Industry

More accidents await with President Obama’s errant energy policies

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President Obama triumphantly entered office with the popular promise of moving the United States to a cleaner energy basis, but his actions to date, along with those of the Congress, have promoted two types of dangerous energy developments: off-shore oil drilling and nuclear reactors. Nuclear expert Harvey Wasserman highlighted the dual dangers by noting, “As BP’s ghastly gusher assaults the Gulf of Mexico, a tornado has forced a shutdown of the Fermi 2 atomic reactor at the site of a 1966 melt-down that nearly irradiated the entire Great Lakes Region.”

David kicks Goliath’s ass: how we can beat big oil

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Well, well, well. Who woulda thunk it? Goliath went down hard. Goliath, in his latest incarnation as California utility leviathan Pacific Gas & Electric, took to the field armed with all the weapons 45 million dollars can buy against…a pair of tiny websites and a tall red-haired dude with a busted video camera. And got his ass handed to him.

ODAC Newsletter – June 11

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It is now 8 weeks since the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, and while BP claims to be capturing around 15,000 barrels of oil a day, there are still widely varying estimates of the amount of oil still escaping into the ocean. As public and political anger against the company increase, the knock on effects of the disaster for the company and the industry are growing.

Lloyds on peak oil, climate change, resource depletion… a historic publication…

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A newly released report from Lloyds Insurance and Chatham House does an amazing job of putting the case for Transition to a business audience. It states that any business seeking to be successful in the future will need to be prepared for ‘dramatic changes in the energy sector’, and that energy dependency will become a key vulnerability. This is, in effect, the Hirsch Report for British business.

This oil spill, too, shall pass

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You have been warned. This is a politically incorrect article. In 1999, I read Jane Goodall’s book, Reason for Hope, which took the optimistic view that, in spite of human activity, our beautiful blue planet is very resilient. She lists nature’s resiliency as her third reason for hope, the others being the human brain, the indomitable human spirit, and the determination of young people.

The oil drilling moratorium

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As catastrophes go, the flood of oil in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) ranks right up there. Today I’m going to look at the effects of the 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. Back on May 6, I published Oil Production In the GOM—What’s At Stake? This is a follow-up based on new developments since then.

If There Was Ever a Moment to Seize

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Here’s the president on March 31st,announcing his plan to lift a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling: “Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”

EIA: From forecast of oil supply abundance to decade of stagnation

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Like it or hate it, the International Energy Outlook from the EIA is a touchstone for the energy industry and is treated as the authoritative government forecast in the press and in capital raising documents like prospectuses. It influences policy-makers, the media, public opinion and investors. What it says matters.

And what does it say?

That peak oil is all but on us.