Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Gas prices finally headed down last week. But the pattern over the last 30 years suggests that this is bad news for anyone who believes that Americans, the world’s biggest oil consumers, can ever curb their energy consumption.
HERE’S the sticky truth about oil: As a finite commodity, the world never seems to tire of burning more of, its price is bound to hit the roof.
OPEC expects world oil demand to rise by some 2 million barrels per day in the third quarter from a seasonal second quarter low, as consumption growth hits a seven-year high, the cartel said Thursday.
The key energy-related issues for these two countries are increasing energy
dependency on imported oil, growing environmental concerns due to the dependency
on coal, transportation and supply problems, and regional geopolitics.
In an updated version of an influential 1972 book on the dangers facing the planet, the authors confirm that the earth is taxed and overcommitted. But, as they say, knowing is half the battle.
Australia will have to import oil by the end of this decade as we move into a world where prices are inevitably going to be higher.
Japan’s electricity industry is in turmoil. This may have a big impact on the world’s energy markets
OPEC said on Wednesday it will ask producers outside the cartel to raise output to help cool high prices, but got a quick reply from Russia saying it had no slack in its system to boost exports.
“…and alongside those issues was the alarming decline in Australia’s self-sufficiency in crude oil, which forecasters say means we will have to import most of our crude oil and petroleum products from overseas by 2008.”
PARIS – Nuclear power, its image darkened by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, appears to be making a comeback of sorts in Europe as the Continent struggles to meet energy needs, faces higher bills for imported oil and honours its pledge to cut carbon pollution.
AMERICA’S trade deficit widened unexpectedly in April to a record US$48.3 billion (£26.7bn), as strong consumer demand and the highest oil prices in 21 years pushed imports to unprecedented levels. The monthly trade gap was well above Wall Street forecasts of $45bn (£24.8bn).
An industrial report of the State Information Center with the National Bureau of Statistics forecasts China will face a more severe power shortage this year than it did in 2003.
