www.enreport.com

Turkey's record Natural Gas and Electricity consumption

2012-01-19T10:27:00.004+02:00

According to TEİAŞ, Turkish electricity system produced a record

35446.1 MWe (Momentarily) - 16th Jan
34971 MWe (hourly average) - 16 th Jan
0.71 TWh maximum daily consumption in 12th Jan 2012

The previous record and alltime high maximum peak production happened on
28th July 2011 - 36112.4 MWe at 14:30 local time

Sabah newspaper also claims, maximum daily consumption has occured as
- 180 million m3 /day
- 170 million m3/day

This is due to extreme cold affecting Anatolia and Tracia...

Energy Security question from a Russian Perspective

2012-01-17T15:45:00.001+02:00

NG.ru has a comprehensive review of "Energy Security Question from a Russian Perspective"

Here are some of the parts:

"Already, in some regions of Russia there is a shortage of natural gas."

"An even greater threat will be a reduction in export volumes of fuel, when and if it coincides with a decrease in world prices for oil and gas"

"Change of average world oil prices at $ 1 per barrel will result in additional lost revenue or budget of the Russian Federation in the amount of 55-58 billion rubles (1.8 billion $)"

"Federal budget for 2012 with an estimated deficit of 1.5% of GDP is calculated based on the average price of Urals crude at $ 100 per barrel. Deficit budget in 2012 is possible at 117 dollars per barrel"

"Average distance delivery of raw materials is more than 3000 km (from Libya - 600 km, Norway - a thousand km) "

"The main contradiction: for the development of new oil production of the Arctic Region is required to invest a minimum of 70-120 billion dollars at partial guarantee of success"

This part is especially important since it lists a bunch of possible disturbances to Russian energy security question:

"The situation is exacerbated by the fact that in recent years formed the world market for gas:

liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been actively competes with the natural gas,
in Europe served the Norwegian North Sea gas,
the U.S. actively developing shale gas deposits.
European natural gas consumption has decreased while because of competition from LNG.
The gas pricing is increasingly moving away from contract prices to spot, as a result of this purchase price of Russian gas is reduced."

link: http://www.ng.ru/energy/2012-01-17/9_fuel.html

Iranian gas usage figures

2012-01-17T14:12:00.003+02:00

From oilru.com
A summary of Iranian gas usage from a Russian website:

"Today, about 53% rural and 95% of the urban population of Iran, a total of about 75% of the population throughout the country, provided with cooking gas""this year in Iran came early cold, which was not observed for the past 43 years"" the maximum daily gas consumption in the industry is fixed at around 92 million cubic meters/day. Last year the figure was 72 million cubic meters/day, reports Iran News."

http://www.oilru.com/news/298503/

Why South Stream can be more expensive than Nord Stream?

2012-01-17T12:04:00.002+02:00

Answer : "corrosive hydrogen sulfide environment"

Nord vs South Stream are undersea pipelines. But there are different costs. Reason is below

Nord Stream: 1220 km ... 9 billion €

South Stream: 900 km depth 2150 ms ... expected cost with cost overruns 10 billion €

From Jamestown:

"As planned, South Stream’s seabed pipeline is shorter but more expensive than the Nord Stream One pipeline on the Baltic seabed. That Baltic line, completed in November 2011, runs 1,220 kilometers; and it has cost some 9 billion Euros ($11.4 billion) to build, rather than the 6 billion Euros ($7.6 billion) declared at the start in 2006. In light of that experience, cost overruns on South Stream must be anticipated, and the 10 billion Euros ($12.7 billion) initial estimate questioned accordingly"

From NG:

this is due to "corrosive hydrogen sulfide environment"

Ref:

Vladimir Socor, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38862&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=381&cHash=95eb576355ba1b646f34e79df75a6c82

Алексей Давыдович Хайтун, http://www.ng.ru/energy/2012-01-17/9_fuel.html

ExxonMobil and OMV Romania began drilling in the Black Sea

2012-01-10T15:17:00.003+02:00

The following news item from Ukranian news website has important information:

"drilling operations for oil and gas exploration in the Black Sea shelf"

"It will be the Romanian's first deep wheel"

"The drilling rig will be Deepwater Champion, owned by Transocean, used during the operations off the coast of Turkey"

"It is estimated OMV Petrom, drilling will take about 90 days."

"Initial costs for companies on exploration is estimated at $ 150 million"

"If any sufficient reserves are to be found OMV Petrom and Exxon are willing to invest $ 3 billion to $ 10 billion in development projects."

http://www.oilnews.com.ua/news/article13605.html

Ukraine's Response to "South Stream"

2012-01-06T20:20:00.002+02:00

This is an interesting piece to read...

"I see a few key elements for strengthening the energy security of Ukraine. First - development of its shale gas and coal deposits of methane gas, as well as the development of gas fields in the Black Sea shelf. The second - strengthening energy cooperation with Europe, particularly in the context of the potential construction of new pipelines through Turkish territory. Third - Ukraine needs to improve energy efficiency. Fourth - the price reform, which should be done carefully and structured to minimize the negative impact on the industry and low-income categories of consumers ", - said R. Mills."
"Ukraine has significant potential shale gas, which was estimated preliminarily to 11.3 trillion cubic meters"

"Gazprom" in the project owned 50% of Italian concern Eni - 20%, France's EDF and German Wintershall - 15% of the shares.

http://www.ukrinform.ua/rus/order/?id=1118882

US's Shale, China's Coal Bed Methane

2012-01-04T12:09:00.002+02:00

According to Chinese The National Energy Administration, China will increase natural gas through unconventional gas resources. It is not shale but CBD (Coal Bed Methane)
"China's coal-bed methane output will reach 30 billion cubic meters in 2015."
"The country aims to add 1 trillion cubic meters of coal-bed methane to its reserves over the next four years"
"China will invest 116.6 billion yuan in coal-bed methane production over the next four years, and establish 13 pipelines with a capacity of 12 billion cubic meters"
"The country's methane resources are estimated at 37 trillion cubic meters, ranking third in the world."
"China is targeting at least a 40-percent reduction in coal mine gas leak accidents and their death tolls by 2015,"

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2011-12/31/c_131337443.htm

How much does the Turkmen gas cost to the Chinese

2012-01-03T16:38:00.001+02:00

From Newsland.ru

"Russia wants to sell gas to China at $ 400 per thousand cubic meters - as well as in Europe. Turkmen sells to the Chinese only $ 250[well head price]. Beijing has invested 4 billion in South Yoloten (and still), he wants all of the gas, which can only get to a very successful pipeline Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China (which he built), acting for two years. Beijing insatiable; oil company CNPC intends to increase by 2015, gas imports from Central Asia no less than 500%"

http://www.newsland.ru/news/detail/id/857577/

Turkish Installed Capacity by the End of 2011 and Power Generation

2012-01-03T16:00:00.003+02:00

According to TEİAŞ figures by the end of 2011 Turkish Electricity Installed Capacity is 53050 MW. By the end of 2010 it was 49524 MW. So it is at least 3526 MW additional capacity comissioned in 2011. Wind capacity by the end 2011 is 1691 MW.

In terms of power generation, there is a 8.9% increase in electricity demand increasing from 210.4 TWh to 229.3 TWh. The monthly breakdown of demand and its comparison YoY is here:

Source : www.teias.gov.tr

European Gas demand to stagnate and its effect on oil indexed pricing

2012-01-03T15:42:00.002+02:00

The following Reuters news is interesting.
French bank Societe Generale claims : "European gas demand will remain below 2008 levels until 2017 and the weak outlook could force suppliers like Russia's Gazprom and Norway's Statoil to reduce their gas prices"....
It also adds : "SocGen said in a research note that it expected year-on-year demand for gas to grow by 2.5 percent in 2012, compared with a record 9.5 percent drop in 2011."
But the interesting thing is here:
"We believe Statoil could end up further reducing the assumed 75 percent oil-indexation for continental buyers in order to boost medium-term demand for gas (as a fuel for power generation). We suspect that after tough negotiations, it could be reduced to 55 percent from October 2012."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/03/europe-energy-gas-idUSL6E8C30QW20120103

Procedure for building power plants in Turkey

2011-08-04T10:11:00.002+03:00

Sometimes, people ask me about the complete procedure for building and licensing power plant projects in Turkey. So far, the best resource has been the Turkish State Owned Electricity Company EÜAŞ's diagrams.
Check these websites from www.euas.gov.tr :

Construction of new thermal power plant by private sector

Construction of new hydro power plant by private sector

What if a barrel of oil is paid by gold instead of dollars?

2011-07-28T11:31:00.005+03:00

As the trust towards paper money decreased, I am wondering whether the oil is priced with gold... After checking several statistics, there is a Beta distribution of Gold price/WTI price ratio.
So far 15-17 is a ratio between gold and wti. Therefore in the following month (August,2011), numbers point to oil prices of 110$ (WTI), and 130$ Brent.

Note on 5 August 2011: I expected the panic to start by end of August. However seems like it has been already started.. So the recent panic has broken the relation. Gold is on the rise, oil is down..... This is a typical ringing bell of a recession... Next time I should state "ceteris paribus":)
One thing to watch is the base price level of oil...
www.barissanli.com

Time for getting permissions for wind turbines and number of authorities consulted

2011-07-26T09:58:00.004+03:00

Last week an investor told me some interesting numbers regarding wind energy consent times and number of authorities liaise with. So I decided to make my own research:

Read this

The Wind Barriers project also investigated the number of authorities that need to be contacted in each country in order to obtain permission to build onshore. Denmark has the fewest authorities to contact, just five, whereas Greece has the most authorities to contact, with 41. But there is not a direct correlation between the length of time it takes to get permission and the number of authorities that need to be contacted.

The experience in the offshore sector is, so far, more positive. The average time to get the green light is 18 months, much lower than onshore. “A number of countries with offshore wind farms have developed an efficient decision making process for this sector, thereby reducing the complexity for offshore wind developers,” concluded Wilkes.

Ref:http://www.ewea.org/index.php?id=60&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1834&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D

Effect of Carbon Prices on Turkish Electricity Prices

2011-07-07T16:06:00.003+03:00

Recently I have completed a study on the effect of Carbon prices on Turkish electricity prices. Here is my result (Electricity supply curve MW vs $cent/kWh)

IEA's 60 million barrels and US's SPR

2011-06-29T17:25:00.004+03:00

Previous SPR's effect (During Katrina)

On the 23rd June 2011, IEA has decided to release 60million barrels from its 28 members' reserves.
IEA members have 4.1 billion barrels of stocks, some 1.4 billion barrels is for emergency.
They will release 2 million barrels/day for the initial 30 days.

The question is whether this reserves can be traded freely like a normal reserve? Buyers of SPR may not sell it to overseas (Platts)

"The auction for 30 million barrels of light sweet crude starts at 1 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, with deliveries occurring between August 1-31."
""No, you cannot sell to Latin America or China," DOE said in an explainer posted to its website. "SPR petroleum may be exported only with an export license and in connection with the return of refined products to the US.""
"The US share [30 million barrels] represents 4% of its current stockpile of 727 million barrels"
U.S. holds (56 percent) while Japan (24 percent), Europe (14 percent) and Korea (6 percent) of the SPRs.(321 energy)

Ref:
http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=418
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Oil/6229240
http://321energy.com/editorials/holmes/holmes0062811.html

India and Coal Power Plant Crises

2011-06-29T17:19:00.002+03:00

Platts has this news item with lots of useful numbers:
In India

80000 MW of coal plants under construction
Target of adding 100000 MW in the next 5 years
Environmental problems for local coal prevented 203 mines that can fuel 130000 MW
Coal India produces 80% of national production

Reference
Platts, http://www.platts.com/NewsFeature/2011/CoalFired/index

The cost of oil production capacity

2011-06-22T17:19:00.003+03:00

Manouchehr Takin from Center for Global Energy Studies has a brief summary of oil production capacity costs here.
Here is a summary. Remember that the units is per peak daily barrel. That is if you want to build a 100.000 barrels per day peak capacity for Haradh III, you have to invest $2,500*100.000 = 250 million dollars at least."

Saudi Arabia
- $2,500 (per peak daily barrel) for development of the Haradh III zone of the supergiant Ghawar oilfield
- $10,000 for the massive Khurais et al development a
- $17,500 for the Manifa field

-$40,000 heavy oil projects of Iran
-$85,000 supergiant Kashagan field in Kazakhstan

"

Ref:
The cost of Saudi Arabia’s oil production capacity, Manouchehr Takin, http://www.cges.co.uk/resources/articles/2011/06/21/the-cost-of-saudi-arabia%E2%80%99s-oil-production-capacity

Ernst&Young's Renewable Energy Attractiveness Index

2011-06-22T11:41:00.003+03:00

Ernst&Young has an interesting indice that you can find from here:
http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Industries/Power---Utilities/Renewable-energy-country-attractiveness-indices
The report also includes one page review of some countries including China, UK, Poland and Chile.

Country Attractiveness Indices:
http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Industries/Oil---Gas/Oil_Gas_Renewable_Energy_Attractiveness-Indices

Recent Index
http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Industries/Power---Utilities/Renewable-energy-country-attractiveness-indices

A few explanations for the sudden fall of oil prices

2011-05-09T16:53:00.003+03:00

There are several explanations but let me summarize that
1. The realization of profits from commodity rush
2. Euro's fall, dollar's rise (read econbrowser link at the end)
3. Inventory levels
4. Demand Destruction
But to have a broader understanding, here is a bunch of explanations from FT (stated from some other source):

-”disappointing global economic headlines” (Platts), referring specifically to an unexpected fall in German industrial orders and the strongest rise in US unemployment since August 2010

-OPEC’s consideration to raise formal quota levels in June

-the death of Osama bin Laden and falling geopolitical risks amid “stabilising tensions” in the Middle East and the end of Nigerian elections

-the end of QE2 in June

-interest rate hikes in India and other Asian countries

-the rise of the dollar amid ECB indications of no imminent further interest rate hike

-the impact of higher fuel and commodity costs

-the general sell-off in commodities, with silver losing 25% of its value since April 25

-George Soros cutting his gold holdings

-a larger-than-expected build in US crude inventories

-a fall by 1.3 million b/d to 18.3 million b/d in US weekly implied demand figures

Ref:
http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2011/05/06/explanations-for-the-oil-crash/
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/05/lower_oil_price.html

Seasonal variations in oil prices

2011-04-21T17:21:00.004+03:00

From 321energy.com web site, Frank Holmes has this nice graph, which should be in the collection. The graph shows the seasonal changes in oil prices with 28, 15 and 5 year patterns. It is interesting to see these variations in terms of different time spans.

References

Why high oil prices are likely here to stay?, http://321energy.com/editorials/holmes/holmes041311.html

Environmentalists have no one to blame but themselves for failing to sell their climate policies

2011-04-21T16:53:00.003+03:00

After all the climate change discussions, TNR has a review of a report and ideas about why climate change may have failed to achieve the desired goals. Although the game is not over yet, the favourable atmosphere for climate change is not that favourable any more.

At one instance, the writer says:

"Mike Hulme, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, has argued that greens mistakenly treated global warming as a run-of-the-mill environmental problem similar to, say, acid rain. But, with acid rain, feasible solutions were already available—namely, scrubbers and low-sulfur coal—that made it relatively straightforward to cap sulfur-dioxide emissions. "

I think this is a key sentence from my viewpoint

References:

Blame Game, Has the green movement been a miserable flop, http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/87140/environmental-green-movement-al-gore-nesbit?page=0,0

Climate Shift, http://climateshiftproject.org/report/climate-shift-clear-vision-for-the-next-decade-of-public-debate/#front-matter

Oil Prices, Macroeconomics and Shocks...

2011-04-21T16:23:00.003+03:00

There are very good articles on oil prices and macroeconomics. "The oil price and macroeconomy: what's going on?" by Olivier Blanchard and Marianna Riggi claims that the changes in labor markets and monetary policies("structural changes") can be the usual suspects when it comes to resilient economies to oil price hikes. They have two conclusions:

1. "weakening unions, increasing competition and declining minimum wage have made the structure of labor compensation much more flexible in the 2000s than it was in the 1970s"
2. "increased anchoring of inflation expectations, and in particular with the decrease in the response of expected inflation to an oil price surge since the mid-1980s"

There is also "Why are the 2000s so different from the 1970s? A structural interpretation of changes in the macroeconomic effects of oil prices" , from the same writers is also giving the details for such conclusions.

Also, "Some thoughts on Energy independence" from EconBrowser has a good discussion for demand side and supply side effects of oil prices. He concludes : "increasing the substitutability between energy and other consumption goods, and reducing the amount of oil use would mitigate the negative consequences of oil price shocks."

References:

The oil price and macroeconomy: what's going on?, by Olivier Blanchard and Marianna Riggi http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4341

Why are the 2000s so different from the 1970s? A structural interpretation of changes in the macroeconomic effects of oil prices" , http://www.nber.org/papers/w15467

Some thoughts on Energy independence, http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/04/some_thoughts_o_2.html

Measuring Energy Security

2011-04-21T12:15:00.004+03:00

"Measuring Energy Security: Trends in the diversification of oil and natural gas supplies" by Gail Cohen, Frederick Joutz and Prakash Loungani is an interesting paper to read. They took several indices (supply, imports, political risks, size of importer countries and distance between capitals ) to measure energy security for natural gas and oil

What is interesting was the trend for oil in the computed index(there is a decrease till 1999 and a rebound in 2003.) Also keep in mind:

"For about two-thirds of the countries, there has been a decrease in CSI values – an

increase in measured energy security – between 2000 and 2008. [...] For quite a few countries, the decrease comes about not so much because of mere diversification in the sources of energy supplies but because of the lower political risk associated with some of their suppliers.", p14

My critique: "it is not just the fuel per se, but the importance of fuel in the main consuming sector and the critical level of this fuel for this sector. See for example transportation and its dependence on oil,

Reference:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp1139.pdf

Turkey's Use Tables - The effect of Energy Inputs on Industries

2011-04-14T10:48:00.007+03:00

While reading this piece from IAEE blog, it occured to me that one needs to have an understanding of the broader affects of energy price increases. So I checked the tables from 2002 from TurkStat's web page.
The graph represents the percentage of energy products used in the sectoral output(without value added). As the most energy intensive industries locate at the top, where energy inelastic industries position at the bottom.
Remember this table is from 2002
And the results can be downloaded from here:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B_ar4GSVZ_k5ODhiMzYyNTEtZWNhOS00Zjc2LWExY2QtNGRjOGE2YzdlMTRh&hl=tr

The effects of Japanese Tsunami and Nuclear Problem

2011-03-15T15:02:00.001+02:00

Demand Side:
1. “At least five Japanese-owned refineris with total capacity 1.5 million b/d (1/3rd of Japanese capacity is shutdown)” (Ref:1)
2. “Some 9.7 Gw of nuclear power generation—30% of Japan’s total nuclear power capacity and 7% of Japan’s total power generation capacity—were shut down” (Ref:1)
3. 9.7 GW= 9.7*8.000=77.6 TWh of nuclear energy should be substituted by natural gas and coal. Assuming 50% of this lost capacity to be substituted by LNG = 38.8 TWh. That much of electricity can be obtained by at least 7.09 bcm of LNG (Sources claim as much as 10 bcm)
4. Estimated additional demand of coal can be 5m-30m tonnes (Ref:2)

International Markets:
1. Natural gas prices : up 7.7% (Ref:2)
2. Oil : down 1.94% (Ref:2)
3. Coal: By April 1, previous record of $125/ton (Australia) may be topped. (Ref:2)

European Nuclear Firms:
- European energy firms like EON(-8.52%) , RWE (-%7.95), EDF (-11%) (Ref:3)
- Also check mining firms from here : Ref:3
- "German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that all seven of the country’s nuclear power plants which began operation before 1980 would be provisionally shut down." (Ref:5)

Finance:
- There is probably more uninsured damage in the destruction of North East Japan than in any other event in history – and uninsured damage falls sharply on banks. (Ref:4)

Ref:1 http://www.cges.co.uk/media/articles/2011/03/15/japan-quake-scrambles-market
Ref:2 http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2011/03/14/energy-market-disruption-in-figures/
Ref:3 http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/03/15/514546/euro-nuclear-paralysed-and-paralysing/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Ref:4 http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/03/14/513446/super-catastrophe-and-super-banking-risk
Ref:5 http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2011/03/15/germany-shuts-down-all-pre-1980-nuclear-plants/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

If a human slave is 80 Watt/hour, energy algebra of modern life is…

2011-03-11T15:52:00.005+02:00

Yesterday, I was reading that new book titled “Energy for a Sustainable World: From the Oil Age to a Sun-Powered Future” by Nicola Armaroli and Vincenzo Balzani.

The book looks pretty interesting, and the figure from “De Rebus Bellicis”( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rebus_bellicis) is quite interesting. However what was the funny and witty(or weird) thing was the human-energy algebra done by the writers.

In Chapter 3, “Energy in History”, the writers compare the Roman society and modern society.They first assume human power like a traditional source of power in Watts(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt) , like Watts in CFL or light bulbs. They claim:

A (slave) people can work constantly at a rate of 50-80 W (in short bursts 800W momentarily p.29)
Working animal ranges from 300W (oxen) to 700-800W (for good horse, p.27)

So what is the cost of modern life in terms of slaves? Answers are:

Washing machine: 800W : 10 human slaves
Electrical heating: 2.5 kW: 30 human slaves
A small European Cutter: 3.5kW (work done with this cutter for one hour equals to a work done by 4 human slaves in whole day-10-12 hours I guess)
A medium sized car: 80 kW consumes the energy equivalent to 1000 human slaves
A Boeing 747-400 needs 80 MW to take off = 1 000 000 human slaves

And it claims, an average Italian citizen has as many as 55 energy slaves 24/7.

They also carried out a cost of energy by slave and gasoline. Since a slave can produce an amount of 800Wh in one day (in 10 hours constantly) and one liter of gasoline’s energy content is 12.9 kWh. So 1 liter of gasoline’s energy = 16 human slaves in all day. That means €0.03 for one human slave/day.

See how cheap the services granted by fossil fuels and modern technology.

Reference:

Energy for a Sustainable World, Nicola Armaroli and Vincenzo Balzani, Wiley -VCH. , 2011

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3527325409/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=1278548962&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0470209836&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=01TSXV71YMTZMH8Q2R6D

Energy Vision 2011 - A New Era for Gas

2011-03-10T10:20:00.004+02:00

World Economic Forum's report is an interesting piece to read. There are numerous high profile comments in it. However as the #ceraweek suggests, some personal comments contradict with what is inside this report. One of the interesting maps in the report is this:

Also, 2010 gas figures can be found:

2010 Natural Gas Production by Region

Europe, 286 bcm

Middle East, 407 bcm

Africa, 213 bcm

Latin America, 148 bcm

North America, 749 bcm

Former Soviet Union, 751 bcm

Asia, 414 bcm,

Report is here: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_EN_EnergyVision_NewGasEra_2011.pdf

CERA Week notes from Platts

2011-03-08T21:41:00.001+02:00

Quick Summary

"An energy crisis is coming -- likely to be triggered by oil," Hess said.
we have already produced 1 trillion barrels and have approximately 2 trillion barrels remaining
The energy density of today's best battery is 200 watt-hours per kilogram versus the energy density of gasoline which is 13,000 watt-hours per kilogram
steam to oil ratio at many of the oil sands' in situ projects has dropped to 2-2.5, meaning for every unit of oil produced

http://www.platts.com/weblog/oilblog/2011/03/07/cera_week_a_run.html

Feb 2011 Update - Turkish Installed Capacity 50004 MW - Peak Demand 32675 MW

2011-02-23T13:47:00.002+02:00

Turkish installed electricity generation capacity reached 50004 MW according to TEİAŞ. It is also noted that peak demand at the system concurred on the Feb 1st, 2011 at 1740 hours with 32675MW. Top daily demand has exceeded 670 GWh on the same day. As of Feb 23rd, 2011, the breakdown of installed capacity is as follows (check official sources to make sure)

Natural Gas: 18361.75 MW (including mixed fuels)
Hydro: 16159.1 MW
Lignite: 8139.6 MW
Exported Coal: 3281 MW
Fuel Oil : 1448.78 MW
Wind : 1357.95 MW
Other: 826.7 MW
Hard Coal(domestic production): 335 MW
Geothermal: 94.2 MW

Source: TEİAŞ

Extraordinary IEF Ministerial Meeting - Expansion of Jodidb.org is expected

2011-02-23T13:20:00.003+02:00

According to concluding statement of "Extraordinary IEF Ministerial Meeting" (Feb 22,2010), my favourite oil database will include natural gas data as well as capacity additions.(IEF : International Energy Forum)

Jodidb.org is a website publishing oil statistics for both exporting and importing countries'.

Starting from the final word, the dialogue forum aims to:

Mitigate energy market volatility and future uncertainty
Better data transparency-Internationally coordinated regulation
a better common understanding of energy market trends and energy outlooks

Concluding statement has a summary of three different discussions:

1. Physical and financial markets’ linkages and energy markets regulation : no censensus

1st group "underlined the role of excessive financial speculation in the surge in prices and volatility"
2nd group "especially those involved in price reporting, felt that spot markets set their own prices, independently of any influence from financial markets"
3rd group "it is difficult to construct theoretically and test empirically ... whether market drives the physical or the other way around. "

2. Shared analysis of energy market trends and outlook

Aim: improve clarity and understanding of the various outlooks. (there are comparisons between IEA and OPEC's forecasts)

both the IEA and OPEC’s projections were similar in terms of supply/demand growth figures for 2011
uncertainities : future demand, economic growth and technological change.

3.Jodi Database (most importantly)The extension of JODI to cover monthly natural gas data is now well under way, The extension of JODI to annual data on upstream and downstream capacities and expansion plans will start with oil and is currently under way, with first results expected at the earliest in 2012.

Ref:
http://www.ief.org/whatsnew/Documents/EMM%20Joint%20Concluding%20Statement.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Energy_Forum
http://www.ief.org/whatsnew/Pages/ExtraordinaryIEFMinisterialMeeting,22February2011,Riyadh.aspx
http://www.jodidb.org/TableViewer/tableView.aspx

Direct Facts - Econbrowser's Brent-WTI Spread

2011-02-23T12:39:00.003+02:00

There is plenty of discussion about the spread between WTI-Brent. There are numerous articles on this. What I want to show you is the spread between WTI and others. Econbrowser has a nice graph of this. Textbook says "if there is price differences between two or more markets, arbitrage opportunities exits". (Check this)

Now there are reasons for this price differentials. Paper oil ( "buy WTI futures and sell Brent futures" ) is one of them, but speculators are not as active as in 2007. But website suggests a few solutions:

Running the Seaway pipeline, which is currently delivering oil from the (Freeport, Texas) Gulf of Mexico to Oklahoma, in reverse. ConocoPhilips is not interested in this idea because of a fear for political criticsm and most importantly on economical grounds ("As an integrated refiner and producer, it can take its profits either as refinery margin or producer-seller.") . “A reversal would send up to 350,000 barrels a day of crude from Cushing directly to Houston, significantly releasing pressure on the Cushing complex,” said JBC Energy GmbH, a Vienna-based researcher. "
"It ... costs $6 to ship a barrel from Cushing to the Gulf of Mexico by rail or $10 by truck"

Ref: Econbrowser
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/02/brentwti_spread.html

Quick Summary of IEA's Libya Brief

2011-02-23T12:26:00.003+02:00

IEA has published a brief on its website you can download it from here. The brief include a nice map of Libya's oil ports. Here is a quick summary:

Libya's oil production (crude+NGL): 1.69 million b/d (Jan 2011)
1.49 mb/d is exported. Domestic consumption 270 kb/d
1.2 mb/d is exported to IEA countries.
150 kb/d is exported to China
East Libya exports 684-958 kb/d (is there a mistake on page 2?)
West Libya exports 199-270 kb/d
Biggest importer for Libyan Jet Kerosene and Residual Fuel Oil is Italy, where Turkey, Spain, Germany, Greece and France has minute shares. (page 3, bottom)

Libya exports natural gas to Italy(via Greenstream underwater pipeline) and LNG to Spain. Italy imports 26 mcm/d. Spain imports 1.5 mcm/d

http://www.iea.org/files/facts_libya.pdf

Houston, We have a problem! - Texas's Rolling Blackouts of February 2011

2011-02-21T15:20:00.007+02:00

On Feb. 2nd 2011 :

A trio of events - loss of supply, higher demand and maintenance outages - led to Wednesday's emergency rolling blackouts across Texas and spiking power prices as the grid operator for most of the state struggled to accommodate a brutal winter storm.

Here is my collection of events from various links...
In 2008, Texas has been on the edge of a rolling blackout.

"On February 26, 2008, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) called for an Emergency Electric Curtailment Plan (EECP) at 18:41 due to a worsening imbalance between generation and load which led to a decline in system frequency"

Read here (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/43373.pdf)

In 2011, (Feb 2 & Feb 3) Texas has suffered from blackouts. The Oil Drum has a nice summary of the events : ( http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7449 )
A summary of events is available from this site : (http://www.oncor.com/news/newsrel/detail.aspx?prid=1297)

"Wednesday’s peak demand is currently projected to be more than 54,000 MW between 8-9 p.m. , and more than 58,000 – which would be a new winter record – between 7-8 a.m. on Thursday. The current winter peak demand record is 56,334 MW which occurred Feb. 2, between 7 and 8 p.m.
The grid continues to have about 2,700 MW of generation capacity unavailable because of unplanned or forced outages."

These 2700 MW of generating capacity are probably these two plants:

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said the Luminant-owned 1,640 MW Oak Grove plant east of Temple and the 1,137 MW Sandow plant near Rockdale were among the plants knocked offline by the storm. Oak Grove suffered a broken pipe and Sandow was hampered by a frozen pipe. Allan Koenig, communications director for Luminant, said its Oak Grove and Sandow power plants "accounted for just a small percentage of the 50 units and 7,000 megawatts."

So it was cold weather, pipes and low pressure on natural gas lines:

Wednesday. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said this is something that “should not happen.” Dewhurst said he was told that water pipes at two plants, Oak Grove and Sand Hill, forced them to cut electricity production. Natural gas power plants that should have provided back up had difficulty starting due to low pressure in the supply lines, also caused by the cold weather.

I am not quite sure about this:

But, Fraser said, some power cuts affected some stations for compressing natural gas — so without power they couldn't pump gas, causing some gas power plants to go offline

The complaints followed :

"The blackouts left many people angry and frustrated. Cuellar said Oncor’s call center has been overwhelmed with about 60,000 calls an hour."

Also a family blamed these outages for causing their son's death

So the market worked and prices soared to 3000$/ MWh

As a result of the outages and demand, real-time power prices peaked around $3,000/MWh during some intervals Wednesday afternoon.
Average prices at this time of year normally would be less than $100/MWh, Doggett said.

Emergency measures started:

In addition to the default Energy Emergency Alert 0, or normal operations, there are four EEA levels: EEA Level 1, EEA Level 2A, EEA Level 2B and EEA Level 3, which is the most extreme.

ERCOT first contacted market participants at 4:45 am CST on Wednesday to warn the companies of inclement weather. ERCOT declared EEA Level 2A at 5:17 am
Less than a half-hour later, ERCOT declared EEA Level 3 at 5:43 am, at which point the grid operator asked distributors to shed firm load of 1,000 MW, said ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark.

A timeline and detailed discussion is available from here:

More information about Texas home heating is available here

As a final reading, I offer "Normal Accident Theory" from NASA:

Failure in one part (material, human, or organization) may
coincide with the failure of an entirely different part. This
unforeseeable combination can cause cascading failures of
other parts.
In complex systems these possible combinations are practically
limitless.

Overseas Activities of Chinese Oil Companies - IEA Report

2011-02-21T14:30:00.005+02:00

IEA has published its new research on Chinese oil companies. The report is full of interesting facts. Also if you follow the sources for graphs you can find valuable reports and presentations such as "Facts Global Energy". My personal feeling is, it is another politically motivated report. Since you can not decouple Chinese Government relations with African countries from Chinese oil companies investments in these countries. However report claims, Chinese oil companies are not the puppets of the government.

IEA facts on China and oil

In the next five years, almost half of global oil demand growth will come from China.
In 2010, China imported 4.8 million barrels per day of crude oil, up 17.5 % from 2009.
By late 2010, Chinese NOCs operated in 31 countries and had equity oil in 20 of these countries.
In 2010, China’s NOCs invested nearly USD 16 billion in acquiring assets, such as refineries, in Latin America.
77% of China’s crude oil imports pass through the Strait of Malacca. By 2015, it is estimated that crude oil passing through the Strait to China will rise to 3.5 million barrels per day. In 2009, 3.1 million barrels per day went through the Strait

Links:
http://www.fgenergy.com/?page=article_type&action=read&id=17
http://www.iea.org/papers/2011/overseas_china.pdf

Do you think the electric car is a modern invention?

2011-02-14T10:05:00.003+02:00

Electric cars are included in the projections as if they will slowly dominate and replace ICE (internal combustion engines). The following site has all the list of electric car manufacturers in US from 1900s to 1960s (mostly end up 1920s).... So what has happened to these cars? Hardly any manufacturer survived beyond 1920.

Source: Early Electric Automobile Manufacturers, http://www.american-automobiles.com/Electric-Automobile-Manufacturers.html

From Wikileaks to IEA - Credibility of Peak Oil Theory still worths a look

2011-02-11T09:31:00.006+02:00

A graph from the IEA's report WEO 2010 reveals that IEA believes that the world crude oil production (not including NGL or others) has peaked in 2006 or nearby:

Previously, I asked Mr. Fatih Birol, chief economist of IEA in a conference(in 2008) at METU Alumni Association, whether world will see 100 million b/d (current production of crude+ngl+other is hovering around 85-89 mb/d). He briefly described the nuances between crude oil, crude oil+NGL or other associates of crude oil. Then he stated "I don't think so"(for crude oil only). World Energy Outlook 2010 steps further and addresses a peak in crude oil only production as I marked on the graph.
Wikileaks reveal some interesting documents regarding Saudi Production. Sadad Al Husseini retired head of exploration and production for Saudi Aramco, states that Saudi Production can hardly hit 12.5 million b/d and according to documents :

" as he believes that Aramco’s reserves are overstated by as much as 300 billion bbls of “speculative resources.”
the former Aramco board member does believe that a global output plateau will be
reached in the next 5 to 10 years and will last some 15 years, until world oil
production begins to decline." (Wikileaks)

The cable is from December 10, 2007. But there is nothing to confidential about it. Sadad Al Husseini said these things before. He previously to energy bulletin he writes :

"Therefore my answer is: under the current circumstances and outlook, oil is likely to peak at a 95 mmbd plateau by 2015 and can then be sustained well beyond 2020 at increasing real oil prices."(Energy Bulletin)

So are we peaked or are we on the plateou of world oil production? We should better be careful claiming answers to such questions. But it is easier to say that, oil production will suffer from delayed investment. To get a better understanding of oil prices, we should check the storage levels and price trends during the May -driving season-. My personal belief is we are entering another high price cycle unless another economic slowdown happens. It is a risk to write those things openly on the net, since net has a memory. Prices may calm down? I am desperate to see that...

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/9498
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7102
http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2007/12/07RIYADH2441.html

Sailing Times of Tankers

2011-02-09T15:07:00.003+02:00

IEA has two very interesting pieces to read. As the Egyptian crisis still continues, its impact on energy prices keeps the consumers anxious.

IEA Egypt Fact Sheet is here . Check the southbound and northbound traffic. The data shows clear signals that we should think more in terms of natural gas safety than oil safety.

Also the article regarding oil disruptions is also a compilation of recent disruptions.

Chinks in the chain: What causes disruptions to the supply of oil?
Egypt fact sheet by IEA (http://www.iea.org/files/facts_egypt.pdf)

The growing role of Turkey in the EU’s security of energy supply

2011-01-21T09:55:00.001+02:00

A recent policy brief of Turkish Energy Policy from the official sources.

Read here:

By Yusuf Yazar, Deputy Undersecretary, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Turkey

Turkey is dedicated to playing a driving and constructive role in the timely, reliable, cost-effective and environmentally responsible transportation of Caspian, Middle Eastern and Central Asian hydrocarbon resources to European and world markets. To this end Turkey is doing all it can to develop new projects which will enhance its own energy security and those of its partner countries, as well as to bolster prosperity and peace in the region and the world.

PJM - Training materials

2010-05-31T15:52:00.001+03:00

PJM's website has lots of interesting presentations for TSO, generator and distribution trainings.

http://www.pjm.com/training/training-material.aspx

ARPA-Energy Projects

2010-03-01T19:26:00.000+02:00

"ARPA-E's first solicitation resulted in $151 million dollars of funding for 37 ambitious energy research projects in 17 states. As depicted in the charts below, ARPA-E’s portfolio now includes researchers from across industry and academia; including significant small business and national laboratory participation."
These 37 projects are distributed as follows : (According to categories)

More on funded projects at : http://arpa-e.energy.gov/FundedProjects.aspx

Cost Estimates for US's Climate Change Acts

2010-03-01T18:40:00.000+02:00

Congressional Budget Office has cost estimates on Energy and Climate Change Acts.
Follow this link for the pages : http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/collections.cfm?collect=9

Chapter 9 of Economic Report of the US President

2010-03-01T18:26:00.000+02:00

"The Economic Report of the President is an annual report written by the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. An important vehicle for presenting the Administration’s domestic and international economic policies, it provides an overview of the nation's economic progress with text and extensive data appendices."
I advise you to read
Chapter 9: Transforming the Energy Sector and Addressing Climate Change
From the link

Nuclear energy lobby working hard

2010-03-01T14:28:00.000+02:00

From : http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/nuclear-energy-lobbying-push/story/nuclear-energy-working-hard-win-support/

US's Renewable energy money still going abroad

2010-03-01T14:27:00.000+02:00

According to report by Investigative Reporting Workshop:
"The Workshop was the first to report last October that more than 80 percent of the first $1 billion in grants to wind energy companies went to foreign firms. Since then, the administration has stopped making announcements of new grants to wind, solar and geothermal companies, but has handed out another $1 billion, bringing the total given out to $2.1 billion and the total that went to companies based overseas to more than 79 percent."

http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/wind-energy-funds-going-overseas/story/renewable-energy-money-still-going-abroad/

Risks of Energy Efficiency Investments

2010-03-01T14:22:00.000+02:00

An interesting piece to read.
"For one, promised energy savings might not materialize ... As the Alliance to Save Energy points out, states cannot even agree on how much energy is saved from a single compact fluorescent light bulb http://ase.org/content/article/detail/5976."

"The nation’s utilities increased their spending on energy efficiency by 43% in 2009, according to the Consortium for Energy Efficiency. In all, utilities spent $4.4 billion for electric energy efficiency and $930 million for natural gas programs. In addition, CEE found that 46 states offered energy efficiency programs last year, up from 37 states in 2008. http://www.cee1.org/files/2009CEEAnnualReport.pdf."

By Elisa Wood
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2010/02/how-risky-are-energy-efficiency-investments

Global Energy Outlook from Davos (Jan 2010)

2010-03-01T11:06:00.000+02:00

On 28th Jan 2010 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, "Global Energy Outlook" discussion has taken place. Chaired by Daniel Yergin, the session hosted Ilham Aliyev, BP's Tony Hayward, Saudi Aramco's Khalid Al Falih, Shell's Peter Voser, Dow Chemicals's Andrew Liveris and Total's Thierry Desmarest.

Video available from: http://wef2010.unitec-media.tv/20100128/20100128.html
Transcript: http://www.weforum.org/pdf/AM_2010/transcripts/global-energy.pdf

US Government's Climate Portal

2010-03-01T10:58:00.000+02:00

For data and relevant information. Especially climate data for planning and operations

Global Energy Outlook

2010-02-10T14:51:00.000+02:00

Despite the major decline in energy prices from their peak in 2008, energy security concerns have increased as major producing and consuming economies differ significantly on how to develop a more secure and stable energy system.
How can producers and consumers develop mutually beneficial approaches to energy security?

Speakers:

Ilham Aliyev, Thierry Desmarest, Khalid A. Al Falih, Tony Hayward, Andrew N. Liveris, Peter Voser, Daniel Yergin

http://wef2010.unitec-media.tv/20100128/20100128.html

UK's gas crises

2010-01-20T16:27:00.003+02:00

As UK's gas demand heats a record high due to cold winter, gas suppy of 100 big customers has seen cut.Graph from The Oil Drum.

Guardian also writes:

The National Grid has told British Gas and other power firms to cut the supply to major corporate customers, in an attempt to preserve gas supply for households as the weather causes a surge in demand.

Links:
Is the United Kingdom facing a natural gas shortage?
Energy security questioned as National Grid cuts off gas to factories

E.ON : Coal plants are necessary to keep the lights on

2010-01-20T16:09:00.000+02:00

This Guardian news is an interesting piece

Ageing coal-fired power stations should be exempted from environmental regulations and kept open to stop the lights from going out, the chief executive of E.ON UK has urged the government.

You can read the rest from here : http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/18/eon-coal-plant-plea

Iraq's Future Oil Production

2010-01-18T17:46:00.000+02:00

As Iraq became more stabilised, the prospects for its oil production has increased. Here you can see enemy initiated attacks against invasion forces in Iraq.The difference is obvious.

Early Warning website has made a detailed analyses for Iraq's future production. By 2015 there is a possibility that Iraq may produce up to 12 million barrels/day. That is three folds of its previous peak (3.6 million b/d). Therefore keep an eye on Iraq's production and E&P developments.

Check the link : http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2009/12/iraqi-oil-production-history.html

Me, listening Russian:)

2009-11-26T00:31:00.002+02:00

That's me on the right side of the photo, from last week.

Istanbul is very nice during late summer and spring but i do not advice nov. and winter

Turkey's Electricity Supply 2010 and beyond

2009-11-24T10:48:00.001+02:00

First of all check:
http://www.teias.gov.tr/yukdagitim/kuruluguc.xls

You will see that Turkish Installed Capacity is: 44472.5 MWs (as of this month). You can also the wind energy column to make sure that it is updated:): 738 MW

Then check: http://www.teias.gov.tr/AylikElektrikIstatistikleri/AylikElektrikIstatistikleri.xls

you will see that 2009 on month by month basis lower than 2008.

Then see the latest statistics from TEİAS regarding "production capacity and peaks" here
http://www.teias.gov.tr/istatistik2008/14.xls

From the last column check that
Installed capacity @ 2008: 41817 MW
Peak load @2008 : 30842 MW
See the "Gross Demand" and "Firm Production" columns

Result:
We didn't have such a big problem in 2008. Our Installed Capacity is now 2600 MW higher but our demand and peak is 4% lower than 2008. The hardest years for Turkish system are the drought years, it resembles Norway's system in that sense due to high hydro capacity.

As a rule of thumb : (safe side-approximation)
Multiply the installed capacity by 4650 hours for higher scenario 4500 for lower scenario(capacity utilization sort of thing, this is a rough approximation, use Enerji Ekonomisi by Behçet Yücel for detailed calculation- and also note that system has the ability to achieve more than 5000 hours average).

If the resulted number is less than the expected demand then it means the system is in stress.

So
44472.5 MW * 4500 hours = 200 TWh
44472.5 MW * 4650 hours = 206.8 TWh

Expected demand for 2009 is 194 TWhs.
Expected demand for 2010 is 206.6 TWhs.

So without any additional capacity for the next year this capacity should be enough till the end of 2010 even for the first 6 months of 2011. I personally expect Turkey's installed capacity to reach close to the 50000 MW in 2012

GE's Future Technologies

2009-10-06T18:09:00.003+03:00

I have never heard of Pulse Detonation Technology. But GE's working on it to increase the efficiency of gas turbines. Check the interview

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23527/

The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation: Policies and Options for Global Action Beyond 2012

2009-09-26T16:16:00.001+03:00

Against the background of a projected doubling of world greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, this book explores feasible ways to abate them at least cost. Through quantitative analysis, it addresses key climate policy issues:
What would an ideal set of climate policy tools look like?
How large are the economic and environmental costs of incomplete country or sector coverage of climate change mitigation policies? What are the pros and cons of policy tools to broaden that coverage, such as international sector-wide agreements or border-tax adjustments? What are the main challenges in incorporating a mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation?
How can we concretely develop a global carbon market?
What is the case for, and what can we reasonably expect from, R&D and technology support policies?
How great are the incentives for major emitting countries to join a climate change mitigation agreement, in terms of the costs and benefits (including the co-benefits from reduced local air pollution and improved energy security) of action? How can they be enhanced? How can international transfers of resources and technologies broaden support for action?

http://www.oecd.org/document/56/0,3343,en_2649_34361_43705336_1_1_1_1,00.html

Alternative Energy Myths

2009-09-09T17:18:00.000+03:00

it would take more than 400 years of biodiesel use to "pay back" the carbon emitted by directly clearing peat for palm oil
The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a hungry person for a year;
first new U.S. reactor is only scheduled for 2017
average U.S. household now has 26 plug-in devices
Only 4 percent of the energy used to power a typical incandescent bulb produces light; the rest is wasted
China is expected to build more square feet of real estate in the next 15 years than the United States has built in its entire history, and it has no green building codes or green building experience.
modern American refrigerators use three times less energy than 1970s models

Baris's note : such a shame : "we can subtract a coal-fired megawatt every time we add a wind-powered megawatt". Coal works 6500-7000 hours/year, where wind hardly sees 3000 hours/year. It's capacity factor!

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/12/seven_myths_about_alternative_energy?page=full

A series of articles regarding oil reserves and prices

2009-09-09T16:52:00.002+03:00

Matthew Simmons' article is the most visited in FP's web site for a couple of days. Before reading his article, as he suggests, check the links in this paragraph:
"The four pieces were Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin's seven-page article in Foreign Policy, energy analyst Michael Lynch's three column op-ed in the New York Times, analyst Edward Morse's essay in Foreign Affairs, and scholar Amy Jaffe's paper published by the Baker Institute at Rice University." http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/09/04/oil_spin?page=0,0

Lies, Damn Lies and Chinese Lies

2009-09-09T09:46:00.001+03:00

Pretty interesting piece to read:

China's economy grew at an annualized 6.1 percent rate in the first quarter, and
7.9 percent in the second. Yet electricity usage, a key indicator in industrial
growth and a harder metric to manipulate, declined 2.2 percent in the first six
months of the year.

Ref:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/09/03/how_china_cooks_its_books?page=0,1

Energy Industry Photos

2009-09-07T14:55:00.002+03:00

There are really good energy photos at this link. Especially the blowouts

http://www.energyindustryphotos.com/index.htm

Wireless Electricity Transmission

2009-09-03T15:34:00.002+03:00

A professor fed up with his wife's phone beeping for low battery came up with this idea, which is not very complex. It is charging by induction I guess. But there is a video and pdf file to see.
Video: http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html?CNN=YES
PDF: http://www.witricity.com/pdfs/4.0_home_news_2008_03-04.pdf

Coal to Natural Gas

2009-08-24T11:09:00.003+03:00

The equation is simple but the process is in its early stages. They have made a demo project, and now they are heading for commercialization. Great Point Energy can convert coal to methane that is the biggest component of natural gas that we use at home.

Ref:
http://www.greatpointenergy.com/ourtechnology.php
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23184/

Predicting the bubble bursts

2009-08-24T11:03:00.003+03:00

On June 14th 2009, a blog claimed Shangai Composite index to collapse between 17th July-27th July. It didn't happen. But the bubble burst after a week. Swiss scientist claims they have a mechanism to capture the inflating bubbles.

Ref:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24023/?nlid=2294
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23839/#comment-212835
http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.1827
http://www.er.ethz.ch/fco/

Two discussions. Thoughts for active minds

2009-08-19T17:58:00.005+03:00

Two discussions

1. Very classic discussion topic but quite a debate mainly about world's carrying capacity.
There are two main arguments.
a.The collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world, Paul Kingsnorth. (Collapse )
b.No, counters George Monbiot – we can't let billions perish (Human wisdom will save us)

You can read this from here.

2. Alternative to banking systems?: Web based lending and borrowing services such as Zopa described as

"a website that describes itself as a place "where people meet to lend and borrow money … sidestepping the banks". The idea is pretty simple. Someone who has money to spare goes online, says how much he's ready to lend and at what rate of interest – and waits for would-be borrowers to take him up on his offer. If both sides are happy – and Zopa stands for the negotiating term "zone of possible agreement" – then the deal goes ahead. Quite a few of them, as it happens: Zopa has now facilitated £50m worth of loans, from one ordinary Briton to another"
Reason? Quite simple according to article : " it turns out that nine of those banks who between them trousered $175bn of the American public's money in bailout funds – have fallen back into their old habits: last year they paid their top staff $32.6bn in bonuses."

US Electricity and Demand Drop

2009-08-19T17:48:00.002+03:00

According the Wall Street Journal,

4.4% electricity demand drop in the largest US power market (consisting of13 states east of Mississippi)
Average spot price in the same region drops by 40%. ($61.72/ MWh from $129.48/Mwh)

"Generally, the declines in demand and prices are the most precipitous and most sustained seen in the United States since the 1950s."

Ref:

IEEE Spectrum, 12 August 2009

Exxon's Energy Outlook

2009-08-19T17:39:00.002+03:00

Just like EIA or IEA, oil firms have their own energy outlooks. Exxon's Energy Outlook can be downloaded from their website.

Key findings are :

Energy demand forecasts are down from 1.3% to 1.2% in this study

Fossil fuels will provide 80% of global energy demand by 2030

Power generation will see the fastest growth

Energy for transportation: Flat in developed countries, doubles in developing ones

CO2 emissions rise 30% from 2005 to 2030

Also new section, called “The Energy Imperative,” outlines the need for an integrated set of solutions that includes improved energy efficiency, development of all economically viable energy sources, and cost-effective steps to curb emissions

Ref:

http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/energy_o_view.aspx

Ice that burns to reduce emissions?

2009-08-19T17:27:00.003+03:00

New Scientist wrote about Clathrate Hydrates, when "carbon dioxide is pumped into the hydrate, it spontaneously takes the methane's place" and releases the methane locked inside it. The cage like structure formed by water molecules are key to these structures. US Energy Department is working with ConocoPhilips for a field trial.

"The deposits on the North Slope of Alaska are among the richest. A 2008 USGS study showed that there are 2.4 trillion cubic metres "

Worth a look!

Ref:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16848-ice-that-burns-could-be-a-green-fossil-fuel.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

http://www.conocophillips.com/NR/rdonlyres/700222AB-5BB1-4006-82D5-95E4CB5F254F/0/MethaneHydratesDataSheet.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_hydrate

CNN Money: China - The new Big Oil

2009-08-19T17:07:00.002+03:00

A brief info about Chinese involvement as a global player in oil sector

Russia : $10 billion loan the Chinese government extended to Russia's Rosneft in exchange for a guaranteed cut of that company's production
Brazil: With Petrobras, arranging a similar deal with the firm that is developing a huge new offshore field - one of the biggest new discoveries in decades.
Argentina: China National Petroleum Corporation is interested in buying all or a part of Argentina's YPF for $14.5 billion, although a deal is far from certain
Angola: CNOOC and Sinopec are buying a $1.3 billion stake in offshore Angolan development rights from American oil firm Marathon.
Iraq: China National Petroleum Corporation will take the majority stake in Iraq's Rumaila oilfield from BP (BP). Rumaila produces over 1 million barrels a day, and is Iraq's biggest oil field.

Also some comparisons "China National Petroleum Corporation's daily oil production is already roughly equivalent to Exxon's. And PetroChina at one point had a market capitalization twice Exxon's" but "Complex operations - like deep water drilling or liquefying natural gas, are still the domain of the Western oil firms." however : "given their need to develop those deep-water leases off Angola, the Chinese are bound to gain the technical know-how that will put them on-par with the best western firms"

Ref:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/17/news/international/china_oil/index.htm

Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid

2009-08-19T16:59:00.004+03:00

NPR has this web page for visualizing the US Electric Grid, power plants, wind, solar maps.

Ref:
Check either: (From Turkey, it makes a difference sometimes as "i" is different than "I")

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=110997398

Lessons Learned from 2008

2009-08-19T16:47:00.003+03:00

Sadad Al-Husseini a veteran Saudi Aramco exexcutive has came up with a series of suggestions. These may not be new, but can be alarming bell for the next oil price rally in 2010. Some interesting notes:

The oil price surge that started in 2003 and collapsed in 2008 had its
roots in 1998. ....
What action is required?
A regularly updated listing of all future oil and natural-gas-liquids (NGL)
projects.
Future capacity costs.
Proven reserves categorization.
Creating an institution to house such a process is
the best way to begin to deal with the oil-supply challenges that must surely
lie ahead.
Ref: JPT Online, http://www.spe.org/jpt/print/2009/08/7GuestEditorial.pdf

Energy Models - Millenium Institute

2009-08-19T16:36:00.003+03:00

A very interesting page for general energy models. You can download and use them for policy analysis. Check the elibrary for useful papers.

Check:

http://www.millennium-institute.org/resources/elibrary/index.html#models

Istanbul's Intracity Transportation System - Electricity Consumption

2009-08-19T14:34:00.005+03:00

Istanbul's population is over 10 million

7% of the passengers are using rail systems

Rail mass transport system is 55 km and consumes 70 million kWh
By 2012, Istanbul rail system will reach 230 km, consuming 450 million kWh

London Metro is consuming 1.17 TWh (Billion kWh) per annum

References:

Istanbul Ulasim Dergi Mart 2007

EİE Enerji Verimliliği Etkinliği

Quick facts about Nuclear : August 2009

2009-08-19T13:47:00.004+03:00

Some very useful info from Dr. Michael Dittmar @ The Oil Drum:

Commercial nuclear reactors are operated in 31 out of the 200 countries on our planet. In 2009, 436 nuclear power plants, with a net installed capacity of 370.2 GW electric power, are in operation. These reactors provide about 14% of the electric energy produced world-wide
2008 was the first year since at least 40 years, when not even one new reactor was connected to the electric grid.
[...] 2005, 2007, and 2008 when, 2626 TWhe, 2608 TWhe, and 2601 TWhe were generated
48 reactors are under construction today
reactors would require roughly 500 tons of natural uranium per GWe for the ﬁrst load and 170 tons/year during the following years
the yearly uranium demand will increase from 65,000 tons in 2008 to about 90,000 tons by 2015.

Also:

assume that each nuclear weapon contains on average just the critical mass or at
least 50 kg of U235. Using this assumption, we find that the U235 of one nuclear
bomb corresponds to 7 tons of natural uranium equivalent on average, and that
the uranium from about 25 such bombs is sufficient to operate a 1 GWe reactor for one year

World Nuclear Power Reactors & Uranium Requirements

Origins of Nabucco Pipeline (Turkmenistan-Turkey-Europe)

2009-08-04T13:15:00.003+03:00

While writing an article, I found this page from a BOTAŞ syposium paper dated October 1993. And tried to dig deeper for the origins of Turkmenistan-Turkey-Europe pipeline. Here is an excerpt from archieve :

"Power brokers in Ankara predict that Kazakhstan will become the Saudi Arabia of Central Asia, that Turkmenistan would overtake Iran in gas exports during the next century, and that Europe would be their main market. They want Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Co- operation Council (GCC) states to finance projects that should make these aims a reality.
Prominent among projects proposed to pass through Turkey is a twin pipeline system to export oil and gas from Kazakhstan to Europe. This is to be discussed in Ankara on July 15-19 by the energy ministers of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey.
It is suggested that in the first phase a crude oil line would be built within"

Article date: July 20, 1992

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-43164015.html

Matt Simmons : Has Oil And Gas Collapse Sealed Fate Of Peak Oil?

2009-04-29T20:13:00.004+03:00

There is a very good presentation by Matt Simmons arguing the bad side of cheap oil. The low prices keeps the investments at low levels. Therefore the seeds of another oil shock will be planted soon, if prices do not climb to acceptable levels.

The presentation is available here : http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/SPE%20Gulf%20Coast.pdf

You can find other presentations from Matt Simmons from http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=msspeeches

Oil shocks and Recessions

2009-04-29T19:57:00.007+03:00

I found the following website and report quite useful for understanding oil shocks followed by recessions. Here is a list of my key points:

1. "the drops in overall spending that were caused by higher oil prices proved to be the knockout punch for an economy that was already wobbly"

2."The fact that the biggest drop in output didn't occur until well after the oil price went up, and resulted not from the oil price itself but instead from the interaction with other factors and the dynamic forces unleashed when the overall level of economic activity began to decline, is also exactly the same pattern we saw in each of the previous recessions."

3."Was the oil shock of 2007-08 the sole cause of the recession? Certainly not. But did it make a material contribution? In my opinion, the answer unquestionably is yes."

Check this link : http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/04/oil_shocks_and_1.html

Report:http://www.brookings.edu/economics/bpea/~/media/Files/Programs/ES/BPEA/2009_spring_bpea_papers/2009_spring_bpea_hamilton.pdf

GridLAB-D Simulation Software

2009-04-29T19:29:00.005+03:00

If you are looking for open source programs for distribution system simulation, Gridlabd is an answer to your quest. The project is also hosted on Sourceforge. You can download and run the sample programs. But they also have a web based system. So without downloading you can run a sample from this website(http://www.gridlabd.org/GridLabWeb/)

"GridLAB-D™ is a new power distribution system simulation and analysis tool that provides valuable information to users who design and operate distribution systems, and to utilities that wish to take advantage of the latest energy technologies. It incorporates the most advanced modeling techniques, with high-performance algorithms to deliver the best in end-use modeling. GridLAB-D™ is coupled with distribution automation models and software integration tools for users of many power system analysis tools"

Webpage: http://www.gridlabd.org/

Download : http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=233096

Also other examples at: http://gridlab-d.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/gridlab-d/trunk/test/input/

Oilwatch Monthly : April 2009

2009-04-29T19:20:00.004+03:00

This version of the report starts with the criticization of IEA numbers, especially China. Crude Oil production is down by nearly 3 million barrels (not world liquid production). Check the oil demand of OPEC countries! There is a big drop in their demand as well. Also, have a look to the Mexico, UK and Norway.

Report is available here (Peakoil.nl)

Predicting using Google Insight

2009-04-26T19:23:00.003+03:00

If you are making forecasts, new and timely statistics are extremely important. You will also know that generally, new data come up with a lag. For example in Turkey it takes not less than 2 months for us to see crucial data. This recent article at Google Research will probably help us, all.
The paper by Varian and Choi can be downloaded from here. The mechanism is clever yet simple: use the normalized searched volumes from Google Insight to correlate with the real data like house sales, cars and etc.
Although I use some other data for Turkey, let me show you the effect of recent tax break on auto.

The tax break has been revealed on 16th March 2009 and the search volume is given above (keyword:oto, region: Turkey). The effect is close to %67. According to this article, the actual sale figures raise by 100%.

http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/04/predicting-present-with-google-trends.html
http://google.com/googleblogs/pdfs/google_predicting_the_present.pdf
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/11470037.asp

Interactive Rig Count - Baker Hughes

2009-03-31T19:07:00.005+03:00

Baker Hughes(BH) has a very interesting interactive map, that shows you the locations of various drilling activites. It is a sample of their professional work. Their reports are a good indicator for drilling activities. For example, check the following dates and you can easily observe the effects of recession.

On 28 March 2008, there were 1808 rig counts by BH, by the same period in 2009, this number dropped to 1085. A staggering 769 drop. A 42% drop....Report for 30 March 2009.

You can also access the interactive web page from here .or here.
From the page, you can select from various parameters and see the latest data. It is limited to US however it gives a good activity about oil in the world's biggest consumer. On the date I checked it, gas activity was higher than oil activity.

Links:

Report: http://gis.bakerhughesdirect.com/Reports/StandardReport.aspx

Interactive map: http://gis.bakerhughesdirect.com/RigCounts/default2.aspx
or try this link: http://gis.bakerhughesdirect.com/RigCounts/

World Energy Projection System of 2002

2009-03-31T18:54:00.004+03:00

World Energy Projection system is an old model that Department of Energy, US once used for some of their projections. It looks like more of an accountant's balance sheets, but you can download and check the validity of the model for fun, it will be a good exercise.

Model can be downloaded from here and documentation is here. In the document you can find the relevant informations about using the files.

"The World Energy Projection System (WEPS) was developed by the Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting within the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the independent statistical and analytical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. WEPS is an integrated set of personal computer-based spreadsheets containing data compilations, assumption specifications, descriptive analysis procedures, and projection models. The WEPS accounting framework incorporates projections from independently documented models and assumptions about the future energy intensity of economic activity (ratios of total energy consumption divided by gross domestic product [GDP]), and about the rate of incremental energy requirements met by natural gas, coal, and renewable energy sources (hydroelectricity, geothermal, solar, wind, biomass, and other renewable resources). Projections produced by WEPS are published in the annual report, International Energy Outlook."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/weps/
Doc: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/modeldoc/m05097.pdf

Building Dashboards - Lucid Design

2009-03-31T18:39:00.004+03:00

While surfing on the net to find some interactive pages about Gridwise Goodwatts, I found the following pages. Building dashboards are interactive webpages that show you the resources you use ( electricity, water, gas) as well as solar generation and water recycling (grey water.). They have a starter package and some of their customers are big names (Like Yahoo). The current use of this technology may be to improve energy use of people, but this is step forward for smart grid-metering technologies. There is a link to the demo page too.
Lucid Design Group explains some of their services as follows :

".... features an easy-to-understand, web-based display for providing occupants with real-time feedback on resource use. Check out your consumption right now, or look at consumption patterns over time. See how many dollars you're spending or pounds of carbon dioxide you're emitting into the atmosphere. Go a step further and instantly compare your building's usage with another monitored building, or launch a competition and rival your friends and coworkers to reduce their consumption."

They also have a demo page for you to see what other things is possible with the starter kit. You can compare per person consumption, between different buildings and etc. 5 stars

http://www.luciddesigngroup.com/
Demo: http://www.buildingdashboard.com/demo/starter/
Other dashboards: http://buildingdashboard.com/clients/uvm/davis/ , Cubolder , EcoManor, Yahoo , SweetWater

A new financial system?

2009-03-26T11:20:00.004+02:00

Nowadays when making oil price forecasts, one should also consider how the dollar's value will change. Before the G20 in London, interesting discussions are going on.

For example read this from WSJ:

"China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world's standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations' growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy."

China is not alone, Stiglitz says :"The dollar reserve system is part of the problem," Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia University economist, said in a speech in Shanghai last week, because it meant so much of the world's cash was funneled into the U.S. "We need a global reserve system," he said in the speech. (WSJ)

Now check the currency reserves of nations:

If there are concerns about dollar's long term future (we do not expect any radical changes in the short term), oil's value in terms of other commodities may stay same but in terms of dollars oil prices may rise.

WSJ : China Takes Aim at Dollar
Chinese Central Bank : Reform the International Monetary System

Crude oil - Gold - Euro/USD parity

2009-03-20T20:41:00.008+02:00

The relation between crude oil vs gold and euro is the question I am looking for some time. From my initial studies, following graphs give an idea.

In this graph, log of crude oil is vertical axis and log of crude oil is the horizontal axis

Then check this one:

My conclusions:
1 - Crude and square of euro/dollar parity is in harmony
2 - Recession started hitting by the end of september 2008
3 - Crude and gold relation is broken for sometime
4 - Observe the euro's appreciation against dollar and rise in crude prices

All this means is crude prices will rise, since dollar will lose some of its value. By the end of May 2009, there is a great possibility that we may see 65-70 $ if dollar continues its slow depreciation. May is the start of driving season.

World Energy Geology : Interactive Map

2009-03-16T13:43:00.005+02:00

US Geological Survey is one of the most important sources for world petroleum endowment. They have an interactive map, which eases to plot the results of survey. The results of their studies are used as inputs to other very important studies carried by international organizations such as IEA. Some criticize USGS for being bountiful in their expectations. Especially after last year's oil price hike, experts talked about re-examining USGS data.

Neverthless, map is quite nice and user friendly. Also check the other web pages as well. Beware that the results may be old (from 2000).

Map can be reached from this website:

http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/website/worldmaps/viewer.htm?Service=WorldEnergyByProvince&OVMap=world_overview&extent=auto

Also check :

http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/rooms/we/index.jsp

Bottom of economic crises: Are we there yet?

2009-03-16T11:09:00.005+02:00

One of my friends has shared the following article from New York Times which I enjoyed reading. The article tries to find out whether we reached the "bottom of recession", using several indicators. It looks to three indicators:

1. Stocks: "Price to earning ratio. History shows that the stock market usually hits bottom before the economy does.The price-to-earnings ratio — which investors use to gauge how much they are paying for each dollar of corporate profit — is around 13, about 20 percent lower than the average of the last 130 years."

2. Home prices: "Barry Ritholtz, a professional investor who writes the popular economics blog The Big Picture, has a simpler, more subjective, approach: Assume a young couple earning two modest incomes is looking to buy a two- or three-bedroom starter home in a middle-income neighborhood in your city. Can they qualify for a mortgage and afford to buy it?“If the answer is no, then you are not at a bottom in housing,” said Mr. Ritholtz, who estimates that the decline in national home prices is only half-complete. "

3. Consumer spending:" The savings rate — the amount of money consumers did not spend — jumped to about 3 percent late last year, from practically zero, still far below its postwar average of 7 percent. ... In a study of economic cycles, Edward E. Leamer, an economist at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles, found that auto sales and home building tended to lead recoveries."

Also, mentioned in the article is the 12% shrinkage of imports and exports of US in January.

Take that and compare with the news about Chinese exports appeared in EconBrowser.com.

According to Wang Qian, a Hong Kong-based economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. :

"There's no hope for export demand to recover any time soon. ... How fast imports recover depends on how soon the government's stimulus package kicks in and creates real demand in major industries." (Bloomberg)

I think the most amusing part of the story is also from New York Times : "Tobias Levkovich, chief United States equity strategist at Citigroup, has another indicator for spotting when we have hit bottom: When we stop behaving like children in the backseat of the car asking their parents, “Are we there yet?” "

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/weekinreview/15vikas.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/03/chinese_exports_1.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a9Ih4pDxaIK4

Oilwatch : March 2009

2009-03-16T10:05:00.006+02:00

"The Oilwatch Monthly is a newsletter that is available free of charge with the latest data on oil supply, demand, oil stocks, spare capacity and exports." (The Oil Drum).

This report is quite useful for getting information about world's prominent oil producers and consumers. It is like an open source, illustrated version of IEA's Oil Market Report. The monthly is prepared by "Peak Oil Netherlands". In this edition, check for Russian, Egyptian, Malaysian and Mexican productions and US, OECD and EU consumptions.
You can download the report from here. Following excerpts are from the intro:

"Instead the cartel is going to focus on reaching 100% compliance with the earlier cuts totalling 4.2 million b/d, between now and its next meeting on 28 of May. So far 80% compliance has been reached, with 3.4 million b/d from 36.08 million b/d total produced last October being cut, resulting in 32.68 million b/d of liquids produced in February 2009. "

"OECD demand in December 2008 was 788,000 b/d lower than in july 2008, OPEC-11 (excluding iraq) was 650,000 b/d lower than in July, and Chinese demand was 687,000 b/d lower. A total decline of more than 2 million b/d, while OPEC in December had only cut production by 1.26 million b/d."

"More recent figures from the Energy Information Administration show that crude oil stocks in the USA increased from 334 million barrels in January to 350 million barrels in February, a level not seen since the beginning of the 1990s. On top of the commercial stocks on land the 50 to 80 million barrels of floating storage in oil tankers on the seas still remain."

Oil Watch Monthly: March 2009
http://www.peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/2009_march_oilwatch_monthly.pdf

Cost of Building A New Generating Plant

2009-03-13T18:06:00.007+02:00

Maybe a bit of history but the following numbers worth a look. This is published in June, 2008. Dolar is appreciated since then and commodity prices have collapsed.

Check this report (Page 11)
"What do all these cost increases mean for the cost of building a new generating
plant?"

"No one knows precisely. It’s difficult to get consistent and trustworthy numbers about plant costs, both because they are commercially sensitive and because the assumptions behind them vary greatly. The numbers reflected on the slide come from a variety of sources and include different assumptions about, for example, location or exactly what facilities are included in the estimate. To take one example: Two recent nuclear procurements in South Carolina and Georgia produced cost estimates of $5,100 and $6,400 per kW, respectively, for the same technology. We have been told that most of the difference may be due to different uses of Allowances for Funds Used during Construction – AFUDC."

Source:http://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/06-19-08-cost-electric.pdf

Brief : 13 March 2009

2009-03-13T17:39:00.003+02:00

Oil prices inched toward $43 a barrel Thursday in Asia after an unexpected rise in U.S. crude inventories, suggesting demand remains poor, sparked a big drop in prices overnight (Yahoo)

"The deepening economic gloom should, in theory, support the case for a new cut. Yet the group has still not managed to reduce output to the target level, though at a compliance rate just short of 80%, it's very close." (Rigzone)

Venezuela gross domestic product will shrink 4.1 percent in 2009 as revenue from oil sales plunges by $50 billion (Bloomberg)

Daniel Yergin : "We're now in the Great Recession, and that's what the price reflects....GDP is going to determine the price. .... Oil is not only the world's most important commodity, it's a barometer of the global economy .... OPEC, "like everyone else, is trying to understand the depths of the recession"

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev underscored here on Thursday his country's interest in fair and stable price for oil in world markets. Russia’s ruble plunged the most in almost three weeks against the dollar as Russia’s largest privately owned bank forecast a 20 percent depreciation and the price of oil continued to decline. Russian reserves fell $3.8 billion to $380.5 billion last week, after rising $2.4 billion in the previous week, Bank Rossii said today. Russian investors and locals have withdrawn and converted more than $300 billion since August. (Bloomberg)

Oil output capacity will likely decrease worldwide over the next few years as producers curtail their investments in response to lower crude prices, a regional energy specialist said on Wednesday.

The world population is projected to top nine billion in 2050, up from 6.8 billion this year and seven billion early in 2012, according to UN estimates released Wednesday

Vehicle Miles Driven : Another indicator for how deep the recession is?

2009-03-13T16:05:00.004+02:00

One of my favourite sites on the net is Graphoilogy. Although they do not post that frequently, the site is quite useful for anyone interested in graphs and their relations to oil. Last month they have posted a graph from Traffic Volume Trends:

Compared with the previous years, the effect of recession looks deeper than 80s.

But comparison may not be accurate, so becareful about the following points:

1. Comparing 80s and 2009 may not yield accurate results, since cars are slightly more efficient (for the US, in Europe they are more efficient). This dampens the effect of oil prices.

2. As commented in the website, the oil price increase was gradual for sometime, so the decrease in traffic volume was shrinking slowly.

Also check this graph, for general driver behaviour:

1. The traffic volume is lowest during winter. And due to cold (and recession), people either stay at home more or save more of their income for heating bills.

2. Since 91, this is the first time YoY change is negative.

Data from : http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/tvtpage.cfm
Sources:
http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2009/02/vehicle-miles-driven-at-record-low.html
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/02/us-vehicle-miles-driven-off-36-in-2008.html

Chinese Electricity Demand and Recession

2009-03-11T11:22:00.008+02:00

One of the implications of the recession is the big drops in electricity demands. In the developing countries, we see electricity demand drops followed by drops at industrial activity statistics. Here we see a basic example of economic activity(export rate is an indicator of Chinese economy) and electricity demand.

This news (China hit by massive drop in exports) from Financial Times says :
"Chinese exports plunged 25.7 per cent in February compared with a year ago, much higher than analysts had expected, as the global economic crisis began to take its full toll on the country’s export sector."

You should also check the following line:
"China’s exports have decreased for four months in a row, but until February the rate of decline had been much slower than seen in other Asian countries with large export sectors. .... The trade surplus, which has been at record levels for the last four months, also shrank sharply from $39.1bn to $4.84bn."

This reminded me the news from last month about a drop in Chinese electricity demand. Last month(Jan 2008), we have seen a 13% drop in Chinese electricity demand:

"Major power producers generated only 250.3 million megawatt hours of electricity last month, falling 13 percent from a year earlier, the China Daily reported. This is the fourth consecutive month that electricity generation in the country declined".
Source: China Post

Also read this one from Xinhua:

"However, the decline was smaller than in November and December, when power use fell 8.6 percent and 8.93 percent, respectively. According to CEC, the slowing pace of decline was a sign of economic recovery, as industrial use accounts for about 75 percent of total consumption. "

If you check Chinese state grid web site (http://www.sgcc.com.cn/) , you will see that the graphs (English / Statistics) are not updated for a long time

Will the peaking of the fossil fuels save the earth?

2009-03-09T21:03:00.005+02:00

Ugo Bardi from The Oil Drum has published a very interesting post today, which worths a look. As you know, suggested by some people fossil fuels may peak/peaked (like oil) and this may lead to a decrease in their consumption and an increase of the fossil fuel prices. The summer turmoil of oil prices is a brief simulation of a what a post-peak oil world may look like. And this may eventually appear as a mitigating factor for climate change.

According to an article published by Willem Nel and Christopher Cooper, CO2 concentration levels do not exceed 550ppm. And temperature increase will not be more than 1C before 2100.

But there are other people who found them very "optimistic" and these articles will be published soon.

I suggest following readings:

Implications of fossil fuel constraints on economic growth and global warming

Fire or Ice? The role of peak fossil fuels in climate change scenarios

Free Software for Assesing Greenhouse gas induced Climate Change

2009-03-09T20:41:00.003+02:00

If you are one those experts that do not submit yourself to international climate change groups and have enough knowledge to built your own scenarious, there is tool that can help you.
It is free of charge, just press download in the following site, and submit the form, then you will be directed to a page to download one big chunk of model and files. (Size: 160 MB). The name of the program is Magicc/Scengen. It does all sorts of things. Web page is at the end of this post.
The following information is from the website:

"MAGICC consists of a suite of coupled gas-cycle, climate and ice-melt models integrated into a single software package. The software allows the user to determine changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations, global-mean surface air temperature, and sea level resulting from anthropogenic emissions"

MAGICC/SCENGEN Overview:
MAGICC and SCENGEN are coupled, user-friendly interactive software suites that allow users to investigate future climate change and its uncertainties at both the global-mean and regional levels. MAGICC carries through calculations at the global-mean level using the same upwelling-diffusion, energy-balance climate model that has been and is employed by IPCC. SCENGEN uses these results, together with spatially detailed results from the CMIP3/AR4 archive of AOGCMs, to produce spatially detailed information on future changes in temperature, precipitation and MSLP, changes in their variability, and a range of other statistics.
In running MAGICC/SCENGEN, the user can intervene in the design of the global or regional climate change scenario in the following ways:
By selecting and/or specifying the greenhouse gas and sulfur dioxide emissions scenarios.
By defining the values for a limited set of climate model parameters in MAGICC that are important in determining the effects of uncertainties in the carbon cycle, the magnitude of aerosol forcing, the overall sensitivity of the climate system to external forcing, and ocean mixing rate.
By specifying the future time period for which results are displayed (out to 2400).
By specifying the AOGCMs that are averaged to produce the climate change pattern information.
By selecting an area or region for spatial averaging of climate change results.
This version of MAGICC/SCENGEN was developed primarily with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but it rests on developments carried out over the past 20 years that were funded by a number of organizations.

Download from here:

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/wigley/magicc/index.html

Turkish Electricity and Energy Demand until 2020

2009-03-08T13:10:00.007+02:00

One of the many questions regularly discussed in Turkey is whether the energy demand projections are faulty or there is an "age-old" program that doesn't fit today's world. To challenge this question and to show that results are a product of inputs, I made an approximation to Turkish Energy Ministry's MAED results of 2004. The following excel sheet is a result of my work. What I basically did was to take the published forecasts from the ministry's web site and make the appropiate approximations. By permission, I posted it on several forums. And no one criticized it, and I received emails for how to use the model or methodology!
The main point in this work is as long as you put economic realisations model corrects itself. At the end even some Nobel price winning economists do not owe their success to that software or this software but a bunch of simple equations.
The following forecast assumes 2009 is not a negative growth year.
My forecast for March is as follows (for total energy):

And electricity demand is as follows

Excel file is here, use with permission ( The economic and demographic growth rates are not reflecting the real values)

2007 Turkish Electricity Consumption by Sectors

2009-03-08T12:50:00.005+02:00

Turkish electricity consumptions by sectors can be reached from TEDAS website. The latest year is 2007

You can also reach the Excel file that I prepared from this link.

The important thing in this graph is the robust growth in services and industry sectors. Of course, when looking into 2009, we will miss that year dearly. In services sector, especially hotels and tourism may be a bing contributor to this demand. Household consumptions however is more balanced and with a slower than economic growth rate.

Will energy consumption rebound aggresively after the recession?

2009-03-08T12:13:00.003+02:00

The happy days are over and we cannot have a good prediction for the end of this recession. Energy demand is highly correlated with economic growth. For developed countries, energy demand growth is less than the economic growth, on the other hand for developing nations it may be more than the economic growth.
So to forecast energy demand, oil prices and new investment cycle, economic forecasts are very important.
Recently econbrowser.com website has a very interesting post to read. It may need some econometric background but the main point is quite clear. Will the rebound from the recession start with a big jump or just average?
Answers vary, and if you read the post and relevant links, there are two explainations:
1. It will be higher than normal : (Trend stationary)
"suppose that the economy is down because people are postponing the purchases of cars and other goods out of fear. That would be a trend-stationary story, because it suggests a nice rebound when people get over their fear."
2 . It will be just around average: (Unit root)
"Suppose that the economy is down because we accumulated the wrong types of physical capital (houses) and human capital (skills in mortgage securitization). That is a unit-root type problem. Yes, the economy will start growing again at some point, but that misallocation of physical and human capital is a permanent loss. We are not going to make up for it with some above-normal growth."

The detailed explanations and models worth reading:

From EconBrowser.com

A simple regression of log GDP on a time trend and lagged log GDP, over the 1967q1-08q4 period yields the following:

y_t = 0.424+0.0004time + 0.945y_t-1

Where Adj-R² = 0.9995, SER = 0.008

The AR1 coefficient of 0.945 (se = 0.03) implies a half life of 12.25 quarters, or slightly over 3 years for a deviation from output. Since AR coefficients are biased downward, this is a downwardly biased estimate of the half life.

Brad de Long's Blog

A more technical article about this issue:
Unit root or trend stationary
from Greg Mankiw's Blog

Will wind turbines slow earth's rotation?

2009-03-08T11:48:00.004+02:00

It may sound stupid to you, but this is actually true. Too many wind turbines may really slow down earth's rotation, but not to significantly. From Yahoo Answers :

"The effect on the Earth's rotation should be less than any effect on the wind. It wouldn't be significant and it might not even be measurable. Besides global climate change from burning coal to generate electricity will effect the Earth far more than the potential lose or gain of a picosecond in a day caused by wind turbines."

You can also check another discussion at Discovery Community website.
This is the basic problem with generating energy, like Heisenberg's Uncertainity Principle , when you try to use one kind of technology to harness an innocent energy type, you change other things.
But still, the key point is to have the minimal impact!

www.enreport.com

Turkey's record Natural Gas and Electricity consumption

Energy Security question from a Russian Perspective

Iranian gas usage figures

Why South Stream can be more expensive than Nord Stream?

ExxonMobil and OMV Romania began drilling in the Black Sea

Ukraine's Response to "South Stream"

US's Shale, China's Coal Bed Methane

How much does the Turkmen gas cost to the Chinese

Turkish Installed Capacity by the End of 2011 and Power Generation

European Gas demand to stagnate and its effect on oil indexed pricing

Procedure for building power plants in Turkey

What if a barrel of oil is paid by gold instead of dollars?

Time for getting permissions for wind turbines and number of authorities consulted

Effect of Carbon Prices on Turkish Electricity Prices

IEA's 60 million barrels and US's SPR

India and Coal Power Plant Crises

The cost of oil production capacity

Ernst&Young's Renewable Energy Attractiveness Index

A few explanations for the sudden fall of oil prices

Seasonal variations in oil prices

Environmentalists have no one to blame but themselves for failing to sell their climate policies

Oil Prices, Macroeconomics and Shocks...

Measuring Energy Security

Turkey's Use Tables - The effect of Energy Inputs on Industries

The effects of Japanese Tsunami and Nuclear Problem

If a human slave is 80 Watt/hour, energy algebra of modern life is…

Energy Vision 2011 - A New Era for Gas

CERA Week notes from Platts

Feb 2011 Update - Turkish Installed Capacity 50004 MW - Peak Demand 32675 MW

Extraordinary IEF Ministerial Meeting - Expansion of Jodidb.org is expected

Direct Facts - Econbrowser's Brent-WTI Spread

Quick Summary of IEA's Libya Brief

Houston, We have a problem! - Texas's Rolling Blackouts of February 2011

Overseas Activities of Chinese Oil Companies - IEA Report

Do you think the electric car is a modern invention?

From Wikileaks to IEA - Credibility of Peak Oil Theory still worths a look

Sailing Times of Tankers

Chinks in the chain: What causes disruptions to the supply of oil?Egypt fact sheet by IEA (http://www.iea.org/files/facts_egypt.pdf)

The growing role of Turkey in the EU’s security of energy supply

PJM - Training materials

ARPA-Energy Projects

Cost Estimates for US's Climate Change Acts

Chapter 9 of Economic Report of the US President

Nuclear energy lobby working hard

US's Renewable energy money still going abroad

Risks of Energy Efficiency Investments

Global Energy Outlook from Davos (Jan 2010)

US Government's Climate Portal

Global Energy Outlook

UK's gas crises

E.ON : Coal plants are necessary to keep the lights on

Iraq's Future Oil Production

Me, listening Russian:)

Turkey's Electricity Supply 2010 and beyond

GE's Future Technologies

The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation: Policies and Options for Global Action Beyond 2012

Alternative Energy Myths

A series of articles regarding oil reserves and prices

Lies, Damn Lies and Chinese Lies

Energy Industry Photos

Wireless Electricity Transmission

Coal to Natural Gas

Predicting the bubble bursts

Two discussions. Thoughts for active minds

US Electricity and Demand Drop

Exxon's Energy Outlook

Ice that burns to reduce emissions?

CNN Money: China - The new Big Oil

Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid

Lessons Learned from 2008

Energy Models - Millenium Institute

Istanbul's Intracity Transportation System - Electricity Consumption

Quick facts about Nuclear : August 2009

Origins of Nabucco Pipeline (Turkmenistan-Turkey-Europe)

Matt Simmons : Has Oil And Gas Collapse Sealed Fate Of Peak Oil?

Oil shocks and Recessions

GridLAB-D Simulation Software

Oilwatch Monthly : April 2009

Predicting using Google Insight

Chinks in the chain: What causes disruptions to the supply of oil?
Egypt fact sheet by IEA (http://www.iea.org/files/facts_egypt.pdf)