February 24, 2008
This is lead story on front page of today's Boston Sunday Globe, of Massachusetts.
March 23, 2007
March 3, 2006
Conservation - 7X more bang for the buck than nuclear, CO2-wise
Spending ... on improving energy efficiency yields seven times the reduction in carbon emissions as spending the same amount on new nuclear construction, ... said ... Norman Baker, a specialist on environmental issues for the Liberal Democrat Party in Britain.
[Source: Matthew L. Wald and Heather Timmons, "Much Talk of a Nuclear Renaissance, but So Far Little Action", The New York Times, March 3, 2006, p. C3]
June 11, 2004
Oil Price and Conservation: dust off the old idea files (how high fuel prices prompted conservation in ocean shipping during 1970s-80s)
Received wisdom is that a huge increase in the price of ship's bunkers [fuel for ocean shipping fleets] will be appalling for the industry, but from my memories of the 1970s and 1980s, there were a large number of positive consequences. It certainly focused the minds of an industry that until then had never really considered the cost of fuel to push its ships along. There were huge advantages in fuel efficiency, made possible only because of the coercion of fuel costs, which forced alternatives upon people who could no longer afford the status quo. Before 1973, the big bulk carriers - first generation capesizes and the new VLCCs being extruded from Arendal and Kockums and sawn off in the required lengths from Chiba and Tsu - had the hydrodynamic qualities of a housebrick, but achieved their required speed only by sticking in a gigantic gas-guzzling steam turbine installation to drive this lump along. The extraordinary fleet of containerships that the Far East consortia put into service were the fastest cargoships ever built, with amazing steam and diesel machinery, that would have hitherto been seen aboard only four funnelled Atlantic liners. Then came Malcom McLean and his Sea-Land SL-7 30-knot fleet, which bodily wrenched the steam turbine installation out of the US Navy's last generation of battleships and stuffed it into their engine rooms. There was Seatrain with its gas turbine box-boats, and adventurous Australians running power plants on waxy distillates and jet fuel. I was the part-time "marine editor" of a children's periodical called "Speed and Power" at the time and it was all grist to our mill. Biggest, fastest, thirstiest were the adjectives our customers loved most and we dished it out to them with enthusiasm each week.
Then this world ended abruptly, the fjords and Aegean were roofed over with laid up tonnage and people with these great thirsty engines floundered around trying to trade their ships economically. Slow steaming was the initial and most obvious strategy, which suited both the fuel economy and the oversupply problem, although the shippers who loved the promise of a new "logistics" industry were decidedly miffed when their 27-knot boxes were arbitrarily slowed down to 18, along with a stonking great bunker surcharge. Gradually, as it became obvious that oil prices were being maintained at a high level, the industry began to adapt and react. Far-sighted shipyards and enterprising diesel engine manufacturers, who were running out of work anyway, devised re-engining packages to exchange the thirsty steam turbines of containerships, and a surprising number of VLCCs were given the same treatment. Naval architects and hydrodynamicists got in on the act, redesigning the underwater body of ships to improve performance. Paint manufacturers offered coatings that would smooth the laminar flow. Other devices were offered that would help the propeller to bite more productively. Propellers were shrouded, turbulence and cavitation minimised with fins and curved blades. Slow speed big diesels, driving gigantic screws, were the order of the day - engines, moreover with astonishingly catholic appetites that would be satisfied by fuel quality that would cause a chief engineer's hair to curl. Clever people started to appear with systems and devices designed to make the fuel go further. I remember being much taken by a man who came round with a system which enabled a substantial quantity of water to be injected into the engine, offering 15% increases in fuel economy and a cleaner engine. Then there was the fabled Professor Hamada of the Japan Maritime Development Association, a sort of senior brainstorming outfit in Tokyo, which took any half-crazy idea and assessed it to see if Japan Inc could derive any commercial advantage. ... [T]he professor was always very excited, I recall, with the development work done on sail assistance, initially to provide auxiliary power on small coastal tankers and bulkers but eventually to give a helping hand to a 20,000 dwt timber ship. This was a return to the days of sail, not to canvas and marline spikes but hydraulically trimmed aerofoils stretched on huge steel frames. There was a brief flurry of interest in the potential of coal and, if I recall correctly, four coal-fired bulkers were designed that performed well, with a largely automatic combustion system rather than sweating stokers.
Sadly, all the interest in fuel efficiency tended to die away with the unforeseen collapse in oil prices of the late 1980s. Speeds increased, the governors came off, the sail assistance was shorn and the fascination for any form of device that promised a 5% increase in fuel consumption sadly caused the technical director's eyes to glaze over. There were other priorities. But if the circle is completed, and those promised high fuel prices come round again, there will be a lot of burrowing around in old files as people enthuse once again about making a tonne of heavy oil go further.
[Source: Michael Grey, "There's no fuel like an old fuel", Lloyd's List, June 14, 2004, p. 5 (subscription required)]
June 5, 2004
* Australia - examples of ways to get more solar, insulation use
* Germany and World Bank announce loan programs for renewables, efficiency in developing nations