Archive for July, 2008
Friday, July 18th, 2008
So, if you haven’t seen it yet — Gore gave an excited crowd some serious goals to chew on yesterday. He proposed our country take the climate and energy crisis more seriously — and transform our electric infrastructure from being fossil fuel dominated to being 100% carbon neutral in ten years! This can definitely make headlines, and is inspiring. Is such a lofty goal the right one for America?
I’ve been advocating climate neutrality on campuses for a long time and want us to move to wind and solar as quickly as possible – but 100% carbon-free in 10 years may be too (more…)
Tags: Electricity, Gore, Solar, Texas, Wind
Posted in Climate Change, Daily Recap, Electricity, Wind | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
As two major airlines report large losses in the 2nd quarter, a study by Fitch Ratings just released sees the potential for major bankruptcies after Labor Day. I have written about bankruptcies earlier this year, which have been for smaller firms like Aloha and Skybus. But Fitch predicts that a persistence or increase in current oil prices would cause (more…)
Tags: airlines, Oil
Posted in Climate Change, Daily Recap, Oil, Solar, Wind | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
Today was another volatile day in the energy markets. Oil initially rose as the dollar fell to a record low versus the euro of $1.6038, but then oil dropped back below $140 as more bad news about the US economy showed our demand may fall further. Brazilian production was reported to have returned toward normal levels, but Libya reported a 100,000 barrel per day reduction in its oil supply for almost a month due to maintenance needs. This amounts to twice as much as (more…)
Tags: climate neutral campuses, Oil
Posted in Campuses, Climate Change, Daily Recap, Oil, Princeton | No Comments »
Monday, July 14th, 2008
In another reminder that oil markets have little relief on the supply side, Brazil faces a five-day period with 300,000 barrels per day reduced production due to oil workers striking over working conditions. I mentioned a few posts back that Nigerian production regularly faces similar reductions due to pipeline sabotage and strikes. The problem is we rely on Brazil to grow production to help soften prices. But this projected 1.5 million barrel reduction over the next five days represents .2% of their annual production, a sizable chunk in today’s tight market. (more…)
Tags: Brazil, Coal, Midwest, Oil
Posted in Coal, Daily Recap, Oil | No Comments »
Sunday, July 13th, 2008
Today’s New York Times has a great story on the Parisian bike share program, Velib, which just completed its first year in operation. In just twelve months, the program has increased bicycle use 25% (~120,000 rides per day) without costing the city a penny. An advertising firm has contributed the bicycles and agreed to maintain the 20,000 bikes for exclusive rights to ~1,600 billboards. As I move into New York City next week, I am eager to see if such a plan could work in the Big Apple — and many other cities around (more…)
Tags: bicycles, Oil
Posted in bicycles, Oil | No Comments »
Saturday, July 12th, 2008
The future of commuter education may be unfolding today. We are lucky plateau/peak oil didn’t hit before our communications systems advanced to today’s amazing level. With video skype, telecasting conferences, cell phones and libraries of information available at our fingertips, we no longer have to travel every day to get a good education. The high value of on-campus education, where students live in dorms and feed off of each other’s interests, will remain. But commuter education looks to be defined more as telecommuter education.
The New York Times reports that (more…)
Tags: Oil, online education
Posted in Campuses, Oil | No Comments »
Friday, July 11th, 2008
The bubble talk of a couple days ago has been muted by another record price run for oil, this time above $147 per barrel. The culprits of the day were further drops in the dollar’s value (at $1.593 per euro we are close to its record low of a few weeks back) and threats to stability in Iran. Israel and the US are playing war games while Iran tests its missiles showing that it wouldn’t just roll over if attacked. A deep recession would be guaranteed if the conflict were to take the world’s third largest exporter of oil out of the global market. Prices could hit (more…)
Tags: airlines, Iran, Oil
Posted in Daily Recap, Oil | No Comments »
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
The EIA just released its weekly inventories data for natural gas, reporting that the build in inventories was again below average at 90 billion cubic feet (bcf) to the level of 2,208 bcf (or 15% below last year and 3.1% below the five-year average). With reduced supplies and demand over 2% above last year, these are strong fundamentals for the doubling of natural gas’s price over the last year. Whether the price continues to rise toward records depends on the tightness of LNG markets in the international market, the ability of Canada (our largest source of imports) to prevent large declines in their production, and of course our ability to use electricity more efficiently.
In oil, OPEC released its market projections to 2030 and (more…)
Tags: climate change, EIA, Natural Gas, Oil
Posted in Climate Change, Daily Recap, Natural Gas, Oil | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
The EIA weekly petroleum report showed today that overall oil stockpiles nationwide remained below average. Crude supplies fell 5.9 million barrels (Mb) to the bottom of the average range ~294 Mb, while gasoline, distillates, and propane gained 5.3 Mb for an overall draw around half a million barrels. US crude production fell 3% last week to below 5 million barrels — meaning that our nation’s production is stagnant again this year even though oil’s price has doubled. The good news is gasoline consumption is 3% below last summer’s level and carmakers are announcing further opportunities for us to cut demand in the future.
For instance, (more…)
Tags: Oil, Solar
Posted in Daily Recap, Oil, Solar | No Comments »