Author: pfairley

Peter Fairley has been reporting and commenting on energy and the environment for 25 years.

BP Installs Crude Containment Scheme #4

BP is capturing oil at a rate of 1,000 barrels-per-day via its latest containment scheme — a cap and new riser installed on its gushing Gulf spill last night — according to Federal response coordinator and Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. But video feeds confirm that far more crude is still spilling into the sea from under the cap — at least 11,000 barrels per day if one subtracts 1,000 bpd from the minimum flow estimate of the Deepwater Horizon spill released by a federal task force last week.

BP Americas chief operating officer Doug Suttles told a media briefing this morning that the cap (BP containment scheme #4 by Carbon-Nation’s count) could ultimately capture over 90% of the leak. Suttles and his company have proved unreasonably optimistic before, and could be once again. Continue reading “BP Installs Crude Containment Scheme #4”

by pfairley

BP’s Name is Mud (which today counts as good news)

BP Americas chief operating officer Doug Suttles says the ‘top kill’ operation initiated this morning to stanch the Gulf oil spill is “performing as expected” and could be completed within 24 hours. But U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry, who spoke with Suttles at an early-evening media briefing, took a more reserved tone. “I do not want to express optimism until I know for sure that we’ve secured the well and that the leak has stopped,” says Landry.

By 5pm Houston time on Wednesday BP had already pumped over 7,000 barrels of heavy drilling mud into the damaged blowout preventer on the wellhead created by the Deepwater Horizon rig whose destruction last month unleashed the spill. Much of that mud appears to be flowing up into the Gulf. Continue reading “BP’s Name is Mud (which today counts as good news)”

by pfairley

Facing Our Flow with BP’s Live Spill-Cam

Click image, then hit play (persistently) for live stream

For a look in the mirror that could inspire a car-free weekend, BP has made available a livestream feed of its uncontrolled oil spill over 5000-feet below the Gulf of Mexico’s increasingly oily surface. [You’ll need to hit play several times to get a peek at this very popular feed.] Government agencies and industry engineers have been viewing this feed for two weeks. BP made it accessible today to gasoline consumers and shareholders of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem at the urging of Ed Markey, chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and an advocate of fossil fuel-free energy and transportation. Continue reading “Facing Our Flow with BP’s Live Spill-Cam”

by pfairley

Life’s a ‘Paternoster’ (and then you fly)

Solon SE’s new paternoster lift. Credit Kevin Matthews / ArchitectureWeek.

“Don’t leave the planet to the stupid.” The corporate tag line from German solar module manufacturer Solon SE screams: ‘We reject complacency’ (not to mention gentility). It’s a slap-in-the-face warning to expect the unexpected, so I was looking for something completely different when I visited Solon’s one-year old Berlin headquarters on an architectural tour of Germany last week. I was not to be disappointed. What I found is probably the first cyclic elevator system installed anywhere in decades.

No pressing a button and waiting for a lift with this modern incarnation of a late-19th-C elevator design! In a cyclic elevator a string of passenger cars run by in a continuous loop. One simply steps into one of the open cars scrolling up or down through its adjacent elevator shafts and takes off. To your weary Canadian correspondent, presently immobilized in Berlin by an angry planet, the hassle-free transport offered by Solon’s cyclic lift was a source of almost drunken pleasure.

Unfortunately, it may also be quite stupid (so to speak). Continue reading “Life’s a ‘Paternoster’ (and then you fly)”

by pfairley

No Joke: Solar’s Energetic Lease on Life

A notorious economics joke has optimistic implications for solar energy and its decades-long dreams of matching the cost of the electricity now flowing on power grids — the vaunted grid parity that is most renewable energy advocates’ image of the singularity that will free us from climate change and the anti-democratic effects of centralized power. In the joke an economist, physicist and chemist are stranded, starving, on a remote island when a can of soup washes ashore. Continue reading “No Joke: Solar’s Energetic Lease on Life”

by pfairley

Fuel Cell Hype and Hopes

Fuel cells deserved to hit the headlines this week, but not the way that it played out. The big splash came thanks to CBS News’ 60 MINUTES and heavy hyping of a stationary fuel cell developer emerging from stealth-mode development. More surprising, and of real significance, was a projection yesterday by Pike Research that fuel cell-equipped vehicles will go commercial in just 4 years.

The problem with Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box stationary fuel cell is that, despite 60 MINUTES’ assertion that it might be the holy grail to free Americans shackled to a coal-fired grid, the company has yet to deliver a product. Moreover, the technology is hardly new. Continue reading “Fuel Cell Hype and Hopes”

by pfairley

Buying a Car Without the Engine (or the fuel)

Carmakers have been toying with a novel marketing strategy to take the sting off the electric vehicle’s punishing price premium: selling EVs batteries-not-included. The idea is to lease the lithium batteries separately, shaving a third or more of an EV’s $30,000-plus package cost. Nissan poured some cold water on the idea last week but EV observers think the idea is just getting started, even for Nissan.

Nissan thinks car buyers are ready for its LEAF EV (see teaser ad above) but not for battery leasing. It closed out a pre-sale national tour of the LEAF with news that the compact will be sold or leased as a complete package. As I blogged for Energywise last month, the package includes installation of a home battery charger. Now we know buyers will own the battery too. “Based on the data we have, consumers prefer to buy the full car with batteries,” Nissan Americas chairman Carlos Tavares told the New York Times.

Greentech Media’s Michael Kanellos calls leasing a “conceptual leap” too far: “Imagine if you went to a car dealer today and they offered to sell you the car and lease the engine.” But his analogy may be missing a cog, if one considers the comparative cost of charging an EV versus fueling that internal combustion engine. Per mile, charging the EV will cost roughly a third the cost of gasing up. Imagine if you went to a car dealer and they proposed selling you five years’ worth of fuel up front! Continue reading “Buying a Car Without the Engine (or the fuel)”

by pfairley