Memo to: Jim Lehrer, PBS; Candy Crowley, CNN; Bob Schieffer, CBS
In re: Energy questions you should be asking when you moderate the upcoming October Presidential debates Keep reading →
Margaret Ryan
Posts by Margaret Ryan
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Are deregulated power markets producing the long-term, reliable energy infrastructure that manufacturers need to invest and expand?
The issue looms because the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom has raised the potential for a “manufacturing renaissance” in Pennsylvania and other shale states, David Ciarlone, manager of Global Energy Services for Alcoa told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) technical conference on growing electricity and gas industry interdependencies recently held in Washington, DC. Keep reading →
A deep Arctic freeze socks in the Northeast, and every home’s furnace is working overtime. The surge of natural gas use for furnaces means power plants can’t get enough fuel. Power fails, and furnaces can’t start. Gas pipeline compressors lose power, and natural gas flow stops.
What then? Keep reading →
Steams rises from the Kawasaki natural gas power station in Kawasaki city, Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo on August 25, 2011.
Japan’s Fukushima disaster, with the subsequent shutdown of most Japanese nuclear power plants, mean US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asia will be profitable to 2020 – but maybe not beyond. Keep reading →
Coal that’s being priced out of the US market by cheap natural gas is being burned instead in Europe, where it’s cheaper than natural gas with prices traditionally linked to oil.
The resulting pressure is beginning to break down those links, and the differential between natural gas prices in the US and Europe could diminish significantly before any US liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be exported. Keep reading →
Exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US will raise domestic natural gas prices little – and possibly not at all – because the international market won’t take enough LNG to make a difference.
That was the conclusion of three economists who separately studied international LNG prospects. They presented their results to the International Natural Gas Workshop sponsored by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in Washington DC recently. Keep reading →
Refining has long been a low-margin business, not for the faint of heart. The difference between what refiners pay for input and what they get for output, known as the crack spread, is traded on major oil markets. It sometimes goes negative, meaning refiners lose money on every barrel.
In the 1970s, with widespread worries over fuel supplies, US refiners overbuilt capacity. Since the 1980s, refiners have sold, merged, and shut down excess capacity, and upgraded capabilities, resulting in fewer refiners but more capacity actually utilized and better economics overall. Keep reading →
Hear a bugle blowing? For the beleaguered renewables industry, the cavalry may be riding to the rescue.
The US Army is inviting suppliers who can build, own and operate solar, wind, geothermal or biomass generation to qualify for a pool of contractors who will perform an anticipated $7 billion worth of work for military installations. Keep reading →
Sanctions against Iran, uprisings in oil producing nations – headlines often focus on what’s happening with global oil supply.
But they tend to overlook refining, the link between crude oil and consumers that is critical to assessing the strategic effects of those events. Keep reading →
It all comes down to the price of natural gas.
Complying with pending mercury and ozone rules, and possibly carbon regulations, will mean replacing substantial amounts of coal capacity, mainly with natural gas, Dale Nesbitt, founder of Deloitte MarketPoint, told a Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions seminar in Washington July 18. Keep reading →
