The Oil Drum: Europe

This is a guest article by Jeremy Wakeford. Jeremy is an economist specializing in energy and sustainable development and is Research Director of ASPO South Africa.

South Africa has been in the news a lot recently because of its electricity supply problems throughout 2008. Most South African electricity comes from coal-fired power stations. Jeremy discusses the role of coal in South Africa's energy mix, long-term trends in production and consumption, and how underground coal gasification might help solve South Africa's energy problems.

The habit of bargaining has become so engrained that statements of shortage are quite commonly read as bargaining positions leading to a price hike, rather than that you literally can’t have any. But we are now in a time when the reality of growing shortages, and in more than just crude oil, is going to start imposing such a disconcerting awareness.

I was in Botswana the other week, and in two earlier posts I had mentioned the problems that that country suddenly encountered when the source for 75% of its electric power – Eskom of South Africa – started to use it as a load-sheddable part of its distribution chain. It has since given Botswana the amounts that it can expect over the next four years. From a supply of 410 MW in 2007; it will get 350 MW in 2008; 250 MW in 2009; and 150 MW in 2010 through 2012. While the country has in-house generation, it decided some time ago that it was less costly to import power than to increase internal supply. Now it will take some time to create that internal power, from coal, of which the country has a more than adequate supply. The expansion of the current plant, already in process, will not occur until 2010 , and was planned to only add 120 MW, less by then, than the lost imports. And current growth in demand has been at 5.6% per annum. It does not help that:

It has also emerged that at the beginning of this year, the desperate BPC signed a no guarantees contract that allows Eskom to cut power supplies to Botswana within as little as ten minutes notice.

Flying into Gaborone, the capital, from Johannesburg, after reading the articles that had lead to the earlier pieces, I had expected to see that there would be some impact on behavior. But, crossing the veldt, there were lace points of light that reached out as long as I could see the ground. Once landed the streets were lit, and gas stations were running normally (at about $1 a liter). Going into meetings the following morning, it seemed to have been, at that scale, an irritant. We continued to meet, and then the lights went out, and the air conditioner shut off.

This is a guest article by Simon Ratcliffe and Jeremy Wakeford. Simon is an energy and sustainability consultant and is the Chairperson of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil South Africa (ASPO South Africa). Jeremy is an economist specializing in energy and sustainable development and is Research Director of ASPO South Africa.

South Africa has been experiencing blackouts over the last three weeks or so, and is forecast to have electricty shortages until at least 2013, see S Africa eyes rationing to end power cuts (Financial Times, 24 Jan.) for a brief overview. Here Simon and Jeremy discuss the issues in more detail.

I was recently in a meeting with some State officials, and representatives of a large fossil energy supply company. The meeting was largely focused on State-centered efforts to increase the amount of renewable or sustainable energy. In the course of the discussion the company representatives raised the issue of water availability, and how this might impact some of the options. It is a subject that is starting to raise its head in more than just this type of discussion. If we look at the current drought status of the United States, for example.

The exceptional drought in the South East and the extreme drought in the South West are both evident. The growing impact of the sustained lack of water, or the need to provide water to an increasing number of people or a growing industrial base, from a fixed resource, is one that will have an impact that goes beyond just the immediate short term. And so, being curious, I looked at the major users of water, and what they did with it. And it was in this light that I then looked at one of the promising new technologies that Dave Rutledge had mentioned at the ASPO conference, the use of concentrated sun power (csp), and in the process I also looked at how they are handling process water in the oil sands of Alberta.

Topics include:

ASPO-6 DVDs / Presentations; Oil Supplies / Prices; Food Prices; Natural Gas / LNG - Qatar; Economics - UK; Coal Prices; Film Review - A Crude Awakening; Peak Oil - South Africa

Editor’s note by HO: There has been the occasional discussion of algae as a possible source of biofuels. The interest in this topic is continuing to increase, and thus, when fireangel sent in this piece, it seemed to me to be appropriate to consider allowing the piece to be posted as a guest post. At the end I will have some concluding remarks (I had mentioned that I would, and this is acceptable), but for now, let me step back and yield the floor.

The last 2 years have seen a major global push towards the use of biofuels. This has included corn, soybeans, sugarcane, sunflower and rapeseed among others. The U.S. Government has mandated an increased usage of ethanol in gasoline, which has resulted in a boom in the construction of corn-to-ethanol plants. The short-sightedness of this policy can be seen by anyone not standing for reelection to the US Senate. Soaring demand has led to a more than 60% increase in corn prices. These price increases have, however, not deterred the ethanol industry, which continues to add more and more corn-to-ethanol plants to the drawing board. While industry estimates vary it is quite likely that we could be using more than 50% of the total domestic corn production to supply less than 10% of the national demand for gasoline by 2010.

Given the relatively low overall yield of corn ethanol per acre, several alternatives have been proposed. These include the growing of soybeans, rapeseed and safflower to produce biodiesel. With some of these crops yields can range anywhere from 3-7 times that from corn ethanol per acre and have several other advantages including a much better EROEI. The one that caught my eye though was the proposal to convert algae into biodiesel. Several posts on TOD have referred to algae as holding more promise for biodiesel production, but I had yet to see any substantive proof of its feasibility. I spent several hours over the last few days researching this and I found some interesting facts that I thought I would share on TOD. The bulk of these findings are based on Dr. Krassen Dimitrov’s work. I invited him to present a summary of his work at TOD but he suggested I do it. He even suggested I “link it’ to me. Talk about not taking credit! My role was to verify his calculations, make a synopsis and add additional information that I learned on this subject. I also communicated with Dr.Briggs at UNH about this and his views are included.