Last week, April Natural Gas traded in an inside range, indicating that it may be going through a transition period. This should come as no surprise to chart watchers because two weeks ago when the market formed a closing price reversal bottom, I warned that there may be a 2 to 3 week rally equal to at least 50 percent of the previous swing down. After bottoming at 2.438 on January 23, the market proceeded to confirm a weekly reversal bottom, but its subsequent follow-through rally fell well short of its first upside target at 3.102. The inside…

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Young industries such as the renewable energy sectors rely heavily on government funding and incentives to help them achieve a level of competition with the well-established industries out there. The incentives are only needed for a few years to give the young industry time to find its feet and develop the necessary technologies and scale of production to fully support itself. UK government ministers have recently angered the solar industry with proposals that will see incentives cut by 35 percent; significantly lower than other renewable energies…

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Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in the midst of an official visit to China. His mission? To convince Beijing’s mandarins to buy Canada’s Alberta oil sands hydrocarbon production, now that Republican Congressional overreach has effectively sidelined the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to transit the oil to U.S. Gulf of Mexico refineries, for the foreseeable future. Harper faces an uphill struggle, as China is questioning the delays in implementing the Northern Gateway pipeline, to transit Alberta’s…

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The U.S. Energy Department is throwing a lot of money at solar power recently, with California seemingly getting the bulk of the federal money. President Obama last year set some pretty ambitious renewable energy targets, by American standards, and this year called for an “all-of-the above” strategy for domestic energy. But why put so much political energy into solar? Should there be a bulk renewable energy initiative? Energy Secretary Chu last week said he was putting $12 million behind a so-called incubator program that would fund start-up…

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Francesco Celani and Yogendra Srivastava will be leading a kind of informal meeting called a colloquium at Europe’s fundamental physics facility, CERN.  The topic, “Overview of Theoretical and Experimental Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)” will be discussed March 22, 2012 in the CERN Council Chamber.  Of note is the event will be viewable – live – on the CERN Webcast Service.  Hopefully someone will save it to YouTube. Celani is a prominent Italian physicist at the Italian National Institute…

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Europe, battered by a perfect storm of recession and rising energy requirements, is looking for additional electrical power reserves anywhere it can. Surcease may come from North Africa, and the leading potential state to supply that need might be… Tunisia. Tunisia is endowed with a reliable source of solar power in its southern Saharan region, where the sunshine generates 20 percent stronger solar radiation than even the best locations in Europe. Given its proximity to Italy, Tunisia is in an ideal position to transfer such renewable energy…

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Never, it would seem, has the oil market been in such a state of disarray. Brent crude, the global benchmark, hit US$117 per barrel this week for the first time since August. The spot price has been rising on concerns over where the showdown with Iran is leading. European consumers have begun to cut back on purchases ahead of an outright ban when sanctions are introduced. Meanwhile the Chinese, usually buyers of some 20 percent of Iran’s output (or about 550,000 barrels a day) are said to have cut back by 285,000 barrels in January and February,…

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The lack of follow-through to the downside led to a fast turnaround in April Crude Oil last week. Although the market closed higher for the week, it remained inside of the previous week’s range and therefore posted an inside week. This pattern often indicates impending volatility with a slight bias to the upside. Besides the limited range week, the market also ping-ponged inside of a retracement zone created by the main range of $114.87 to $75.92. These levels are $95.40 and $99.99.  The longer the market stays hemmed inside of the 50…

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