Germany exits the atom
By Andrew McKillop, Energy Bulletin
Chancellor Angela Merkel surprised many with her May 30 announcement of a complete shut down of all Germany's reactors by January 1st, 2022 and the shutdown of 14 of Germany's total of 17 reactors well before that date. The German chancellor has, in nine months, gone from touting nuclear plants as a safe "bridge" to renewable energy and easing regulatory constraints on extending reactor lifetimes, to pushing the biggest and fastest nuclear exit strategy in any country using nuclear power.
The Challenging Incongruity of Cheap Oil
By Andrew McKillop, Raise The Hammer
Expecting or wanting oil prices to be "low or moderate" is at best incongruous, and at worst naive in the current economic, financial and political context.
ZPG2: zero population and zero oil growth
By Andrew McKillop, Energy Bulletin
One "emerging consensus view", even among politicians who continue rooting for economic growth if only to claw tax receipts for paying off swollen national debt, is that world oil demand will ceiling if not crater. Peak Oil has won converts, some of them even able to openly admit it is real, but mostly selling oil saving and oil substitution to consumers as part and parcel of the hunting down of the Evil Molecule called CO2.
Comment/Learsy hearsay or what’s wrong with Raymond Learsy’s “forthright comments” on oil
By Andrew McKillop, Energy Bulletin
It is probable, or at least possible Learsy himself takes seriously what he claims as facts in this "trenchant" piece. Basically he asserts the IEA or International Energy Agency has been taken over by dark forces which inject the world's media, and politicians heads with dangerous, or at least wrongheaded propaganda to drive up oil prices.
Get ready for the last oil war
By Andrew McKillop, Energy Bulletin
Despite the clear evidence of rising depletion limits on Iranian oil production, Western media continues presenting Iran as having the third or fourth-largest oil reserves in the world. This implies oil export ‘underperformance’, repeating media claim’s of Iraqi oil reserves versus its pumping ‘performance’ in the run-up to invasion in 2003. As tensions escalate between Iran and the West, Andrew McKillop presents a view on the prospects for conflict.
Peak Oil to Peak Gas is a short ride
By Andrew McKillop, Energy Bulletin
While Peak Oil is grudgingly accepted, at least to the extent that 'After Oil' is a buzzword in corporate planning and political policymaking circles; Peak Gas is an almost entirely unheard of and unwelcome spectre.
Fundamentals in the Oil Pricing Game
By Andrew McKillop, NewsGateway
Any production numbers for OPEC are subject to the key question: net or gross? This pattern, of domestic oil demand increasing much faster than production, is common to far more than 9 out of 10 oil producers, both OPEC and nonOPEC. Net exports, therefore, will always tend to grow slower than national production.
Why oil prices are barreling up
By Andrew McKillop, Asia Times
In the past week, oil prices have regained about US$3 a barrel after hitting a low of $45. Apart from the perennial US weather factor, positive sentiment was reinforced by IEA (International Energy Agency) data revising previous forecasts for world oil demand growth in 2005 by 80,000 barrels per day.