The last 18 months have been quite eventful in the energy scene. Oil went almost up to $150 per barrel and then it collapsed to below $40 and although many with short memories may think it happened decades ago it was in the summer and autumn of 2008. Oil slowly climbed back to over $80 [...]  More »

In the wake of Climategate, Chinese climate researchers have been looking for a way forward. For the past few years, the Chinese government has been supportive of the “consensus” western position on climate change. Wanting very much to be liked and accepted internationally, China went along with the climate change predictions being put forward by [...]  More »

The Nervous Breakdown from the Botched Airline Bombing Michael J. EconomidesLooking at the saturation press coverage it is not hard to conclude that what the terrorists set out to do is working for them: cost us a lot of money and give us the equivalent of a national nervous breakdown. As a nation and as [...]  More »

India, China compete in Africa for oil Priyanka Bhardwaj and Michael J. Economides Africa is the latest place where the battle for energy sources between India and China has heated in the recent past. During an India-Africa summit in New Delhi this month, with representation from 15 African countries, it became clear that India needs [...]  More »

There are few starker signs of the decline of the principles over which decades of Cold War were fought such as US/Western style free enterprise, free economy and democratic institutions than the demagogic populism that has engulfed and infected many countries in South America. Much of it has been fueled by oil and Venezuela’s Hugo [...]  More »

What is Obama to Brothers Chavez and Ahmadinejad? Hugo Chavez of Venezuela received on Tuesday, November 24, in Caracas, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At a state reception with full military honors and pomp, Chavez used three words to characterize Ahmadinejad, each with pause for applause: “Leader. Brother. Comrade.” It is one thing for the [...]  More »

China’s Faces Nat Gas Shortages, Price Hikes Xina Xie and Michael J. Economides China has a new energy headache: natural gas shortages and price spikes. And those shortages are likely to persist for the foreseeable future. Unseasonably cold weather, including heavy snow in northern China, has resulted in a natural gas shortfalls of as much [...]  More »

A Landmark in Chinese Oil RefiningThe new 240,000 barrels per day refinery in China’s Fujian Province is essentially on line, starting this week. The deal that led to the refinery construction was signed in February 2007 and it was a landmark event, the first ever of its kind, and it joined a major Chinese oil [...]  More »

CCS which stands for carbon capture and storage or sequestration has been the great hope of middle-of-the-road characters, people other than radical “greenies” or their “right-wing” adversaries. Oil companies and governments have jumped on this and it has figured prominently in many energy and climate scenaria by think-tanks and universities. In some ways it has [...]  More »

The declared war against global warming by governments, organizations and environmentalists had no credibility when both the United States, under George W. Bush, and China, the two biggest carbon emitters were not playing along. But the election of Barack Obama brought the United States into the forefront of global warming pronouncements; China remained enough of [...]  More »

On the run-up to December’s Climate horror-fest in Copenhagen – billed as the last chance saloon in man’s Quixotic tilt at rising carbon levels – the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has, it seems, displaced Planet Gore as the world’s self-appointed Climate Czar.  In a bid to assume world leadership and turn Copenhagen’s coming Emission [...]  More »

For the last 30 years, China has shown voracious energy consumption, but as has always been the case for developing countries throughout history, it was coupled with low efficiency. Along with abundant and cheap labor China was able to gain a huge world market in industrial goods and this stimulated its economic development. Although the [...]  More »