Author Archives: GEC

The Hydrogen Economy in 2007

Continuing our look at historical data, this is a write-up of what the hydrogen economy looked like in 2007. The energy sectors in both the United States and Europe are on the cusp of immense change. New technologies are being developed and opportunities for entrepreneurial ideas and innovative approaches are ripening at a time when […]

Issues surrounding Grid Balancing

Compounding the issues surrounding grid balancing, there are policies in place to promote distributed, small-scale renewable energy capacity. For example in the UK government subsidies are for consumers to erect wind turbines and rooftop solar panels for self-consumption. These consumers can then sell back their electricity to the grid. Changing the existing grid model from […]

Ocean vessel categories

Capesize vessels Carrying capacity: 140,000-170,000 t. Common use: coal and iron ore; not economical for fertiliser and grain Cape vessels are too large for the Panama Canal and many fertiliser/grain berths. When the demand for Cape vessels surged and then fell off, its effect on the freight market spilled over to vessels used for fertiliser […]

Transformer Capacity to Generation Capacity Ratios

93 countries have an MVA:MW ratio of 4 or under. The great majority of countries in this range have Lower or Lower Middle Income economies, mostly developing countries in Asia or Africa. These countries have low electrification ratios. The term “electrification” does not necessarily mean household electrification. In India a village is classified as “electrified” […]

Natural Gas and the Environment

It is now recognised that natural gas can play a significant role in reducing energy related pollution. It is the cleanest burning of all fossil fuels, producing the lowest level of pollutants. The single biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect world-wide is carbon dioxide. Natural gas produces less carbon dioxide than any other energy form […]

Coal Demand

Coal demand is dominated by two countries: China and the US. China’s coal industry has had a serious oversupply problem in recent years, particularly in the late 1990s, and the government has begun implementing major reforms aimed at reducing the oversupply, returning large state-owned mines to profitability as a prelude to possible future privatisation, and […]