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America now has more solar energy workers than coal miners

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The Solar Foundation, which has been releasing reports for a few years on the state of the solar industry in the U.S., has just launched a very cool interactive map that breaks the stats down state by state. This allows us to see that there are only 80 solar jobs in Alaska (not too surprising), and over 43,000 in California. Add all 50 states together, and solar employs 119,000 people in the country, a growth of 13.2% in 2012.

Another interesting way to gain perspective is to compare these solar jobs to the number of jobs created by other sectors. Looked at it this way, the Solar Foundation (using stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics) found that there were more solar energy workers in Texas than ranchers, that solar workers outnumber actors in California, and that across the whole 50 states, there are more solar workers than coal miners.

 

http://www.kinetaworld.com/photo/solarenergyworkers

One in five ‘must become an engineer’

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One in five young people will need to become an engineer if the UK has any chance of addressing severe skills shortages and rebalancing the economy towards advanced manufacturing, new research has warned.

A report by the Social Market Foundation warns that the Government’s aim to divert the economy away from financial services is “inconceivable” due to the shortage of home-grown graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths. The think tank calculates the industry is already 40,000 short of the number of so-called STEM graduates it needs each year, a problem which will only get worse as the engineering workforce ages and retires.

The warning comes as manufacturing body the EEF on Monday released the first report into women’s representation in the industry, where it calls for more to be done to increase the size of the talent pool.

“There is no getting away from the fact that women are substantially under-represented in manufacturing at a time when industry needs to be tapping into every potential talent pool to access the skills it needs,” said EEF chief Terry Scuoler. “We need a huge national effort to make this happen and government, education, and industry itself all have a major role to play.”

Engineering Jobs, Engineering Recruitment: Energy Jobline

Libya could produce more energy from renewables than oil, says study

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Libya could generate five times the amount of energy from solar panels alone than what it produces from crude oil, according to research by Nottingham Trent University.

The study, led by the university’s School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment, shows that the oil-rich North African state has the potential to generate enough renewable energy to meet its own demands.

Researchers found that if the country used just 0.1% of its landmass to harness solar power, it could potentially produce the equivalent to almost 7m barrels of crude oil per day in energy. This is staggeringly higher than the 1.41m barrels Libya currently produces in crude oil every day.

Libya’s location along the tropic of cancer offers the country exposure to long hours of daylight, all year round. Its average solar radiation rate is almost double that of the UK.

Researchers also found that as Libya is exposed to dry, hot, prolonged gusts; it also holds the potential to generate significant amounts of wind power.

“If Libya could harness only a tiny fraction of the renewable energy resources it has available in the form of solar and wind power, not only could it meet its own demands for energy, but also a significant part of the world’s demands by exporting electricity”, said Ahmed Mohamed, a Nottingham Trent University PhD student, from Libya, who worked on the project.

- See more at: http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2013/02/27/libya-renewables-study/#sthash.7XVzhOj8.dpuf

Libya could produce more energy from renewables than oil, says study – See more at: http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2013/02/27/libya-renewables-study/#sthash.7XVzhOj8.dpuf

New offshore drilling rules agreed

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Member states and MEPs struck a deal today (21 February) on new safety regulations for offshore oil and gas exploration and extraction in EU waters. The new legislation was first proposed by the European Commission after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The directive opens a new area of competence for the EU, as previously member states were free to set their own standards for issuing drilling permits. Under the new rules offshore drilling will remain a national competence, but member states must demand specific information from companies wishing to drill in their waters. It will not give the EU supervisory control over offshore drilling, as called for by campaigners.

The new rules will require oil and gas firms to submit major hazard reports and emergency response plans before they are given a license to drill. They also must demonstrate financial and technical ability to remedy any damage caused by a spill. It firmly establishes that liability for a spill rests with the oil or gas firm.

The directive also requires member states to prepare emergency response plans for all offshore drilling installations within their jurisdiction. The Commission had originally proposed a regulation, but MEPs and member states changed the form to a directive, which must be implemented by member states, in order to avoid redrafting existing national laws on drilling that are equivalent. Governments have two years to transpose the directive.

Belgian centre-right MEP Ivo Belet, who led negotiations for the Parliament, said the new rules were badly needed. “Now that several member states are exploring new drilling operations, we need an efficient legislative framework,” he said.

Reaction from environmentalists was mixed. Greenpeace welcomed the fact that the new law could limit or even prevent oil drilling under harsh conditions, such as those in the Arctic, where cleaning up an oil spill is impossible. But they regretted that it is not stronger.

Campaign group Oceana said the agreement represents a missed opportunity because the Commission’s original proposal was watered down. “It is outrageous that Member States would adopt a weakened legislation that allows business-as-usual for the powerful oil industry at the expense of EU cit

izens, public health and the environment,” said Oceana executive director Xavier Pastor. He said the fact that the new law does not increase EU supervision through the European Maritime and Safety Agency means there is still a risk of accidents.

Vicky Ford, a British MEP from the ECR group, welcomed the fact that MEPs and member states removed more stringent aspects of the Commission’s proposal. She said the initial proposal would have denied member states the required flexibility to adapt measures to their own national circumstances.

“We were facing an attempt to ‘Europeanise’ national offshore competences by forcing member states to repeal key parts of their domestic law and replace them with a one-size-fits-all piece of EU legislation,” she said. “It would have forced the UK oil and gas industry to divert resources to these changes. That would have caused serious project delays and dealt a blow to the economy, investment, jobs and energy security.”

Source: http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/february/new-offshore-drilling-rules-agreed/76493.aspx

Maersk Oil inks $211m deal for Qatar drilling

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Maersk Oil Qatar and Gulf Drilling International (GDI) have signed a four year QR770m ($211m) agreement under which the Maersk unit will contract the Al Jassra, GDI’s new-build jack-up drilling rig.

The contract covers drilling and well work-over activity in the Al Shaheen field, Qatar’s largest offshore oil field.

Lewis Affleck, Maersk Oil Qatar’s managing director, said: “By working closely with our partner Qatar Petroleum, Maersk Oil has started to unlock the significant potential of the Al Shaheen oil field.

“We have already drilled in excess of 300 wells, and we expect to drill many more in the years ahead to optimise recovery from this giant offshore oil field. We are very pleased that a Qatari-based drilling company is able to provide the world-class drilling support that we currently require – and we very much look forward to working with GDI.”

 

Source: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/maersk-oil-inks-211m-deal-for-qatar-drilling-490507.html

Fueling Jobs in Renewable Energy

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New initiatives, green jobs, and climate change are highlighted in the Feb. 1 letter U.S. Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu sent to DOE employees announcing he will soon leave the department to return to California and to the academic world of teaching and research. Chu cited the $36 billion in Recovery Act funding DOE was allocated to help ensure that clean energy jobs of tomorrow are created here in the United States. He pointed out some of the department’s initiatives that are reducing the cost of renewable energy production and creating new jobs in this field.

The SunShot Challenge calls on industry to reduce the full cost of utility-scale solar energy to $1 per watt, which Chu said is close to the projected U.S. Energy Information Association cost of natural gas. “When we first discussed this goal, industry did not take it seriously,” he wrote. “Today, they tell me that our input challenged them to rethink their road maps and now agree that it is an achievable goal.”

Having plug-in hybrids or EVs with a 100-mile range at the same cost of owning and operating a comparably sized internal combustion engine is the goal of the EV Everywhere Challenge, also cited in Chu’s letter, which predicts the batteries developed for plug-in EVs “will also revolutionize the electrical distribution system and the use of renewable energy.”

He noted wind energy is expected to reach grid parity in less than a decade and that the American Wind Energy Association has reported that last year, 42 percent of new energy capacity in the United States was from wind — more than any other energy source. “Unless we develop new business models with utility companies and other stakeholders, we will not be able to take full advantage of the accelerating pace of technology,” he warned.

With so many fast-moving energy initiatives already in the pipeline, a master’s degree in Energy Law & Regulation may be the ticket before the end of this decade.

On climate change, Chu’s letter echoed President Obama’s words during his second inaugural address. Chu wrote, “The average temperature of our planet is rising, with majority of the temperature increase occurring in the last thirty years. During the three decades from 1980 to 2011, the number of violent storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, as tabulated by the reinsurance company Munich Re, has increased more than three-fold. They also estimate that the financial losses follow a trend line that has gone from $40 billion to $170 billion dollars per year. Most of those losses were not insured, and the country suffering the largest losses by far is the United State. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that human activity has had a significant and likely dominant role in climate change. There is also increasingly compelling evidence that the weather changes we have witnessed during this thirty year time period are due to climate change…. While we cannot accurately predict the course of climate change in the coming decades, the risks we run if we don’t change our course are enormous.”

The Most Lucrative Countries For Oil And Gas Workers

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The oil and gas industry has been a true bright spot amid the economic downturn. Regions with rampant drilling like south Texas and North Dakota have among the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. In Dickinson, N.D. workers at McDonald’s can get a $300 signing bonus and wages of $15 or more an hour. There’s a booming business in building “man camps” to house all the roughnecks needed to drill wells in the Bakken or Eagle Ford shale. Those guys (and they are almost always guys) up in North Dakota brave frigid temperatures to bore holes in the ground. Since 2008 North Dakota has surpassed Oklahoma, California and Alaska to become the second-biggest oil-producing state in the nation (after Texas), with production upwards of 700,000 barrels per day.

Thanks to all this labor demand, the average pay for an oil and gas worker in the United States has climbed to $124,000, according to Hays, the global headhunting and recruiting consultancy. Hays has released its new survey of worldwide pay trends in the oil & gas sector, finding that the average base salary of oil industry workers climbed 8.5% last year, and 14% over two years to $87,000.

As good as the pay in the U.S. is, however, skilled oilfield workers can make much more overseas where the labor pool is tighter.

The hottest spot for oil & gas jobs is Australia, where the global supermajors like Chevron and Shell are in the process of building more than $150 billion worth of projects to export liquefied natural gas. I’m told that the shortage of welders in northwestern Australia is so severe that an experienced metal worker can make well over $250,000 a year. Labor inflation has tacked on billions of dollars to the pricetag of the biggest LNG project there, the $52 billion Gorgon project operated by Chevron.

According to Hays one of the spots where workers are compensated the most in “danger money and hardship allowance” is off the iceberg-strewn arctic coast of Russia, where companies like Rosneft and ExxonMobil are starting to explore for untapped hordes of oil and gas.

As you can see below, the United States ranks just 21st in oil & gas pay. This time of year when the icy winds sweep across North Dakota, there’s bound to be plenty of roughnecks thinking they might enjoy a few years of higher pay and warmer temperatures in the likes of Mexico, Malaysia or even Papua New Guinea.

Oil & gas employment goes up and down with commodity prices, of course, but according to the hundreds of employers who contributed to the Hays survey, 37% say that skills shortages remain a real concern. That’s good news for Hays, which says that its 7,800 worldwide consultants placed 55,000 permanent workers last year and 182,000 in temporary assignments.

Here’s the rankings of the 21 most lucrative countries for oil and gas workers:

1. Australia – $171,000

2. Philippines – $170,000

3. Trinidad & Tobago – $169,000

4. China – $161,000

5. Russia – $151,000

6. Denmark – $149,000

7. Indonesia – $146,000

8. Papua New Guinea – $146,000

9. South Korea – $142,000

10. Thailand – $142,000

OILSUPPORT

Shell says its two offshore rigs to leave Alaska for repairs

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Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s two offshore rigs in Alaska will head to Asia for repairs and upgrades, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said, casting doubts on its plan to do any drilling in Arctic seas this year.

Shell said in a statement late on Monday that no decision had been made yet about the 2013 Alaska offshore drilling program.

The Kulluk, its drillship that ran aground near Kodiak Island on Dec. 31 after escaping its tow lines, will head to a shipyard in Asia, said Curtis Smith, Shell’s spokesman in Alaska.

“We haven’t determined yet where in Asia,” he said. The company had decided it could get better services in Asia than at the Seattle-area shipyard where the Kulluk had been headed when it began its ill-fated crossing of the Gulf of Alaska, he said.

“A number of shipyards in Asia have the drydock facilities and capacities to better execute these types of projects,” he said.

The Kulluk, anchored since Jan. 8 in Kiliuda Bay off the eastern side of Kodiak Island, sustained flooding damage, including damage to its generators, according to early assessments.

The other offshore rig Shell used for its Alaska program, the Noble Discoverer, will also head to Asia for repairs, Shell said.

That drillship, contracted from Noble Corp, has been docked for several weeks in Seward, Alaska, where inspections by the U.S. Coast Guard discovered deficiencies in its environmental and safety systems.

Electrical Engineering Graduate Scheme

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This two-year Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) accredited scheme will equip you with the skills needed to become a specialist engineer in one of the most exciting work environments in the Capital. You could be working on the power supplies that run our trains, the signalling and control systems, the drive and control systems of trains, or you could be using the sophisticated mathematical modelling tools that support all of these.

Whether implementing new technology or finding innovative ways to maintain and replace existing systems, you’ll benefit from practical experience and structured training.

Placements could include working with specialist engineers, railway operational managers and transport planners. You are also likely to work alongside our supply partners on the design, manufacture and commissioning of new equipment and systems, equipment maintenance and control centre operations.

You’ll also be supported towards achieving either Incorporated or Chartered Engineer status with the IET or Institution of Railway Signal Engineers.

Entry requirements

We look for an IET-accredited minimum MEng 2:1 honours degree in electrical engineering, electronic or mechatronic engineering (or a related discipline).
•Graduate in appropriate discipline with appropriate classification – 2:1 (or equivalent or expected 2013)
•Degree accredited by appropriate institution where necessary
•Ability to work on site where necessary
•High standards of written communication, verbal, numerical and inductive (ability to deal with ambiguous data) reasoning
•High standards of verbal communication
•Skilled in analysis and problem solving
•Keen on embracing change
•Collaborative, and keen to share information, knowledge and skills
•A strong focus on internal and external customers
•A commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion
•Keen to seek out new opportunities for learning and career progression and challenges
•Be able to identify the goals of any project and work steadily towards them
•Able to take a structured and methodical approach to any task, identifying priorities and setting deadlines

Oil and gas ‘jobs boom’ forecast for North Sea

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A new forecast for the UK’s oil and gas industry has suggested a “boom” this year in offshore jobs as North Sea oil continues to experience growth.

It also predicted the onset of shale gas exploration would boost prospects.

However, the firm warned of continuing skill shortages with a rise in the need for qualified and experienced staff.

The recruitment company’s annual review of the oil and gas sector analysed the impact of the record breaking 27th licensing round which saw the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) award 167 new licences on more than 300 North Sea blocks in October 2012.

“In the last few months alone in the UK Stat Oil announced a £4.3bn investment into North Sea Oil creating over 700 oil and gas jobs, a £1bn project to develop the Harris and Barra oilfields was announced, as well as another £1bn investment by joint venture Canadian-based Talisman Energy and Chinese Company Sinopec.

 

 

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-21003704