Everyone who voted for Scottish Independence back in late 2014 have dodged a bullet - and a big one at that! Of the 3.6m voters some 45% voted for independence and the rest who won the race saying "no". At the time the Scottish Nationals were complaining that London - aka Westminster - kept most of the tax revenues from North Sea oil and that if they were independent, … [Read more...]
There’s Oil In Them There Rolling Fields!
Undiscovered until a few years ago, the southern England area known as The Weald contains a largish lake of crude oil! The area just south of London spreads for around 3,500 square miles and includes Gatwick, one of London’s prime airports. Thanks to evolution and apparently the fact that Africa rammed into Europe causing several mountain ranges and folds in the surface, of … [Read more...]
US Export Oil Ban
Since the mid 70s oil crisis, the US has banned the export of oil to other nations to keep the home market fuelled up. They have allowed oil to be imported to fill the tanks though. US oil is mostly heavy although down south it is light and so many refineries are geared to the heavier sulphur laden crude. For the past few years, oil prices have tumbled as OPEC has increased … [Read more...]
Just In Time Processes – Oil Extraction
A few weeks ago I wrote an updated article about Just in Time Manufacturing and it's use in the manufacturing of vehicles, mainly the assembly lines. Well, I then read a fascinating article about how this concept was used in another related industry - oil extraction. It seems that over the years, the cost of extracting oil has been rising and so has waste, inefficiences have … [Read more...]
Peugeot Slows Down Development of “Hybrid Air” Technology
I read about this a few weeks ago. Like many manufacturers, Peugeot inside the PSA Group has a "skunk" works looking at different types of engines and propulsion systems. One of their ideas was to take a concept widely used in commercial vehicles and add it to their passenger vehicles to improve fuel consumption - the age old desire to extract more out of every gallon or litre … [Read more...]