Oil prices have dropped a bit of late. Spot prices for crude are down ten bucks from their peak two weeks ago. One reason? The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, according to This Week in Petroleum: Still another factor behind the recent decline in oil prices is a lessening of geopolitical tensions. Following the release …
Seldom has a satellite image conveyed quite so much useful information quite so easily: From Yale Simkin, in the comments at the Arms Control Wonk. That’s one approach, I guess, to energy conservation.
Gas prices have settled a bit around the $3 per gallon level. And, contrary to last week’s confusing post on this question (hey, I’m a newbie on this whole energy economics thing), apparently this enormous price of oil by the barrel means refiners are not making enough money to send their kids to private school …
On whether advocates of reducing greenhouse emissions should be celebrating the compromise energy bill announced over the weekend.
I ran across two interesting comments in the blogworld yesterday in response to the new McKinsey report on U.S. greenhouse emissions opportunities. The report lays out a lot of enticing cost-benefit analyses of various greenhouse gas emissions options throughout the U.S. economy. The first came from Grist commenter Sean Casten: I agree – great message, …
Continue reading ‘In Search of the Climate-Energy Solution Space’ »
According to an Ernst and Young analysis, things are getting a little gnarly out on the biofuels frontier. From Platts: The global biofuels industry has seen a slowdown in growth over the third quarter of 2007, caused by rising feedstock prices and a rapid expansion in capacity that may outstrip demand, according to an Ernst …
TWIP this week explains the disconnect between the rise in the price of oil and the rise in the price of gasoline: The main reason for the surge in gasoline prices over crude oil seems to have been unusually extensive U.S. refinery outages, which also pushed the limits of gasoline import availability. In the face …
A shift from coal to natural gas for generating electricity contributed to a 1.5 percent drop in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 as compared to 2005, according to an EIA report out today. We’re 15 percent above 1990. Platts story (which I have read) Full report (which I haven’t read) update: from the comments, …
Nature has a story on a massive Sahara-based solar energy proposal to be presented to the European Parliament in Brussels tomorrow (Thursday Nov. 28). The price tag mentioned in the story sounds enormous: US$595 billion. The political complications sound vexing. But hey, couldn’t be any harder than retrofitting coal plants for carbon capture, could it? …
Can one of my European readers help with a currency conversion? How does Euros per MWh translate into dollars per ton of carbon? The context: RWE will proceed with the construction of two, 1,530 MW coal-fired plants in Germany, believing that the units will make money even if carbon dioxide costs of up to Eur30.00/MWh …
Continue reading ‘A Little Help Please With A Conversion?’ »