Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

What does Brockovich, Darbee, and US Chamber of Commerce have in common?  The ingredients have all the hallmarks of high drama.

It started with the class action in Anderson v Pacific Gas & Electric, (as portrayed in the movie Erin Brockovich, with Julia Roberts in the lead role).

 Brockovich was the single mother paralegal in the office of Masry & Co, who did the leg work for the trial and subsequent arbitrated class action against PG&E, California’s largest gas and electric utility serving 20 million people.

The class action involved 77 residents in the Mojave desert town of Hinkley, who sued the utility for contaminating the ground water supply, with 370 million gallons of cancer causing chemicals in unlined ponds.

Hinkley on PG&E’s gas pipeline route from Texas to California is the site of  the company’s gas compressor station, where one third of the gas is compressed for the company’s customers in northern and central California.

Gas compression generates heat, and the gas and the compressors have to be cooled with circulating water, which in turn passes through cooling towers. Reducing the problem of corrosion, the company chose to use in the inhibitors, a known cancer causing toxin, chrome 6.

The eventual arbitrated settlement in 1987 was $333 million awarded to the plaintiffs in the class action.

The utility was also required to clean up the environment and stop using chromium.

Act 2 of the drama  involved  the deregulation of energy prices in California in the late 1990s. The manipulative energy rogue trader Enron and others created havoc, with the state’s three energy utilities held to ransom. Sharp price rises and electricity shortages leading in  2001 to blackouts, and eventual Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That was in April 2001.

After Chapter 11 bankruptcy and re-organisation in 2002, PG&E goes through an extended period of transformation.  The appointment of the self proclaimed conservative Peter Darbee in January 2005,  as chairman and chief executive intensifies the round of business and cultural tranformation,  with primary emphasis on customer service.

Peter Darbee had joined PG&E at a critical time in 1999, just before the electricity market was about to undergo radical change. He had worked for AT&T, when the monopoly phone company was trust busted, and did telcom deals for Goldman Sachs, before joining the gas and electricity utility. Like the old Ma Bell, PG&E was then a slow moving bureaucratic institution.

In 2006, Darbee and PG&E commenced a campaign of energy efficiency and choosing renewable energy sources to supplement power from traditional sources.

From their denier role in the 1980s, allowing  residents of Hinkley and other towns close by to die of cancer from contaminated ground water to a born again utility giant, now seen as the most green friendly utility in the US, takes a lot of doing and achieving.

Darbee,who has testified many times about the dangers of climate change is a notable supporter of solar and wind energy, with contracts for 1.3 gigawatts of concentrated solar thermal power and more than 800 megawatts of solar photovoltaics, along with wind energy, small hydro power and geothermal.

The latest solar venture is seeking approval from regulators to purchase 200 megawatts from stealth space solar power company Solaren over 15 years.

The concept of space-based solar power is to place solar panels on a satellite to generate electricity. The technology converts it to  radio frequency on board,  and it is then sent to a ground station in California. The receiver then converts the radio frequency to electricity. which is fed into the power grid. Sounds a bit like geo-engineering to me.

 The diversified energy resources will enable PG&E to reach the Californian requirement of 20 per cent renewable energy level by 2010. 

In August 2009, PG&E said that it is seeking $25 million in US government smart grid stimulus funds to build an underground compressed air storage facility.

This would allow the storage of as much wind energy, as a medium size power plant would produce for about 10 hours. The aim is to smooth out fluctuations on the grid from intermittent supplies of renewable energy. The company is also investigating the use of large lithium-ion batteries also for energy storage. 

PG&E is also spending $2.2 billion to instal about 10 million smart meters by 2011. The company has already installed 1.45 million electric meters and 1.9 million gas meters with two way communications so far. Of those,1.2 million electric meters and 1.8 million gas meters are now being billed through the utility’s network.

The last act of the drama involves PG&E  leaving the biggest business lobby in the world, the US Chamber of Commerce, over the lobby’s ”extreme” positions on climate change.

PG&E’s stand has been joined by three other large electric utilities- Duke Energy of North Carolina, Exelon Corporation of Chicago, and PNM Resources, the largest utility in New Mexico.

In PG&E’s letter of resignation, Peter Darbee wrote: “We find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored. In our opinion, an intellectually honest argument over the best policy response to the challenges of climate change is one thing; disgenuous attempts to diminish or distort the reality of these challenges are quite another.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted under Carbon Abatement Scheme, Climate Change, Economies, Fuel & Gas, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies, energy efficiency

By Ray Block

I wrote a post last year on the theme that financial speculators play too big a role in the setting of many commodity prices.

In a letter to the Financial Times (July 25 2008), Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democrat leaning chairman of the US Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee and two other Senators said that “financial speculators are overwhelming our commodity markets and leading to substantial increases in food and energy prices for years to come.”

The reality is that the speculators are at it again, despite the slow recovery from the global financial crisis, and the misery caused by a reported one billion poor people in the world, who are under- nourished, and can’t afford the continuing high food prices in many countries.

Right now, it is sugar prices which have risen fast, but it won’t be too long before cereals join in the stampede for higher prices.

Oil prices too are on the increase, despite the still intense recession in most countries.

The chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol told the Financial Times in London (August 4 2009), “that the world economy cannot sustain any further rise in the oil price,” and said that prices higher than US$70 a barrel “could damp a world recovery.”

Oil prices in Europe this year have so far reached a high of US$73.87. Speaking to the Independent newspaper in the UK, Birol said that “global oil production was now likely to peak within 10 years and that governments were woefully under-prepared for such an eventuality.”

According to an investigation of more than 800 oil fields by the IEA, the average rate of decline in oil production (this is the depletion rate) is now running at 6.7 per cent a year, compared to a 2007 published figure of 3.7 per cent. (Business Green.com August4 2009)

Against a future where oil supply will peak and start to decline, with the inevitability of fast rising energy prices, oil price speculation at this stage  is just  plain greed and gouging and should be controlled.

Gary Gensler, chairman of  the  Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US regulator, (July 27 2009) told Bloomberg financial service that the US “must seriously consider” strict position limits on energy markets to curb speculation.

Back in 2008, under the Bush Administration, the CFTC was opposed to any transparency, suppressing the data on the activities of speculators trading in commodites. Fortunately, the Obama change of government has brought a realisation that commodity prices should not be the plaything of financial speculators.

Jeff Korzenik, who writes the financial blog (www.inefficientfrontiers.com) in a piece for FT Energy Source (July  30 2009) pointed out that the current levels of speculation are “unequivocally bad.”  Commodities are conveniently treated in financial circles as an alternative asset class, but they are very different to stock prices.

As Korzenik says, there are a lot of ” innocent bystanders including the world’s poorest, who are disproportionately impacted by higher fuel prices.”

Let’s hope that the CFTC acts soon to curb the Wall Street financial speculators, not only in energy prices, but in other commodities as well.

Posted under Commodity Prices, Food, Fuel & Gas, World Inflation

by Ray Block

The quotation is from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. It echoes the dilemma facing the planet today, where devastating droughts and floods are already leading to water shortages world wide.

The world population is expected to rise 2.5 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050, the increase being equivalent to the total population in 1950. The whole of the increase will be in the developing countries to reach 7.9 billion in 41 years, which for some countries will be standing room only. By that time, 3 billion people will be severely short of water.  

International Alert in a 2007 report A Climate of Conflict identified 46 countries home to 2.7 billion people, where climate change and water-related crises create a high risk of violent conflict. A further 56 countries, representing another 1.2 billion, are at high risk of political instability.

The danger of water shortage is not confined to the poorer countries. In the US, California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said a few days ago that the state “is headed toward one of the worst water crises in its history.” The state’s Department of   Works says that that California seems on track for its worst drought since the early 1990s.

Catherine Brahic (New Scientist February 1 2009) says that the three year drought may be a consequence of the expanding tropics, which are gradually growing as greenhouse gases warm the planet. “”Climate scientists have documented a slow progression of low latitude weather systems towards the poles, and matched by rising temperatures in many temperature regions.

Thomas Reichler of the University of Utah says the subtropics is more feared than widening of the tropical zone itself. While the tropical belt is hot and humid,the subtropics suffer from severe drought.  According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, 36 states will face water shortages by 2013, with the bulk of the population projected for the driest areas.

The intensity of the drought on the US west coast is mirrored in Australia, which has been severely affected by the worst drought in more than 100 years across the south eastern areas, hitting hard the food bowl of the Murray Darling river system.

The Pacific Institute in releasing the latest edition of the World’s Water 2008-2009, has an alarming chapter on China’s intense water problems. “China’s water resources are overallocated, inefficiently used, and grossly polluted by human and industrial waste, to the point that vast stretches of rivers are dead and dying, lakes are cesspools of waste, ground water aquifers are over-pumped and unsustainably consumed, and direct adverse impacts on both human and ecosystem health are widespread and growing.

Of the 20 most seriously polluted cities in tthe world,16 are in China. Three hundred million people lack access to safe drinking water. Significant outbreaks of illness, including cancers, are being reported in heavily polluted regions, driving up health care costs and growing public concern. There is growing internal dissent and conflict over both water allocation and water quality, raising new political pressres on the central and provincial governments to come to grips with water problems.”

Posted under Climate Change, Commodity Prices, Fuel & Gas, Global Warming, Renewable Energies

by Ray Block

In 2008, the standout investment was in solar energy, where it reached the milestone of generating revenue of $13 billion for the first time, with a venture capital injection in the September quarter of nearly US$1.6 billion. The year was marked with strong growth in both solar PV (photovoltaics) and solar thermal (also known as concentrating solar).

The forecast revenue for solar energy in 2012 is a cool $40 billion, so fast is the speed where renewable energy is now seen as a major growth industry. The key to growth in the PV sector is determined by those markets, which have mandated renewable energy targets, along with feed-in tariffs, which require electricity retailers to buy power from renewable energy sources at above market prices. Feed-in tariffs originated in the US in 1978, but were refined in Germany in 2000 and added to in Spain, which account for the rapid growth in renewable energy in those markets.

The eight year extension of US tax credits for renewable energy agreed to by Congress late in 2008 will be a big incentive for record growth in America, in spite of the gloom from the world wide recession.

While Japan and Germany continue to lead the PV sector with solar panels, the US is making a spirited run in innovation to leap ahead. Polysilicon is the preferred and traditional key raw material for most of the solar panels on world markets, given its exceptional efficiency in generating electricity. This where Japan, Germany and China dominate as the major world suppliers.

However, a number of exceptionally keen US solar firms believe that their development of thin film cells, which use little or no silicon in solar power is the way of the future in the ability to reach “grid parity.” That is when the cost of a kilowatt-hour of solar energy is about the same as one generated by any other fuel source. There has been a race among suppliers of thin film cells getting the cost of panels down to as low as $1 a watt.

Dwayne Lawrence in the Fast Company blog (December 12 2008) says that “if you have an acre of rooftop (or a 100 acre field), then thin film cells, which use nano size layers of silicon or futuristic metal alloys-either cadmium telluride (CdTe) or copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) as the key ingredient to convert sunlight into electricity promise to do the job for a fraction of the cost.” The thin film cell market is full of startups, but second generation companies, led by Arizona based First Solar, is making the most rapid progress.

“First Solar has developed a CdTe panel for a production cost of $1.14 per watt, less than half the cost of its nearest rival at its debut.” The claim is that producers of second film technologies will grow its market share from 14 per cent to 28 per cent by the end of 2009. A new solar PV maker Nanosolar using CIGS cells  boasts that it will be able to sell solar panels for as little as 99 cents a watt.

Solar PV is already a 10 gigawatt industry world wide, and Fast Company suggests that another 10 gigawatts more will be brought online in 2010 alone. By comparison, solar thermal is as yet smaller in comparative terms, but it is about to grow much larger in a hurry. Solar thermal is largely a US invention for power station use in the generation and storage of electricity.

Solar thermal power is increasingly being used in California for peak power, where it is competitive with natural gas. America, Spain and Australia currently make up the solar thermal sector. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reported that in the beginning of 2008, 419 MW came on stream in June 2007 with  Nevada Solar, the first utility scale thermal plant since the last Mohave Desert plant was completed in 1991.  

By April 2008, new solar thermal projects announced totalled 4 gigawatts, including the world’s largest, the 280 MW plant in Arizona. Renewable Energy World reported on September 2 2008, that in areas where cloud cover is minimal such as in desert and near desert areas, the technology is most suitable, if the price and site is right. These conditions exist in the South West US, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, parts of Southern Africa, the UAE, Israel, parts of China and northern Australia.

“A flat site is needed, near power transmission, amd ideally close to a load centre to avoid long  distance transmission, and where water is available for steam generation and cooling.” One estimate of future demand suggests that over 7000 MW of new power projects have been announced to the end of 2012, with Spain capturing 41 per cent of supply contracts, and the US 44 per cent. In 2004, Spain introduced a dedicated long term feed-in tariff of 27 eurocents/kWh for power from solar thermal power plants up to 50 MW. This is payable for 25 years, increasing yearly at inflation minus 1 per cent.

California has charged ahead with Governor Schwarzenegger’s green initiatives. The Governor’s latest move was to secure legislation for a high renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2012, and 33 per cent by 2020. He is is now examining the practicality of mandating a solar requirement of 3 GW (3000 MW) of new solar power by 2015.

A recent US start up, the Australian Ausra group led by Dr David Mills, with 30 years of research in solar PV behind him, and now based in the US promises to lower investment costs, with the use of compact linear Fresnel flat mirrors to concentrate the solar radiation, instead of the more expensive conventional parabolic mirrors. Ausra also promises higher yield than the existing plants, and its plants occupy far less land, which means that its plants can be built closer to population centres, thus saving on grid costs of transmission. The company also says that it can generate electricity for 10 cents per kWh, close to the cost of using natural gas, and it expects the price to fall even further.

After completing a 5 MW solar thermal demonstration plant in central California in record time in October 2008, the company has now over $100 million in venture capital funding. Ausra has now firm contracts for at least 1000 MW of solar power in the next five years, with contracts with the utilities PG&E in California and for FPL in Florida. The company says there is a further 6000 MW in development.

 

 

 

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Posted under Climate Change, Fuel & Gas, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies

by Ray Block

Alberta oil sands in the far northern area of the Canadian province is spread over three deposits beneath 140,200 sq km, an area larger than the US state of Florida. Oil sands is a biitumen molasses like viscous oil, which won’t  flow unless heated or diltuted with lighter hydrocarbons.

                                                                                                                                                              

Once produced, it is either upgraded into synthetic crude oil, or shipped out without upgrading. Upgraders chemically alter the bitumen by adding hydrogen, subtracting carbon, or both. The collective size of the deposits in Northern Alberta is huge. Recoverable reserves of 175 billion barrels, with a proven reserve life of 480 years, and another 130 billion barrels of potential reserves. Alberta’s reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia’s 262 billion barrels.

 

The oil sands industry is not only of pivotal importance to oil security for Canada and United States, but with increasing production from an immense resource, it is a major growth sector of the Canadian economy.

 

In 2007, 44 per cent of Canadian oil production was from oil sands. Expansion of oil sands production over recent years has exceeded declines in Alberta conventional crude. Canada is now the largest supplier of oil and refined products to the US, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

 

The downside is that with a near three fold increase in greenhouse gas from tar sands production, compared to conventional oil, it demonstrates only too starkly the greenhouse dilemma. If progress in Canadian renewable energy development was only much further advanced, you could possibly match the growth in GHG from oil sands against the renewable savings. Oil sands production is also a very considerable user of water and energy.

 

Oil sands production is expected to increase 2.4 times by 2017. After spending over $C14 billion investment by 2006, over $100 billion more is to be spent on developing the oil fields over the next decade. This includes US$31 billion on a pipeline and refinery projects.  The oil majors are all there- Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil with its local affiliate Imperial, Total, Occidental, and other oil companies have also invested, along with CNOOC of China.

 

Current mining production is 1.32 million barrels/day of heavy crude saturated with bitumen, and Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) expects it to increase to 3.2 million billion barrels/day by 2017. With only 2 per cent of the initial established resource produced to date, you can understand the enthusiasm of the miners. You can also begin to understand the frustration of the environmentalists, who witness daily the slow death of the once pristine wilderness.

 

In a report “How the Oil Sands Got to the Great Lakes Basin” (October 8 2008) by the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre’s program on water issues, it says that with the  pipeline to deliver Alberta oil sands crude to the large scale expansion in the refineries around the Great Lakes, bordering Canada and the US amounts to a “pollution delivery system.” As many as 17 major refinery expansions around the lakes are being considered for turning the synthetic crude into gasoline and other petroleum products. All but one are on the US side of the border.

 

Among the report’s recommendations is a call for refineries to offset all of the additional CO2 emissions, because of the difficulty of processing the crude. These emissions are estimated to be 2.3 million metric tons. Another recommendation is to require all refinery expansions to meet California’s strict air pollution standards, the toughest in North America.

 

A more extreme environmental view by Environmental Defence in a report Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands February 2008 says that it is the “most destructive project on earth.” Canada, says the group “has become the world’s dirty superpower.”

 

John Vidal, environment editor of the Guardian UK (July 12 2008) reports that the Canadian and Alberta provincial governments in late June 2008 joined the Canadian oil industry to play down the impact of the oil sands on the environment. “Canada only produces 2 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the oil sands are only 8 per cent of the 2 per cent,” says the Canadian association of petroleum producers.

 

A number of the oil sands producers are installing carbon capture technology. Another reports: “we recognise that mining, extracting and upgrading bitumen has a significant footprint. Large areas must be cleared and excavated, while large volumes of water and natural gas are used to mine, process and upgrade it. Each project undergoes strict environmental assessments.”

 

The Alberta government says that stringent legislation and on the ground measures are in place to protect the air, land and water during oil sands development. Alberta in 2007 became the first in North America to legislate mandatory greenhouse reductions for large industrial facilities, which were required to reduce their emission intensity by 12 per cent, as of the end of 2007.

 

“Results for the first year show that companies made 2.6 million tonnes of actual reductions through operational changes and practices- including better use and re-use of energy – and investing in offsets created by other Alberta projects. Companies also chose to pay approximately $40 million into the Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund, which will invest in projects and technology to reduce GHG emissions.”

 

Alberta’s reclamation standards require the land be able to support a range of activities similar to its previous use before oil sands development.“To date, 530 square km of land has been disturbed by oil sands mining activity, which is less than one third the area of metro Los Angeles. As at March 2008, approximately 65 square km are in the process of being reclaimed. Industry must submit reclamation plans for approval to the Alberta government, which then issues a final certificate once work is significantly completed.”

 

You see the environmental dilemma. The answer is similar to the problem confronting all primary and processing industries to ensure world’s best practice in GHG emission control. Easy to say, a lot more difficult to deliver.

 

 

 

Posted under Carbon Abatement Scheme, Climate Change, Fuel & Gas, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies