Energy Wars

Up to 1,000 people die or are wounded every year in accidents caused by low-quality, high-lead smuggled gasoline that consumes victims in fiery accidents, according to Benin's Ministry of Commerce. In 2007 the Benin government estimated that its oil-producing neighbour, Nigeria, supplied 551 million litres of contraband fuel, known as "kpayo" - "bad quality" in the local Fon language - compared to the regulated 81 million litres sold at gas stations in Benin.

Enron was a participant or observer in the following events: There's a lot!

A look at some of the positions of the presidential candidates on energy and global warming:

A newly released Black & Veatch analysis addresses issues faced by U.S. electric and natural gas utilities in light of the country's financial uncertainties. A special edition of Black & Veatch's Energy Strategies newsletter (http://www.rjrudden.net/EnergyStrategies.pdf) outlines how utilities are currently in the midst of a variety of risks and other fundamental cross currents. "The utility industry is not immune to the current financial conditions that government, business and consumers face, even though utility securities are often considered safe havens in times of economic difficulty," said Richard Rudden, Senior Vice President of Black & Veatch's Enterprise Management Solutions Division.

This is an allegory explaining some of the monetary issues associated with the current financial crisis. It was written by Jason Bradford. Jason was an academic biologist who "retired" at a young age to become a community organizer and learn how to farm with peak oil in mind. He also hosts a biweekly radio show on public radio called The Reality Report.

It's a question we've heard a lot lately: "Who will lend me money to finance solar installations?" In fact, a couple of our readers, Reeves and Byron, were kind enough to send comments on the subject: "We've heard there are some articles out there showing that if you get the right kind of financing, your solar installation can be cash flow positive right away. Problem is, I can't find those articles."

As people following our energy situation are aware, many if not most energy stocks are down 60-70% or more from their summer highs. In a bizarre but not completely surprising announcement after the close (we knew someone was liquidating), Chesapeake, (the US largest natural gas producer) CEO Aubrey McClendon has been involuntarily liquidated out of his rougly 30,000,000 remaining shares of CHK in the past 3 days due to margin calls. CHK, which in July was over $70 per share, hit as low as $11.99 today, and then had a 38% rally to close at $16.52 on 5 times normal volume.

Continuing on the locavore / locastore theme of the night, WorldChanging has a post on "locavolts" (aka distributed generation - which needs to be supplemented with building scale energy storage and smart grids to be truly effective)

For the past three elections, Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have taken the same approach to the issue of climate change. Voters are told they must choose between protecting the environment and building the economy. Although we'd all like to protect the environment, in turbulent times, we tend to think of our families and our bank accounts first.

The concept of peak oil started as a geological theory* that went like this: if you knew the amount of oil produced in the past, the rate at which it was produced, and roughly how much oil remained under the earth's surface, the theory could help you determine when oil production would likely start declining. Over the years however, proponents and critics alike recognized that more factors than just the size of oil resources and the ease of exploiting them would determine when world oil production would peak and plateau.

ABC News reported last week that the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security hired U.S. Investigations Services (USIS), a Falls Church, Va.-based security and information services company, to staff a special unit that investigates possible misuse of force against civilians by American private security contractors (PSCs) in Iraq.

Victims of the Nigerian government's violent 1990s-era crackdown on residents of oil-rich lands where Royal Dutch Shell had drilling operations may finally reach their goal to challenge the deaths and injuries in a U.S. court. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood set a Feb. 9 date for a trial stemming from two lawsuits accusing Royal Dutch Shell PLC of being complicit in decisions by Nigeria's military government to hang oil industry opponents.

Rising fears of a global economic downturn are sinking crude oil prices and driving down the share prices of major oil companies despite the industry's record profits of the last two years. Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. company and largest Western oil company by market capitalization, has lost 17% of its share price since January, its worst showing since 1981. Its smaller peers are doing worse. The stock prices of Chevron Corp., BP PLC, Royal Dutch ShellPLC, Total SA and ConocoPhillips, the largest western oil companies, all hit new 52-week lows during the day on Monday.

The bill will establish the core of a federal program to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough between 2008 and 2050 to avert catastrophic global warming. It will accomplish that purpose without harming America's economy or imposing hardship on its citizens. The greenhouse-gas emissions cap in the Climate Security Act covers U.S. electric power, transportation, manufacturing, and natural gas sources that together account for 87% of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.

Oil Price Plunges from a Zenith In the first half of 2008 we saw oil climb to approach $150 a barrel amid the pundits' warning of oil rocketing to $200 a barrel and way beyond due to the phenomenon of Peak Oil. In the wake of those heady days we have now witnessed the slumping of oil prices to well under $100 a barrel into October. We have often heard that this is all within the context of declining oil supplies and escalating demand due to the rapid economic development taking hold in large regions and populations of earth, for example like in China and India, in addition to the maintenance of development in the more developed countries like the USA and Europe. The graph below illustrated this rise and fall of oil prices, and particularly the fall in prices from an all time zenith of a few months ago (Williams, 2008).

The renewable-energy tax incentives tucked into the financial bailout package passed by the House on Friday include billions of dollars in breaks for old-fashioned fossil-fuel processes such as liquefying coal and squeezing petroleum out of sand and rock. These "dirty fuels" are making a tentative comeback among policymakers. Such ventures are aimed at "unconventional" deposits once deemed too expensive or technologically difficult to tap. Backers of the tax breaks believe the substantial incentives might boost these technologies and spur invention of new ones.

Clean Technology startups enjoyed another banner quarter in Q3, taking in $2.6 billion in venture capital investments, with 43% of that going to California companies. The most active investors were all from the Bay Area and included four venture capital funds and Google. So far, $6.6 billion has been invested in clean tech startups this year-- more than all of last year. Year over year, investment in Q2 and Q3 was up 17% and 37%, respectively.

The relentless search for oil has led explorers to the boreal forest of northeastern Alberta, among the jack pines and black spruce trees an hour's drive from the boom town of Fort McMurray. Kelly Hansen, operations manager at ConocoPhillips's $1 billion Surmont oil-sands plant, holds up the prize: a beaker of sticky black "synbit,"� a 50-50 blend of bitumen (a viscous, tarlike petroleum) and synthetic oil.

Drawing parallels with the current financial meltdown, Matthew Simmons, the CEO of Simmons & Company International, expresses his alarm about gasoline stocks being the lowest in several decades and refinery production down following recent hurricanes. He warns that if there were a run on the "energy bank" by everyone topping off their gasoline tanks, the U.S. would be out of fuel in three days, and grocery shelves largely emptied in a week. In an interview plus excerpts from his presentation at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA) conference on September 22, 2008, Matt highlights the risks and vulnerabilities in the finished oil products system, and answers audience questions.

Global oil production capacity will be insufficient within six years, according to Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency. Capacity will improve over the next two years, and ``after 2013, the situation is somewhat worrisome,'' Tanaka said today in Berlin. ``There is not enough capacity and we want to see much more expansion.''