industryterm:energy demand

How to Run the Economy on the Weather - LOW-TECH MAGAZINE
▻http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-the-economy-on-the-weather.html
▻http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e8883301b8d2acd680970c-700wi

Before the Industrial Revolution, people adjusted their energy demand to a variable energy supply. Our global trade and transport system — which relied on sail boats — operated only when the wind blew, as did the mills that supplied our food and powered many manufacturing processes.

The same approach could be very useful today, especially when improved by modern technology. In particular, factories and cargo transportation — such as ships and even trains — could be operated only when renewable energy is available. Adjusting energy demand to supply would make switching to renewable energy much more realistic than it is today.

The World Eyes Yet Another Unconventional Source of Fossil Fuels
▻http://e360.yale.edu/features/the-world-eyes-yet-another-unconventional-source-of-fossil-fuels-methane-
Après les sables bitumineux et le gaz de schiste, les #hydrates_de_méthane seront probablement les prochains hydrocarbures non conventionnels à être commercialement exploités.

Now the tide has started to turn, as studies of the frozen gas have quelled some of the bigger fears. “We always used to think of these as explosive and dangerous — they’re not,” says Dallimore, who is involved with Canada’s explorations of these deposits. These reassuring findings, combined with rising energy demands, have spurred some countries — especially fossil fuel-poor nations like India and Japan — to think seriously about commercial extraction.

But there are still concerns about the wisdom of mining this unexplored corner of the fossil fuel landscape, including the possibility of triggering underwater landslides, unleashing tsunamis, disturbing ocean ecosystems, and — most important of all — more than doubling the planet’s natural gas supplies and the planet-warming emissions that go along with them. So is drilling for methane hydrates really a good idea?

Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States (Solomon Hsiang et al.)
▻http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362.full

https://d2ufo47lrtsv5s.cloudfront.net/content/sci/356/6345/1362/F5.large.jpg

The greatest direct cost for GMST [global mean surface temperature] changes larger than 2.5°C is the burden of excess mortality, with sizable but smaller contributions from changes in labor supply, energy demand, and agricultural production (Fig. 5B). Coastal storm impacts are also sizable but do not scale strongly with GMST because projections of global MSL [mean sea level] are dependent on RCP but are not explicitly calculated as functions of GMST (36), causing the coastal storm contribution to the slope of the damage function to be relatively muted. It is possible to use alternative approaches to valuing mortality in which the loss of lives for older and/or low-income individuals are assigned lower value than those of younger and/or high-income individuals (44), an adjustment that would alter damages differently for different levels of warming based on the age and income profile of affected individuals (e.g., fig. S13). Here, we focus on the approach legally adopted by the U.S. government for environmental cost-benefit analysis, in which the lives of all individuals are valued equally (37). Because the VSL [Value of Life] parameter is influential, challenging to measure empirically, and may evolve in the future, its influence on damages is an important area for future investigation.

India’s solar power set to outshine coal
▻http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=6e13c74c17ec527c4be72d64f&id=484507f8fc&e=08052803c8

India’s solar power
set to outshine coal

Solar power in India will be cheaper than imported coal by 2020, but replacing the subcontinent’s fossil fuels with renewable energy is an enormous task.

By Henner Weithoener

BERLIN, 21 October, 2016 – India wants to provide its entire population with electricity and lift millions out of poverty, but in order to prevent the world overheating it also needs to switch away from fossil fuels.

#inde #énergie #énergie_renouvelables #énergi_solaire #soleil
Although India is blessed with ample sunshine and wind, its main source of energy is coal, followed by oil and gas. Together, they provide around 90% of the total energy demand of the subcontinent – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – with coal enjoying the highest share, at more than 70%.

The United States’ newest nuclear power plant has taken 43 years to build — Quartz
▻http://qz.com/681753/the-united-states-newest-nuclear-power-plant-has-taken-43-years-to-build

The long delay in completing Watts Bar illustrates the challenges of constructing a nuclear reactor in the US. Construction on the project has been held up by public safety concerns, shifting regulatory expectations, fluctuating energy demands, and ballooning costs. The final price for Watts Bar 2 is currently projected to be $4.7 billion, a number which has been revised upward many times during construction.

#nucléaire

Artificial wind energy may be Turkey’s answer to demand
▻http://www.aaenergyterminal.com/news.php?newsid=7741127

Produire du vent artificiel à partir des pertes d’énergie de différentes unités de productions et alimenter des éoliennes. C’est pas un peu comme si on utilisait un sèche cheveu pour produire de l’électricité ? Quelquechose m’échappe dans l’intérêt d’un tel projet !

Turkey can meet growing energy demand from artificial wind, says innovative project owner. An innovative technology in the energy sector, which generates electricity by creating artificial wind, could provide Turkey with a much needed alternative to tackle its energy demand problem, Nurettin Aydin, the project’s patent holder, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.

The project utilizes energy sources which are unable to be turned into electricity by current power plants due to their low heat quality, he said, and added that these sources include, low heat geothermal energy, waste steam and hot water from industrial facilities

#Turquie #Electricité

Microsoft Plumbs Ocean’s Depths to Test Underwater Data Center
►http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/technology/microsoft-plumbs-oceans-depths-to-test-underwater-data-center.html

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/02/01/business/01underwater-web2/01underwater-web2-articleLarge.jpg

Putting the gear under cold ocean water could fix the [heat] problem. It may also answer the exponentially growing energy demands of the computing world because #Microsoft is considering pairing the system either with a turbine or a tidal energy system to generate electricity.

The effort, code-named Project #Natick, might lead to strands of giant steel tubes linked by fiber optic cables placed on the seafloor. Another possibility would suspend containers shaped like jelly beans beneath the surface to capture the ocean current with turbines that generate electricity.

[...]

The underwater server containers could also help make web services work faster. Much of the world’s population now lives in urban centers close to oceans but far away from #data_centers usually built in out-of-the-way places with lots of room. The ability to place computing power near users lowers the delay, or latency, people experience, which is a big issue for web users.

[...]

The research group has started designing an underwater system that will be three times as large [as the first trial]. It will be built in collaboration with a yet-to-be-chosen developer of an ocean-based alternative-energy system. The Microsoft engineers said they expected a new trial to begin next year, possibly near Florida or in Northern Europe, where there are extensive ocean energy projects underway.

Tomgram : Michael Klare, Big Oil in Retreat | TomDispatch
▻http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176035/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_big_oil_in_retreat

Believing that the Saudi strategy had succeeded and noting signs of increasing energy demand in China, Europe, and the United States, many analysts concluded that prices would soon begin to rise again, as indeed they briefly did. It now appears, however, that these assumptions were off the mark. While numerous high-cost projects in Canada and Africa were delayed or cancelled, the U.S. shale industry has found ways to weather the downturn in prices. Some less-productive wells have indeed been abandoned, but drillers also developed techniques to extract more oil less expensively from their remaining wells and kept right on pumping. “We can’t control commodity prices, but we can control the efficiency of our wells,” said one operator in the Eagle Ford region of Texas. “The industry has taken this as a wake-up call to get more efficient or get out.”

#énergie

World Energy Outlook 2014 - Press release
▻http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/november/signs-of-stress-must-not-be-ignored-iea-warns-in-its-new-world-energy-outlook.h

In the central scenario of WEO-2014, world primary energy demand is 37% higher in 2040, putting more pressure on the global energy system. But this pressure would be even greater if not for efficiency measures that play a vital role in holding back global demand growth. The scenario shows that world demand for two out of the three fossil fuels – coal and oil – essentially reaches a plateau by 2040, although, for both fuels, this global outcome is a result of very different trends across countries. At the same time, renewable energy technologies gain ground rapidly, helped by falling costs and subsidies (estimated at $120 billion in 2013). By 2040, world energy supply is divided into four almost equal parts: low-carbon sources (nuclear and renewables), oil, natural gas and coal.

#énergie #AIE

Around $80 billion wasted on power for online devices in 2013
▻http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/july/name-108223-en.html

The report, More Data, Less Energy: Making Network Standby More Efficient in Billions of Connected Devices, shows that electricity demand of our increasingly digital economies is growing at an alarming rate. While data centre energy demand has received much attention, of greater cause for concern is the growing energy demand of billions of networked devices. In 2013, a relatively small portion of the world’s population relied on these devices to stay connected. But energy demand is increasing as a growing share of the world’s population becomes wired and as network connectivity spreads to devices and appliances that were previously not connected, such as washing machines, refrigerators, lights and thermostats.

#energie #electricite #TIC

Le Moyen Orient reste incontournable pour approvisionner le monde en hydrocarbures.

IEA - November:- Light tight oil does not diminish the importance of Middle East supply, IEA says in latest World Energy Outlook
▻http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2013/november/name,44368,en.html

Light tight oil does not diminish the importance of Middle East supply, IEA says in latest World Energy Outlook

Report sees large disparities in regional energy prices affecting industrial competitiveness

12 November 2013

Technology and high prices are opening up new oil resources, but this does not mean the world is on the verge of an era of oil abundance, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2013 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO-2013). Although rising oil output from North America and Brazil reduces the role of OPEC countries in quenching the world’s thirst for oil over the next decade, the Middle East – the only large source of low-cost oil – takes back its role as a key source of oil supply growth from the mid-2020s.

The annual report, released today in London, presents a central scenario in which global energy demand rises by one-third in the period to 2035. The shift in global energy demand to Asia gathers speed, but China moves towards a back seat in the 2020s as India and countries in Southeast Asia take the lead in driving consumption higher. The Middle East also moves to centre stage as an energy consumer, becoming the world’s second-largest gas consumer by 2020 and third-largest oil consumer by 2030, redefining its role in global energy markets. Brazil, a special focus in WEO-2013, maintains one of the least carbon-intensive energy sectors in the world, despite experiencing an 80% increase in energy use to 2035 and moving into the top ranks of global oil producers. Energy demand in OECD countries barely rises and by 2035 is less than half that of non-OECD countries. Low-carbon energy sources meet around 40% of the growth in global energy demand. In some regions, rapid expansion of wind and solar PV raises fundamental questions about the design of power markets and their ability to ensure adequate investment and long-term reliability.

“Major changes are emerging in the energy world in response to shifts in economic growth, efforts at decarbonisation and technological breakthroughs,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. “We have the tools to deal with such profound market change. Those that anticipate global energy developments successfully can derive an advantage, while those that do not risk taking poor policy and investment decisions.”

The availability and affordability of energy is a critical element of economic well-being and, in many countries, also of industrial competitiveness. Natural gas in the United States currently trades at one-third of import prices to Europe and one-fifth of those to Japan. Average Japanese or European industrial consumers pay more than twice as much for electricity as their counterparts in the United States, and even China’s industry pays almost double the US level. In WEO-2013, large variations in energy prices persist through to 2035, affecting company strategies and investment decisions in energy-intensive industries. The United States sees its share of global exports of energy-intensive goods slightly increase to 2035, providing the clearest indication of the link between relatively low energy prices and the industrial outlook. By contrast, the European Union and Japan see their share of global exports decline – a combined loss of around one-third of their current share.

Daily chart: Power surges | The Economist

▻http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/11/daily-chart-6?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/dc/powersurges

Energy demand shifts further east

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/2013/11/blogs/graphic-detail/20131116_gdc766.png

A POWER-HUNGRY world will see global energy demand rise by a third by 2035, according to the World Energy Outlook, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA). While rich countries will barely budge over the period, annual growth rates of around 2-3% are expected in South-East Asia, India, Brazil and the Middle East. China will account for 40% of the growth until 2025. After then India will overtake it to become the single biggest source of increasing demand. In the Middle East, consumption will soar because of booming economies and heavily subsidised prices. Oil will remain the largest single source of energy, though the IEA reckons its share of total energy consumption will decline from 31% to 27% by 2035. Coal’s share of the global energy mix will also fall, while demand for natural gas will rise. Overall the total increase in demand for gas will outstrip both oil and coal combined.

#énergie #visualisation #consommation_énergétique

#Corruption A Leading Theory Behind India’s Blackouts : NPR
►http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/158380929/corruption-a-leading-theory-behind-indias-blackouts

The world’s biggest power outages last week have exposed one of India’s most serious issues — the growing gap between energy supply and energy demand. Left unheeded, it will deepen gathering doubts about India’s dream to become a superpower. A growing economy, ballooning population and burgeoning urbanization are driving energy demands ever upward, while India’s investment in power transmission and distribution has not kept up.

#électricité #inde #chine et ça a à voir avec le #nucléaire aussi (même si l’émission n’en parle pas)

Earth Day Enemies: Greenpeace Slams Apple, Facebook, Google Data Centers
►http://mashable.com/2011/04/22/cloud-computing-dirty-energy

Environmental activist organization Greenpeace emphasized the environmental effects of cloud computing this Earth Day, releasing a report that assigns grades to 10 prominent technology companies based on how they power data centers.

According to the report, computer servers in data centers account for about 2% of global energy demand and are growing their energy consumption at a rate of about 12% per year. About half of the companies studied, which include Google, Facebook and Apple, used coal to meet 50% to 80% of their energy needs instead of renewable energy resources like wind and solar.

#ecolo