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March 31, 2008
Minnesota considers B20 mandate
This story is heartening. What do you do when soy prices are high and biodiesel prices are high? Back off from renewables and let the industry die? Let oil win? No, you double down and ensure the success of the industry.
Posted by Martin at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2008
the hard numbers of biodiesel today
It takes 7.7 pounds of soy oil -- or $4.34 (at $.56/lb) -- to produce a gallon of biodiesel, according to the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. Add overhead and other processing costs (about 70 cents per gallon), federal and state taxes (54 cents), and subtract the dollar tax credit, and a gallon of biodiesel could sell for $4.58 at the pump. Regular diesel sold for $4.15 a gallon today in Seattle. So biodiesel is more expensive than petro diesel. But not actually by much. I will dig up my historical graph and put this in persepctive later this week. The $.43/gallon difference is less than 10%. Would you pay a 10% premium to save the planet? I would.
Posted by Martin at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
coproducts become more important
With veg oil prices sky high and the spread between veg oil and diesel negative, the importance of co-products is increasing. If a biodiesel producer can significantly increase revenue from glycerine or other co-products, they may be able to make up the negative spread. A group in Brazil is claiming they can make "green propane" out of glycerine. I have reviewed many of these so called technologies and most dont have good energy balance. But at these prices maybe. Unfortunately the Brazil team is saying 2013 until commercial production. Add 5 more years because it is Brazil. Not something t help biodiesel today. The best thing is to simply refine to technical grade glycerine. That takes your price from $.12/lb to over $.25/lb.
Posted by Martin at 10:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2008
more uglyness in biodiesel finance
REG pulls their IPO. It is amazing that in three short months soy oil has gone from $.38/lb to over $.60/lb. It has risen much faster than oil. Today's margin in biodiesel is negative over $2.00.
Posted by Martin at 10:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2008
even better than socializer
Pingg. got an invite to a product launch through there today. Talk about sparse and good UI. Just the basics man. and ZERO ads. Wow, love it. Who would uh thunk invites on the web could be gotten right 8 years after the start. Wow.
Posted by Martin at 9:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Paper versus Plastic
MSNBC has a good overview and look at the data between this choice.
Posted by Martin at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2008
Family water audit
Take this little test and see if you are a water abuser or not.
Posted by Martin at 4:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 10, 2008
trying to fix commenting
So commenting hasn't been working on my blog. sorry. I finally (with the help of a product manager at Six Apart and reading some code) figured out what variable wasn't being set right. so I had to edit my mt-config.cgi file to add a fully qualified URL to the CGIPath variable.
CGIPath http://www.nwventurevoice.com/cgi-bin/
Prior it had been relative:
CGIPath /cgi-bin/
which sent MT looking for the comment.cgi in each blog subdirectory instead of where the code actually resides. I think that will solve it, but now I have to regenerate the entire site.
Posted by Martin at 6:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 9, 2008
Slime dreams
Well I maybe the king of pond scum, but somehow the Mercury News left me out of it's story this week on algae. They did put Imperium in there as a leading refinery which it should. And they identified the key problem: cost of the growing system versus yield. How do you compete with sucking dinasaurs out of the ground, hard. But getting easier at $106/barrel. thanks Hugo.
Posted by Martin at 9:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2008
Bill Krystol on Obama
This resonates for me:
"Obama tends too much toward the preening self-regard of Bill Clinton,
the patronizing elitism of Al Gore and the haughty liberalism of John
Kerry. It's fitting that the alternative to Obama will be John McCain.
He makes no grand claim to fix our souls. He doesn't think he's the
one everyone has been waiting for. He's more proud of his country than
of himself. And his patriotism has consisted of deeds more challenging
than "speaking out on issues.""
Posted by Martin at 7:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 7, 2008
More bad science re: biofuels
Remember the biginning of the the fight with big Tobacco about the harmfulness of cigarettes? Remember the flood of "science" that claimed cigarettes were not so bad for you, created lots of jobs, had global warming benefits, etc.? One of the first tools in an entrenched monopoly business that is selling a product that kills you is to use it's vast wealth to try and convince the public that their product really isn't that bad. Tool 1a is to spend some of that money to convince us that the alternatives are just as bad or worse. That is what we are starting to see around biofuels. Like this British report. Hey, sure biofuels aren't a silver bullet and yea sure we need to address the vehicle design, hybrids, etc. But come on, you are trying to tell me that a renewable carbon neutral source of fuel is worse that non-renewable dead dinosaurs? Get real.
Posted by Martin at 3:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 3, 2008
WSJ reports gasoline demand down, but don't believe it
Leave it to the big business boosters at the WSJ to spread more "don't worries" about high gas prices. They are saying "standard supply and demand will take care of it". Read "dont bother with the markets government". This won't work. Not that it won't postpone government intervention. I am not a fan of government intervention. What it won't do is change the price of gas or oil. While the slowdown in the US economy is of course going to result in a minor slowing of US demand, the rest of the world is chugging away and Americans are just a quarter or two away from bellying back up to the bar. It takes more than a year for people to structurally change their driving habits. For the WSJ to suggest that in the past year enough Americans have bought hybrids and moved closer to work and started biking to support the 1.1% y/y reduction in gasoline demand is just loony. It is all the economic slowdown of activity. Not any cutback at the pump due to high gas prices or any structural change in American's behavior. Come on WSJ.
ByCAMPOY
March 3, 2008;1
As crude-oil prices climb to historic highs, steep gasoline prices and the weak economy are beginning to curb Americans' gas-guzzling ways.
In the past six weeks, the nation's gasoline consumption has fallen by an average 1.1% from year-earlier levels, according to weekly government data.
That's the most sustained drop in demand in at least 16 years, except for the declines that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which temporarily knocked out a big chunk of the U.S. gasoline supply system.
This time, however, there is evidence that Americans are changing their driving habits and lifestyles in ways that could lead to a long-term slowdown in their gasoline consumption.
As supplies have outstripped demand, gasoline inventories have been on the rise for the past four months, reaching their highest levels since February 1994. Yet, in a sign of the growing disconnect between demand and the market, prices at the pump are being driven higher by a powerful rally in crude oil.
Investors piling money into commodities as a refuge from inflation have helped push oil prices close to their inflation-adjusted record of $103.76 a barrel, set in 1980. On Thursday, oil closed at $102.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a new high in nominal terms, but slipped back 75 cents on Friday to settle at $101.84 a barrel.
As refiners pay more for the oil they use, gasoline prices have gained sharply in recent weeks to an average of $3.13 a gallon in the week ended Feb. 25, up 40% from $2.24 a gallon in January 2007. That's stoking worries that prices will rise even more sharply as demand gets a boost from the approaching vacation season, when more Americans take to the road. Some experts predict gasoline could cost as much as $4 a gallon this summer.
If oil prices pull gasoline higher in the current economic climate, Americans are likely to pare back consumption even more, which should help at least damp the rise in prices as refiners build up a safety margin against fears of supply disruptions, experts say.
Of course, if the economy perks up, gasoline consumption could rise again. After softening between 1989 and 1991 as U.S. economic growth slowed, gasoline demand started to recover in 1992 and continued to expand until 2007, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, economists and industry executives say demand would be likely to grow at a slower pace than in the past as Americans gradually become more fuel-efficient.
Economists and policy makers have puzzled for years over what it would take to curb Americans' ravenous appetite for fossil fuels. Now they appear to be getting an answer: sustained pain.
Over the past five years, the climb in gasoline prices, driven largely by the run-up in crude oil, hardly seemed to dent the nation's growing thirst for the fuel. Conventional thinking held that consumption would begin to taper off when gasoline hit $3 a gallon.
But $3 came and went in September 2005, and gasoline demand didn't flinch. Consumers complained about the cost of filling their tanks, pinched pennies by shopping at Wal-Mart, and kept driving.
Economists who study the effects of gasoline prices on demand say consumers tend to look at short-term price spikes as an anomaly, and don't do much to change their habits. They might spend less elsewhere to compensate, or take short-term conservation measures they can easily reverse, such as driving slower or taking public transportation, but the impactis minimal.
Regular gasoline prices jumped to $2.34 a gallon at the end of 2006, up 62% from 2003, according to the EIA. Yet demand continued to grow at an average 1.1% a year. Consumers were better able to absorb the increase because it was spread over four years, and the economy was doing fairly well.
Today, a weakening economy is intensifying the effects of high gasoline prices, at the same time Americans are being pinched by broader inflation. In January, consumer prices were up 4.3% from a year earlier, a 16-year high, led by sharply rising food and energy costs. Even stripping out food and energy, the so-called core inflation rate was up 2.5% from the previous year, reflecting higher costs for purchases such as education and medical care.
The combination of forcesis prompting Americans to cut back on driving, sometimes taking public transportation instead. It's also setting the stage for what may be a long-term slowdown in gasoline demand by forcing Americans to become more fuel-efficient faster.
"If you think about the fact that U.S. motorists are responsible for one out of nine barrels of oil consumed in the world...and that consumption is no longer growing the way it used to, that's a major structural change in the market," says Adam Robinson, analyst with Lehman Brothers.
The longer gasoline prices remain high, the greater the potential consumer response. A 10% rise in gasoline prices reduces consumption by just 0.6% in the short term, but it can cut demand by about 4% if sustained over 15 or so years, accordingto studies compiled by the Congressional Budget Office.
As consumers make major spending decisions, such as where to live and what kind of vehicle to drive, they are beginning to factor in the cost of fuel. Some are choosing smaller cars or hybrids, or are moving closer to their jobs to cut down on driving. Those changes effectively lock in lower gasoline consumption rates for the future, regardless of the state of the economy or the level of gasoline prices.
Anne Heedt, of Clovis, Calif., has been moving toward a more fuel-efficient lifestyle for the past few years. She owns a Toyota Prius hybrid but takes her bike on errands when weather permits.
"We're not always going to have the same accessibility to gasoline that we've had in past decades, so we do have to start thinking about what we're going to do over the next 50 years," said the 31-year-old Ms. Heedt, who used to work at a medical office but is between jobs.
A weaker economy gets some of the credit for lessening demand. The EIA estimates that a 1% reduction in personal income cuts gasoline demand by 0.5% as consumers, along with truckers who deliver goods, cut back on driving, says Laurie Falter, an oil-industry economist at the agency.
The nation's slumping housing market has magnified that effect.In past years, when the housing market was booming, consumers used home equity to finance spending, including the cost of filling their gas tanks, says Antoine Halff, an analyst with Newedge, the jointly owned brokerage arm of Société Générale and Crédit Agricole's Calyon unit.
The housing boom encouraged the development of far-flung suburbs, contributing to longer commutes. Now developers are building more walkable neighborhoods close to city centers and public transit, and Americans are beginning to migrate back toward their workplaces, city planners and other experts say.
David Hopper, who lives in the rural community of Markleville, Ind., is preparing to move to a new house in Plainfield, cutting his commute to Indianapolis to 15 miles from 47 miles. Mr. Hopper decided to move closer to the city last summer, when gas prices hit $3.40 a gallon in his area.
"I'm expecting to save quite a bit," said the 52-year-old engineer. Not only will his new home be closer to his job, but to shopping and schools, which he calculates will save him 90 to 100 gallons of gasoline a month.
Pinched consumers also are speeding up their shift to more fuel-efficient cars. Sales of large cars dropped by 2.6% in 2006 and by 10.5% in 2007. In January, they plummeted 26.5% from a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp.
Car dealers are selling fewer minivans and large sport-utility vehicles. In fact, only small cars and smaller, more fuel-efficient SUVs, are showing a rise in sales. Small-car sales in January were up 6.5% from a year earlier, while sales of crossover vehicle grew 15.1%, Autodata Corp. says.
Write toAna Campoy atana.campoy@dowjones.com
Posted by Martin at 10:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
We are over the tipping point on oil prices
I haven't commented on oil prices lately, but I am sure you all know that it is now regularly trading over $100/barrel. Even closing earlier this week over $103. Today it closed at 100.64. While there may have been a $100/barrel psycological barrier before, it is totally shattered and we are off to the races. Well on our way to my prediction of $140 oil for christmas.
This has had the unfortunate side effect of driving up commodities across the board. Soy Oil closed today at $.69.81/lb. Down from over 70 cents per pound. lets see $.70/pound and 7.8 pounds per gallon means the feedstock cost of biodiesel is $5.46/gallon. Hummmm... Huston we have a problem...
Posted by Martin at 9:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Go see Fields of Fuel
This guy has been working on the movie for three plus years. Just got it into Sundance for 2008. Yours truly is in the movie (a little). Go see it when it comes to your town.
Posted by Martin at 6:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Encyclopedia of free energy devices
Free energy or a device that is more than 100% effecient is the holy grail of all power generation. The current laws of physics say such devices are impossible due to the losses to friction, etc. of any system, esp. mechanical. But inventors keep trying. Mostly in the snake oil category. There is also a big industry debunking these ideas. With over $100 oil some of these are being looked at again. I found a very good summary and analysis of most of the major "free energy" inventions in the last two centuries here. Good reading. The last couple pages are a diatribe from the conspiracy guys laying out a litnay of accusations of government cover up and supression by "big money". I don't buy any of that shit. The current capitalist system of venture capitalist would fund any of these things if they worked. I hope some of them do.
Posted by Martin at 6:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Anerobic digesters for fun and profit
So I have a way of figuring out if i am interested in a technology quite quickly. I use it. Or make one. I call it "eating the dogfood". When I got interested in biodiesel, one of the first things I did was whip up a batch in my kitchen and buy a diesel car. Recently I have been pitched alot of anerobic digester deals. So I wondered, "how hard would it be to make one myself?". Turns out they are quite simple. RE-Energy.ca has a whole gaggle of downloadable science projects designed for teachers to use with kids. They have a good backgrounder on biomass energy and i downloaded the Biogas Generator Construction plans to build one with my daughter Finn. Of course the most attractive part of the project for Finn and her friend Elsa was the "poop" part.
Here is a picture of the finished item:
For storage of the gas you use a mylar balloon. I found one that is a Harley. Storing methane in a harley Cool eh?
The only modification i made to the plans was to use 1/4 OD fittings and screw type connectors from a plumbing supply store instead of 1/4 ID fittings with barb fittings. Barb fittings are old school. The screws are modern and easier to use. I also put a short piece of tube on the down part of the T instead of putting the fitting directly into the cork. Just for fun.
Now i wait for a month. This is not a great science project for school as the results are not immediate. I will blog when it starts producing.
Posted by Martin at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack