Green Power - Oops

Powerline gives us a look at the effectiveness of renewable energy such as wind and solar.

Slowly, information is leaking from nations that have spent heavily on wind and solar, such as Germany. This information should give pause to those touting solar and wind, including politicians. England is pulling back from wind, Germany has announced drastic cut-backs on its subsidies to solar, and Spain has announced the elimination of subsidies for renewable power. These actions are not the result of success. The erratic nature of these sources is well established. Further, electricity is rather unique among energy types – it cannot be stored on an affordable, commercial scale.

The leaders of countries that have spent heavily on solar and wind assumed that the erratic nature of these sources, and that the lack of storage, can be compensated by installing the facilities over a broad geographical area. They were wrong. A winter high pressure system can cover a broad area of Europe, rendering wind turbines useless when solar panels can generate little electricity, and none at night. Reports are indicating that at least 80% conventional back-up is needed.

A further complication is that fast back-up from conventional sources, such as coal or natural gas, is very demanding on the equipment, inefficient, and polluting – the pollution control devices do not work properly when heat output varies. According to reports, no coal plants have been de-commissioned in northern Europe rendering the claim of lower carbon dioxide emissions questionable.

So, subsidies are being discontinued and no coal units have been taken off line.

This Week in Oil and Gas History

March 29, 1819
Edwin Drake was born. He is credited for drilling the first oil well in 1859 in.....wait for it......Titusville, Pennsylvania! The well was drilled because it was discovered that kerosene could be distilled from oil as well as coal.

March 27, 1855
Kerosene was invented by Canadian chemist Abraham Gesner. Distilled from coal, it was called coal oil and was the primary source of illumination until electricity. My old company, Mobil Oil, sold kerosene in China. They would give away the lamp for free knowing that they would then sell lots of kerosene.

March 28, 1886
For a brief period of time, Indiana became the world largest natural gas producer with the discovery of the Trenton Field near Portland, Indiana. Yep, the first oil and gas fields were in the north.

March 27, 1975
First joint of pipe laid for the Trans Alaska Pipeline.

March 24, 1989
Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Think of the irony that it happened on the anniversary of the start of the pipeline construction.

Energy Cost Sticker Shock

PJM Interconnection is a regional transmission organization that manages the high voltage electric grid and wholesale electricity market for 13 mid Atlantic states and the District of Columbia. They recently held a capacity auction to fix the prices for electricity for 2015. The results are ominous! The market price was $136 per megawatt. In 2012, the price was $16 per megawatt. If you do the math, that's an 850% increase!

This is not speculation. These are real prices. Here's the press release.

Why, PE, you may ask, is the price increasing so much? In a word, Regulations. In Obama's war on coal, the EPA instituted regulatory changes to require coal plants to install MACT, or Maximum Achievable Control Technology, on their emissions by 2015. This regulation will effectively remove 14,000 megawatts of coal powered capacity from the system.

You won't see this news in the MSM. The Fox story is here along with information on what our legislators are doing about. Remember that this issue goes far beyond "tax the rich". Everyone will have to pay more for electricity. How would you pay for an electricity bill that increased by a factor of 8? What do you think manufactured goods will cost because of this increase? What will your food cost? Get busy and write your Congress Critters!

Energy Return on Investment

Take a look at the chart below.

This chart shows the ratio of energy returned to the amount of energy invested in developing the source. It could be considered a measure of efficiency. You will note that bio-diesel is at the bottom of the curve. It has a ration of about 1.3. Corn ethanol does not do much better. This is because both require a large amount of energy to make and provide only a little more energy than are used to develop them. Hydro is at the top because after an initial investment to build the dam, you can get a continuous source of energy from it.

Scrolling through the chart you can see that nuclear is about 15, wind is about 20, world oil production is about 40 and coal is about 80. The red cross is where experts think shale gas will fall. Shale gas - that's the stuff you get from fracking that the greenies are so against.

If you were investing your money, where would you want to invest it?

Here's another version of the chart.

This Week in Oil and Gas History

June, 9, 1894

The oil industry started in Texas with the discovery oil in Corsicana, Texas. In the ultimate irony, the contractor was drilling water! For you trivia buffs, Wolf Brand Chili got its start in Corsicana during the oil boom in 1895.

June 11, 1816

The city streets of Baltimore are lit with manufactured gas by Baltimore Gas and Electric, the first gas company in the new world. The gas was manufactured from coal, tar and wood. Save the Whales breathes a sigh of relief.

June 14, 1938

The US Government passes the Natural Gas Act of 1938. This was the first instance of direct federal regulation of the oil and gas industry. The intent was to regulate transportation fees on interstate pipelines.

Mount Washington Cog Railway

The Mount Washington Cog Railway is one of the few cog railways in the world. It will take you to the top of Mount Washington, which is the highest peak in the Presidential Range at an elevation 6288 feet.They used to use coal fired steam engines but several years ago they succumbed to financial and environmental pressure and switched to bio diesel engines. They make their own bio diesel from waste cooking oil. The trip is faster and cleaner but somehow has lost some of the romance. The first picture is of "Old Peppersass", one of the original engines. It is built on an angle but would be level when on the slope. The others are non related steam farm equipment that they keep around for eye candy.

You see how pretty the weather is down in the valley. On top of the mountain the visibility was less than 50 feet.

Passing Gas

ExxonMobil recently completed an LNG import facility in west Louisiana. The project name was Golden Pass and cost about $1 billion and took three years to construct. The plan was take LNG, warm it up to gasify it and put it into the nation's pipeline network.

But now Golden Pass has applied to become a export facility and build a $10 billion LNG facility on the same site. The plant will liquify and export some 15.6 million tons of LNG per year. That's about 2 billion cubic feet per day. Why would they do this before they have even reached the break even point from their first project, you ask?

The answer is that the US now has an abundance of natural and the oil companies see us becoming an exporter instead of an importer. But, but, but, I though we had an energy crisis? Where did this natural gas come from you may wonder?

In a word - hydraulic fracturing. This technology has unlocked vast reserves of natural gas and has caused the long term planners to re-think their markets. Plus, they can get more dollars for their gas in the overseas market. Here's the story.

Now, ask Obama why he'd rather shut down coal plants instead of using this natural gas to generate electric power.

Energy Cost Rogues Gallery

Last month I blogged about the rising cost of electricity due to Obama's EPA regulations on coal plants. Yesterday, the Senate took up a resolution to strike down Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT). It failed by 4 votes!

Go here to see how your Senator voted. And you folks in the northeast. Your RINOs just voted to add another burden on you. You can expect your electricity costs to skyrocket! But, it's not a tax. And you can always keep warm chopping firewood.