Showing posts with label CNG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CNG. Show all posts
Whoa
So apparently crude fell ~10% today. I've heard poor economic data, OPEC raising output limits and even "sudden realization of the impact of CNG and EVs" (not joking), but that is still a whopper of a one-day move.
Decoupling of oil price and renewables
Geoff Styles has a post titled "Will $100 oil help renewables?", in which he argues the counterintuitive answer that, "no, not that much." Worth reading in full, but since I like to practice synthesis:
Today, gas predominantly sets the marginal price of power generation, and gas prices have decoupled from oil due to abundant shale gas supply. Transport is minimally electrified, so renewable power cannot yet substitute oil in that sphere. And prices for commodity input often rise along with oil, increasing renewable costs (a.k.a. the "receding horizon").
The first, I totally agree with. The second is broadly speaking true, although paths like CNG, gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids become economically viable with high oil prices and could re-strengthen the link between transport and electric power (as could increasing EV penetration over the longer term). The third is directionally true, but not absolute (and not entirely causal). Many second-gen biofuels use waste inputs which are not otherwise traded, so higher oil prices are an unmitigated boon for them. The prices of silicon and corn are often correlated with crude, but probably more because of overall economic growth than because crude drives their price. It will be interesting to see if corn starts to price off of its value as ethanol, as it did back in 2008. Not good for food security, if it does.
Today, gas predominantly sets the marginal price of power generation, and gas prices have decoupled from oil due to abundant shale gas supply. Transport is minimally electrified, so renewable power cannot yet substitute oil in that sphere. And prices for commodity input often rise along with oil, increasing renewable costs (a.k.a. the "receding horizon").
The first, I totally agree with. The second is broadly speaking true, although paths like CNG, gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids become economically viable with high oil prices and could re-strengthen the link between transport and electric power (as could increasing EV penetration over the longer term). The third is directionally true, but not absolute (and not entirely causal). Many second-gen biofuels use waste inputs which are not otherwise traded, so higher oil prices are an unmitigated boon for them. The prices of silicon and corn are often correlated with crude, but probably more because of overall economic growth than because crude drives their price. It will be interesting to see if corn starts to price off of its value as ethanol, as it did back in 2008. Not good for food security, if it does.
Legislative update
Tyler Cowen thinks that:
Also, via Morgan Downey, T. Boone Pickens is bullish on CNG legislation passing in Congress "by Memorial Day." I guess that would be good for the Pickens Plan, especially given that the wind farm leg hasn't been looking too healthy of late.
If there's one lesson from the health care debacle, it is that Waxman-Markey was and is a dead end.... and...
I believe the health care debacle should cause all of us to rethink our positions on preferred paths, sequences, and strategies. No matter what your opinion of the health care bill, it's not a pretty picture.I hope he is wrong, but he is a very smart guy.
Also, via Morgan Downey, T. Boone Pickens is bullish on CNG legislation passing in Congress "by Memorial Day." I guess that would be good for the Pickens Plan, especially given that the wind farm leg hasn't been looking too healthy of late.
Turning Oil Into Salt (3): Intellectual consistency
The authors more than once deride other points of view as lacking intellectual consistency. Sadly, I cannot give them high marks for intellectual consistency themselves. While there is much to like in both their thesis and how they defend it, there are numerous examples where they take both sides of an approach in different parts of the book to suit their persuasive goals.
(I differentiate this from couching arguments in politically/emotionally charged terms, such as referring to Obama bowing to King Abdullah as a “symbolic act of self-denigration.” This is also rampant, and I find it quite irritating for a book aspiring to be a clear-headed policy brief, but I don’t feel dissecting this is worth much further effort.)
One major inconsistency is their selective thinking on fungibility – to them oil is fungible, but corn and other agricultural commodities (and the resources used to grow them) are not.
Second, they dismiss some energy sources up front, only to subtly return to them later. They reject the Pickens Plan to build wind power and run vehicles on displaced natural gas since, despite currently producing 98% of its natural gas consumption, the U.S. only has 3% of world gas reserves and a reserve-to-production ratio of less than 10 years. And yet, in plugging methanol two chapters later, they cite natural gas as one likely feedstock (specifically the 5 tcf of natural gas that is flared each year, especially in Nigeria).
Similarly, they demolish the argument for hydrogen cars based on the energy intensity of producing elemental hydrogen, but later propose a plan to produce methanol from CO2. It sounds win-win, but aside from the energy intensity of splitting CO2 into CO and oxygen, the process then requires… you guessed it… the resulting CO to be reacted with… hydrogen.
Finally, while they generally acknowledge the importance of economics, this emphasis is not consistent through (for example, when extolling the vast photosynthetic potential and CO2-consuming benefits of algae, a more fair-handed author would have felt compelled to at least mention that algae is nowhere near cost-competitive at commercial scale).
(I differentiate this from couching arguments in politically/emotionally charged terms, such as referring to Obama bowing to King Abdullah as a “symbolic act of self-denigration.” This is also rampant, and I find it quite irritating for a book aspiring to be a clear-headed policy brief, but I don’t feel dissecting this is worth much further effort.)
One major inconsistency is their selective thinking on fungibility – to them oil is fungible, but corn and other agricultural commodities (and the resources used to grow them) are not.
Second, they dismiss some energy sources up front, only to subtly return to them later. They reject the Pickens Plan to build wind power and run vehicles on displaced natural gas since, despite currently producing 98% of its natural gas consumption, the U.S. only has 3% of world gas reserves and a reserve-to-production ratio of less than 10 years. And yet, in plugging methanol two chapters later, they cite natural gas as one likely feedstock (specifically the 5 tcf of natural gas that is flared each year, especially in Nigeria).
Similarly, they demolish the argument for hydrogen cars based on the energy intensity of producing elemental hydrogen, but later propose a plan to produce methanol from CO2. It sounds win-win, but aside from the energy intensity of splitting CO2 into CO and oxygen, the process then requires… you guessed it… the resulting CO to be reacted with… hydrogen.
Finally, while they generally acknowledge the importance of economics, this emphasis is not consistent through (for example, when extolling the vast photosynthetic potential and CO2-consuming benefits of algae, a more fair-handed author would have felt compelled to at least mention that algae is nowhere near cost-competitive at commercial scale).
Mystery car company
Kleiner Perkins and T. Boone Pickens unveil an investment in V-Vehicle Co., which apparently no one has ever heard of. Details are minimal, but given the Pickens Plan I think it has to be a mass-market car that runs on CNG, no?
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