Lou Grinzo

Tiber Oilfield Spells Major Upside for Prices

Excellent article.

The one very minor addition I would throw into the mix is that any oil company going after this kind of find (not much oil, very expensive, production likely 7 to 10 years away) is that they have no better options. A fundamental issue with peak oil is that before the global production peaks we encounter much higher production costs simply because the easy, cheap oil can no longer meet demand.

Energy Department to Halt Hydrogen Fuel Cell Research

Jim's right, and he nails the key point perfectly: It's not about the need to build a refueling infrastructure, as so many people say; the problem is supplying that much hydrogen without adding to the climate chaos mess. Simply put, we can't afford the luxury of burning a lot of our relatively scarce clean electricity on making hydrogen from water. I talked about this situation in a couple of posts on my site recently:

www.grinzo.com/energy/.../

www.grinzo.com/energy/.../

GM Proves There Is an Alternative to Bailouts

I wish the UAW bashers of the world would put down their baseball bats for just a few moments and answer this question: If the Big Three had built truly competitive cars (in terms of quality, MPG, design, and resale value) for the last 20 years, and sold them for the same (higher) prices Toyota and Honda get for their vehicles, instead of relying more and more on trucks and steep discounts, do you think they would be in this situation?

Are Oily Characters Behind Crude's Price Move?

The 74 million barrels/day is just crude oil. The bigger number everyone talks about (roughly 86) is crude plus other petroleum production. You can draw your own conclusions about the value of citing just the crude oil number when it's not all that matter, even on just the supply side.

Oil: Does Supply and Demand Still Apply?

"We consistently hear from oil bulls that we've reached peak oil as production can no longer keep up with demand."

I see (and correct) this error constantly. Peak oil is purely a measure of the flow of oil. It has nothing to with supply falling short of demand (or the amount of oil still in the ground, which is another common error). For example: If the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied both kept rising, but we had an increasingly tight market with slowly rising prices, then we would clearly not be at peak oil (production is still rising), even though "production can no longer keep up with demand".

I also agree with the other comments above.

GM and Ford: Still Easy Shorts

My only quibble with this article is referring to trucks and SUVs as "a fairly poor gameplan for the foreseeable future". I think you're being too kind; I would have used the expression "train wreck".

As Mulally pointed out in an interview recently, Ford's internal projection is for US gasoline prices to remain in the range of $3.75 to $4.25 through the end of 2009. Once American consumers are further squeezed by energy and food inflation for another 18 months, how bad will all light truck (pickups, minivans, SUVs) sales be? I think we're just starting to see the US automarket reshape itself in response to the end of cheap oil, and the only question is how well will the Big Three react to that fundamental change.

The Impact of High-Priced Oil on Solar Manufacturers

Quick question: What percentage of US electricity is generated with oil?

Answer: According to the Dept. of Energy's Annual Energy Review, 1.5% for the most recent, full year. Higher oil prices will do more to push up the cost of solar than they will to increase the demand for solar panels, at least until we see a significant portion of our transportation fleet transitioned to electricity (EV's and plug-in hybrids).