Category:

Fukushima Watch: Tepco Eyes Radioactive Strontium-Removal System

A storage tank where highly radioactive water leaked at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. European Pressphoto Agency Still trying to work out the bugs in its water processing system, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has decided to adopt technology to reduce risks posed by a deadly radioactive isotope stewing in water stored in a thousand tanks at the site. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday that the new technology would remove radioactive strontium from the 400,000 metric tons of highly contaminated water. Kurion Inc., the provider of the technology, has already delivered the first set of equipment to the site for inspection and plans to ship the balance of equipment in the coming weeks, the company said in a statement. The California-based company said it expects the processing system, which can handle 300 tons of water a day, to be operational […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Shale Gas Is America's Geopolitical Trump Card

When Russia and China announced a $400 billion deal last month for Russia to supply China with 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for three decades, some analysts heralded it as a tectonic geopolitical shift. Instead, Vladimir’s Putin’s haste to sign a deal that had been in the making for more than a decade confirmed his country’s political weakness. Despite being buoyed by high energy prices in the first decade of this century, Russia is in decline. Demographically it is shrinking; it has severe health problems (the average Russian male dies in his early 60s); and it is a "one-crop economy" heavily dependent on energy exports. Russia needs reforms to build a diversified, entrepreneurial economy, but its actions in Ukraine have brought on sanctions that weaken its access to Western ideas and technology. Becoming China’s gas station does nothing to reverse this trend. The real geopolitical shift […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Shale Gas Is America’s Geopolitical Trump Card

When Russia and China announced a $400 billion deal last month for Russia to supply China with 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for three decades, some analysts heralded it as a tectonic geopolitical shift. Instead, Vladimir’s Putin’s haste to sign a deal that had been in the making for more than a decade confirmed his country’s political weakness. Despite being buoyed by high energy prices in the first decade of this century, Russia is in decline. Demographically it is shrinking; it has severe health problems (the average Russian male dies in his early 60s); and it is a "one-crop economy" heavily dependent on energy exports. Russia needs reforms to build a diversified, entrepreneurial economy, but its actions in Ukraine have brought on sanctions that weaken its access to Western ideas and technology. Becoming China’s gas station does nothing to reverse this trend. The real geopolitical shift […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Oilmen Head to a Roundup in Calgary

Canada’s largest annual oil and gas trade show gets under way Tuesday in conjunction with an industry conference dedicated to heavy oil, which the country has in greater abundance than anywhere else on the planet. Anastasia Vasilakis Organizers estimate more than 60,000 attendees will flock here from around the world to visit nearly 2,000 corporate exhibitors’ booths at the Global Petroleum Show. Separately, some 1,100 participants are expected to register for the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Heavy Oil Conference, a symposium for peer-reviewed technical papers. The focus of both events will be on business and technology innovations in the booming Canadian oil patch, but industry officials will also address an undercurrent of uncertainty about growth choke points. Looming large is opposition from environmentalists to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to connect Alberta’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. Increasing options for shipping out crude—by pipe, rail or barge—and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Russian Stocks’ Oil Link Gains on Eased Ukraine Concern

Russian stocks are showing the strongest link to oil prices in more than a year as concern that the Ukraine crisis will escalate fades and investors focus on a main driver of economic growth. The dollar-denominated RTS stock index rose 4.9 percent in Moscow last week, pushing its 35-day correlation coefficient with West Texas Intermediate crude to 0.53, the highest since May 2013. A reading of 1 implies two securities are trading in lockstep, while -1 signals the opposite. Oil is Russia ’s top export and along with natural gas contributes about half its budget revenue. The RTS index had a negative correlation coefficient of as much as 0.37 in March as stock-market volatility surged during the country’s standoff with Ukraine. The link between crude and equities is returning to more typical levels as tensions ease. President Vladimir Putin met with the former Soviet republic’s new leader on June […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

90% Of Gazprom Clients Have “De-Dollarized”, Will Transact In Euro & Renminbi

90% Of Gazprom Clients Have “De-Dollarized”, Will Transact In Euro & Renminbi Following Obama and Putin’s “caught on tape” meeting Vine’d by the French President, we can’t help but wonder if the Russian leaders comments were something akin to “this is not over yet.” With “De-Dollarization” efforts already broadly under discussion , ITAR-TASS reports that Gazprom had signed additional agreements for clients to switch from dollars to euros and renminbi, “nine of ten consumer had agreed to switch.” Via ITAR-TASS, Gazprom Neft had signed additional agreements with consumers on a possible switch from dollars to euros for payments under contracts, the oil company’s head Alexander Dyukov told a press conference. “Additional agreements of Gazprom Neft on the possibility to switch contracts from dollars to euros are signed. With Belarus, payments in roubles are agreed on,” he said. Dyukov said nine of ten consumers had agreed to switch to euros. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

90% Of Gazprom Clients Have “De-Dollarized”, Will Transact In Euro & Renminbi

90% Of Gazprom Clients Have “De-Dollarized”, Will Transact In Euro & Renminbi Following Obama and Putin’s “caught on tape” meeting Vine’d by the French President, we can’t help but wonder if the Russian leaders comments were something akin to “this is not over yet.” With “De-Dollarization” efforts already broadly under discussion , ITAR-TASS reports that Gazprom had signed additional agreements for clients to switch from dollars to euros and renminbi, “nine of ten consumer had agreed to switch.” Via ITAR-TASS, Gazprom Neft had signed additional agreements with consumers on a possible switch from dollars to euros for payments under contracts, the oil company’s head Alexander Dyukov told a press conference. “Additional agreements of Gazprom Neft on the possibility to switch contracts from dollars to euros are signed. With Belarus, payments in roubles are agreed on,” he said. Dyukov said nine of ten consumers had agreed to switch to euros. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Talkin’ trash: Are we literally throwing away energy?

Talkin’ trash: Are we literally throwing away energy? Philipp Schmidt-Pathmann wakes up every day thinking about trash. What got him thinking about it in the first place is how much of it is simply dumped into landfills across America when most of what is not recyclable could instead be turned into energy for homes and businesses everywhere. Schmidt-Pathmann has seen a better approach in his native Germany where only about 1 percent of all municipal waste goes into landfills. This compares with about 68 percent in the United States of the 400 million tons discarded annually, he explains. (Exact numbers are hard to come by, but he prefers figures collected by Biocycle Magazine .) Germans recycle almost 70 percent of their municipal waste and burn almost all the rest to turn it into energy. Schmidt-Pathmann is founder and executive director of the Zero Landfill Initiative based in Seattle. He […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Tech Talk – what the EPA Plan neglects

One of the problems, I suspect, with predictions of future energy use and production is that physical reality can become entangled in the politics of the day. Thus news that tends to negate the optimistic views of future American oil and natural gas production is subsumed by the need to keep the level of those predictions hecause of other political needs. President Obama has now announced his decisions on a new incentive to combat his perception of the future as it sits threatened by the increased carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels, particularly coal. As announced by the EPA, the Clean Power Plan “will maintain an affordable, reliable energy system, while cutting pollution and protecting our health and environment.” The proposed rule has the intent of lowering carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from the levels of 2005, by 2030. As with many energy-related plans this one […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

The Stone Age Didn’t End Because We Ran Out of Stones

“The Stone Age didn’t end because humanity ran out of stones.” — Ronald Bailey We used to be afraid of something called Peak Oil. Peak Oil was the idea that oil production had reached its zenith, or would soon, and was poised to plunge; we inevitably faced a drought of the black gunk. In 2007, CNN reported: The world has reached the point of maximum oil output and production levels will halve by 2030 — a situation that will eventually lead to war and disaster, a report claims. The physicist Niels Bohr said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Some time has passed and we can see how this particular prediction has panned out. In 2006 the world produced about 72 million barrels of oil a day. Last year (despite an ongoing financial slump) the world produced about 73 million barrels of oil a day. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple