Drumbeat: May 7, 2012
What Is the Limiting Factor?
In yesteryear’s empty world capital was the limiting factor in economic growth. But we now live in a full world.
Consider: What limits the annual fish catch — fishing boats (capital) or remaining fish in the sea (natur...
Tech Talk – More on Hydraulic Fracturing
There is a real, practical limit to the amount of oil that can be recovered from a reservoir. Depending on the availability and economic viability of different technical approaches, that limit might be less than 25% of the total volume of oil original...
Drumbeat: May 5, 2012
Fuel Policies Bedevil Asia as Price Increases Hurt Poor: Economy
For K. Indrani, who cleans homes in Colombo to support her invalid husband and 16-year-old daughter, living on the 600 rupees ($4.70) she earns a day just got harder because the Sri Lanka...
The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations
Michael Ross talks to Viv Davies about his recent book ‘The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations’. They discuss the irony of how those countries with the greatest social and economic deficits are also the most vulnerabl...
Drumbeat: May 4, 2012
Brazil Sending More Troops to Guard Amazon Borders
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil is deploying more than 8,500 troops to the far reaches of the Amazon rain forest this month in an operation aimed at cracking down on drug smuggling, gold mining and illegal d...
Drumbeat: May 2, 2012
Falling natural gas prices hit states' pocketbooks
Energy-producing states are bracing for lower tax revenue from the plummeting price of natural gas, which is just above half of what some states forecast when they put together budgets for 2013 and bey...
Tech Talk – Improving Horizontal Well Flow at Berri and Ghawar
The very size of oil reservoirs in Saudi Arabia means that as the dominant method of water flooding is used to sweep oil to the producing wells, not all the oil in place migrates as hoped. Some remains in place and this makes up a very significant volu...
Drumbeat: April 30, 2012
U.S. 'dirty oil' imports set to triple
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. imports of what environmentalists are calling "dirty oil" are set to triple over the next decade, raising concerns over the environmental impact of extracting it and whether pipelines c...
Drumbeat: April 28, 2012
For Egypt, gas deal with Israel was bad business
CAIRO, Egypt — While much of the world sees Egypt’s decision to cancel a natural gas contract with Israel as a threat to peace, Egyptians say it just makes good business sense.
Last week, Egypt’s ...
Flex-Fuel Humans
This is a guest post by Tom Murphy. Tom is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. This post originally appeared on Tom's blog Do the Math.
If you’re one of those humans who actually eats food, like I am, th...
Drumbeat: April 27, 2012
White House Promotes a Bioeconomy
The Obama administration is expected to announce a broad plan on Thursday to foster development of the nation’s “bioeconomy,” including the use of renewable resources and biological manufacturing methods.
The Na...
Past and Future at Total’s Elgin/Franklin Project
Four weeks after the Elgin G4 well sprung a leak above the production platform in the North Sea, Total has spudded the first of two relief wells as backup in case the attempt to kill the well from above doesn't work. It will take 6 months to drill the ...
