Are OPEC’s recent decisions responsible for the current price of oil? I’m not persuaded that they are, and here’s why.
Category Archives: energy
IEA becomes more pessimistic
The International Energy Agency’s latest Medium-Term Oil Market Report is significantly more pessimistic about global surplus oil capacity over the next half-decade.
Energy use in Japan
I was in Japan a week ago, giving lectures at some of the universities in Tokyo and the Bank of Japan. I couldn’t help but be struck by how differently energy is used in Tokyo compared with southern California.
A new U.S. refinery inches a little closer
Some good news on the latest court challenge to the effort by Arizona Clean Fuels to build a new refinery in southwestern Arizona.
Another energy bill
If it’s summer, it must be time for another energy bill, for which the Senate seems to have followed the strategy of Captain Renault to round up the usual suspects.
One nice thing when Congress keeps coming up with the same old ideas is that it allows us pundits to save energy by recycling our old comments on CAFE standards, ethanol mandates, and anti-gouging legislation.
Oil shale hits a freeze
Don’t count on running your Hummer on gasoline from oil shale just yet.
Worries about gasoline supplies
Robert Rapier has some concerns about what could be in store for the U.S. this summer.
Post Mortem on the Cambridge Energy Research Associates Forecasts
In the summer of 2005, Cambridge Energy Research Associates received a lot of publicity for their optimistic assessments of near-term oil supplies. Two years later, it’s interesting to see how the details of those predictions have been borne out so far.
Petroleum refining and comparative advantage
Some readers keep asking me, If U.S. refining capacity is such a big issue, why don’t we just import more finished product?
Gouge this
Maybe you think you know what I’m going to say about the Federal Price Gouging
Prevention Act. So I’ll surprise you by only saying nice things about the bill.