Oil & Water

This talk surprised me in the sense that Matt Simmons used to be very focused on energy. He comes from the oil investment world. He has now expanded the discussion to include other resources - mostly water. He sees ocean energy as the way forward. I often find Matt Simmons to be ahead of curve - not that he needs my endorsement.

I am seeing more references everday to the interplay between energy and water. Jeremy Rifkin mentioned in a recent talk that during the heatwave in Europe that killed 10K people, one of the reasons France's nuclear power plants could not generate more energy to drive the air conditioners and mitigate the problem is that the power plants were constrained by their water availability. Here Matt Simmons suggests that USA's power generation uses 40% of the fresh water. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, in a talk claimed that 20% of the energy generated in the state of California is used for pumping water around.

Twin Threats to Resource Scarcity: Oil & Water Marsh’s National Oil Companies’ Conference 2010, February 24, 2010

Simmons marsh-talk

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Generating Electricity in a Carbon-Constrained World

Generating Electricity in a Carbon-Constrained World

Slides of the presentation are here

RFF Policy Leadership Forum w/Steve specker
Thursday, March 30, 2006

Steve Specker
President and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute

Dr. Specker discusses electricity-generation technologies and investment decisions in light of ongoing efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. He compares the costs of various options, including such technologies as wind, nuclear, biomass, pulverized coal, and gasification. In addition, he addresses key uncertainties affecting near-term decisions on new electricity generation.
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Excellent talk. Summarizes the best understanding that we have so far in terms of constraints, choices, and available paths. The talk is upbeat in the sense that Steve does point to a viable path to get to 80% decrease in carbon emissions (2005 baseline).