Events, projects and the latest developments at Moxy...
Australia's transportation fuel security augmented by synthetic hydrocarbons
Augmentation of the domestic crude petroleum feedstock supply chain system with one delivering a synthetic hydrocarbon crude, coupled with expansion of existing petroleum refining capacity to meet total domestic demand and support export opportunities, may be the appropriate tactics to deploy.
In June 1981, the Australian Environment Council launched an assessment of new energy resource development. Concurrently, the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs and Environment commenced an evaluation of the environmental implications of coal liquefaction, shale oil production, and biomass conversion.
These three synthetic liquid fuel technologies were seen to have potential for “wide utilisation in Australia in the medium term”, towards achieving long-term environment protection, while increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of economic processes".1
Also of concern was energy security; the desire to reduce Australia’s dependence on imported oil was expressed.
Almost thirty years later, under the pressure of increased demand for transportation fuels, decreasing rates of extraction of crude oil from domestic sources, and limitations in refining capacity, that dependence seemingly grows inexorably.
What would the cost of distributed power be if implemented on a wide scale in an Australian city? In order to answer this question Moxy modeled widespread adoption of photovoltaic solar panels on residential and commercial buildings in the greater Sydney region. A variety of information sourced from federal and state governments, research bodies such as the CSIRO and private institutions was compiled with analysis derived from similar studies undertaken in California to determine long term trends. In addition, the average cost of carbon emissions is explored through the offset of traditional, coal-burning generation.
What was revealed is that, although distributed solar PV seems unlikely to out-perform centralized coal fired power, with a combination of rebates, tariffs and carbon tax, the energy source may become price competitive in the near future.
The comparison of different technologies for power generation can be difficult due to their varying characteristics, such as availability, maintenance costs and feedstock requirements. This study compares several renewable technologies through investigating real world installations - two biomass facilities, a solar PV plant and a wind farm.
By comparing their levelized cost of energy production over a uniform project lifespan, it becomes apparent that, at least in the installations investigated, biomass is very competitive as compared to the other technologies. A significant factor in this is the average capacity factor, or the amount of time that the plant is capable of producing at its capacity. Due to the ability of a biomass electricity generator to operate contiuously with a reliable supply of feedstock.
Martin is a recent graduate of Sydney University and will be helping Moxy to build a prototype of our Collaborative Modelling Environment. Martin has a degree in Computer Science and Technology and has recent experience writing extensions to connect the R open source statistical math software into wiki pages.
Federated Search
Federated Search portals allow users to concurrently search multiple data stores quickly and easily. These tools are becoming increasingly valuable to organisations as they provide a way to streamline search and bring together pieces of data that may be stored in disparate stores.
A project is underway at Moxy to explore how business can get the most out of their critical data by putting federated search tools to use.
The newest section on the Moxy web site has now launched – Moxy Library specialises in the subjects of energy and knowledge management and is now open for all to search or browse.
Moxy's faceted interface helps you find what you are looking for. You can search the full text of documents in the library, or browse by criteria such as category, key word or region. Filter by those criteria to further refine your results. You can sort your results by relevance, date, author, region, title or document type.
Moxy Knowledge Management is pleased to welcome our newest team member, Kerry Snelgrove.Kerry has knowledge management experience, particularly in provision of business information services in financial institutions.Kerry will be taking on the role of Knowledge Manager and responsibility for the content on our web site. See Kerry's profile.
Collaborative Data Modelling
Moxy Knowledge Management's current project is to build a platform for collaborative data modelling and decision analysis. We aim to maximise the potential of Mediawiki as an open source collaboration tool with the analytical power of commercial modelling software. Moxy has partnered with University of Sydney students to develop a tool that will enable programs like Matlab and Mathematica to process datasets stored within Mediawiki.
Welcome to Matthew Sullivan
Moxy Knowledge Management is pleased to welcome our newest team member, Matthew Sullivan. Matthew has international engineering experience in the areas of control systems and energy. His current project will be to model the cost of CO2 abatement in Sydney using rooftop photovoltaic systems. See Matthew's profile.
The conference features international keynote speakers:
Dave Snowden, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd
Jeanne Holm, Chief Knowledge Officer, NASA
J. Roberto Evaristo, Knowledge Management Program Office, 3M
Olimpia Salas, Founder and Director, Prospectia
Speakers will also present case studies of Australian organisations including: Macquarie Bank, AMP, Woods Bagot, Victoria Police, and Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia (ITSA).
Preliminary Feasibility Modelling in an Open Collaborative Environment
Moxy is developing a proof of concept system for conducting preliminary feasibility analysis in an open and collaborative environment. In particular, Moxy is modelling a preliminary feasibility study on the technical potential for rooftop photovoltaics. Our model is directly based on Scott Anders and Tom Bialck paper "Technical potential for rooftop photovolatics in the San Diego region"1 but will be recreated using Moxy's custom suite of analytical and ontological tools.
1. Anders, Scott and Tom Bialek. "Technical potential for rooftop photovolatics in the San Diego region". Energy Policy Initiatives Center, University of San Diego School of Law, 14 Jul 2006.
The comparison of different technologies for power generation can be difficult due to their varying characteristics, such as availability, maintenance costs and feedstock requirements. This study compares several renewable technologies through investigating real world installations - two biomass facilities, a solar PV plant and a wind farm.
