Selling electricity is a complex caper, permitting a sharp and mercenary few to make out like bandits, at the expense of the gullible many. In Australia, the power market was hijacked around 20 years ago, with the creation of the National Electricity Market. Then the game changed entirely, as chaotic wind and solar were added … Continue reading "State Sanctioned Theft: Australia’s Renewable Energy Subsidies a $60bn Wealth Transfer"
via STOP THESE THINGS
June 7, 2018 at 02:30AM
via climate science
June 7, 2018 at 01:30AM
“As new US (and world) oil and gas records are set, the wisdom of Julian Simon, Maury Adelman, and Michael Lynch, as well as other luminaries such as Erich Zimmermann and Thomas DeGregori, will become even more prominent and appreciated. And don’t forget: the failed ‘consensus’ on Peak Oil is warning against the failing ‘consensus’ on Peak Climate.”
The Drudge Report headline said it all: “U.S. Oil Output Jumps to Record 10.47 Million Barrels per Day.” The March 2018 statistic is yet another sign of the refutation of M. King Hubbert’s ‘Peak Oil’ theory–and in real time. The Oil and Gas Investor story was short and sweet:
U.S. crude oil production jumped 215,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) to 10.47 million bbl/d in March, the highest on record, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a monthly report on May 31.
Production in Texas rose by 4% to almost 4.2 million bbl/d, a record high based on the data going back to 2005. The Permian Basin, which stretches across West Texas and eastern New Mexico, is the largest U.S. oil field.
Output from North Dakota held around 1.2 million bbl/d, while output in the federal Gulf of Mexico declined 1.1% to 1.7 million bbl/d.
The agency also revised February oil production down by 5,000 bbl/d to 10.26 million bbl/d.
U.S. natural gas production in the Lower 48 states rose to an all-time high of 88.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in March, up from the prior record of 87.7 Bcf/d in February, according to EIA’s 914 production report.
Output in Texas, the nation’s largest gas producer, increased 1.3% in March to 22.7 Bcf/d, the most since April 2016.
In Pennsylvania, the second biggest gas producing state, production dipped to 16.4 Bcf/d in March, down 0.6% from February’s record high of 16.5 Bcf/d. That compares with output of 14.8 Bcf/d in March 2017.
Hail to the voices in the wilderness that fought against Peak Oil and Peak Gas in decades past, from Julian Simon to Maury Adelman to Michael Lynch. And on this occasion, a few salient quotations from each is pertinent.
Julian Simon: ““People have since antiquity worried about running out of natural resources–flint, game animals, what-have-you. Yet, amazingly, all the historical evidence shows that raw materials–all of them–have become less scarce rather than more…. And there is no reason why this trend should not continue forever.”
M. A. Adelman: “The distinction between renewable and non-renewable resources is tenuous and perhaps in the last analysis untenable.”
Michael Lynch: “Production in a region rarely follows a bell curve nor do regions necessarily experience a single peak. As a result, this method repeatedly predicted premature peaks for many countries and for the world itself.”
As new US (and world) oil and gas records are set, the wisdom of the above thinkers, as well as other luminaries such as Erich Zimermann and Tom DeGregori will become even more prominent and appreciated. And don’t forget: the failed “consensus” on Peak Oil is warning against the failing “consensus” on Peak Climate.
The post Resourceship Unbound (US oil output record in light of mineral-resource theory) appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
June 7, 2018 at 01:28AM
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Worried about food miles? The solution according to these greens is growing food in your basement under grow lights.
Driverless cars and climate change prompt push for urban farming
With autonomous vehicles promising to reshape buildings and even entire cities, and climate change beginning to bite, the opportunities for urban farming solutions are growing.
Five kilograms of mushrooms, 100 heads of lettuce and 25 trays of micro-greens. These are the spoils so far from Mirvac’s urban farm pilot set up in the basement of its 200 George Street HQ in Sydney.
The pilot program, Cultivate, has been operating for about six weeks, and has seen 200 staff sign up to get involved in fresh food production.
The farm includes veggie patches and hydroponic vertical farms, as well as mushrooms grown in coffee grounds diverted from landfill. Special grow lamps are used to stimulate plant growth in the basement environment.
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“An urban farm could be created in a building’s redundant car park and the produce used to service local kitchens and cafes within that proximity,” JLL head of property and asset management – Australia Richard Fennell said.
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I understand the urge to grow your own food, but I can’t help thinking urban farmers promoting the climate benefits of their initiative have overlooked a few details.
Running grow lights on any scale requires a stupendous amount of energy – you have to produce sunlight levels of light intensity to grow vegetables. Depending on latitude the Earth’s surface experiences up to 1000 watts per square meter of solar irradiation. While grow lights can improve on this a little, by only producing colours which are useful for plant photosynthesis, you still need a lot of energy to run a decent size bank of grow lights.
Its difficult to see how you could produce enough energy to replace millions of acres of farmland from a few wind turbines.
via Watts Up With That?
June 6, 2018 at 10:39PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 