GE is going through a major rebuilding phase. With fraud allegations and mismanagement, the greatest industrial company in American history is in a rut. Could energy storage with batteries save the conglomerate's business? Erin Ailworth explores the idea in The Wall Street Journal: HOUSTON— General Electric Co. GE 1.53% plans to unveil a new battery platform Wednesday as it seeks to become a leader in the emerging market of storing electricity. The giant platform called GE Reservoir will be able to store power generated by wind turbines and solar panels for later use. It will also be able … [Read more...]
Is There a Worldwide Shortage of LNG?
According to Royal Dutch Shell, the world could see a LNG shortage within a decade. Without more investment in new projects, heightened demand could swamp new supply. Tom DiChristopher reports at CNBC: The Anglo-Dutch energy giant issued the warning in its second annual LNG outlook, which reports on developments in the booming market for natural gas cooled to liquid form for export. Shell says the market for LNG grew by 29 million tons last year, 30 percent more than previously expected. Trading in LNG reached 293 million tons in 2017, up from just 100 million tons at the turn of the … [Read more...]
BP: World Running out of Oil Demand
According to BP, by 2035 demand for crude oil may peak. By 2040, the world's energy supply pie will be sliced equally between oil, coal, natural gas, and renewables, according to the oil giant's predictions. This new projection pushes up peak oil demand by a half decade or more. Christopher Alessi reports: The world’s appetite for oil and other liquid fuels could continue to grow until around 2035, hitting 110.3 million barrels a day—compared with 95 million barrels a day in 2015—before plateauing and falling off in the run up to 2040, the British oil-and-gas giant said Tuesday in the main … [Read more...]
America: The New Petro-State
Since at least the 1970s, higher oil prices have been a drag on the U.S. economy, but with U.S. oil production now surging that could be changing. Greg Ip writes in The Wall Street Journal that high oil prices, while still hard on consumers, are generating enough economy activity in America to offset the pain. Credit this to the emergence of the U.S. as a leading oil producer and, soon, net energy exporter. More expensive oil is still a tax on consumers. But that tax is increasingly offset by the boost to energy investment, production and jobs. The U.S. business cycle is thus now tied in … [Read more...]
Big Miners Cautiously Enjoying Higher Demand
Big mining companies like BHP, Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore are enjoying the world's booming economy. Higher demand is coming for coal and metals used to produce electric cars. Stronger economic growth in the U.S., Europe and China has been the biggest catalyst to improved miner performance. The Wall Street Journal reports: The metals market has been buoyed by a rare period of synchronized economic growth in China, the U.S., Europe and major economies elsewhere. Also helping: a chilly Chinese winter that fueled coal purchases, the industry’s expectations of a global infrastructure … [Read more...]
Shale Oil Production Explosion
After being put on the ropes by an OPEC strategy that forced the price of oil down below $30 a barrel in 2016, U.S. shale oil producers are back, and they are producing at record rates. Christopher Alessi reports: U.S. shale companies are churning out crude oil at a record pace that could overwhelm global demand and reverse the oil market’s fragile recovery, a top energy-market observer said Tuesday. U.S. shale production is growing faster in 2018 than it did even during the boom years of $100 a barrel oil prices from 2011 to 2014, said the International Energy Agency in its closely … [Read more...]
Shale Oil Production Booming
The WSJ reports here that shale oil production is growing faster this year than it did when oil was at $100 per barrel. The breakeven price for shale producers is now much lower than it was in 2014. Shale producers “cut costs dramatically” during the nearly three-year-long oil industry downturn, the IEA said. They then took advantage of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel’s decision to cut its own output, which helped prices rise from the low $40s to over $70 a barrel as recently as late last month. “All the indicators that suggest continued fast growth in the U.S. … [Read more...]
Will Electric Cars Drive a New Mining Boom in Canada?
There's a metal found in electric cars today that is mostly mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The African country is a tinderbox of political turmoil, wracked by labor disputes, and a frequent abuser of child labor. Consumers are looking for alternative resources of the metal. In Canada, miners are working to find new sources of the metal, cobalt, that will be reliable, sustainable, and free of the disruptions and ethical woes attached to supplies from The Congo. David George-Cosh writes in The Wall Street Journal: Miners in Canada such as Vale SA, VALE 0.63% which has a … [Read more...]
Farm Communities Fight Meat Processors
You may think that a rural farm community would jump at the chance to have a major new customer locate a processing facility right in their backyard. Throughout the farm belt though, farmers are fighting back against having meat processing facilities located in their towns. Some communities just don't want to live near the plants that promise noxious odors, immigrant labor forces, and the increased use of infrastructure. Jacob Bunge reports at The Wall Street Journal about Tonganoxie, a small Kansas town currently fighting against the location of a new Tyson plant there. He writes: Residents … [Read more...]
China’s Coal Problem is Really a Debt Problem
Like most subsidies, China's subsidy for electric power has generated a wave of misallocation. Chinese power producers, taking advantage of high subsidized electric prices, have borrowed $1.2 trillion, mostly for building dirty coal power plants. Those power plants now need to produce in order to pay back their debts. Meanwhile, the Chinese government would like to move toward cleaner forms of energy, but its own subsidies have built a dirty power infrastructure system that can't be undone so easily. Nathaniel Taplin reports: In the West, bad children get coal in their Christmas stockings. In … [Read more...]
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