Specific Gas And Electric

There I Was

Contemplating.  I contemplated during my Thinking Time walking Edna, then again whilst sitting and reading torrid tales of trauma on Youtube about how toxically terrible Hom. Sap. can be.  There needs to be a 'hook' I can 'hang' the Intro upon, you see.  Then - nothing.  THEN! - still nothing.  THEN! - inspiration struck and I seemed to recall a band whose name was apt.  Art!

     There's no 'Pacific' in this particular Intro, in case you were wondering.  We shall, mind, be dealing with lots of gas and electricity, because this is my sneaky way of introducing another annotated version of Joe Blogs' vlog on the Ruffian economy.  Having done one exclusively on oil, Joe then turned his focus to the Ruffian gas market, how well - or poorly - it was doing, and the implications for all.  You, me and the rest of the globe.  Art!

     Thanks to the laws of physics, and probably chemistry, too, Ruffia is still able to export oil.  What they've done is buy up a fleet of rusty old oil tankers about to be scrapped, and use them to ship oil to India and China.  This gets them around the problems of having to use Western tankers or insurance, up to the point where secondary sanctions start getting imposed.

     As you may have already noticed, gas is significantly different from oil, being a vapour not a liquid.

PRE-WAR: Ruffia is able to easily, cheaply and quickly supply gas to Europe via a network of pipelines.  These were expensive to install but subsequently require minimal investment to maintain and run.  One of the major consumers of Ruffian pipeline gas are the European gas-fired power stations.  All is well until the Special Idiotic Operation begins.  Art!

Hot air: a valuable energy source

BACKGROUND - ELECTRICITY DEMAND AND SUPPLY: Hey we need to refer back to today's title.  Joe's charts showed that demand for electricity has almost doubled from 2000 - 2022.  in 2000 gas supplied 18% of all European electricity; in 2022 that figure had risen to 22%.  Renewables (solar and wind) made up less than 2% of the total in 2000.

     However - a word you surely knew was coming - in 2022 Wind-generated electricity made up 7.6% of the total, with solar making up 4.5%.  So an increase of 6x in this period.  This increase has accommodated 90% of the increased demand for electricity, whilst the generation of electricity by gas-fired power stations has declined significantly.  Art!

     Gas-fired plants were all the rage as gas emits half the CO₂ of a coal-fired plant.  That's still a significant carbon-loading.

TESLA COILS: No!  The car of the future won't run on gas; it will run on electricity produced, increasingly, by non-gas generating plant.  The demand for electricity will increase, and that for petrol will fall, which is a kind of lose-lose for Chipmunk Cheeks.  And going by the recall of 2 million Teslas, it won't be Elong Tusk getting the financial benefit.

RENEWABLE POWER: For wind power, the highest production is in the evening, rather than the morning, and production is also seasonal, with highest generation in winter.  Art!

     Solar power generation is bookended by winter/autumn, with highest output at mid-day and in summer.  Pretty obviously there is nil generation overnight.

     How does one square the circle with demand versus generation?  O I thought you'd never ask!

STORAGE:  Here the march of technology has been relentless and rapid.  Make no mistake, this technology would have come about without Europe having to wean itself off Ruffian gas, just that it wouldn't have come in for a couple of decades.  Now there are gigantic 'flow batteries' that store excess electricity, compressed air storage that uses power to store the energy latent in compressed air, and mechanical gravity storage that raises giant ('massive') concrete blocks to height, able to generate power when released thanks to kinetic energy stored.  Art!

     This plant is not speculative or hypothetical or experimental; it's being built and created now.     

RUFFIA: Ah yes, there has to be a rainy day in there for someone, doesn't there?  Ruffia has the world's largest reserves of natural gas at 24% of the global reserves.  Trouble is, you can't simply transport it as you would oil; you either need Liquid Natural Gas liquidisation facilities, which are extremely expensive, or you need to build pipelines to your clients, which is also extremely expensive.  Guess who doesn't have money to spare for such infrastructure?  Well, yes, the Sanjak Of Novi Pazar, but also the Ruffians.  Art!

     The Populous Dictatorship refuses to either build or fund this speculative pipeline, which would take billions and years to construct.  Back in the halcyon days of 2020, the Ruffians sold $350 million worth of gas per day ($120 billion per year), a total which has declined to $90 million per diem and $32 billion per annum.

     For Peter The Average, who is confidently waiting for things to go back as they were in 2020, this is all verrrrry bad news.  The gas market for Ruffia has now  dwindled to a fraction of what it was, and IT'S NEVER COMING BACK. Art!

     I'm saddened to say that both Brian Jones and Charley Watts are dead, and, frankly, gas gas gas isn't looking too healthy nowadays, either.

"Sweet Home" And Gas Shortages

I sincerely apologise for having to use the South Canadian argot for 'petrol', but I can excuse anything if it means a bit of fancy wordplay.  Yesteryon I might have gone a little overboard about petrol shortages at the end of the world in "Mad Max 2".  Well, here's a brief montage from the above-named Sork genre drama.  Art!

     We are told that this is Day 337 of the Monster Apocalypse.  Those four vehicles heading out of their demolished stadium refuge are on the prowl for more petrol, which they salvage by siphoning out of abandoned vehicles.

     Don't worry, you'll get a lot more about SH in the days to come.  The good news is that a Season 3 has been approved! which they ought to make the last.  Because Conrad has spoken.

"City In The Sky"

Alex has arrived in the nick of time to prevent the Doctor from getting lynched.  Now he's getting off a strategic-info dump about what's really been happening.

     ‘Did the hotel report any buckets or mops stained with litres of blood?  That they’d found a whole set of vital parts?  There isn’t even any blood on the supposed murder weapon!’

     A lot of hard looks were being directed at Mike, who looked pale and unsteady. 

     ‘Let me show you a thing or two,’ said Alex, unrolling his bundle, to reveal the contorted and mutilated shape previously known as “Ben”.  ‘No blood.  A giant cavity in the mid-section and a big hole in the middle that, as far as I can see, leads down to the left leg.’

     A chorus of gasps and whispers went up.

     ‘Pay attention!’ said Alex, glancing at the Doctor, who nodded encouragingly whilst massaging his neck.  ‘This skin – it’s not skin.  It’s plastic.’  He used a pair of needle-nose pliers to worry a piece of tissue free and threw it amongst the listeners.  ‘This isn’t bone – it’s a kind of moulded resin.  A type of lightweight plastic,’ he clarified, aware that the Euclans and coasties didn’t know the first thing about plastics.  He used a miniature hammer to shatter several ribs, which broke in a fashion so different to normal human bone that the watchers were convinced straight away.

     Hmmm, what's afoot, readers?

In Search Of The Lost Chord Key

Enough references to The Moody Blues! who can go off and be saturnine on their own dime.  Art!

     You will recall that I'd mysteriously lost a key from my laptop on Friday, and couldn't find it anywhere, despite grovelling around with my phone as a torch.

     I stuck my finger into my slipper, feeling a niggling little roughness, and Hey Pesto! there was the missing key.  Must have fallen into the slipper smooth side up, thus not being particularly noticeable underfoot.

One Feels For Him

I have just spotted a sidebar item on the BBC's News webpage and thought I'd share it with you.  Art!

     
     Conrad confidently expects that, before he mentioned them, none of you were aware of the existence of SACD's historical novels "Sir Nigel" and "The White Company".  These are set in the thirteenth century and involve an English knight and the mercenary company he raises.  SACD felt that these were two of his best works and didn't like that they were eclipsed by the resident of 222b Baker Street.  Art!

Finally -

No, I can't share The Haul with you today.  Reasons.

     Later, pilgrims!