Natural gas production in NL

some (latest) facts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field
Groningen Gas Field - Shell (pdf, 2 pages, ENG)
Groningen gas field almost world's largest (NU.NL, Dutch)
Groningen gasfield (NAM - facts and figures)
Groningen gas field (nlog.nl)

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandse_Aardolie_Maatschappij

fiscal implications:
Natural gas revenues reduce public deficit (CBS- Dutch Statistics, Nov 22nd 2012)

economics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

newspaper reports:
Groningen gas production to be scaled back, costing state €3.5bn (Dutchnews, Jan 17th 2013)
Most MPs want to reduce gas extraction in Groningen (Dutchnews, Jan 15th 2014)
Action group 'Shocking Groningen' occupies NAM's gas facility (nieuws.nl, Jan 12th 2014)
Protests in eastern Groningen as anti-government sentiment rises (Dutchnews, Jan 6th 2014)
A lot more gas pumped up (in 2013) (NOS , Jan 2nd 2014, Dutch)
Groningen gas earthquakes damage listed buildings (Dutchnews, Nov 27th 2013)
New earthquake in Groningen (Dutchnews, Sep 4th 2013)
Second minor earthquake hits Groningen (Dutchnews, Aug 17th 2013)
Groningen hit by another earthquake, minister visits locals (Dutchnews, Jul 3rd 2013)
Minister wants earthquake risk through gas extraction lowered (Dutchnews, Jan 29th 2013)
Earthquake risk is 'manageable and acceptable' says gas group  (Dutchnews, Jan 27th 2013)

Exxon Set to Tap ‘Enormous’ Slochteren Field for 50 More Years (Bloomberg, Jun 17th 2009)

earthquake related:
Natural gas extraction in Groningen (NL govt letter to parliament, Jan 25th 2013)

Intensifying quakes in NL's Groningen natural gas field not surprising: underground readjusts to gas pressure, down from 350 to 100 bar.
— Kees van der Leun (@Sustainable2050) November 26, 2013

Solar power per square kilometer

please note: this is just a 'quick & dirty' reply to an interesting question on Twitter, the usual more in-depth stories about renewables can be found here : http://ezrdevelop.blogspot.com)

The total area of solar panels it would take to power the world pic.twitter.com/6X7cZPDMHO
— Amazing Maps (@Amazing_Maps) December 15, 2013

@went 55 shared, @RF_HFC was skeptical and so I found the source of this map and shared the pdf document and its main underlying thesis : (on page 25, map on page 26)

@RF_HFC "an area of 254km x 254km would be enough 2 meet the total electricity demand of the world"pg25 http://t.co/z5aL7LI52U @went1955
— EZR news channel (@EZR_news) December 22, 2013

Robin Fransman (@RF_HFC) replied in Dutch: "250 GWh per square kilometer is way to high"

So I looked it up, and indeed this value is at best a theoretical value, but I couldn't really understand the assumptions made by the author Nadine May.
Although she referred to thermal solar energy potential, the solar yield for photovoltaics in the Sahara desert is between 1800 kWh/per 1kW installed capacity based on silicon panels, and 2100 kWh/ per 1 kW thin film panels. (according to PVGIS optimized slope and several locations probed) . Concerning 'land use' of solar plants it's not possible to just make calculations of efficiency per m2, but it is important to leave some space between rows of racks where the panels are attached to, because otherwise the shade will affect the solar yield. So per ha (=10000 square meter) the power production capacity is +-300 kWpeak for thin film panels and +-500 kWpeak for silicon based panels.

A practical problem which obviously is somehow ignored by the scientific community:

>>2.  At home: 1 kWp ≈ 1000 Wp ≈ 5 m2 (at 20%)

At large:: 1 GWp (Giga Watt peak) ≈ 5 km2<<

source: http://www.differ.nl/sites/default/files/multimedia/organization/PI/TNO%20ejsol%20solar-fuel%20chemergy.pdf

At 'home level' it's correct (but no obligation to purchase panels with highest efficiency = often with highest price per kW) , but for utility scale it isn't.

So in reality it's
1 ha= 500 kW,
10 ha = 5 MW,
100 ha =1 sq km = 50 MW
5 sq km = 250 MW
(Also taking into account frames & space between 2  panels)  
practical exception: If you install panels on a mountain slope of +-30°

but on the other hand it isn't really important how much land is used to produce solar power, since there  is lots of wasteland available. Especially when the use of the vast spaces of the Sahara desert is intended. In the end not the efficiency per square meter, kilometer or mile is important , but the price per installed kW, MW and GW is ! So no need to impress the public by small numbers of land needed.

Although the use of thermal solar energy by CSP is perhaps better to store the energy for the time after the sunset, it's by now cheaper (and less complicated) to use PV panels.  


Concerning 'land use' of CSP I found this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Utah

How to quote others on Twitter properly (avoid sending a direct message)

Often people who are not that familiar with Twitter or those who just forget 'Twitter rules' (happened to me , too!) are not aware of the fact, that when they intend to quote another Twitterati, they in fact send just a 'public' direct message to the person.

So when starting a tweet with '@persons_Twitter_handle' (followed by quoted text) only the addressed account & all people following BOTH (the one sending the tweet & recipient) can read this tweet, intended for a wider public (all followers)

This 'public direct messaging' can be avoid once a tweet starts with any other character than '@'. Often a '.' (full stop) is used. 

Since a couple of month however, Twitter provides us with a superb other method of displaying the content of other tweets: embedding !

Once you use this method the entire 'original' tweet will be made available to your audience.

You just have to 'open' the tweet you intend to 're-publish', then right-click on 'Details' (to the right of Date/Time of tweet) and copy the link of this tweet.(method of 'copy&paste' might be different when using MAC OSX or other Operating System)

example:

2013 #NobelPrize recap: Physics to François Englert & Peter W. Higgs for the theory of how particles acquire mass http://t.co/E4HITGgl62
— Nobelprize_org (@Nobelprize_org) October 12, 2013

          link: https://twitter.com/Nobelprize_org/status/389013387637977088


Then you write your introduction text and you add ('paste') the link to your tweet. By using this method is also possible to 'circumvent' the 140 character limitation of Twitter, which is even less when you try to put all quoted text between quotation marks & provide the author's name.

Cyprus aid package approval German parliament

234. Sitzung, 17. Wahlperiode, 18. April 2013 (Bundestag.de,pdf,3.6MB)(German)
Zypern Debatte & Abstimmung
Cyprus debate & vote
(pdf pages 29154 - 29192 only <= transcript includes all debates of that day)

note: There will be a translation of some parts of the debate of German MPs later

Translation of bail-in template remarks by FinMin Schaeuble

>>After the chairman of the Eurogroup, the Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, now also Wolfgang Schäuble called the rescue of Cyprus a role model for similar crisis cases. Also in future the owners, creditors and depositors of banks must contribute a share to rescue banks, Schäuble said. "The involvement of owners, junior bond holders and unsecured investors must be the norm, if a financial institution gets in trouble", Schäuble reiterated. "Otherwise we can't get a grip on the moral hazard problem, which enables banks to make vast profits with risky businesses, but in case of failure then puts the losses on the community", declares the finance minister. "That must not be" <<

source:
Schäuble: Nicht mehr als zehn Milliarden Euro für Zypern (wiwo.de, Apr 20th 2013)

Approval of aid program for Cyprus

Goedkeuring steunprogramma voor Cyprus (rijksoverheid.nl <=Dutch government website)

Approval of aid program for Cyprus

The finance ministers of the euro countries have reached a political agreement in the night of 15th & 16th of March about an aid program for Cyprus of maximal 10 bn euros. The loan will be provided by the European emergency fund ESM. The troika-parties will during next week further work out the side(?)conditions of the program with the Cypriot government.

Finance minister and Eurogroup chief Dijsselbloem on the program: "By involving the depositors the bill will not entirely be presented to the tax payers. Cyprus will now get a chance for economic recovery and renewed growth again."

Parts of this program are:

- a one time stability charge on savings of 6,75% up to 100.000 euro and 9,9 % above 100.000 euro.

- an increase of the tax deducted at source on interests from 10 to 12,5 percent.

- a restructuring of the banking sector

- privatizations and the sell-off of a part of the Cypriot gold reserves

Cyprus has applied for emergency support of the euro countries in June 2012. The economy and the banks of Cyprus are closely entangled with those of Greece. That makes them vulnerable. The financial  support is intended for governmental finances as well as to fix up the banks.

For the support the same strict conditions apply as for Greece, Ireland and Portugal

Disclaimer: The author isn't a professional translator and is not responsible for any misunderstanding, slightly inaccurate translation of the original text issued by Dutch finance ministry. So please regard translated text as an indication of what is communicated by the ministry. Please ask for confirmation  by Mr Dijsselbloem or his staff. 

Former 'couple' Germany and The Netherlands

Former 'couple' Germany and The Netherlands

as Max Pam of Dutch TV program 'Buitenhof' asks in his column when the Dutch and the German economy have split, and what are the causes for this to happen here are some answers:

First it has to be confirmed that the statements in Max Pam's column where German and Dutch economies once acted like 'northern European twins' are true. 
The one interconnected to the other, not only by their central banks with almost identical emphasis on prize stability, but also by their bilateral trade links, and even by some almost identical parts of infrastructure, like the havens of Rotterdam and Hamburg are for both export oriented countries their gate to the world market.

So some commentators on Twitter argued on their assumption that lack of consumer confidence is the only reason for sluggish consumer spending. One has to know that Dutch people are being subjected to bad economic news concerning housing market, pension cuts and other bad stuff almost on a daily basis, where some economists even started to warn of an negative effect of repeating bad news into a self fulfilling prophecy. 

So people tend to think the split between currently successful  German economy and Dutch economy is because of difference in consumer spending based on lack of 'consumer confidence'. Well, partially yes, but the German retail sector has also its difficulties (Big supermarket chain 'Schlecker' went bust recently), the 2nd and more important fact is, that both economies are heavily export oriented. Although Mathijs Bouman (Dutch economist) recently put up some evidence that 70% figures (Link) for Dutch export part of GDP is largely exaggerated.(CBS data)

So one part of the answer is that Germany put much more effort into investment (the mother of all growth) in its 'green sector' by not only building huge production capacity for its domestic ecopower section but also pumped large chunks of cash into energy preservation by housing insulation etc.
The roughly estimated cost for the buildup of its solar power capacity of some 25 GW was good for some 75bn € only for the 1+ million installed smaller plants between 2000-2011. 

Additional investments in local and national grid summed up also to Billions while the combined installed wind power capacity reached some 23 GW with approx 46 Bn € (taking into account average price per KW peak capacity) (** find and insert exact numbers**)    

The Netherlands <> Germany bilateral trade

CBS: Exports to Germany increased by 20% in 2010 (CBS data) (dut)
         Dutch im/exports targeted on a limited number of countries (CBS data)(dut)

Pinokkio:"Our GDP rose after introduction of Euro" (De Pers) (dut)
"In The Hague there is always today, never tomorrow" (FD) (dut)

source: thomsonreuters.com datastream
Some German economic data:

Germany's economy (Wiki ger)

Trade:
BDI Foreign trade growth 2012: "3 pct +X" (focus) (ger) 
German exports to Greece tumble (handelsblatt) (ger)
Trade balance: German exports first time above 1000 bn (Die Zeit) (ger)
German industry expects export boom (Die Welt) (ger) 

Energy: 
German green industry domestic investments and distributed costs:
(long term projection) Langfristszenarien EEG Auswirkungen (pdf ger)

German power production details and comparison (Wiki ger)
German energy consumption (Wiki ger)
German energy consumption in detail 2011 (AG Energiebilanzen , pdf, ger) 
investment projection renewables Germany 2010-2020: 159,5 bn € (prognos,pdf,ger) 

Power grid in the North Sea to be extended (FAZ, ger) 

Duitsland verslaat Nederland (May 2nd 2013, video, Nieuwsuur, Dutch)
Text above excerpted from greater European solution: Economic policy first, fiscal policy follows