Welcome to another Friday, as we charge into the second half of July. Natural gas is having a strong end to the week, back in the middle of the $4 to $5 range it has been pinging around in for this year, while crude oil is bamboozled to ebb and flow but ultimately remain in the mid-$90s. Continued warmer weather outlooks are supporting natty, while crude is flailing on concerns of a stuttering global economy, intermittently spurred on by bouts of bullishness (on rumors of bailouts, QE3, etc). Without further ado, let’s chew!:  

–More than half the energy produced in the US isn’t put to use. 

–Corn is now officially a fuel crop, with more used for ethanol than food.  

–Ok, I’ll fold and include a Harry Potter reference…how much it costs to go to Hogwarts. 

–How China put global warming on pause (by blotting out the sun with pollution). 

–How seawater can power the world. 

–Owl flies straight into window, leaves imprint.

–A Shale oil revolution – for both the US and Argentina.

–Simple yet genius: hotel rooms that only power up when you’re there. 

–Following on from yesterday’s burrito post, Chesapeake Energy is to invest $1 bln to speed up nat gas use for vehicles.

–Ok, another Potter reference…franchises are the way to go in the movie industry, along with Netflix favorites by location.

–Cool infographic on renewable energy. (h/t @lattmee)

–America’s fattest states. 

–China and developing world beats Europe in green investment. 

–’Pastafarian‘ (love it) wins right to wear pasta strainer for driving license photo.

The Burrito Deluxe Award of the Week goes to the natural gas storage, which continues to narrow the deficit to last year, slowly but surely (…218 Bcf and shrinking). 

The Burnt Burrito Award of the Week goes to two letters and a number – QE3. The increasing regularity of these three digits in the media this week highlights the weakness seen in the US economy. Worrisome.

The Burrito ‘If Only it Were True’ Award of the Week goes to…’red wine could have the same effects as exercise‘.

The Burrito Word of the Week goes to ‘Carmageddon‘ (with pastafarian a close second). Take heed in California this weekend!

May your weekend be more fun than a bundleful of cheetah cubs.

1) Banana power! Yes, the noble banana is being used to produce ethanol. It is also a nifty acronym in the energy world: B.A.N.A.N.A.

2) Grapes. After the Royal Wedding, William drove Kate around Buckingham Palace in a wine-powered car, borrowed from his dad (it gets 10 miles per 4.5 bottles, by the way).

3) Hybrid. A name given to a vehicle which uses two (or more) power sources, or the marriage of two fruits, such as Tangelos, Orangelos, Plumcots or Apriums.  

4) An old favorite here on the burrito – the lemon-powered alarm clock.

5) Dehydration - the drying of fruit products - is the most common industrial use of geothermal energy. Random but true.

6) This is really, really cool. Scientists in Brazil have developed a way to use the skin from fruit to make strong, lightweight plastic for car parts.

7) Back to wine, or Vin as they call it in France. VIN is an acronym for Vehicle identification number (VIN), which is used to help match vehicles to the EPA certification file for calculating MPGs. Yep, that sentence was acronymtastic.

8) As nutty as it seems, a well-researched source for biodiesel is coconut oil, with colleges such as BYU and the University of Central Florida studying its viability. 

9) To go with the lemon-powered alarm clock….the tomato-powered table lamp!

10) Finally, the fruit that spurred this random turn(over) – the apple. The largest tech company in the world – Apple – says 46% of its carbon footprint comes from the use of its products, while 45% comes from the manufacturing of them. Apple has a carbon footprint of 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide - similar to that of Honduras.

Thanks for playing – keep it fruity!

Just as Will Ferrell is (potentially) set to be the future of ‘The Office’, renewable fuels are (potentially) set to be the future of Energyworld™. However, while TV shows can change their stars at the drop of a hat, there is a somewhat longer and more laborious transition for the dynamics of the energy landscape.   

As highlighted recently on the burrito, research reports from ‘big oil’ indicate the use of oil, coal, and natural gas are set to converge by 2030, each taking up approximately 26% of the world’s market share. At the same time, renewable fuels are set to grow to provide approximately 7% of the world’s energy. According to the EIA, renewable fuels in the US currently make up 1.6% of the energy used, with 13 billion gallons of ethanol produced last year.

A quick side note to let some pressure out of the tires (pun fully intended): Indycar racing has been using cars powered 100% by ethanol for the past four years. Eat your heart out, Ricky Bobby.

For better or for worse, ethanol is part of our future.  Not only has the government mandated a 36 billion gallon target by the EPA for 2022, but the EPA has recently approved the use of E-15 blended gasoline (15% ethanol) for cars that are as old as 2001 (previously they were only endorsing cars built after 2007). Essentially, the majority of cars and trucks on the road can now run on E-15. Which is better for the environment as burning ethanol produces less greenhouse gas emissions, but the downside is you need more of it, as ethanol contains less energy than gasoline (approx. 94,000 Btus versus 124, 000 Btus per gallon). And this is without even touching on the whole ‘food or fuel’ debate. Unfortunately, regardless of if you agree with ethanol use or not, it is here to stay.   

‘I drive a Dodge Stratus!’

My final point is that we must not forget that renewable fuels are still in the discovery phase; we do not know what technological advancement will lead us to over the next few decades. Despite such fuels as cellulosic ethanol and algae being unable to make any significant impact as yet, the big game changer may yet be just round the corner. And just as ‘The Office’ is set to inexplicably change due to the arrival of Mr Will Ferrell, the energy landscape is set to undergo just as big a transformation, as the world transitions – slowly but gradually - to renewable fuels.

1) The average person uses the energy equivalent of 228 tons of coal in their lifetime – and has a carbon footprint which would fill half the NY Giants Stadium. 

2) Total consumption of oil products in the US (gasoline, diesel, heating oil, etc) is currently 19,100,000 barrels a day. That’s 221 barrels a second.

3) Powering a car for a single year using ethanol would require 11 acres of corn, space that can be used to feed at least seven people. (full piece here).

4) The EIA revised up its recoverable natural gas shale estimate by 72% in its 2011 Annual Energy Outlook from the previous year from 480 Tcf to 827 Tcf (to give some perspective, current consumption is approx. 23 Tcf/year).

5) Capturing the methane from 18 cows could power a household in the US. 

6) Saudi Arabia produces approximately 12% of the world’s oil (over 10,000,000 barrels a day), while their proven reserves are 266,000,000,000 barrels.

7) China consumes approximately 3.5 billion tons of coal a year.

8) Using pedal power, it takes 3 cyclists to power a television, 11 cyclists for a vacuum cleaner, 14 for a microwave, 17 for a washing machine, 24 for an oven, and an astonishing 70 cyclists pedalling at full-pelt just to power an electric shower.

9) The US consumes about 100,000,000,000,000,000 Btus per year (100 Quadrillion Btus), which is approximately 20% of the world’s total consumption.

10) The world’s largest burrito was made in La Paz, Mexico, last November, and measured 2.7 kilometers long. Now that burrito took a lot of energy. Adios!

–The EIA Energy Outlook for 2011: Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

 –Emerging markets invest more into energy environmental problems than rich countries.

–Uh oh. Eating at your desk makes you fat.

–New solar fuel machine.

–2010 in 9 charts from the Economist.

–Facebook statuses: young people are self-centred, old people ramble.

–Peer pressure is the key driver behind the green movement, and not altruism.

–Five innovations that will change the world in five years.

–Fishing nets killed more turtles than BP Oil spill, official says.  

–The Christmas Tree indicator says the economy is improving.

–LNG demand increase in Asia signals 2011 rally, while LNG imports climb in Britain.

–Alcohol-laced energy drinks turned into ethanol.

–Real-life superhero fights crime in Seattle.

The Burnt Burrito Award of the Week goes to the euro. It has broken back below $1.30, as worries of sovereign debt defaults rise up once more… for Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy…..  

The Burrito Deluxe Award of the Week goes to 2011; let’s hope it rocks!

Have a warm weekend!