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.”

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Hydrogen pipeline transmission issues

A paper from Calin Cormos and Dr. Fred Starr. It points out that one of the main problems with hydrogen is transmitting it over long distances in pipelines. As such it implies that the outlet pressure from a ossification plant will have to be at least 70 bar, and because of the pressure drop and […]

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BBC talks about Dynamic Demand (smart fridges) and Smart Metering.

BBC programme “You and Yours” discussed the issues in a pretty comprehensive and well researched manner..  A representative from David Hirst’s (A Claverton Member)  RLTek company described how the frequency sensitive device, fitted to fridges, which are now being sold in UK can help the grid. Also talked to the Opposition spokesman on energy about Smart […]

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Time is running out for UK flagship wind project London Array

Gregory Barker, the Shadow minister for climate change writing in the Sunday Times, 1st Feb, “Brown has a Power Failure” points out that unless a decision is made soon to go ahead with the London Array in the Thames Estuary, then National Grid will miss the slot allocated to upgrade the Grid in time. Apparently […]

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National Grid comes out for Biogas in a big way – 50% of UK gas demand

Acording to National Grid “Renewable gas has the potential to make a significant contribution to the UK’s renewable energy and carbon reduction targets for 2020. And in the longer term, with the right government policies in place, renewable gas could meet up to 50% of UK residential gas demand. Produced mainly via a process of […]

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Cost of utility's (WPD) fatal imcompetence – a mere £270,000

From the wonderful Electrical Review Column – Gossage “The late Professor Roland Levinsky was a pioneering immunologist, and vice-chancellor of the University of Plymouth. He died because, in atrocious weather conditions, he walked into a live 11,000 volt power cable left dangling across a footpath near Wembury, Devon. It was not as if the cable […]

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Falling Hydro, Rising Renewables wind from 4.3% to 32.7% net in renewables, excl. hydro in 10 years.

Wind generation is rapidly gaining a larger share of total renewable generation. In 2007, wind accounted for 32.7 percent of total net generation from non-hydroelectric renewable sources, as compared to 4.3 percent in 1997. The annual growth in solar thermal and photovoltaic generation has been sufficient for this renewable source to account, on average, for 0.5 percent of all non-hydroelectric renewable energy.

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