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The complex LNG supply chain

With the energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, SciTech Daily has a nice article on the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. The US, Qatar and Australia are some of the biggest exporters. China and Japan are two of the biggest importers with Germany ramping up its own imports

"LNG is made by cooling natural gas to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 degrees Celsius), which reduces its volume by a factor of more than 600. Natural gas is piped to a port, processed in a liquefaction plant, and then loaded into specialized insulated, temperature-controlled tankers for shipment by sea.

To receive LNG, an offloading port must have a regasification plant that converts the LNG back to a gaseous form so it can be sent by pipeline to end users. Both liquefaction plants and regasification plants cost billions of dollars and take multiple years to build."

Video on the complexity of LNG logistics

 

Reimagining the Tuk Tuk

A pop-up store at a mall caught my eye. They had a whole variety of electric tricycles for personal and business use. The salesperson rattled off a bunch of attractive features

• Classified like an eBike – ride in bike lanes, on sidewalks, residential streets and bike trails
• 30-50 mile battery range from a single charge
• 18-28 mph speed
• No gas, license, registration, insurance required for models with a top speed of 20mph
• Minimal to no maintenance  
• Storage compartment and baskets for bags and light gear
• No pedaling required

The personal and business use cases are limitless and they cost way less than BEVs to buy and operate. Many of them look like an Italian designer rethought the tuk tuk you see on Asian roads.

The Driven says there are already 1.5 million electric trikes on Indian roads and another 1.35 million in China. As we rethink our carbon footprints and lifestyles, I have a feeling we will see more of them on Western roads

Hydroelectric as most popular renewable fuel

Investments in the sector slowed somewhat before 2020 as other renewable sources such as wind and solar PV gained momentum, a situation exacerbated by delays to several major hydropower projects and some regions’ lack of policy changes, which also stunted growth. The industry is, however, experiencing a renaissance as countries are increasingly motivated to find suitable renewable options to decarbonize their energy supply.

“Hydropower is the backbone of low-carbon electricity generation and has been rising since the 1970s. Over the last two decades, the installed global capacity of hydropower has grown from 680 GW in 2000 to nearly 1,200 GW in 2021, a surge of more than 75%,” says Rystad Energy analyst Karan Satwani.

Oil Price

Video of the massive Baihetan project in China 

The transoceanic cable landscape

The world’s biggest owner of cables is a household name, at least to Americans – it’s AT&T, which has a stake in around 230,000 kilometres of international internet cabling, or around one sixth of the total. But looking at others in the top ten reveals why both Big Tech and Western governments are starting to pay the apparently dull issue of cable ownership more attention: in second place is China Telecom, while Chunghwa Telecom (based in Taiwan) is third and China Unicorn is sixth.

In the tenth and eleventh spots, however, are some very familiar names: Facebook and Google. Big Tech is getting into big cables – and doing so in a big way. Over the past few years, 80 percent of investment in new cables has flowed from the two US tech giants. As of today, Facebook owns or co-owns 99,399 kilometres of cables, Google 95,876 kilometres. And more investments are on their way: in August, Facebook and Google announced their plans for building a 12,000 kilometre undersea cable, Apricot, which will link Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia when completed in 2024. For Google, that came hot on the heels of a previous announcement about the Echo subsea cable, which will connect California, Singapore, Guam and Indonesia. For its part, Facebook has thrown its weight behind the coalition of telcos building what might turn out to be the longest subsea cable ever: 2Africa, a 45,000 kilometre-long cord planned to encompass the whole African continent and connect 33 countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle-East by 2024. In May 2020 Bloomberg reported that the project will cost under $1 billion – but that was before Facebook announced several expansions to the initial design.

Wired UK

 

Coal Port to be run by renewable energy

The world’s largest coal port in Australia is set to be powered by entirely renewable energy. The announcement is part of the Port of Newcastle’s targets of decarbonising by 2040 and having coal only make up half of its revenue by the end of this decade.

The port has also made the change following coal power generation hitting its lowest level in the Australian electricity market at the tail end of last year. A power purchase agreement (PPA) has been signed with Iberdrola to generate the wind power needed for the port’s operations.

Energy Live News

More on Iberdrola below

 

Meta’s huge Dutch data center

I had profiled Facebook’s Prineville, OR data center in a case study in a 2012 book. It was very innovative for its time – see an excerpt here 

A decade later, Meta is planning a massive new facility in Europe as Ars Technica describes

“Amsterdam is home to a major Internet exchange, which distributes traffic from data centers nearby, and it has attracted tech giants looking for better connectivity and fiber to set up giant, "hyperscale" data centers to process their own data nearby.

Microsoft built the first hyperscale in the Netherlands in 2015. Since then, two more have been built, and that number is expected to grow, according to trade group the Dutch Data Center Association. But Meta's plan for the Zeewolde site, known as Tractor Field 4, is by far the biggest yet. It would span 166 hectares, the equivalent of more than 1,300 Olympic swimming pools, and would devour 1,380 gigawatt-hours of energy a year, at least double what the municipality's 22,000 residents consume in the same period.”

The video below is in Dutch but gives you a glimpse at the location, the dimensions and the concerns of the local residents

High-tech in the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony

If you missed the opening ceremony, here are the highlights from NBC

Vogue magazine provides commentary

In keeping with China’s status as a global leader in technological innovation, the opening ceremony made up for its relatively low number of participants with an extraordinary spectacle created by an array of lasers, lights, enormous LED screens, and pyrotechnics. Despite the use of plenty of cutting-edge technology, however, the ceremony’s imagery was largely inspired by the natural world, with the narrative centered around the beginning of spring and featuring recreations of a variety of Chinese flora and fauna, including willow trees and butterflies. The most spectacular moment? The light sticks paraded by dancers that unfolded to create dandelions, before fireworks exploded above to represent the seeds of the flower spreading across the earth.

While director Zhang Yimou may be best known for the kaleidoscopic cinematography, lavish costuming, and eye-popping sets of his wuxia martial-arts epics Hero and House of Flying Daggers, the three-time Oscar-nominated director’s themes of resilience and national pride made him the obvious choice to direct the opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, widely remembered as one of the most dazzling of all time. So it followed that he was enlisted to direct this year’s proceedings too—and he once again realized his distinctive vision with the ravishing visual splendor that has become his signature.

Here is a summary of some of the tech used for the ceremony

Primer to the Beijing Winter Olympics

The New York Times has a nice overview of every event planned from Alpine Skiing to Snowboarding at the Winter Olympics which start this week.

Below is a promotional video from the International Olympics Committee

 

Only artificial snow at Beijing Games

But the 2022 Games will take it one step further: None of the snow will be real. At both the alpine skiing venue in Yanqing, a mountainous Beijing suburb, and at the biathlon, cross-country, freestyle, nordic, ski jumping and snowboarding venues in Zhangjiakou, a ski destination 100 miles northwest of the host city, the temperatures regularly dip below freezing, but natural monthly snowfall is best measured in centimeters. “The Olympics cannot rely on that,” says Michael Mayr. “So they have to be sure the snow is there when they start.”

Here the onus falls to TechnoAlpin, an Italian snowmaking supplier for whom Mayr, 46, works as an area sales manager overseeing China. To hear him describe the vast amount of equipment necessary to stage these Olympics, TechnoAlpin might as well be outfitting an arctic army for battle. At the Yanqing venue alone, 170 fan-powered guns and 30 fanless stick lances work around the clock spraying water mist—sourced from a nearby reservoir and pressurized through multiple “pump stations”—that crystallizes into snow on its descent through the chilly air.

Sports Illustrated

Here’s TechnoAlpin’s SnowFactory

 

Green methanol

A.P. Moller - Maersk has identified its partners to produce green fuel for its first vessel to operate on carbon neutral methanol: REintegrate, a subsidiary of the Danish renewable energy company European Energy.

REintegrate and European Energy will establish a new Danish facility to produce the approx. 10.000 tonnes of carbon neutral e-methanol that Maersk’s first vessel with the ability to operate on green e-methanol will consume annually.

The methanol facility will use renewable energy and biogenic CO2 to produce the e-methanol. The fuel production is expected to start in 2023. The energy needed for the power-to-methanol production will be provided by a solar farm in Kassø, Southern Denmark.