As a friend of mine said after reading this article, "Step on the thing and start drilling!" I’ve been to this part of the country and, with due respect to Midland/Odessa, there’s only one reason for the Permian Basin to exist: to serve up oil and gas for the rest of the country. This little…
Category: Energy
The Color of Energy is Black, not Green
James Schlesinger and Robert Hirsch got real today at the Washington Post, laying out in plain language the fact that energy production is more black than green and will be for the foreseeable future. It’s fine to talk about wind and solar as supplemental energy sources. In this context it makes sense to invest in them, but strategically, not as an all-in plan to replace the fossil-fuel-driven electric grid.
Cold Fusion Coming Closer?
Pamela Mosier-Boss, a U.S. Navy researcher, isn’t willing to climb out on that limb just yet. But she says that her lab has produced “significant” results, including the generation of highly energetic neutrons, an important byproduct of the fusion process. Other researchers, including Rice University’s Paul Padley are justifiably skeptical – the Pons-Fleischmann debacle was…
Guerilla Environmentalism or Fraud?
Tim DeChristopher, a Utah economics student, is – for now – the proud possessor of the obligation to buy drilling rights from the federal government on 13 tracts of land he bid on at a recent Bureau of Land Management action. DeChristopher now owes Uncle Sam $1.8M with no prospects of being able to pay…
How Best to Stimulate the Economy?
Eliot Spitzer is writing for Slate after his fall from grace a few months ago. Spitzer says that the Obama government’s stimulus plan should focus not on essential infrastructure refurbishments but rather on “transformative investments” that might springboard the American economy ahead of its competitors. More than that, Spitzer says that it’s incumbent on Obama’s…
Sustainable Energy and You
Rick Strahl just wrote an excellent and timely post – now that oil prices are “back to normal” – about energy, alternatives to oil, peak production, and the impact of an unstable supply on the daily lives of most westerners. The first step in any attempt to change our energy consumption habits is to really…
The Wisdom of Markets
Crowd-sourcing, capturing the “wisdom” of the mob, was what the cool kids were doing not so long ago. Witness the rise of the Daily Kos and other such web sites. One thing they failed to espouse in their almost universal progressive liberal dogma is that the idea of mining – and manipulating – the minds…
Barack Obama’s Priorities
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama recently participated in an anti-global warming rally in California during which he said that few of the nation’s problems were more urgent than global warming. To his credit, Obama tossed in a throwaway bit about dependence on foreign oil, too. But if that particular speech can be taken at face value,…
Real Alternative Energy Coming?
When I first read about Hyperion Power Generation‘s plans to manufacture ~25 MWe, turn-key nuclear power plants I was skeptical, to say the least. Still am, truthfully. Now the Guardian says that Hyperion has several confirmed orders for the device. Could this be a real Middle East Oil Killer? The Guardian: The first confirmed order…
Liberals Then and Now
Here’s what Jimmy Carter had to say almost 30 years ago about the energy crisis of his time: From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its…