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Colin Bennett

Europe's Largest (6MW/10MWh) Energy Storage Trial Launched - 0 views

  • The fully automated 6MW/10MWh Smarter Network Storage (SNS) battery technology project will be installed at Leighton Buzzard primary substation, in order to assess the role of energy storage in cost effectively delivering the UK’s Carbon Plan.
Colin Bennett

Turbulence in the Markets: How Speculators Are Crippling the Copper Industry - SPIEGEL ... - 0 views

  • This is, in fact, the crux of the argument: It isn't enough to simply establish clear rules in a trading center. Governments can only successfully combat speculators if they coordinate their efforts worldwide and remove the cloak of secrecy from their commodities transactions. As long as this fails to happen, the price of copper will remain unpredictable and industry will be at the mercy of speculators. Companies will no longer be able to assume that copper will be expensive when it's scarce and cheap when it's available in abundance. Speculation destroys the basic signaling function that prices have in a market economy, says Heiner Flassbeck, chief economist at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Although a lot of money moves around as a result of price distortions, speculation doesn't create any real value, says Flassbeck. "The only thing that's created is an illusion of value." Making Life Difficult for Everyone In the end, the popular assessment that speculators are the purest of capitalists is by no means correct. In truth, they are the biggest enemies of the market, because they undermine its central mechanism, the efficient balancing of supply and demand. In doing so, they make life difficult for everyone: for industry, which can no longer predict how expensive its raw materials will be; for consumers, who are forced to bear the costs; and, finally, for copper producers, who face more risk when planning ahead. When the executives at CODELCO in Santiago make investment decisions today, it will be another three to five years before the results become visible. That's how long it takes to develop a new mine or expand an existing mine. The company plans to invest about $15 billion by 2015, but its executives have never been so uncertain about whether their predictions are correct. One thing is clear: Production costs will continue to rise. Now that deposits near the surface, which are easier to mine, are becoming depleted, mining companies are forced to dig deeper and deeper pits.
Colin Bennett

Transmission Power Cable Costs Study - 0 views

  • The report, which is due for release in 2011, is intended to provide an objective and independent basis for assessing the overall costs of these different methods for transferring power through Britain’s electricity transmission system. It will also provide an indication of the environmental impacts of the different technologies.
Hans De Keulenaer

Strategies for reducing the carbon footprint of copper : New technologies, more recycli... - 0 views

  • Existing approaches to reducing environmental impacts along the metal production and consumption chain are focused largely at the plant scale for primary production, rather than considering the whole metal cycle. As such, many opportunities for systemic improvements are overlooked. This paper develops an approach to designing preferred futures for entire metal cycles that deliver reduced carbon footprints. Dynamic material flow models in Visual Basic® are used to provide life-cycle-impact-assessment indicators, which help identify key intervention points along the metal cycle. This analysis also identifies which actors or agents along the value chain are responsible for, or can influence, behaviour which affects environmental performance. With this information, it is possible to evaluate different scenarios for transition paths to achieve reduced impact. These scenarios consider combinations of new technology, increased metal recycling and demand management strategies. A case study for the copper cycle in the USA shows that to meet a CO2 reduction target of 60% by 2050, innovative technologies for primary processing of mined ore will play a limited role, due to their increasing impacts in the future associated with mining ever lower ore grades. To compensate for this whilst meeting demand projections, recycling of old scrap would be required to increase from 18% to 80%, requiring extensive collaboration between primary and secondary producers. An alternate scenario which focuses on demand reduction for copper by 1% per year, meets the CO2 target whilst only requiring an increase in the recycling rate from 18% to 36%. Together, these suggest that there is merit in examining the 'metal-in-use' stage of the metal value chain more closely in order to achieve targeted reductions in CO2. The approach also highlights the inherent trade-offs between different aspects of environmental performance which are required when pursuing CO2 reduction targets.
Colin Bennett

Scientist creates trout with 'six pack abs': potential boon for aquafarming - 0 views

  • Assuming successful safety assessments and regulatory approval, the development of more muscular trout could boost commercial aquaculture because aquaculturists could grow larger fish without increasing the amount of food the fish are fed.
Hans De Keulenaer

EIA - Press Releases - EIA Assesses Impact of Economic Growth, Oil Prices, and Future P... - 0 views

  • The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) today released the complete version of the Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (AEO2010), which includes 38 sensitivity cases that show how different assumptions regarding market and policy drivers affect the Reference case projections that EIA previously released in December, 2009. In addition to considering alternative scenarios for oil prices, economic growth, and the uptake of more energy-efficient technologies, the AEO2010 includes cases that examine the impact of changes in selected policies, such as the extension of existing policies that are currently scheduled to sunset as well as the sensitivity of natural gas shale production to variations in drilling activity and the size of the resource base.
Colin Bennett

Solar Storm Threatening Power Grids - 0 views

  • According to a study by the Metatech Corporation, commissioned under Executive Order 13407 for assessment of vulnerability to geomagnetic storms, manufacturers presently have a backlog of nearly three years for all extra highvoltage transformers (230 kilovolts and above). Only one plant exists in the U.S.A. capable of manufacturing a transformer up to 345 kV. There is no manufacturing capability in the U.S.A. for 500 kV and 765 kV transformers, which represent the largest group of at-risk transformers in the U.S. power grid. The 500 and 765 kV transformers are the backbone of the grid that extends into regions that contain nearly 80 percent of the U.S. population, according to John Kappenman of Storm Analysis Consultants and Metatech Corp.
Colin Bennett

US National Climate Assessment - 1 views

  • But this is one case where you’re probably better off skipping the news stories and just diving straight in. Go ahead: Stop reading and click here to see for yourself.
Colin Bennett

Assessing the performance of energy efficient buildings - 0 views

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    "What are the most important key performance indicators? There are, for example, indicators defining the temperature changes in reference rooms. This includes what is referred to as hours of overheating in summer. If the room temperature exceeds 26 degrees Celsius during more than 10 percent of the hours of use during a year, the room comfort is no longer achieved. Other indicators measure air quality. For example, there are CO2 sensors or so-called VOC-sensors that detect certain scents emitted by the users themselves. If the data exceed certain values, the performance in terms of air quality is not considered as good. In addition, there are energy performance indicators, such as an indicator for the overall energy efficiency of a building. We simply measure the energy that is supplied to the building. We then compare the data to pre-calculated values. We can then evaluate whether the building achieves the desired energy performance. Another indicator is the so-called net energy consumption. This is the energy that users actually have to pay for. "
Colin Bennett

Wind turbine payback - 1 views

  • The pair has carried out a life cycle assessment (LCA) of 2MW wind turbines in order to identify the net environmental impact of the production and use of such devices for electricity production
Colin Bennett

Ethics in Evaluation Research as a Way to Cope With Excessive Evaluation Anxiety - 1 views

  • In this paper we share our reflections, as evaluators, on an evaluation where we encountered Excessive Evaluation Anxiety (XEA).
Hans De Keulenaer

Review of critical metal dynamics to 2050 for 48 elements - ScienceDirect - 3 views

  • There are also many studies on copper in the case of nuclear, geothermal and biomass power plants.
  • Elshkaki and Graedel (2015) further estimated future demand for tellurium, selenium, indium, and germanium for the deployment of solar PV, highlighting the possibility of an oversupply of copper and zinc if these host metals are mined according to by-product demand.
  • How will copper contamination constrain future global steel recycling?
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Assessing environmental implications associated with global copper demand and supply scenarios from 2010 to 2050
  • Global distribution of used and unused extracted materials induced by consumption of Iron, copper, and nickel
  • Estimating global copper demand until 2100 with regression and stock dynamics
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