We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
If you could make an investment in a productive asset that would have a gross return just under four times your initial amount in 12 months, would you care how quickly the investment fell apart after that?
Let me be more specific. If you could invest $8M in an oil well that produced $30.7M of oil in the first 12 months of production, would you care how fast the production dropped after that? Would you care if the well had that horrid Bakken decline rate?
Here’s a few quick notes on interesting news that I won’t cover in a separate post: trucker caught dumping saltwater, new regs for filter socks.
4/9 – Million Dollar Way – The North American Shale Revolution is “For Real”; Won’t Easily Be Duplicated Elsewhere – Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – dumping, new rules for filter socks – 4-24”
ReWire discusses the March 2013 compliance report from Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System: Bird Deaths Continue at Ivanpah Solar.
Mr. Clarke summarizes the report by explaining that in March, 22 of 55 dead or injured birds were clearly injured by the solar flux. Most of the rest were sufficiently decomposed that the cause of death couldn’t be determined.
Mr. Clarke is concerned the heat may be so high that there isn’t enough left of smaller birds to identify them at all. Any such birds in that category wouldn’t be included in the official count.
The March casualties took place while the facility was operating at 55% of capacity, according to Mr. Clarke’s research. The mortality will likely be higher when the plant sustains maximum output.
The compliance report for March can be found here. I browsed through it, although at 967 pages, there is a bit too much for me to absorb. A lot of it is way over my head.
I looked at table 9 of exhibit 9 on page 890. That lists the avian mortality and injury for March. I noticed a few things of interest to me.
(photo by James Ulvog)
Answer: Birds that fly into the solar flux at the top of the solar collector and ignite, producing a trail of smoke as they fall to the ground. Thus, a streamer.
That is the word used by the people who work at the Ivanpah solar facility, according to an article at ReWire by Chris Clarke: Federal Lab Offers Grim Look at Solar Harm to Wildlife. The article summarizes a few pieces of information from a report from a lab of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. You can read the report for yourself here.
Do you suppose it is a bad sign that people working at a solar farm have a special word to casually describe birds that fall out of the sky after being toasted?
I picture movies about World War II in the air over Europe. Remember those views of an armada of bombers? One of the lumbering B-17s takes a flak burst, starts streaming smoke from an engine on fire, and slowly spirals into the ground. A streamer.
While staff from the FWS Office of Law Enforcement department were on site they saw a “streamer event” every 2 minutes. That could be dust particles or it could be a cloud of insects, as claimed by the staff who work at the facility. OLE did observe birds (plural) fly into the solar flux and incinerate.
Perhaps the California regulators ought to know how many of those thirty incidents per hour are birds and how many are humongous clouds of concentrated dust drifting hundreds of feet in the air before they issue any more wing-toaster permits.
Undercounts of birds and no counts of butterflies
Continue reading “Question: What are “streamers” at a wing-toasting solar facility? (solar #19)”
In the first article I’ve seen on the issue, North Dakota regulators are looking at the decommissioning plans for the aging slice-and-dicers in the state. They are considering a requirement to provide some sort of financial assurance that there will be money available to pay for disassembling the towers.
The estimated costs for decommissioning from three different operators for their specific slicers are $68,700, $82,567, and $75,720. The average of those three point estimates is $75,662. Let’s call that $75K each. That is the cost per turbine.
Here is an updated graph of monthly production in the state, for the Bakken fields and whole state.
Can you pick out the winter months just by looking at the graph?
There were 18 days in February with temps 5 degrees lower than the usual frigid, 4 days with high wind that stopped completions, and production stopped on over a hundred wells because a gas processing plant was off-line for upgrades. With all that, production grew 16,224 bopd to 951,350 bopd.
That is off the high of 973,280 in November.
For more info, check out Amy Dalrymple’s report: Helms says curtailing oil production necessary to reduce flaring. Additional news there is planned rules for the state will place a limit on flaring, which will slightly hold back production.
Forecast from Wood Mackenzie, as announced in Oil & Gas Financial Journal: Bakken Drilling and Completion Capex to Top $15B in 2014.
Their predictions:
Highest 30 day Initial Production rates are above 1,000 bopd in the Nesson Anticline.
EURs are highest in the Fort Berthold subplay at 700,000 barrels.
Peak what?
A few years ago, I would have had a 500 word post on each of the following articles from Million Dollar Way. Now I’m to the point where I get the knowledge quicker and only want to summarize in a few sentences. The news in these two posts is huge: First, the horrid Bakken decline rate might not be as big a deal as previously thought. Second, the drilling rate of 2,500 new wells a year is probably sustainable.
Wow.
The declining relevance of the decline rate
3/31 – Million Dollar Way – Decline Rate And The Bakken – Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – decline rate and sustained drilling – 4-8-14”
Here are a few data points on the cost of building various kinds of facilities to generate power. Accumulated for future reference.
3/27 – Bismarck Tribune – North Dakota regulators approve peaking station turbines – Continue reading “Cost of building various types of electricity sources”
Here’s a few quick notes on interesting news that I won’t cover in a separate post.
3/25 – Alberta Oil Magazine – Here We Go Again – The second wave of the horizontal revolution is on its way – Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – 4-3-14”
The Ivanpah solar facility will need to increase the amount of natural gas burned in order to keep the facility running efficiently. Using an extra 601 million cubic feet of gas each year will not have any significant environmental impact.
Chris Clarke reports on the plant owner’s request on 3/27: Ivanpah Solar Plant Owners Want To Burn a Lot More Natural Gas. The application is found here. Most of the application is over my head, but I was able understand much of it.
To keep each of the three powerplants running requires having a gas-powered turbine running 4.5 hours a day. This is to help warm up the water and maintain production as the sun goes down.
Continue reading “35,000 tons of CO2 annually equals insignificant environmental impact (solar #18)”
Here’s a few articles on the environmental and economic issues with solar and wind energy.
Since the uncontained, unresearched, unquantified environmental damage from slice-and-dicers and wing-toasters is not particularly good, I can’t call this series more good stuff. So here are a few updates on opportunity cost, the views of wind power hardware will last forever, more solar farms approved, and regressiveness of solar subsidies.
Opportunity cost
One of many problems with massive subsidies for wind and solar energy is doing so diverts attention and effort from developing new technologies. Some amazing things not yet invented could possibly some day actually be efficient, competitive, environmentally friendly, and not kill off lots of protected birds, non-protected birds, endangered animals and threatened plants.
Walter Russell Mead makes that point on 3/23: Chinese Firm Races to the Bottom of Global Solar Market.
Continue reading “Update on solar and wind power, 3-24-14 – solar #17”
A few articles on technology, energy, and publishing that are worth a read and a brief comment. Reusable first stages of rockets, several updates on Yutu (Chinese lunar rover), commercial drones, lightly armed drones, and another shale field with big potential.
Education
3/4 – The Feed – Home-Schooling for Higher Ed – Mentioned this idea before. How ‘bout hiring a college professor to privately tutor you for your first year of college. Read the article and think about it a few minutes. Intriguing idea, huh?
Space
3/13 – Technology Review – SpaceX Set to Launch the World’s First Reusable Booster – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 3-20-14”
Million Dollar Way has a complex post describing the increasing density of wells on each portion of land being drilled in North Dakota. Think 14 or 28 wells on 4 square miles. I’ll try to pull a few key ideas out of An Example of “Ears Pinned Back” — As CLR Calls It – In The Bakken.
Density in 2007
In ancient days, say about 2007, the concept was one well on a section. That according to the article.
Density in 2011
Cadmium is a heavy metal that can make humans quite sick. Cadmium is a major ingredient in one particular type of solar panel called cadmium telluride. Dangers of putting that into a few hundred thousand panels, risks of leakage into ground water, and lack of disposal plans 30 or 40 years from now might, just maybe, possibly, be worth considering today.
A few minutes of research starts to outline the issues. My learning points are in bold italics, with article for each idea, and my comments on the article.
Continue reading “What’s the disposal plan for the cadmium in solar panels? Solar #16”