hcubed's WunderBlog

They're finally finding an effective use for solar...
Posted by: hcubed, 12:20 AM GMT on December 23, 2012 +0
...and Big Oil is paying for it.

Solar and Big Oil Join Forces in Middle East

Posted: December 18, 2012 at 11:46 am

"...Solar technology can use heat from the sun to extract heavy crude from aging fields—and the idea is gaining ground and investment from big oil companies like Shell..."

Last week, Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (RDSA), RockPort Capital and a few others invested a total of $26 million in California-based GlassPoint Solar Inc. The investment will spur the company’s expansion in the Middle East - and it’s all about crude oil extraction."

A quick note here: $26 million is just about the same amount that bankrupt Evergreen Solar ($25 million) got as a loan guarantee.

"...What the energy majors are eyeing in particular is GlassPoint’s Enclosed Trough Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process. In less acronymic terms, it is technology that uses solar to tap into wells that have already been “played out” but in which at least one-third of their potential heavy oil is not recoverable by conventional drilling and pumping means.

Typically, tapping into “played out” wells is done by using natural gas to boil water into pressurized steam to flood the well and make the oil more fluid for pumping..."

So here's something else that oughta make them cheer - no more fracking.

"...And recent studies show that solar EOR may be better than natural gas EOR. Specifically, solar EOR can produce 16% more oil from a played-out well than natural gas processes — and there is no fuel cost. So the process works better and is more economically viable..."

AND it saves the oil companies money, too. What's not to like?

"...GlassPoint, though, is not the pioneer of this technology. ARCO came up with it in the early 1980s, but it wasn’t cost-effective. But since then, BrightSource Energy (BSE) has taken the technology to new heights and taps into aging wells for Chevron (NYSE:CVX) in the Coalinga oil field. BSE has spent $67.3 million on this project, which began in earnest last year.

GlassPoint already has a 300 kilowatt solar EOR project in Kern County, California, and another project close to completion in an oil field south of Oman. It is now seeking to expand to Kuwait and Bahrain where its technology will reduce oil production costs. GlassPoint also notes that this technology will save on gas used in the Middle East to produce oil. That gas can instead be exported.

Along with Shell and RockPort, Nth Power, and Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital also chipped in for the GlassPoint investment.

The lesson in all of this: There is a confluence of interests between the fossil fuel big boys and renewable energy — who are anything but eternal enemies. When you can calculate that renewable energy can improve big oil’s bottom line, that’s when you’re half way to a feasible energy future..."

source was here: Link
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More extreme weather seen, probably caused by CO2
Posted by: hcubed, 5:30 AM GMT on December 20, 2012 +0
Problem is, it really cannot fall under the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global WARMING.

"...Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits

Published: 19 December, 2012, 19:00

Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized.

­The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.

Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.

The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.

­The Emergency Ministry has issued warnings in 15 regions, which have been put on high alert over possible disruptions of communication and power.

Across the country, heat pipelines have broken down due to the cold. In southeastern Russia’s Samara, the cold has broken down many heat pipelines, leaving hundreds of homes without heating, including an orphanage and a rest house. Many schools and kindergartens have been closed for almost a week.

The cold spell, along with snowfalls, has disrupted flights all over the country, and led to huge traffic jams. In the southern city of Rostov-on-Don some highways were closed due to snowfalls over the past two days, triggering a traffic collapse.

Over the weekend, meteorologists predict temperatures will plunge even lower in the Moscow region, hitting -25. The Russian capital is also expected to be swept with snow, RIA Novosti reported.

Temperatures have been 7 degrees lower than the norm for five days already, which is considered an anomaly, according to the Meteonovosti.ru website. The cold spell in the Moscow region is expected to continue for at least three more days.

Due to the high humidity, these freezing temperatures will feel even colder than they actually are, meteorologists explained..."

Bet this sure feels better than those Russian Heat Waves we were hearing about. Let's see which has a higher death toll - the catastrophic heat wave or this brief cold snap (after all, the cold is only weather, while the heat wave was climate change.)

And, once again, the evil CO2 isn't mentioned when discussing this severe weather.
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Wildfires ARE influenced by man...
Posted by: hcubed, 4:49 PM GMT on December 13, 2012 +0
...but not the way you're led to believe.

First, remember that we're being told that every single wildfire in the world is caused directly by the increased CO2 in the atmosphere (the CAGW theory).

Well, some scientists actually did a study and found that non-native grasses play a bigger part than they thought:

"...Researchers found that a non-native species of grass in the Great Basin fueled some of the largest U.S. wildfires in the West.

A research team that included members from the Pennsylvania State University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of California-Santa Barbara and University College London studied satellite imagery over a period of 10 years to learn how cheatgrass has changed the fire activity across the Great Basin, according to live.psu.edu.

The team found that the grass influenced 39 of the 50 largest wildfires during the last decade. Cheatgrass can spread rapidly and fill in the ground between other plant species. As a result, areas where cheatgrass fires have occurred have a shorter fire-return interval (the time between fires in a region) than other native plant species.

Cheatgrass was accidentally introduced to the area by settlers to the West during the 1800s. The grass grows during the wet seasons and is very dense. Currently, the grass is covering an area larger than 40,000 square kilometers (more than 24,000 square miles), an area more than 100 times the size of Salt Lake City, Utah.

The average size of fires involving cheatgrass grasslands in the Great Basin area was significantly larger than fires in areas that were dominated with other plants such as pinyon-juniper, montane shrubland or agricultural land.

Cheatgrass fires over the last decade have affected parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, California and Oregon.

The researchers are looking at possible solutions to the cheatgrass problem, including using a fungus to attack the grass seed, the BBC reports..."

From here:

msm.com

and here's the BBC take on the same story:

BBC

And the really scary part? Neither story mentioned the evil CO2 or Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming as the culprit.

And that's unprecedented.
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They're kidding, right?
Posted by: hcubed, 2:20 AM GMT on December 12, 2012 +0
Check out this extraordinarily hilarious YouTube video:

Link

then read their "about" posting (copied below)

"...FINALLY: A TV ad that tells it like it is: EXXON HATES YOUR CHILDREN. Go to http://ExxonHatesYourChildren.com if you want to see it on national television! (And go straight to http://bit.ly/XuuWsK to donate.)

What would YOU spend the $10 Billion on instead?..."

Well, to paraphrase their content, an answer:

Here in the US Govt, we hate your children. We all know the climate crisis will rip their world apart but we don’t care, because it’s making our supporters rich. That’s right, in the past four years we've given "green companies" billions in subsidies. That’s your tax dollars lining their pockets, making a fortune destroying your kids’ future. In the Govt, that’s what we call ‘good business’..."

So what would you do with 10 billion?

Let the Govt decide that for you. Want to see some real subsidies? Check out the amounts of direct taxpayer funding several companies received from the Obama Administration. The 19 asterisked companies have already filed for bankruptcy. The others are near bankruptcy:

1.Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10.Amonix ($5.9 million)
11.Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12.Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13.A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17.ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18.Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22.Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23.Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25.Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26.GreenVolts ($500,000)
27.Vestas ($50 million)
28.LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29.Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30.Navistar ($39 million)
31.Satcon ($3 million)*
32.Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33.Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

10 billion to Exxon is bad, but over 8 billion to failed (or close to failing) green companies is good?

I'm really wondering who hates your kids more than the Govt. I mean, just the money given to Evergreen Solar ($25 million) would have funded almost a third of the money given to Mississippi for a year of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (the WIC program) - $88,193,230.
Updated: 1:03 PM GMT on December 12, 2012   Permalink | A A A