World Light Olefins Markets Outlook: Impact of Changing Energy and Feedstock Market Dynamics on Regional Olefins Markets Conference PresentationAIChE Spring Meeting and Global Congress on Process SafetyMarch 15, 2011Underlying feedstock prices that derive from either natural gas or crude oil represent a high percentage of the operating expense related to the...
The Impacts of Tight Gas and Shale to Global LNG Market and Gas Conference PresentationAIChE Spring Meeting and Global Congress on Process SafetyMarch 14, 2011“Do we have enough gas?” This question asked by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2003 had prompted him to declare that the US did...
Kawasaki Industries Wants to Make Dirty Lignite Coal Useful and Clean April 26, 2017Ask scientists to name the the world's dirtiest fuel and lignite coal wins hands-down. But Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has developed a production process that cleans up...
Westinghouse's Huge Loss Ends the Short-lived US Nuclear Renaissance March 7, 2017It's 2017 and America should be in the midst of a total, multi-state nuclear renaissance. At least that was consensus in Washington during 2006 when President Bush and Congress...
Dr. Art Rosenfeld, California Energy Efficiency Visionary, Dies at 90 February 9, 2017Two weeks ago, Dr. Art Rosenfeld, the embodiment of energy efficiency, died in his home at the age of 90, not far from the Berkeley lab where he worked for over forty years. After...
Tesla's New Battery Storage Farm in California Is a Big Deal February 21, 2017California is the only state in the country coping with too much solar power, and it's a problem that's still getting worse as each new utility-scale solar farm is built. With...
America's First Commercial Offshore Wind Array Sends Power to the Grid January 24, 2017Catching the strong Atlantic winds thirteen miles off the coast of Rhode Island, Deepwater Wind's five 6 MW offshore wind turbines started sending clean power to Block Island's...
Elon Musk Unveils New Solar Roof, Touts Tesla/SolarCity Merger December 8, 2016Selling residential rooftop solar is a tough slog. Total system costs are still too high, which includes the costs of finding and persuading homeowners to plop a big, new...
Record Green Power Installations Beat Fossil Fuels for the First Time October 27, 2016Last year a record-breaking 500,000 solar panels were installed every day as renewables edged out coal to become the world’s largest source of installed power capacity. The pace...
New Documentary Shows Renewables at Tipping Point July 20, 2016Last January a documentary crew in Abu Dhabi watched the global energy system reach a tipping point and shift decisively toward renewable energy. The producers had been looking...
Worldwide Electric-Car Charging Network Ramps Up August 5, 2016As new electric vehicles (EVs) begin to flood the world's roads and highways, sold by a global who's-who of traditional car makers, it's important to remember that Nissan was the...
Frackers in Permian Basin Upset Saudi Dominance August 11, 2016Once formidable, OPEC is taking a beating from US shale drillers two years after Saudi Arabia flooded the world with cheap crude trying to knock the upstarts out of the oil...
Michael Liebreich Says Electric Vehicles Are a Global Revolution Sitting in Your Garage August 30, 2016Michael Liebreich, the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, has tracked surging global renewable energy investments for over a decade. After finally connecting the dots, he's...
Nuclear Needs Help Surviving Against Cheap Natural Gas and Renewables July 13, 2016Nuclear reactors have had long, productive lives. But recently, their life expectancy has plunged so fast — upending normal replacement cycles — that they're now considered...
Torrefied Biomass As Coal Replacement Fuel: Market Acceptance Challenges Due to the Disruptive Technology Conference PresentationAIChE Annual MeetingOctober 30, 2012Torrefied woody biomass in pelletized or briquette form has been demonstrated to be a functional replacement for coal in powdered coal fired systems...