Free Republic

Energy Policy: Ignoring peak-oil Cassandras, BP has made another giant oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. We're not running out of oil. Our government just doesn't want us to look for it.The world is running out of oil and good riddance. That's the environmentalists' mantra. But since the first well was drilled near Titusville, Pa., 150 years ago, the prophecy has gone unfulfilled. Trouble is, those darn greedy oil companies keep finding the stuff. Oil has been produced in the Gulf of Mexico since the first well was drilled by Kerr-McGee Corp. in 1947. Some of the wells are...

Energy: We balk at importing "dirty" oil from Canada, but others aren't so reluctant. Exempt as a "developing" nation from Kyoto-like agreements, China has decided to help Canada develop its energy-rich oil sands.The Financial Post reports that PetroChina International Investment Co. has struck a deal to buy a 60% interest in Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.'s McKay River and Dover projects for $1.9 billion. China has been establishing energy beachheads around the world in its quest to keep its growing economy fueled. With possible conflict brewing between Israel and Iran, Beijing recognizes the need for reliable suppliers like Canada in an...

Energy Policy: A new study shows that Waxman-Markey will increase prices at the pump, deepen our dependence on foreign oil and shred our ability to turn crude into gasoline. Even fuel-efficient cars will still need fuel.Oil may bubble up out of the ground, but gasoline does not. It's made in those ugly little NIMBY places called refineries we are loath to build anymore because we're too busy trying to save the Earth rather than our economy and American jobs. When Hurricane Katrina shut down 20% of our refining capacity in a single day and raised gas prices in a single...

Cap-And-Trade: The administration likes to defend bad policies with analogies to the post office. New studies from a business group and the administration itself confirm that cap-and-trade belongs in the dead-letter bin.Along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Rep. Ed Markey likens the cost of the Waxman-Markey cap-and trade bill to "about a postage stamp a day," based on estimates made by the Congressional Budget Office and the EPA. But as we and others have shown, they arrive at this magical number in part by ignoring the hit on gross domestic product and employment that will occur. As Garret Vaughan, economist...

Stimulus: Brazil, a leader in the use of biofuels such as ethanol and in the face of falling oil prices, still plans to spend huge sums to expand its offshore oil resources. Drilling rigs are infrastructure too.With oil prices scraping the bottom of the barrel, pun intended, there wouldn't appear to be much incentive to pursue the development of new oil resources. And in tough economic times worldwide, the necessary investment required would appear to be prohibitive. As the U.S. seeks to get its economy going by building roads, bridges and bicycle paths, Brazil has decided to create jobs and...

Energy: As Russian attack submarines patrol our eastern seaboard, Moscow signs a deal to help Castro's Cuba drill for oil off the Florida coast. In Moscow and Havana, the cry is "Drill, Comrade, Drill!"Two Russian nuclear attack submarines have taken up positions along our East Coast in recent days, another sign of renewed assertiveness by the former communist giant. The move comes as Moscow inks a deal with the communist relic of Cuba to drill for oil we refuse to go after. The submarines are of the Akula class, a counterpart to the Los Angeles class attack subs of the...

As Palin pointed out to Salazar, the USGS assessment "estimates that Arctic Alaska has mean technically recoverable resources of approximately 30 billion barrels of oil, 6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 221 trillion cubic feet of conventional natural gas."

Energy: Will oil hit $250 a barrel? The Russians think so, as crude prices climb to an eight-month high. Meantime, House Republicans advance a plan to help the administration keep a domestic energy promise.The cost of July deliveries of crude bounced over $73 Thursday as the American Petroleum Institute reported shrinking U.S. inventories as the dollar weakens against the euro. Alexei Miller, chairman of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, is repeating his prediction of a year ago that oil may eventually reach the $250 mark.

Energy Policy: The chief economist of the International Energy Agency says the world is running out of oil. We've been told that for the last 150 years. The only thing we're running out of is the will to drill.Ever since the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pa., in 1859, experts have been predicting we would soon run out of oil. The latest is Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency in Paris, whose job it is to assess future energy supplies by OECD countries. In an interview with the Independent, Dr. Birol says that based...

Energy: With Ahab-like determination, environmentalists have once again blocked oil exploration in the American Arctic. They may just have succeeded in putting the American economy on ice.On Friday, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals Court panel in Washington, D.C., struck down the Bush administration's five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing off Alaska's northern coast. The plan was vacated, the panel ruled, because of allegedly insufficient environmental review because its "environmental sensitivity rankings are irrational." What is irrational is that despite a more than three-decade long record of environmental sensitivity at Prudhoe Bay and elsewhere, and despite booming polar...

Regulation: Ignoring the first rule of holes, a bankrupt state passing out IOUs welcomes an EPA waiver allowing it to further kill its economy. Too bad the state can't stop the air pollution imported from a growing China. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday granted California its long-standing request — denied by the Bush administration — for a waiver to allow it to impose even more stringent air pollution rules than currently required by the federal government.The way is now clear for implementation of a 2002 state law requiring new cars to increase their fuel economy 40% by 2016....

Did you ever wonder who might be the world’s biggest energy speculator? Now let me see, might it be T. Boone Pickens? Or perhaps it might be Prince Alaweed of Saudi Arabia. Maybe it is one of those big fund traders, you know, the ones that can allegedly control the price of oil on a whim. Well if that is what you think, you are wrong. ... (remainder of article at the link)

... "How is it that the price of oil can fall and yet the price of gasoline rises?" Somewhere along the way, most reporters covering the energy industry have convinced Americans that the price of oil and gasoline pump prices are somehow directly connected. Well, the connection is there, but it is a weak one; and certainly over the past few years, misinformation has confused the effect of oil prices on the price of gasoline and diesel. (Snip) Now, the most thoughtful question I’m asked is, "What is a fair price for oil?" The answer to that question differs greatly...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil dropped more than 3 percent on Thursday, touching the lowest level since May 2005 as record U.S. job losses intensified concerns of a long and deep global recession and further crushed demand expectations. The U.S. government reported the number of workers making new claims for jobless benefits last week surged to the highest in 16 years, helping to push down global equity markets. U.S. crude fell $1.81 to $51.81 a barrel by 1251 p.m. EST after earlier touching $49.75, marking the lowest level since May 25, 2005, when prices hit $49.58. London Brent crude shed...

Crude oil prices fall to half of record Published: Oct. 15, 2008 at 6:18 PM NEW YORK, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices fell to a penny more than half July's record price, retracting 50 percent on the New York Mercantile Exchange in just over three months. Crude oil fell $5.11 Wednesday to $73.64 per barrel, a 6 percent drop on the day, as unsettled economies continued to support investors' fears of falling demand. "The honeymoon relief package reaction now appears to be giving way to uncertainty over its impact on global demand," Mark Pervan, a senior commodity strategist...

Crude prices could fall to $50 a barrel: Goldman Sachs 13 Oct 2008, 1017 hrs SINGAPORE: Goldman Sachs, one of the foremost bulls on commodities, turned a near-term bear on Monday after conceding that global financial turmoil would take a far bigger toll on demand than first anticipated. "We have underestimated the depth and duration of the global financial crisis and its implications on economic growth and commodity demand," its commodity markets research team lead by Jeffrey Currie said in a report dated Oct 13. The bank, which has consistently been at the top of oil price polls for years,...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that tight global oil demand and supply balance, which had helped push up crude prices to record highs, is easing as higher prices and slower economic growth in developed countries curbs oil demand. Global oil demand for this year is expected to stand at 86.9 million barrels a day, unchanged from the previous month's forecasts, the IEA said in an August monthly report. Oil supplies, on the other hand, are expected to remain strong. The world produced 87.8 million barrels of oil in July, up 890,000 barrels from the previous...

With the cost of crude oil surging to record highs, a heated battle of blame is in full swing, with a lineup of suspects that includes the oil industry, Congress, commodity speculators, environmentalists and developing countries in Asia. Meanwhile, predictions that we've reached a peak in oil production or will very soon — dismissed only a few years ago as being alarmist and without merit — are receiving more serious consideration. The problem is, nobody really knows how much oil is down there. The only thing that's certain: Dead organisms produced a limited amount of oil long ago, and eventually...

Angered by soaring fuel prices, Europeans are protesting and taking a toll on consumers and companies by creating food stores shortages, lighting highways in the death of two people in Spain and Portugal. Amid warnings at the price of oil could sort of perhaps $250 a barrel within 18 months, EU officials plan to meet next week to consider solution to surging food and fuel costs. Adam McCarthy says he now spends nearly €60, or about $93, to fill up his Volvo, and he expects protests to continue across to Europe as drivers become increasingly frustrated.

Diesel fuel produced by genetically-engineered bugs.Several Silicon Valley companies are already genetically altering microbes and small organisms--bugs, so to speak--so that they produce something for nothing. The something? How about petroleum products. The nothing? How about agricultural waste--wood chips or straw or other biomass. The organisms eat the waste products and excrete crude oil. “Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones...