Posted in rigs-to-reefs, Uncategorized, tagged Great Carrier Reef, Pensacola, USS Oriskany on August 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
USS Oriskany (CV-34) holds the distinction of being the final Essex-class aircraft carrier ever completed. Instead of being decommissioned and scrapped, the ship was intentionally sunk approximately 25 miles south of Pensacola, Florida. This unique decision transformed the USS Oriskany into the largest ship ever used to create an artificial reef. Due to this extraordinary use, the carrier has earned the affectionate nickname “The Great Carrier Reef.” from Military Tactics
Posted in climate, Uncategorized, tagged cattle, incentives, methane, NZ, offshore livestock, taxation on August 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Savvy marketing? Looking for mandates and incentives? Taxation opportunity?
Burps are the top source of methane emissions from cattle. Semex, the genetics company that sold Loewith the semen, said adoption of the low-methane trait could reduce methane emissions from Canada’s dairy herd by 1.5% annually, and up to 20%-30% by 2050.
The Canadian government currently offers no incentives for low-methane cattle breeding, but the agriculture department said in an email that Ottawa is working to introduce offset credits for reducing methane through better manure management.
New Zealand will begin taxing farmers for methane from cattle in 2025.
Reuters
Common sense reservations:
Juha Nousiainen, senior vice-president at Valio, a Finnish dairy, warned that breeding cattle to burp less methane could create digestive problems. Methane is produced by microbes in the cow’s gut as it digests fibre, not by the animal itself, he said.
We have our own genetically engineered livestock offshore. 😀
Posted in climate, energy policy, Uncategorized, tagged Daggett, fossil fuels, Petro-masculinity on August 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I thought the abstract below might be satire, but alas that is not the case. Here is a link to the full paper.
The paper is short on facts and long on dogma and political rhetoric, but is not entirely without merit. The author acknowledges, albeit in a backhanded manner, the massive social benefits that fossil fuels have provided (quote below). Would our economy have been strong enough to support academic pursuits such as hers were it not for fossil fuels and “petro-masculine” ingenuity and labor?
“Fossil fuels built the modern world. There remains an appreciation for fossil fuels – or, at least, for the high energy consumption they provided – as a catalyst of mass liberal democracy. This is evident in ecomodernist calls for a good Anthropocene that would decouple the benefits of fossil fuels from the fuels themselves. After all, while industrialisation wreaks planetary destruction, its spread was coterminous with humanist victories like the abolition of slavery, increased literacy rates, gender equality and poverty reduction. Dipesh Chakrabarty notes that this cannot be a coincidence, and that ‘the mansion of modern freedoms stands on an ever-expanding base of fossil-fuel use. Most of our freedoms so far have been energy-intensive.“
In the interest of balance, the author might have also acknowledged the impressive technical advances that have made fossil fuel production cleaner and more efficient. See also: simpler, safer, greener and the beauty of deepwater production.
Posted in Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged Andrew Konczvald, deepsea mining, Hidden Gem, Manzanillo, Mexico, TMC on August 9, 2023| 1 Comment »
Our Mexican correspondent, Andrew Konczvald, reports that the Hidden Gem, a deepsea mining vessel owned by The Metals Company (TMC) is still parked offshore Manzanillo. The ship has moved a couple of miles and is now near a shipping lane. See Andrew’s pictures below.
Per TMC’s latest update, the earliest that deepsea mining operations could be conducted is late 2025, so the vessel is likely to remain in Manzanillo for Andrew’s viewing pleasure. Nothing like a water view with a rig on the horizon. 😉
Posted in energy policy, tagged China, coal, Daniel Yergin, India, record coal consumption on August 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
As Dan Yergin reminds us, energy transitions don’t happen on command:
“The 19th century is known as the “century of coal,” but, as the technology scholar Vaclav Smil has noted, not until the beginning of the 20th century did coal actually overtake wood as the world’s No. 1 energy source. Moreover, past energy transitions have also been “energy additions”—one source atop another. Oil, discovered in 1859, did not surpass coal as the world’s primary energy source until the 1960s, yet today the world uses almost three times as much coal as it did in the ’60s.“
Coal is not going away. Per IEA, coal consumption in 2022 set a new record (8.3 billion tonnes) and will stay at or near that level in 2023 and 2024. See the chart below for 2021, 2022, and 2023 (est.) consumption in million tonnes. India and China are joined by the “Rest of the World” (outside the US and EU) in the billion tonne club.
Message: Coal is cost effective and reliable, and will continue to be a major source of energy.
Posted in Offshore Energy - General, Offshore Wind, rigs-to-reefs, tagged Block Island Wind, BOEM, mussels, reef effect, rotors to reefs on August 7, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Posted in conferences, Uncategorized, tagged Jonsson Center, marine policy, marine science, NASEM, Quissett estate, Woods Hole on August 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »
According to Zillow, the National Academies beloved Jonsson Center in Woods Hole was sold on Friday (8/4) for $13.5 million, less than half the original asking price. I have no idea who bought it and how it will be used. The Jonsson Center was an amazing venue for meetings and conferences. The beautiful estate served the marine science and policy communities well for decades.
Posted in energy policy, tagged SPR depletion, SPR refill, Strategic Petroleum Reserve on August 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »
WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – The Biden administration has pulled an offer to buy 6 million barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an Energy Department spokesperson said on Tuesday, as oil prices are expected to keep rising after a output cut from Saudi Arabia.
So much for adding a few drops to the SPR bucket. When your reserve is down 380 million barrels in a seller’s market, you don’t have a lot of purchasing leverage. Don’t expect much of an SPR refill anytime soon. It’s easy to deplete strategic assets; much more difficult to replace them.
Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged 5 year leasing plan, BOEM, EIA, Gulf of Mexico production, production forecast on August 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Gulf of Mexico 2023 oil production has dipped over the past 2 months, and is down 10% since January.
2023 production is reasonably well aligned with the EIA forecast which shows new production being offset by declines in existing fields.
Last year, BOEM forecast that production would average 2.0 million bopd in 2023. That forecast was justification for curtailing BOEM’s Proposed 5 Year Leasing Program. For the first time in the history of the OCS program, the primary concern of the program managers was that production might be too high for too long! This stunning quote from the 5 year leasing plan explains why so few lease sales were proposed:
“BOEM’s short-term (20-year) production forecast for existing leases shows steady growth from 2022 through 2024 and declining thereafter (see Section 5.2.1). The long-term nature of OCS oil and gas development, such that production on a lease can continue for decades makes consideration of future climate pathways relevant to the Secretary’s determinations with respect to how the OCS leasing program best meets the Nation’s energy needs.“
5 Year Leasing Program, p. 3
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, well control incidents, tagged BOP, BSEE, regulatory agenda, Well Control Rule on August 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Per the DOI regulatory agenda published on 7/27/2023 (excerpt below), the final BSEE well control rule was published in June. Of course, that did not happen, but the update tells us that the final rule should be published soon. The delay is probably in the internal review process which moves at the pace of continental drift 😉.
BOE comments on the proposed rule are attached here.
Legal Authority: Not Yet Determined [BOE note: This is rather comical since the OCSLA authority was specified in the preamble to the proposed rule and you would never publicly imply that you didn’t know the authority for a final rule. 😉]
Abstract: This rulemaking revises the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) regulations published in the 2019 final rule entitled “Oil and Gas and Sulfur Operations in the Outer Continental Shelf-Blowout Preventer Systems and Well Control Revisions,” 84 FR 21908 (May 15, 2019), for drilling, workover, completion and decommissioning operations. In accordance with Executive Order (E.O.) 13990 (Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis) and the E.O.’s accompanying “President’s Fact Sheet: List of Agency Actions for Review,” BSEE reviewed the 2019 final rule and is updating to subpart G of 30 CFR part 250 to ensure operations are conducted safely and in an environmentally responsible manner.
Timetable:
| Action | Date | FR Cite |
|---|---|---|
| NPRM | 09/14/22 | 87 FR 56354 |
| NPRM Comment Period End | 11/14/22 | |
| Final Action | 06/00/23 | |
| Final Action Effective | 07/00/23 |
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 