Revenue Trap: ” A focus on revenue at the expense of weakened strategy and reduced profits.”
Oil prices seeming to whipsaw back and forth, weekly, daily, even hourly is the result of many oil and options traders clearing trades at whatever slim profit they can eke out. Of course, multiply that slim profit by the huge volumes traded and well, Wall Street still makes a hefty profit whether oil is up or down.
Other folks are starting to talk about oil supply and demand hitting a new equilibrium, or that shale production has peaked. Fair enough. In fact, I agree that efforts to constrict oil supply are starting to have some effect. I doubt however that restricting oil supplies will be effective in the long run. OPEC claims that compliance with the production quotas is strong, but on the other hand, some OPEC members have recently vowed to opt out of the quotas and to even increase production. Don’t forget about some of the African members of OPEC who were free to pump and sell as much oil as they could. Continue reading It’s a Trap!→
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley Absolutely, the United States can become energy self-sufficient, but it is unlikely to become self-sufficient in oil production.
Since the end of last year and the beginning of this year, several governmental and intra- governmental bureaucracies, independent think-tanks of all sorts and large energy producing companies have issued annual energy outlooks in one form or another. I characterize them as “Business as Usual” (BP, Exxon, etc.), “Business is Changing” (Shell, Carbon Tracking Institute, etc.) and “Fanciful Delusion” (OPEC). In all forms these reports are interesting reading. Continue reading Can the United States become Energy Self-Sufficient?→
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.
