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World Bank Pessimistic On Global Growth
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World Bank Pessimistic On Global Growth

By • On • In Economy, Finance

Despite the spiraling of oil prices, the World Bank forecasted a low economic growth performance for the global market. This is based on the fact that the economies of countries in Europe, Middle East and Asia suffered tremendously from the effects of the lowered oil prices.

Last June 2014, World Bank announced its forecast for 2015 for a growth of 3.4 percent. However, in a recent pronouncement, the expectation was lowered to 3 percent.

The World economy

According to Kaushik Basu, World Bank’s chief economist, the global economy has come to a very disturbing phase. People and the economy should be enjoying the luxury of lowered oil prices. However, this is not the case of today’s economy. The general public may be directly benefited by the bottom low prices of oil where the prices of common commodities dipped; but on the bigger picture, the country’s economy is suffering.

Since the 20008 global crises, the worldwide economy has come to a very slow pace. This was not expected at all. The momentum of global economy was on the rise until the last quarters of 2014.

The dominant nations

World Bank reported that the economies of some nations such as the United States and United Kingdom is stable and have strong growth forecasts in the years to come.

However, other rich and influential nations such as other members of the Euro zone and the Asian power house Japan continue to struggle and are threatened with deflation.

Future forecasts

Brazil and Russia, both major players in the oil exporting business will suffer adversely this year. China has slow growth predictions and India should catch up to Asia’s sleeping giant.

The World Bank also predicted the drop of 60 percent in oil prices. This has a positive effect on oil importing countries. While the World Bank expects optimism in the markets of oil importers, it said with caution that the effect of the lowered prices will not be felt immediately by the nation’s economy.

With oil prices falling rapidly, this phenomenon would lower the likelihood of inflation around the globe. Interest rates will be raised at a much slower pace.

wind
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The Potential Of Renewable Energy For Alberta

By • On • In Uncategorized, Wind Energy

Over half of the greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the generation of electricity in Canada come from Alberta. This means that Alberta’s energy sector has to significantly increase its use of renewable energy so that its emissions will be reduced. The good news is the availability of different technologies that can tap into Alberta’s vast renewable resources. Alberta can take advantage of being one of Canada’s sunniest provinces in harnessing solar energy. The prices of solar photovoltaic are falling rapidly and its efficiency has increased in cold weather. Solar technology that is used in Calgary tends to produce more electricity than when placed in Rome.

Alberta has one of the best wind resources in North America with Canada’s first wind farm built in Alberta over 20 years ago. Alberta has long experience with wind energy but it only supplies about 5% of the entire electricity of the province annually. Hydropower provides 60% of Canada’s electricity but only 3% for Alberta because of its underdeveloped hydropower resources if compared to its Prairie neighbor, Manitoba that is an established hydro leader with greater wind power generation.

On the geothermal front, Alberta has been provided with excellent resources according to the Geological Survey of Canada and the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association because in addition to hot springs, there are hot sedimentary aquifers that can be accessed for geothermal heat. Alberta has not dearth of drilling and geosciences know-how in order to tap into these resources and yet there is no permitting system in the province for geothermal electricity.
The benefits that renewable resources provide is the reduction in emissions and the ability to offer long term stability in prices because there is no fuel cost. However, there is uncertainty among investors, because in Alberta there are no mechanisms to facilitate long term contracts that will enable capital-intensive renewable energy projects.

If Alberta produces a more diverse energy portfolio, it will reduce its greenhouse emissions and it will also protect ratepayers from the volatility of gas prices in the future. The problem on renewable energy in Alberta is solvable through the development of oils and reserves that can create policy frameworks that are competitive and may possibly attract significant investments. With its renewed climate change strategy, the province will have a chance to remove obstacles in investment so that benefits can be reaped by Albertans.

waves
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A New Technology That Can Cut Of Costs Of Energy Generation From Waves

By • On • In Wave Energy

Tidal technology has been more commercially developed than water power technology in spite of the number of different innovative designs and devices that has been invented in last few years. However, a new technology is being developed by Swansea-based Marine Power Systems that can cut the costs of energy generation from waves. This revolutionary device will be tested in Pembrokeshire later in the year. Testing will take place at the waters of Milford Haven from 6 to 12 months and the results will be the basis for the development of a full-scale version which the company hopes to test by 2017. The full-scale version will be approximately 35 and 45 meters long and will have an output of 1.5MW.

Demonstration of the devices will be in one of three sea areas of South Pembrokeshire that covers 35 square miles of seabed with a connection to a coastal substation through a high voltage cable. WaveSub will be one of the innovative marine energy devices that are scheduled for testing as well as DeltaStream which is a tidal current turbine has been on the development stage for years and will soon be deployed by Ramsey Sound. The 150-tonne demonstration device is named Ysbryd y Mor or Spirit of the Sea which was supposed to be deployed last November 2014 but was delayed due to bad weather. It is now waiting for an ideal combination of good weather and right tidal conditions prior to deployment. It is expected that the device will generate electricity from tidal currents while installed on the seabed.

Swansea-based Marine Power Systems was founded by Swansea University through its engineering postgraduates Dr. Gareth Stockman and Dr. Graham Foster. A technology called WaveSub has been developed which could significantly reduce the cost of energy generation from waves. Marine Powers Systems expects to deploy the first of its farms with 100 devices that can be deployed in the future. The efficiency and low cost energy generation of WaveSub can be attributed to the Sea State Tuning technology that will allow the device to adjust to different states of the sea and continue to produce electricity from much wider range of wave heights and sea conditions.