There are a few societal costs to the development of shale gas. Potential contamination of groundwater, complications in treating and recycling water used in fracking. Then there’s air pollution from leaking methane […]
North American spot crude oil benchmarks likely diverging due to bottlenecks – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
West Texas Intermediate at Cushing, Oklahoma (WTI Cushing), a light, sweet crude grade, is North America’s most closely observed crude oil price benchmark and the underlying commodity of the NYMEX crude futures […]
Can Solar Fuels Avert an Imminent Petroleum Fuels Crisis?
In 2004, humanity used 471 EJ of energy2, and while the relative proportion of each contributing energy source has remained modestly constant, it is clear that at a rise to 504 EJ […]
Significant potential for plug-in vehicles exists in U.S. housing stock
The housing stock in the United States could support significant numbers of plug-in electric vehicles. Of households that own at least one car, an estimated 49% (49.6 million housing units) park within […]
Oil Price Differentials: Caught Between the Sands and the Pipelines
One of oil’s most important characteristics is its fungibility, which means that a barrel of refined oil from Texas is equivalent to one from Saudi Arabia or Nigeria or anywhere else in […]
The U.S. Could Run on 80-Percent Renewable Electricity by 2050
It won’t be cheap, or easy. But it’s technically feasible for the United States to get 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050, according to a new report from […]
Who Owns Solar?
Along with the emergence of three distinct ownership models (customer-owned, third-party-owned, and utility-owned), the U.S. photovoltaic (PV) market has grown, over the last ten years, at an average annual rate of approximately […]
Negative wholesale electricity prices: possible, but rare
Under certain conditions, electric generators in regional transmission organizations (RTOs) actually pay to produce power as reflected in a price below zero. This situation can arise because some types of generators, such […]
Solar Hot Water is Where the Money Is
There are about 200 million solar water heating (SWH) systems in the world. There are about one million systems in the U.S. Year-on-year numbers, even during the recession, showed SWH to be […]
Accurate Wind Assessments: Pinning Down Performance | Wind Technology Magazine Article
Accurate pre-construction assessments are critical to securing project financing and ensuring investor confidence. However, North America’s wind power industry has developed a reputation for producing energy below levels predicted by pre-construction wind […]
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