Greenhouse Mending

How Shale Gas Will Rock the World: A Belated Second Chorus “Shale Gas Will Rock the World: Huge discoveries of natural gas promise to shake up the energy markets and geopolitics. And that's just for starters. That was a May 10, 2010, Wall Stree Journal post at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303491304575187880596301668.html by by Amy Myers Jaffe was also talking about about a subject of discussed in earlier posts on this blog—massive increases in natural gas reserves because of new drilling techniques to develop gas from shale. But, being a business newspaper it noted several key additions. Besides repeating much already said in other articles, the Journal author considered “game-changing” implications. First, there is a generally good implication that large amounts of cheap domestic natural gas will bring more affordable prices for users of natural gas. Furthermore, the domestic may slow or reverse the rise of energy imports for some time, possibly decades.

Coal Rising Again in Germany “Merkel’s Green Shift Forces Germany to Burn More Coal.” That was the Blomberg headline at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-19/merkel-s-green-shift-forces-germany-to-burn-more-coal-energy.html on August 20, 2012. Prime Minister Angela Merkel shied away from nuclear fission after the earthquake-driven fission-reactor disaster in Japan. However, Germany needed power from somewhere, so coal it is. Part of the rush to coal apparently came from the collapse of the carbon trading market for various reasons. However, another issue was that coal power plants have become more efficient. The article keyed on 2,200-megawatt station near Cologne that is 43% efficient. Also, it can vary its electricity out put by 500 megawatts within a quarter hour.   That is important because the coal plant is backing up notoriously undependable wind generation facilities. Bottom line: coal burned “last year” (presumably that means 2011) rose 5.4 percent. Coralloary: If