Robotics Industry is far smaller than Global Outsourcing

Information technology industry body Nasscom said the global business process management (BPM) spend will grow at six-seven per cent annually till 2020 resulting in significant opportunities for the sector. Global BPM spend, which stands at $130 billion across different sectors in 2013, are likely to grow to $233 billion by 2020, it said. 

The global industrial robotics market was valued at USD 28.93 billion in 2013,growing at a CAGR of 6.2% from 2014 to 2020 and is estimated to reach USD 44.48 billion in 2020.

[Boston Consulting Group] Spending on robots worldwide is expected to more than quadruple from just over $15 billion four years ago to about $67 billion by 2025—a 10.4 percent.

There will be about 16 million new college educated people being added every year from now to 2030.About ten million per year will be added from China and India.

Buying about $8 trillion of foreign assets and companies will prevent Chinese Yuan from strengthening 5 to 1 until about 2045

According to the most recently published data, in 2011 total deposits held in these institutions by corporations, individuals and other entities amounted to 80.9 trillion yuan ($13.3 trillion)—70% more than China's GDP. (In the U.S. in 2014, M2—consisting of total demand deposits, savings deposits and small time deposits—was 35% less than U.S. GDP).

If and when full yuan convertibility occurs, a significant share of these yuan balances (perhaps 10% or more) will diversify into other foreign assets, especially dollar assets. Buying up foreign assets on a major scale means flooding the market with yuan, putting downward pressure on its value. And as long as China maintains an annual current account surplus—currently about $190 billion—some of it will further boost demand for foreign assets, thereby further weakening the yuan's exchange rate.

These three factors mean that the yuan's value is likely to stabilize toward the lower end of the 16 cents to 20 cents range. That said, so long as China's unusually high savings rate persists—about 40% of GDP compared with less than 10% in the U.S.—so too will large surpluses recur in its current account.

Charles Wolf of Rand Predictions Summarized

HSBC expects yuan to be a top three currency for trade settlement in 2015 and fully convertible by 2018

* Wolf expects China will buy $2 trillion initially in foreign assets (companies, properties etc...) around 2018 with full convertibility

* China will continue to have a surplus and will buy more assets $100-200 billion per year ($1-2 trillion per decade)

It will likely take about 30 years for China's savings rate to get to the 10% range



If Wolf is right then it will be about 2045 before China's yuan strengthens beyond 5 to 1 to the US dollar.

Acidification Mitigation Details and lower cost mitigation in the $1 to 4 per ton CO2 ranges

Ocean Acidification: Cause, Impact and mitigation from IIT Kanpur

Limestone mitigation

Presentation by Rau describes the limestone mitigation method

Journal of Geophysical Research - Mitigating the atmospheric CO2 increase and ocean acidification by adding limestone powder to upwelling regions

The feasibility of enhancing the absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere by adding calcium carbonate (CaCO3) powder to the ocean and of partially reversing the acidification of the ocean and the decrease in calcite supersaturation resulting from the absorption of anthropogenic CO2 is investigated. CaCO3 could be added to the surface layer in regions where the depth of the boundary between supersaturated and unsaturated water is relatively shallow (250–500 m) and where the upwelling velocity is large (30–300 m a 1 ). The CaCO3 would dissolve within a few 100 m depth below the saturation horizon, and the dissolution products would enter the mixed layer within a few years to decades, facilitating further absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. This absorption of CO2 would largely offset the increase in mixed layer pH and carbonate supersaturation resulting from the upwelling of dissolved limestone powder. However, if done on a large scale, the reduction in atmospheric CO2 due to absorption of CO2 by the ocean would reduce the amount of CO2 that needs to be absorbed by the mixed layer, thereby allowing a larger net increase in pH and in supersaturation in the regions receiving CaCO3. At the same time, the reduction in atmospheric pCO2 would cause outgassing of CO2 from ocean regions not subject to addition of CaCO3, thereby increasing the pH and supersaturation in these regions as well. Geographically optimal application of 4 billion t of CaCO3 a 1 (0.48 Gt C a 1 ) could induce absorption of atmospheric CO2 at a rate of 600 Mt CO2 a 1 after 50 years, 900 Mt CO2 a 1 after 100 years, and 1050 Mt CO2 a 1 after 200 years.

Opportunities for Low-Cost CO2 Mitigation in Electricity, Oil, and Cement Production by Rau

Several low-cost opportunities exist for scrubbing CO2 from waste gas streams, utilizing spontaneous chemical reactions in the presence of water and inexpensive or waste alkaline compounds. These reactions convert CO2 to bicarbonate or carbonate in dissolved or solid form, thus providing CO2 capture and low-risk CO2 storage underground, in the ocean, or in some cases on land. Useful by-products and co-benefits can also be generated by these processes. In certain settings this approach will be significantly less energy intensive, less costly, and less risky than "conventional" molecular CO2 capture and geologic storage.

It has been previously shown that industrial-scale accelerated weathering of limestone, AWL, can effectively convert a significant fraction of US CO2 emissions to long-term storage as bicarbonate in the ocean. Being analogous to the successful, wide-spread use of wet limestone to desulfurize flue gas, AWL reactors could be retrofitted to existing power plants at a cost possibly as low as $3-$4 per tonne CO2 mitigated. Such low costs would especially pertain to coastal power plants where an average of 30,000 tonnes of seawater per GWhe are already pumped through for cooling, and where the majority of coastline (at least in the US) is within 400 km of limestone sources.

Capture and Storage Using Water Co-Produced With Oil

On average 10 barrels of water are brought to the surface with each barrel of oil produced, and the majority of this water is simply pumped back into the reservoir. Our preliminary analysis suggests that most of this water is significantly undersaturated in CO2 relative to industrial waste gas streams that are typically 10% to 20% CO2. Furthermore, such waters can contain significant carbonate ion concentrations, meaning they have an enhanced capacity to react with excess CO2 to form dissolved bicarbonates.

While the US capacity of this CO2 mitigation approach is modest (perhaps 2 million tons/yr) and is best suited to treat CO2 waste streams in the immediate vicinity of the water production, the cost of such CO2 mitigation could be extremely low, perhaps less than $1/tonne CO2.

Co-benefits of CO2 addition to produced water would be the reduction (via lowered pH) of internal pipeline scale formation, a common and expensive problem in the industry. Also, CO2 addition could enhance the oil-water separation process, may reduce downstream microbial fouling, and might enhance oil recovery. Further work is needed to better evaluate the cost/benefit and potential market of this CO2 mitigation approach.

Cement Production can be altered to absorb CO2 instead of releasing CO2.

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Kirk Sorensen describes the liquid thorium development at Flibe Energy

Kirk Sorensen (of Flibe Energy) offers "the industrial perspective" on how the upcoming "nuclear retirement retirement cliff" of today's plants, combined with large numbers of coal plants facing retirement, create opportunity for the Liquid-Fueled Thorium Reactor. Department of Energy's "Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap" states "it is ultimately industry's decision which commercial technologies will be deployed. The federal role falls more squarely in the realm of R&D." Kirk notes that informal talks with NRC personnel, they have a great deal of optimism regarding regulation of LFTR thanks to MSR's inherent safety features. "The NRC is happy to look at anything, so long as you pay their billing rates... sometimes being different isn't all bad if you can help them achieve a higher level of safety." Flibe Energy is currently conducting a year-long feasibility study and that should be completed by the end of this year (2014). If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks

China is driving production of graphene nanoplatelets and carbon nanotubes to the 1500-2000 ton per year level in 2016-2018

[EEtimes] China took the lead in carbon nanotube and graphene research and manufacturing, according to Lux Research, by adding to a global glut market, driving down prices, eroding margins, and likely causing an early shakeout in the fledgling industry. Lux forecasts that the global graphene nanoplatlet and carbon nanotube demand in 2018 stands at 1,520 tons and 2,016 tons, respectively. However, China alone will be enough to feed total global graphene nanoplatlet demand until 2016. The prices of graphene nanoplatlets and carbon nanotubes will continue to drop down once capacity and utilization climb, and the aggressive capacity expansion of Chinese companies will squeeze the profit margins of both nanomaterials. China is funding around $2 billion from 2011 to 2015.

"From 2013 to 2015, assuming both CNano and Timesnano execute on their announced expansion plans to add 500 tons per year and 100 tons per year, respectively, China will increase its share of global capacity from 30% to 50%," Ma tells EE Times. "Both CNano and Timesnano have a cost advantage, well-established customer networks, and continuous funding support. They should be considered as potential commercial partners in China." In graphene, China lags behind, but is working hard to catch up to the US. Ningbo Morsh had 300 tons per year of graphene platelet production in 2013 and has plans to expand to 1000 tons per year. If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks

International Energy Agency Global Renewable Energy Forecast to 2020

In 2013, global renewable electricity generation rose by a n estimated 240 terawatt hours (TWh) (+5.0% year-on-year) to reach nearly 5 070 TWh and accounted for almost 22% of total power generation. The expansion was somewhat slower than that predicted in the Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2013 (MTRMR 2013), largely due to lower-than-expected annual hydropower availability and slower-than-expected growth in bioenergy generation. However, the renewable capacity expansion was faster than that foreseen in MTRMR 2013, with larger-than-expected deployment of hydropower and solar PV. NOTE - This report includes big hydro power and biofuels (including ethanol) which are still the biggest part of renewable energy. By 2020 though Wind gets to be about 19% of the total renewable and wind will be near 50% of what nuclear energy generation will be. Overall, global renewable electricity generation is expected to reach 7,310 TWh in 2020, representing an annual growth rate of more than 5.4 percent. When compared to the MTRMR 2013 estimates, the IEA notes that the outlook for bioenergy and several other technologies is less optimistic. For that reason the renewable generation forecast for 2018 is 180 TWh lower than in last year’s outlook. In particular, an executive summary of the report points to a slower growth for bioenergy in China. Moving forward bioenergy capacity is expected to expand steadily in Brazil. It is also expected to increase in India and other parts of Asia. Global bioenergy capacity is expected to increase from 88 GW in 2013 to 133 GW in 2020. By 2020, the report predicts there will be 2,555 GW of renewable energy capacity globally. In addition to the 88 GW of bioenergy capacity, this includes 1,360 GW of hydropower capacity, 630 GW of wind capacity, 403 GW of solar PV, 11 GW of solar thermal, 16 GW of geothermal and 1 GW of ocean. Clean energy capacity investment will still rise to $1.61 trillion by 2020. But in its first global investment outlook, the agency predicted a $20 billion drop in yearly new clean energy funding by the decade’s end to $230 billion. The new 2018 estimation is for global renewable energy is 5,505 TWh, compared to last year’s estimate of 6,850 TWh. Growth forecasts were lowered for all renewables, except solar PV, which should benefit from technology cost declines and rapidly scaled-up deployment in non-OECD markets.

In transport, the IEA notes that global biofuels output must triple and advanced biofuels need to increase 22-fold to meet climate goals by 2025. However, policy support is declining due to the need for securing sustainable feedstock sources. The industry is currently in limbo, ahead of EU adoption of a proposal on indirect land use change (ILUC) that may cap conventional biofuels use.

The 2014 IEA world energy forecast including all energy sources.

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