Post Tagged with: "energy"
Chart of the Day: U.S. Gasoline Consumption Tanks in 2011
A chart of gasoline consumption and oil prices for the years 2000-
India: Land of Energy Opportunity
Quick, what country is the economic engine that will power world growth? If you answered “China,” you’re far from alone. But there’s another country that deserves as much attention and better yet, is much friendlier to investment: India, home to 1.2 billion people. To electrify all those houses, power the industries that keep all those people employed, and fuel the vehicles that more and more Indians own, India’s energy needs are shooting skyward
Green Energy – Too Many Subsidies, Too Little Performance
Any politician who talks of a green, utopian US – where wind and solar produce most of our energy, electric cars put power back into the grid, green fields of corn produce clean fuels, and millions of Americans work in green technology factories – is creating a fanciful vision so far detached from reality it should really be called a lie. Such tales are designed to encourage a public that is increasingly despondent about the future, but the policy moves that have been made in support of these fantasies have cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars
News Links: Ron Paul Only GOP Hopeful with Positive Twitter Following
News links for 10 December 2011 on US politics, fracking, venture capital and technology
What can we learn from the policies that spurred the Industrial Revolution?
Some of the dominant policy issues of today – immigration, energy, the emergence of China – have their analogues in the great Industrial Revolution. The key government policies that laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution in England include supporting the immigration of skilled workers, allowing for private ownership of farm land, weakening the unions of the day (the guilds), and addressing the energy crisis (in charcoal). And contrary policies in Italy and Spain – countries that were far wealthier and advanced than was per-Industrial Revolution England – derailed a similar revolution from occurring in continental Europe.
England would not have been anyone’s first bet as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution
Solyndra: Liar’s Loans
This column comments on Joe Nocera’s September 23, 2011 column entitled: The Phony Solyndra Scandal. Nocera’s column compares the statements of Solyndra’s controlling managers to Dick Fuld’s statements to the public about Lehman’s conditions and asserts with minimal explanation that neither could have been criminal. I have testified before the House Financial Services Committee at some length as to why Lehman was a “control fraud” so I disagree with Nocera
China Gets Picky
It turns out that China is not willing to pay whatever it has to for energy and metal resources. Several resource deals have faltered in recent months, indicating an increasingly choosy Chinese perspective on energy and metal acquisitions. Add to that the growing concern that the global economy is once again stumbling and that commodity prices may be near a top, and you have a Chinese deal-making market that has gone from 60 to zero in no time
The World’s Supply and Demand for Coal
Coal prices are surging ahead even as most other commodities pull back, spurred on by expectations that metallurgical and thermal coal production will again fail to meet rising global demand this year. The result? Record profits for major coal producers like Xstrata, a surge in acquisitions from coal-hungry India, Chinese electricity shortages, and a raging carbon tax debate in Australia amid record investments in that country’s coal-heavy mining sector
Is the shale gas bubble bursting?
If you have fewer players operating wells, then the supply should be lower. It sounds to me like the rush to buy up natural gas acreage has strained balance sheets in a way that will force up prices down the line.
The Future of Atomkraft
In a dramatic about-face, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Monday that Germany will phase out nuclear power completely by 2022, shutting down its nine operational reactors and never re-starting the seven reactors that were suspended in the wake of the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant
Speculators at risk as IEA confirms demand destruction has set in
A fall in commodity prices increases the potential for financial market disruption and non-performing loan problems in China
Fukushima Daiichi Disaster Prompts Closure of Another Plant
As workers continue to battle with the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, more impacts from the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl are starting to arise. The latest impact will hit car manufacturers, with plants in central Japan hit the hardest: power firm Chubu Electric has agreed to shut its Hamaoka Nuclear Plant until it can build better defenses against the kind of massive earthquake and tsunami that hit on March 11, and Hamaoka provides power to at least 15 auto plants