Guest blog by S. A. Shelley Imagine a future where your choices for purchasing a new car include numerous options for electric vehicles (EV’s) and internal combustion vehicles (ICV’s). But competing with the typical federal or state subsidies for the EV’s are hefty rebate checks from OPEC or Russia for purchasing a fossil fuel burning ICV. That may sound crazy, but in today’s age of large supplies of easily produced shale oil, inexpensive renewable energy options, and changing societal demographics, it’s only a matter of time before the current oil glut results (see EIA figure below) in stranded oil resources that are too expensive to produce for many of the suppliers, drastically reduced supply-side control from oil producers, and a critical need for oil suppliers such as OPEC to find creative ways to stimulate demand.
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley The concept of “peak oil”, i.e., the time when production of oil hits its maximum and then declines, has been postulated for decades, but, as time passes, industry experts push the peak oil date further and further into the future. However, the events of the past 2 years since the collapse of the price of oil raise an interesting question: “Did we experience peak oil in 2015, and nobody noticed?” As someone who’s had a career in the oil and gas industry and who observes and tries to understand both the successes and failures of that industry, I postulate that we might have passed such a crucial point in history. Continue reading Did the World Hit “Peak Oil” in 2015 and Nobody Noticed?→
Our World of Energy is proud to introduce Alyssa Parr to our website visitors as our Higher Education Contributor. Alyssa is an architecture student and solar energy enthusiast studying at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has co-led Solar Cal Poly, a multidisciplinary team designing and constructing INhouse, a net-zero home for the Solar Decathlon 2015. The following is her first guest blog for OWOE, and we hope to be hearing much more from her in the future.
As human beings, everything we encounter and experience grows from the sun’s energy. Similar to how plants receive nourishment from the sun through photosynthesis, solar photovoltaic power converts the sun’s direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) to provide electric energy. Imagine a gathering of thousands of humans — inventors, entrepreneurs, investors, policy-makers, and enthusiasts — in which the ultimate goal is to transition our planet toward clean energy through solar power.
