11 posts tagged “energy”

HOUSTON – Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago.

The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world's largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007...

TVA Dike Burst in Tennessee

By J. Miles Cary (AP)
Published: 2008-12-22 10:30:05
Location: HARRIMAN, Tenn.

A retention pond wall collapsed early Monday morning at a power plant run by the nation's largest public utility, releasing a frigid mix of water and ash that flooded as many as 10 homes and put hundreds of acres of rural land under water.

The 40-acre pond was used by the Tennessee Valley Authority to hold a slurry of ash generated by the coal-burning Kingston Steam Plant in Harriman, about 50 miles west of Knoxville, said TVA spokesman Gil Francis. An earthen wall gave way just before 1 a.m., flooding the road and railroad tracks leading to the plant, which is located in a mostly rural area.

Authorities said no one was seriously injured or needed to be taken to the hospital.

Emergency workers helped people out of two partially collapsed homes and used four-wheel drive vehicles to check other homes where people couldn't drive out, said Roane County Rescue Squad spokesman Brian Grief.

Officials originally said 15 homes were flooded, but Grief said the number is about 8 to 10.

He said rescue workers had begun evacuating a subdivision of about five houses...

T. Boone PIckens is a part of what is worst in our country.  I think he is a liar (half-truths) and a megalomaniac.  Here is an older YouTube video that can serve as a reminder of who and what T. Boone Pickens really is.  (T. Boone funded the swiftboat ads that smeared and slandered John Kerry)  The second video exposes the Pickens Plan for what it is.

The power bill increase is the result of a 20 percent rate hike passed down from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to parts of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

That's right! now that we are conserving our gas and staying home, we get a double digit increase in our electric bills.  It looks like our bill will increase anywhere from $20 - $45 a month depending on the season.

It could be the end of the week before supplies can once again meet the demand.  Atlanta and Tallahassee, Fla. also have gas shortages, but AAA said Nashville is in worse shape. The average price for a gallon of regular gas in Nashville Monday was $4.08; in Knoxville, it was $3.53.

Nigerian oil rebels hit more facilities
September 17, 2008

LAGOS (AFP) — Armed Nigerian militants who have declared an "oil war" in the restive south of the country claimed Wednesday to have blown up a major pipeline in their latest attack on oil installations in the region.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the most prominent of the groups operating in the creeks and swamps of the Niger Delta, said it blew up a pipeline it believes is operated by Royal Dutch Shell and Italy's Agip.

"A very major trunk crude oil pipeline we believe may belong to both Agip and Shell has been blown up today... at about 9:30 am (0830 GMT)... at Rumuekpe, in Rivers state," said MEND in a statement emailed to the media.

The latest attack, a rare daylight one, was not immediately confirmed by the military deployed in the region.

Hours earlier MEND reported having acted with a new ally to have which destroyed a Royal Dutch Shell oil flow station in the African nation's main producing region.

As with other attacks since they declared an "oil war" on Sunday, the rebels moved in with speed boats, dynamite and hand grenades in their attack on the Orubiri flow station, the army said.

The attack on Orubiri was the third on a Shell target in 48 hours. US Chevron has also seen attacks close to its installations this week...

CFLs or Compact fluorescent lights, you know the "curly bulbs" that are all the rage.  Legislation was passed that phases out all incandescent lighting by 2012.  The problem?  You can't just throw them away in some states and I'm sure other states will be passing laws that prohibit public disposal.  If so you will need to schedule a Non-Hazardous Waste pickup and a EPA Bill of Lading Manifest will need to be completed before the pickup.  Another option is transporting the waste to a local recycling center.  Also, did you know if one breaks you are supposed to evacuate the entire room for 15 minutes and close off any ventilation.  Wait that's not all... if you live in an apartment building you are supposed to call maintenance to turn off the air conditioning if you break one of those bulbs.  I would like to listen in on that phone call.  The EPA has dedicated a page to those wonderful new squiggly bulbs and thermometers; as a bonus they also list things you should never do when cleaning up a broken lightbulb.

I'm going to copy and paste from the EPA site their instructions for how to clean up and dispose of a CFL. I'm also posting the information on what never to do.  The link to the EPA webpage with the full information is at the bottom of the page and in the link above.  This is information that every American should be required to know.  If you have children or pets I wouldn't put one in any lamp that could accidently get knocked over.

Fluorescent light bulbs contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing. EPA recommends the following clean-up and disposal below.

Before Clean-up: Air Out the Room

• Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
• Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
• Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

• Carefully scoop up glass pieces and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
• Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place towels in the glass jar or plastic bag.
• Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug

• Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
• If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum (? see below what not to do) the area where the bulb was broken.
• Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

Clean-up Steps for Clothing, Bedding and Other Soft Materials

• If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away. Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage.
• You can, however, wash clothing or other materials that have been exposed to the mercury vapor from a broken CFL, such as the clothing you are wearing when you cleaned up the broken CFL, as long as that clothing has not come into direct contact with the materials from the broken bulb.
• If shoes come into direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from the bulb, wipe them off with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place the towels or wipes in a glass jar or plastic bag for disposal.

Disposal of Clean-up Materials

• Immediately place all clean-up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area for the next normal trash pickup. (Unless you live in a state that prohibits public disposal)
  
• Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
• Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states do not allow such trash disposal. Instead, they require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming

• The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window before vacuuming.
• Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

Now for the instructions on WHAT NOT TO DO.

What Never to Do with a Mercury Spill

• Never use a vacuum (? see what to do) cleaner to clean up mercury.  The vacuum will put mercury into the air and increase exposure.

• Never use a broom to clean up mercury. It will break the mercury into smaller droplets and spread them.

• Never pour mercury down a drain. It may lodge in the plumbing and cause future problems during plumbing repairs. If discharged, it can cause pollution of the septic tank or sewage treatment plant.

• Never wash clothing or other items that have come in direct contact with mercury in a washing machine, because mercury may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage. Clothing that has come into direct contact with mercury should be discarded. By "direct contact," we mean that mercury was (or has been) spilled directly on the clothing. For example:
  • if you broke a mercury thermometer and some of elemental mercury beads came in contact with your clothing, or
  • if you broke a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) so that broken glass and other material from the bulb, including mercury-containing powder, came into contact with your clothing.

  You can, however, wash clothing or other materials that have been exposed to the mercury vapor from a broken CFL, like the clothing you happened to be wearing when you cleaned up the broken CFL, as long as that clothing has not come into direct contact with the materials from the broken bulb.

• Never walk around if your shoes might be contaminated with mercury. Contaminated clothing can also spread mercury around.

Here's the Link the full page on the EPA site:  Mercury spills, disposal and site cleanup.

Got all that? now go get green and think how lucky we are that Corporate America lobbyist are so environmentally friendly.

Now don't you feel better about what a great job the people in charge are doing about finding things to help us "folks" be green.  I hate the word folks, when used by politicians, we are people. (I also hate the word troops they are soldiers, a soldier dies not a troop... but that's another post for another day...

By 2012 everyone will be using these lighs.  One broken bulb or one burnt out bulb being disposed of improperly is no big deal but remember by 2012 all incandescent lignting is going to be phased out.  Millions of Americans will be disposing of these bulbs minus any kind of regulated control.  Think about it.

We have to find a better way.  Yea... this is receiving my "I'm Just Saying" tag.

President George W. Bush ended a private meeting at the G-8 summit with these words:

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Prime Minister of Great Britan & Northern Ireland Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Mr Bush, whose second and final term as President ends at the end of the year, then left the meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Hokkaido where the leaders of the world's richest nations had been discussing new targets to cut carbon emissions...

...The White House apologized for what it called "sloppy work" and said an official had simply lifted the characterization from the internet without reading it...

Full Story Here

I think George W. Bush just wrapped up the award as "Worst President Ever"  Descendants of Warren G. Harding are going to be having one hell of a celebration this weekend.  WooHoo!!!

No links to a story, just a quick observation / opinion.

Remember the "Gas Tax Holiday" outrage?  The point being made that people would just drive more.  Well, I saw a report on CNN about "Gas Giveaways" and how great they are.  They could hardly contain their excitement that if you buy a new golf club you can get a hundred dollars worth of free gas.

Yeah, whatever!

and you wonder why people call you elitist.  I really wish a certain ANY political leader would express some outrage about this kind of waste.

Keep in mind that right now it looks like the price of oil will be between $130.00 $133.00 and $135.00 per barrel today.  Just 30 days ago, when this testimony was given, oil was $124.00 per barrel.

Real Time Price of Oil Click Here

Rising Oil Prices, Declining National Security
May 22, 2008

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, about ten years ago, Osama bin Laden stated that his target price for oil is $144 a barrel and that the American people, who allegedly robbed the Muslim people of their oil, owe each Muslim man, woman, and child $30,000 in back payments. At the time, $144 a barrel seemed farfetched to most. Today, bin Laden is a mere $20 a barrel short of his target and there is little doubt it will be attained. I would like to impress upon this Committee that $144 a barrel oil will be perceived as a victory for the Jihadist movement and a reaffirmation that the economic warfare component of its campaign against the West is a resounding success. There is no need to elaborate on the implications of such a victory in terms of loss of U.S. prestige and our ability to prevail in the Long War of the 21st century. It is therefore imperative that the U.S. Congress do its utmost to forestall such a setback.

Deeply embroiled in a struggle against radical Islam, nuclear proliferation, and totalitarianism, the U.S. faces a crude reality: While its relations with the Muslim world are at an all-time low, more than 70 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and over a third of production are concentrated in Muslim countries. The very same Shi‘a and Sunni theocratic and dictatorial regimes that most strongly resist America’s efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East are the ones that, because of the market’s tightness, currently drive the world oil economy. While the U.S. economy bleeds, oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran—sympathetic to, and directly supportive, of radical Islam—are on the receiving end of staggering windfalls. In 2006, the United States spent about $260 billion on foreign crude oil and refined petroleum products. This year, with oil hovering over $125 a barrel, the figure could surpass $500 billion, the equivalent of our defense budget. At today's prices, foreign oil producers are extracting a tax of more than $1,600 a year from every American man, woman and child.

While we in the U.S., which enjoys a per capita income of over $40,000 a year, are feeling the sharp pinch of high oil prices, we should all consider the impact of these prices on the world’s poor. People throughout the world who live on $2 a day are suffering far more than we can imagine as their economies hemorrhage. This has profound implications for global security, driving regional unrest, increasing poverty, and nipping in the bud progress towards democracy. Countries that are still carrying debts from the 1970’s oil shocks, are being now looted by OPEC price fixing. In fact, we are witnessing a tremendous transfer of wealth from the world’s poorest to the world’s producers of oil.

OPEC, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, is deliberately keeping oil supply tight to prop up prices. Not only is Saudi production lower today than it was two years ago, despite the increase in demand, but the cartel has effectively deleted 2.4mbd from the global oil market in what amounts to an accounting scam. In 2007, OPEC expanded its member roster to include Ecuador and Angola – together the two had accounted for nearly 2.4mbd of non-OPEC oil. Yet, total OPEC production remained constant, allowing existing members to reduce production. This translates into a net reduction in non-OPEC supply with no equivalent increase in OPEC supply. This is equivalent to the production of Norway disappearing off the market . Further, while non-OPEC production has doubled over the last thirty years, as the graph below shows, OPEC production today is virtually identical to its production thirty years ago, even as the global economy has grown and with it demand for oil.

The flow of petrodollars from consuming economies to the coffers of producers not only casts a large shadow over America’s prospects of winning the war on terrorism but it also limits U.S. diplomatic maneuverability on central issues like human rights and nuclear proliferation. Perhaps the most powerful statement of the impact on America’s ability to accomplish its foreign policy goals came from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who in April 2006 told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:  “We do have to do something about the energy problem. I can tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more, as Secretary of State, than the way that the politics of energy is . . . “warping” diplomacy around the world. It has given extraordinary power to some states that are using that power in not very good ways for the international system, states that would otherwise have very little power.”

One of these states is Iran. With 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves and the world’s second largest natural gas reserve, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems unfazed by the prospects of international sanctions against his country as a result of its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. At high oil prices, leaders of human-rights violating countries like Azerbaijan, Chad, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, too, can persecute their people with impunity. Another setback to democracy was delivered last May when Kazakhstan’s leader Nursultan Nazarbayev declared himself president for life. The control over a large part of the world’s oil and gas market allows Russia to bully its European neighbors, to play “hard to get” on Iran, and to undermine democracy in former Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia. Should Russia and other major gas producers like Iran go forth with plans to create an OPEC like natural gas cartel, we can expect further consolidation of power among the energy producers. Oil also lubricates the so-called Bolivarian revolution led by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who is using Venezuela’s oil wealth to buy political influence in the Western Hemisphere and to consolidate an anti-U.S. bloc in the region.

U.S. diplomacy is further complicated by the indefatigable thirst for energy of emerging countries like China and India, which are becoming increasingly dependent on the very same countries the United States is trying to rein in. The growing appetite of developing Asian powers not only plays into the hands of the aforementioned rogue producing nations, but also feeds what could become a global competition for control of energy resources. Rogue nations like Iran and Sudan can now buy themselves the support of a third of humanity – not to mention the protection of Chinese veto power on the U.N. Security Council – by signing energy deals with China and India. India now at stands at a crossroads. As its electricity demand grows it faces three options. It can tie itself to Iran, the holder of the world’s second largest natural gas reserve, via the proposed 1600 mile long Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. Last month, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad visited India and Pakistan in an effort to seal the deal on this project. The implications of such a pipeline should be very clear: decades long dependence of one billion Indians on Iran. Alternatively, India can continue to develop its coal reserves and expand coal power generation. This is a sound approach from an energy security perspective; however, India has been coming under global pressure – including that of the U.S. government - to curb its greenhouse gas emissions. India’s third option is to expand nuclear power development, in collaboration with the U.S. At this point, foot dragging in Delhi is delaying ratification of a nuclear agreement with the U.S. It appears that the Iranian option may hold sway. As the largest democracy in the world, India is a vital ally to the United States. Congress should explore all options – including encouraging India and Pakistan to pursue an alternative pipeline route from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan – to ensure that India does not tie its economic future to Iran.

Stripping oil of its strategic value

The unique strategic importance of oil to the modern economy—beyond that of any other commodity today—stems from the fact that the global economy’s very enabler, the transportation sector, is utterly dependent on it, with 220 million cars and trucks in the United States alone (today, contrary to popular belief, only 2 percent of U.S. electricity is generated from oil, and conversely only about 2 percent of U.S. oil demand is due to electricity generation.) With 97 percent of U.S. transportation energy based on petroleum, oil is the lifeblood of America’s economy. America is poor in oil relative to its need. It consumes one of every four gallons in the world but has barely 3 percent of the world’s proven reserves of conventional oil. The United States now imports over 60 percent of its oil, more than twice the ratio of imports before the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo.

Neither efforts to expand petroleum supply nor those to crimp petroleum demand will be enough to reduce America’s strategic vulnerability anytime soon. When the British Navy made the shift from coal to oil, then Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill famously remarked, “safety and certainty in oil lies in variety and variety alone.” To diminish the strategic importance of oil to the international system it is now critical to expand the Churchillian doctrine beyond geographical variety to a variety of fuels and feedstocks.

Oil’s strategic value derives from its virtual monopoly on transportation fuel. This monopoly, which gives intolerable power to OPEC and the nations that dominate oil ownership and production, must be broken. Not long ago, technology broke the power of another strategic commodity. Until around the end of the nineteenth century salt had such a position because it was the only means of preserving meat. Odd as it seems today, salt mines conferred national power and wars were even fought over control of them.  Today, no nation sways history because it has salt mines. Salt is still a useful commodity for a range of purposes. We import some salt, so if one defines independence as autarky we are not “salt independent”. But to most of us there is no “salt dependence” problem at all — because canning, electricity and refrigeration decisively ended salt’s monopoly of meat preservation, and thus its strategic importance. We can and must do the same thing to oil.

17 X 17

Today’s vehicles have an average lifespan of 17 years and, for the most part, can run only on petroleum. Every year 17 million new cars roll onto America’s roads. For a cost of less than $100 extra as compared to a gasoline-only vehicle, automakers can make virtually any car a flex fuel vehicle, capable of running on any combination of gasoline and a variety of alcohols such as ethanol and methanol, made from a variety of feedstocks, from agricultural material, to waste, to coal. (Alcohol does not just mean ethanol, and ethanol does not just mean corn.) Flex fuel vehicles provide a platform on which fuels can compete and let consumers and the market choose the winning fuels and feedstocks based on economics. In Brazil, where ethanol is widely used, the share of flex fuel vehicles in new car sales rose from 4 percent to 67 percent in just three years, and this year stands at about 90 percent. These cars are manufactured by the same automakers that sell to the U.S. market and entail no size, power, or safety compromise by consumers. The proliferation of flex fuel vehicles in Brazil has driven fuel competition at the pump to the point where the Brazilian oil industry has had to keep gasoline prices sufficiently low to compete with ethanol in order not to lose more market share, so low that it actually just received a government subsidy to do so. Competition in Brazil is working so well that a big Brazilian sugar and ethanol firm just bought out the distribution assets of Exxon in Brazil.

Expanding U.S. fuel choice to include biofuels imported from developing countries has significant geopolitical benefits at a time when U.S. global standing is eroding. Sugar, from which ethanol can be cheaply and efficiently produced, is now grown in one hundred countries, many of which are poor and on the receiving end of U.S. development aid. Encouraging these countries to increase their output and become fuel suppliers, opening our fuel market to them by removing the protectionist 54 cent a gallon ethanol tariff, could have far-reaching implications for their economic development. By creating economic interdependence with biomass-producing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere, the United States can strengthen its position in the developing world and provide significant help in reducing poverty.

At this point, the fallacy that increased use of biofuels in general, and corn ethanol in particular, is driving world hunger must be addressed.  The primary drivers of price increases for food commodities spanning the spectrum from fish to rice (neither of which are used to make fuel) and beyond are the massive increases in oil prices -- raising the cost of distribution, labor, packaging and so forth; commodity speculation driven by a weak dollar and increased calorie demand from hundreds of millions of people in China and India who have risen out of poverty and bare subsistence. Further, despite corn ethanol production, the U.S. corn food and feed product has increased 34 percent over the last five years, and U.S. food exports overall have increased 23 percent on the year. America is clearly doing its share to feed the world.

The International Energy Agency has reiterated that biofuels are key to keeping the lid on an overheated transportation fuel market. According to Merrill Lynch, without the increase in biofuels production, oil prices would have been 15 percent higher, which at current oil prices translates into a savings of over $80 billion a year to the U.S. economy. The much derided biofuels program which has facilitated this $80 billion saving, costs the taxpayer $4 billion a year. By any reasonable standard it is a far better deal to send money to America’s farmers than to various petro-dictators.

Since we hardly generate any electricity from oil, using electricity as a transportation fuel enables the full spectrum of electricity sources to compete with petroleum. Plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) can reach oil economy levels of 100 miles per gallon of gasoline without compromising the size, safety, or power of a vehicle. The key is changing our thinking from miles per gallon to miles per gallon of oil-based fuel – it is not the total energy consumption of the vehicle which is the problem, it is the portion of that energy that comes from petroleum. If a PHEV is also a flexible-fuel vehicle powered by 85 percent alcohol and 15 percent gasoline, oil economy could reach over 500 miles per gallon of gasoline. Ideally, plug-in hybrids would be charged at night in home or apartment garages, when electric utilities have significant reserve capacity. The Department of Energy estimates that over 70 percent of the U.S. vehicle market could shift to plug-in hybrids without needing to install additional baseload electricity-generating capacity.

Thinking Out of the Barrel

A nationwide deployment of flex-fuel cars, flex fuel plug-in hybrids, and alternative fuels could take place within two decades. But such a transformation will not occur by itself. In a perfect world government would not need to intervene in the energy market, but in a time of war, the United States is taking an unacceptable risk by leaving the problem to be solved by the invisible hand. This is especially true since the energy market is anything but free. It is manipulated by a cartel, heavily rigged in favor of the status quo, and, as the case of the ethanol tariff shows, riddled with protectionism.

Every year that passes without Congressional action to ensure that new cars sold in America are flex fuel vehicles is another year in which 17 million gasoline-only cars start their 17-year life on U.S. roads, further binding us to foreign oil. On the grounds of national security and in the interest of stemming the hemorrhaging of our economy, Congress should take swift action to require that new vehicles sold in the United States are flexible fuel vehicles. Such an Open Fuel Standard would level the playing field and promote free competition among diverse energy suppliers. Choosing not to embrace an Open Fuel Standard, is choosing to preserve oil’s monopoly in the transportation sector, and with it OPEC’s growing stranglehold over the global economy.

Anne Korin is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) and editor of Energy Security. She is also chair of the Set America Free Coalition, an alliance of national security, environmental, labor and religious groups promoting ways to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Korin focuses on energy supply vulnerabilities, OPEC, Africa, maritime terrorism, energy security, energy strategies and technological innovation. She appears in the media frequently and has written articles for Foreign Affairs, The American Interest, The National Review, Commentary Magazine, and the Journal of International Security Affairs. Ms. Korin has advised myriad high tech companies, and has worked on a wide variety of projects for corporations including Exxon International (Esso,) KPMG, and Goldman Sachs. She appears frequently on Capitol Hill and her advice is sought by members of Congress. Her education includes engineering degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and work towards a doctorate at Stanford University.