COMMENT: ‘Is Romney a Climate Change Denier?’ – Doesn’t matter…

17 July 2012by Jesse Parent Leave a comment

“Until Americans ‘care’ enough to take climate change seriously, it is unlikely the political arena will change much. The curious thing to watch is how the US, collectively or individually, ends up interpreting relevant information. Each energy industry will naturally compete to prove why it is the best, the right choice for America’s future. But what are American’s going to believe, or use as a method to discern what is right? […]“

N. American Oil – ‘Caught Between The Sands And The Pipelines’

28 June 2012 · by Jesse Parent · in News Flow. · Edit

The two biggest sources of oil in North America produce significantly different types of oil, and the lack infrastructure to link those sources to proper refineries results in higher costs and less competitiveness on the global oil market.

A great piece from ZeroHedge, Oil Price Differentials: Caught Between The Sands And The Pipelines, will provides useful background to US energy infrastructure, and how it is impacting (impeding) the vast flow of Canadian oil. I give a brief summary of the article below, and will likely reference this post in the future.

A “range of oil qualities and a raft of infrastructure issues are creating record price differentials. And with no solution in sight, [the authors] think those differentials are here to stay.” Historically, United States oil infrastructure has been built to refine large quantities of imported oil – essentially from the perimeter of the lower 48 states, and shipping it towards the interior – but this is the opposite of present day needs, which require oil from the interior of the country to be moved to outlying refineries.

http://jpinfluence.com/2012/06/28/news-n-american-oil-caught-between-the-sands-and-the-pipelines/

Light crude oil is more desirable than heavy oil since it produces a higher yield of petrol, while sweet oil commands a higher price than sour oil because it has fewer environmental problems and requires less refining to meet sulfur standards imposed on fuels in consuming countries

Q&A: “What are the implications of a crude (oil) being sour vs sweet?” | Jesse Parent [INFLUENCE]

How does this impact North America’s energy situation? Check out my post above.

Infrastructure Obstacles in North American Oil Development

One of my posts got picked up by The Energy Collective! Check it out

The two biggest sources of oil in North America produce significantly different types of oil, and the lack of infrastructure to link those sources to proper refineries results in higher costs and less competitiveness on the global oil market.

A great piece from ZeroHedge, Oil Price Differentials: Caught Between The Sands And The Pipelines, provides a useful background to US energy infrastructure, and how it is impacting (impeding) the vast flow of Canadian oil.

A “range of oil qualities and a raft of infrastructure issues are creating record price differentials. And with no solution in sight, [the authors] think those differentials are here to stay.” Historically, United States oil infrastructure has been built to refine large quantities of imported oil – essentially from the perimeter of the lower 48 states, and shipping it towards the interior – but this is the opposite of present day needs, which require oil from the interior of the country to be moved to outlying refineries.

…

http://theenergycollective.com/jesse-parent/88716/infrastructure-obstacles-north-american-oil-development

(Source: jpinfluence.com)

Join the dialogue at OurEnergyPolicy.org - good stuff

http://www.ourenergypolicy.org/video-experts-discuss-gas-prices-national-security/

EDITORIAL: The Sublimation of American Energy: An Unexpected Transition to a New Global Energy Paradigm

Energy Information Administration - 2010 Suppliers

19 June 2012 Leave a comment

Hydraulic fracturing. Shale gas. Tight oil. Boom-Time. Golden Era.

There is a growing excitement about this moment, and the potential future, of energy coming out of the United States. Natural gas and oil production in the US are experiencing significant increase, and the global energy system receives a new layer and new potential.

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Zakaria: The game-changer in the geopolitics of energy

By Fareed Zakaria

Last year, the world’s energy watchdog published a report which asked an important question: “Are we entering a golden age of gas?”

So I was struck when I saw the International Energy Agency’s 2012 report. Gone is the question mark.

Instead it says, simply: “Golden rules for a golden age of gas.”

And the starting point of that golden age is right here in America.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the shale gas revolution is a game-changer not just for the energy industry, not just for the U.S. — but for geopolitics.

The technology behind shale gas production, where shale rock is blasted with a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals, is only two decades old. The process is called fracking.

Related: Fracking — What is it?

And in a short time, its success has led to the drilling of 20,000 wells in America, the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs, and a guaranteed supply of gas for perhaps 100 years. The International Energy Agency says global gas production will rise 50% by the year 2035; two-thirds of that growth will come from unconventional sources like shale — a market the U.S. completely dominates.

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GRAPH: US Energy Supply Source Percentages Hold From 2009-2010, But Overall Usage Continues Growth

Graphs, Charts, Diagrams: This series of posts (tag: Graphs-Charts-Diagrams) will focus on visuals that help create context for large scale issues, such as energy usage.

Above is a chart by the Energy Information Administration (USA), featured in the Annual Energy Review 2010 (see full chart and other EIA resources here). While I am particularly curious to see what the data will be for 2011, 2012, and 2013 in the light of the natural gas trending, the takeaway from this graph, when compared to the one of the previous year, is that nothing has changed – at least in terms of macro-categories. There is a shift in what renewable sources provided the 8% of national supply, yet the dominance of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Coal hold steadfast. Continue reading →

NEWS: New Keystone XL Plan Still Finds Discontent in Nebraska

Recently on The Energy Collective, the latest in the Keystone XL oil pipeline saga was discussed by Rocky Kistner from the perspective of Nebraskan’s who are against the pipeline. The article starts:

TransCanada’s latest Keystone XL tar sands pipeline plan filed with the U.S. State Department has done nothing to quell local Nebraska opposition to the controversial project to pipe tar sands oil all the way to the Gulf for export. Nebraska residents say the massive pipeline plan still jeopardizes the world’s largest fresh drinking water source, the Ogallala Aquifer, risking the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers across country’s breadbasket. Jane Kleeb, director of Bold Nebraska, a local grassroots group of farmers, ranchers and concerned citizens, immediately blasted the plan and said they will continue to fight it.

Continue reading →

What Finland can teach China about education

May 1st, 2012

What Finland can teach China about education

Editor’s Note: Jiang Xueqin is a deputy principal at Peking University High School and the director of its International Division. The following post was originally published in The Diplomat, a stellar international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region.

By Jiang Xueqin, The Diplomat

I’ve just finished a week visiting Finnish schools, and on my last day, while touring Finland’s best high school, I ran into China’s vice minister of education, who was spending the day in Helsinki looking at what China can learn from the world’s best K-12 school system.

If the vice minister were to ask me what parts of Finland’s education system I thought China could and should emulate (he didn’t) I’d tell him there were two things.

First is Finland’s pre-kindergarten system, in which children as young as nine months-old can attend until they are six. In each class, four university-educated teachers supervise about twenty children as they play sports, eat meals, and sleep together. This voluntary and pay-as-you-can daycare may seem costly, but it’s the best investment a society can make if it wants to ensure equality of opportunity for its children.