Free Republic

High oil prices are here to stay, and they're caused by surging demand and limited new supply, not Wall Street speculators. That's the message from Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency. "Speculators are only responding to what is going on in the markets," Birol said. "We don't see enough oil in the markets. The major driver is supply and demand." Birol said growth in worldwide oil demand is outstripping growth in new supplies by 1 million barrels a day per year. Much of that new demand is coming from China, which is adding 800,000 vehicles to its...

Did the International Energy Agency (IEA) just deliver the oil equivalent of QE3? The decision to release two million barrels per day of emergency oil reserves — with the U.S. covering half from its strategic petroleum reserve — is surely aimed at the sputtering economies of the U.S. and Europe following an onslaught of bad economic statistics and forecasts. This includes a gloomy Fed forecast that Ben Bernanke unveiled less than 24 hours before the energy news hit the tape. I wonder if all this was coordinated. The Bernanke Fed significantly downgraded its economic projections, blaming this forecast on rising...

Renewables are reaching the point where they are outcompeting fossil fuels on price — setting the stage for their predicted dominance of the energy sector by midcentury. When it comes to the surging demand for new electric generation, wind and solar prices are now the cheapest options almost everywhere, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Building new wind and solar projects is also cheaper than running existing coal plants, according to a report from Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan climate policy think tank. The fall in price has led to a global rush to install new wind and solar —...