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UK: ‘Devastating’ winter ahead, says chemicals giant
Saeed Shah, The Independent
The British chemicals group Ineos has warned a parliamentary inquiry that business in this country faces a “devastating energy crunch” this winter.
The company said that a cold winter would lead to “massive” rises in the price of gas, which “is very likely to put many manufacturers out of business for good”.
“Following this, we expect the UK to be short of gas leading to a gas deficit emergency. This will have consequences such as ‘three day weeks’, wide-scale power cuts, loss of essential services such as water and sewerage and further business closure,” Ineos said in written evidence to the Trade and Industry Select Committee Inquiry into security of gas supply.
According to forecasters, including the Meteorological Office, there is a 67 per cent chance this winter will be among the coldest on record. The prediction is based on measuring sea temperatures in the Atlantic.
Ineos said: “We are faced with the nightmare scenario that, in the event of very cold winter weather conditions, the UK will essentially be ‘closed for business’. Much of this business will not recover and is unlikely to operate again.”
(3 November 2005)
A remarkably strong warning, related to the UK natural gas peak. Chris Vernon of Vital Trivia has written a very good background article on these vulnerabilities, UK gas and electricity crisis looming. Vernon also points out the dependence the UK’s and Irish electricity production has on natural gas. -AF
Strategic Natural Gas Reserve?
US Government To Announce Energy Measures Within Weeks
Dow Jones, via EnergyResources
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Wednesday the Bush administration would announce within weeks measures aimed at easing high fuel prices and constraints on supply.
President Bush’s economic advisor Al Hubbard, the secretaries of Transport, Energy, Interior and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency have been discussing various options, Bodman said after an address to the Electric Power Supply Association.
Among the options being considered are the creation of a strategic reserve of natural gas as well as one for refined products such as gasoline, he said.
(2 November 2005)
IEA warns of 50% oil price rise by 2030
Carola Hoyos, Financial Times
IEA The International Energy Agency, the oil sector monitoring body, on Wednesday said that oil prices by 2030 would be 50 per cent higher than today if Saudi Arabia did not muster the political will to invest billions of dollars in new production.
Mr [Fatih] Birol said: “We may end up with much less oil from the Middle East than we demand. There is substantial risk of substantially high oil prices if current investment in the Middle East is not stepped up substantially.” …
(2 November 2005)
Alternate energy not in cards at ExxonMobil
James R. Healey, USA Today
ExxonMobil, which stunned Americans on Thursday by reporting nearly $10 billion in profit for the third quarter, says it has no plans to invest any of those earnings in developing alternative or renewable energy – something other oil companies do.
“We’re an oil and gas company. In times past, when we tried to get into other businesses, we didn’t do it well. We’d rather re-invest in what we know,” says Exxon spokesman Dave Gardner. Neither will Exxon significantly step up how much money it puts into finding oil or refining it into gasoline, which could help ease tight supplies that have driven oil and gasoline prices to records this year.
Exxon’s investment for those activities will total about $18 billion this year, roughly what was planned and similar to what Exxon has invested in exploration and refining in past years, Gardner says.
(28 October 2005)
Palm oil seen playing role in EU biofuels
Barani Krishnan and Anna Mudeva, Reuters via ENN
KUALA LUMPUR/AMSTERDAM – Palm oil prices are set to end the year on a high as Europe’s green fuel sector takes its first big consignments from top grower Malaysia to convert into diesel at a time when crude oil prices are soaring.
But much will depend on the performance of palm-based fuels, industry officials have said, which are relatively untested compared with renewable energy sources developed decades ago such as rapeseed oil and ethanol derived from sugar cane.
(1 November 2005)
Hydrogen researchers step on the gas
John W. Schoen, MSNBC (US)
Backed by increases in private and government funding, the pace of hydrogen research is picking up speed. But despite the recent urgency to replace fossil fuels, a number of major scientific and engineering hurdles remain before this wonder fuel can be made to compete economically with oil. …
Even its strongest proponents concede it may be decades — if ever — before hydrogen fulfills the promise of providing a clean, renewable source of energy to power the coming century. …
(28 October 2005)
Taking the future for a drive
Danny Hakim, NY Times
LOS ANGELES – You would never guess that Jon Spallino drives what is probably the most expensive car in this city known for automotive excess. Or that he is the world’s most technologically advanced commuter.
“When the cars pull up to me, the Porsches and the Bentleys and all that, I just sort of say, well, that’s nice, but for what this costs I could buy 10 of those,” said Mr. Spallino, while driving up Interstate 405, the freeway from his office in Irvine toward his home in Redondo Beach.
He was at the wheel of his silver Honda FCX, a car worth about $1 million that looks like a cross between a compact – say, a Volkswagen Golf – and a cinder block. The FCX is powered by hydrogen fuel cells, the futuristic technology that many automakers see as an eventual solution to the world’s energy woes, though its real potential is a subject of vigorous debate inside and outside the auto industry.
Mr. Spallino, a 40-year-old executive at a California construction and engineering firm, and his wife, Sandy, have been leasing the FCX for $500 a month since July in one of the more unusual experiments in the auto industry’s history.
The Spallinos, including daughters Adrianna, 11, and Anna, 9, “aren’t just the first fuel cell family on their block,” as one Honda ad recently put it. “They’re the first in the world.”
So grandiose is the experiment that Honda has made arrangements with a distributor of hydrogen to have a refueling station built near the Spallinos’ house. Not that they can use it. The local fire department, wary of this elemental zeppelin gas, has yet to let the station open.
(2 October 2005)
Can hybrids do it?
Christopher Jensen (auto editor), Plain Dealer
For motorists tiring of $50 fill-ups, it is natural to wonder whether hybrid cars and trucks are the antidote.
… Auto company engineers say the hybrid vehicles are a bridge technology to fully electric cars using fuel cells to generate electricity by combining on- board hydrogen with oxygen from the air. Such vehicles, propelled entirely by electric motors, would be emission- free.
Auto industry analysts are divided about the extent to which hybrids will become popular. But if by 2020 most new passenger vehicles were hybrids, it could reduce the country’s dependence on oil by almost 60 percent, according to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists. By the end of May about 263,000 hybrids were on the road, and at least a dozen new models are expected within the next three years, according to R.L. Polk & Co., an automotive information firm.
Furthermore, consumers are increasingly receptive to the idea of hybrids, according to a survey by the Center for Automotive Studies, a division of Polk. About 78 percent of those surveyed said they would consider buying one.
While the number of hybrids is small – Americans buy about 16 million vehicles in a good year – hybrids are leaders when it comes to fuel-efficiency and low emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But do hybrids really provide the promised fuel economy? Are they reliable? And are they worth the higher purchase price?
(16 October 2005)
A recent article in “Crude Awakening,” the series on energy from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. For more online articles, see the Crude Awakening archives.
