Natural gas could be an important stepping stone in America’s quest to develop domestic energy. The problem right now is that natural gas filling stations are expensive and the home models can […]
Woody Agriculture – On the Road to a New Paradigm
Most Oil Drum readers will be familiar with the Land Institute’s work and hopes for a perennial agriculture based on future domestication of wild perennial prairie grasses. The Land Institute is a […]
New MLP Parity Act Could Give a Boost to Geothermal/Renewable Energy Investors
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) have introduced legislation, S. 3275, or Master Limited Partnerships (MLP) Parity Act, which gives renewable energy projects access to a […]
How demand response cuts wholesale power costs
In the late 1990′s, U.S. energy regulators began to recognize how the demand side affects wholesale power markets by effectively creating new power resources at far lower costs than building either traditional […]
Spot natural gas prices at Marcellus trading point reflect pipeline constraints
Daily natural gas spot prices between Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) Zone 4 Marcellus and Henry Hub have diverged recently largely due to rising Marcellus production, which has outpaced the growth of available […]
Energy Efficiency Financing: The Absent Invisible Hand
“How many of you live in a building that has had a deep energy efficiency audit? Do you even know? What about the building that you work in?” Marshall Salant, the Head […]
Could Securitization Democratize Solar Power?
After Wall Street popularized the term “mortgage-backed securities” in their destruction of the economy in 2008, you could be forgiven for thinking “solar securities” are a pyramid scheme. But in truth, they […]
GTM’s Solar Hot Water Collection
Solar hot water (SHW) is a huge market globally, but an almost untapped market in the U.S., as recently reported by GTM’s Herman Trabish. It’s a topic we’ve covered in depth of […]
Microgrid Keeps the Power Local, Cheap, and Reliable
A recently completed distributed energy project at the large, 4,000-inmate Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, California, ties together power from fuel cells, solar panels, wind turbines, and diesel generators—all located at […]
Geology and technology drive estimates of technically recoverable resources
A common measure of the long-term viability of U.S. domestic crude oil and natural gas as an energy source is the remaining technically recoverable resource (TRR). TRR estimates are a work in […]
Prometheus Institute 