The World’s Largest Battery To Power The Permian

Borden County, Texas, is set to become the home of the world’s largest battery storage system in 2021. IP Juno, a unit of Intersect Power LLC, has recently outlined plans to build a 495-MW storage system together with a solar farm of the same size in Borden County, a small community in West Texas in the very heart of the most important U.S. oil field, the Permian. It’s hard to miss the ironic interrelation between the booming Texas oil production and the rise of renewables in the most prolific U.S. shale basin. As the West Texas electricity grid strains under surging demand to power oil and gas operations, some of the new capacity installations in the coming years, including the world’s biggest battery according to Bloomberg, will help provide more electricity to the grid from solar power. Soaring oil production is set to ...

Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?

Great civilisations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives. So concluded the historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History. It was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilisations. He was right in some respects: civilisations are often responsible for their own decline. However, their self-destruction is usually assisted. The Roman Empire, for example, was the victim of many ills including overexpansion, climatic change, environmental degradation and poor leadership. But it was also brought to its knees when Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 and the Vandals in 455. Collapse is often quick and greatness provides no immunity. The Roman Empire covered 4.4 million sq km (1.9 million sq miles) in 390. Five years later, it had plummeted to 2 million sq km (770,000 sq miles). By 476, the empire’s reach was ...

Iran Starts Massive Drill in Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman

Iranian naval forces on Friday started a massive three-day drill, codenamed "Velayat 97", in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. The drill is being held in an area of two million square kilometers, from the Strait of Hormuz to the southeastern coasts of Makran, the Sea of Oman and the northern parts of the Indian Ocean, down to the 10-degrees latitude. The war game is composed of four separate phases, including naval parades, simulation of a real naval war, maritime and land offense to practice recapturing the territories occupied by the enemy, and the display of the Navy’s power by launching various types of missiles and torpedoes, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said Thursday. For the first time, the Iranian navy is to fly patrol, reconnaissance and bomber drones during the drill, he added. Submarines will launch missiles in the drill ...

It’s Not Just The Permian. Super Basins Are A Global Phenomenon

Forget what you may have heard. Fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere. There is a lot of excitement, and deservedly so, about renewables, but the foundation of our energy supply is and will continue to be hydrocarbons for at least the next few decades. There are several reasons for that, but an important part of the story is that advances in seismic imaging and other new technologies have shown that these fuels are in abundant supply, both in the United States and globally, including massive offshore deposits. As super basins gain attention – basins that already have produced five billion barrels of oil and contain the potential to produce an additional five billion barrels (IHS Markit)– a mood of optimism has replaced fears of shortage and “peak oil” declines. The potential for this reset in thinking at a global scale offers profound opportunities ...

The Road To 10 Billion: Where Is Global Population Actually Headed?

It was a girl. On Sunday, October 30, 2011, just before midnight, Danica May Camacho entered the world in a crowded Manila hospital, bringing the human population of our planet to seven billion. Actually, the scales could have tipped a few hours later, in a village in Uttar Pradesh, India, with the arrival of Nargis Kumar. Or it might have been a boy, Pyotr Nikolayeva, born in Kaliningrad, Russia. Of course, it was none of them. The birth that took us to seven billion people was attended by no cameras and ceremonial speeches because we can never know where or when the event occurred. We can only know that, according to the United Nations’ best estimates, we reached sevenbillion sometime around October 31 of that year. Different countries designated certain births to symbolize this landmark in history, and Danica, Nargis, and Pyotr ...

Get ready for pushback in the war on plastic

© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Petrochemicals are becoming increasingly important to the oil industry as cars go electric. The fossil fuel industry's lobbying has been effective in Washington, slowing efficiency improvements for cars, rolling back light bulb regulations, and so much more. But the rise of the electric car is expected to put a big dent into demand. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), this will put more emphasis on petrochemicals, which now use 15 percent of fossil fuels as their feedstocks, but is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2040. According to Tim Young in the Financial Times, It is the only major source of oil demand where growth is expected to accelerate. These forecasts assume a steady, strong demand for plastic will translate into increasing consumption of feedstock. They provide a rare ray of optimism for the oil industry against ...

Fueling a Green New Deal with Liquefied Natural Gas

Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has gotten much attention by proposing a Green New Deal, a far-ranging proposal to shift the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels over the next decade while somehow creating millions of good-paying jobs. Her plan amounts to turning success into failure by ignoring the vast economic and environmental benefits natural gas has provided to America in the past decade — and the opportunity to multiply these benefits in the decade ahead. Simply put, the economic and environmental benefits of natural gas are proven. The Green New Deal is hypothetical at best, and most likely reckless. The benefits from expanded use of natural gas include the following. —Good paying, secure middle-class jobs. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, 4.6 million jobs have been created from the shale boom. More will be generated as production rises and steps are taken ...

The Biggest Problem Behind The US Shale Boom

U.S. shale production is expected to continue to soar well into the 2020s. And that is a major problem. Over the past decade, U.S. oil production has more than doubled, surging from 5 million barrels per day (mb/d) to close to 12 mb/d today. Natural gas also rose significantly, rising from 21 trillion cubic feet per year (Tcf/y) in 2008 to 29 Tcf/y in 2017. Natural gas has been likened to a “bridge fuel,” allowing the U.S. to lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) while it transitions to cleaner energy. Cheap shale gas has killed off a lot of coal plants, and with a GHG-profile half that of coal, the switch has been a boon for the fight against climate change. That narrative, to be sure, remains up for debate. Shale gas operations emit methane, and at some point high volumes of fugitive methane ...

New Oil Discovery Could Spur China’s Shale Boom

A PetroChina test oil well at a shale field in western China could finally mean a strong commercial potential for shale oil for the first time in the world’s top crude importer, according to Morgan Stanley. PetroChina achieved a daily production rate of 100 tons of oil, or 733 barrels, from the Jimsar oil field in the western Xinjiang province, which suggests that shale drilling could finally have a true commercial potential in China, Bloomberg quoted a Morgan Stanley note as saying. “We believe the Jimsar shale oil discovery is likely to trigger China’s shale oil revolution,” Morgan Stanley analyst Andy Meng wrote in the report. The potential for more drilling would likely increase capex for shale this year and benefit onshore oilfield service companies, the investment bank said. The shale boom in China, however, would be just a fraction of ...

As More Electric Cars Arrive, What’s The Future For Gas-Powered Engines?

Most American automobiles are powered by internal combustion engines: Gas or diesel goes in, tiny explosions power pistons and turn a crankshaft, the car moves forward, and carbon dioxide goes out. But a growing chorus environmental activists, business analysts and auto executives are predicting a sea change as battery-powered electric vehicles grow in popularity. Going electric is not just an eco-friendly goal, an ambition that would help fight climate change. It's a business reality, according to industry analysts. But if the general path ahead is widely agreed on, the speed of the change — and the role that combustion vehicles will play during the transition — is far from clear. 'You cannot stop it any more — it's coming' "Electrification, you cannot stop it anymore — it's coming," says Elmer Kades, a managing director with the consulting firm AlixPartners. "We have fantastic growth rates, ...

Iranian Says Israel ‘Looking for War’

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the EU needs to be willing to ...

Which species are we sure we can survive without?

Two years ago I asked the question in the title of this piece. Now ...

Oil Will Continue to Play Significant Role

Although the precise outlook is uncertain, the world looks set to consume significant amounts ...

Big Oil’s Big Issue With Embracing ‘Big Energy

Oil majors increasingly are trying their hand at being alternative-energy minors. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, ...