Days

Today, in the energy discourse it is very difficult to find relatively unbiased opinions. Most people seem to be lobbying for one cause, or the opposite one, or for an ideology. When somebody tells you that something is all good, or all bad, immediately distrust them. They are not being truthful.  Thus, this book by Robert. W. Kolb is like a breath of fresh air because it treats fracking as what it really is: a way of extracting natural gas that creates all sorts of benefits but also causes environmental problems. However, and at least for me, the most important insight from this book is that the "easy" success of shale gas in the USA will not be massively replicated soon elsewhere. The USA has several key characteristics that have allowed this fracking revolution. Other countries lack some or even most of them. For example, apparently the shale gas reserves of China are even greater than those of the USA, however as of today their shale production is...

Year in, year out we keep grinding out that sausage that the only solution to combat global warming is reducing our CO2 emissions, and thus to reduce our fossil fuel consumption (or, even more to the fringe, to massively implement CCS). Well, we have news for you: bar a black swan or two, significantly reducing our FF consumption in the next few decades ain't gonna happen. Period. End of story. Elvis has left the (choose one: coal mine, oil rig, gas well).  Renewables are growing fast but at the same time going nowhere. Hydro has pretty much maxed out in percent of out total energy. Nuclear seems promising but it is taking forever to ramp up. Will nuclear be the energy of the 22st century? Probably. But that is still far in the future.  Consequently, fossil fuels will continue to provide most of our total primary energy supply at least through 2050 and possibly for the rest of the century. Let's, as an example, review projections for China. Since C...