking at it is that installed world battery + CAES + flywheel + thermal + other storage capacity amounts to only about 12 GWh, enough to fill global electricity demand for all of fifteen seconds. Total global storage capacity with pumped hydro added works out to about 500 only GWh, enough to fill global electricity demand for all of ten minutes.

Yet microscopic additions to installed capacity are apparently considered a cause for rejoicing. Greentechmedia recently waxed lyrical about the progress made by energy storage projects in 2015 . “Last year will likely be remembered as the year that energy storage got serious …. projects of all sizes were installed in record numbers ….” But when it goes on to list “the Biggest Energy Storage Projects Built Around the World in the Last Year” we find they’re all 98-pound weaklings:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Production Vital Statistics March 2016

April 4, 2016

Oil Production Vital Statistics March 2016

Since the possible double bottom at $26 formed on February 11th the oil price has staged a rally to $40 (WTI). Traders lucky enough to buy at $26 and sell at $40 have pocketed a tidy 54% profit. Very few will have been this lucky. The trade was stimulated by news that Saudi Arabia and Russia had agreed to not increase production this year which is hollow news since neither country could significantly increase production no matter how hard they tried. Profit taking has now driven WTI back towards $37 as of 1 April.

What next? There is precious little sign of significant production falls anywhere. US and international rig counts continue to plunge. And there is little sign of global demand recovering as OECD economies buckle under the weight of misguided energy policy and debt. There is a risk of the plunge in oil price resuming.

The following totals compare Feb 2016 with Jan 2016:

World Total Liquids down 180,000 bpd
USA down 60,000 bpd
North America down 100,000 bpd (includes USA)
OPEC up 100,000 bpd
Saudi Arabia up 20,000 bpd
Iran up 220,000 bpd
Russia + FSU down 10,000 bpd
Europe up 220,000 bpd (YOY)
Asia up 60,000 bpd

This article first appeared on Energy Matters.

EIA oil price and Baker Hughes rig count charts are updated to the end of March 2016, the remaining oil production charts are updated to February 2015 using the IEA OMR data.

Figure 1 WTI tested the $26.68 low set on Jan 20 by returning to $26.19 on Feb 11. Since then a rally to $40 has been staged and the price has moved above the near term downwards trend line. Charts have limited value in prediction and must be used in conjunction with fundamentals. For now I don’t believe this chart is providing clear direction. Fundamentals remain chronically weak and the next chart points to an on-going plunge in price. But only time will tell.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: Euan Mearns

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Blowout Week 123

Post navigation

Latest Posts