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U.S.-Canada water talks make KXL ‘look silly’

Debates over Canadian oil pipelines are going to "look silly" compared with future U.S-Canadian discussions over water, the Canadian envoy to Washington said. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last year visited Washington make his case for the Keystone XL oil pipeline planned from Alberta oil fields. TransCanada’s planned pipeline has been the source of heated debate on both sides of the border, though Canadian Ambassador to the United States Gary Doer said future debates will be over fresh water. "I think five years from now we will be spending a lot of our time diplomatically and a lot of our work on dealing with water," he said in an interview with the Edmonton Journal, published Monday. Doer said the United States and Canada have claims to 20 percent of the fresh water in the world in the five Great Lakes and share borders […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Daniel Yergin: Looking Back and Forward at Big Trends in Energy

Pulitzer prize-winning author and energy analyst Daniel Yergin kicked off the 2014 MIT Energy Conference Friday by looking back at big changes in the energy landscape since the conference launched in 2006—and ahead at three visions for the future of energy. Dr. Yergin, Vice President of IHS and author of two bestselling books on the history of energy, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power and The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, said much has changed over the last decade in the energy world. From “Peak Oil” to Energy Abundance? “It was the year of Peak Oil,” Yergin said, looking back at 2005, when the MIT Energy Initiative was launched and the first MIT Energy Conference conceived. America and the world were concerned about rising global oil demand […]

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Is Weird Winter Weather Related to Climate Change?

Scientists are trying to understand if the unusual weather in the Northern Hemisphere this winter — from record heat in Alaska to unprecedented flooding in Britain — is linked to climate change. One thing seems clear: Shifts in the jet stream play a key role and could become even more disruptive as the world warms. This winter’s weather has been weird across much of the Northern Hemisphere. Record storms in Europe; record drought in California; record heat in parts of the Arctic, including Alaska and parts of Scandinavia; but record freezes too, as polar air blew south over Canada and the U.S., causing near-record ice cover on the Great Lakes, sending the mercury as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius in Minnesota, and bringing sharp chills to Texas. Everyone is blaming the jet stream, which drives most weather in mid-latitudes. That would be a significant development. For what happens […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Can the World Feed China?

Overnight, China has become a leading world grain importer, set to buy a staggering 22 million tons in the 2013–14 trade year, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture projections. As recently as 2006—just eight years ago—China had a grain surplus and was exporting 10 million tons. What caused this dramatic shift? It wasn’t until 20 years ago, after I wrote an article entitled “Who Will Feed China?”, that I began to fully appreciate what a sensitive political issue food security was to the Chinese. The country’s leaders were all survivors of the Great Famine of 1959–61, when some 36 million people starved to death. Yet while the Chinese government was publicly critical of my questioning the country’s ability to feed itself, it began quietly reforming its agriculture. Among other things, Beijing adopted a policy of grain self-sufficiency, an initiative that is now faltering. Since 2006, China’s grain […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Tackling food security with a growing population, climate change and peak oil

With a growing population and improving diets there is a need to double our food supply by 2050. Identify three measures you would take to meet this demand. Identify one of your measures from your list and post your solution into the discussion – be prepared to defend your choice! That is a big question to throw in a climate change course. I am presently doing an online course – Climate Change: Challenges and solutions – offered by the University of Exeter (UK). So please indulge me as I also use this blog for some climate course work. This article is for week 6, section 6.5 of the course on ‘Tackling food security’. Food security is one helluva big area to try and come to terms with. Earth’s population is just over 7 billion people. It is projected by the United Nations in a June 2013 report on global […]

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Oil Prices Fall as China Cools, U.S. Warms

Crude-oil prices fell Tuesday in London from near multiweek highs hit in the previous session, as investors were unsettled by signs of a cool-down in China’s red-hot property market and warming temperatures in the U.S. New-home price acceleration in China’s biggest cities showed its first slowdown in a year. This follows indications from banks and developers that lenders are treating the sector with increasing caution amid worries about possible bad loans.  China is a driver for oil-demand growth, and any indication of slowing economic activity there is greeted with caution by investors. Brent crude for April delivery fell 43 cents to $110.21 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. U.S. crude-oil futures were down 75 cents at $102.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Production disruptions in Libya and South Sudan continue to underpin the Brent contract, enabling it to remain just below 2014 highs. Analysts at PVM, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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WTI Falls Amid Rising U.S. Crude Supplies; Brent Declines

West Texas Intermediate fell for the third time in four days before a government report forecast to show U.S. crude stockpiles expanded and amid concern consumption in China may falter. Futures in New York dropped as much as 0.9 percent as prices approached a technical level that signals gains may have been excessive. U.S. crude inventories increased for a sixth week to 363.6 million barrels, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts before Energy Information Administration data tomorrow. Equities in China, the world’s second-largest oil user, plunged the most since July on speculation a weaker property market will crimp growth. “Prices have rallied further than perhaps the underlying supply-demand fundamentals would suggest,” said Hakan Kocayusufpasaoglu, chief investment officer at Archbridge Capital AG, a Zug, Switzerland-based hedge fund. “Demand growth is not phenomenally strong, and emerging markets , which have been the main driver of growth, are slowing down.” […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas Climbs, Then Retreats in Volatile Trading

Natural gas futures skidded from five-year intraday highs Monday as traders weighed forecasts for colder-than-average weather in the central and eastern U.S. against expectations that warmer spring weather is on its way. Natural gas for March delivery fell 12.5 cents, or 2%, to $6.010 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural-gas prices are up 42% this year, as continued frigid weather has fueled robust demand for indoor heating and eaten away at natural-gas stockpiles. About half of U.S. households use natural gas as their primary heating fuel. Prices are expected to be especially volatile leading up to the expiration of the March contract on Wednesday, as physical buyers try […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Kurdish gov't takes stake in Miran gas field from Genel Energy

ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 24 (UPI) — Turkish energy company Genel Energy said Monday the semiautonomous Kurdish government in Iraq was taking a 25 percent interest in the region’s Miran gas field. Genel said the Kurdistan Regional Government exercised its right to take a stake in Miran production. "Accordingly, Genel’s working and paying interests in the Miran production sharing contract will fall from 100 percent to 75 percent, with the KRG’s working and paying interests at 25 percent," the company said in a statement. No financial terms were disclosed The Miran contract area covers 293 square miles and contains gross resources estimated at 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 95 million barrels of oil. Genel said it was working with the Kurdish government on a gas sales agreement for mid-2014. The Kurdish and central Iraqi governments are at odds over who controls what aspects of the energy sector. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Kurdish gov’t takes stake in Miran gas field from Genel Energy

ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 24 (UPI) — Turkish energy company Genel Energy said Monday the semiautonomous Kurdish government in Iraq was taking a 25 percent interest in the region’s Miran gas field. Genel said the Kurdistan Regional Government exercised its right to take a stake in Miran production. "Accordingly, Genel’s working and paying interests in the Miran production sharing contract will fall from 100 percent to 75 percent, with the KRG’s working and paying interests at 25 percent," the company said in a statement. No financial terms were disclosed The Miran contract area covers 293 square miles and contains gross resources estimated at 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 95 million barrels of oil. Genel said it was working with the Kurdish government on a gas sales agreement for mid-2014. The Kurdish and central Iraqi governments are at odds over who controls what aspects of the energy sector. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple