This is indeed a time to get fitter for me, but since when did I start talking about my personal stuff in this space.
So, here it is. FIT, Feed-In Tariffs, are the darling of European clean energy strategy. While the US has been gung-ho about the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and Cap and Trade, primarily because of their success with their Acid Rain program, EU has scored tremendous success with FIT. So what is FIT and what makes it tick when Cap and Trade and RPS seem to losing out so far.
A well designed FIT program includes some of the following attributes:
- Guaranteed grid access to renewable energy producers of all size
- Long term contracts for purchases of energy produced;typical contract may be of 15-20 years
- Renewable energy priced at a set premium to encourage initial investment, based on cost generation plus a reasonable profit. The tariff usually declines periodically at a set rate
- Feed in cost is distributed through electricity pricing
- There is no cap on the amount of power generated through different renewable sources
- The tariffs are technology dependent. So they vary for solar, wind, biomass etc.
A cursory reading of the provisions above brings out a set of positives for this policy tool. First that it is independent of the size of the power generator. Usually RPS hinders the participation of small players as only the large players can have the deep pockets to take the risks associated and still make a profit. This FIT will pay at a fixed price, no matter what the size of generation. Also, each generator is assured of access to the grid. A major plus, I would say.
The second factor in favor of FIT is that it fixes a price for the technology and does that long term. Hence, the project developers can plan their assignments and be assured of a fixed stream of revenue. This, I believe, is a major plus for FIT for we have seen numerous cases where the prices governed by Cap and Trade or RPS are not sufficient to promote project development.
I am not trying to promote FIT here. Obviously, it has its own shortcomings. Who fixes the price for different technology could be a major bone of contention. How is the decline rate for prices set? What will the time period of decline be? These are all some issues about FIT. However, one on one this scheme has been more successful than Cap and Trade, as shown by a few countries in Europe, viz. Germany. The growth of renewable capacity in those countries have been tempered lately by the financial bungling seen in Germany and Spain. The power prices set by the government were so lucrative that all solar development happened in these countries and also played its role in bringing about the financial crisis.
So, the ball is in your court. FIT or RPS or Cap and Trade or Command and Control. To be or not to be....:)
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Update on the smart grid post
There is a study done on Smart Grids by US Association of Energy Economics, which gave some interesting insights about the Smart Grid deployment. The report claimed huge benefits of implementing the smart grid infrastructure, something to the order of $20-$30 billions in the next 2 decades, if my memory serves me right. Its one humongous number, anyway. The major point of the report was that just implementing the smart meter will serve us no good. That the smart meters, by themselves, are really dumb meters. Touche!
But its an interesting point! The whole idea of the smart grid, or the smart part of it anyway, is the two way street of communication. Of enabling the user to decipher his/her electric bill and make those changes to reduce consumption. A smart meter that just stands at a home and spits out a electric consumption number periodically does no good. The consumers have to be educated on their consumption patters, on the best way of reducing that. Some IT companies, guess what Google and Microsoft, have the relevant power meter softwares that helps you decipher the maze for you. It will be interesting to watch this space.
But its an interesting point! The whole idea of the smart grid, or the smart part of it anyway, is the two way street of communication. Of enabling the user to decipher his/her electric bill and make those changes to reduce consumption. A smart meter that just stands at a home and spits out a electric consumption number periodically does no good. The consumers have to be educated on their consumption patters, on the best way of reducing that. Some IT companies, guess what Google and Microsoft, have the relevant power meter softwares that helps you decipher the maze for you. It will be interesting to watch this space.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Food for thought!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/science/earth/15climate.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=in%20weather%20chaos&st=cse
Something to think about, this Independence Day!
Something to think about, this Independence Day!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Ask not what the grid can do for you...
...ask what you can do for the grid! I wish Kennedy is not turning in his grave at the liberty I took with his famous remark. Nothing encompasses the feeling about smart grids better than this statement though. Now, discussing smart grids is like talking about climate change itself, there are ten thousand different facets of it. I may just skim the surface of this topic here.
The grid is the complex network of power generation, transmission and distribution units that deliver reliable, affordable and efficient power to your homes. When you flip the switch at your homes and the electric appliance goes on, you have no clue as to the complexity that has gone into the working of the appliance! The National Academy of Engineering was entrusted with the task of finding out the single most important engineering innovation of the 20th century and electrification, enabled by the electricity grid, came out on top. To give you a flavor of what this means, internet was ranked 13th. And you thought that your iPhone was the best thing to have happened to you since sliced bread:)
However, the grid has remained a 20th century marvel. It is so the last generation, a dumb system that transports power from point A to B, in the same way, every second of its existence! Life has evolved so much that even machines are supposed to get bored performing the same task day in and day out! They also have a life!
In fact, there is a running joke in the power generation sector, which goes like this. If Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were to come back to life today, they would have very different reactions. Bell would be at a loss to understand the iPhones and the BlackBerrys while Edison would instantly understand the entire electric systems! For it has hardly changed in design, only gotten bigger! The R&D in this sector is less than 2% of the revenue, a figure lower than the stone, clay and glass industries. There is an urgent need to take this white elephant into the 21st century. We owe this to Edison, if nothing else!
Smart grids are the answer to this conundrum. Move over, the boring behemoths and make way for the lean, mean, efficient machine! The power of smart grids is the flexibility that they provide. It provides consumers to consume electricity more efficiently and provides utilities with the ability to detect problems on their systems and solve them more efficiently. Smart Grids are the democracy agents in power generation systems, they provide the consumer with the power to decide their consumption pattern. Smart grid systems would give real time information to the users about the cost of electricity, their consumption behavior and how much they would be paying for electricity in that unit of time. This would also help people plan their daily tasks better, so that you can make your heavy electric usage sync with the lowest cost. The utility companies will not have to depend on some distressed user to detect a problem on the system, the smartness of the grid will come to the rescue.
As there are positives and negatives to every idea, so it is with smart grids too. Firstly, they are designed for those places where electricity prices are market driven. When you have a flat price profile, the information provided by the grid would not help much. Then, there is the problem of privacy intertwined with smart grids, bringing back memories of the Orwellian "Big Brother". The smart grids provide utility companies with the power to detect which households are running unnecessary devices when the electric load is at its peak and shut it off at their discretion. So, the 'invisible hand' can turn off your AC during the peak summer days. Most people are not comfortable with outsourcing some of these decisions to some outside authority. There have been some studies which show that people, in anticipation of such an extreme step, would keep their air conditioning on forever, lest they might be shut off at any point of time. This would be severely counterproductive to the basic idea.
There are some unresolved issues with smart grids and some of the best minds are working on it. As the most comprehensive picture of these systems gives us a pause, one implementation strategy would be to start off with smart meters. These meters give us a dynamic profile of our electric usage and could be urgently required. Some parts of the world, like west coast in the US and Europe, have gone ahead with its implementation and are seeing the benefits of it. They seem to be 'smart', so far:)
The grid is the complex network of power generation, transmission and distribution units that deliver reliable, affordable and efficient power to your homes. When you flip the switch at your homes and the electric appliance goes on, you have no clue as to the complexity that has gone into the working of the appliance! The National Academy of Engineering was entrusted with the task of finding out the single most important engineering innovation of the 20th century and electrification, enabled by the electricity grid, came out on top. To give you a flavor of what this means, internet was ranked 13th. And you thought that your iPhone was the best thing to have happened to you since sliced bread:)
However, the grid has remained a 20th century marvel. It is so the last generation, a dumb system that transports power from point A to B, in the same way, every second of its existence! Life has evolved so much that even machines are supposed to get bored performing the same task day in and day out! They also have a life!
In fact, there is a running joke in the power generation sector, which goes like this. If Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were to come back to life today, they would have very different reactions. Bell would be at a loss to understand the iPhones and the BlackBerrys while Edison would instantly understand the entire electric systems! For it has hardly changed in design, only gotten bigger! The R&D in this sector is less than 2% of the revenue, a figure lower than the stone, clay and glass industries. There is an urgent need to take this white elephant into the 21st century. We owe this to Edison, if nothing else!
Smart grids are the answer to this conundrum. Move over, the boring behemoths and make way for the lean, mean, efficient machine! The power of smart grids is the flexibility that they provide. It provides consumers to consume electricity more efficiently and provides utilities with the ability to detect problems on their systems and solve them more efficiently. Smart Grids are the democracy agents in power generation systems, they provide the consumer with the power to decide their consumption pattern. Smart grid systems would give real time information to the users about the cost of electricity, their consumption behavior and how much they would be paying for electricity in that unit of time. This would also help people plan their daily tasks better, so that you can make your heavy electric usage sync with the lowest cost. The utility companies will not have to depend on some distressed user to detect a problem on the system, the smartness of the grid will come to the rescue.
As there are positives and negatives to every idea, so it is with smart grids too. Firstly, they are designed for those places where electricity prices are market driven. When you have a flat price profile, the information provided by the grid would not help much. Then, there is the problem of privacy intertwined with smart grids, bringing back memories of the Orwellian "Big Brother". The smart grids provide utility companies with the power to detect which households are running unnecessary devices when the electric load is at its peak and shut it off at their discretion. So, the 'invisible hand' can turn off your AC during the peak summer days. Most people are not comfortable with outsourcing some of these decisions to some outside authority. There have been some studies which show that people, in anticipation of such an extreme step, would keep their air conditioning on forever, lest they might be shut off at any point of time. This would be severely counterproductive to the basic idea.
There are some unresolved issues with smart grids and some of the best minds are working on it. As the most comprehensive picture of these systems gives us a pause, one implementation strategy would be to start off with smart meters. These meters give us a dynamic profile of our electric usage and could be urgently required. Some parts of the world, like west coast in the US and Europe, have gone ahead with its implementation and are seeing the benefits of it. They seem to be 'smart', so far:)
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!
Hello, again, to my favorite people! Your most trusted source of energy information is back, after a hiatus:) Any further discussion on anything remotely connected to energy has to talk about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. What a month this last one has been!
The Good: Fossil fuels are the best source of energy known to mankind. The energy density of these fuels per unit of price is unparalleled; the power delivered to your gas tank at a gas station is around 10 MW, a hopelessly high number. We have become irreparably dependent on oil, gas and coal over the last century. Most of these natural resources are dispersed in the natural systems and need to be taken out.
The Bad: Finding and extracting these natural resources is a process fraught with danger, as we have increasingly found out in the recent times. These operations are very resource intensive as well and take a heavy toll on the ecosystems of the region. Despite this, 87% of our energy needs are being met by these fossil fuels.
The Ugly: The recent memory serves me two painful accidents. Coal mine disasters are as commonplace as peanut butter and the recent US accident was another scary reminder of what could be the downside of plundering with disdain. The event that takes spotlight has to be the BP Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been a grand spectacle of insatiable greed for such resources, unbelievable regulatory and operational negligence, technical impotence despite the best resources and an ecological heartache.
Now for some background of this case, which most of you would be sick of by now. I will repeat the obvious anyway, so please bear with me. Deepwater Horizon, the flagship Transocean oil exploration rig exploded in an accident off the Gulf Coast in the US on the 20th of April. The blast was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the oil well and shot up the drill column. The gas expanded quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding. The explosion was so powerful as to take down one of the largest oil rigs in the world in a day. Deepwater Horizon has been credited with drilling the deepest oil well in the world. The excellent testimonies that I had heard from the BP executives who visited MIT campus is still fresh in my mind. In short, the rig was supposed to be a technical marvel in the oil industry. This was a BIG incident.
The oil well has been spewing about 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day of oil into the ocean by the most recent estimate, totaling to anywhere between 18 to 28 million gallons in the last 5 weeks. This is by far the biggest oil spill in the history of United States. So much so that Exxon, the villain in the Valdez spill 21 years ago, seems like an angel these days. Oh, BP!
What has followed is heart rendering! The best technical experts in this land have been trying to stem the flow of oil gushing through the God-forsaken well. The techniques have exotic names but have done absolutely nothing to improve the situation. It goes a long way to show how much we really know about deep sea drilling and related safety measures. Its really scary given the size of our oil companies, such behemoths!
Its a sordid tail and one can keep writing tomes on this topic about what should have been done and what should be done. One just wishes that the flow could come to a halt and the damages done to the local people and their livelihood could be limited in any possible way! So much for Drill, Baby, Drill!
I have always strived to be an objective reporter of the developments in the energy space in this blog, trying my level best to avoid any personal predilections. However, there are certain special situations under which one is forced to vent it out, and this is one such rare moment for me. According to me, this oil spill points us to two major takeaways. First, we cannot afford to have smaller governments and less regulations. The financial crises, both in the US and EU, and the coal and oil disasters have brought home the point that we NEED a STRONG government and stronger regulations. End of discussion! What is ironic is the rant of conservatives about the inadequacies of the Obama administration in grappling with the problem.
The second, and a big personal, comment is on the urgency of a shift towards renewable resources. As we move into ever more difficult terrains, looking for that last ton of coal, that last liter of oil or that last cubic feet of gas, we expose ourselves to greater dangers. The shift towards low carbon energy alternatives is not only a demand of the climate change supporters but also a need for safer ecology. I am reminded of a oft-repeated statement here which says that the oil age will not end because of lack of oil as the stone age had not ended due to the lack of stone.
Its time to move on!
The Good: Fossil fuels are the best source of energy known to mankind. The energy density of these fuels per unit of price is unparalleled; the power delivered to your gas tank at a gas station is around 10 MW, a hopelessly high number. We have become irreparably dependent on oil, gas and coal over the last century. Most of these natural resources are dispersed in the natural systems and need to be taken out.
The Bad: Finding and extracting these natural resources is a process fraught with danger, as we have increasingly found out in the recent times. These operations are very resource intensive as well and take a heavy toll on the ecosystems of the region. Despite this, 87% of our energy needs are being met by these fossil fuels.
The Ugly: The recent memory serves me two painful accidents. Coal mine disasters are as commonplace as peanut butter and the recent US accident was another scary reminder of what could be the downside of plundering with disdain. The event that takes spotlight has to be the BP Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been a grand spectacle of insatiable greed for such resources, unbelievable regulatory and operational negligence, technical impotence despite the best resources and an ecological heartache.
Now for some background of this case, which most of you would be sick of by now. I will repeat the obvious anyway, so please bear with me. Deepwater Horizon, the flagship Transocean oil exploration rig exploded in an accident off the Gulf Coast in the US on the 20th of April. The blast was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the oil well and shot up the drill column. The gas expanded quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding. The explosion was so powerful as to take down one of the largest oil rigs in the world in a day. Deepwater Horizon has been credited with drilling the deepest oil well in the world. The excellent testimonies that I had heard from the BP executives who visited MIT campus is still fresh in my mind. In short, the rig was supposed to be a technical marvel in the oil industry. This was a BIG incident.
The oil well has been spewing about 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day of oil into the ocean by the most recent estimate, totaling to anywhere between 18 to 28 million gallons in the last 5 weeks. This is by far the biggest oil spill in the history of United States. So much so that Exxon, the villain in the Valdez spill 21 years ago, seems like an angel these days. Oh, BP!
What has followed is heart rendering! The best technical experts in this land have been trying to stem the flow of oil gushing through the God-forsaken well. The techniques have exotic names but have done absolutely nothing to improve the situation. It goes a long way to show how much we really know about deep sea drilling and related safety measures. Its really scary given the size of our oil companies, such behemoths!
Its a sordid tail and one can keep writing tomes on this topic about what should have been done and what should be done. One just wishes that the flow could come to a halt and the damages done to the local people and their livelihood could be limited in any possible way! So much for Drill, Baby, Drill!
I have always strived to be an objective reporter of the developments in the energy space in this blog, trying my level best to avoid any personal predilections. However, there are certain special situations under which one is forced to vent it out, and this is one such rare moment for me. According to me, this oil spill points us to two major takeaways. First, we cannot afford to have smaller governments and less regulations. The financial crises, both in the US and EU, and the coal and oil disasters have brought home the point that we NEED a STRONG government and stronger regulations. End of discussion! What is ironic is the rant of conservatives about the inadequacies of the Obama administration in grappling with the problem.
The second, and a big personal, comment is on the urgency of a shift towards renewable resources. As we move into ever more difficult terrains, looking for that last ton of coal, that last liter of oil or that last cubic feet of gas, we expose ourselves to greater dangers. The shift towards low carbon energy alternatives is not only a demand of the climate change supporters but also a need for safer ecology. I am reminded of a oft-repeated statement here which says that the oil age will not end because of lack of oil as the stone age had not ended due to the lack of stone.
Its time to move on!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
B(u)y Nuke!
If there was ever a clear winner from this Climate Change debate, it has to be Nuclear Power. What a volte face for Nuclear energy in this world! A technology that was lying in the dumps, long forgotten about, mired in the security/weapons debate and any exciting news about Nuclear technologies only came from the rogue states like Iran and North Korea and the not-so-rogue, our lovely neighbor, Pakistan!
The whole debate has been turned on its head in the last year or so. It all began with the India getting the NSG clearance for building Nuclear plants using foreign technology and foreign fuel. The huge market potential in India sent foreign companies scurrying with lucrative deals. China has also stepped up the gas on Nuclear in recent years. And suddenly you see a frenzy around this much-maligned technology. President Obama never shies of talking about Nuclear in all his Climate Change speeches, Dept of Energy is undertaking a major financing freebie for Nuclear energy and the developed world also seems to be very excited again. So much so, that we have started to hear the long forgotten epithet "Nuclear Power-It will make power so cheap that it will be costly to meter!"
At this point, it would be suitable to look at the emergence on this technology in the power sector. Since the World War II and the nuclear bombing of Japan, using the N-word was a taboo! However, basic research was still on in different countries on this technology. The Oil Embargo in 1973 was the point in time when this technology came into prominence. Fearing a major challenge to their energy security, the major industrial nations in the world went about deploying Nuclear Energy for power generation with a purpose. US and France, the leaders in this area, were especially concerned about their source of energy. US was growing at a frenetic rate then, and was increasingly becoming a energy guzzler economy. The oil shock shook them out of their dependence on arguably the most volatile region in the world for their energy needs. France, on the other hand, has an interest in diversifying into an energy source for which they had the raw materials. There are no natural resources in France, when it comes to oil, coal or gas. They had uranium mines and all that pointed only in one direction: Go Nuclear! US built so much nuclear power so that 20% of their entire electricity needs came from Nuclear and France built about 55 reactors in a relatively short span of 15 years. The honeymoon period for nuclear ended with the horrifying accidents at the Three Mile Island (TMI) plant in the US and Chernobyl in Russia, then USSR. All the major countries balked at building more nuclear plants and public perception was at its lowest ebb. France, however, in a momentum that is difficult to fathom, kept at its plan unabated! I cannot still reason how were they able to do so at a time when all newly proposed plants around the world were canceled.
The things going in favor of Nuclear were its very low cost of operation and near zero emissions. The very very high cost of building the plant has always been a spoilsport, and continues to be so! However, with the climate change debate taking center stage and emission reduction being the staple diet of global negotiations, Nuclear energy has risen from the ashes like a Phoenix.
However, all is not rosy with nuclear energy. The MIT report on Future of Nuclear Power raises the issues of cost, safety, waste and proliferation as the major impediments in large scale deployment of Nuclear. I would add the issue of public perception to this list. Governments around the world will have to play this space really carefully for the images of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl and TMI never seem to fade in public memory. For Nuclear power to be back in center stage, public's fears will need be allayed.
As far as I am concerned, I am really excited about what Bill Gates talked in a TED lecture, TerraPower, which promises to use what is today's nuclear waste to produce power. That could be a game changer in this space, for it takes care of a few important hurdles for nuclear. Whatever be the case, I would urge you to read up a few keywords on nuclear power for it does feel cool to drop in a discussion on them at a networking table these days! I can guarantee you a few minutes of undivided attention of your audience:)
The whole debate has been turned on its head in the last year or so. It all began with the India getting the NSG clearance for building Nuclear plants using foreign technology and foreign fuel. The huge market potential in India sent foreign companies scurrying with lucrative deals. China has also stepped up the gas on Nuclear in recent years. And suddenly you see a frenzy around this much-maligned technology. President Obama never shies of talking about Nuclear in all his Climate Change speeches, Dept of Energy is undertaking a major financing freebie for Nuclear energy and the developed world also seems to be very excited again. So much so, that we have started to hear the long forgotten epithet "Nuclear Power-It will make power so cheap that it will be costly to meter!"
At this point, it would be suitable to look at the emergence on this technology in the power sector. Since the World War II and the nuclear bombing of Japan, using the N-word was a taboo! However, basic research was still on in different countries on this technology. The Oil Embargo in 1973 was the point in time when this technology came into prominence. Fearing a major challenge to their energy security, the major industrial nations in the world went about deploying Nuclear Energy for power generation with a purpose. US and France, the leaders in this area, were especially concerned about their source of energy. US was growing at a frenetic rate then, and was increasingly becoming a energy guzzler economy. The oil shock shook them out of their dependence on arguably the most volatile region in the world for their energy needs. France, on the other hand, has an interest in diversifying into an energy source for which they had the raw materials. There are no natural resources in France, when it comes to oil, coal or gas. They had uranium mines and all that pointed only in one direction: Go Nuclear! US built so much nuclear power so that 20% of their entire electricity needs came from Nuclear and France built about 55 reactors in a relatively short span of 15 years. The honeymoon period for nuclear ended with the horrifying accidents at the Three Mile Island (TMI) plant in the US and Chernobyl in Russia, then USSR. All the major countries balked at building more nuclear plants and public perception was at its lowest ebb. France, however, in a momentum that is difficult to fathom, kept at its plan unabated! I cannot still reason how were they able to do so at a time when all newly proposed plants around the world were canceled.
The things going in favor of Nuclear were its very low cost of operation and near zero emissions. The very very high cost of building the plant has always been a spoilsport, and continues to be so! However, with the climate change debate taking center stage and emission reduction being the staple diet of global negotiations, Nuclear energy has risen from the ashes like a Phoenix.
However, all is not rosy with nuclear energy. The MIT report on Future of Nuclear Power raises the issues of cost, safety, waste and proliferation as the major impediments in large scale deployment of Nuclear. I would add the issue of public perception to this list. Governments around the world will have to play this space really carefully for the images of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl and TMI never seem to fade in public memory. For Nuclear power to be back in center stage, public's fears will need be allayed.
As far as I am concerned, I am really excited about what Bill Gates talked in a TED lecture, TerraPower, which promises to use what is today's nuclear waste to produce power. That could be a game changer in this space, for it takes care of a few important hurdles for nuclear. Whatever be the case, I would urge you to read up a few keywords on nuclear power for it does feel cool to drop in a discussion on them at a networking table these days! I can guarantee you a few minutes of undivided attention of your audience:)
Monday, March 22, 2010
Climate Sensitivity and Radiative Forcing
I came across these write ups on the MIT News page and thought of sharing it with the audience here. These are two simple yet effective write ups on the most convoluted concepts in Climate Change. The first one is on Climate Sensitivity:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/explained-climate-sensitivity.html
The second on Radiative Forcing. I was about to write a post on it myself, this makes my task easier:P
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/explained-radforce-0309.html
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/explained-climate-sensitivity.html
The second on Radiative Forcing. I was about to write a post on it myself, this makes my task easier:P
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/explained-radforce-0309.html
Unconventionally Optimistic!
Unconventional was never more conventional! As most of you would have known by now, for hardly a day passes by without reading about 'it' in the news media, we have discovered a huge resource of gas! This gas, labeled as Unconventional Natural Gas, is basically the gas that was initially overlooked as either it was too expensive to 'collect' or the technology was not evolved enough to 'collect' it. We are referring to the three kinds of gas as ‘unconventional’, shale gas, tight gas and coal-bed methane.
Let's look at the evolution of this gas, along with what it means for geo-politics, economics and the debate on climate change. Contrary to the common perception, shale gas, as it is often referred as, is not a ‘discovery’ rather a success story of progressive technological capabilities. This gas was hitherto considered unusable as it occurred in places which could not be mined. The high prices of gas in recent years ensured that large sums of money went into finding out ways of getting this gas out in ways in which it could be used. The development of two technologies, hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling unlocked the huge potential in unconventional gas. Fracing, pronounced ‘fracking’, allows gas trapped in shale rock formations to be released by blasting with appropriate chemicals. Horizontal drilling allows the drills to penetrate the earth horizontally for hundreds or thousands of metres, where the gas is trapped.
This is a huge find and there are mind boggling predictions of the scale of this find, which some say are still conservative estimates. International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates the global find to be 921 trillion cubic metres, more than 5 times the provable conventional reserves! Unconventional becomes the new conventional.
This has led to a frenetic pace of deployment of the technology to produce more gas for the energy hungry countries. The two major shale reserves in the US, Barnett Shale in Texas and Marcellus Shale in the North Eastern US, are finds that have sent the oil and gas industry into a spin! The Barnett Shale alone accounted for 7% of the total gas production in US last year. So much so, that the US is predicted to leapfrog Russia as the largest producer of gas in the world, this year. There have also been major acquisitions and deal signing in this area; the big oil and gas firms are falling over each other to cash in the gold rush. These are the firms that were looking away as the smaller gas players invested in developing the technology!
This is a major development for the geopolitics and economics as well. Shale gas is ubiquitous, as opposed to the concentrated find of oil in the world. This means that the world need not bend over backwards to please the oil producing countries in the Middle East, arguably the most destabilized region of the world, in order to satiate their ever increasing energy needs. The IEA predicts huge finds of such gas in China and India, which will ease the pressure on these fast growing economies to secure their energy sources to fuel their growth ambitions. It also means that America might start investing their money into finding these reserves in their own land, rather than implanting democracies in far off places! The large finds will reduce the mammoth energy bill that some of these countries have to pay, compromising on some of the more important issues at home.
This is also good news on the climate change front. Gas has 50% to 70% lesser emissions than coal and any shift to using more gas in the electricity sector, owing to the glut of it, will only help the cause of reducing emissions.
However, all is not well with this gas. There are huge question marks on the environmental depredation that is caused by mining for the unconventional gas. Mining in the state of Pennsylvania has exposed some problems with water requirements of the process and any tampering with water reserves is going to cause further strain in this brewing global problem. There are also question marks placed on the prediction of this reserve, which may roil the party atmosphere. UK, under Thatcher in the 1980s, made a tactical mistake by switching their electricity generation to gas from coal, based on optimistic predictions of a find in the North Sea. The gas field soon ran out and UK was left dependent on others for more gas! So, the predictions will need to be validated time ad again!
As for common people of the world, like me, it is the perfect time grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up on the table and watch the game evolve:) It’s going to be a gripping story!
Let's look at the evolution of this gas, along with what it means for geo-politics, economics and the debate on climate change. Contrary to the common perception, shale gas, as it is often referred as, is not a ‘discovery’ rather a success story of progressive technological capabilities. This gas was hitherto considered unusable as it occurred in places which could not be mined. The high prices of gas in recent years ensured that large sums of money went into finding out ways of getting this gas out in ways in which it could be used. The development of two technologies, hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling unlocked the huge potential in unconventional gas. Fracing, pronounced ‘fracking’, allows gas trapped in shale rock formations to be released by blasting with appropriate chemicals. Horizontal drilling allows the drills to penetrate the earth horizontally for hundreds or thousands of metres, where the gas is trapped.
This is a huge find and there are mind boggling predictions of the scale of this find, which some say are still conservative estimates. International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates the global find to be 921 trillion cubic metres, more than 5 times the provable conventional reserves! Unconventional becomes the new conventional.
This has led to a frenetic pace of deployment of the technology to produce more gas for the energy hungry countries. The two major shale reserves in the US, Barnett Shale in Texas and Marcellus Shale in the North Eastern US, are finds that have sent the oil and gas industry into a spin! The Barnett Shale alone accounted for 7% of the total gas production in US last year. So much so, that the US is predicted to leapfrog Russia as the largest producer of gas in the world, this year. There have also been major acquisitions and deal signing in this area; the big oil and gas firms are falling over each other to cash in the gold rush. These are the firms that were looking away as the smaller gas players invested in developing the technology!
This is a major development for the geopolitics and economics as well. Shale gas is ubiquitous, as opposed to the concentrated find of oil in the world. This means that the world need not bend over backwards to please the oil producing countries in the Middle East, arguably the most destabilized region of the world, in order to satiate their ever increasing energy needs. The IEA predicts huge finds of such gas in China and India, which will ease the pressure on these fast growing economies to secure their energy sources to fuel their growth ambitions. It also means that America might start investing their money into finding these reserves in their own land, rather than implanting democracies in far off places! The large finds will reduce the mammoth energy bill that some of these countries have to pay, compromising on some of the more important issues at home.
This is also good news on the climate change front. Gas has 50% to 70% lesser emissions than coal and any shift to using more gas in the electricity sector, owing to the glut of it, will only help the cause of reducing emissions.
However, all is not well with this gas. There are huge question marks on the environmental depredation that is caused by mining for the unconventional gas. Mining in the state of Pennsylvania has exposed some problems with water requirements of the process and any tampering with water reserves is going to cause further strain in this brewing global problem. There are also question marks placed on the prediction of this reserve, which may roil the party atmosphere. UK, under Thatcher in the 1980s, made a tactical mistake by switching their electricity generation to gas from coal, based on optimistic predictions of a find in the North Sea. The gas field soon ran out and UK was left dependent on others for more gas! So, the predictions will need to be validated time ad again!
As for common people of the world, like me, it is the perfect time grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up on the table and watch the game evolve:) It’s going to be a gripping story!
Science of Climate Change
The Economist published a neat article on the science of climate change, which should be a good read for audience here. Reactions anyone?
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15719298
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15719298
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Quite a Study!
This study has been recently published by researchers at MIT. This is quite a handful so I wanted to throw it out in the open. DOn't know what you think of studies like these:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/climate-wind-0312.html
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/climate-wind-0312.html
Friday, March 12, 2010
Fueling the world, the biological way!
The audience here may be aware of the whole debate on Biofuels but I would love to revisit some of the arguments here. With biofuels, you always run into the trilemma of issues regarding (1) Energy Security, (2) Environment and Biodiversity and (3) Food Security.
The world has seen many back and forth in this area ever since Brazil demonstrated its prowess with sugarcane based ethanol. US also jumped in the fray by mandating the production of corn based ethanol, on a steep production trajectory, in 2005. Very soon people realized that the policy was causing more harm than good by raising the food prices and shifting the land use patterns. So, President Bush, it was not exactly the Indian middle class which was driving up the cost of food:)
The US policy on corn based ethanol has been much maligned and looks set to be missed. However, that has not dampened the enthusiasm of the industry around this different liquid fuel. The one important thing to bear in mind is that not all fuels that are produced from biological sources are necessarily good. The handling and processing require energy and if the energy is coming from conventional sources viz. coal, oil and gas, we will very well end up with an overall energy penalty in excess of 100%. In short, we might be putting out more carbon than we would have in the business as usual case.
This life cycle analysis, also known as the well to wheel analysis is extremely important in the case where the biofuels are imported into US from developing nations. Currently, US has a tax on imported biofuels that make them uncompetitive in terms of price. So Brazil, the current darling of the world when it comes to bioethanol, is not able to openly operate in US. Say, the US was to do away with the import duty and some such developing nation is able to export here. In that case, the benefit of the emissions reduction will accrue to US while the developing nation will be slapped by excess emissions that went in producing the fuel in the first place. Hence, emission accounting will prove to be a major heartburn in the future!
The ideal path would be a mix of (a) Use the land that is abandoned from agricultural use to grow biomass (b) Use agricultural residues to produce biofuels and (c) Use innovative agricultural methods like mixed cropping, double crops and squeeze in something from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) too!
The problem with alternative, or low-carbon, fuels are that there is no single right answer with them. No single source of energy, be it wind, solar, geothermal or even biofuels, can provide the same luxuries that the conventional fuel provided us. (On a different note, the flow of energy in a gas tank, when we fill at a gas station, is 10 MW!! Such energy flows can never be matched by any renewable fuel) Hence, the world will have to stop looking for a silver bullet but start looking for that magical mix of fuels that will optimize the energy output and reduce carbon emissions by the required amount.
Until then,be prepared for a bumpy ride! And don't forget to fasten your seat belts:P
The world has seen many back and forth in this area ever since Brazil demonstrated its prowess with sugarcane based ethanol. US also jumped in the fray by mandating the production of corn based ethanol, on a steep production trajectory, in 2005. Very soon people realized that the policy was causing more harm than good by raising the food prices and shifting the land use patterns. So, President Bush, it was not exactly the Indian middle class which was driving up the cost of food:)
The US policy on corn based ethanol has been much maligned and looks set to be missed. However, that has not dampened the enthusiasm of the industry around this different liquid fuel. The one important thing to bear in mind is that not all fuels that are produced from biological sources are necessarily good. The handling and processing require energy and if the energy is coming from conventional sources viz. coal, oil and gas, we will very well end up with an overall energy penalty in excess of 100%. In short, we might be putting out more carbon than we would have in the business as usual case.
This life cycle analysis, also known as the well to wheel analysis is extremely important in the case where the biofuels are imported into US from developing nations. Currently, US has a tax on imported biofuels that make them uncompetitive in terms of price. So Brazil, the current darling of the world when it comes to bioethanol, is not able to openly operate in US. Say, the US was to do away with the import duty and some such developing nation is able to export here. In that case, the benefit of the emissions reduction will accrue to US while the developing nation will be slapped by excess emissions that went in producing the fuel in the first place. Hence, emission accounting will prove to be a major heartburn in the future!
The ideal path would be a mix of (a) Use the land that is abandoned from agricultural use to grow biomass (b) Use agricultural residues to produce biofuels and (c) Use innovative agricultural methods like mixed cropping, double crops and squeeze in something from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) too!
The problem with alternative, or low-carbon, fuels are that there is no single right answer with them. No single source of energy, be it wind, solar, geothermal or even biofuels, can provide the same luxuries that the conventional fuel provided us. (On a different note, the flow of energy in a gas tank, when we fill at a gas station, is 10 MW!! Such energy flows can never be matched by any renewable fuel) Hence, the world will have to stop looking for a silver bullet but start looking for that magical mix of fuels that will optimize the energy output and reduce carbon emissions by the required amount.
Until then,be prepared for a bumpy ride! And don't forget to fasten your seat belts:P
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Support for IPCC!
Go IPCC!!
Yes, I am back from a hiatus. Only if I were a bit more regular with my routine!:)
Anyway, I am quite piqued with the way the IPCC has been recently mocked by people from all across the climate change divide. These have surely been unfortunate times for the scientific body. From being held as the apostle of climate science, or any science for that matter, to being the whipping boy of all, the IPCC has come a long way! To provide a bit of perspective for my beloved readers, it all started with email hacking incident where researchers at the University of East Anglia were found to be using a "trick" in the famous "hockey-stick" graph of the global surface temperatures. That was pure bad timing, for it came right before the Copenhagen summit.
Then came the disturbing revelation that the prediction of Himalayan Glaciers completely melting by 2035 was not "pure science" but "gray science"; science that was not peer reviewed. The final "news" to come from the IPCC camp is that it published some reports on Netherlands that were by the national government of that country and not scientifically ascertained.
This has caused some interesting reactions to surface. Few of the climate change enthusiasts have been very quick to distance themselves from the body and the naysayers have got another chance to drive another stake in the concept of Global Climate Change. And mind you, this is a serious one for it exposes the very source of the issue. The reaction of the news media has especially been a treat to watch! Even more when the Northeastern United States was drowned in snow a few weeks ago.
My reaction to this would be three-fold. First, IPCC. There is no denying the mammoth efforts of this committee. No one incident or "gray" science can tarnish the broad message of this committee. The committee cited more than 10,000 peer reviewed literature to come up with its 3000 pages long report. Now, the sheer volume of this effort does not deem the work to be beyond question. The fact that non-peer reviewed work was allowed to be included in this body of work confuses me, but it should not take anything away from the sheer dedication of researchers working on it. And this is not even based on the perspective I have gained by working closely with one of the lead authors of the report for close to 18 months now. I cannot even begin to question his academic integrity just because a prediction made about Himalayan Glaciers was over-ambitious.
This brings us to the bigger question: What is Science? Is anything conclusively proven by science or is it as equivocal as religion or as subjective as philosophy. After all these years, have we even got a conclusive link between smoking and lung cancer? Have we found out the right dosage for any carcinogen for it to be lethal? Science is always uncertain and has probabilities attached to it, which makes it a very poor participant in the adversarial approach in policy making followed by governments globally. It can, in certain situations, provide only the right path to move on. In this way, the IPCC can be counted as a commendable path forward. Shaky at times, but commendable nonetheless.
Second, Climate Change. Nothing we might say against IPCC or nothing that we do to mock the concept of climate change will let us wish away the problem. The earth is warming, the climate is changing and closing our eyes to it will only hasten the inevitable, not get rid of the problem. Here, I would emphasize on the difference between weather and climate again. A lot of the news presenters gushingly proclaimed the demise of climate change as a result of the severe snowstorms in this part of the world lately. That, my dear friends, is the weather part of it. The daily, seasonal or annual variation is weather. Climate is something that cannot be seen by the naked eye and can be measured only over longer time horizons. And the news here is grim! Arctic ice caps are shrinking rapidly, in 2007 they were 50% of their strength in 1979, globally, this January was the second hottest January in the history of the 130 years of surface temperature measurement and the last 10 years have made up the hottest decade ever! I so wish we were talking about the population of the fairer sex here! Sadly, we are not:)
Finally, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri! Oh, how I wish some things about IPCC were different:) I have had the (dis)pleasure of engaging him in a conversation when he came for lecture at my undergrad institution, IIT Delhi, in a different capacity. Back then, I did not find him too happy with people having points of view which did not agree with his. He came across as a rash diplomat! How I wish I had given him the feedback back then!:P After all the diplomatic bungling, the Armani clad bugger goes out and writes a sleazy novel on a climate researcher, modeled on him, who goes around the world in search of hot bodies, not hot temperatures! And to top it all, he releases the book with the fanfare typically associated with a big Bollywood release in India, bang in the middle of all this controversy! WTF!!
In a nutshell, the Armani suits aside, we still trust the IPCC broadly, don't we?:)
Yes, I am back from a hiatus. Only if I were a bit more regular with my routine!:)
Anyway, I am quite piqued with the way the IPCC has been recently mocked by people from all across the climate change divide. These have surely been unfortunate times for the scientific body. From being held as the apostle of climate science, or any science for that matter, to being the whipping boy of all, the IPCC has come a long way! To provide a bit of perspective for my beloved readers, it all started with email hacking incident where researchers at the University of East Anglia were found to be using a "trick" in the famous "hockey-stick" graph of the global surface temperatures. That was pure bad timing, for it came right before the Copenhagen summit.
Then came the disturbing revelation that the prediction of Himalayan Glaciers completely melting by 2035 was not "pure science" but "gray science"; science that was not peer reviewed. The final "news" to come from the IPCC camp is that it published some reports on Netherlands that were by the national government of that country and not scientifically ascertained.
This has caused some interesting reactions to surface. Few of the climate change enthusiasts have been very quick to distance themselves from the body and the naysayers have got another chance to drive another stake in the concept of Global Climate Change. And mind you, this is a serious one for it exposes the very source of the issue. The reaction of the news media has especially been a treat to watch! Even more when the Northeastern United States was drowned in snow a few weeks ago.
My reaction to this would be three-fold. First, IPCC. There is no denying the mammoth efforts of this committee. No one incident or "gray" science can tarnish the broad message of this committee. The committee cited more than 10,000 peer reviewed literature to come up with its 3000 pages long report. Now, the sheer volume of this effort does not deem the work to be beyond question. The fact that non-peer reviewed work was allowed to be included in this body of work confuses me, but it should not take anything away from the sheer dedication of researchers working on it. And this is not even based on the perspective I have gained by working closely with one of the lead authors of the report for close to 18 months now. I cannot even begin to question his academic integrity just because a prediction made about Himalayan Glaciers was over-ambitious.
This brings us to the bigger question: What is Science? Is anything conclusively proven by science or is it as equivocal as religion or as subjective as philosophy. After all these years, have we even got a conclusive link between smoking and lung cancer? Have we found out the right dosage for any carcinogen for it to be lethal? Science is always uncertain and has probabilities attached to it, which makes it a very poor participant in the adversarial approach in policy making followed by governments globally. It can, in certain situations, provide only the right path to move on. In this way, the IPCC can be counted as a commendable path forward. Shaky at times, but commendable nonetheless.
Second, Climate Change. Nothing we might say against IPCC or nothing that we do to mock the concept of climate change will let us wish away the problem. The earth is warming, the climate is changing and closing our eyes to it will only hasten the inevitable, not get rid of the problem. Here, I would emphasize on the difference between weather and climate again. A lot of the news presenters gushingly proclaimed the demise of climate change as a result of the severe snowstorms in this part of the world lately. That, my dear friends, is the weather part of it. The daily, seasonal or annual variation is weather. Climate is something that cannot be seen by the naked eye and can be measured only over longer time horizons. And the news here is grim! Arctic ice caps are shrinking rapidly, in 2007 they were 50% of their strength in 1979, globally, this January was the second hottest January in the history of the 130 years of surface temperature measurement and the last 10 years have made up the hottest decade ever! I so wish we were talking about the population of the fairer sex here! Sadly, we are not:)
Finally, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri! Oh, how I wish some things about IPCC were different:) I have had the (dis)pleasure of engaging him in a conversation when he came for lecture at my undergrad institution, IIT Delhi, in a different capacity. Back then, I did not find him too happy with people having points of view which did not agree with his. He came across as a rash diplomat! How I wish I had given him the feedback back then!:P After all the diplomatic bungling, the Armani clad bugger goes out and writes a sleazy novel on a climate researcher, modeled on him, who goes around the world in search of hot bodies, not hot temperatures! And to top it all, he releases the book with the fanfare typically associated with a big Bollywood release in India, bang in the middle of all this controversy! WTF!!
In a nutshell, the Armani suits aside, we still trust the IPCC broadly, don't we?:)
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