An ECB economist joins the trend of blaming both fundamentals and speculators: “some speculative and trend chasing behaviour may have been adding to oil prices” since 2004.
Solarcentury
The company I founded in 1998 to design and supply solar energy solutions for the built environment. Solarcentury
Solar Aid
The charity I founded in 2006, with a 5% contribution of Solarcentury profits, to help deliver solar lighting to Africa. Solar Aid
Archive for August, 2011
ECB study concludes that speculators amplify fundamentals-based oil price rises.
August 23, 2011 OilNaoto Kan makes a bill pushing renewables a condition of his departure as PM.
August 23, 2011 Clean EnergyAnd it duly takes its first step past a Lower House Committee. The government wants its feed-in tariff scheme to boost capacity of five renewable energy types by more than 30 GW over a decade, adding more than 12 percent to Japan’s total pre-Fukushima generation capacity of 240,000 MW.
“Saving capitalism from itself”: article in Management Today.
August 23, 2011 FinanceSimon Caulkin: “Who’d have thought that, 20 years after the collapse of capitalism’s only direct rival, Karl Marx’s famous prediction that the system would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions would have become so much less unthinkable?”
Big 6 write down £600m in coal assets.
August 22, 2011 CoalEU CO2 measures mean falling profitability of coal stations in the medium-term. EDF Energy has booked a £340m write-down on its Cottam and West Burton coal-fired power stations. RWE npower and Eon have writedowns too.
World’s largest solar farm switches from solar thermal to PV.
August 22, 2011 Clean EnergySolar Millennium AG changes its plans for the proposed 1GW Blythe solar farm in California, and will install the first 500MW of the facility using PV panels. The reason is plunging PV prices.
Essar Energy shares fall as Indian government witholds permission to develop coal reserves.
August 22, 2011 Coal, FinanceThe reserves in question lie below thick rainforest. Essar now cannot mine coal in time for a power plant to use, and will have to buy on the open market.
Customer demand pushes German railways to target zero carbon.
August 22, 2011 Clean EnergyDeutsche Bahn says it wants to raise the percentage of wind, hydro and solar energy to power its trains from 20% now to 28% in 2014 and become carbon-free by 2050. Some local railways in Hamburg and Saarland already run on 100 percent renewable energy, proudly boasting about that in advertising. DB’s trains transport 1.9 billion passengers and 415 million tonnes of freight each year at speeds of up to 300 kph (186 mph), using 2% of all German electricity: 12 terawatt hours, as much as Berlin with its 3.2 million residents consumes. DB are exploring the harvesting of solar power from the roofs of their 5,700 stations.
Japan says some areas near Fukushima will remain uninhabitable for many years.
August 22, 2011 NuclearThe 90,000 evacuated residents had all been expecting to return home. Of 50 sites monitored, 35 have levels exceeding 20 millisieverts of radiation exposure a year, the level at which the government considers evacuation becomes necessary. At Okuma, a town 3km from the nuclear power plant, the reading was 508.1 millisieverts per year. With the stable cooling of the reactors completed in July, the government expects a cold shutdown of the plant to be completed in January.
Sea-level rise is turning the rivers of the Mekong delta saline.
August 21, 2011 ClimateClimate change is turning the rivers of the Mekong Delta rice bowl salty, spelling disaster for millions of poor farmers as the saline waters spread slowly upstream. Only Jamaica is more threatened by a 1 metre rise.
UK defence ministry opposes windfarms because they “interfere” with detection of nuclear tests.
August 19, 2011 Change for GoodHundreds of turbines have been turned down on application because of the MoD’s concerns for its Eskdaleuir array, the Guardian reveals.
FTSE 100 falls below 5,000 amid fears of double dip recession.
August 19, 2011 FinanceGold reaches a new high as traders shun stocks. Pundits talk of many pointers to the failing health of capital markets.
Solar PV price declines will outpace demand growth, analysts say.
August 18, 2011 Clean Energy“The global solar market for grid-connected systems will grow from 15.8 GW in 2010 to 37.5 GW in 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 15.5 percent,” says Lux Research Analyst Matt Feinstein. “However, price declines will outpace volume increases, at least at first. The industry will actually shrink on a revenue basis from $64.4 billion in 2010 to $56.9 billion in 2012.” Eight countries will be at grid parity, in the residential sector, by 2016.
China sounds India out on the prospect of joint military patrols to safeguard oil tankers.
August 18, 2011 OilThe Hindustan Times reports this proposal, for Indian Ocean transit, so OilPrice.com relays. China’s oil imports rose to 55.2 percent for the first five months of 2011, of 9.61 mbd.
Self-inflicted political backlash now threatens Big 6s’ viability, analysts believe.
August 17, 2011 Clean Energy, Coal, Gas, NuclearThe FT reports that analysts think the Big 6 energy companies’ integrated models are now under serious threat. Much of the attacking by politicians is self inflicted. Ofgem is looking at forcing the Big 6 to auction 20% of their electricity, and Labour 100%. This when £200bn must be invested in new energy infrastructure by 2020.
Fukushima cooling system was probably crippled before the tsunami struck.
August 17, 2011 NuclearA investigation by the Independent: “Throughout the months of lies and misinformation, one story has stuck: it was the earthquake that knocked out the plant’s electric power, halting cooling to its six reactors. The tsunami then washed out the plant’s back-up generators 40 minutes later, shutting down all cooling and starting the chain of events that would cause the world’s first triple meltdown.” But plant workers are telling reporters that the cooling system had failed pre tsunami.
UK banks still fund cluster bomb makers.
August 16, 2011 Change for GoodRBS, Lloyds TSB, Barclays and HSBC have all provided hundreds of millions of pounds to companies that manufacture cluster bombs. This despite a growing global ban outlawing the production and trade therein.
“Saudi Arabia is Opec’s real winner”: FT.
August 16, 2011 OilWith production up to 9.8 mbd last month, almost as high as its record in 1981, selling at over $100 a barrel, the Kingdom is faring much better than rival Iran, where production is down to its lowest level in 8.5 years, at 3.5 mbd. Saudi is the sole swing producer now, says Paul Horsnell of Barclays Capital.
Leaking Shell pipeline is biggest North Sea oil spill for a decade.
August 15, 2011 Oil1,300 barrels leaks from the pipeline by the time Shell fixes it. Greenpeace criticises Shell for being too slow to announce the discovery.
BP suffering from such a skills shortage that growth is threatened.
August 14, 2011 OilSo the head of operations in the North Sea professes. A dearth of UK engineering skills is the core of the problem.
“We’ve been warned: the system is ready to blow”.
August 14, 2011 Finance“Only a new way of managing the global economy can prevent more mayhem in the markets and on the streets,” writes Larry Elliot in the Guardian. “Wall Street and the City will resist all attempts at clipping their wings. There is strong ideological resistance to the policies that make decent wages in a full employment economy feasible: capital controls, allowing strong trade unions, wage subsidies, and protectionism.”
Demonstration in China forces closure of chemical plant after near flood by sea.
August 14, 2011 Change for Good, Climate, OilThe petrochemical plant was feared by the population, and then a tropical storm nearly flooded it. 12,000 gathered, convened by Chinese social media (Twitter being banned in China), and the local government quickly closed the plant.