Energy

Energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie says that US shale oil is now the most economically viable source of the planet’s remaining oil. According to Ed Crooks in the Financial Times the consultancy claims that: “About 60 per cent of the oil production that is economically viable at a crude price of $60 …

There is a green energy revolution taking place across the developed world… but it isn’t the one you were thinking of.  More or less quietly, the corporate world has given up hope of governments solving either the short-term energy crunch (caused by rising fossil fuel extraction costs combining with stunted …

News that on several occasions Germany has produced more energy from renewables than the country actually needs is not necessarily a good thing.  In the absence of viable storage capacity and a lack of demand for exported energy, Germany has been obliged to pay fossil fuel generators to shut down …

Whatever the industry, get the regulations wrong and you have a recipe for disaster.  We all know this to our cost following the banking crash of 2008, which stems from round after round of deregulation since Thatcher and Reagan.  When regulators establish a framework that allows fraud, fraud is precisely …

With oil prices still struggling to reach $50 per barrel after two years of unsustainably low prices, energy companies are filing for bankruptcy, hundreds of thousands of workers are being laid off, and governments are struggling to make up for the lost tax revenue.  If this were not bad enough …

A few years ago, eye-wateringly high oil prices combined with concern about climate change gave impetus to the manufacture of electric vehicles.  Several companies were already producing hybrid cars that switch between electric and petroleum motors.  But rising oil prices paved the way for entirely electric vehicles.  These are now …

Chris Matthews at Fortune repeats the somewhat incredible claim that: “According to a new analysis from oil and gas consulting firm Rystad Energy, the United States is the country with the largest volume of oil reserves, with Russia and Saudi Arabia coming in second and third, respectively.” Based on estimates …

Electricity industry insiders are calling for a radical shake up of the way in which energy bills are calculated in an attempt to prevent the UK descending into an energy death spiral.  The latest to speak out are Iain Conn, CEO of British Gas owner Centrica, and Vincent de Rivaz, …

The steady rise in world oil prices in the first half of the year has given a flicker of hope to an energy industry whose profits have taken a serious hit.  There have even been a few new fracking operations in the US shale patch, while the banks have agreed …

The internet sits at the heart of what is believed to be the greenest type of economy – the so-called knowledge economy.  Green, because the tools of the new economy – laptops, tablets, smartphones, 3d-printers, etc – are very low energy devices.  Green too, because the digital products – mp3 …