Crude Oil Prices ~ 1861 - 2011

(click on image to enlarge)

Red line: 2011 dollars per barrel; blue line: nominal. 

 Oil prices used by year:

• 1861-1944 WTI
• 1945-1983 Arabian Light
• 1984-2011 Brent

Grid of 2030: 99.9% renewables?

An academic paper published in the Journal of Power Sources [PDF] outlines a novel approach to renewable power generation. Instead of allowing for load + a peak margin, their least-cost analysis proposes a massive overbuild of renewables (290% of average load for 99.9% renewable power or 180% overbuild for 90% renewable). They also consider a 30% scenario.

They calculate the 99.9% scenario would cost the same as or less than conventional power generation by 2030. The authors argue that current coal-fired plants at 40% efficiency are the equivalent of a 250% overbuild.

Ars Technica also has an article here.

CO2 November 2012

November CO2:

• 2011:  390.2 ppm
• 2012:  392.8 ppm

Increase of 0.7%

(click for larger image)

Oil - November update

This picture from Stuart Sandiford's blog shows "all liquids" (crude, condensate, natural gas liquids, biofuels) approximately flat for 2012.

At around 90 Mb/d, this is a lot higher than ASPO's last prediction (made in 2008) of  77.5 Mb/d (and falling).

CO2 October 2012

Here are the latest CO2 numbers from the NOAA:

• October 2012: 391 ppm
• October 2011: 389 ppm

An increase of about 0.5% per year.

UN Food Numbers - December 2012

Cereal production estimates for 2012 have been revised downwards this month by 2 million tonnes (Mt) to 2280 Mt. This is down almost 3% from last year's record but is essentially equal to the four year average.

The food price index is down 1.5% this month and is 7% lower than last year's average.

Note that at 211, the index is at more than twice the 2002-2004 average (= 100).

The next UN report is due out on February 7th 2013.

Electricity: CO2/kWh by source

This is just to track CO2/kWh. Table from Decc.

Carbon dioxide emissions

Energy source	g/kWh
Coal	910
Natural Gas	390
Nuclear	0
Renewables	0
Other	540
Overall average	430

Source: Decc (Table 3)

News from Nova Scotia

Factor of 10 energy saving by the OilDrum's efficiency expert, HereinHalifax:

I'd like to provide an example of the energy saving potential within the commercial sector, if I may: a local bicycle shop recently moved into their new location and hired an interior designer to give the store a more up-scale look. Here's what she selected for their showroom lighting:

1. Wall displays: 32 x 50-watt GU10 halogens = 1,600-watts
   
2. Recessed cans: 11 x 50-watt MR16 halogens = 550-watts
   
3. Display pendants: 3 x 100-watt A19 incandescents = 300-watts
   
4. Decorative pendants: 33 x 100-watt A19 incandescents = 3,300-watts
   

Total connected load: 5,750 watts.

And here's what we did for this client:

1. Wall displays: 32 x Philips 5.5-watt AmbientLED GU10s = 176-watts
   
2. Recessed cans: 11 x Philips 10-watt EnduraLED MR16s = 110-watts
   
3. Display pendants: 3 x Philips 12-watt EnduraLED Short Neck PAR30 = 36-watts
   
4. Decorative pendants: 33 x Philips 9.7-watt L-Prize A19s = 320-watts
   

Total connected load: 642 watts -- a near 90 per cent reduction.

Permalink

Impressive. It also shows how BAU (business as usual) thinking is so far off track...

German Renewables

From Oil Drum commenter Ulenspiegel ( Permalink)

German data:

2012 around 5% of the electricity will be produced by PV, while all renewables provide around 24% of the electricity, the most important contribution (~8%) comes from wind.
Power: With 30 GW installed PV we can expect next year days with more than 20 GW PV between 1 and 4 p.m.; 2011 the highest power from renewables were > 32 GW a day in September (16 GW PV, 16 GW wind + unknown amount biomass), this meant > 45% of the power came from renewables. I hope we see more of these days in 2013 to test net stability.

Hmm, I wonder what the numbers are for the UK?

Update:
I googled 'UK electricity production 2011'  and found DECC's electricity statistics page:

• http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/energy_stats/source/electricity/electricity.aspx

From here, I downloaded the PDF: DUKES Chapter 5: Electricity:

• http://www.decc.gov.uk/media/viewfile.ashx?filetype=4&filepath=11/stats/publications/dukes/5955-dukes-2012-chapter-5-electricity.pdf&minwidth=true

OK, here we can see that renewables were 9.4% of UK electricity (v 24% in Germany). UK wind & wave was 15.8 TWh out of a total 374 TWh, ie about 4% (v 8% in Germany). Then I found a footnote saying solar is included in wind & wave, so UK wind + wave + solar =~ 4% versus wind + solar in Germany =~ 13%.

More food miles

This is a guest post by my friend Alec Dauncey about New Zealand lamb in UK supermarkets. His calculations show that the transportation costs (in CO2) are negligible compared to production costs and driving to the supermarket.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary CO2eq per kg of meat in shop:

• Lamb production - 35.0kg 
• Shipping from New Zealand - 0.2kg 
• Articulated lorry Liverpool to Morissons - 0.02kg 
• Trip to the shop in the car to buy it - 2.0kg 

Conclusion: the "foodmiles" are vanishingly irrelevant? A tiny tweak in production emissions on the farm absolutely dwarfs the emissions from shipping it half way around the world?  

Transport Sources:
 http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/110707-guidelines-ghg-conversion-factors.pdf

• A van to a farmers market = 0.5 g CO2eq/kg of product/km (Table 7b p27) 
• An articulated lorry at = 1.0kg CO2eq/km = 0.1 g/kg/km (Table 7e allowing for average loads etc) 
• Large general cargo ship or container ship say 10,000 tonnes and 0.01kg CO2eq/tonne/km = 0.01g/kg/km 
• Going to the supermarket to buy a kg of lamb in the car = 200g CO2eq per km. (Tables 6b and c) 

So the emissions for bringing a kilo of NZ lamb 20,000 km are 200 grams of CO2eq?

Further emissions of 20 grams will bring a kg of NZ lamb 200 km from the port to Morrisons?

Driving 5km round trip from my home to Morrisons to buy it emits 2000 grams?

Production Sources:
 http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/986252/lamb_beef_and_cheese_have_largest_food_footprint.html

Gives about 35kg of CO2eq per kg of meat product.

UK figures:

 http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=IS0205_3958_EXE.doc

Table II Gives about 17kg of CO2eq per kg of carcass. This is similar to the 35kg for product because only about half the sheep carcass makes it to product:

http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/asc/asc179/asc179.pdf

Wales vs NZ production:
http://www.hccmpw.org.uk/medialibrary/publications/carbonfootprintsheepreportapril1508FINAL%20REPORT-1.pdf

Warning this was funded by Hybu Cig Cymru so probably biaised, just as the NZ report it discusses was probably the other way?

Welsh figures - "Emissions per kg of live weight leaving the farm range from 9.8 to 37.0 kg CO2 equivalents kg-1, with a median value of 15.3 kg CO2 equivalents kg-1."

Red Blood Cells

How many red blood cells does the body produce an hour? Hundreds? Thousands? According to Wikipedia, the number is 2.4 million per second! I remember learning at school that red blood cells are made in bone marrow. But I don't remember how they get into the blood stream? Further research required :)

Red blood cells circulate the body every 20 60 seconds. After 100 to 120 days of existence they die (presumably at the same rate of 2.4 million per second) and are disassembled by microphages, who recycle the components. Amazing!

[Edit: updated circulation time: How long does it take for blood to circulate the body? It takes one minute for blood to circulate from the heart, all around the body, and back to the heart again.]

[Edit 2: The average healthy adult has 4.5 to 5.5 litres of blood... this is about 7% of a person's total body weight.]

[Edit 3: Red blood cell (RBC) count: 3.93 to 5.69 million cells per cubic millimeter (million/mm3) ]

Supernovae

Crab Nebula, product of the Supernova 1054

Sometimes stars at the end of their life explode, otherwise known as as a supernova. The average galaxy contains 100 billion stars and would experience a supernova about once a century.

So how many supernovae could you see stargazing on an average evening? Zero? It turns out that there are so many bazillions of galaxies out there that just in a thumbnail portion of the sky you would see 10 supernovae a night. Incredible!

- from War of the Worldviews (Chopra & Mlodinow) p61.

Nant-y-Moch revisited

OK, let's revisit the Nant-y-Moch wind farm numbers but restrict ourselves to kWh as the unit of energy and days for the unit of time.

Total UK electricity consumption in 2009 worked out at 15.6 kWh per person per day.

SSE, the wind farm developers, are claiming average production of 837,000 kWh per day.

This is equivalent to 53,700 people's daily usage. Or about 75% of the population of Ceredigion.

[Note: one kWh is the energy consumed by a 1kW 2-bar fire running for one hour]

Nant-y-Moch Wind Farm

According to SSE, the developers of the Nant-y-Moch wind farm, the annual energy output would provide for 65,000 homes (at 4.7MWh per household per year). This equates to 305 GWh/yr.

• http://www.nantymochwindfarm.com/the_facts.html

Annual UK per capita electricity consumption (not just household but shops, factories, street lights etc) was 5,692 kWh in 2009. Therefore Nant-y-Moch would provide the TOTAL electricity consumption for 53.6k people. Or nearly one in a thousand of the UK population. Just one wind farm!

Now US says solar PV to be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020

RE < C? (renewable energy less than the price of coal?)

US Energy secretary "Chu began by making several observations about the US energy industry as it now stands. Onshore wind is already cheaper than new coal-fired energy"

And solar panel costs are falling amazingly rapidly...

Source: REneweconomy

UK Energy Consumption 2010

Drax, Yorkshire

Here it is: 114 kWh per person per day.

I was at a meeting the other day when someone said UK energy consumption was 125 kWh pp pday. That seemed high to me so I checked it out. My first attempt came in at 99 kWh pp pday. I then used BP's Statistical Review which shows UK 2010 consumption at 209.1 Mboe (Million barrels of oil equivalent). Using the excellent Wolfram site I converted this to TWh/year to GWh/day to kWh per person per day: 114.4.

This 114kWh per person per day is equivalent to a continuous usage of 4.77kW.

My personal electricity consumption is less than 2.75kWh per day or 0.115kW continuous.