Category Archives: Energy

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Damocles learned that when you know about the sword up there, it’s hard to enjoy a life of luxury. Bingo.

In the fable that bears his name, Damocles was unnerved in the midst of luxury and power by the threat of a single sword (representing the ever present possibility of failure) hanging precariously over his head. We, who because of cheap oil enjoy luxury and power in our ordinary lives beyond the imagination of the kings of old, live beneath a veritable forest of deadly blades, all of which are just about to fall. Unlike Damocles, we refuse to look up, let alone move out of the zone of impact. When they tell our fable, nobody’s going to believe it. Continue reading →

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Seen from above, natural gas being flared at night bears a remarkable resemblance to the ill-fated Hindenburg. (Photo by Phudpucker.com)

A little known crisis is approaching in the world of natural gas, one that threatens the most successful part of the largely imaginary New American Bonanza (NAB) in oil and gas brought on by hydraulic fracking. The gas frackers did manage to increase domestic supplies, so much so that two things happened: every electric generator that could switch from coal to gas, did so; while the glut drove the price down so far that the gas producers started losing money. Their output, which had grown by seven percent in 2011 and five percent in 2012, managed to inch up one percentage point last year. Now the entire industry has an iceberg just off the starboard bow. Continue reading →

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Go ahead and drill some more. The oil, says the IEA, is simply not there.

The story broke last night. 9 pm. By now every mass media website should have it as the lede and every cable channel should be wall-to-wall with it. Why? Because it is a mortal blow to the five-year myth that America is in the midst of an oil-and-gas revolution that will return us to world supremacy, make us an exporter again, and bring us closer to energy independence.

Of course, some of us knew that these were all lies, all the time. But gullible people, especially gullible investors (who were the targets of the hype) bought the bogus claims. Chief among these — the biggest, most persuasive lie — was that the Monterey Shale in central California held a vast treasure in oil reserves, Continue reading →

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Modern coal miners go to work knowing that their employers have afforded them the best equipment (note flaming lamps, otherwise known as methane detectors), the safest materials (note shattered beam) and all the medical care they can get from their fellow miners. The photo is circa 1914. Close enough. (Photo by Janet Lindemuth/Flickr)

You have to hand it to West Virginia. [Irony alert] Some states might well lie down for an industry as big as Big Coal, might refuse to regulate them in order to keep that lush stream of money coming (no, silly, not the trickle of severance taxes to the state, the fire-hose of campaign contributions to the candidates).  And that might have been the case in West Virginia prior to 2010, the year 29 men died in an explosion in a mine that was being operated, the subsequent investigation found, in a “profoundly reckless manner.” Well, West Virginia had had enough, and to make sure such sacrifice to unmitigated greed would never happen again, it [end-of-irony alert] did absolutely nothing.

President Obama, however, had had enough. He ordered a sweeping review of mine safety regulations and a crackdown on those who regularly flouted them. Continue reading →

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Freeloaders live here. According to ALEC, they must be punished. (Photo by John Hritz/Flickr)

Oklahoma’s legislature has now followed Arizona’s  in authorizing a penalty to be charged people who install small solar arrays or wind turbines and connect them to the grid. This is happening as a result of a campaign by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an industry-financed group (backed heavily by the Koch Brothers, among others) that writes and distributes “model” legislation for state governments. This is the equivalent of the crew of the Titanic systematically smashing holes in lifeboats to make sure everybody does their best to save the ship. It is utterly wrong-headed, but its unintended consequences could be quite good. Continue reading →

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New York City, August 2003. (Photo by Zombiehunters.org (!)

In August of 2003, an overheated electric transmission line touched a tree somewhere in Quebec and 50 million people in the Northeast including New York City lost power for days. The same year, a tree falling on a power line in Switzerland triggered a cascade of events that shut off the power in Italy. The whole country. In Brazil in 2009 (60 million people affected), in India in 2012 (600 million people), and around the world, the hits keep on coming, bigger and faster. A new international study looks at the evidence and concludes that it’s going to get worse. Much worse. Continue reading →

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A representative of Big Oil (right) explains the future of fracking to America’s top energy investors (left). (Photo by Michel Lagarde/Google Images)

A noted opinionator for Forbes Magazine, James Gruber, has had an epiphany about the renaissance of the oil bidness in America, and suddenly sounds like a contributor to The Daily Impact. Gruber runs an investment newsletter, Asia Confidential, and has been a fund manager and stock analyst in Asia for 13 years. He’s at least a Deputy Assistant Master of the Universe, and sings in that choir. Or he did. Now that he has concluded, and written in Forbes, that “the era of cheap energy is over,” and “shale boosters are charlatans,” he may be booted off the island. Continue reading →

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A Russian oil rig in the North Sea. New oil wells are deeper, more expensive, more complicated — and play out faster — than ever.

A teleconference of world energy, financial, political and military officials organized out of Washington and London last month agreed that a full-blown global energy crisis could erupt as early as 2016. The conference was convened by Daniel Davis, a whistleblower colonel in the United States Army “acting in a private capacity,” and Jeremy Leggett, a contrarian British oil geologist. The conference took place in December, and was brought to light by Britain’s Guardian newspaper last week.   Continue reading →