Europe in the age of austerity is slashing subsidies for renewable energy programs. The IEA argues that as renewables become more affordable, government support is waning. This trend suggests at least parts of the economy are starting to witness a sea change in how governments are fueling growth. With the share of renewables in the global energy mix increasing, the playing field with hydrocarbons is becoming more even. But until those trends start to spill over to the transportation sector, global ambitions for a low-carbon economy may be stifled. The…

Read more…

While Western analysts remain transfixed by China’s seemingly inexhaustible voracious appetite for the world’s hydrocarbon resources, a quiet green revolution has been taking place in the Celestial Kingdom. According to figures released last week by the China Wind Energy Association, last year China consolidated its position as the world’s wind power leader in both newly and cumulative installed capacities, installing an impressive 17.6 gigawatts of wind turbines. Although the 2011 electrical generation figures were down 6.9 percent…

Read more…

Kenya has announced its first oil discovery and is already discussing plans for the drilling of four exploratory wells this year in a development that portends a new future for Kenya as East Africa’s oil hub. It also comes amid, and could ignite, new security concerns.  On 26 March, Kenyan officials announced a discovery of 20 meters of oil in the Ngamia-1 well in the country’s northwestern Turkana region after drilling to only one-third of the well’s depth. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki described the discovery as a “major…

Read more…

The Deepwater Horizon incident demonstrated that most of the oil left is deep offshore or in other locations difficult to reach. Moreover, to obtain the oil remaining in currently producing reservoirs requires additional equipment and technology that comes at a higher price in both capital and energy. In this regard, the physical limitations on producing ever-increasing quantities of oil are highlighted, as well as the possibility of the peak of production occurring this decade. The economics of oil supply and demand are also briefly discussed,…

Read more…

Settle in, CERN the multinational research group based in Europe had a colloquium on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions last Thursday.  There was no big news, but there is interesting news out of Japan.  The file downloads are a treasure trove of useful information. To start is the 40-page PDF presentation by Yogendra Srivastava from the University of Perugia.  The file is a set of the slides shown during the presentation and is complete enough to get a good feel for the narrative.  This is the first complete enough and extensive…

Read more…

On the 25th of March, during the abandonment of a well, there was a blow out at Total SA’s Eligin platform 150 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland. On Monday over 230 workers were successfully evacuated from the well due to risk of explosions, following the discovery of an oil condensate which started to leak into the North Sea and gas clouds which were being released into the atmosphere. A spokesman for Total stated that, “it’s the biggest problem we’ve had for ten years in the North Sea. It’s not going to be solved straightforwardly;…

Read more…

Americans complain about the increasingly high prices that they are paying for gasoline, but they need to direct that their anger where it could do the most damage. Basically Obamas administration has failed to effectively employ energy policies to reduce the energy prices paid by American citizens and the DoE has proven itself to be ineffective, and therefore obsolete. President Carter signed a law in 1977 to give the new Department of Energy the “responsibility for energy policy, regulation, and research” and “to place major…

Read more…