Petroleum – a term includes oil, gas and derivatives – wells have been going dry for more than 150 years. Until the late 2000s, the solution to that problem of resource depletion has been to find a new place to drill. We now have the alternative of drilling deeper and using hydraulic fracturing techniques to…
As an energy industry observer with a long memory, I was somewhat bemused by a recent interview aired on Platts Energy Week. Bill Loveless sat down with David Eyton, BP’s head of technology, to talk about the exciting new technologies that his company is developing. The company is making substantial investments; in June 2013, BP…
As a lazy man who likes to repurpose his work whenever possible, I want to share a note that I just sent to some of my nuclear friends who question my analysis about the actions of fossil fuel interests to restrain the growth of nuclear energy. Rod, I have never been a big fan of…
In my engagement with the Sierra Club group on LinkedIn (note – the group is not sponsored or affiliated with the actual Sierra Club) I ran across a commenter who would probably find some kindred souls among the Peak Oil pessimists and the skeptical survivalists. Here is what he told me after I had described…
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2/2) (PL) by DobrySamarytanin Part 2 of A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash adds more stark images and historical footage that shows the importance of energy in the form of readily accessible oil, but it also illustrates some of the toxic hazards and armed conflicts that we have accepted…
During the next few days or weeks, I am going to try to develop an energy story that I hope will inspire action, not depression. I may not succeed. The first installment is the first half of a 90 minute documentary video titled A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash a 2007 documentary film that includes…
I do not hate oil companies, I hate their business model. I hate the fact that they are capturing a vast portion of the world’s wealth and power by extracting an ever higher price for essentially the same product that they have been selling for 100 years with few technical improvements that make it more…
Twice during the past week, I have run into antinuclear rants that point to Admiral Rickover’s final testimony to Congress in January 1982 as evidence to support an assertion that nuclear energy should be avoided. Admiral Rickover was one of the pioneers in the field of capturing nuclear fission energy for beneficial use; he is…