Energy

• Two Natural Gas Kings: Russia and Qatar

  In my forthcoming energy economics textbook (2012), the two natural gas kings are three –  Russia,  Qatar and Iran –  while if I were beginning that book today, I would consider making it a foursome. The United States (U.S.) might belong with this royalty, assuming that the shale revolution is indisputably authentic and relevant, and not a transient bounty. Unfortunately we must wait a while for the verification we require, because the Energy Intelligence Agency (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy has apparently reduced its estimate of reserves in the Marcellus shale deposit by 66 percent. This revaluation has…

• Israeli Company Promotes Shale Oil and Natural Gas Production, Protests Ensue

  Israel imports all its oil and coal and 70 percent of its natural gas needs, leaving the government deeply interested in developing indigenous alternatives. Highlighting the vulnerability of its imports, on 5 February there was an explosion on Egypt's $500 million East Mediterranean Gas Company Ltd. (EMG) pipeline, that transits Egyptian natural gas to Israel and Jordan in northern Sinai in the Massaeed area, west of al Arish.  The attack on the EMG pipeline is the 12th since February 2011, when a popular uprising deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt currently supplies Israel with more than 40 percent of its natural gas…

• End of the Boom: The True State of the Shale Gas Industry

  Estimates for recoverable shale gas just keep falling. Last year, the Potential Gas Committee, an industry consortium that focuses on long-term projections, estimated that recoverable natural gas from shale deposits in the United States would amount to 687 trillion cubic feet (tcf). (This optimistic appraisal laid the groundwork for the oft-repeated notion that the United States has 100 years of natural gas supply at current rates of consumption. The estimate was also based on so-called "speculative resources" of another 615 tcf.) But, in its early release of the Annual Energy Outlook for 2012, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) cut…

• Similarities Between Climate and Energy Policies are Only Skin Deep

  It has been claimed that energy security and climate policy should be considered “two sides of the same coin.” In 2006, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “We must treat energy security and climate security as two sides of the same coin.” Other leaders in Europe, members of the United States Congress and many commentators have echoed Blair’s statement. Are both energy security and climate policy best addressed by the same policies, or do policies that are best for one goal possibly compromise attainment of the other goal? The argument is that reducing fossil fuel combustion should increase energy…

• Self-Sufficient Floating Cities to be Produced by 2025

  Japanese scientists are working on a concept to build carbon-neutral, self-sufficient floating cities. Japanese firm Shimizu has a startling new concept: mini floating, carbon-neutral cities that drift across the Pacific on giant water lilies. The Green Float concept includes a number of cells that could house between 10,000 to 50,000 people. The cells, each about 1 kilometre wide, could float freely or attach onto other cells to form larger towns, cities or even countries. At the centre of each cell, a 1 kilometre high “City in the Sky” skyscraper would house the majority of residents, made from light alloys from…

• The Energy Mix that will help us Survive without Fossil Fuels

  Breathe, Neo. I’ve been running a marathon lately to cover all the major players that may provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels this century. Even though I have not exhausted all possibilities, or covered each topic exhaustively, I am exhausted. So in this post, I will provide a recap of all the schemes discussed thus far, in matrix form. Then Do the Math will shift its focus to more of the “what next” part of the message. The primary “mission” of late has been to sort possible future energy resources into boxes labelled “abundant,” “potent” (able to support something like…

• Oil Rich Azerbaijan Looking for Investors

  The prosperity of former republics of the USSR, which collapsed in December 1991, has primarily been driven by the development of energy resources in the post-Soviet era, notably around the Caspian. Out of the debris of the Soviet Union have arisen four petro-states ringing the Caspian – the Russian Federation, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.  The possibilities there have focused the attention of investors for the last twenty years. More than a decade ago Vice President Dick Cheney, then Halliburton CEO, remarked, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant…

• How Energy Availability Affects Economies and Societies

  So familiar has the social economy of energy become in modern societies, so routine its extraordinary wastefulness, so toxic its effects, that the capacity for a better way can be missed. By questioning the how, why and what of energy use, says Rebecca Willis, new possibilities - of living, travelling, eating, working and buying - can open. There are no pavements in downtown Bahrain. Visiting a few years ago for a family wedding, I wanted to pop to the shops to pick up some nappies. I could see a chemist from our hotel window, but the receptionist looked horrified when…

• U.S. Energy Trade Mission to Visit Four African Countries

  For the last decade, as China has advanced its economic interests on the Dark Continent, Washington regarded Africa primarily through its ‘global war on terror” lens. Top of the U.S. agenda was combating terrorism. After World War II, the US military carved up the globe outside its borders into a series of Unified Combatant Commands (UCC) to project military power and safeguard interests abroad. In 2008 the Pentagon’s fifth UCC was established, when the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) became operational. Except for Egypt, which remains under CENTCOM administration, AFRICOM is responsible for overseeing US military operations and relations across…

• Crude Oil Analysis for the Week of February 6, 2012

  March Crude Oil closed lower last week after posting an expanded range. The market continued its downslide that began five weeks ago when it topped out at $103.90. Heavy selling pressure early in the week drove the market close to a key 50 percent price level at $95.40. After it reached the low for the week on Thursday at $95.44, traders showed their respect for the 50 percent level by creating a short-covering rally that prevented the market from closing on its low. The weekly chart indicates layers of support this week. The first level is the aforementioned $95.40. This…