UK abandoning daft renewable energy targets?

[Nemesiscorporation]

You know who else was an environmentalist?

Hitler.

Actually he wasn't an enviromentalist. He was an eugenicist

Hitler was a vegitarian though, as well as being a deranged genocidal nutjob.

[Pat Gill]

Interesting decade ahead for all.

World in challenge to answer growing energy needs - Kuwait oil Min.

Kuwaiti Minister of Oil Mohammad Al-Busairi said here Sunday the world will face challenges triggered by how to fulfill increasing needs of energy in the next 25 years, given dwindling investments in this sector.

Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have recently raised their production in response to supply and demand, he said, adding that Kuwait's average production hit 2.
87 million barrels per day (bpd) in September.
The decision was made to make up for oil shortage caused by Libya's production suspension and to fend off looming oil price rise, he said.

He called on world countries to increase their daily energy production from 234 million barrels of oil equivalent at present to 353 million barrel of oil equivalent by 2035.
Demand for oil and other energy sources is forecasted to go by 35 percent in the coming 25 years, and oil will remain the main source of energy, the Kuwaiti minister said.
But, he warned that to fulfill mounting world demand for energy more investments are required, thus creating fresh challenges in politics, economy and infrastructure.

On Arab oil production, Al-Busairi distinguished between the size of production and increasing consumption as the Arab world had a population of 346 million souls in 2010, while they consume 10.8 million bpd, making up five percent of world consumption.
Arab demand for oil is the highest, hitting 4.2 percent annually, and the per capital quota of oil is 11 barrels per annum, he noted.

In 2004, Kuwait established an investment fund for renewable energy technology with an estimated budget of USD 100 million, and allocated in 2007 an estimated budget of USD 150 million for clean energy research, in collaboration with Saudi Arabia, Al-Busairi said.
He also elaborated on Kuwait's experiment in the applications of solar energy technologies in the Kuwaiti oil sector with a view to using solar cells in power energy generation by means of solar heaters in order to provide oil collection centers with thermal energy.
For his part, MB Petroleum Services Board Chairman Mohammad Al-Barwani said the Middle East and North Africa should use renewable energy in lieu of fossil fuel.

So the economic case is that the domestic consumption of the oil and gas exporting gulf states is now seriously threatening the economies of said countries.

Makes you wonder what effect importing almost all of our energy supplies has on our own economy.

Sun-drenched Kuwait, a desert nation with no solar-power plants and electricity demand that’s growing about 8 percent a year, has set the most ambitious target for using renewable energy in the Gulf region. OPEC’s fifth-biggest oil producer, whose air conditioners run cheaply off state-subsidized oil-fired power plants, aims to generate 10 percent of its electricity from sustainable sources by 2020, said Eyad Ali al-Falah, assistant undersecretary for technical services at the Ministry of Electricity and Water.



While analysts are skeptical Kuwait will meet its target, they don´t question the economic case that underpins it. The Arab country consumed 413,000 barrels a day of oil in 2010, about 16 percent of production, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy for 2011. That’s 66 percent more than in 2000, while production increased about 14 percent.


Kuwait Sets Biggest Gulf Clean-Energy Goal to Free Up Oil - Businessweek

US company GT Advanced Technologies has secured an order worth $47.7m for photovoltaic (PV) production equipment and technology by the Polysilicon Technology Company (PTC) based in Saudi Arabia. It is the first such order for GT in the country and is the only active polysilicon production project in the Middle East at this time. The manufacturing facility will be located in Jubail Industrial City on the east coast of Saudi Arabia.
The deal brings GT’s bookings to more than $500m since the beginning of the current fiscal year.



Solar energy news - GT Advanced Technologies wins $47.7m order in Saudi Arabia

So if it makes economic sense for an oil and gas exporter to build a renewable energy base, surely that case is immeasurably stronger in a country which imports almost 95% of its energy needs.

[Falco]

You know who else was an environmentalist?

Hitler.

Don't be silly - there are plenty of conservationists that have serious doubts about the supposed Greeness of many wind power projects on bird migration routes, fragile upland habitats etc.

[goosebump]

Interesting decade ahead for all.



So the economic case is that the domestic consumption of the oil and gas exporting gulf states is now seriously threatening the economies of said countries.

Makes you wonder what effect importing almost all of our energy supplies has on our own economy.






So if it makes economic sense for an oil and gas exporter to build a renewable energy base, surely that case is immeasurably stronger in a country which imports almost 95% of its energy needs.

Only if you give a sh1t about what happens after you're dead, which doesn't apply to about 90% of the world's population.

[Pat Gill]

Meanwhile in the real world:

yet another "green energy" bankruptcy

Beacon Power, Backed by U.S. Loan Guarantees, Files Bankruptcy - Businessweek



and Vestas (world largest wind turbine maker) falls 24% after a profit warning

Vestas shares drop 24 percent after profit warning | Reuters



Politicians are behind the curve, but the market is calling time on bogus green energy bullsh$t.

Germany is having a rethink on nuclear already: Germany,s nuclear energy blunder - The Washington Post

SNAP.

Yes, sadly, our politicians are downright hypocrites, especially those on a certain side of the aisle. What they say versus what they vote for (and ask for) are completely opposite in many instances. After joining in the loan guarantee flogging after Solyndra, for example, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has gone and supported a $2 billion loan guarantee for an Ohio nuclear power plant (yes, that would be his home state of Ohio). He’s even gone so far as to say not backing the loan guarantee would “betray” Ohio workers.
Last I heard, loan guarantees for nuclear power plants have a financial failure rate of over 50%. Umm…
Going back to Boehner’s September opinion on loan guarantees: “for the federal government to be out there picking one company over another, one type of energy source over another, I think is wrong.”
Source: Clean Technica (Boehner: Energy Subsidies “Wrong” (& Can I Please Have a $2-Billion Loan Guarantee for a Nuclear Power Plant?) | CleanTechnica)

Boehner: Energy Subsidies “Wrong” (& Can I Please Have a $2-Billion Loan Guarantee for a Nuclear Power Plant?) | CleanTechnica

[deiseguy]

Germany is having a rethink on nuclear already: Germany,s nuclear energy blunder - The Washington Post

Was in Berlin last week visiting friends. They are fairly heavily committed to nuclear at the moment. Heard a great one while there the German railway company actually owns a nuclear power station dedicated to powering the rail network. There's a conflict for an ideologically bound GP member. They are apparently examining the possibility of using excess power generated by wind farms to produce and store hydrogen gas which can the be released at times of low wind speeds. I can't imagine that will be cheap.

[Pat Gill]

Was in Berlin last week visiting friends. They are fairly heavily committed to nuclear at the moment. Heard a great one while there the German railway company actually owns a nuclear power station dedicated to powering the rail network. There's a conflict for an ideologically bound GP member. They are apparently examining the possibility of using excess power generated by wind farms to produce and store hydrogen gas which can the be released at times of low wind speeds. I can't imagine that will be cheap.

The hydrogen is burned in an existing Closed Cycle Gas Turbine, keep an eye on the Irish papers after Christmas

[pjm]

Was in Berlin last week visiting friends. They are fairly heavily committed to nuclear at the moment. Heard a great one while there the German railway company actually owns a nuclear power station dedicated to powering the rail network. There's a conflict for an ideologically bound GP member.

That is false.
Deutsche Bahn may well have a supply contract with one of the 4 power companies (EOn, RWE, Wattenfall, EnBW) that operate the existing nuclear plants, but DB does not have part ownership of a nuclear plant. In fact, DB has recently signed a multi-year agreement with RWE to be supplied with "green power" from hydro sources.
Furthermore, it is wrong to say that Germany is "fairly committed" to nuclear at present - the nuclear phase out has been agreed by parliament, which will see all of the older reactors immediately closed down (with no finalcial compensation for the operators) with all of the newer reactors to be closed within a decade. And nuclear provides approx 20% of Germany's electricity, with no new reactors haveing been built in about 30 years. Hardly a sign of any form of commitment.

[GreenIsGood]

Professor Deiter Helm (Oxford) brilliantly smashes the dogma of ever spiralling energy costs.

Yet Chris Huhne, the British secretary of state for energy and climate change, is pretty sure that oil and gas prices are going ever upwards, that they will be volatile and that a core function of energy policy is to protect British industry and consumers from the consequences. It is a convenient assumption for renewables and nuclear: if the price of fossil fuel is going to get more expensive, then renewables and nuclear will be relatively cheap.

Shale gas and oil are a game changer, which have undermined peak oil dogma.

The Earth's crust is riddled with fossil fuels. The issue is not whether there is a shortage of the stuff, but the costs of getting it out. Until recently, the sheer abundance of low-cost conventional oil in places like the Middle East has limited the incentives to find more, and in particular to go after unconventional sources. But technical change has been driven by necessity – and the revolution in shale gas (and now shale oil, too) has already been transformational in the US, one of the world's biggest energy markets.

Switching from coal to abundant gas is the cheapest and most effective way to reduce emissions globally.

The peak oil brigade is leading us into bad policymaking on energy | Dieter Helm | Comment is free | The Guardian