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Obama orders GHG cuts for Federal Agencies; 50% of all new agency vehicles to be ZEV or PHEV by 2025

President Obama today signed a wide-ranging executive order mandating cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for Federal agencies. Through more efficient Federal operations, agency direct greenhouse gas emissions can be cut by at least 40% over the next decade, the order suggests. The order has operational directives for building and fleet management, electricity generation, water use, waste management and purchasing. As an initial outcome, within 90 days the head of each agency sis to propose to the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) percentage reduction targets for agency-wide reductions of scope 1 and 2 and scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms by the end of fiscal year 2025 relative to a fiscal year 2008 baseline. On the transportation side, if the agency operates a fleet of at least 20 motor vehicles, the directive is to […]

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Russian Inflation hits 17 per cent

Russian Inflation hits 17 per cent thumbnail Inflation in Russia has hit a zenith of around 17 per cent, the economy minister said Thursday, as the economic crisis roiling the country takes its toll.”The peak in inflation has not passed but we have reached the highest point and will probably stay at this level for some time,” minister Alexei Ulyukayev was reported as saying by Russian news agencies. “I think that for quite a long time, a month and a half or two months it will be at around 17 per cent,” he said. Inflation has shot up in Russia as the ruble national currency plummeted in value on the back of Western sanctions over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis and falling international oil prices. The steep rise in prices has slashed spending power of households across the nation and Russia is expected to plunge into recession this […]

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EU moves towards extending Russia sanctions

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk EU leaders took the first step towards extending their sweeping economic sanctions against Russia on Thursday night, agreeing that the measures would be maintained unless last month’s ceasefire agreement reached in Minsk was implemented in full by Moscow. The communiqué, agreed on the first day of a two-day summit in Brussels, fell short of hopes from some hardline countries — and the summit’s host, European Council president Donald Tusk — for an immediate renewal of the sanctions, which are due to expire in July. But by tying the measures to the Minsk agreement, which among other things requires Russia to secure its border with Ukraine and hand over its control to Ukrainian authorities, officials believe extension is now assured since the Kremlin is not expected to live up to the agreement’s terms. “Our common intention is also very, very clear,” said Mr Tusk at […]

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Eclipse Tests European Power Grid Flooded by Solar Farms

Eclipse watching tourists ride dog sleds outside of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, an archipeligo administered by Norway on March 19, 2015 ahead of the March 20 solar eclipse. Photographer: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images (Bloomberg) — The first major eclipse of the solar age is placing unprecedented strain on Europe’s electricity grids this morning as power panels switch off and then on again. The moon will block about 80 percent of the sun’s light across Europe from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. London time. In Germany, the eclipse will briefly halt output from thousands of panels, which provide about 40 percent of the nation’s power on the most sunny days. Grid operators are working to switch to usually idle natural gas and coal plants to make up for the lost solar power. Success will inform nations from the U.S. to China about how to integrate the variable supplies from renewables generators into […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Here’s the Next Biggest Threat to Global Crude Oil Prices

A gas flare burns at the central processing plant for oil and gas in the Salym oilfields near Surgut, Russia. Russian crude exports averaged 4.84 million barrels a day last year, a 6.1 percent decrease compared with 2013. Photographer: Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr./Bloomberg (Bloomberg) — The next big threat to oil prices isn’t from OPEC or Bakken shale. It’s Russian samovars, or teapots. Simple refineries that process crude into fuel oil are scaling back, because when oil prices slump, the government reduces the discount that these refiners — known as teapots to those in the industry — get for exporting fuel. They use less crude, freeing it up for sale abroad, which in turn adds to the global glut. Russia may increase oil exports by as much as 250,000 barrels a day this year, according to James Henderson, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies who’s […]

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G.M. Exiting Russia, for the Most Part

MOSCOW — General Motors on Wednesday announced plans to largely withdraw from the Russian market by the end of the year, becoming the most prominent company to date to express a lack of confidence in the deeply troubled economy. The move reverses years of G.M. investments in Russia , where car sales had boomed. Now, however, the country is struggling with low oil prices and sanctions on its banks, and its economy is expected to contract 4 percent this year. “This decision avoids significant investment into a market that has very challenging long-term prospects,” G.M.’s president, Daniel Ammann, said in a statement. Since Russia annexed Crimea last year and its economy has faltered, other multinational companies have left. G.M. said it would shutter its main factory in the country and wind down sales of Opel brand cars. The decision, the company said, will cost $600 million this year in […]

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Ukraine Wants to Double Gas Transit Fees for Gazprom, Says Energy Minister

ENLARGE A natural gas line outside Donetsk, Ukraine. The country wants to almost double the fees it charges Russia’s Gazprom to transit gas through Ukraine to the European Union. Photo: Getty Images KIEV, Ukraine—Fresh talks on Russian natural gas supplies to Ukraine will begin Friday in Brussels but no deal is imminent as Moscow and Kiev continue to quarrel over prices and transit fees, Ukraine’s energy minister said Thursday. Volodymyr Demchyshyn said that he and his Russian peer, Alexander Novak, earlier Thursday agreed to launch talks in the European Union capital, but said, “Russia doesn’t want to sign any specific documents, but let’s see how they do it.” Ukraine wants to almost double the fees it charges state-owned OAO Gazprom to transit Russian gas through Ukraine to the European Union , Mr. Demchyshyn said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The two sides need to resolve this, […]

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Oil Prices Will Recover

On St. Patrick’s Day the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that oil production from three of America’s largest shale plays is in decline. The EIA is forecasting that total U.S. oil production will be in decline in the 3rd quarter. The South Texas Eagle Ford, North Dakota’s Bakken/Three Forks and the Niobrara in Colorado & Wyoming are in decline. Since horizontal shale wells have very steep production decline rates (more than 50% in the first year), the oil supply “glut” will be corrected by market forces. Shale plays require continuous drilling or they quickly go on decline. Note: In the EIA chart above, the government’s production forecast is based on an active onshore rig count of 1,300. Baker Hughes reported March 13, 2015 that the land rig count was down to 1,069. I am forecasting the active onshore rig count in the U.S. to fall below 800 by […]

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Crude oil prices could go as low at $35 per barrel

Crude oil prices could go as low at $35 per barrel thumbnail Crude oil prices took a roller coaster ride dipping down to a six-year low of $42.17 per barrel before bouncing back up and closing the day at $44.66 per barrel. But one expert on the Eagle Ford shale said conditions are ripe for oil prices to drop even further before they can climb back up and stabilize. University of Texas at San Antonio Economics Professor Thomas Tunstall said the price drop is due to a glut in global oil supplies, lower global demand and record high inventory. The United States is producing high levels of crude from its shale oil fields, including the Eagle Ford region just south of San Antonio. U.S. Energy Information Agency released a Wednesday morning report revealing that oil inventories are at record high levels in the United States. Commercial crude oil inventories […]

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The Oil Age – A new quarterly peer-reviewed printed journal

The Oil Age – A new quarterly peer-reviewed printed journal thumbnail 1. Background & Objectives The journal addresses all aspects of the evolving ‘Oil Age’, including physical, economic, social, political, financial and environmental characteristics. Oil and gas are natural resources formed in the geological past and are subject to depletion. Increasing production during the First Half of the Oil Age fuelled rapid economic expansion, with human population rising six-fold in parallel, with far-reaching economic and social consequences. The Second Half of the Oil Age now dawns. This is seeing significant changes in the type of hydrocarbon sources tapped, and will be marked at some point by declining overall supply. A debate rages as to the precise dates of peak oil and gas production by type of source, but what is more significant is the decline of these various hydrocarbons as their production peaks are passed. In addition, demand for […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple