(Letter originally printed in The Guardian but heavily edited…………) Dear Editor, Whilst commentators have been arguing about how many jobs and where, no one has raised the question of “value for money”. At £5.4m per carriage, these are the most expensive trains ever in real terms. As a comparison for the same money, 30,000 high speed luxury […]
Revealed – how the hybrid car "works"
The hybrid Toyota is a well known and claimed fuel efficient car. We all know its somehow got a battery and an engine. But what is the idea? Why does this make it more efficient? Essentially the Toyota is more efficient (well a bit) than many similar cars, because the engine operates on what is […]
Cheap Solar Concentrator for PV
“Article describes a square piece of clear, molded acrylic about a centimeter thick which when beam of light shines a directly at its flat surface, a green beam enters the acrylic and bends toward the center of the square. “If the process is repeated at different points on the surface the beam darts toward the […]
Little known (or conveniently forgotten) reason for 1926 miners strike recalled – Dr Fred Starr
If no one has anything better, here is a slightly incomplete table for coal production. This has been compiled from various sources over the past few years.
Peak was 1913 when we were exporting 100 million tons at a price of around £1 per ton. This might be equivalent to £50 per ton today (or higher?).
UK coal exports began to get uncompetitive after WWI, and was one of the main reasons for the 1926 General Strike, when the coal owners wanted to reduce wages.
Coal output was insufficient in WWII (and afterwards) and was one reason for sending one in every ten
conscripted men down the mines
UK coal reserves are now given as somewhere between 400-800 million tonnes. Not the billions that everyone supposes.
If the UK energy system was totally dependent on coal, as it used to be, these would last 2-4 years.
"would it be practical to store syngas as a method of allowing IGCC-CCS plants to respond to the overnight fall in demand?" Fred Starr responds
Claverton Hydrogen Storage on IGCC Sites
Dear Neil
You asked if it would be practical to store syngas as a method of allowing IGCC-CCS plants to respond to the overnight fall in demand
The prospects of the on-site storage of syngas, to enable an IGCC to vary its output seem limited. The gas that would have to be stored would have to be hydrogen. Otherwise, the processes by which the carbon in the syngas is removed would have continuously vary their throughput. Only the gasifier and air separation unit ( for supply of oxygen) would run at a constant output
Unfortunately, a very large amount of gas is produced when gasifying
Carbon Pathways Analysis – Informing Development of a Carbon Reduction Strategy for the Transport Sector
Carbon Pathways Analysis July 2008 Executive Summary Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Carbon Pathways by Mode Chapter 3: Carbon Pathways by Type of Journey Chapter 4: The Impact of Mode Switch on Emissions Chapter 5: International Comparisons Chapter 6: The Challenge for Transport Acknowledgements This paper has benefited greatly from the inputs of Mark Barrett […]
Christophe de Margerie (no less!) agrees with Hugh Sharman's long-stated view that we are unlikely, ever, to see 90 million bopd liquids production
“Recently, OPEC cut back oil production in an attempt to stem the oil price decline. How much might their cutbacks delay the onset of world liquid fuels production decline? Assuming the plateau model and five years to the onset of decline, each million barrels per day of oil production withholding buys roughly three weeks delay, so a steady, continuing reduction of say four million barrels per day over five years might result in a delay in the onset of world oil production decline by maybe three months. Thats not very much.”
Bill Powell explains the reason for the financial crisis, and how to get to the root cause.
It is estimated that 70% of the money that circulates is created in the form of loans ’secured’ against ‘property’. They circulate as money until the loan is paid off. If loans stop the money money in circulation dries up. That’s what happened. That’s the origin of the credit crunch.
The bubble came about by banks enticing people to take on higher and higher loans with more and more ‘affordable’ payment terms, e.g. interest only, self-certified income, low teaser (aka ‘fixed’) rates for a couple of years. They competed with each other until the loan to earnings ratio became unbelieveable. Then the bubble burst!
(IGCC) Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle for Carbon Capture & Storage
Abstract
This paper endeavours to give an objective account of the background to gasification based processes for power generation with carbon capture. Such processes are a development of IGCC plant designs in which coal or heavy fuel oil is first gasified and to produce a fuel gas for a CCGT unit. Although the IGCC concept does lend itself, very well, to high levels of carbon capture, and could lead the way to the hydrogen economy, it does create some important technical challenges. In particular, it restricts the type of gasifier that can be used to the high temperature entrained flow type. Furthermore, because the fuel gas that is produced in an IGCC consists of over 90% hydrogen, this will reduce the efficiency of the plant. Given that the hydrogen economy is some decades away, a more reasonable gasification-type option would be to produce natural gas from coal. This substitute natural gas could be used as a fuel gas in standard gas turbines (with no efficiency penalty) and can be used to supplement the UK and EU fast declining reserves of natural gas. The main drawback is that only about half as much carbon would be captured as in the IGCC “clean coal” systems currently being envisaged.
Beyond Public and Private – Chris Cook
From Beyond Public and Private Submitted by ChrisCook on Monday, 23 February, 2009 – 10:24 ByChris Cook Beyond Public and Private – Chris Cook, 20 February 2009 21st Century problems cannot be fixed by 20th Century solutions”….Dr Narsi Ghorban The Credit Crash marks the end of an era for the global financial system, and […]