Image: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT Electrochemical approach has potential to efficiently turn low-grade heat to electricity. David L. Chandler, MIT News Office Vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants; researchers around the world have spent decades seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most such efforts have […]...
In 2011, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy commissioned INTEK Inc., a Virginia-based consulting firm, to estimate how much oil might be recoverable from California’s vast Monterey Shale formation. Production of tight oil was soaring in North Dakota and Texas, and small, risk-friendly drilling companies were making salivating noises (within […]...
Russian and China have come to an agreement, signing off to allow OAO Gazprom , a Russian state-run gas corporation, to have a $55 billion investment to develop Siberian gas fields with the purpose of creating a pipeline. This contract was signed by Alexey Miller, CEO of Gazprom and Zhou Jiping, chairman of National Petroleum […]...
Our society’s prevailing economic zeitgeist assumes that everything has a price, and that both costs and prices can be objectively calculated, or at least agreed upon by parties involved in the transaction. There are some big problems with this proposition. Externalized costs are involuntary transactions — those on the receiving end of the externalities have not […]...
The US shale oil “miracle” has about as much believability left as Jimmy Swaggart. Just today, we learned that the EIA has placed a hefty downward revision on its estimate of the amount of recoverable oil in the #1 shale reserve in the US, the Monterey in California. As recently as yesterday, the much-publicized Monterey formation […]...
* Move likely to infuriate Iraqi government in Baghdad * First 1 million barrel cargo being loaded at Ceyhan, Turkey * Tanker scheduled to sail later on Thursday, buyer not identified (Adds SOMO reaction, background) Iraqi Kurdistan started loading oil from its new pipeline for shipment from a Turkish port on Thursday, defying the Baghdad […]...
Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer discusses U.S.-China relations turning icy over the recent cyber-spying charges with Trish Regan on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.”...
Say you’re an experienced gardener, adept at sowing and transplanting, weeding and harvesting. You’re ready for the next step in self-sufficiency... ...
In order to survive the double threat of resource depletion and climate change we need to move as quickly as possible to a sustainable society based on renewable resources. ...
In the quest to imagine and build a new “sharing economy,” one factor that is often overlooked is law. ...
Concerns about economic inequality are driving summer blockbusters and New York Times best sellers. When will they start driving our politics? ...
… and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had […]...
If oil is “just another commodity,” then there shouldn’t be any connection between oil prices, debt levels, interest rates, and total rates of return. But there clearly is a connection. On one hand, spikes in oil prices are connected with recessions. According to economist James Hamilton, ten out of eleven post-World War II recessions have […]...
Last month was not a good one for inflation hawks, unless they were looking for validation. The U.S. consumer price index was up 0.3 percent in April, its largest increase in 10 months. And producer prices were up 0.6 percent – their biggest monthly rise since September 2012. Of course, that does not mean prices […]...
December 24 Mike came in from the stairwell where he’d been having his morning coffee and cigarette. “Actually, today I think I’m going to start an outline. For the novel. And it occurs to me that your family…..” “Knows agents?” I thought. I knew one who’d achieved prominence by sticking with mainstream topics and literary fiction. […]...
I would like to thank Azniv Petrosyan for suggesting the use of remote imaging to assess land use, in particular to assess bio-diversity in wilderness areas. Other than that I do not see how her paper “A Model for Incorporated Measurement of Sustainable Development Comprising Remote Sensing Data and Using the Concept of Biodiversity” can […]...
Credit: Jason Cohn/Reuters Emergency personnel examine the wreckage of a train derailment near Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, February 13, 2014. The 120-car Norfolk Southern Corp train carrying heavy Canadian crude oil derailed and spilled in western Pennsylvania. In Lynchburg, Virginia, on April 30, a train carrying crude oil derailed, and some of the rail cars exploded into […]...
According to Oil Market Intelligence (OMI), world crude oil supply rose to a record 90.2mbd on average over the past 12 months through April. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil has been remarkably flat (with some volatility) around $110 since early 2011. World oil supply has been well balanced with world oil […]...
Every day, high-density global cities are home to millions of pedestrians in their streets. Paradoxically though, many streets and transportation policies have placed more space and importance on cars rather than people. ...
One currency seems not to be able to serve every human need alone. ...