“… the usable range of a 19-seat plane goes from about 160 miles to about 30 miles. For a larger aircraft like the 100-seat planes that Wright is building, it’s less than six miles.”
“Electric planes could take to the sky soon, maybe even before the end of the decade. But they probably won’t be able to take very many of us very far. For now … you might want to just ride a bike or take the train.”
In a sea of government subsidies and PR stunts, the Deep Decarbonization movement regularly tees up alternatives to direct fossil fuel usage. Posing as technological optimists, the strategy is to change the mindset of mineral energy dominance, so that an attitude of “if government builds it, they will come” can be politically possible.…
Continue ReadingEd Note: This excerpt is from Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries: A Functional Appraisal of the Availability of Agricultural and Industrial Resources (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933).
“Harnessing the air for generating electric power … [is] engrossing the attention of scientists and technicians and may revolutionize the German electric industry. [Hermann] Honnef claims to have … overcome the drawback of the inconstancy of air currents which hitherto has been a handicap to the utilization of this source.” (1932)
Erich W. Zimmermann’s World Resources and Industries (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933) is one of the towering tomes of energy and mineral thought. The treatise (850 pages) in the old tradition, wherein a scholar presents a unified system of thought and considers differing viewpoints.
It is a tradition that seems to have stalled, with the next-best-thing being the latest book from Vaclav Smil.…
Continue ReadingBP is trying to have its cake and eat it too. And it is being criticized on all sides: the greens for greenwashing its major activity (oil and natural gas production) and mineral energy advocates for engaging in the uneconomic as a contra-capitalist company. BP head Bernard Looney tries to square the circle with both.
Looney just reported on LinkedIn:
… Continue ReadingSome brilliant news to share today… bp has just signed a $4 billion deal to buy Archaea Energy – a leading US biogas company that produces renewable natural gas. As I’ve said recently – “putting our money where our mouth is.”
I realise renewable natural gas might not mean much to people outside the industry so let me explain… It’s gas from organic waste – homes, cities and farms – that is captured instead of vented into the atmosphere or flared.