Nuclear

Major reports point to oil supply turmoil and price volatility

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Major energy reports published this year are pointing to a significant rise in the price of oil due to supply constraints sometime over the next three years – the only disagreement is how soon.

So far 2010 has seen three international reports considering the future of oil production, demand and prices. These were published by high profile groups that command widespread respect – in turn, a collection of UK industrialists, the US military and a joint effort between Europe’s most recognized insurance company and a politically connected think-tank.

Largely ignored by the media, and considered separately online as they came out, it is interesting to do a compare-and-contrast between documents produced for widely different audiences on each side of the Atlantic.

UK Gov’t Department of Energy and Climate Change Pathways 2050 report – July 30

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-2050 Pathways Analysis
-UK energy scenarios: working with a flawed model
-DECC publishes plans for achieving 2050 targets
-DECC lays out six possible futures for low-carbon energy

The cybernetics of black knights

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What do fifty years of failed fusion research, today’s avant-garde believers in the Singularity, and the antics of the characters in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” have in common? The answer lies in information, which forms — along with energy and matter — a triad of principles that shape whole systems, and have to be understood in order to craft new systems for the deindustrial age.

ODAC Newsletter – June 4

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As the leaking Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to defy BP’s efforts, the crisis now looks existential for the company. This week the share price collapsed further, and commentary went far beyond the usual concerns over the fate of the chief executive and the dividend. One Clinton era official even suggested taking BP’s US assets into temporary administration…

ODAC Newsletter – May 14

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There was much to welcome in the new coalition’s energy policy. In particular, ODAC supports the commitment to a “huge increase” in anaerobic digestion; raise renewables targets; the “full establishment” of feed-in-tariffs while maintaining the existing banded ROCs to ensure continuity for big renewables investors; a shift of aviation duty from people to planes; scrap Heathrow’s third runway and block new ones at Stanstead and Gatwick.

It’s worse than you think: plotting global hydrocarbon collapse

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More than 90 per cent of the world’s energy comes from non-renewable sources – and its decline can be projected on a Hubbert bell chart. It’s just that we are more familiar with the concept of peak oil. After all, oil is the world’s largest source of energy, and the size and immediacy of the problem tends to overshadow debate on the remaining energy sources. But Hubbert’s model proves versatile, as the exploitation of any non-renewable resource – from oil to uranium – follows similar patterns.