Energy Security

[Rick M]

This may be of interest (with link to original MoD report):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...stern-life-mod

[davidbfpo]

Thanks Rick for that post, I only occasionally check The Guardian. A "lurker" responded:

An American academic thinks it is all exaggerated deliberately to ‘securitize’ the world’s issues and justify military actions and expenditures. He studies global energy and finds a disconnect with the material produced by militaries or think tanks.

[Firn]

Funny how things develop sometimes..

A couple of private investors (not including myself ) did present yesterday their small pump-storage project to the public of my home village. Basically they want to use the very steep 700m drop between the valley floor and our plateau to get a highly efficient storage. The upper basin is planned to be underground! It should be placed in a relative isolated pine forest with little humus on the edge of said plateau.

Sadly I could visit it due to a meeting, in any case I will get more detail soon and talked to our major* beforehand about it, mostly about the revenue side. As far as I know it looks good from the credit side for the investors.

All in all I hope it will be a win-win-win situation for all involved. But I need to take a closer look. Another potential, very small step for energy security.

*His big farm has a very considerable number of solar modules on the roof, and it is pretty much the perfect spot being on a sunny ridge at roughly 1400m with the proper roof angles.

[davidbfpo]

It's Thursday, so it must energy stories day for the Daily Telegraph.

Risk of UK power blackouts has tripled in a year, Ofgem warns or:

the margin of electricity supply capacity over demand could narrow to between 2pc and 5pc by 2015 and 2016.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...gem-warns.html

Shale gas in northern England could meet Britain's gas needs for 40 years:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...-40-years.html

Wind farms get generous subsidies for another six years:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...six-years.html

[Dayuhan]

http://www.constructionweekonline.co.../#.UfXO66zYjAE

Iraq plans to invest $173bn in its energy infrastructure over the next five years in order to dramatically ramp up crude output, Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi has said.

The investment in upstream activities, refineries and to increase natural gas production will boost oil production to nine million barrels of oil per day and bring in revenues of $600bn

Will be very interesting to see if they can get to 9mbpd, or even close.

[davidbfpo]

IIRC Iran exports crude oil for refining across the Gulf and then imports the products, presumably at a premium. It will be interesting to see if new refineries are added.

[Rick M]

Chatham House has come out with another excellent examination of energy consumption within Persian Gulf countries.

"The six GCC countries - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Bahrain - now consume more primary energy than the whole of Africa. Yet they have just one twentieth of that continent’s population. Energy intensity in the region is high and rising....

Almost 100% of energy in the region is produced from oil and gas without carbon dioxide abatement, and water security is increasingly dependent on energy-driven desalination. If the region’s fuel demand were to continue rising as it has over the last decade, it would double by 2024. This is a deeply undesirable prospect for both the national security of each state and the global environment."

http://www.chathamhouse.org/publicat...rs/view/193884