Biomass Pros and Cons

In this week’s episode of R-Squared Energy TV, I give a short presentation on the pros and cons of using biomass for energy. People tend to have strong feelings on this topic in one way or another, and I will explore a bit of the reason for the controversy. Some of the topics discussed are: […]

OPEC Members Raise Exports in November Led by Saudi Arabia, Iran

OPEC members led by Saudi Arabia increased exports of oil in November from a month earlier as demand for the group’s crude increased, data submitted by governments to the Joint Organization Data Initiative showed. Saudi Arabia, the largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, raised exports by 721,000 barrels a day to 7.8 […]

BP Cuts Energy-Demand Growth Forecast to 2030 to 1.6% a Year

BP cut its estimate of global energy demand growth through 2030 to 1.6 percent annually from 1.7 percent a year ago, according to statements on its website. The cut followed an increase in BP’s estimate of 2010 demand by 1.6 percent to 12 billion metric tons of oil equivalent, said Christof Ruehl, BP’s chief economist. […]

World Bank slashes global GDP forecasts, outlook grim

The World Bank warned developing countries on Wednesday to prepare for the “real” risk that an escalation in the euro area debt crisis could tip the world into a slump on a par with the global downturn in 2008/09. In a report sharply cutting its world economic growth expectations, the World Bank said Europe was […]

China’s Skyrocketing Consumption And Surging Urban Population

China’s latest GDP number suggests the world’s second largest economy is clearly headed for a soft landing, as opposed to the economic crash many economists forecasted.  Despite delivering the slowest growth rate in over two years, Chinese policymakers have managed to substantially slow down inflation and nearly halve yearly property investing rates, as the Central […]

Mossad Insider: Iranian Scientist Assassination A “Precursor To A Military Strike”

The Sunday Times reports (from behind a pay wall) that Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was assassinated last week by the Israeli intelligence network Mossad as part of a “precursor to a military strike”. The Times claims that a reliable source, a Mossad insider, says he was part of a group that killed Roshan last […]

Melting Ice Makes Arctic Access a Hot Commodity

China, Brazil and India want seats on the Arctic Council as global warming creates new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction in the vast Arctic region. There are concerns this is the beginning of a 21st century “scramble for the Arctic”, but rather than staking territorial claims, non- Arctic countries want to exert economic and […]

Global Warming: The Evidence is Endless

f I believed the Earth was slowly turning into cheddar cheese, I could invoke this theory to explain a lot of things. Why is the rat population in our major cities growing so quickly? Earth cheesification is providing more rat food. Why have there been so many earthquakes lately? The cheesification of the tectonic plates […]

Global Energy to 2030: Market & public policy failure to help us meet our needs.

A short review of our energy demand evolution from 1990 to 2008 (based on EIA data, publicly available.  2008 is the last year for complete information on energy.). In 1990, we had the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, which caused a drop in energy demand in the region of roughly one third […]

Returning to Simplicity (Whether We Want to or Not)

Eventually the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity. – Joseph Tainter The modern world depends on economic growth to function properly. And throughout the living memory of every human on earth today, technology has continually developed to extract […]

Will oil and globalisation continue to keep the peace?

With Iran threatening to close the Strait of Homurz – through which 32 per cent of global oil supplies and 28 per cent of the world’s liquefied natural gas supplies pass every day – because of tighter European Union sanctions on the country’s fossil fuel exports, and fears that any blockade of the vital ocean […]

Price of Oil: Economic Breakeven vs. Political Breakeven Prices

The following table provided by the Bank of Kuwait gathers current reported break-even prices of major oil producing nations: Oil Break-Even Prices Nation US$/Barrel Bahrain 40 Kuwait 17 Saudi Arabia 30 U.A.E. 25 Oman 40 Qatar 30 Canada’s oil sands 33 Based on the formula, profitability of these countries’ oil operations are in order: Profitability […]

Saudi Arabia targets $100 crude price

Saudi Arabia is aiming to keep oil prices at about $100 a barrel, a third above its previous public target, in a sign that Riyadh needs higher oil revenues to sustain a big rise in public spending. Ali Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, on Monday for the first time said the world’s largest oil producer […]

Saudi Arabia and Iran Spar over Oil Embargo

Saudi Arabia will make up for any shortfall in world oil supply caused by sanctions against Iran, the country’s oil minister has said, despite warnings from Iran that such a move would provoke unspecified “consequences”. The U.S. has already approved a sanctions bill which penalises companies for dealing with Iran’s central bank. The bank processes […]

MIT says natural gas could hurt renewables

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that the glut of natural gas, coming from newly-developed shale fields in the U.S., has the potential to damage development of renewable energy. MIT News quotes Dr. Henry Jacoby, co-director emeritus on MIT’s joint program on the science “people speak of [natural] gas as a bridge […]

The World in 2050: Four Forces

Trying to predict the future is always a dodgy enterprise, as everyone from the ancient prophets to recent prognosticators like Paul Ehrlich have learned the hard way. Whenever an author promises near or long-term events to anticipate, it’s good to take anything they write with a healthy dose of skepticism. That said, contemplating the future […]

Hemp Oil: Do some Math

USA consumes ~19,150,000 barrels of oil per day (bbl/day) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2174ran… 1800 gallons of hemp oil per acre=42 barrels of oil (42 gallons in a barrel) half of the arable land in USA 235 million acres 235,000,000 x 42 = 9,870,000,000 barrels of oil USA consumes ~ 7,008,900,000 barrels every year ——– Worlds total arable land […]

Somali famine ‘will kill tens of thousands’

The UN in Somalia says tens of thousands of people will have died of starvation by the time the famine in the Horn of Africa ends. The food crisis was declared in Somalia six months ago and levels of need are expected to remain high until July or August. UN aid chief in Somalia, Mark […]

Kunstler: What Gives

     The awesome exertions of the global banking system to evade the mandates of reality finally yield in a sickening slippage to epochal unwind. What a bad idea: to try to juke nature itself. In case you weren’t paying attention over the weekend – and who really wants to? – the cosmic Brinks truck […]

Ohio quakes in perspective

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director James Zehringer ordered operations halted at a fluid injection well near Youngstown on Dec. 30, 2011, after scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory found a possible link to mild earthquakes. Ohio has 177 Class 2 deep well injection sites. This was the first time seismic activity had been […]

Our human footprint

IN June this year, the ‘world’ will meet in Brazil for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development or Rio+20 – 20 years after the Earth Summit in Rio where countries adopted Agenda 21, a blueprint to rethink economic growth, advance social equity and ensure environment protection. It will be one of the most important […]

China begins Fracking

China’s biggest offshore energy producer, started drilling at its first shale-gas project in the country, joining rivals including China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (600028)in the search for unconventional natural gas. Exploration started Dec. 29 in the eastern Anhui province, China National Offshore Oil Corp., Cnooc’s parent, said in a statement on its website yesterday. The […]

Focusing On Our Future (Pt 2)

… [W]e are farther away than we have ever been from having a shared national vision for the future of our country…. Absent such a framework for the future, the national debate has been the victim of an increasingly acute form of intellectual paralysis: The short-term mindsets of our elected officials and the voters — […]

Human side of population control

When the reverend Thomas Robert Malthus observed a couple of centuries ago that population finds its level based on fertility rates, famine and diseases, he could not have imagined that the last two factors, namely famine and diseases, could be eradicated in such a spectacular manner as has been realized in recent times. In such […]

Iran warns Gulf Arabs on oil

Iran warned Gulf Arab oil producers against boosting production to offset any potential drop in Tehran’s crude exports in the event of an embargo affecting its oil sales, the latest salvo in the dispute between the West and the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program. The comments by Iran’s OPEC governor, published Sunday, came as […]

Seabed gas find blows all other energy sources out the water

A SCIENTIFIC discovery may have more than doubled the world’s energy reserves. Scientists have found vast amounts of natural gas frozen into the seabed, potentially containing more energy than all the world’s known coal, oil and gas reserves combined. The methane gas is mixed with water, and frozen solid by the high pressure and low […]

Saving energy means saving money as well as saving the mekong

In this very fast-changing region, few countries are changing faster than Laos. With economic growth of around 8%, the country is awakening and Vientiane is bustling with new developments, new trucks, and an even brighter outlook. Laos is finally catching up with its neighbours, and though this will take time, the pace and direction is […]

Zakaria: Why oil prices will stay high

The next time you pay $3.50 dollars for a gallon of gas, stop and think about a basic rule of economics. When demand is low and supply is strong, prices should fall. Right? Now apply that to oil. People drive less in the winter. The American economy is slow. The Euro Zone has stalled. China […]

Sudan oil pipeline crisis deepens

Sudan on Sunday said it has started confiscating some oil exports from South Sudan it believes it is due to meet unpaid transit fees but will not shut down a pipeline carrying the southern state’s oil. South Sudan became independent in July under a 2005 peace deal with Khartoum that ended decades of civil war […]

Kurt Cobb: Is deception no longer an adaptive human strategy?

“A lie is as good as the truth if you can get somebody to believe it.” So goes the cynical maxim. Naturally, it contradicts the accepted public morality embodied in the saying: “Honesty is the best policy.” That saying is attributed to Miguel de Cervantes though it has been repeated by many others. I rather […]

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