Category Archives: Domestic Energy

Another Solar Energy Company To File For Bankruptcy

Posted on June 30, 2012 | 1 comment

Abound Solar, one of four solar energy companies provided loans by the Department of Energy is expected to file for bankruptcy protection the first week in July.  The company received $70 million in federal loans.  The company employs 125.  Solyndra was one of the four receiving loans, and as you probably know, it has gone bankrupt, too.

Slate.com posts “Why No One Should Be Surprised That Another Obama-Backed Solar Startup Is Going Bust.”  The tone of their posting is that Conservatives will be gleeful about this company going bust.  Conservatives do not get off on failures of companies and lost jobs.  In fact the people planning on causing people to loose jobs are those in the current administration doing their best to put all the people employed in the coal industry out of jobs.  If that objective is realized, as directed by President Obama,  it will make 125 jobs lost look insignificant.

Conservatives want R&D monies to be expended on solar cell research.  Not for the government to be picking and choosing businesses for which their record in one of failure.  The Administrations efforts to strong-arm wind and solar has so far yielded little to be proud of.  These operations are only valuable to their cronies that take little to no risk all at the expense of the taxpayer and specifically the ratepayers that have to absorb the vastly overpriced product .  The Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy categorizes wind and solar as Non-Dispatchable Technologies.  That means their delivery is too unreliable for the grids to be useable.   These technologies are not ready for PRIME TIME.   Wind and Solar will remain non-viable until such time that low cost,  large-scale energy storage is developed.

Yes, we know as Slate tells us,  the Chinese have dropped the prices of solar cells to a point where our domestic companies can not compete.  But even the cheaper solar cells don’t make solar farms viable.

cbdakota

1 Comment

Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Domestic Energy, Energy Development, Environment, fossil fuels, Green Jobs, solar cells, Windpower

Senators Ask If Fisker Loan Is Appropriate

Posted on June 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Senator Thune (R-SD) and Grassley (R-IA) have asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu if the $529 million loan granted in 2010 to Fisker is appropriate.   Fisker has received $193 million to date with the remainder being held by the Energy Department while they review the status of certain (undisclosed) benchmarks that Fisker is required to meet.

Thune and Grassley question why monies should be given to Fisker at all when Fisker is partly owned by Qatar.  The Qatar Investment Authority– a branch of the Qatar government–owns about 10% to 15% of Fisker according to Wiki.    Dr. Kamel Maamria, head of the General Investments Portfolio and Executive Director of Qatar Holding LLC, is a member of Fisker’s Board of Directors. The Senators asked in the letter: “Why should the American taxpayer have to accept the credit risk of a company owned by a foreign government?”

According to AutoblogGreen: ”Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera argues the loan was an appropriate part of the federal government’s effort to help boost fleetwide fuel economy and said Fisker’s delays are “common for start-ups,” according to the report.

Doesn’t sound like Mr. LaVera answered the question.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, Personal Automobiles

Massive Canadian Shale-gas Field Discovered

Posted on June 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

In a remote corner of northeastern British Columbia, a massive shale-gas field has been discovered by the Apache Corp.   The field is estimated to have 48 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.  According to Reuters:

The company has drilled three wells into its holdings in the Liard Basin in British Columbia, just south of where the province’s northern border meets the borders of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Only one of the three wells drilled in the region was treated with the multiple-stage hydraulic fracturing process that has been key to unlocking North America’ prolific shale-gas reserves. That well, which was “fracked” six times, delivered 21.3 million cubic feet of gas per day over its first thirty days of production, which Apache said was the most prolific shale-gas test well ever drilled.

This announcement of the shale-gas find was part of a presentation made by Apache Corp’s John Bedingfield, VP for Worldwide Exploration.    At that presentation he also discussed other activities as follows:

Along with its Liard field, the company said its 580,000 acres of land in the Mississipian Lime field in Kansas and Nebraska could contain as much as 2 billion barrels of oil while its holding in Montana’s Williston Basin may hold another 1 billion barrels.  As well, it’s targeting as much as 1.3 billion barrels of oil in Alaska’s Cook Inlet and 1.4 billion barrels from its holding off the shore of Kenya. It will drill in both regions later this year.  Apache said its holdings in western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle could also hold another 5.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent while the Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico hold 3.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

As the supply of natural gas and oil increases, the prices are sure to drop. The price of natural gas in the US has already taken a header as major discoveries have been made in recent years.  Fuel for the production of electricity is tending away from coal to natural gas.   This move is more than just low natural gas prices as it is also being force by new EPA regulations (which may be reversed if Mitt Romney wins the upcoming election.).

Crude oil is more readily transportable from wellhead to the user giving it a wider world market.  But fracking discoveries in other parts of the world may bring supplies that exceed demand and thus lowering of crude oil prices as well.  Then the floor price will probably be set by the cost to produce and make a profit when getting oil by fracking.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in Alternative Energy, cap and trade, Domestic Energy, Energy Development, EPA, fossil fuels, Oil and Gas Exploration

Solar Panels Don’t Work

Posted on May 31, 2012 | 2 comments

Ray Burgess, the President & CEO at Solar Power Technologies Inc posted on the Aol Energy website, “Solar Panels Don’t Work. And No One Knows.” That is a provocative title.  Burgess said: “Solar panels do not work that well. Often far below expectations.  And few know it. Not the owners who depend on power. Not the bankers who finance it. Not the brokers who insure it.”

The economic models that are used to finance, insure and subsidize solar farms assume the solar panels degrade about 0.5% per year. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) says that they can degrade as much as 4.5% a year or more.

At this point you may be wondering who or what is the NREL.  According to Wikipedia they are: “The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located in Golden, Colorado is the United States primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency, research and development. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility; it is funded through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).”   This is not an organization that opposes renewable energy.”

Burgess adds: The latest issue of the leading industry trade journal Photovoltaics International, asks the question: “What is the real quality of the products I am buying?”  Short answer: Nobody knows. In Italy last year, “they discovered that after one year in the field, over 90% of the (solar panels) from a one megawatt project began to delaminate and ended up on the ground.”   “Delaminate: Scientific talk for falling apart. And these panels had all the standard certifications.”

Burgess’ company sells systems that monitor performance of solar farms.  The company’s systems presumably can detect individual problem that are causing substandard performance.  He lists below, some of the performance inhibitors.

“Solar production in the field can go bad for dozens and dozens of reasons: An errant golf ball. A passing flock of geese. Bullets. Leaves. Shadows. Dirt. If a leaf or bird dropping prevents the sun from hitting part of your solar array, that knocks out solar production in an area 36 times the obstruction.”

Now I don’t know how that multiplier works, but I will take him at his word.

The above along with the problem of the inability to schedule energy production due to variability of the Sun, makes this form of energy less appealing.

cbdakota

2 Comments

Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Domestic Energy, Energy Development, fossil fuels, Government Regulations, Green Jobs, solar cells

US Asserts Interest In Arctic

Posted on May 31, 2012 | 1 comment

According to a story in Reuters, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will assert U.S. interest in the Arctic, where the prospects for abundant oil, gas and new trade routes has been likened to a modern-day gold rush, when she visits the region on Saturday.”  (1 June 12)

Interest is high with nations worldwide vying for access to the Arctic.  “Norway has moved its military operational headquarters into the Arctic Circle, China has development plans for Iceland and countries, including Russia, are laying claim to exploration rights in the once pristine Barents Sea.”

Map courtesy of WorldAtlas.com

It is all about energy.  While our politicians dilly-dally about the oil in ANWR, and fuss over any attempt to develop the resources in the Arctic area, the World’s nations are not waiting our approval.

More comments from the Reuters article:  “Even Russia, the largest provider of oil and gas to Europe is keen to accelerate gas production from its offshore gas fields as soon as possible, or as soon as economically viable.”

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds about 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil and 30 percent of its undiscovered natural gas resources.

“All the major powers are positioning themselves for this development,” said Ole Arve Misund, director of the University Centre in Svalbard. “The resource has become more available and prospects have already been opened in Norway, Russia, Canada, the U.S. and Greenland.”

ExxonMobil is working with Rosneft to develop blocks in the Kara Sea, off Siberia, despite sea ice for up to 300 days a year.

Gazprom is also working with Total and Norway’s Statoil on the 4-trillion-cubic-metre Shtokman gas field 550 km offshore. Statoil has also established a strong Arctic record with its Skrugard and Havis finds, holding up to 600 million barrels of oil.   

Ole Arve Misund is quoted above saying that all major powers are positioning themselves for this development.  But one of the powers, the present US Administration may be deeply distressed by this major source of fossil fuels and who knows what game they will play to prevent exploitation of these resources.

cbdakota

1 Comment

Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Domestic Energy, Energy Development, fossil fuels, Off Shore Resources, Oil and Gas Exploration, Sea Ice

Cuba’s Hopes For Oil In Florida Straits Hits Dry Hole

Posted on May 31, 2012 | 1 comment

Cuba’s oil drilling partner, Repsol says that they have hit a dry hole and are calling it quits.  Repsol, an integrated Spanish oil and gas company, has spent more than $100 million drilling only to come up with no oil.  Currently Cuba relies on Venezuela to deliver $3 billion of subsidized oil each year.  Continuation of this program would be in jeopardy if Hugo Chavez were not to be reelected in the October elections.  An additional threat is Chavez’s health. He has been undergoing treatment for cancer for a number of months.

Cuba’s needs a major oil find to revive its struggling economy.   With Repsol out of the picture, Cuba’s fortunes rest with Petronas, the Malaysian oil company, that has began drilling an exploratory well about 180 miles southwest of Repsol’s dry well.

To read more, see this story in Oil Price.

cbdakota

1 Comment

Posted in Alternative Energy, Domestic Energy, Energy Development, EPA, fossil fuels, Government Regulations, Off Shore Resources, Oil and Gas Exploration

IBM’s Lithium-Air Battery Project

Posted on May 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

IBM is working on a lithium-air battery that they believe has enormous potential to slash the weight and cost of battery packs.   In an Aol Energy blog posting, IBM’s Winfried Wilcke says: “Improvements to the chemistry and manufacturing methods of Lithium-ion cells have led to reliable improvements in price and performance by about 6 to 8 percent per year.” But he adds:  “…. the cost to outfit an EV with a battery pack-estimated today to add $10,000 to $15,000 to the price of Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf-will fall by only half by 2020”.   Wilcke feels this is not fast enough to make EVs go mainstream.

Wilcke is the Principle Investigator of the IBM Battery 500 Project.  Scientists theorized that combining lithium with oxygen could create a battery with unprecedented energy storage potential. According to the posting:

A key feature of this approach is that the reaction “breathes” air, taking in oxygen when it discharges and releasing oxygen while recharging. Because the battery “borrows” these molecules from the air, fewer raw materials-and less weight-needs be built into the device. This “Lithium-air” approach shows enormous theoretical potential to slash the weight and cost of battery packs. In 2009, IBM took a very long-term bet to see if it could realize this theoretical promise. The resulting project, dubbed Battery 500, aims to produce batteries able to propel an EV 500 miles on a single charge, roughly matching the range of a tank of gas.

Three years in, the results are tantalizing. Lithium-air shows the potential to store up to ten times the energy per weight of today’s commercial Lithium-ion batteries, opening the door to potentially game-changing applications. For instance, if a current EV can hold 100 miles worth of charge, a bank of Lithium-air cells promise to boost that capacity to 500 miles at similar weight.

To be sure, the scientific challenges facing the project remain daunting. After three years of work, the basic operation of rechargeable Lithium-air chemistry has been exhaustively characterized, showing the way ahead. But before Lithium-air cells can move from the laboratory to the car show room, researchers still must improve the cells’ long-term cyclability, speed-up the time needed to charge and discharge, and further drive down costs.

Still, the researchers have been knocking off these sorts of challenges so steadily that they hope to have a working a large-scale prototype within the next two years. Automotive commercialization would be further out, sometime between 2020 and 2030.

If this battery is what is needed to make the EV go mainstream, the forecast of battery commercialization of somewhere around 2020 and 2030 must be discouraging to the advocates that want to replace fossil fuels.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in AGW, Batteries, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, Environment, fossil fuels, Green Jobs, Personal Automobiles

A123 Systems Li-ion Battery Maker Loses $125M In1Q

Posted on May 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

A 123 Systems Inc. expects to post a net loss of $125 million(M) for the first quarter on revenue of $10.9M.  A123 Systems revised their 2012 revenue forecast downward from $230M to $300m to $145 M to $175 M.  Because the $300M revenue initially forecast less the $125M first quarter loss equals the new $175M revenue forecast, it looks like they think the rest of the year will be pretty smooth sailing.  That is an optimistic call, it would seem, in view of only $10.9M revenue in the 1st quarter. Part of the first quarter loss was a $51M charge to fix the Fisker batter packs.  To read more click here.

Besides making batteries for Fisker which I suppose is their principal client, A123 systems have made batteries for the GM Spark, BMW, and Shanghai Automotive.  They have supplied batteries for Tata transit buses and Daimler hybrid buses.  They have installed some 90MW of storage capacity for wind farms.

A1213 participated in Obama’s Energy Department and the State of Michigan’s incentives programs.  In September 2010, A123 received a $249 million grant from the Energy Department and $125 million in state of Michigan incentives.

Do you think this company will survive?  It’s a close call,one would think.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Batteries, CO2, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, fossil fuels, Green Jobs, Personal Automobiles

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act”—Part 2.

Posted on May 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

The Democratic polling firm of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates at the request of the “Vote Solar Initiative” organization polled some 400 Los Angles residents and found according to an Aol Energy blog posting:

“The vast majority of Los Angeles residents are demanding more renewable energy, especially solar power, according to a new survey. Around 87 percent of voters want solar energy to generate more electricity and 79 percent welcome more wind power. Around three out of four voters (76 percent) say the solar power should be generated from rooftop panels.”

Aside from a pro-solar organization hiring a liberal Democrat polling organization to fashion a poll to get them the answers they wanted, the poll results show how far removed from reality are the LA citizens.  They are clamoring for more government intervention which is what has given California the 3rd highest unemployment rate in the country,  the 9th highest electricity rate and the 3rd highest gasoline cost. It’s the poorer people that are suffering the most.  This will be made even worse as the price of electricity continues its climb as they force in more uneconomical solar based production and drive out much lower cost fossil fuel production. This conclusion is also dawning on the Germans according to the Global Warming Policy Foundation: “The current funding of Germany’s green energy transition is anti-social, according to a new report by the Institute of the German Economy. The economic burden due to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) is up to 10 times higher for low-income households than for high-income households.”

The preliminary 2012 Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) estimates for levelized costs per kilowatt-hour in 2017 are 15.7 cents for a photovoltaic solar plant and 25.1 cents for a thermal solar plant.  That is far more expensive than the 6.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for conventional combined cycle natural gas and the 10 cents per kilowatt-hour for conventional coal in those same EIA estimates.  Also,  the EIA inflates the cost of coal by the equivalent of $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted to represent the difficulty of obtaining financing for coal plants. Further, it does not appear that the EIA levelized cost for conventional combined cycle natural gas plant is getting credited for the lower price of natural gas resulting from fracking shale.

The survey also said that:

“Most voters believe Los Angeles should create 1,200 megawatts of power from the sun, which is LADWP’s percentage of the state goal of 12,000 megawatts of local clean power by 2020.”  

And they inform us that 1200megawatts is enough to power 260,000 homes.  The calculation for number of homes powered  is suspect as it is varies from solar power promoter to promoter.  Without power storage, some other source of electricity most likely from a fossil fuel powered source is necessary because the lights would go out on these homes at night when the sun is no longer shining.  So much for reducing carbon emissions.  I wonder if California Air Resources Board (CARB) has put that in their solar energy calculations?

More on Solar cell reliability, etc. in my next posting on this topic.

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, cap and trade, CO2, Domestic Energy, Environment, EPA, fossil fuels, Government Regulations, solar cells

Obama Administration And A UN World Government

Posted on April 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

Is there a connection between the Obama Administration and a UN world government?

The Obama Administration policy, known as the Global Climate Change Initiative (GCCI), is intended to help developing countries combat the effects of man-made global warming.  Since 2010, the Obama Administration, in the name of GCCI, has given away  $2.5 billion.  Obama has requested another $770 million for 2013.  The objectives of this anti-global warming foreign aid are: adaption, clean energy and sustainable landscapes.  Adaption is to provide better climate data and to teach them how to adapt to floods, droughts, and sea level rise.  Clean energy is to help them develop their own green energy programs.  And sustainable landscapes is to save the forests from over-logging, for example.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has voiced some excellent reasons for not spending this money among which are the following:

  • Man-made global warming is at best uncertain.
  • The Nation is facing another year of $1trillion budget deficits so this expenditure could be fiscally responsible.
  • Foreign Aid is often misused or wasted in these countries.

CRS does note that sometimes such a program can be effective in preserving the US leadership role in the world and other intangibles.

The United Nations Climate Change Conferences, e.g. Copenhagen, Cancun, have developed Accords that say the Developed Nations owe the Developing Nations monies as “environmental justice” because the former have prospered at the expense of the latter.

The Cancun Accord summary released December, 2010 by the parties at the Conference outlines the transfer of monies:

“Following negotiations that ran through early Saturday morning, delegates at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cancun adopted by consensus the Cancun Accords, a series of documents that will provide the basis for efforts to confront climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires.

The accords include a $30 billion-package for 2012 to aid nations taking immediate actions to halt effects of global warming, as well as financing for long-term projects to protect the environment through a Green Fund, which will provide $100 million annually for adaptation and mitigation measures.  Delegates also approved the creation of the forestry program Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) to facilitate the flow of resources to communities dedicated to forest conservation”.

The reasons given by the Administration for the GCCI seem to mirror those in the UN Cancun Accord.  The US delegates at this conference supported the Cancun Accord, unfortunately.  That of course does not make the Accord law, but it does represent the mindset of the Administration and their delegates

The monies are a part of the Warmers overall objective of giving the UN control of global environmental regulation’s enforcement.  The environmental control would mean that the UN would be able to control energy use, development, etc. —the lifeblood of every nation.  Easy to see how this would make the UN the world government.  Do you want the UN to govern our nation?

cbdakota

Leave a comment

Posted in AGW, CO2, Domestic Energy, Environment, EPA, IPCC, United Nations