Category:

Poland, Wedded to Coal, Spurns Europe on Clean Energy Targets

BELCHATOW, Poland — They call it Poland’s biggest hole in the ground. The coal mine here is more than eight-and-a-half miles long, nearly two miles wide and as deep in parts as three football fields. Enough coal comes out of it to fuel Europe’s largest coal-fired utility plant, whose chimneys loom in the distance. “The entire world population could fit in this hole,” Tomasz Tarnowski, an administrator here, said in a bit of proud hyperbole as he led a group of reporters on a walk near a towering mound of brown coal about halfway into the mine. Poland is Europe’s coal colossus. More than 88 percent of its electricity comes from coal. Belchatow is one of its huge sources and the largest carbon emitter in Europe. (There’s no “belch” in Belchatow — it is pronounced bel-HOT-oof.) This month, a United Nations conference on climate change will be held in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

US will always remain a crude oil importer

Eagle_Ford_Play_Jan2009_Jul2013 Page added on October 31, 2013 US shale oil has so far replaced 2 mb/d of its crude oil imports which peaked at around 10 mb/d in 2005. If this effort can be doubled the US would still need to import around 6 mb/d. US crude oil imports vs production History: US crude imports skyrocketed in the early 1970s after the US peak. High oil prices as a result of the 1 st and 2 nd  oil crises in 1973 and 1979 triggered a recession and therefore a drop in oil demand and a reduction in crude oil imports. After Alaska’s peak crude imports increased again until the 3 rd  oil crisis which started in 2005. Despite the shale oil boom which began in serious in 2011, the US still imports around 2 mb/d (25%) from the Persian Gulf and 3.5 mb/d (44%) from OPEC. So there would […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple