There are 23 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Die neue Atomkraft
From: "janson2997"
2. World's mayors gather in S.F., thinking green
From: "janson2997"
3. ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people
From: "janson2997"
4. ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people
From: "janson2997"
5. Oil futures hit three-week high
From: "janson2997"
6. Flywheel Prototype To Be Demonstrated For Frequency Regulation/
From: "janson2997"
7. When will nuclear add up?
From: "janson2997"
8. India, US launch energy dialogue
From: "janson2997"
9. India oil minister to push for Iran-India gas pipeline via Pakistan
From: "janson2997"
10. New Caspian Pipeline Only Pit Stop to Fuel Cell Future
From: "janson2997"
11. Black mark on energy
From: "janson2997"
12. Peak Oil History 101: Causes of the situation (+part1)
From: "janson2997"
13. Capital Flows to the Coal Industry
From: "janson2997"
14. Capital Flows to the Coal Industry
From: "janson2997"
15. FCIAC Team Report FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS AND CASE
From: "janson2997"
16. ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005)
From: "janson2997"
17. About Time
From: "janson2997"
18. Might we really need nuclear power?
From: "janson2997"
19. D.A. creates environmental unit
From: "janson2997"
20. Changing climate, melting mountains
From: "janson2997"
21.
Crude Futures Rise Above $52 (53?) Ahead of U.S. Inventories Data
From: "janson2997"
22. Oil rises 5 percent on heatoil rally
From: "janson2997"
23. Crude Oil Rises Most in 6 Months on Concern Over Fuel Supplies
From: "janson2997"
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 09:49:57 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Die neue Atomkraft
Die neue Atomkraft
von Frank Grotelüschen
Während die Politik noch über Kernenergie streitet, tüfteln Forscher
längst an neuen Meilern. Elf Partner, darunter die USA, Frankreich,
Großbritannien, Japan und die EU-Atomenergiebehörde Euratom, werkeln
am nächsten Wurf.
Blick auf den Reaktor A des Kernkraftwerks in Biblis, fotografiert
am 7. März 1997Das tibetische Horn jault und jammert. Vulgär blubbert
der Synthesizer dazwischen; der Chor kontert flüsternd mit
physikalischen Formeln. Volksfeststimmung in Stade. Das Buxtehude
Museum feiert den Abschied vom Kernkraftwerk ganz in der Nähe.
Während in der deutschen Provinz der Atomausstieg gefeiert wird,
setzt Kanzlerkandidatin Angela Merkel ganz auf einen Wiedereinstieg
in die umstrittene Technologie. Auch das Ausland schmiedet längst
eifrig Zukunftspläne: Ein internationaler Verbund bastelt an den
Reaktoren der Generation IV. Sie sollen deutlich sicherer sein als
heutige Meiler und ihren Atommüll im Wesentlichen selbst entsorgen.
Seit der Tschernobyl-Katastrophe 1986 galt die Kernkraft in den
westlichen Industrienationen weitgehend als Auslaufmodell. Neue
Reaktoren wurden weder genehmigt noch gebaut. Doch seit einiger Zeit
denken manche Länder um. Frankreich und Finnland beschlossen unlängst
den Bau je eines Europäischen Druckwasserreaktors. Der EPR ist eine
Neuentwicklung von Framatome, einem Unternehmen von Siemens und der
französischen Areva.
Deutlich sicherer
Meiler der Zukunft: Wie ein Kraftwerk Wasserstoff und Strom
herstelltBereits der 3 Mrd. Euro teure EPR, dessen erstes Exemplar
nun in Finnland gebaut wird und der 2009 ans Netz gehen soll, gilt
unter Experten als deutlich sicherer als derzeitige Meiler. "Mögliche
anzunehmende Unfälle sind auf die Anlage begrenzt", sagt Joachim
Knebel, Leiter des Programms Nukleare Sicherheitsforschung am
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. "Außerhalb des Reaktorzauns kann keine
Radioaktivität freigesetzt werden." Gewährleisten wollen die
Ingenieure dies unter anderem durch den Kernfänger - eine Art
keramikverkleidete Wanne, in die eine eventuelle Kernschmelze
zerfließen und durch Wasser gekühlt würde. "Das verhindert ein
Durchschmelzen des Fundaments", sagt Knebel. Aufgrund seiner
Sicherheitsmerkmale zählen die Fachleute den EPR zu einem neuen
Meilertyp: der Generation III.
Zur selben Kategorie zählt auch der Kugelhaufenreaktor, entwickelt
von den USA und von Südafrika. "Das Prinzip haben einst die Deutschen
erfunden, insbesondere das Forschungszentrum Jülich", erzählt
Madeline Feltus von der US-Energiebehörde DOE. "Auf diesem Prinzip
bauen wir auf." Anstatt wie heutige Meiler mit Brennstäben arbeitet
die neue Technik mit Tausenden tennisballartigen Grafitkugeln, in die
stecknadelkopfgroße Urankörnchen eingelagert sind. Die atomare
Kettenreaktion erhitzt Heliumgas, das die Strahlenbälle umströmt, auf
850 Grad - was der Anlage den Beinamen Hochtemperaturreaktor
beschert. Das heiße Helium bringt eine Stromturbine zum Rotieren.
Die Vorteile: "Ein heutiger Leichtwasserreaktor muss nach einem Bruch
der Kühlwasserleitung innerhalb von Minuten notgekühlt werden, sonst
droht er zu überhitzen", erläutert Feltus. "Dagegen braucht ein
Kugelhaufenreaktor nach einem Kühlmittelverlust rund sieben Tage, um
heiß zu werden - Zeit genug zum Eingreifen." Zudem erhitzen sich die
Grafitkugeln maximal auf 1600 Grad Celsius, zu wenig zum
Aufschmelzen. Ein erster, mit 114 Megawatt Leistung relativ kleiner
Prototyp soll in zwei Jahren im südafrikanischen Koeburg in Betrieb
gehen.
Ende des Atommülls
Ein Verbund mit elf Partnern, darunter die USA, Frankreich,
Großbritannien, Japan und die EU-Atomenergiebehörde Euratom, werkelt
am nächsten Wurf: Die Meiler der Generation IV sollen noch sicherer
sein als die Hochtemperaturreaktoren und keinen langlebigen Müll mehr
erzeugen. "Wir könnten sie unterirdisch bauen, um sie gegen die
Attacken von Terroristen zu schützen", überlegt Joe Colvin, Präsident
des Nuclear Energy Institutes in Washington. "Außerdem denken wir
darüber nach, die Anlagen zur preisgünstigen Erzeugung von
Wasserstoff zu nutzen."
Das Prinzip: Der Reaktorkern heizt Helium auf mehr als 1000 Grad
Celsius auf. Das ultraheiße Helium treibt nicht nur eine Stromturbine
an, sondern spaltet über einen speziellen chemischen Kreislauf Wasser
in Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff auf. Der Wasserstoff dient dann als
Treibstoff für Brennstoffzellen in Autos, Bussen und Heizungskellern.
Pro Tag könnte ein solcher Meiler mehr als zwei Millionen Kubikmeter
Wasserstoff herstellen. Um ihn zu bauen, müssen die Ingenieure
geeignete Werkstoffe entwerfen: Reaktormaterialien, die Temperaturen
jenseits der 1000 Grad trotzen.
Andere Typen der Generation IV sollen das wohl größte Problem bei der
Kernkraft lösen: die Erzeugung von Atommüll, der für Hunderttausende
von Jahren strahlt. "Die neuen Reaktoren sollen so ausgelegt sein,
dass sie ihren Abfall gleich wieder verbrennen", sagt Joachim Knebel.
Die Idee: Neuartige Brennstoffe strahlen Neutronen (Kernteilchen) ab,
die zum Teil deutlich schneller sind als bei den derzeitigen
Brennelementen. Diese schnellen Neutronen wären in der Lage,
langlebige Abfallstoffe wie Plutonium kleinzukriegen. Am Ende der
reaktorinternen Zerfallskaskade blieben Substanzen, die nach einigen
Hundert Jahren zerstrahlt wären anstatt nach Hunderttausend.
"Die ersten Reaktoren sind frühestens für 2030 geplant", sagt Knebel.
Die Branche jedenfalls gibt sich optimistisch. "In den USA beobachten
wir, dass die Nuklearenergie mehr und mehr Unterstützung findet",
sagt Joe Colvin. "Mehr als 80 Prozent der Leute sprechen sich für die
friedliche Nutzung der Kernenergie aus. Die öffentliche Meinung ist
viel positiver als angenommen."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Kraftwerkstypen
Generation I sind die Reaktoren der ersten Stunde - Prototypen vor
allem der 50er und 60er Jahre.
Generation II meint die Meiler, die heute am Netz sind.
Generation III sind Kraftwerke, die bereits neue Sicherheitsstandards
setzen. Zu ihnen zählt der Europäische Druckwasserreaktor.
Generation IV sind Reaktoren, die noch sicherer und
umweltfreundlicher werden sollen. Sie sind frühestens für das Jahr
2030 geplant.
Aus der FTD vom 01.06.2005
http://www.ftd.de/rd/8835.html
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 10:42:42 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: World's mayors gather in S.F., thinking green
World's mayors gather in S.F., thinking green
By Paul Rogers
Mercury News
San Francisco hasn't yet painted the Golden Gate Bridge green.
But civic leaders are doing nearly every other eco-thing this week,
as mayors from some of the world's largest cities descend on San
Francisco beginning today for a five-day United Nations conference on
environmental issues.
The event, dubbed World Environment Day, is an international version
of the United States' Earth Day. Held every year since 1987, the
conference is taking place in the United States for the first time.
More than 240 events are planned through Sunday. Most are open to the
public -- including panel discussions and workshops on water, energy,
toxic pollution, open space and other issues. There also will be a
large dollop of lighter fare, with exhibits, tours, an art show and
film festival.
The conference's main feature: a 21-point accord in which mayors
pledge specific actions, including protecting groundwater, reducing
garbage and cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.
``I've gone to so many environmental conferences where I come back
depressed,'' said Jared Blumenthal, director of San Francisco's
Department of the Environment.
``The message often is that the planet is going to hell in a
handbasket and there's not much you can do and let's blame someone
else. We wanted to focus on solutions, and technologies that can
solve these problems, and things you can see so people come away
excited.''
Mayors from at least 66 cities, including Shanghai, London, Rio de
Janeiro, Sydney and Capetown are expected. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown
will speak. San Francisco's Gavin Newsom will host numerous events.
San Jose, the largest city in the Bay Area, won't be represented,
however. San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales supports the general goals of
the conference but had scheduling conflicts, a spokesman for Gonzales
said.
``We did receive an invitation,'' David Vossbrink said. ``Going up to
San Francisco is a half day at best. It's always a challenge. He has
a lot of other meetings on his calendar.''
San Jose City Councilwoman Linda Lezotte will speak today on a panel
at the Metreon Theater about environmentally sustainable architecture.
About half of the world's people now live in cities. As a result,
Blumenthal said, solving environmental problems shouldn't be left to
presidents.
Among the pledges in the 21-point accord: using renewable energy to
meet 10 percent of a city's needs by 2012; applying ``green
building'' standards to all new municipal buildings; and drawing up
policies to provide parks and public transportation within about one-
third of a mile of all city residents by 2015.
Environmentalists see the event as Christmas in June.
``The opportunity for mayors to share information with each other is
very significant,'' said Eric Antebi, a spokesman for the Sierra Club.
``Whether they are talking about traffic or affordable housing or
energy, let's face it, we are not getting a whole lot of
environmental leadership from Washington these days,'' Antebi said.
Skeptics, however, note there is no way to enforce the 21-point
pledge.
``These goals are like New Year's resolutions,'' said Jerry Taylor,
director of natural resources at the Cato Institute, a libertarian
think tank in Washington, D.C. ``They are a nice thought. But unless
there is something behind them, they are empty promises. Politicians
get to claim credit, but there is rarely enforcement.''
Conference organizers hope city councils around the world will pass
new laws mandating many of the 21 goals.
This afternoon, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to appear at
San Francisco City Hall to announce new targets for California to
reduce greenhouse gases.
And on Saturday, former vice president Al Gore is scheduled to give a
speech to delegates in Union Square about global warming.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/californi
a/northern_california/11786151.htm
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 10:46:22 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people
ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people
Earth summit places global responsibility in local hands
68 mayors pledging to achieve 21 goals
- Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
It would be easy to pass off the United Nations' World Environment
Day conference that begins today in San Francisco as yet another
gathering full of windy pronouncements and empty promises about
creating sustainable communities.
There is, after all, a long history of feel-good environmental
summits that ultimately did nothing to reduce carbon emissions or
improve the planet's condition.
But climate change experts see the first Environment Day conference
held in the United States as a crucial opportunity to put the
environmental movement where it belongs -- in the hands of the
people.
"One of the great things about our country is that when one part of
society drops the ball, as Washington so clearly has in terms of
climate threat, another part of society can come pick it up and run
with it," said James Speth, the dean of the Yale School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies. "That's why I'm so encouraged by this
conference in San Francisco. It's taking the issue away from the
lobbyists in Washington. There isn't any substitute for the people
taking action at the state and local level."
The five-day conference, called "Green Cities," is an opportunity for
San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area to showcase programs
ranging from nonpolluting light rail transit and solar energy to
recycling and wetlands restoration.
It kicks off today with openings of the California Tomorrow Fair at
Civic Center Plaza, art and photo exhibits, and a series of
sustainability workshops at Fort Mason. Eco-tours of Bay Area
mountain blooms, toxic sites, watershed land and salt ponds will be
held in the afternoon.
The official opening ceremony will be at 9 a.m. Thursday at Civic
Center Plaza.
The conference will feature five themes, one for each day, with names
such as Cities on the Move and Flower Power. More than 200 events
will be held, including an environmental film festival, a music and
entertainment exchange, an organic fashion show and a green cities
expo.
But the real business of the week will be the historic signing of the
Urban Environmental Accords by the mayors of 68 cities from virtually
every corner of the world. The accords commit each city to attempt to
implement 21 actions designed to help fight global warming and create
environmental sustainability over the next seven years.
The 21 objectives include policies that would increase the use of
renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and toxic waste,
implement recycling programs, develop a rating system for green
buildings, and improve public transportation, environmental health
and water quality.
The idea is to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and help avert
the mass extinctions of plants and animals that many scientists are
predicting unless the world comes together to stop global warming.
"The question, 'What is a green city?' is of vital and utmost
importance, " said Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the U.N.
Environment Program, which is overseeing the event. "We must
concentrate the eyes of the people and create awareness for the
environment while, at the same time, offering concrete examples for
other regions on how to develop a green city and how to integrate
these systems. The activities of cities and private businesses to
fight climate change are extremely important at a time when we no
longer have time for delay."
The emphasis on cities is necessary because the vast majority of the
world's people will be living in urban areas over the next century,
said Jared Blumenfeld, the director of San Francisco's Environment
Department, which was created in 1998 through a ballot initiative
that centralized the city's environmental policy.
"We're at a crossroads moving from a rural to an urban species," he
said. "This is the first time mayors from large cities in developing
countries around the world have come together at this level. And
that's who we need to have dialogue with."
An estimated 1 million people per week are now moving to urban areas.
It is projected that within 30 years, 65 percent of the people on
this planet will be living in metropolitan areas, which already use
up to 75 percent of the world's resources.
Speth, who wrote the book "Red Sky at Morning," an analysis of the
global warming threat, said forests in the tropics are being cut down
at a rate of an acre a second. He said a third of the planet's land
surface and 20 percent of global river flow is being used by humans.
In the United States alone, carbon dioxide emissions are growing at a
rate of 3 percent a year.
This is contributing to climactic changes that Speth said will lead
to mass extinctions by the end of the century if nothing is done.
"It couldn't be a more serious problem," Speth said. "It is a
security issue, a social issue and an economic issue that has the
potential to destabilize whole countries. It's a form of insanity if
we don't get serious about it soon."
Unfortunately, Speth said, the worldwide response has been long on
talk and short on results.
One prominent setback for environmentalists was the decision by
President Bush not to sign the Kyoto accord, which would have
committed the country to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 7
percent by 2010. Kyoto, however, is at least having an effect in
other countries where the accord was signed. But there have been
dozens of previous Earth Day conferences and several major
international environmental summits among world leaders that have,
for the most part, failed to even slow environmental destruction. The
biggest disappointment was the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the largest
gathering of heads of state in history. The world's leaders agreed on
a major plan of action to battle climate change, but after everyone
went home, the promises were all but forgotten.
There are 400 other treaties like that on every conceivable aspect of
the global environment from protecting the ozone layer to dumping
hazardous waste at sea, but very few of them have any teeth.
"It's easy for a head of state to stand up and say he will take
action, but it's another thing to implement it," said Blumenfeld, who
was involved in the Rio summit. "Part of the problem with these
international agreements is you can't hold people accountable."
There is more accountability, Blumenfeld said, when municipalities
are involved. "If the mayor of a city promises to put solar panels
up," he said, "you know whose door to knock on when he doesn't."
The Green Cities conference will highlight San Francisco's recycling
program, mass transportation, solar arrays and the restoration of the
Crissy Field tidal wetlands. Problems related to urban sprawl around
the Bay Area and the need for sustainable development and corporate
responsibility also will be addressed.
Among the programs that will be introduced at the conference is a
collaborative effort by the Bay Area Council, an alliance of major
employers, to get commitments from 273 of the Bay Area's largest
employers to reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency.
Corporate leadership is necessary if sustainable growth and clean
technology is ever going to thrive economically, said Gavin Power, a
senior adviser for the U.N. Global Compact, a program launched in
2000 that seeks to advance corporate responsibility initiatives.
"More and more companies are waking up to the fact that business
success cannot be sustained when there is substantial environmental
degradation," said Power, whose organization will play a major role
at the conference. "There is a recognition that what's good for the
planet is good for business. But companies still have a long way to
go, particularly U.S. companies that are being seriously outflanked
by their European counterparts."
Environmental responsibility is, in fact, at the core of the business
operations of scores of companies in Europe, where the Kyoto Protocol
is in effect. Large U.S. companies are being forced to take climate
change seriously because they do business in countries where Kyoto is
in effect.
To date, 137 cities in 35 states have signed an initiative to meet
the United States' Kyoto environmental targets on their own. Chicago
recently started a voluntary carbon emissions reduction program
similar to the one in the European Union that sets pollution targets
for companies and awards bartering points for meeting the goals.
But these efforts won't come close to solving the global
environmental problem, Speth said, unless communities come together
to share information and technology and demand more action.
That, ultimately, is the goal of World Environment Day.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
ABOUT THE SERIES
With San Francisco playing host to the United Nations' World
Environment Day in a five-day conference beginning today, The
Chronicle is looking at environmental issues in the Bay Area..
Sunday: Green agenda at U.N. conference
Monday: Pesticide reduction
Tuesday: Waste reduction and recycling
-- TODAY: Water quality, supply
Thursday: Urban design
Friday: Transportation
Saturday: Energy
Sunday: Parks
E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com.
Page A - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL&type=printable
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 4
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:04:40 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people
ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS: Power to the people
Earth summit places global responsibility in local hands
68 mayors pledging to achieve 21 goals
- Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
It would be easy to pass off the United Nations' World Environment
Day conference that begins today in San Francisco as yet another
gathering full of windy pronouncements and empty promises about
creating sustainable communities.
There is, after all, a long history of feel-good environmental
summits that ultimately did nothing to reduce carbon emissions or
improve the planet's condition.
But climate change experts see the first Environment Day conference
held in the United States as a crucial opportunity to put the
environmental movement where it belongs -- in the hands of the
people.
"One of the great things about our country is that when one part of
society drops the ball, as Washington so clearly has in terms of
climate threat, another part of society can come pick it up and run
with it," said James Speth, the dean of the Yale School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies. "That's why I'm so encouraged by this
conference in San Francisco. It's taking the issue away from the
lobbyists in Washington. There isn't any substitute for the people
taking action at the state and local level."
The five-day conference, called "Green Cities," is an opportunity for
San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area to showcase programs
ranging from nonpolluting light rail transit and solar energy to
recycling and wetlands restoration.
It kicks off today with openings of the California Tomorrow Fair at
Civic Center Plaza, art and photo exhibits, and a series of
sustainability workshops at Fort Mason. Eco-tours of Bay Area
mountain blooms, toxic sites, watershed land and salt ponds will be
held in the afternoon.
The official opening ceremony will be at 9 a.m. Thursday at Civic
Center Plaza.
The conference will feature five themes, one for each day, with names
such as Cities on the Move and Flower Power. More than 200 events
will be held, including an environmental film festival, a music and
entertainment exchange, an organic fashion show and a green cities
expo.
But the real business of the week will be the historic signing of the
Urban Environmental Accords by the mayors of 68 cities from virtually
every corner of the world. The accords commit each city to attempt to
implement 21 actions designed to help fight global warming and create
environmental sustainability over the next seven years.
The 21 objectives include policies that would increase the use of
renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and toxic waste,
implement recycling programs, develop a rating system for green
buildings, and improve public transportation, environmental health
and water quality.
The idea is to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and help avert
the mass extinctions of plants and animals that many scientists are
predicting unless the world comes together to stop global warming.
"The question, 'What is a green city?' is of vital and utmost
importance, " said Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the U.N.
Environment Program, which is overseeing the event. "We must
concentrate the eyes of the people and create awareness for the
environment while, at the same time, offering concrete examples for
other regions on how to develop a green city and how to integrate
these systems. The activities of cities and private businesses to
fight climate change are extremely important at a time when we no
longer have time for delay."
The emphasis on cities is necessary because the vast majority of the
world's people will be living in urban areas over the next century,
said Jared Blumenfeld, the director of San Francisco's Environment
Department, which was created in 1998 through a ballot initiative
that centralized the city's environmental policy.
"We're at a crossroads moving from a rural to an urban species," he
said. "This is the first time mayors from large cities in developing
countries around the world have come together at this level. And
that's who we need to have dialogue with."
An estimated 1 million people per week are now moving to urban areas.
It is projected that within 30 years, 65 percent of the people on
this planet will be living in metropolitan areas, which already use
up to 75 percent of the world's resources.
Speth, who wrote the book "Red Sky at Morning," an analysis of the
global warming threat, said forests in the tropics are being cut down
at a rate of an acre a second. He said a third of the planet's land
surface and 20 percent of global river flow is being used by humans.
In the United States alone, carbon dioxide emissions are growing at a
rate of 3 percent a year.
This is contributing to climactic changes that Speth said will lead
to mass extinctions by the end of the century if nothing is done.
"It couldn't be a more serious problem," Speth said. "It is a
security issue, a social issue and an economic issue that has the
potential to destabilize whole countries. It's a form of insanity if
we don't get serious about it soon."
Unfortunately, Speth said, the worldwide response has been long on
talk and short on results.
One prominent setback for environmentalists was the decision by
President Bush not to sign the Kyoto accord, which would have
committed the country to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 7
percent by 2010. Kyoto, however, is at least having an effect in
other countries where the accord was signed. But there have been
dozens of previous Earth Day conferences and several major
international environmental summits among world leaders that have,
for the most part, failed to even slow environmental destruction. The
biggest disappointment was the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the largest
gathering of heads of state in history. The world's leaders agreed on
a major plan of action to battle climate change, but after everyone
went home, the promises were all but forgotten.
There are 400 other treaties like that on every conceivable aspect of
the global environment from protecting the ozone layer to dumping
hazardous waste at sea, but very few of them have any teeth.
"It's easy for a head of state to stand up and say he will take
action, but it's another thing to implement it," said Blumenfeld, who
was involved in the Rio summit. "Part of the problem with these
international agreements is you can't hold people accountable."
There is more accountability, Blumenfeld said, when municipalities
are involved. "If the mayor of a city promises to put solar panels
up," he said, "you know whose door to knock on when he doesn't."
The Green Cities conference will highlight San Francisco's recycling
program, mass transportation, solar arrays and the restoration of the
Crissy Field tidal wetlands. Problems related to urban sprawl around
the Bay Area and the need for sustainable development and corporate
responsibility also will be addressed.
Among the programs that will be introduced at the conference is a
collaborative effort by the Bay Area Council, an alliance of major
employers, to get commitments from 273 of the Bay Area's largest
employers to reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency.
Corporate leadership is necessary if sustainable growth and clean
technology is ever going to thrive economically, said Gavin Power, a
senior adviser for the U.N. Global Compact, a program launched in
2000 that seeks to advance corporate responsibility initiatives.
"More and more companies are waking up to the fact that business
success cannot be sustained when there is substantial environmental
degradation," said Power, whose organization will play a major role
at the conference. "There is a recognition that what's good for the
planet is good for business. But companies still have a long way to
go, particularly U.S. companies that are being seriously outflanked
by their European counterparts."
Environmental responsibility is, in fact, at the core of the business
operations of scores of companies in Europe, where the Kyoto Protocol
is in effect. Large U.S. companies are being forced to take climate
change seriously because they do business in countries where Kyoto is
in effect.
To date, 137 cities in 35 states have signed an initiative to meet
the United States' Kyoto environmental targets on their own. Chicago
recently started a voluntary carbon emissions reduction program
similar to the one in the European Union that sets pollution targets
for companies and awards bartering points for meeting the goals.
But these efforts won't come close to solving the global
environmental problem, Speth said, unless communities come together
to share information and technology and demand more action.
That, ultimately, is the goal of World Environment Day.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
ABOUT THE SERIES
With San Francisco playing host to the United Nations' World
Environment Day in a five-day conference beginning today, The
Chronicle is looking at environmental issues in the Bay Area..
Sunday: Green agenda at U.N. conference
Monday: Pesticide reduction
Tuesday: Waste reduction and recycling
-- TODAY: Water quality, supply
Thursday: Urban design
Friday: Transportation
Saturday: Energy
Sunday: Parks
E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com.
Page A - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/c/a/2005/06/01/MNGHQD1IOP1.DTL&type=printable
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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:05:10 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Oil futures hit three-week high
Oil futures hit three-week high
By Peter Garnham
Published: June 1 2005 09:58 | Last updated: June 1 2005 09:58
Oil explorationOil futures hit a three-week high on Wednesday as
traders waited for US crude stockpile data despite supply assurances
from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
ADVERTISEMENT
Nymex WTI for July delivery gained 30 cents to $52.25 a barrel, having
hit a high of $52.35 earlier in the session. In London, IPE Brent for
July delivery was 33 cents higher at $51.06 a barrel, having hit
$51.30, is highest level since May 11.
Opec president Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd said on Wednesday that he expected
the cartel to maintain production at current rates into the third
quarter of 2005. "The situation will continue to be maintained with
our production now," he said. "This is how it will be .. unless there
is something unexpected at our meeting in June." Opec meets on June 15
in Vienna to set policy for the second half of 2005.
However, traders cited technical buying following Tuesday's late gains
for Wednesday's rise in prices, given the lack of fresh fundamental
news in the market.
All eyes will be on Thursday's release of weekly US crude stockpile
figures, a day late this week due to the Memorial Day holiday on
Monday. Analysts were expecting an average build of 100,000 barrels,
keeping US crude invetories just under a six-year high.
Gold prices rebounded to $416.60/417.30 a troy ounce on Wednesday,
having hit a 15-week low of $413 an ounce on Tuesday. The
dollar-denominated metal had been under pressure as the euro continued
its slide against the dollar, reducing demand from non-US investors.
Dealers said that short covering was behind Wednesday's pullback, but
were wary of predicting how long it could last given the potential for
further dollar gains against the euro.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/aee5d3e6-d276-11d9-bead-00000e2511c8.html
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:15:46 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Flywheel Prototype To Be Demonstrated For Frequency Regulation/
Grid Stability
Flywheel Prototype To Be Demonstrated For Frequency Regulation/Grid
Stability
Power stored by flywheels, long a mainstay for uninterruptible power
systems (UPS), has never been used for grid applications. That could
change, according to California Energy Commissioner Art Rosenfeld, who
says that when proven viable, flywheel technology could offer
California's independent system operator (ISO) an alternative to
keeping power plants on spinning reserve in order to balance the grid.
Rosenfeld, presiding member of the California Energy Commission's
Research, Development and Demonstration Committee, expressed his
optimism for the technology's ability to provide an alternative to
conventional grid support in conjunction with the announcement of a
contract with Beacon Power Corp. to demonstrate an advanced
flywheel-based solution for frequency regulation and grid stability.
One of the most challenging aspects of today's electricity grid is
that the amount of power generated and the amount consumed must be in
exact balance at all times. When imbalances occur, the frequency of
electricity (60 hertz in the United States) required by end users is
not maintained, adversely affecting grid stability. This constant
balancing of power demand and production to maintain frequency is
called frequency regulation.
Beacon's Smart Energy Matrix is a design concept for a megawatt scale
utility grade flywheel-based energy storage solution that would
provide sustainable frequency regulation and grid stability, and
support the demand for reliable distributed electric power.
Illustration courtesy of Beacon Power.
Grid operators, such as the California ISO, purchase frequency
regulation services every day that are equivalent to 1 percent to 2
percent of the amount of energy used daily. In 2003, the value of
regulation services purchased by four U.S. regional grid operators in
open power markets exceeded $400 million. The Beacon Smart Energy
Matrix is being specifically designed to address this sizeable and
growing market with better performance and greater cost effectiveness
than existing methods.
Under the contract, Beacon Power will develop and install a system to
demonstrate the potential benefits of using flywheel energy storage to
provide grid frequency regulation, a service required by all grid
operators. A successful frequency regulation demonstration with the
California ISO will also demonstrate the system's technical and market
feasibility in a large, important, growing market - grid
stabilization. The contract calls for the system to be delivered and
installed during the first half of 2005.
Flywheel technology has the potential to provide a rapid injection of
energy for several minutes to help keep the grid stable when there is
a contingency, according to California ISO Interim Chief Operations
Officer Jim Detmers. "For example," he says, "some kind of problem
that causes a big power plant to drop off line. By helping out with
this demonstration project, the ISO is fostering technology that shows
real promise to improve the control and reliability of the grid."
The demonstration will be a one-tenth power prototype of Beacon's
planned megawatt sized system known as the Smart Energy Matrix. It is
designed to provide grid frequency regulation at a site in San Ramon,
Calif. The demonstration will integrate Beacon flywheels and
associated power electronics into the local distribution grid. The
project will also focus on communication with and control of the
demonstration-scale system by the California ISO. Beacon Power is
teaming with Connected Energy Corp. of Rochester, N.Y., to develop the
intelligent monitoring and control systems that will be used in this
California project, as well as two previously announced in New York
State.
"We are already working under contract to NYSERDA in New York to
deliver a similar demonstration system," says Bill Capp, president and
CEO of Beacon Power. "Through these demonstrations, we'll be able to
show how advanced energy storage solutions like ours can help
operators manage a smarter, more resilient electricity grid. We
believe that our technology will be more responsive, more sustainable
and ultimately more cost-effective than methods currently being
employed by grid operators, and we look forward to a successful
demonstration in California and New York in the coming months." p
Power Engineering April, 2005
Author(s) : Steve Blankinship
http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARTCL&ARTICLE_ID=226914&VERSION_NUM=2&p=6
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:18:11 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: When will nuclear add up?
When will nuclear add up?
It was economics that killed the nuclear industry and economics that
could revive it. Is that good news for the industry?
Will Europe and the USA start investing again in nuclear power? The
debate is in full flow and it is worth looking again at why the first
rush to build nuclear came to such a sudden end.
The accident at Chernobyl in 1986 certainly put the final nail in
nuclear's coffin and it caused an immediate end to the nuclear
programme in Italy and Austria. But the real slowdown in the industry
had begun years before Chernobyl, and years before the Three Mile
Island accident hit the headlines in 1979. As figures from the US
Nuclear Energy Institute make clear (see Figure 1), enthusiasm for
nuclear power in its largest market, the USA, was fading by the mid
1970s and by the latter half of the decade orders and construction
permits had slowed and many orders were being cancelled. The reason
was that the economics were simply not as attractive as they first
appeared. That's not entirely bad news for the industry; it suggests
that if the economics worked, nuclear would be in favour again. The
question for 2005 is: is nuclear economic?
Click here to enlarge image
Figure 1. US nuclear units ordered and permitted Source: Nuclear
Energy Institute
There is good news from the US. Many of its plants are providing
better returns than ever before, due in part to better operation. For
example, scheduled maintenance outages that in decades past could run
up to and over a hundred days are now around the 40-day mark (see
Figure 2). Some operators do even better and European plants can
schedule outages less than 20 days. So the plants are making power -
and income - for much more of the time. And since deregulation began
in the US power market in the 1990s almost all the nuclear plants have
changed ownership, so it seems the question of whether a private
utility would ever invest in a nuclear plant has been answered with a
firm positive.
Click here to enlarge image
Figure 2: US nuclear refuelling outage days Source: Nuclear Energy
Institute
The bad news comes from the UK. British Energy has struggled to get
good performance out of its aging plant, and struggled equally in
getting a good return from the privatized market, which in its new
incarnation rewards flexible and reliable suppliers. British Energy
found itself selling into the spot market just as prices tumbled, and
looking for replacement power to fill long term contracts as prices
were rising.
The real bad news for nuclear? Power markets are tending towards the
British model.
Utilities are changing too. Publicly owned monoliths with a huge
captive customer base to serve could look with an eye to the far
future. Nuclear, like hydro, has a huge capital cost but relatively
low running and fuel costs, and over a 40-year lifetime with captive
markets that can look like a good deal - over 60 years it looks even
better. But that kind of certainty is rarely available now. Players in
the UK market have complained, for example, that forward price curves
provide no basis for investment further than five years in the future.
That can make it hard to invest in a gas turbine plant that can be
built in less than two years - hardly as long as the public enquiry
required to agree a licence for the UK's last nuclear plant, at
Sizewell B. Add to that five or six years of construction and it
begins to look like a long time before nuclear electricity is being
sold and investors are getting a return on their investment. What is
more, since Sizewell B was built, technology has moved on. Building an
identical station would mean using a design that is tried and tested,
but one that is rooted in the early 1980s. Turning to more modern
technology would mean licensing a new design - another time consuming
and expensive process.
This problem has not been solved in the US. The nuclear stations that
have changed hands have been sold as operating stations, offering
immediate income for buyers and likely to do so for decades. But the
US does have a programme that should put the building blocks in placed
for a revived industry. It has streamlined the licensing procedure and
is developing and licensing new advanced reactor designs. But in the
process it has invested billions of US government dollars, a route
hardly likely to be acceptable in Europe.
Private nuclear appears to be working in Finland. But in reality the
new Finnish plant uses a structure successfully employed at another of
the country's nuclear units: major energy users set up a
not-for-profit company and effectively sign cost-plus power purchase
agreements for the life of the plant. It is not a market-based
approach and - perhaps surprisingly - has not been copied elsewhere.
Nuclear may be back on the agenda, but in deregulated power markets it
is the potential investors that need to be convinced that it is a good
deal. What might they be looking for? A licensed design; a site; a
reliable construction schedule; a long term power purchase agreement;
a waste site; even a regulatory regime giving some benefit for
providing CO2-free power. In most countries I make that none out of
six. There is a long way to go.
Power Engineering International April, 2005
Author(s) : Janet Wood
http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=ARTCL&ARTICLE_ID=227292&VERSION_NUM=2&p=17
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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:25:37 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: India, US launch energy dialogue
India, US launch energy dialogue
Washington | June 01, 2005 11:40:03 AM IST
In a sign of their "transformed strategic relationship", India and the
US have launched an energy dialogue, which will take in its sweep
bilateral cooperation in civil nuclear power.
US Secretary for Energy Samuel W. Bodman and Indian Planning
Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia met here Tuesday to
launch the dialogue which "reflects the transformed strategic
relationship" between the two countries, a joint statement issued by
the two sides said.
Both countries want to report progress before Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh embarks on his first official visit to Washington in July.
"The energy dialogue will build upon the broad range of existing
energy cooperation between the two countries as well as develop new
avenues of collaboration," the statement said.
The first meetings of five working groups are expected to take place
prior to the prime minister's visit.
"The working groups will address such topics as oil and natural gas,
electric power, coal and clean coal technology, energy efficiency,
renewable energy, new technologies such as hydrogen, and civil nuclear
power," the statement said.
"Strengthening mutual energy security and promoting stable energy
markets to ensure adequate supplies of energy that will support
desired levels of economic growth; exchanging information and
developing lines of communication for policy coordination in times of
market instability; promoting increased trade and investment in the
oil and gas sector."
Advancing the understanding of efficient generation, transmission,
distribution and use of electricity and promoting the exchange of
information on regulatory policies; cooperating on programmes and
technologies with special emphasis on the "last mile" distribution and
utilisation of electricity in urban and rural networks; developing
cooperation on clean coal preparation and modern coal conversion
systems in power generation are among the goals of the dialogue.
The dialogue seeks to enhance the understanding of coal-related energy
issues and promote the exchange of information on policies,
programmes, and technologies with special emphasis on coal utilisation
for power generation and clean fuels production; promoting the
efficient and environmentally responsible use of coal.
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=84661&n_date=20050601&cat=World
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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:42:05 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: India oil minister to push for Iran-India gas pipeline via Pakistan
India oil minister to push for Iran-India gas pipeline via Pakistan
06.01.2005, 01:36 AM
NEW DELHI (AFX) - Indian Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar is visiting
Islamabad at the weekend to hold talks with Pakistan over a proposed
route for a gas pipeline from Iran, which he said he hopes will lead
to an agreement that attracts companies and finance for the
multi-billion dollar project.
Aiyar will meet his counterpart Amanullah Khan Jadoon to discuss a
proposed 2,775-kilometer energy corridor in Pakistan to deliver gas
from Iran's South Pars field to the Indian border.
'If security and other issues are resolved with Pakistan, I would say
construction could begin with all deliberate speed in three years,'
Aiyar told Agence France-Presse.
'This could be an international consortium or other entity. We are
only a customer right now, but security and other agreements will make
this project viable for investors.'
Aiyar said from India's side, the actual construction of the pipeline
will be the job of Iran and Pakistan. India's role will be to
negotiate a price for the gas if the pipeline reaches its border.
'There are talks with Iran on pricing,' Aiyar said, declining to
discuss specifics.
Aiyar's visit to Pakistan has already caught the attention of
specialized law firms that negotiate major pipeline deals around the
world, who note that these take years of complex legal and financial
deals before construction begins.
'I would say the recent peace talks between India and Pakistan have
moved this project up a few notches from the bottom of the list,' said
Samantha Hampshire, a London-based partner with the global project
finance group of law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw.
'These are enormously complicated projects because they cross several
countries and involve hundreds of parties. Massive investment is
required. But in energy circles, the fact that talks are going on and
there is more stability in India-Pakistan relations means there is
certainly more optimism a pipeline is possible.'
Hampshire said if agreement is reached between the three countries, it
will likely take five years before the 'first shovel of dirt is turned.'
The proposed pipeline is estimated to cost 4.0 bln usd.
'There are two sets of agreements. Iran and India have to agree on a
price. Iran and Pakistan have to agree on building the pipeline. There
could be a necessity for a tri-lateral meeting to outline the terms,'
Aiyar said.
'If and when they issue a tender, Indian companies could bid for work.
I'm keeping an open mind on that.'
Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said in February the project by
itself could be a vital spur to trade relations.
'Nobody disputes the merit of having more trade. In this context, the
gas pipeline will be a major effort to link the two countries. The
proposed gas pipeline project would be a huge economic
confidence-building measure ... a standalone project of huge
significance,' he said.
Iran and India have been talking about a pipeline since 1994 but
longstanding hostility between India and Pakistan has stood in the way.
The field accounts for half of Iran's estimated 23 trln cubic meters
of gas reserves, about 16 pct of the world's total, second only to
Russia.
India right now produces about 50 pct of the gas it needs and imports
7.5 mln metric tons of liquified natural gas a year as its economy
consumes more fuel to keep growing.
New Delhi has said boosting gas imports is crucial to maintaining
expected growth of 7-8 pct annually. India now uses about 27 mln cubic
meters of gas daily which analysts expect to rise to 200 mln cubic
meters in the next decade.
The country has been holding out for construction of the pipeline only
if overall economic dealings with Pakistan widens but in February the
federal cabinet decided to delink the pipeline from the overall peace
process.
However, the US has thrown a spanner in the works by noting its
Iran-Libya Sanctions Act prohibits countries from major investment in
Iran and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned India in March
the gas pipeline could trigger sanctions under the law.
The US law makes it illegal for companies to invest more than 20 mln
usd in Iran and extends the prohibition to foreign firms by excluding
them from business deals in the United States if they cross the limit.
Aiyar said the warning by Rice has been overblown.
'First, there is no pressure on the government of India to abandon
this project,' Aiyar said. There is no pressure to desist. The matter
has come up for discussion with the US and we believe we need to meet
our energy requirements and this can be done with gas from Iran.'
ejl/bpz/dv/bp/net
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2005/06/01/afx2068030.html
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Message: 10
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:49:45 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: New Caspian Pipeline Only Pit Stop to Fuel Cell Future
New Caspian Pipeline Only Pit Stop to Fuel Cell Future
Source: Pasadena Star News
[Jun 01, 2005]
SYNOPSIS: Editorial from the Times of London.
THIS month's formal opening of the $4 billion pipeline to carry oil
more than 1,000 miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean is a
triumph of Western engineering, a strategic coup in the competition
with Russia for influence in its former republics and a tribute to the
acumen of BP, which holds the principal stake in the international
consortium.
This "project of the century,' which will eventually be linked to the
huge Kazakh oilfields in Central Asia, has been built, on time and
within budget, in the face of strong opposition from Moscow. It is
crucial in lessening Western dependence on oil from the Middle East.
And it is an impressive demonstration of technology given that the
pipeline traverses some of the roughest topography, political as well
as physical, in the world.
It would be unwise, however, to conclude that the pipeline has secured
the West's energy future. Despite the vast proven resources of the
Caspian and Central Asia, the world's thirst for oil is growing at an
exponential rate.
The West, therefore, should use the time it has bought and its
superior technology to invest seriously, and on a massive scale, into
alternative energy sources. This does not simply mean building more
unsightly windfarms and waxing lyrical about wave power. Far more
important is the search for an alternative to the internal combustion
engine, the biggest consumer of petrol and one of the biggest sources
of carbon emissions.
At last, the signs are that Western governments and industry are
committing themselves seriously to an old idea whose time, thanks to
technological breakthroughs, may soon come: the hydrogen fuel cell.
Since October, General Motors and Toyota, both leaders in research,
have been holding talks about a joint factory to produce
hydrogen-powered cars, which would speed up adoption of this
environment-friendly technology.
It will take the combined resources and commitment of Western
governments, big business and Japanese research to make fuel cells a
reality. Their energies should be released now. The new pipeline shows
what international co-operation can achieve, but this is merely a
petrol station en route to energy security.
http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique&newsid=8585
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Message: 11
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 14:40:09 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Black mark on energy
Black mark on energy
> Southern Co. balks at regulations on emissions as coal-burning
plants contribute to global warming
> Published on: 06/01/05
Atlanta-based Southern Co., one of the biggest and politically most
powerful utility companies in the nation, goes to great lengths to
convince the public that its family of electric utilities — including
Georgia Power — are paragons of corporate citizenship acting in the
best interests of their customers.
But in one major respect, the company's claims come up short.
As a corporate entity, Southern is one of the nation's largest
producers of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, largely
because of its fleet of coal-burning power plants. Numerous
scientific studies have found that such emissions are a major
contributor to global warming, the slow but steady increase in
worldwide temperatures that climatologists predict could have a
catastrophic impact on plant and animal life over time.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an advocacy group, states
that the company's coal-burning power plants in Georgia produced more
than 83 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2003, more than Romania,
Argentina, Venezuela or Belgium individually.
Company officials have at least acknowledged that global warming is a
reality, but despite mounting evidence, they oppose mandatory
industry limits on carbon dioxide emissions and have been reluctant
to experiment with alternative sources of energy.
In contrast, other large energy companies, including American
Electric Power, Cinergy and Duke Energy, now support some form of
federal regulation to reduce man-made greenhouse gases. Either
Southern Co.'s peers are truly concerned about global warming or,
more likely, they realize that policy changes and more regulation are
inevitable and are planning for the future.
Southern Co., though, seems to have it all backward. "We believe
technology must lead policy," a company spokeswoman said recently.
Although no existing technology can replace coal-burning plants,
Southern's position as a market leader could drive progress in
developing less-polluting alternatives — such as biomass, solar
energy and wind power — that can help reduce the company's carbon
dioxide emissions. And although it's more expensive, the technology
already exists to all but eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions from
coal-burning power plants.
Instead, Southern's go-slow approach and unrepentant opposition to
regulation has had a chilling effect, becoming an impediment to the
political and economic climate necessary to spur technological
advances.
Granted, Southern Co. has shown some modest signs of improvement:
It's funding a year-long feasibility study of wind power off the
Savannah coast in conjunction with Georgia Tech researchers, and is
pushing a $4.5 million effort to encourage its customers to buy more
energy-efficient appliances.
That's a start, but much more is required of Southern Co. to
demonstrate that it's taking its responsibility for global warming
seriously, and is committed to addressing it.
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0605/01edsouthern.html
j2997
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Message: 12
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 14:46:40 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Peak Oil History 101: Causes of the situation (+part1)
Peak Oil History 101: Causes of the situation
By DAN MCMENAMIN / Aggie Science Writer
Posted 06/01/2005
Editor's Note: In this second installment of a three-part series on
peak oil, The California Aggie explores the science of oil, as well
as how our society has depended on fossil fuels to reach great
heights and setting itself up for a fall. The series will finish June
8 with a look at alternative energy sources and how our lifestyles
will change in the future.
By DAN MCMENAMIN
Aggie Science Writer
Doubters have dismissed peak oil — the theory that production of
the world's oil supply will reach its midway point and then decline —
as another crisis that, like the Y2K craze leading up to 2000, will
ultimately cause more hype than harm.
Yet this view ignores the long history of oil in America, how
dependent on fossil fuels our nation has become and what has happened
in the past when the U.S. faced a shortage of oil.
The story of peak oil begins millions of years ago, when fossil
fuels began to form underground. Oil, along with coal and natural
gases like methane, are referred to as fossil fuels because they are
the byproducts of prehistoric ancient plant and animal life.
Eldridge Moores, one of the most distinguished professors on the
UC Davis campus, got his Ph.D. in geology from Princeton University
and is well versed in the complicated science of oil.
He described fossil fuels as sediments that are laid down and
buried with organic life. They then get cooked by the interior of the
earth and are broken down into complex organic molecules, and
pressure and time turns them into hydrocarbon liquid, or oil.
According to Moores, the oil then gathers in underground pockets
of space between layers of rock in the earth, where most of it has
stayed for millions of years.
This started to change, though, when widespread use of petroleum
products began in the mid 1800s. Kerosene, a byproduct of crude oil,
was developed as an alternative lamp fuel to whale oil, which was
becoming increasingly expensive and hard to find.
At this point, businessmen began to see the possibility for profit
from oil, and started to search for it. In 1859 Edwin L. Drake was
paid to drill for oil in Pennsylvania and found it, creating the
first oil well in the United States.
Half a century later, Henry Ford introduced the Model T, an
automobile that was wildly popular throughout the country. It brought
heavy demand for gasoline, another byproduct of crude oil, which
powered its internal combustion engine.
In the next few decades, several new uses would be found for the
hydrocarbons in oil, including the development of plastics and
agricultural products such as pesticides and fertilizers that we
still use today.
However, it was only after World War II that oil production really
took off. The post-war baby boomer generation migrated to suburbia in
droves, and easy transportation by car or plane became a necessity
rather than the luxury that it had been to previous generations.
Before WWII, many Americans felt that their oil supply was
unlimited. But M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist who had studied
the U.S. oil supply, warned that the domestic supply would peak and
start declining in the 1970s, and that we would have to rely heavily
on fuel from overseas. Despite this, people continued buying more and
more cars.
Growing demand for oil caused the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries to form in 1960, consisting mostly of Middle
Eastern countries. OPEC sought to protect each country's interests in
dealing with oil companies from energy-hungry Western countries.
But in October 1973, an oil crisis temporarily slowed down the
feeding frenzy and provided an important example of what could happen
when oil supplies dwindle in the future.
OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia stopped shipping oil to the U.S.
and other Western countries for several months as a protest of their
support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria.
The effects of the embargo on the U.S. were immediate and drastic.
Oil prices quadrupled and the country went into its worst recession
since before World War II.
The American government responded to the crisis in many different
ways. It forced car owners with odd- and even-numbered license plates
to fill up their tanks on separate days to alleviate hours-long lines
at gas stations, and enforced a national speed limit of 55 mph. For a
time, the government even instituted a year-'round daylight savings
time to try to conserve energy.
However, when the oil embargo was lifted in 1974, memories of the
crisis faded away and Americans continued consuming more oil than
ever before.
"We've changed a lot since then," said UCD agricultural and
resource economics professor Hossein Farzin. "If prices go up we
won't be as unprepared as we were back then, but the problem is that
per-house consumption of oil has gone much higher because of new
developments like SUVs."
The U.S. especially started accelerating towards the peak in the
1990s and early 2000s, thanks in part to the popularity of gas-
guzzling sport utility vehicles.
However, the past five years have brought many bad omens for the
future of fossil fuels.
On Sept. 11, 2001, jumbo jets piloted by terrorists smashed into
the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Al-Qaida
and other terrorist groups had long seen these buildings as symbols
of U.S. economic and military might, and had already set off a bomb
at the World Trade Center in 1993.
The horrible irony of the 2001 attacks, though, since oil had done
so much to build up the U.S. way of life, was how the towers
collapsed.
The airliners that toppled New York's tallest buildings had just
departed from airports in Newark, N.J. and Boston and still had full
tanks. The large amounts of jet fuel fed the fires and eventually
caused the internal structure of the buildings to melt. Less than two
hours after the first impact, both towers collapsed and left almost
3,000 people dead.
The issue of oil has played a major factor in the rise of groups
like al-Qaida. Osama bin Laden, in a recent videotape, spoke of the
policy of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy" through
attacks that would weaken the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi
Arabia, the most oil-rich country in the world.
Fears of an oil shortage, instability in the Middle East and
collusion between uncompetitive oil companies have led to the recent
increase in oil prices. Another worry, especially if the peak of
production is imminent, is that Americans will have to deal with
rising demand for oil in emerging countries like China and India.
As gas prices have climbed to over $2 per gallon, or even $3 in
some areas of California, some SUV owners have had to pay almost $100
to fill up their tanks. Many of these customers have started trading
in these cars for more fuel-efficient vehicles, leading to a
nationwide 13.5 percent decrease in SUV sales for the first quarter
of 2005.
These problems bring up the question of how the U.S. economy will
maintain the level of oil consumption it needs to function in the
future. The country currently consumes 25 percent of the world's
daily production of fossil fuels, despite constituting less than 5
percent of the global population.
The foreboding signs all inevitably point to a crossroads that is
quickly approaching for Americans: now or later?
"We have a choice. We can pay now to cut consumption and find
alternatives, or get lax and pay much more later on," Farzin said.
DAN MCMENAMIN can be reached at science@californiaaggie.com.
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=9422
j2997
Peak-oil concept stresses urgency of dwindling oil supply
By DANIEL MCMENAMIN / Aggie Science Writer
Posted 05/25/2005
Addictions can be hard to break. The United States' addiction to
fossil fuels has enabled it to reach heights never seen by any
civilization in history.
However, many people who have studied the theory of peak oil —also
known as Hubbert's Peak, and is the idea that the world's oil
production will soon peak and then start to decline — believe that
this addiction is not sustainable in the long term. They argue that
in the near future, fossil fuels could be too expensive to use and
eventually lost forever.
Most people found this idea hard to believe when it was proposed
by a Shell Oil geologist over five decades ago. But today's rising
gas prices and sinking U.S. economy are making more and more people
take heed of the theory, including politicians and CEOs of oil
companies.
Along with the fact that several oil companies have merged in the
past decade, executives of these companies are now beginning to
acknowledge an oncoming crisis.
David J. O'Reilly, the chairman and CEO of Chevron Corporation
told a Houston energy conference in February that "the time when we
could count on cheap oil and even cheaper natural gas is clearly
ending."
The government is also becoming aware of this issue. In March, the
U.S. House of Representatives listened to a presentation from U.S.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), who spoke about the issue of peak oil,
its long-term effects on American life, and possible alternative
energy sources.
***
So where did this idea come from, and why has it taken so long for
people to start addressing it?
In 1949, a scientist named Marion King Hubbert publicly predicted
that the fossil fuel era would be relatively short — that the
production of oil within the United States would peak in 1970.
This theory was rejected by the majority of his colleagues and
largely ignored by the public at the time. However, global oil
discovery peaked in 1962, and surely enough U.S. production of oil
began to decline in the early '70s, proving that Hubbert was indeed
correct.
What will happen when oil production peaks is usually depicted by
a bell curve.
After production goes past the peak of the bell curve, supply can
no longer meet demand. As the supply of oil dwindles, it becomes more
rare and expensive, and this results in sharp rises in prices, which
continue to increase until the supply is all used up.
When the peak will occur is not quite clear at this point, and
this is something many people studying the issue disagree on.
"If we want to be pessimistic and make assumptions that no new
discoveries are made, then the peak could be years from now," said
Hossein Farzai, a UCD professor who studies the economics of natural
resources. "But if we're optimistic and depend on technological
advancements in the future, then investment in discoveries could
delay the peak until decades from now."
While people in the field of economics may be more likely to be
more optimistic about technology coming to our rescue, geologists
like Eldridge Moores tend to emphasize the finite nature of fossil
fuels.
"This is a topic that the general public is not aware of," said
Moores, a professor emeritus in geology at UCD. "Economists tend to
argue that we'll always find more [oil], but some day you're going to
reach the end of that."
Some of the most pessimistic analysts studying the issue predict
that, based on current rates of consumption, the peak will come in
the near future. For example, the Association for the Study of Peak
Oil and Gas estimates that it will occur in 2008.
The government has even made its own prediction. The U.S.
Geological Survey, which published a report in 2000 on the future of
oil, predicted the peak to be reached at least a few decades down the
road.
However, in a 1968 report the USGS predicted U.S. domestic
production would grow long into the future. But within a decade, the
study was completely discredited as Hubbert's prediction hit its mark.
No one knows for sure though about when the peak will hit, since
it depends largely on oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, which is
part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. These
countries keep much of the information about their crude oil reserves
secret, so it is hard for a consensus to be reached on when the event
will occur.
Regardless of the exact date, it is clear that peak oil is not a
matter of if it will occur; it is a matter of when, and signs are
starting to show. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the
cost of a barrel of crude oil is currently just under $47. This is
over 60 percent higher than the $29 price of May 2003, and almost
triple the $17 price of May 1999.
The mainstream media, though, have been negligent in covering the
impending oil crisis, and have only really started to talk about the
issue of peak oil as the prices have increased, according to John
Theobald, a UCD communications professor.
"Fear doesn't play well in the long term. Often [the media] will
talk about things like crime where there'll be a remedy at the end,"
he said. "That doesn't appear to be the case here."
Theobald teaches a class on underreported issues in the media, and
has studied peak oil in depth. He is the thesis adviser for Liz
Warren, who is writing her senior thesis on underreported issues and
offered more reasons for why the media are only now waking up to the
peak oil problem.
"There's a tendency [in the media] to focus on events, like
tsunamis, rather than incrementally growing problems," Warren
said. "It's also hard to get the general public's attention about
it ... because it's not fun to hear about. But people will start to
feel cheated when they can't have their way of life, and I think
that's the scariest thing about peak oil."
Even people like Kurt Vonnegut, one of the most famous authors
living today, are addressing the peak oil issue.
"We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to
face cold turkey," he said in a 2004 essay.
DANIEL MCMENAMIN can be reached at science@californiaaggie.com.
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=9369
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 13
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:30:03 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Capital Flows to the Coal Industry
Capital Flows to the Coal Industry - By Bob Bellemare
Daily IssueAlert
5/31/2005
Free
The U.S. coal industry is undergoing fundamental change. After
decades of stagnating prices and little new coal generation
construction, the industry is now experiencing a renaissance with
over 100 new coal plants under consideration and the squeezing of
every megawatt possible out of existing plants. In response to these
changing dynamics, the coal industry is beginning to see some of the
dynamics commonplace in other fossil fuel markets such as
consolidating ownership, more volatile commodity prices, and
increased competition from overseas. But to meet the expected growth
and changing industry dynamics, the industry will need to upgrade its
infrastructure—from the constrained rail system to finding new
skilled workers to replace the aging workforce.
Such was the message coming out of the recent American Coal Council
(ACC) meeting, held in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting drew hundreds
from around the United States to discuss these emerging coal industry
dynamics.
The Changing Shape of Ownership
Consolidation and new capital sources are working their way into the
coal sector. UtiliPoint® notes that 8 of 325 energy related hedge
funds [http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1087] list
some form of coal investment activity. We have also seen an up tick
in investment activities with over ten recent coal related deals
observed in our Energy Investment Tracking Service
[http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1109].
Coal is the workhorse of the U.S. economy, generating over fifty
percent of our domestic electric needs. Yet it gets little respect.
In a touch of irony, at the same time the coal meeting was taking
place thousands attended the wind energy conference in Denver, CO.,
another forum where UtiliPoint was presenting. Wind, which can
pragmatically supply up to 10 to 20 percent of our electric needs,
certainly gets the preponderance amount of the press. But savvy
investors know that industry dynamics are shaping up where both coal
and wind will likely see substantial new growth in the coming decade.
The industry stalwarts include Peabody, Kennecott, and Arch Coal,
representing over 40 percent of the industry. The remaining 60
percent of the coal industry remains fragmented with nearly 675 coal
producers in existence according to Platts. These companies are
deploying a variety of strategies to raise the capital needed to
drive coals expanding role in the electric business.
Foundation Coal (NYSE:FCL) is the nation's fourth largest coal
company operating a total of 13 mines in the Powder River Basin,
Northern Appalachia, Central Appalachia, and the Illinois Basin. The
company was formed in 2004 when a private equity consortium completed
an acquisition of RAG American Coal Holding, Inc. First Reserve
Corporation, The Blackstone Group, and the owners of American Metals
and Coal International (AMCI) acquired the stock of RAG American Coal
Holding, Inc. and its subsidiaries from RAG Coal International, AG
effective July 30, 2004. The company then went public on December 8,
2004 when it priced its initial public offering of 23,610,000 shares
of common stock at $22.00 per share, raising approximately $519
million.
Prospect Energy Corporation (NASDAQ: PSEC) is another company eying
the coal sector, with two investments recently announced. On July 27,
2004, Prospect completed its initial public offering by selling 7,000
shares of common stock at $15 a share, generating nearly $105 million
in gross proceeds from the offering and has subsequently put some of
that money to work in the coal and natural gas sector.
On January 31, 2005, Prospect Energy provided $3.9 million in
financing to Unity Virginia Holdings LLC (UVH) in the form of $3.3
million in secured subordinated debt and $0.6 million in redeemable
preferred stock. Capital from the transaction is being utilized to
support UVH's acquisition and development of Appalachian Resources,
Inc., including approximately 6,800 acres of mineral reserves
containing 11 million tons of coal, as well as a coal preparation
plant and load-out facility on the Norfolk & Southern Railway.
In a similar move, Prospect Energy announced on April 14, 2004 that
it was providing $4.9 million of senior secured debt and preferred
equity financing to Whymore Coal Company. Whymore is based in London,
Kentucky and owns more than 1.5 million tons of surface coal reserves
across 500 acres in southern Kentucky, with rights to mine an
additional 5,000 acres. Much of the reserve base is already
permitted. Prospect's investment is secured by equipment and mineral
assets, has attached preferred equity participation rights, and will
be used to repay an existing loan and to fund the acquisition of
mining equipment required to produce from the target mining areas.
In a news release, John Barry, Prospect's Chairman and CEO said, "We
continue to perceive the coal sector to be an excellent place to
invest within the energy industry. We have now closed two coal
investments, and we welcome the opportunity to invest in similarly
attractive opportunities."
Utilities Making the Investment
With natural gas prices at record highs and no relief in site,
utilities are turning their attention to new coal power plants as
well as upgrading their existing fleet. In a May 2005 meeting with
industry analysts, Consol Energy is projecting that over 46,000 MW of
existing coal plants east of the Mississippi will be adding or
retrofitting scrubbers for reducing sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions.
The investment required for such plant modifications runs in range of
$450 to $600 per ton of sulfur dioxide removed, according to Consol.
That can amount to billions of dollars of capital needs for a
utility. Additionally, some utilities are deploying a strategy of
scrubbing certain of their plants and then applying any excess SO2
credits to their other power plants without such pollution controls
or selling the credits on the open market.
AEP, for instance, has committed to adding or retrofitting scrubbers
at its Cardinal #1-2, Mitchell #1-2, and Mountaineer #1 coal power
plants, totaling over 4,000 MW of power plant capacity. The sum total
of AEP's environmental investments is expected to be $3.7 billion
through 2010 according to the company. $2.9 billion of that is
scheduled for reducing SO2 emissions, with the bulk of the remainder
going towards reducing nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions. 49 percent of
the investment will take place in Ohio, funded through a rate
stabilization plan. In Virginia and Kentucky the company expects to
recover the added costs through a surcharge mechanism, while in West
Virginia the company anticipates recovery through a general rate case
filing.
And the company's commitment to coal doesn't end there. Recently AEP
announced its plan to build up to 1,200 megawatts of Integrated
Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) clean-coal technology, the first
commercial-scale use of the technology for power generation and the
largest IGCC plan announced to date.
"We've worked for more than a decade with technology providers to
push clean-coal generation from theory to commercial viability and
are extremely pleased to be the first to bring the technology into
mainstream use," according to Michael G. Morris, AEP´s chairman,
president and chief executive officer, in a company press release.
With the investment in life extension of current coal power plants
and over one hundred new plants under consideration, the challenge
for the coal industry will be keeping up with the anticipated
increase in demand. The industry is now experiencing management
challenges it hasn't seen in a decades such as finding skilled
workers, expanding the constrained rail system, and dealing with
volatile prices. These challenges will cause continued consolidation
as well as draw in new financial players to fuel the growing capital
needs of the industry.
http://www.utilipoint.com/issuealert/article.asp?id=2495
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 14
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:29:50 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Capital Flows to the Coal Industry
Capital Flows to the Coal Industry - By Bob Bellemare
Daily IssueAlert
5/31/2005
Free
The U.S. coal industry is undergoing fundamental change. After
decades of stagnating prices and little new coal generation
construction, the industry is now experiencing a renaissance with
over 100 new coal plants under consideration and the squeezing of
every megawatt possible out of existing plants. In response to these
changing dynamics, the coal industry is beginning to see some of the
dynamics commonplace in other fossil fuel markets such as
consolidating ownership, more volatile commodity prices, and
increased competition from overseas. But to meet the expected growth
and changing industry dynamics, the industry will need to upgrade its
infrastructure—from the constrained rail system to finding new
skilled workers to replace the aging workforce.
Such was the message coming out of the recent American Coal Council
(ACC) meeting, held in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting drew hundreds
from around the United States to discuss these emerging coal industry
dynamics.
The Changing Shape of Ownership
Consolidation and new capital sources are working their way into the
coal sector. UtiliPoint® notes that 8 of 325 energy related hedge
funds [http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1087] list
some form of coal investment activity. We have also seen an up tick
in investment activities with over ten recent coal related deals
observed in our Energy Investment Tracking Service
[http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1109].
Coal is the workhorse of the U.S. economy, generating over fifty
percent of our domestic electric needs. Yet it gets little respect.
In a touch of irony, at the same time the coal meeting was taking
place thousands attended the wind energy conference in Denver, CO.,
another forum where UtiliPoint was presenting. Wind, which can
pragmatically supply up to 10 to 20 percent of our electric needs,
certainly gets the preponderance amount of the press. But savvy
investors know that industry dynamics are shaping up where both coal
and wind will likely see substantial new growth in the coming decade.
The industry stalwarts include Peabody, Kennecott, and Arch Coal,
representing over 40 percent of the industry. The remaining 60
percent of the coal industry remains fragmented with nearly 675 coal
producers in existence according to Platts. These companies are
deploying a variety of strategies to raise the capital needed to
drive coals expanding role in the electric business.
Foundation Coal (NYSE:FCL) is the nation's fourth largest coal
company operating a total of 13 mines in the Powder River Basin,
Northern Appalachia, Central Appalachia, and the Illinois Basin. The
company was formed in 2004 when a private equity consortium completed
an acquisition of RAG American Coal Holding, Inc. First Reserve
Corporation, The Blackstone Group, and the owners of American Metals
and Coal International (AMCI) acquired the stock of RAG American Coal
Holding, Inc. and its subsidiaries from RAG Coal International, AG
effective July 30, 2004. The company then went public on December 8,
2004 when it priced its initial public offering of 23,610,000 shares
of common stock at $22.00 per share, raising approximately $519
million.
Prospect Energy Corporation (NASDAQ: PSEC) is another company eying
the coal sector, with two investments recently announced. On July 27,
2004, Prospect completed its initial public offering by selling 7,000
shares of common stock at $15 a share, generating nearly $105 million
in gross proceeds from the offering and has subsequently put some of
that money to work in the coal and natural gas sector.
On January 31, 2005, Prospect Energy provided $3.9 million in
financing to Unity Virginia Holdings LLC (UVH) in the form of $3.3
million in secured subordinated debt and $0.6 million in redeemable
preferred stock. Capital from the transaction is being utilized to
support UVH's acquisition and development of Appalachian Resources,
Inc., including approximately 6,800 acres of mineral reserves
containing 11 million tons of coal, as well as a coal preparation
plant and load-out facility on the Norfolk & Southern Railway.
In a similar move, Prospect Energy announced on April 14, 2004 that
it was providing $4.9 million of senior secured debt and preferred
equity financing to Whymore Coal Company. Whymore is based in London,
Kentucky and owns more than 1.5 million tons of surface coal reserves
across 500 acres in southern Kentucky, with rights to mine an
additional 5,000 acres. Much of the reserve base is already
permitted. Prospect's investment is secured by equipment and mineral
assets, has attached preferred equity participation rights, and will
be used to repay an existing loan and to fund the acquisition of
mining equipment required to produce from the target mining areas.
In a news release, John Barry, Prospect's Chairman and CEO said, "We
continue to perceive the coal sector to be an excellent place to
invest within the energy industry. We have now closed two coal
investments, and we welcome the opportunity to invest in similarly
attractive opportunities."
Utilities Making the Investment
With natural gas prices at record highs and no relief in site,
utilities are turning their attention to new coal power plants as
well as upgrading their existing fleet. In a May 2005 meeting with
industry analysts, Consol Energy is projecting that over 46,000 MW of
existing coal plants east of the Mississippi will be adding or
retrofitting scrubbers for reducing sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions.
The investment required for such plant modifications runs in range of
$450 to $600 per ton of sulfur dioxide removed, according to Consol.
That can amount to billions of dollars of capital needs for a
utility. Additionally, some utilities are deploying a strategy of
scrubbing certain of their plants and then applying any excess SO2
credits to their other power plants without such pollution controls
or selling the credits on the open market.
AEP, for instance, has committed to adding or retrofitting scrubbers
at its Cardinal #1-2, Mitchell #1-2, and Mountaineer #1 coal power
plants, totaling over 4,000 MW of power plant capacity. The sum total
of AEP's environmental investments is expected to be $3.7 billion
through 2010 according to the company. $2.9 billion of that is
scheduled for reducing SO2 emissions, with the bulk of the remainder
going towards reducing nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions. 49 percent of
the investment will take place in Ohio, funded through a rate
stabilization plan. In Virginia and Kentucky the company expects to
recover the added costs through a surcharge mechanism, while in West
Virginia the company anticipates recovery through a general rate case
filing.
And the company's commitment to coal doesn't end there. Recently AEP
announced its plan to build up to 1,200 megawatts of Integrated
Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) clean-coal technology, the first
commercial-scale use of the technology for power generation and the
largest IGCC plan announced to date.
"We've worked for more than a decade with technology providers to
push clean-coal generation from theory to commercial viability and
are extremely pleased to be the first to bring the technology into
mainstream use," according to Michael G. Morris, AEP´s chairman,
president and chief executive officer, in a company press release.
With the investment in life extension of current coal power plants
and over one hundred new plants under consideration, the challenge
for the coal industry will be keeping up with the anticipated
increase in demand. The industry is now experiencing management
challenges it hasn't seen in a decades such as finding skilled
workers, expanding the constrained rail system, and dealing with
volatile prices. These challenges will cause continued consolidation
as well as draw in new financial players to fuel the growing capital
needs of the industry.
http://www.utilipoint.com/issuealert/article.asp?id=2495
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 15
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:41:15 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: FCIAC Team Report FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS AND CASE
STUDIES
FCIAC Team Report
FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS AND CASE STUDIES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
II. FUEL CELL BASICS
III. FUEL CELL TECHNOLOGIES
1. Fuel Cell Technology - Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell
2. Fuel Cell Technology - Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cells
3. Fuel Cell Technology - Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells
4. Fuel Cell Technology - Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
IV. FUEL CELL APPLICATIONS
1. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Stationary Applications
· Case Study: Combined Heat and Power (CHP)
· Case Study: Opportunity Fuel
· Case Study: Power Assurance
· Case Study: Distributed Generation (DG)
· Case Study: Zero-Emissions
· Case Study: Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS)
· Case Study: Hybrid Systems
· Case Study: Residential/Small Commercial
· Case Study: Off-Grid/Remote Applications
2. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Portable Applications
3. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Mobile Applications
· Case Study: Mass Transit
· Case Study: Personal Automobiles
4. Fuel Cell Market Segment - Micro Applications
V. OPPORTUNITIES FOR STATIONARY FUEL CELL DEMONSTRATIONS
http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/fciac_applications.pdf
(32 pages)
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 16
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:47:56 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005)
ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005)
Articles In ASPO Newsletter 54 (June 2005)
* 549 Food Supply mirrors Oil Supply
* 550 The Future of the United States
* 551 Motor industry begins to crash
* 552 Country Assessment – Brunei
* 553 Executive Evasion
* 554 Oil, Tax and Venezuela
* 555 Home Heating
* 556 ASPO International Workshop in Lisbon
* 557 ASPO IRELAND
* 558 Oil Depletion, Energy Waste, Debt and Capital Production by
Marc Gauvin
* 559 Peak Oil in Australia
* 560 Russia's Petroleum Policy
http://www.peakoil.ie/downloads/newsletters/newsletter54_200506.pdf
(11 pages)
j2997
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 17
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:01:12 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: About Time
About Time
Excerpts from
Forum for the Future's
forthcoming book
About Time
speed, society, people
and the environment
About Time, edited by Tim Aldrich, is being published by Greenleaf
Books and can be pre-ordered from www.greenleaf-publishing.com
LIVINGTIME
Jay Griffiths
When ancient China had colonised some new region, the phrase they
used was at once sinister and telling – the people of the new
territory had `received the calendar'.
The Euro-American image of time is a machine, a factory assembly line
chucking out identical hours, each unremarked and indistinguishable.
Worse than that, it has insisted that its time is the time, and that
indigenous peoples all over the world lack a `proper' sense of time.
It is not a lack. Rather they have cultivated a far more subtle and
sensitive relationship to time and timing.
The Leco people of Bolivia have tree calendars, the U'wa of Colombia
have insect clocks `which whistle on the U'wa hour' and the Kaluli
people of Papua New Guinea have a clock of birds. To the Karen of
Burma, the forest over the course of a day supplies a symphony of
time, provided you know the score.
The San Bushmen of the Kalahari would never schedule when to hunt but
would read and assess animal behaviour and choose a `right' time
spontaneously, `waiting for the moment to be lucky.' Hunter-gatherer
time is a series of unique moments, confluences of a hundred streams,
a thousand interconnecting factors, including a person's mood, a
shift in wind direction, knowledge of a cubbing season, a sight of
fresh tracks. Scheduling or planning would destroy the necessary
elusiveness of this subtle sense of timing, and would kill stone dead
the exquisite sense that time is alive.
`Sustainability' seems to weigh in with the burden of a heavy stasis,
a life half-lived and a death half-died, all the dirgey effort of a
worthy cause and none of the dynamite of `progress'. But the opposite
is true. Progress, along the trajectory Euro-American culture is now
on, is a one-word lie; it is neither the travel nor the arrival, but
the ultimate ending; not the flame of thought, but a bonfire of
humanity: the vaunted `progress' of cars and unlimited plane travel
leading to global warming and millions of environmental refugees –
this so-called progress is a politics which tends towards death.
Sustainability, on the other hand, is where the life lies, where time
touches eternity, the time of the natural world, of ice and melt, of
the seas' times and tides. Both sustainability and progress need to
be redefined and reclaimed. In order to do this, Western culture
needs to listen to indigenous peoples because in their ideas of
cyclical time, time is constantly restored, nature sustained and
sustaining. These are the very ideas the world needs most.
Jay Griffiths is the author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look At Time.
IN THE LONG RUN
The nature of longevity is change. Darwin himself noted that "not one
living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant
futurity"... But the cosmic context... actually strengthens our
concerns about what happens here and now, because it offers a vision
of just how prodigious life's future potential could be.... The
evolution of Earth's biosphere can now be traced back several billion
years: the future of our physical universe is reckoned to be more
extended still, perhaps even infinite.
But despite these expanded horizons, both past and future, one
timescale has contracted: many of us are less confident that our
civilisation will survive the next century than were our forebears,
who devotedly added bricks to cathedrals that would not be finished
in their lifetime. What happens here on Earth, in this century, could
conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with
ever more complex and subtle forms of life, and one filled with
nothing but the elements.
Martin Rees, astronomer royal
THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF TIME
The three anthropological models of time, developed by Robert Graham
and Alma Owen.
In the linear-separable model, which dominates the Western view of
time, past, present and future are distinct entities which can be
broken down into units such as minutes and centuries. Cultures which
favour this model value speed of preparation; hence the popularity of
time-saving products such as microwaves, canned soup and faster
computer processors.
The procedural-traditional model sees events and procedures as being
more important than the time they take, as when a scientist conducts
research, or an artist creates a painting. Being on time matters less
than timeliness, and doing things well.
The circular-traditional model sees time as having a rhythmic
pattern. There are beginnings and ends but no certainty of seeing
change, and no discrete units of past, present or future. To the
Inuit of Canada's Baffin Island, the same word – uvatiarru – means
both "in the distant past" and "in the distant future".
"The shortest biography is said to be that of the mayfly: Born. Eat.
Sex. Die. Pausing neither to eat nor to court, mayflies emerge from
the nymph stage with all the food they need for their adult life, and
mate in flight. Typically they live only one or two days."
Botanist and ecologist Ghillean Prance
"You can't use the Roman calendar to know when to fish. It's imposed
on us for registering births and for baptisms, but it doesn't
function for use in the forests. Bats tell us when to fish; when they
fly close over the water."
Sure-yani Eduardo Poroso of the Bolivian Leco people.
TIME & MONEY
Will Hutton and Alexandra Jones
Time is the 21st century must-have. Everyone seems to want more. For
many of us, more time would mean we could feel in control; we could
spend time with family and friends, help in the community, or just
relax and enjoy ourselves. More time would mean being able to make
that tight deadline at work, to make some kind of dent on the growing
mountain of `things to do'. And the market is doing its best to
oblige, offering a range of panaceas, from microwave meals to the
booming business in time management books, the better to help us
manage our hectic lives.
Time, after all, is money. Time spent doing one thing is
potentially `wasted', time that could have been spent doing something
else; something better, something more productive. The idea of the
leisure-rich society has retreated in favour of a busy society.
The entire post-World War II social security system was constructed
around the assumption that men would be working 40-hour weeks for 40
years, with women able to rely on their husbands for support
throughout their lives. The 21st century reality is clearly quite
different – and so are the ways in which we need to measure and value
time.
Offer an individual £100 now or £150 in six months, and he or she
will almost always take the £100 now; we prefer rewards in the
present, while rewards in the future have to be much higher than they
should rationally be in order to persuade individuals to accept them.
This `time-discounting' feature affects the stock market
dramatically. Markets operate on the assumption that they can
accurately value returns now and in the future, but in reality, they
prefer now to later. A company with a strategy to do well now and
excellently in three years' time could be taken over, with
shareholder approval, by a company that will do very well now, but
less well in the future – but an immediate gain. So the `time is
money' principle is too simplistic; in reality, money now is better
than money tomorrow. This short-termism damages companies by rating
immediate profits more highly than larger, deferred profits, and by
destabilising what could be very good, sustainable, visionary
organisations.
"How long should it take to get to know someone? Can a relationship
be made more efficient?"
Some have argued that this increasing emphasis upon `now' rather than
later is a product of an increasingly consumer-focused society – and
is having detrimental impacts upon health. The economist John Komlos
suggests that "recent trends in obesity are related to an increase in
the marginal rate of time preference". He argues that the higher the
rate of time preference, the more likely it is that individuals will
discount the future health risks associated with their current eating
habits and lack of exercise. If this is indeed the case, it has
implications for many other activities with long-term negative
effects, such as smoking, getting into debt, or polluting.
A study of an accountancy firm by Suzan Lewis, professor of
organisational and work-life psychology at the University of
Manchester, found that accountants were regularly encouraged to
underestimate the time it would take to complete a project to make a
bid more competitive. `Invisible hours' of work are then needed to
complete the project according to the deadline, and accountants
collude in this in order to succeed. The employees themselves
acknowledge that in order to `get on' in the organisation they need
to meet these deadlines – which requires long hours working, often in
the office, since `face time' is valued as a sign of commitment.
Which means that for individuals with responsibilities or aspirations
outside work, it is incredibly tough to succeed.
At the core of the tensions we are experiencing in trying to manage
paid work along with the rest of life is our contradictory attitude
to time.... We treat time as a commodity. Efficiency means producing
or performing something in the shortest possible time. Being
profitable means spending as little money as possible on labour time.
Being competitive means being faster than your rival. These are all
values that are increasingly reflected in our changing business
world, as we use the financial markets as the benchmark for judging
performance.
Yet this is not the reality of our experience of time. As individuals
we recognise that not all time is the same, neither in monetary value
nor in personal value. We can earn more for some activities than for
others. We all have hours that pass more quickly because we are
enjoying ourselves, and hours that pass more slowly because we are
bored. And what about time that falls outside employment relations?
How long should it take to get to know someone? Can a relationship be
made more efficient? Speed-dating suggests that at least the initial
stages of relationships can. But this ignores the fact that there is
no sense of `enough' time spent with children, for instance. And the
quality of our time, the way in which we interact, always changes.
Which hour is more productive than another? Or is that the question
we should really be asking?
Clearly then we need to change the relationship between time and
money; break down our assumption that time can be controlled,
measured and used as a economic variable. We need to shift the debate
from the `time is money' principle to talking about time and quality.
Organisations need productive time, not just lots of time. They need
to ensure that focusing on the now doesn't jeopardise tomorrow. And
if we focus on the quality of time, not just its length, we can start
to engage with the changes in how we live our lives.
Writer and journalist Will Hutton is chief executive of the Work
Foundation, where Alexandra Jones is a senior researcher.
TIME & TECHNOLOGY
James Goodman and Britt Jorgensen
Concerns about the detrimental effects of technology speeding up
society go back a long way. In 1907 the French author Paul Adam
worried about the impact of the bicycle. The pedal bike allowed
people to move themselves around four times faster than walking. Adam
feared the emergence of a `cult of speed' for the bicycle generation,
and doctors warned that too much cycling, especially into the wind,
would lead to permanent facial disfigurement.
Mobile phones change our relationship with time in a different way.
The Japanese academic Tomoko Kawamura observed a group of 30 young
people in Japan organising an evening of karaoke using their mobile
phones: "As the date grew nearer, the frequency of messages
increased. But only four people showed up on time at the agreed
place." There were no recriminations for others turning up late or
missing the appointment completely, as most people stayed in touch
with their mobile phone, texting and leaving voice messages. Kawamura
concluded that for young people today it is perfectly acceptable to
show up late or not show up at all as long as they are present in the
same mobile communications space.
"For young people today it is perfectly acceptable to show up late or
not show up at all as long as they are present in the same mobile
communications space."
This mobile space is different from the vast formless space created
by the world wide web. It is only open to trusted intimates, members
of the group. It forms an open channel of contact in which
communication between different people and groups can continue
without restriction. It is unbounded physically because it doesn't
exist in the physical world, and it is unbounded temporally because
text and voice messages can be left at any time and picked up later.
Your mobile can be switched off for a while and the messages will be
there when you turn it back on. You can reconnect with the mobile
space when your face-to-face activities allow you to and –
importantly – when you want. Esben Tuman Johnsen, from the Norwegian
mobile phone company Telenor, writes that "the opportunity to make
decisions on the spot has made young people reluctant to divide their
lives into time slots, as older generations are used to doing." His
colleague Rich Ling reports a "softening of time" among young around
the world texting each other.
The mobile generation is more inclined to live on the hoof and less
likely to be bound by formal `clock time' structures. They form
groups of loosely coordinated individuals who come together and part
as necessary or desired, a kind of mobile phone-coordinated public
flocking. Kevin Kelly, co-founder and now editor-at-large of Wired
magazine, calls this "the `swarm model' – not a series of critical
individual actions but a multitude of simultaneous actions whose
collective pattern is far more important."
James Goodman is a senior advisor at Forum for the Future. Britt
Jorgensen is part of OneWorld.net
http://www.greenfutures.org.uk/features/default.asp?id=2111
j2997
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Message: 18
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:07:09 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Might we really need nuclear power?
Melting Down the Myths
Might we really need nuclear power? Hannah Bullock cuts through seven
layers of loose thinking in search of a firm conclusion.
No doubt about it, the nuclear lobby has a fresh spring in its step.
Could the long-time bête noire of the environmental movement really
be re-emerging from its dark days and bidding once again for a place
in the sun?
For once upon a time, when Blair was a babe, nuclear energy was the
great white hope of the technological future, offering clean
unlimited electricity too cheap to meter. It never delivered that, of
course. The killer price advantage remained elusive, while the
fairytale image was tarnished badly in the succeeding decades by
safety concerns, health scares, and growing worries over where to put
the radioactive waste. Britain, like most of the western world, has
had an effective moratorium on new nukes since 1989.
So what's changed? Climate change. Isn't that a real threat to
overshadow any nuclear nightmare? Our pressing need for low-carbon
energy solutions, coupled with fears of the approaching end of
reliable and affordable fossil fuel supplies, are being presented as
problems to which a programme of `nuclear new build' could be the
best answer.
Ecologist James Lovelock, forever linked in the public mind with deep
green thinking as originator of the `Gaia hypothesis', sees nuclear
as "a secure, reliable energy... immediately available, safe,
economic and sufficient to meet our needs in full". He has always
been pro-nuclear – while politicians are more fickle. Now Tony Blair
is tempted by nuclear power as a way to cut carbon emissions,
although the debate within government is on hold until after the
election. The World Nuclear Association, for its part, has gone so
far as to brand it "energy for sustainable development".
But nuclear power doesn't necessarily do just what it says on the
tin. It's time to unwrap some myths and see how they really melt
down....
Climate friendly energy?
Coal-, oil- and gas-fired power stations spew out greenhouse gases.
Nuclear plants don't. But is that enough to justify the claim of the
Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) that it's offering "climate
friendly energy"?
Not quite. Add up the carbon footprint of the bits you don't see,
like building the plants in the first place, importing uranium and
processing waste, and the greenhouse gas score really is not
negligible. It's twice as bad as wind power on this count.
And even if nukes came absolutely carbon-free, a shift to this power
source wouldn't wipe out our emissions problem. If we doubled the
number of UK nuclear plants, and had them producing half our
electricity – what would that do to our overall greenhouse gas
emissions? Reduce them by 8%. Worthwhile, but still a long way short
of a home run. We'd still have a big emissions problem – the most
intractable part of which seems to stem from our addiction to
polluting cars and planes.
It's not the cheapest way of making the cut either. The government
has done its sums and reckons that, by 2020 – the earliest time a new
nuclear programme could come on stream – it'll be cheaper to cut a
tonne of carbon dioxide emissions through wind or combined heat and
power (CHP) technologies – or simply through energy efficiency. These
greener options could even have a negative net cost, the Performance
and Innovation Unit (PIU) worked out. But if an expensive new nuclear
build programme draws investment away from the development of clean
technologies like these, we could see higher, rather than lower,
emissions in the medium term.
The dilemma we face is not so much whether we fear the consequences
of climate change more than the perils of nuclear power, but how we
choose the best ways to combat the former.
Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser is not one
to play down the problem of climate change – it was he who made such
a media splash by identifying it as a greater threat than terrorism.
But King has not let that blind him to the downsides of nuclear. He
has gone on record saying that "responsible government has to see
whether we can manage to work without [it]".
Responsible would mean dealing with climate change – a global
problem – in a way we're happy for others around the world to follow.
With all the current concern about countries like North Korea and
Iran developing nuclear weapons on the back of a supposedly civil
programme, is the proliferation of nuclear technology really our
global solution of choice?
An ideal stopgap?
All but one of the UK's existing nuclear power plants are due to be
shut down over the next 18 years – starting next year. Where, then,
will we get that proportion of our electricity – 23% – that currently
comes from nuclear? The renewables sector provides less than 4% of
our electricity today, and even its most ardent devotees accept that
it can't do it all tomorrow. So do we need a nuclear new build
programme, as a quick fix for this `energy gap'?
Lovelock is convinced that "for now, nuclear power is the only
workable alternative".
But a programme of nuclear new build won't be `for now'. If the
moratorium ended tomorrow – which it won't – there'd still be a lead
time of 10 years or more to build the first reactor, with the
planning application as the joker in the pack. It was 15 years before
Sizewell B was up and running, in the face of determined local
opposition. How can nuclear be seen as a stopgap, if a new generation
of power plants wouldn't come on stream before 2020?
Look at the alternatives further ahead, and there is no certainty
that there'll be a `generation gap'. A vision of 2050 where up to 50%
of electricity is generated from renewables is not something the
green lobby has dreamt up, but the considered view of oil companies
like BP and Shell.
The cleanest technology?
You don't see smoking stacks on top of nuclear power stations. But
what does come out, invisible though it is to the passer-by, makes an
ugly story.
Britain has been taken to court by Ireland over claims that the Irish
Sea fishing industry has been polluted by radioactive discharges from
the Sellafield reprocessing plant. There's also the nagging question
of whether low-level radiation from nukes has something to do with
the leukaemia clusters identified in the area....
Then there are the stockpiles of radioactive waste we've built up
over the past 50 years – about 75,000 cubic metres in this country
alone. 1,500 of these are high-level waste that's been made so
radioactive it'll take thousands of years to decay to its original
state. When Britain's older generation of Magnox stations start to be
decommissioned next April, the amount of high- and intermediate-level
waste is set to increase fifty-fold by the time the clean-up is
finished. A clean-up that's scheduled to take a century.
"Nobody has a working answer to the problem of permanent nuclear
waste disposal."
So when former energy minister Brian Wilson says to Green Futures
that waste "is not a show-stopping issue", and why not go on
researching waste disposal while we launch a programme of new build,
it's hard to swallow.
If we knew what to do with the stuff, it might not be so bad. But
after 50 years of research, the British government is still not
convinced that it's safe to store it under the ground or seabed. In
fact, no country in the world has a working answer to the problem of
permanent storage of high-level radioactive waste.
Norman Baker, liberal democrat environment spokesman, hits the nail
on the head: "It is simply irresponsible to future generations to
make worse a problem that will last hundreds of years and for which
there is no identified solution."
Over-hyped safety risks?
Are they? The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl No. 4 reactor in Ukraine
caused over 30 deaths, exposed 8.4 million people to radiation and
contaminated the surrounding countryside across an area half the size
of Italy. More than 20 years on, scientists are still seeing a rise
in cases of thyroid cancer amongst children there, as contamination
continues to run through the watercourse.
Sure, this is modern Britain, not the old Soviet Union. We expect –
indeed we have – much better operating standards today. There hasn't
been a serious accident in this country since the Windscale fire in
1957. The big US scare, at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979,
was what the industry would call an `incident', brought under control
before it reached the point of disaster. `Incidents' still happen,
yes, but it's potential rather than actual damage that gets people
running scared. But it still sounds a bit complacent when journalist
Rod Liddle tells us nukes aren't "quite so dangerous as we thought
them to be all those years ago".
"Transporting nuclear fuel presents a moving target for piracy."
Today's world brings risks of its own – not least terrorism. A plane
crashing on Sellafield, for example, would release over 40 times more
radioactivity than the Chernobyl disaster. You may take it as
reassuring that the DTI decided last year to install permanent armed
police at every nuclear power plant in Britain. On the other hand,
you might see it as explicit recognition of the risk to these sitting
ducks.
Even transporting nuclear fuel presents a moving target for piracy.
The Pacific Teal and Pintail carry plutonium from Europe to the
nuclear plants of Japan – under armed guard, of course, as their
cargo is also the ideal material for making atomic bombs.
Easy to get hold of?
Forget soaring oil prices, and gas pipelines through Russia – nukes
only need a little uranium from abroad, and then we're practically
self-sufficient, says the nuclear lobby.
To call the power `indigenous' or `renewable', though, is pretty
misleading. Britain still had to import about 2,500 tonnes of uranium
last year to feed its reactors. We may be able to turn 97% of used
uranium back into fuel at the Sellafield reprocessing plant. But this
isn't like `recycling': highly radioactive elements are creamed off
(and `stored') each time round. Even the NIA thinks the cost and
extra radioactive emissions released by reprocessing mean it's not
necessarily better than importing `fresh' uranium. True home-grown
renewable energy would come from our own fields, wind and waves.
The most reliable power?
When a nuclear power plant is up and running it is pretty good at
producing power most of the time, as measured by what's known as its
load factor – the proportion of its theoretical maximum output that
is actually generated over the course of a year. The nuclear
industry's 75% load factor is higher than that of fossil fuel power
stations, and over twice that of wind farms. But British Energy is
having a bad year for production at the moment, with
unplanned `outages' at two of its power stations.
Nuclear won't always hold such a lead on the load factor, either. Its
mature technology could well be overtaken by the `sunrise' renewable
sector. Smaller in size and faster to build than a nuclear power
plant, renewables such as turbines, solar panels and CHP plants have
a much higher `learning rate', as experience from out in the field is
fed back into improvements on the drawing board more quickly.
In any case, load factor isn't the only element in the reliability
equation. It's the reliability of the national grid, rather than
individual power sources, that's critical to consumers. It's good for
the grid to draw energy from diverse sources. And in the foreseeable
future, storage facilities will mean that it's even less of an issue
whether a given power source is producing energy all the time.
Hydrogen `batteries' will be able to lock up energy as it's produced.
Even when the wind's not blowing, we'll be able to draw on `some we
made earlier'.
Where nuclear really falls down in terms of reliability is that it
will never provide the decentralised and localised power needed to
make a supply network really secure. Relying on a few big power
plants puts a country's electricity at risk from anything from
mechanism failure – remember North America's dramatic blackouts – to
terrorism.
Even if the Chinese do get the latest much-vaunted smaller
scale `pebble bed' reactor technology off the ground, it's unlikely
that we'll be seeing `micro reactors' in every city or home, as we
might see CHP, wind or solar plants. It's not only their insatiable
thirst for cooling water that limits our nuclear power stations to
the coasts of Britain... it's also a matter of who'd want one in
their own back yard.
Hardly anyone, MORI tells us. 82% of people questioned would say no
to a nuclear power station within three miles of their home. And to a
wind farm? A mere 14%.
Pretty cheap power?
"The economic case for nuclear power is overwhelming," reckons
Liddle.
`Commercial confidentiality' means it's not easy to compare the exact
price of a unit of electricity from different power sources. But the
PIU has worked out the electricity from Britain's newest existing
nuclear plant to be about 6p/kWh, once all the development costs are
factored in. New build stations, says the Royal Academy of
Engineering, might bring the figure down to 2.3p/kWh, a cost similar
to new coal and gas and less than your average wind power.
However, well-sited wind farms have been known to produce electricity
that's already competitive with this, at 2.5-3.0p/kWh. And 20 years
on, the PIU expects developments in technology to bring the average
cost of power from wind, energy crops and CHP to below that of new
build nuclear. Not such a tall order when you consider that the price
of wind power has dropped from 50p per kWh 25 years ago.
The real rub for nuclear, though, is that these figures don't include
what is by far the most costly part of the process – the clean up.
Last year's Energy Act set aside £48 billion pounds to deal with the
waste we already have in the pipeline, and the DTI expects this
figure to increase as it becomes clear just how much is to be done.
Embark on a new programme, and we could be bolstering it up with
subsidies of £900-£1,800 million a year, to close the gap between the
cost of output and electricity prices in the wholesale market. This
is a figure worked out by SERA, the Labour environment campaign, in
2002. The NIA doubts the figure will be so cripplingly high, as it
depends on the energy market and the amount of private investment
that can be rustled up. Not much, judging by the recent track record
of British Energy, which had to be bailed out by the state three
years ago. Who'd want to buy in to an investment with potentially
massive – and undefinable – liabilities for eventual clean-up?
The estimated annual subsidy hoovered up by nuclear new build would
be up to four times more than goes towards sustainable energy sources
through the Renewables Obligation today. It's worth asking which
investment is best for our future: nuclear power plants with their
limited lifespan and unlimited end-of-life liability, or renewable
energy, that's set to go on and on and on?
Hannah Bullock is Green Futures' editorial assistant and researcher.
Nuclear Industry Association,
020 7766 6640, www.niauk.org
Royal Academy of Engineering,
020 7227 0500, www.raeng.org.uk
SERA, 020 7263 7389, www.sera.org.uk
World Nuclear Association,
www.world-nuclear.org
The Performance and Innovation Unit's Energy Review can be found at
www.number-10.gov.uk/su/energy/20.html
http://www.greenfutures.org.uk/features/default.asp?id=2157
j2997
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Message: 19
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:12:04 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: D.A. creates environmental unit
D.A. creates environmental unit
3-staff team takes on crime mostly affecting the poor
- Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
To tackle environmental crime, which disproportionately affects the
city's poorest communities, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala
Harris plans to announce that her office has a new environmental
justice unit.
With two staff attorneys and a dedicated investigator, the unit will
address such cases as a community newspaper's alleged dumping of
hundreds of gallons of printer's ink, black marketeers' abalone sales
and a bakery that operated while littered with rat and bird
droppings.
"Crimes against the environment are crimes against communities,
people who are often poor and disenfranchised," said Harris. "The
people who live in those communities often have no other choice but
to live there."
Harris will outline the unit's creation at a news conference today as
mayors from around the world gather in San Francisco for United
Nations World Environment Day.
Local activists called on the new unit to get tough on illegal trash
dumping, to stage unannounced inspections of worksites, and to
improve communications between city officials and the public.
State Attorney General Bill Lockyer spokesman Teresa Schilling said
Lockyer believes state and local law enforcement are being forced to
take up environmental law enforcement that used to be handled by
federal authorities.
"As we deal with a Bush administration that's more focused on rolling
back the protections that we've fought for, it's more and more
important that we at the state and local level step up our efforts,"
said Schilling.
Lockyer's office filed criminal charges last month against Kinder
Morgan Energy Partners of Houston over a 103,000-gallon diesel fuel
spill in Suisun Marsh near Fairfield. The company paid a $5 million
fine and agreed to a series of measures to repair their aging
pipeline system and improve their reporting procedures.
"One of the best tools out there to go after polluters is to go after
them on a criminal basis," said Schilling.
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice plans to hold a
rally Saturday in front of San Francisco City Hall to highlight
health problems in Bayview-Hunters Point. That district has the
largest number of families living below the poverty level of any San
Francisco neighborhood.
Executive Director Bradley Angel said Harris should push other city
agencies also to cite polluting businesses, which unit leader Davina
Pukari said she plans to do.
Pukari plans to coordinate with the Bayview Neighborhood Rescue Team,
run by the city attorney's office, and with a federal regulatory task
force that includes representatives of local police, the sheriff's
office, the city Health Department, toxics control officials,
Cal/OSHA, and the state environmental protection agency.
Dana Lanza, executive director of Literacy for Environmental Justice,
a Bayview-Hunters Point nonprofit, said Harris should focus on
individuals and businesses that dump refuse in vacant lots, on train
tracks and around the Third Street Caltrain station.
"There are places where you come out and people dump their couches
and trash on the sidewalk," said Lanza. "(It) creates an air of
unsafety and degrades the quality of life."
The Bayview, home to 34,000 residents, has two power plants, a city
diesel bus maintenance shop, San Francisco's main sewage treatment
plant, lots of private industry and the former Hunters Point Naval
Shipyard, a Superfund cleanup site.
The impact of those industries has been a matter of debate for
decades. Maurice Campbell, a founder of the Community First Coalition
and co-chair of the community advisory board for restoration of the
former naval shipyard at Hunters Point, said residents live in
a "toxic soup" of environmental pollution.
"The community has been exposed for years to various toxins," said
Campbell.
But the unit was formed to go after law-breakers and will not pursue
law- abiding industrial concerns, said Pukari, whom Harris recruited
from the San Francisco U.S. attorney's office last April. A
specialist in environmental law, Pukari began her career in 1992 in
Washington with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Pukari said her unit will work closely with community groups to
identify sources of criminal activity.
Lanza said residents also would benefit from learning how to report
polluters.
"I think part of the problem is that people don't know who to call."
The environmental justice movement began in the late 1980s and has
grown in response to the Bush administration's rollback of Clinton
presidential directives and its bid to rewrite air pollution laws
with the Clear Skies initiative.
While prosecutors in Alameda, Solano and Los Angeles counties have
established separate units to handle environmental cases, many other
district attorneys assign the work to their white-collar crime
divisions. But a team in Los Angeles focuses on pollution in
communities that are most affected by businesses that break the law,
Schilling said.
Many smaller counties that don't have the resources to aggressively
target environmental polluters rely on a nine-member team of
prosecutors sponsored by the California District Attorney's
Association. The Circuit Prosecutor team covers 30 counties, mostly
in Northern California, said Gloria Mas, one of its senior
prosecutors. The team, which formed about a decade ago, handles an
average of 100 cases a year.
E-mail Jason B. Johnson at jbjohnson@sfchronicle.com.
Page B - 4
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/c/a/2005/06/01/BAGAID1GQ81.DTL
j2997
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Message: 20
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:15:26 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Changing climate, melting mountains
Changing climate, melting mountains
SUSAN GORDON; The News Tribune
Last updated: June 1st, 2005 06:48 AM (PDT)
Nobody plans to wrap Mount Rainier in a reflective sheet to keep it
icy cold.
Yet the glaciers coating Tacoma's backyard mountain share troubling
symptoms with the dwindling Gurshen glacier of Andermatt, Switzerland.
The glistening masses of ice and snow that make 14,411-foot Mount
Rainier shine aren't as impressive as they once were. The mountain
shoulders 34 square miles of year-round ice, but at least five of its
largest glaciers – Nisqually, Winthrop, Tahoma, South Tahoma and
Carbon – are smaller than ever.
When Swiss workers installed an $83 million blanket to stop Gurshen
from wasting away this summer, scientists pointed to global warming as
the reason why.
And while access to ski resorts isn't an issue on Mount Rainier, its
glaciers and hundreds of others in Washington's Cascade Mountains are
as vulnerable as those in the Alps.
"Glaciers are really excellent indicators of climate change," said Jon
Riedel, a North Cascades National Park geologist who tracks the health
of six glaciers at North Cascades and Mount Rainier national parks.
"The issue isn't whether it's getting warmer. Of course, it is.
"The question is how fast and what are the consequences."
People value glaciers not only for their beauty and as a lure to
mountaineers, but also because glaciers are reservoirs. Glaciers hold
water that eventually melts into streams, helps drive hydroelectric
systems and sustains fish.
Since the 1970s, virtually all of the glaciers outside the world's
polar regions have shrunk, said Andrew Fountain, a Portland State
University glaciologist who has studied glaciers throughout the
western United States. Seventy-one percent of the West's glaciated
areas are in Washington.
"You don't find an advancing glacier anymore," Fountain said.
Scientists describe growing glaciers as advancing. Retreat, in
contrast, illustrates what happens when glaciers shrink.
"Mount Rainier's glaciers aren't going away any time soon, but they're
going to get a lot smaller," said Fountain.
Most people notice the change at the glacier's terminus, also called
the toe or snout, where the thaw is most obvious.
"It's the graveyard for glacial ice," said Bill Bidlake, a U.S.
Geological Survey hydrologist based in Tacoma.
Major decline at Rainier
Glaciers need new snow to survive. The decline of Washington's
glaciers parallels a record of dwindling mountain snowpack measured
between 1950 and 2000, scientists said.
Warmer winter temperatures mean more rain instead of snow. As the snow
level rises, glaciers typically retreat to higher altitudes.
"Glaciers amplify what's happening," Riedel said. "Not just year to
year, but over five, 10 or 50 years."
The most up-to-date analysis of what has happened at Mount Rainier,
home to the largest glaciers in the contiguous United States, was done
by Thomas Nylen, a Portland State University glaciologist.
He used aerial photographs to calculate the difference in glacier
volume and area between 1913 and 1994. During that time, the
mountain's glaciated area declined by one-fifth. The combined volume
of the glaciers dropped by one-quarter.
Retreat is more pronounced on the south side of the mountain, where
glaciers are smaller and might accumulate less snow, he said.
"There's definitely a link between the climate and the change in the
glaciers," Nylen said. After 1977, the shift became pronounced, and
the rate of retreat among Mount Rainier's glaciers accelerated, he said.
The same pattern of rapid retreat also is evident in the North
Cascades, said Fountain.
Monitoring from Tacoma
The best way to track glacial health is to measure how much snow falls
on a glacier over the winter and subtract it from the amount that
melts away over the summer, scientists said. Using the information –
called mass balance – scientists can predict whether glaciers will
grow or shrink.
The longest record of such measurements for a North American glacier
belongs to an otherwise little-known glacier monitored by a team of
USGS scientists who work in downtown Tacoma.
It's called the South Cascade Glacier, but it's actually near the
crest of the North Cascades in the Glacier Peak Wilderness at the
border of Skagit and Chelan counties. The glacier gets its name from
the south fork of the Cascade River, into which it melts.
A middle-sized glacier by Washington standards, South Cascade is
nearly two miles long and about three quarters of a mile wide. USGS
scientists have kept tabs on it since the late 1950s.
The glacier is so remote that Bidlake and others fly in by helicopter
to take measurements. Besides snow accumulation and loss, they track
snow density, runoff and air temperature.
Since scientists began sizing up the South Cascade Glacier, they have
documented only a single advance, a small one in 1972, Bidlake said.
The glacier lost one-third of its volume between 1958 and 2001.
"It will not disappear completely, but it could be half or less than
half its current size," said Ed Josberger, a USGS senior scientist who
manages the monitoring program.
A hike to test vital signs
In North Cascades National Park, located in the most heavily glaciated
area in the lower 48, some small glaciers have already disappeared.
Over the past 150 years, 40 percent of the glacial ice and snow within
the park has vanished, Riedel said. Thirteen percent of the loss has
occurred over the last 40 years.
Thirteen years ago, Riedel began tracking glaciers in North Cascades
National Park using the mass balance protocols pioneered by the USGS.
He and others added Mount Rainier's Emmons and Nisqually glaciers to
the program in 2002.
Riedel compared the effort to the work of medical professionals who
periodically monitor heartbeat and other vital signs. In the case of
the glaciers, the focus is the seasonal rhythm of gain and loss.
It's a laborious process. To do it, park service technicians climb
more than 10,000 feet above sea level.
The job begins in the spring and ends in fall. Initially, workers pack
in lengths of plastic pipes – later bound together with dowels and
duct tape – that serve as measuring stakes.
On one day in late April, a crew hiked to the Muir Snowfield. At the
8,500-foot level and higher, the snowfield substitutes for the
adjacent Nisqually Glacier, which is too steep for safe climbing at
this altitude. (Some scientists label the snowfield a glacier in its
own right or an extension of the Nisqually.)
Before setting stakes, the crew probed the depth of the winter
snowfall with an old military tank antenna. It was sensitive enough to
spring back when it hit the hardened surface of last year's snow.
Jeanna Probala, one of the team leaders, lugged a steam drill that
resembled a pressure cooker attached to a big rubber hose. When the
crew reached its destination, Probala fired up the drill, designed to
punch holes 30 or 40 feet deep in glacier snow.
Riedel said he hasn't collected enough mass balance information from
the Nisqually and Emmons glaciers to draw any conclusions. But it's
likely to help scientists eventually.
"Every glacier responds differently to the same climactic conditions,"
said Carolyn Driedger, a USGS hydrologist who has studied Mount Rainier.
Glaciers are influenced by orientation to the sun, their size,
elevation and local weather patterns. So even if they're melting, they
don't do it the same way.
"By adding our observations year after year, we're developing a very
accurate picture of the trends in the health of these glaciers,"
Riedel said.
How much ice is that?
There's more glacial ice on Mount Rainier than any other mountain in
the contiguous United States.
The volume is 156 billion cubic feet. That's enough ice to fill 18
lines of bumper-to-bumper dump trucks between Earth and the moon, said
Paul Kennard, a National Park Service geomorphologist, or someone who
studies the shape of the earth or its topography.
During the last ice age, which ended about 15,000 years ago, glaciers
covered everything inside the boundaries of Mount Rainier National
Park and extended to the edge of the Puget Sound basin. The current
pattern of retreat began in about 1850.
To view the history of glacial change on Mount Rainier, go to
www.nps.gov/mora/ncrd/glacier/Chg00.html.
Originally published: June 1st, 2005 12:01 AM (PDT)
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/v-printer/story/4912595p-4501265c.html
j2997
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Message: 21
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:24:26 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject:
Crude Futures Rise Above $52 (53?) Ahead of U.S. Inventories Data
Crude Futures Rise Above $52
Ahead of U.S. Inventories Data
Associated Press
June 1, 2005 1:09 p.m.
Crude-oil futures climbed past the $52 mark on Wednesday, suggesting
that expectations for modest builds in crude and gasoline supplies in
the next U.S. inventory data report were already factored into the market.
Analysts said the report, which will be released tomorrow, would have
to show substantial growth in stocks to bring prices down, adding that
the hospitalization of Saudi ruler King Fahd might also have been
putting upward pressure on prices over the past few days.
Light, sweet crude for July was up 53 cents to $52.50 a barrel on the
New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil rose more than 2 cents to
$1.474 a gallon, while unleaded gasoline rose more than a penny to
$1.479 a gallon.
In mid-May, prices fell below $47 a barrel in response to steadily
rising crude inventories, but last week's surprise drop in U.S. oil
supplies brought nervousness back into the market.
"For a few weeks now, the market has become more difficult to predict
and last week's drop just reiterated that," said Daniel Hynes, energy
analyst at ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration's last petroleum data
showed that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories fell 1.6 million
barrels to 332.4 million barrels in the week ending May 20 from the
previous week.
Still, Mr. Hynes said he expects a "slight rise" in crude inventories
in the report released Thursday, a day later than normal due to
Monday's Memorial Day holiday. "Anything less than that, we'll
definitely see an upward impact on the prices," he said.
In Vienna, PVM Oil Associates also predicted a build in stocks. "Crude
and gasoline stocks are foreseen to add roughly 200,000 barrels, while
distillates stocks could rise by close to one million barrels,
following the seasonal restocking pattern," it said in its daily
energy market report.
Peter Gignoux, a London-based oil adviser for GDP Associates in New
York, said stock increases will likely "continue until people start
drawing gas" as the U.S. summer driving season unfolds. Longer term,
"we [are] going to be to-ing and fro-ing for most of the summer and
firm up as we go into autumn," he said.
On Tuesday, prices inched higher after Venezuela's oil minister,
Rafael Ramirez, said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
should cut its official oil production quota or leave it unchanged at
the group's next meeting on June 15 in Vienna. The country is the
world's fifth-largest oil exporting country, a founding member of OPEC
and steady supplier of fuel to the U.S.
Copyright © 2005 Associated
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB111763835614048205-search.html?KEYWORDS=crude+oil&COLLECTION=wsjie/archive
j2997
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Message: 22
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:50:01 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Oil rises 5 percent on heatoil rally
Oil rises 5 percent on heatoil rally
By Richard Valdmanis
Reuters
Wednesday, June 1, 2005; 3:13 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed 5 percent on Wednesday to
their highest since late April, led by an unseasonal rally in heating
oil as speculators bet on a looming crunch in distillate supplies.
"Once refineries focus on gasoline production, distillate supplies may
become very tight," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading in
Chicago.
U.S. light sweet crude rose $2.61, or 5 percent, to $54.58 a barrel --
the highest in five weeks -- while heating oil futures jumped 8.75
cents to $1.537 a gallon. London Brent rose $2.47 cents to $53.20.
Refineries typically produce more gasoline and less of other fuels in
the spring to meet summer driving demand, and analysts say the
industry may have trouble keeping storage tanks filled with diesel,
jet fuel, and other distillates.
"Globally, distillates are really tight right now," said Doug
MacIntyre, an analyst at the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
U.S. distillate demand growth is running at more than 3 percent this
year, outpacing gasoline or crude, due in part to higher diesel use
from truckers moving Chinese products to market from the West Coast,
and rising jet fuel consumption from airlines.
Dealers said continued strong demand growth in Europe, where
diesel-powered cars are dominating market share, and from China's
power sector was also keeping the distillates squarely in the spotlight.
Bullish sentiment was also helped by forecasts for a stormy hurricane
season that could disrupt U.S. production this year. The Atlantic
hurricane season runs from June 1 through December.
Last year's Hurricane Ivan was the most devastating to the U.S. oil
industry on record, cutting about 45 million barrels of crude oil
output from the Gulf of Mexico, or about 7 percent of the region's
annual production.
U.S. STOCKPILE BUFFER
Petroleum stockpiles in the United States remain well above year-ago
levels, supported largely by the highest OPEC production in about 25
years -- a factor that could give the oil market some short-term reprieve.
Traders were awaiting the next U.S. petroleum stockpile data to be
released on Thursday.
Analysts polled by Reuters expected on average that crude oil supplies
would hold steady as higher refinery production countered strong
imports, while gasoline and distillate inventories would rise.
Crude stockpiles fell unexpectedly in the last data release, bringing
them down from a six-year high and triggering a $5 gain on U.S. crude
over last week.
This week's inventory data is being released a day later than usual
following the U.S. Memorial Day holiday on Monday, which marked the
start of the U.S. driving season -- the peak demand period for gasoline.
OPEC President Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah said on Wednesday he
expected the oil producers' cartel to maintain output at current rates
into the third quarter of 2005.
The cartel has ramped up output to more than 30 million bpd, a 25-year
high, in an attempt to build a stockpile buffer ahead of the
higher-demand fourth quarter, but more hawkish OPEC members have said
booming output may need to be reined in.
Price rises may be limited by the impact of a stronger U.S. dollar,
which continued to firm against the euro.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/01/AR2005060100233_pf.html
j2997
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Message: 23
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:55:04 -0000
From: "janson2997"
Subject: Crude Oil Rises Most in 6 Months on Concern Over Fuel Supplies
Crude Oil Rises Most in 6 Months on Concern Over Fuel Supplies
ListenListen
June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil had the biggest gain in almost six
months, topping $54 a barrel in New York, as refinery malfunctions
raised concern that refiners won't produce enough gasoline to meet
peak demand this summer.
U.S. refineries have increased operations to about 95 percent of
capacity as they struggle to meet growing demand. Royal Dutch/Shell
Group shut two units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery on May 30.
Analysts were divided on whether a report tomorrow will show that oil
supplies rose or fell last week after an unexpected supply decline the
week ended May 20.
``We've approached $60 a barrel twice in the last year because of
concerns that supply is insufficient,'' said John Kilduff, vice
president of risk management at Fimat USA in New York. ``Concern about
the ability of refiners to meet growing fuel demand means that the
slightest refinery problem results in a surge in prices.''
Crude oil for July delivery rose $2.61, or 5 percent, to $54.58 a
barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York
Mercantile Exchange, the biggest gain since Dec. 15. Futures touched
$54.70, the highest since April 25. Prices are up 29 percent from a
year ago.
Prices have risen for seven sessions, the longest rally since nine
straight gains from Sept. 16 to 28, when Hurricane Ivan shut platforms
in the Gulf of Mexico.
Gasoline for July delivery rose 7.5 cents, or 5.1 percent, to $1.542 a
gallon in New York. Prices touched, the highest since April 29.
Heating oil for July delivery rose 8.75 cents, or 6 percent, to $1.537
a gallon in New York.
Refinery Unit Shutdowns
Shell said two reformer units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery, the
sixth-largest in the U.S., are in ``startup mode.'' The units will
return to normal operations by tomorrow, Shell spokesman David
McKinney said in an e-mailed statement. The refinery, a joint venture
between Shell and Mexico's state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, can
process 340,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to the company's
Web site.
Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown, Texas, oil refinery shut two furnaces at
a unit that makes gasoline on May 23. The company said that the
refinery was ``operating normally,'' according to an Exxon Mobil
spokeswoman on May 25. The Baytown refinery, the nation's largest, can
process 557,000 barrels of oil a day.
`Supply Bottlenecks'
``We have some supply bottlenecks coupled with pretty strong product
demand,'' said Marshall Steeves, an analyst with Refco Inc. in New
York. ``We are continuing to rethink the direction of crude oil stocks
after last week's surprise.''
U.S. refineries operated at 94.6 percent of capacity the week ended
May 20, according to the Energy Department, which will publish its
next report on petroleum inventories tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in
Washington, a day later than usual because of the Memorial Day holiday
two days ago. Refiners probably boosted utilization rates by 0.5
percentage point last week, according to the median of responses in a
Bloomberg survey.
``There is every incentive for refiners to crank out as much gasoline
and distillate as they can,'' said Jason Schenker, an economist at
Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte. ``We are vulnerable to accidents and
other refining problems because of how tight capacity is.''
Refiners may boost fuel output in June to take advantage of high
profit margins, analysts said. The profit from making a barrel of
crude oil into gasoline and heating oil rose to $9.892 today. The
profit margin is based on the price of futures traded on the New York
Mercantile Exchange.
`Halcyon Period'
``The last year has been a halcyon period for refiners,'' Kilduff
said. ``Clearly there are worries about the distillate family of
fuels. Demand for diesel and jet fuel has been strong and we even had
a late season pickup in heating-oil demand.''
Supplies of distillate fuel, a category that includes diesel and
heating oil, in the week ended May 20 were 2.5 percent below the
five-year average for the period, according to the department.
Gasoline and distillate fuel stockpiles probably rose last week,
according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
U.S. crude-oil supplies probably rose 125,000 barrels in the week
ended May 27 from 332.4 million barrels the previous week, according
to the median of forecasts by 16 analysts before an Energy Department
report tomorrow. Eight of the analysts expected an increase, seven a
decline and one said they were unchanged. The U.S. consumes 25 percent
of the world's oil.
U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell from a six-year high in the week ended
May 20, declining by 1.6 million barrels, the department reported on
May 25. An increase of 1.5 million barrels was expected, according to
the median of forecasts.
In London, the July Brent crude-oil futures contract rose $2.47, or
4.9 percent, to $53.20 a barrel on the International Petroleum
Exchange. Prices touched $53.46, the highest since April 27.
Production Targets
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will probably decide
to leave its oil production targets unchanged when it meets in Vienna
on June 15, the group's president, Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah said
today, according to Agence France-Presse. OPEC will keep exceeding the
quota, al-Sabah, who is also Kuwait's oil minister, told reporters in
Kuwait today.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 1, 2005 14:53 EDT
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=a_lE_OPwa1xY&refer=home#
j2997
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Visiting a biodiesel plant near Richmond, Virginia May 16, President Bush called biodiesel “one of our nation’s most promising alternative fuel sources” and discussed the importance of a comprehensive energy plan to wean the United States from foreign petroleum.
Pitt County Memorial Hospital (PCMH) in Greenville, N.C. May 23 dedicated its pump to dispense a B20 blend of biodiesel, making it the first hospital in the nation to install its own biodiesel fueling station. The hospital joins a growing number of health care providers and emergency service operators across the country powering their diesel vehicles with biodiesel.
Clif Bar and Co., an all-natural energy and nutrition foods company, set off on its second annual Natural Energy Tour today fueled by 100 percent biodiesel. The four-month trip throughout the eastern United States will promote the use of renewable energy. Biodiesel supplier World Energy Alternatives will donate the fuel to the tour.
The upgraded Biodiesel Store, for purchasing biodiesel merchandise, is up and running at 