Energy

Chile has been generating so much solar electricity that it has to give it away free.  And while this looks good for both consumers and the environment, it spells trouble ahead for Chile’s infrastructure. As Vanessa Dezem and  Javiera Quiroga at Bloomberg report: “Spot prices reached zero in parts of …

According to the mainstream media, UK fracking is back in business.  The decision by North Yorkshire Council to approve an application for further testing of the KM8 well that was drilled in 2013 was reported as the first UK approval for fracking since 2011.  From the coverage, you would be …

One reason why Third Energy may have suddenly wanted to begin fracking in rural North Yorkshire is that the breakeven price – the point at which shale oil and gas becomes profitable – has been falling in recent months.  Pro-fracking publicists like to pretend that the reason for the fall …

From the moment Britain’s energy supplies went into irreversible decline in 1999, the National Grid was doomed.  The only questions were about how long the process would take to unfold, and what we might do to replace it. The reason for this is quite simple – National Grid is funded …

Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s energy policies have already been dismissed by environmentalists as devastating to the biosphere .  But Trump is unlikely to care, not least because a large part of his support comes from climate change deniers.  Far more damaging is the criticism from energy insiders that Trump’s policies are …

Financialisation of an industry or sector of the economy occurs when there is more money to be made out of the debts it carries than the goods and services it produces.  The housing sector, for example, has been financialised since deregulation began in the mid-1980s.  More recently, the hydraulic fracturing …

Supporters of Fracking can take cold comfort from North Yorkshire’s approval of Third Energy’s plans to frack their KM8 well near Kirby Misperton, according to David Powell at New Economics Foundation: “The beleaguered fracking industry has spent five years watching lengthy slumps in both international gas prices and public support …

The myth of “Saudi America” is little more than a sick joke for people in the ghost towns at the heart of the US shale plays.  The fracking bubble has long since burst.  Most of the shale oil and gas firms have gone bust.  And now local communities have to …

We cannot know for sure what prompted North Yorkshire Council to approve Third Energy’s application to hydraulically fracture its KM8 well near Kirby Misperton despite considerable local opposition.  The council will no doubt have taken account of change to UK policy that mean that ultimately Third Energy’s application will receive …

Britain faces a looming energy crunch that is in its way as bad as the credit crunch of 2008.  The crisis is threefold.  First, the UK’s internal supply of fossil fuels has been falling rapidly.  The North Sea is now producing just a third of the oil and gas that …