WSI maintains hurricane forecast for 2009

WSI maintains hurricane forecast for 2009

NEW YORK - Private weather forecaster WSI Corp said on Monday it still sees a quiet 2009 Atlantic hurricane season with conditions not conducive to an active year for violent storms.

WSI's updated forecast predicted a season of 10 named storms, five hurricanes and two intense hurricanes of category 3 or greater, unchanged from its July forecast. In July, WSI cut its forecast from 11 named storms to 10.

"The forecast numbers continue from July to August because there have been no significant changes in the current El Nino event," said WSI seasonal forecaster Todd Crawford.

The number of expected storms is close to the 1950-2008 average, but is much lower than the numbers seen during the past 15 years.

Water temperature and wind conditions in the Atlantic have so far made for a relatively quiet hurricane season this year, and while the first hurricane of the season, Bill, skirted eastern North America last week, this year is expected to be quieter than 2008.

"Ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic have warmed up considerably during the past month, but this warming likely represents only a shallow surface layer and probably isn't indicative of any substantial increase in total available energy," said Crawford.

Last year, 16 named storms were generated, disrupting U.S. oil and gas operations and damaging communities along the Gulf Coast.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30. WSI's next and last hurricane forecast will be issued on September 23.

U.S. sets awards to evaluate CO2 storage technology

SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Department of Energy said on Monday it has awarded $27.6 million of funding to evaluate the potential risks of storing carbon dioxide underground, which is seen as a way to control global warming.

The total value of the 19 projects selected is about $35.8 million over four years, with $27.6 million of DOE funding, according to the DOE.

Coal-fired power plants provide about half of the electricity in United States but account for about 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from domestic power generation, making them top targets for environmentalists.

Coal companies, governments and environmental activists are hoping for breakthrough technologies that will help trap, transport and bury underground carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

The funding includes $1.6 million for Columbia University, nearly $2 million for Schlumberger Ltd's Carbon Services, $2 million for Woodlands, Texas-based Fusion Petroleum Technologies and $2 million for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Planetary Emissions Management Inc.

Until this year, Bassam Odeh had no way of knowing whether an employee at his fast-food restaurants had left open the door to the freezer or the walk-in cooler.

Now he gets a text message whenever that happens.

“If you don’t close that door, you’re going to hear it from me,” said Mr. Odeh, whose line of 34 restaurants in Texas and Louisiana includes Jack in the Box, Qdoba and Pancho’s.

Joseph Harberg, a partner with Dallas-based Current Energy, the company that outfitted Mr. Odeh’s restaurants with sensors, said that food service restaurants have different needs than ordinary buildings, where lighting and air-conditioning tend to account for 75 to 80 percent of power use.

“When you get to food service and food sales, air conditioning and lighting really account for 25 to 40 percent of your electricity spend,” Mr. Harberg said. Refrigeration is a big extra expense.

Some easy tricks can save energy, Mr. Harberg said. He cited an example of a pizza operator that Current Energy has worked with, which kept its three ovens running all the time, regardless of how full the restaurant was. “They said nobody remembers to turn them off and on,” Mr. Harberg said.

Current Energy installed occupancy sensors, so that one oven is running full-blast all the time, and the second oven — while never entirely shut down — is cranked up only when the restaurant is 30 percent full. The third comes on when the restaurant is 60 percent full. “We’re saving them 50 percent on gas bills,” Mr. Harberg said.

For fast-food spots like Mr. Odeh’s, another often-overlooked energy user is the drive-through window, which is often propped open unnecessarily, letting air-conditioned air escape. Current Energy installs sensors on its projects that pull down an “air-curtain” when the window has been open too long.

“When I got into it, I wasn’t expecting all this,” said Mr. Odeh. He is pleased with the 10 to 20 percent that he figures he is saving on his electric bills (after paying up to $24,000 per restaurant — and substantially less for the smaller ones — for the service).

Saudi Blasts American Energy Policy

The New York Times, August 25, 2009, By Jad Mouawad

The question of American “energy independence” clearly rankles officials in Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest exporter of crude oil, who seem increasingly puzzled by the energy policy of the United States, the world’s biggest oil consumer.

In a short and strongly-worded essay in Foreign Policy magazine, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the United States and a nephew to King Abdullah, said that for American politicians, invoking energy independence “is now as essential as baby-kissing,” and accuses them of “demagoguery.”

All the talk about energy independence, Mr. al-Faisal said, is “political posturing at its worst — a concept that is unrealistic, misguided, and ultimately harmful to energy-producing and consuming countries alike.”

There is no technology on the horizon that can completely replace oil as the fuel for the United States’ massive manufacturing, transportation, and military needs; any future, no matter how wishful, will include a mix of renewable and nonrenewable fuels.

Considering this, efforts spent proselytizing about energy independence should instead focus on acknowledging energy interdependence. Like it or not, the fates of the United States and Saudi Arabia are connected and will remain so for decades to come.

Relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia date back to the 1930s when American geologists first struck oil in the kingdom. While American companies built the Saudi oil industry, Americans have never shaken off their suspicions and mistrust of the kingdom since the Arab oil embargo of 1973.

It’s not the first time a Saudi official has criticized American energy policy, or its growing reliance on renewable fuels. Many of Prince Turki’s arguments recycle Saudi Arabia’s position that for the past thirty years, the oil-rich kingdom has acted in a responsible manner to keep oil markets well supplied.

Prince Turki correctly points at the steps taken by Saudi Arabia in recent years to increase its production to make up for lost production in Iraq or elsewhere in times of crisis, and invest close to $100 billion in new capacity over the past five years.

On the other hand, he points out that four countries — Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela — failed to live up to expectations that they would raise their production over the past decade for a variety of reasons, including “a U.S. invasion” in the case of Iraq.

The Saudis have genuine reasons to fear the effects of the Obama administration’s energy policy and its commitment to reducing oil consumption, as well as efforts to reduce carbon emissions. As Prince Turki points out himself, Saudi Arabia holds 25 percent of the world’s known oil reserves and would like to keep selling oil for several more decades.

As such, the Saudis know that any attempt to reduce gasoline consumption is a threat to the future of the Saudi economy. It’s an old refrain: in his most famous remark, the former Saudi oil minister, Sheik Yamani, once said that the stone age didn’t end because the world ran out of stones, and the oil age will not end because the world runs out of oil. It will end when something replaces it.

The trend has already started. Oil demand in the United States has peaked — instead of rising as it has since the dawn of the age of oil more than a century ago, the nation’s oil consumption has begun its long decline. The question is: how fast will the transition take?

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