07.23.19- Why Is U.S. Demand For Solar Panels Booming?
Tsvetana Paraskova

Solar modules prices in the United States have reversed in recent months the trend of steady declines of the past few years, as many U.S. solar companies are hoarding panels to take advantage of the full solar subsidy that is set to step down beginning next year.  

Due to high demand, the price of solar modules has recently increased by 10 percent from earlier this year, Reuters’ Nichola Groom writes, citing data from energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Read More

07.22.19- Electric Vehicle Sales Are
Exploding In Europe
Tsvetana Paraskova

The next two years are likely to be the tipping point for electric vehicles (EVs) going mainstream in Europe, as the number of electric car models on the European market is set to more than triple in the next three years, Transport & Environment (T&E), Europe’s leading clean transport campaign group, says in a new analysis. 

According to T&E, which analyzed the upcoming offerings using data from authoritative industry source IHS Markit, the number of EV models made across the European Union (EU) will jump from around 60 models available at end-2018 to a total of 214 battery electric (BEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and fuel cell (FCEV) models in 2021, and further up to 333 models in 2025. Read More

08.20.19- Brand New Material Could Lead To Cheaper Solar Cells
Tsvetana Paraskova

Scientists may have found a pathway to designing interfaces of hybrid materials that are capable of turning light into electrical currents with high efficiency—a breakthrough that could potentially boost the performance of solar cells and slash their manufacturing costs.

In one of the latest scientific research into novel materials and technologies to boost solar cell performance, scientists at the University of Kansas said this week that a breakthrough material combining organic semiconductors with a recently discovered two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor could overcome the current limitations of generating free electrons and charges from organic semiconductors. Read More

07.19.19- Oil Will Go ‘’Bust’’ If Recession Hits
Nick Cunningham

Oil prices plunged again on Thursday, dragged down by fears of slowing demand.

An unexpected increase in inventories underscored the downside risk to oil prices. The EIA reported a drawdown in crude stocks, but a huge 9.25 million barrel combined increase in gasoline and diesel inventories, which surprised traders. Also, gasoline demand plunged by 0.5 mb/d in the week ending on July 12, although week-to-week changes are typical and make the data a bit noisy. Read More

07.18.19- A New Gasoline Glut Is In The Making
Nick Cunningham

The downstream refining sector has rebounded a bit, shrugging off the glut of gasoline seen earlier this year. But another product surplus could be looming in the second half of 2019 and into 2020.

Refiners worked at elevated levels last year, helping to produce a global gasoline surplusthat ran into the early part of this year. However, refiners undertook extensive maintenance in the first few months of 2019, and the volume of refining capacity that has been offline recently has been higher than normal. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, refining outages have run about 300,000 bpd above year-ago levels so far in 2019. The downstream outages have been a big negative for crude oil, but they have helped trim the glut of refined products. Read More

07.17.19- It’s clean, powerful and available: Are you ready for hydrogen energy?
Yongping Zhai

Hydrogen has the potential to be the next breakthrough energy source but key challenges need to be overcome before it can be scaled up to widespread use. Developing countries could be at the forefront of this new “hydrogen economy”

As the world responds to the challenges of climate change, energy systems are evolving, and evolving fast. The past 10 years have seen the rise (and dramatic cost reduction) of renewable energy such as wind and solar, to the extent that they are no longer considered alternative energy. They have become mainstream energy sources. Now, what will be the “next big thing” as the world shifts to a low carbon future? Read More

07.16.19- Food Shortage Warnings Begin As Tropical Storm Barry Rips Through America's Heartland
Michael Snyder

The middle of the country has been relentlessly hammered by endless rain and unprecedented flooding for months, and now it is about to be absolutely pummeled by Tropical Storm Barry.  Needless to say, this is going to cause even more headaches for Midwestern farmers.  At this point, millions of acres of prime farmland are not going to be planted at all this year, and there are tens of millions of other acres where crops are really, really struggling.  Those farms desperately need some warm, sunny weather for a while, but instead they are about to get hit by another enormous storm.  In the end, this could potentially turn out to be the worst growing season in modern history, and it comes at a time when crops are literally failing all over the planet. Read More

07.15.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Sifferent: The 7 Money Lessons You Should Already Know
Nilus Mattive

If wealthy people have the same 24 hours in a day, and work just as hard as others, how do they acquire such incredible wealth?

This was the question George Samuel Clason set out to answer in his timeless classic The Richest Man in Babylon. Since 1926, Clason’s book has sold more than 2 million copies and has been translated into 26 different languages.  Read More

07.13.19- Coal’s Long Goodbye
Vanand Meliksetian

King Coal’s reign has been long and relentless. The world’s most important source of energy was essential during the industrial revolution for the modernization of agrarian societies. However, the negative fallout of coal’s usage has become more apparent as global warming is having a catastrophic effect on the planet. 

Most countries have accepted their responsibility and signed the Paris Climate Agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change. Recently, a remarkable decline in coal consumption was noted in several industrialized countries with contradicting government policies concerning the energy transition. The two biggest Western economies, U.S. and Germany, have consumed significantly less coal this year. It might reassure environmentalists and other concerned citizens, but some underlying factors seem cyclical and therefore temporary.Read More

07.12.19- Is A Crude Glut Looming?
Irina Slav

Crude oil supply in the world exceeded demand by 900,000 bpd in the first half of the year, the International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly Oil Market Report, adding that forecasts had pointed to a deficit of half a million barrels daily.

What’s more, the authority said the overhang will extend into the second half of the year as well: “This surplus adds to the huge stock builds seen in the second half of 2018 when oil production surged just as demand growth started to falter,” The IEA said. “Clearly, market tightness is not an issue for the time being and any re-balancing seems to have moved further into the future.” Read More

07.11.19- Largest ever continuous oil and gas resource found in the United States
David Szondy

Some 46.3 billion barrels of oil, 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 20 billion barrels of natural gas liquids are estimated to be underTexas and New Mexico

As the United States becomes a net oil exporter for the first time in 75 years, the US Department of the Interior has announced the discovery of the largest continuous oil and gas field ever found. Situated in the Wolfcamp Shale and overlying Bone Spring Formation in Texas and the Permian Basin in New Mexico, the new resource is estimated to contain 46.3 billion barrels of oil, 281 trillion cu ft of natural gas, and 20 billion barrels of natural gas liquids worth trillions of dollars. Read More

07.10.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Eugenics, Infertility & Population Growth CRISIS, part 2
Corey Lynn

The Rockefellers were just getting started with their eugenics plan back in the early 1900s, and by the time the 1960s rolled around, they were full steam ahead with their population control agenda – including the development of anti-fertility vaccines for both men and women.  

• In 1968 the Rockefeller Foundation stated that the oral pill and IUD will turn out to be impracticable on a mass scale. They set out to fix that. Read More

07.09.19- For 30 years, the Dept. of Energy and “scientific establishment” has blocked the truth about cold fusion (Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions), the ultimate “renewable” energy solution for humanity
Mike Adams

Despite all the alarm and warnings about fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions, the “scientific” establishment has systematically blocked the publication of science papers and the dissemination of knowledge about cold fusion, also known as Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR). Read More

07.08.19- Persian Gulf Conflict Could Send Oil Beyond $325
Vincent Lauerman

The possibility of Iran attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic has increased significantly in recent weeks, as has the possibility of a Persian Gulf War, especially with the Islamic Republics’ intentional destruction of a U.S. surveillance drone on June 20.

This act provides weight to Tehran’s threat that it will inflict a heavy toll on U.S. allies in the region if attacked by American forces and will not allow these same countries to export their oil if it can’t export its own. Read More

07.06.19- South Korean Tech Breakthrough Could Change Biofuels Forever
Haley Zaremba

Researchers in South Korea have made a major breakthrough in using bacteria to sustainably and efficiently produce biofuels. The team of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) report that they have developed a new kind of engineered microorganisms that are capable of producing greater volumes of the fatty acids that make up biodiesel than ever before.

A team of researchers from KAIST released a study detailing their discovery last month in the scientific journal Nature Chemical Biology. The paper, titled “Engineering of an oleaginous bacterium for the production of fatty acids and fuels” details the development of these record-breaking microorganisms which could prove to be a key breakthrough in the effort to develop sustainable, bio-based energy sources to replace dirtier, finite fossil fuels. Read More

07.05.19- Why Natural Gas Prices Collapsed
Nick Cunningham

U.S. natural gas prices have collapsed since the end of winter, even as inventory levels remain below average levels for this time of year.

Henry Hub prices spiked in the fourth quarter of 2018 due to record levels of demand, cold weather, and historically low inventories. But prices remained elevated, over $4/MMBtu, for only a brief period of time. Production continued to soar, so traders were not overly concerned about market tightness. Read More

07.04.19- Is This A Turning Point In
Libya’s Civil War?
Nick Cunningham

Libya’s civil war has taken a catastrophic turn, plunging the country even deeper into crisis.

An airstrike hit a detention center for migrants on the outskirts of Tripoli, killing at least 44 people, a death toll that is likely to climb. At the time of this writing, it was not clear who launched the airstrike, although the militia led by Khalifa Haftar, known as the Libyan National Army (LNA), is widely suspected. The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) blamed Haftar and called on the UN to investigate. The airstrike hit a weapons cache adjacent to the detention center. Read More

07.03.19- Why The Clean Energy Revolution Isn’t Taking Off In Russia
Michael Maharrey

The world’s second-largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, Russia, has been said by many energy industry analysts to be too dependent on energy revenues. Indeed, the country gets as much as 40 percent of its federal revenues from oil and gas exports. And it's no secret that Russia isn't exactly famous for renewable energy. Does Russia have a future in a renewable energy world? Read More

07.02.19- Insect Species Are Rapidly Going Extinct Across The Globe – All Insects Could Be Gone “In 100 Years”
Michael Snyder

Even though most people don’t seem to realize it yet, we are in the midst of a major extinction level event.  And even though it is happening in slow motion, given enough time we would see most life on this planet completely wiped out.  Insects are absolutely critical to the global food chain, and right now we are literally on the brink of an ecological Armageddon.  All over the world insect populations have been declining precipitously in recent years, and this has already been causing a chain reaction among birds, reptiles and others that eat insects.  Species after species is going extinct, and as you will see below, one environmental scientist is now warning that at our current pace all insects could be completely gone “in 100 years”. Read More

07.01.19- The Golden Asteroid That Could Make Everyone On Earth A Billionaire
Joao Piexe

Whether it was the Big Bang, Midas or God himself, we don’t really need to unlock the mystery of the origins of gold when we’ve already identified an asteroid worth $700 quintillion in precious heavy metals.

If anything launches this metals mining space race, it will be this asteroid--Psyche 16, taking up residence between Mars and Jupiter and carrying around enough heavy metals to net every single person on the planet close to a trillion dollars. Read More

06.29.19- Latest Weapon Of US Imperialism: Liquified Natural Gas
Federico Pieraccini

One of the most importantenergy battles of the future will be fought in the field of liquid natural gas (LNG).Suggested as one of the main solutions to pollution, LNG offers the possibility of still managing to meet a country’s industrial needs while ameliorating environmental concerns caused by other energy sources. At the same time, a little like the US dollar, LNG is becoming a tool Washington intends to use against Moscow at the expense of Washington’s European allies. Read More

06.28.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: 5 signs you’re actually a Puritan psychopath
Joe Jarvis

Hanging women thought to be witches in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 and 1693 was probably the pinnacle of religious Puritanism.

That type of Puritanism used God and the Bible to force its own form of tyranny on anyone who challenged its authority.

But Puritanism doesn’t need to be based on God or the Bible. All it needs is fanatics convinced that their worldview is the only moral way and that others must be forced to adhere to it. Read More

06.27.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: At What Point Does America Revolt?
Karl Denninger

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"President Obama, Sept. 9, 2009: There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would ensure illegal immigrants. This too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. 

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.: You lie! Read More

06.26.19- Shale Pioneer: Fracking Is An "Unmitigated Disaster"
Nick Cunningham

Fracking has been an “unmitigated disaster” for shale companies themselves, according to a prominent former shale executive.

“The shale gas revolution has frankly been an unmitigated disaster for any buy-and-hold investor in the shale gas industry with very few limited exceptions,” Steve Schlotterbeck, former chief executive of EQT, a shale gas giant, said at a petrochemicals conference in Pittsburgh. Read More

06.25.19- Expert: Chances Of U.S.-Iran War
Are At Least 50%
Tsvetana Paraskova

There’s at least a 50-percent chance that the rising tension between the United States and Iran could escalate into a conflict that would disrupt supplies, Fereidun Fesharaki, a former energy advisor in Iran in the 1970s and now chairman at consultancy Facts Global Energy, told CNBC.

Earlier this month two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the open seas. The daily flows of oil through the Strait of Hormuz account for around 30 percent of all seaborne-traded crude oil and other liquids. While Iran vehemently denies involvement in the attacks on the two oil tankers, the U.S. is blaming the Islamic Republic of being behind the attacks. Read More

06.24.19- Two Events That Will Determine Oil Prices
Nick Cunningham

Two big events over the next two weeks will determine the trajectory for oil prices in the second half of the year. One of those events will take place in Japan, the other in Austria.

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jingping on the sidelines of the G-20 conference next week in Osaka, Japan. Nothing less than the health of the global economy hangs in the balance. Read More

06.22.19- Is This The Beginning Of The End For Tesla’s Solar Business?
Irina Slav

Tesla held just a 6.3-percent share of the residential solar installations market in the first quarter of this year, falling to the third place for the first time since Wood Mackenzie began tracking this industry in 2013.

The consultancy said in its latest quarterly report that the number-one solar installations provider in the first quarter was Sunrun, with a market share of 11 percent, followed by Vivint Solar, with a market share of 7.6 percent. Together, the three solar companies installed about a quarter of all residential solar capacity in the United States. Read More

06.21.19- Oil jumps 5% on Iran tension, potential U.S. fed rate cut
Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil soared more than 5% on Thursday after Iran shot down a U.S. military drone, raising fears of a military confrontation between Tehran and Washington. 

Expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve could cut interest rates at its next meeting, stimulating growth in the world’s largest oil-consuming country, and a drop in U.S. crude inventories also supported prices. Read More

06.20.19- China’s ‘Elon Musk’ Sees Big Future For Hydrogen Cars
Jon LeSage

The world's largest auto market may be changing its focus on which alternative fuel will have the leading edge. The man credited with making China the world's center of electric vehicles sales is now championing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs). 

Wan Gang, a vice chairman of China’s national advisory body for policy making and former science and technology minister, is advising his country to take FCVs very seriously. Read More

06.19.19- Oil Traders Have Bigger Worries Than A New Hormuz Tanker War
Andrew Critchlow

Oil tankers ablaze in the Gulf of Oman and the US pointing the finger at Iran should be enough to send the price of the world’s most vital commodity skyrocketing.

Instead, oil prices have barely budged. Traders are not buying into the theory that Tehran wants a war, but they are worried about demand.Read More

06.18.19- U.S. Wind Farm Developers Brace For Trade War Fallout
Tsvetana Paraskova

U.S. wind farm project developers continue to announce new wind power capacity in an industry that grew eight percent last year and contributes more than US$1 billion in state and local taxes every year.

But the trade war with China and tariffs on Chinese imports threaten to slow down the U.S. wind industry growth.  

U.S. wind power construction and development jumped to a record level in the first quarter of 2019, with development pipeline increasing by 6,146 megawatts (MW)—more than the capacity of all operational wind farms in California, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said in a recent report. Read More

06.17.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Is Marijuana the Future of Beer?
Clint Rainey

Imagine meeting friends for a beer and choosing your drink not by style or brewer, but by the effect you want the beer to have on your body: an option to make you happier, or calmer, or more energetic. This is the dream of Keith Villa, the brewer that created Blue Moon, and one of the big ideas behind his new company, Ceria Beverages. Ceria isn’t a traditional brewery, but is instead focused on making cannabis beer, a nonalcoholic drink that will nevertheless leave you in a state of (gently) altered consciousness. Villa thinks Ceria will do for marijuana beer what his Blue Moon did for craft beers tastefully garnished with orange slices. He might actually be right. Read More

06.15.19- Cotton waste finds new life as 
eco-friendly plastic
Ben Coxworth

When a cotton gin is used to separate cotton fibers from their seeds, a lot of lint is produced as a waste product. Currently, much of that cotton lint is just burned or put in landfills. Thanks to recent research out of Australia, however, it may soon be converted into biodegradable plastic.

According to Deakin University's Dr. Maryam Naebe, approximately 29 million tonnes (32 million US tons) of cotton lint is produced annually, with about one third of that simply being discarded. Members of her team wanted to reduce that waste, while also offering cotton farmers an additional source of income, and producing a "sustainable alternative to harmful synthetic plastics." Read More

06.14.19- Oil Markets Shrug Off Gulf Of Oman Tanker Attacks
Nick Cunningham

Tensions are soaring again the Middle East after two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman.

The U.S. released a video that purportedly shows Iranian patrol boats removing an unexploded mine from one of the tankers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted that Iran was definitively behind the attacks.

But some experts say it is too early to jump to conclusions. “I don’t think there is any conclusive evidence that Iran was to blame,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects, said on Bloomberg TV. “These could be other groups in the region that have carried out the attacks. We just don’t have enough proof right now.” Read More

06.13.19- How The Sahara Desert Can Power
The Entire World
Tsvetana Paraskova

The vast Sahara Desert in Africa is inhospitable to plants and animals, but quite suitable for movie sets such as Luke Skywalker’s desert home planet of Tatooine in Star Wars. But it could be home to so much more.

It’s so sunny and hot in the Sahara all year round that scientists have started to suggest that a small part of the large desert could turn into one giant solar power project capable of powering Europe and even the world. Read More

06.12.19- Unprecedented U.S. Weather Chaos Continues: 120F In The West, More Record-Setting Flooding In The East
Michael Snyder

Global weather patterns are dramatically shifting, and week after week we keep seeing things happen that we have never seen before.  As far as our weather is concerned, this is definitely the strangest year in modern American history, and many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.  Up until just recently, the endless rain, catastrophic flooding and horrific tornado outbreaks in the middle of the country have been dominating weather headlines.  But now the west coast is getting into the act.  This week, new record high temperatures have been established in city after city, and this includes San Francisco…Read More

06.11.19- OPEC’s Struggle To Avoid $40 Oil
Nick Cunningham

A few weeks ago, OPEC+ was mulling the possibility of exiting the production cut agreement because the oil market was at risk of over-tightening. Now Saudi Arabia is scrambling to extend the cuts and may even unilaterally lower its own production further in an effort to head off a price slide.

On Monday, officials from Saudi Arabia and Russia reportedly discussed a possible scenario in which oil prices crashed below $40 per barrel, a recognition that the market has rapidly deteriorated. They view that outcome as a possibility if they can’t agree on an extension. “Today there are big risks of oversupply,” Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in Moscow after meeting with Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih. “We’ve agreed that we need to run a deeper analysis and to see how events unfold in June.”Read More

06.10.19- Scientists discover "angel particle" that is its own antiparticle
J. Johnson

Every fundamental particle in the universe has an antiparticle, which has the same mass but the opposite charge. If a particle should ever meet its antiparticle, the two would annihilate each other in a flash of energy. But it's long been theorized that there's an exception to the rule, with certain particles that are actually their own antiparticles. Now, scientists from Stanford and the University of California have found the first strong evidence for this type of particle, which they dub the "angel particle." Read More

06.08.19- How Oil Defeated The Nazis
Gregory Brew

General Erwin Rommel, “the Desert Fox,” was reputedly the best tactician in the entire German Army. For years, he led his panzers across multiple campaigns in North Africa.

But what was a German army doing zipping across the deserts of Libya?

Simple: Rommel was trying to capture the Suez Canal, and with it the route to the precious, untapped oil fields of the Middle East. Read More

06.07.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Don’t forget the “Galt’s Gulch Tactic.” Shrug-off the government.
Joe Jarvis

It’s not your duty to prop up a corrupt and immoral system.

In fact, it might be your duty to deny it your support.

That was the main message of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (although it took her about 23,000 times as many words to say it).

In Atlas Shrugged, the very capable and productive Dagny Taggart couldn’t leave America behind. She slaved away to support the masses and the politicians even as they ridiculed and hated her for it. Read More

06.06.19- U.S. Scrambles To Find Alternatives For Chinese Rare Earth Metals
Tyler Durden

With Beijing making louder noise by the day about using rare earth metals as a "nuclear" retaliation option in trade war with the US, Washington is not sitting on its thumbs waiting for the day China pulls the plug, and as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said today, the U.S. will take steps to ensure it doesn’t get cut off from the supply of rare earths.

As reported previously both in the Chinese and US press, Beijing has prepared a plan to restrict exports of rare earths to the U.S. if the trade war between the two nations deepens, and on Tuesday the Commerce Department released a report requested by President Donald Trump in December 2017, when he asked officials to look into U.S. access to so-called rare earths, a group of 17 elements including lanthanum and terbium, which are used in everything from the production of computer screens to missile systems and mobile phones. Read More

06.05.19- Oil Is On The Brink Of A Bear Market
Tom Kool

Oil markets are heading into bear territory as fears of a global economic slowdown grow on the back of Washington's escalating trade wars with both China and Mexico.

Investor Alert: A new breakthrough – known by only a handful of scientists, researchers and insiders – is about to turn the energy world upside down. And one small company is at the center of it all. Get the full report here. Read More

06.04.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Doctor warns Los Angeles collapsing into Third World health status… the filth of progressivism has become undeniable
 Ethan Huff

The City of Angels is looking a whole lot more like a Den of Demons these days, as the second-largest city in the United States descends into “complete breakdown,” according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, a longtime L.A. resident and radio personality who gave his take on the current crumbling state of the world’s biggest entertainment hub during a recent episode of “The Ingraham Angle.” Read More

06.03.19- Why Battery Metals Are Bafflingly Cheap
Vanand Meliksetian

Oil is sometimes referred to as ‘black gold' while cotton is often called ‘white gold'. Now, with the global fight against climate change taking off, a similar interest is growing for specific natural resources that are crucial for eco-friendly technologies such as EVs. Lithium and cobalt, which are essential for the production of batteries, have seen a particularly spectacular rise in demand. Counterintuitively, however, the production costs of these metals dropped by almost 30 percent in 2019. This could be a watershed moment for the widespread adaptation of EVs which are increasingly becoming price competitive with internal combustion vehicles. Read More

06.01.19- "World's first working thermal battery" promises cheap, eco-friendly, grid-scalable energy storage
Climate Change Technologies

South Australia has recently put the world's biggest lithium battery into operation – but perhaps it should've waited. A local startup says it's built the world's first working thermal battery, a device with a lifetime of at least 20 years that can store six times more energy than lithium-ion batteries per volume, for 60-80 percent of the price. Read More

05.31.19- Oil Set For Worst Monthly Drop Since November
Tsvetana Paraskova

After finishing at a three-month low on Thursday, oil prices continued to slide on Friday morning and are on course to end the month of May with the largest monthly drop since last November, as trade tensions weigh on investors’ outlook on the global economy and oil demand. As of 08:45 a.m. EDT on Thursday WTI Crude was down 2.09 percent at $55.41, while Brent Crude was trading down 2.14 percent at $63.93. Read More

05.30.19- Will China Cutoff Rare Earth Exports?
Nick Cunningham

Oil prices sank once again on heighted fears of the U.S.-China trade war, this time because China has threatened to step up its response.

China threatened to cut off exports of rare earth elements to the U.S., a move that would intensify the trade standoff. The materials are used in a wide variety of electronics, including iPhones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, LED lights and even weapons systems. Read More

05.29.19- Chinese Company Claims Its Hydrogen-Powered Vehicle Can Travel 500km
Using Only Water As Fuel
Tyler Durden

A car company in Central China has claimed that it has built a hydrogen powered vehicle that's capable of traveling up to 500km using only water as power, according to the South China Morning Post. 

The vehicle was made by Qingnian Cars in Henan province and made its first drive on Wednesday of last week when local Communist Party chiefs visited the plant. Read More

05.28.19- Navy Pilots Describe Stunning UFO Sightings; Hypersonic Speeds, No Exhaust Plume
Tyler Durden

After upgrading the radar systems on F/A-18 fighter jets, several Navy pilots (Lt. Ryan Graves, right) operating from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt began to see unidentified flying objects that appeared to defy the laws of physics. 

Between 2014 and 2015, the strange objects - one of them spinning like a top as it traveled against the wind, appeared almost daily in the skies above the East Coast. The crafts had "no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes," and "could reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds" according to the New York Times.  Read More

05.27.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Trust Is On Trial In Europe
(And The World)
Tom Luongo

“It seems that if there was any truth to our language, ‘trust’ would be a four-letter word.”

Joel – “Risky Business”

Trust is the most important aspect of human endeavor.

Without trust there can be no interaction. No communication.

No friendship. No love.

No Commerce.  Read More

05.25.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Socialist Promises
Walter E. Williams

Presidential contenders are in a battle to out give one another. Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes a whopping $50,000 per student college loan forgiveness. Senator Bernie Sanders proposes free health care for all Americans plus illegal aliens. Most Democratic presidential candidates promise free stuff that includes free college, universal income, “Medicare for All” and debt forgiveness.

Their socialist predecessors made promises too. Read More

05.24.19- Beware of Saudi/UAE Reports of
Oil Tanker “Sabotage”
Tom Kirkman

In the span of several days, Saudi Arabia has claimed that two of its oil tankers and a pipeline have been attacked, with the clear implication being that Iran was responsible. The initial reports of a “sabotage attack” on two Saudi oil tankers off the UAE coast (near the Strait of Hormuz) came out of the UAE on Sunday. There have been no details about these attacks, and no evidence whatsoever, with the Saudis saying only that there has been structural damage. Then, on Tuesday, the Saudis said that drones targeted two oil pumping stations along its East-West pipeline, forcing Aramco to halt pumping to evaluate the damage. Output and exports continued without disruption, nonetheless. Read More

05.23.19- The Silence Before The Storm
In Oil Markets
Nick Cunningham

With oil production plunging in Venezuela and Iran, tension in the Middle East at its highest point in years, and the threat of further outages in Libya, why are oil prices not trading higher?

Even price volatility has been rather low, a surprising feature of a tight market rife with geopolitical risk.  Brent crude has been stuck between a relatively narrow range of $70 to $75 per barrel for more than a month, despite all the turmoil.  Read More

05.22.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Which Major West Coast City Is Being Overwhelmed By Rats, Drugs, Crime, Piles Of Garbage And Hordes Of Homeless People?
Michael Snyder

Can you name the major west coast city that has become a rotting, decaying hellhole and is being completely overwhelmed by rats, drugs, crime, piles of garbage and hordes of homeless people?  Of course San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, “all of them” and “any of them” would all be correct answers, but in this article we are going to talk about Los Angeles.  Once upon a time, millions of young Americans flocked to “sunny L.A.” in order to experience “the California Dream”, but these days Los Angeles seems to be on the cutting edge of many of our most critical societal problems.  Read More

05.21.19- Xi Sends Trump A Message: Rare-Earth Export Ban Is Coming
Tyler Durden

Back in April of 2018, when the trade war with China was still in its early stages, we explained that among the five "nuclear" options Beijing has to retaliate against the US, one was the block of rare-earth exports to the US, potentially crippling countless US supply chains that rely on these rare commodities, and forcing painful and costly delays in US production as alternative supply pathways had to be implemented.

As a result, for many months China watchers expected Beijing to respond to Trump's tariff hikes by blocking the exports of one or more rare-earths, although fast forwarding one year later this still hasn't happened. But that doesn't mean it won't happen, and overnight President Xi Jinping’s visit to a rare earths facility fueled speculation that the strategic materials will soon be weaponized in China’s tit-for-tat war the US. Read More

05.20.19- Why Oil Is Still Underpriced
Nick Cunningham

Oil prices seesawed over the past week, jerked higher by tension in the Middle East but dragged down by fears of the fallout from the U.S.-China trade war. In fact, crude is trapped between those two forces, and will likely bounce around in the near future based on which factor appears to exert more influence on the market.

Oil saw upward pressure in recent days as the U.S. government seems in danger of rushing into yet another war in the Middle East. National Security Adviser John Bolton appears dead set on trying to escalate conflict with Iran – even as tensions ratcheted up quickly over the past two weeks, officials on Bolton’s National Security Council “were initially dismissive of the need to draw up de-escalation options,” CNN reported, a clear sign of Bolton’s intentions. Read More

05.18.19- Study: Compounds in cannabis found to inhibit the growth of cancer cells in the colon
Vicki Batts

Does cannabis cure cancer? If you were to believe the pharmaceutical industry and their mainstream media pawns, the answer would be an emphatic “No.” According to them, the health benefits of cannabis are nothing more than myths conjured up by hopeful stoners. Yet, there are countless stories of people who’ve successfully treated any number of debilitating health conditions with cannabis — ranging from cancer to seizure disorders. Read More

05.17.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: How One Contrarian ‘Broke’ Jeopardy! and Won $1.7 Million
Bill Rice Jr

James Holzhauer doesn't skirt the rules, he just plays unconventionally - a good tableau for life.

For all practical purposes, the manner in which contestants have played “Jeopardy!” has not changed since Art Fleming provided the game show’s first “answer” 55 years ago. That is, until James Holzhauer took his place behind the podium earlier this year.  

After winning 22 consecutive games by an astounding average margin of $64,913, one question must be asked: Had every one of these contestants been playing this game the wrong way? Read More

05.16.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Dufferent: Bombshell: Bayer discovers “black ops” division run by Monsanto, shuts it down, initiates internal investigation as law enforcement prepares criminal charges against the chemical giant
Mike Adams

For over a decade, Monsanto has been engaged in building and maintaining “hit lists” of journalists, lawmakers and regulators to be taken out if they opposed the evil agenda of GMOs and toxic glyphosate weed killer chemicals that now inundate the world food supply. Any influential person who opposed the Monsanto agenda was subjected to one or more of the following: Read More

05.15.19- The IEA's Dire Warning For Energy Markets
Nick Cunningham

Global energy investment “stabilised” at just over $1.8 trillion in 2018, ending three years of declines.

Higher spending on oil, natural gas and coal was offset by declines in fossil fuel-based electricity generation and even a dip in renewable energy spending. China was the largest market for energy investment, even as the U.S. closed the gap. Read More

05.14.19- Tight Oil Markets Could Be About To See A ‘Violent’ Price Spike
Rystad Energy

Supply disruptions in the Middle East on top of an already tight crude market could send oil prices violently upward, according to Rystad Energy.

Two Saudi Arabian oil tankers were reportedly attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this weekend, sending crude futures sharply up Monday morning.

Commenting on the incident, Bjørnar Tonhaugen, Head of Oil Market Research at Rystad Energy, says: Read More

05.13.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: More Ridiculous Civil Asset Forfeiture Shenanigans
Simon Black

Each Friday we highlight a number of important, and often bizarre stories from around the world that my team and I are closely following:

Chicago police run a vehicle impound racket

Imagine dropping your car off at the local mechanic because you need to get your engine tuned up.

A few days later you come back to pick up your car, only to find out that it has been impounded by the police. Read More

05.11.19- U.S. Warns Iran May Attack Oil Tankers In The Persian Gulf
Tsvetana Paraskova

The U.S. Maritime Administration issued on Friday a maritime advisorywarning that Iran or its proxies could target oil infrastructure and commercial ships, including oil tankers, in and around the Persian Gulf.

“Since early May, there is an increased possibility that Iran and/or its regional proxies could take action against U.S. and partner interests, including oil production infrastructure, after recently threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, or the Persian Gulf,” says the U.S. Maritime Administration’s advisory which is effective until early November 2019. Read More

05.10.19- The Shale Boom Is About To Go Bust
Nick Cunningham

The shale industry faces an uncertain future as drillers try to outrun the treadmill of precipitous well declines.

For years, companies have deployed an array of drilling techniques to extract more oil and gas out of their wells, steadily intensifying each stage of the operation. Longer laterals, more water, more frac sand, closer spacing of wells – pushing each of these to their limits, for the most part, led to more production. Higher output allowed the industry to outpace the infamous decline rates from shale wells. Read More

05.09.19- The Biggest Catalyst In Oil Markets Is Going Unnoticed
Nick Cunningham

Oil prices have fallen sharply on fears of a global economic slowdown, but the markets are overlooking the possibility of a serious outage in Libya as civil war drags on.

It may be hard to maintain attention to any one conflict, with so many now raging around the world. Last week, the Trump administration was all-in on Venezuela. But with the coup failing, Washington has turned its sights on Iran Read More

05.08.19- Tesla Starts Price War
In Solar Panel Market
Irina Slav

Tesla will cut the prices of its solar panels by as much as 38 percent below the national average in a bid to regain ground in the solar market, the New York Times reported today, noting the official announcement will be made later in the day.

Tesla entered the solar power with the acquisition of SolarCity in 2016, sparking concern among investors and industry observers that it was stretching itself too thin. Read More

05.07.29- Oil Soars On Venezuela Coup Attempt
Nick Cunningham

Venezuela’s opposition leader, along with some factions of the military, have staged an attempted coup to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro.

Standing alongside soldiers at a military base, opposition leader and self-proclaimed president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, launched a military uprising to oust Maduro. Notably, he stood with Leopoldo Lopez, another opposition leader who had been jailed by the government, but who said he had been released by elements of the military that had turned on Maduro. Both urged the military to rise up and called for the whole country to mobilize in the streets. Read More

05.06.19- Why Your Gasoline Won’t Take You As Far As it Used To
Robert Rapier

Over the weekend, I saw a passing reference on Twitter to the declining energy content of gasoline. Intuitively I know this to be correct for reasons I discuss below. But the poster linked to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) that I hadn’t previously seen.

The EIA doesn’t directly tabulate the energy content of gasoline. But they do provide two pieces of data that let us calculate it ourselves from two relevant tables in the April 2019 Monthly Energy Review. Read More

05.04.19- What if Iran Retaliates and Shuts Down the Strait of Hormuz?
Scott Ritter

Some 18 million barrels of oil transit through every day. The economic impact would be catastrophic.

The effort on the part of the Trump administration to shut down Iran’s ability to export oil is predicated on the false notion that the rest of the world will fall in lockstep with U.S. policy. But has President Donald Trump really thought through what would happen to the economic health of the world if Iran retaliates, shutting the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil flows daily? Read More

05.03.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Who Owns You?
Dennis Miller

Richard Maybury grabbed my attention:

“Think about it. There are really only two choices. Either you will own you, or someone else will.”

I’ve subscribed to Richard’s “U.S & World Early Warning Report” for years. I re-read the section about capitalism and socialism. Here are some tidbits: (my highlights)

“Laissez-faire (less-aa-fair) is from the French laissez nous faire – leave us alone. It means the government does not meddle in free enterprise, free trade, free markets. It allows economic freedom. Read More

05.02.19- How The Renewable Revolution Is Reshaping Geopolitics
Tim Daiss

The World Economic Forum (WEF) said last week that offshore wind energy is one of the most underused resources, with less than one-tenth of wind power based offshore. However, the Global Wind Energy Council projectsthat by 2023 it will account for almost one-quarter of world wind generation, with the UK, Germany, and China leading the way. Read More

05.01.19- The most catastrophic West Coast earthquake in human history is ready to be unleashed: “Cascadia subduction zone”
Vicki Batts

The West coast could soon be transformed by a devastating mega-earthquake — but not where you might expect. The San Andreas Fault may be the most famous fault line, but experts say that the Cascadia subduction zone now poses an even bigger threat. According to reports, the next full-margin rupture along Cascadia will be the most catastrophic natural disaster to ever strike North America. Located in the Pacific Northwest, a quake at the Cascadia subduction zone would be of epic proportions, perhaps even exceeding a magnitude of 9.0. The violent earthquake will then be followed by an enormous tsunami. Read More

04.30.19- 19 Historical Oil Disruptions, And How No.20 Will Shock Markets
Philip Verleger

Albert Einstein once wrote that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Were he alive today, he would be repeating the line to anyone who would listen, especially the reporters on cable news channels such as CNBC. He might add that the world’s policymakers always approach oil market disruptions in the same way: predicting there will be no impact on prices.

Einstein would then point out that the policymakers are consistently wrong. A hefty price boost has followed every disruption. Read More

04.29.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: NWO: Globalists Want to Annihilate
90% of the Human Race
Mac Slavo

New World Order globalists are seeking to eliminate 90% of the human race, in a bid to protect the environment. Those for mass death have convinced themselves that the only way to save the planet is to eliminate “useless eaters.”

The NWO and globalization has been happening for some time now, but there always appears to be a moment when the agenda’s rhetoric is ramped up to disturbing levels, complete with apocalyptic death.  Even leftist totalitarian comedians like Bill Maher have joined in the horrific agenda pushing by saying he just wants people to, “Not have kids, DIE, and stay dead.” Read More

04.27.19- A Wave Of Clean Energy Policies Are Killing Coal
Nick Cunningham

The Trump administration has done its best to promote coal, oil and gas at the federal level, but individual U.S. states continue to step up their ambition on renewable energy.

A wave of clean energy policies have recently washed through state capitols across the country, a trend that has come despite, or because of, the federal deregulation effort. Read More

04.26.19- Trump’s Removal Of This 100-Year Old Law Is Good News For Natural Gas
Irina Slav

The president of the United States may remove a 1920 piece of legislation that bans any non-U.S. vessels from moving any cargo between two U.S. ports. The reason: an imbalance between natural gas supply and demand in some parts of the country, especially in the Northeast and in Puerto Rico.

Bloomberg reported this week, citing unnamed sources, that Donald Trump had discussed the possibility of canceling the Merchant Marine Act from 1920 with industry insiders and other stakeholders in response to pressure from the Puerto Rican government and the energy industry. However, officials in his administration are divided. Read More

04.25.19- Driving Toward A Greener Future
With Hemp Biofuels
Kristina Etter

Fossil fuel experts declare oil production is more limited than people realize, as an older alternative emerges new.

Everyone who drives a vehicle is aware there is a growing problem with fossil fuel depletion. As the price at the pumps continue to rise, the law of supply and demand, as well as many top analysts predict our crude oil resources are running out. Crude oil is not a renewable resource, so once it’s gone… it’s gone for good. After nearly 150 years of drilling and fracking, fossil fuel experts believe oil production could be nearing its peak and the hunt is on for a viable replacement. Read More

04.24.19- Solar Stocks Are Booming This Year
Haley Zaremba

The solar energy industry is making a major comeback. Solar stocks have been soaring across the board in 2019, and it looks like the solar sector is going to be able to keep it up, based on analyses of both majorly improved performance and extremely positive long-term projections--a winning combo.

So far this year, according to “multimedia financial services company” the Motley Fool, “First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR), SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR), Sunrun (NASDAQ:RUN), and Vivint Solar (NYSE:VSLR) are all up over 40% [as of April 21] and Chinese manufacturer JinkoSolar (NYSE:JKS) has nearly doubled.” Read More

04.23.19- New Electric Vehicles Contain Much More Lithium
Christopher Gisiger

Battery metals tracker Adamas Intelligence says that in February 2019, 76% more lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) was deployed worldwide in batteries of new electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid electric passenger vehicles compared to the same month last year.

The Dutch-Canadian research company, which tracks EV registrations and battery chemistries in more than 80 countries, says among all metals and materials found in EV battery cathodes, lithium use saw the greatest gains. The surge in lithium use per kWh of battery capacity deployed is due to an ongoing shift from lithium iron phosphate (LFP) to nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) cathodes among Chinese vehicle makers — Adamas Intelligence. Read More

04.22.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Google's Sensorvault Can Tell Police Where You've Been
Jennifer Lynch

Do you know where you were five years ago? Did you have an Android phone at the time? It turns out Google might know... and it might be telling law enforcement.

In a new article, the New York Times details a little-known technique increasingly used by law enforcement to figure out everyone who might have been within certain geographic areas during specific time periods in the past. The technique relies on detailed location data collected by Google from most Android devices as well as iPhones and iPads that have Google Maps and other apps installed. This data resides in a Google-maintained database called “Sensorvault,” and because Google stores this data indefinitely, Sensorvault “includes detailed location records involving at least hundreds of millions of devices worldwide and dating back nearly a decade.”  Read More

04.29.19- Hydrogen’s Role In The Energy System Of The Future
Vanand Meliksetian

In a rare move of unity, the world agreed to curb global warming and reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses in Paris in 2016. Despite President Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, renewable energy remains high on the agenda of policymakers and energy professionals. The EU intends to become the first significant ‘climate neutral’ economy by 2050. The widespread installment of wind turbines and photovoltaic cells has created another problem: intermittent energy production requires storage capacity. Read More

04.19.19- Artificial Intelligence Could Solve Nuclear Fusion's Biggest Problem
Irina Slav

The predictive powers of artificial intelligence could help scientists bring nuclear fusion closer to actually working, researchers from Princeton and Harvard working with the Department of Energy hope.

The team, working at the DoE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, says they have applied learning techniques to computers in order to be able to forecast sudden outages in the reactors used for nuclear fusion that can halt the energy-generating reaction. Read More

04.18.19- This Tweak Could Be A Gamechanger For Lithium-Ion Batteries
Irina Slav

Lithium ion batteries may soon be able to charge much faster thanks to what seems like a simple substitution of one mineral for another in the battery’s cathode.

Researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute this month announced they had achieved much faster charging rates in lithium ion batteries by replacing the usual cobalt oxide used together with lithium in the cathode with vanadium disulfide. Read More

04.17.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: From Jesus Christ To Julian Assange: When Dissidents Become Enemies Of The State
John Whitehead

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell

When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.

In the current governmental climate, where laws that run counter to the dictates of the Constitution are made in secret, passed without debate, and upheld by secret courts that operate behind closed doors, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can render you an “enemy of the state.” Read More

04.16.19- Snow-powered nanogenerator works where solar panels don't
Michael Irving

Snowy places aren't idealfor harvesting solar energy – panels can't do much if they're buried under blankets of snow, of course. Now a team from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a new device that can produce electricity from snow itself.

The team calls the new device a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator, or Snow TENG. As the name suggests it works off the triboelectric effect, meaning it uses static electricity to generate a charge through the exchange of electrons. These kinds of devices have been used to make generators that pull energy from body movements, touchscreens, and even footsteps on floors. Read More

04.15.19- Brent Could Hit $80 This Summer As Hedge Funds Lose Steam
Tsvetana Paraskova

Brent Crude and WTI Crude prices hit a five-month high this week amid signs of tightening market and clashes in wildcard OPEC producer Libya.

Brent Crude topped $71 and WTI Crude rose above $64 a barrel in the middle of this week as supply reductions outweighed fears of slowing economic growth.

Following the crash in Q4 2018, oil prices have already increased by more than 30 percent so far this year. Read More

04.13.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: This Will Be the Breakout Tech of 2019
Jeff Brown

This was the first sentence of a 1950 paper called Computing Machinery and Intelligence, written by Alan Turing.

Turing is a name you might recognize. Born in London in 1912, he was a mathematician, cryptanalyst (one who studies cryptographic security systems), and early computer scientist – among other things. He was a prominent figure during World War II, as he developed a method to crack the cryptographic codes used by the Germans.

The story of Turing and the importance of his work were brought to life in the 1983 novel Alan Turing: The Enigma, as well as the 2014 film The Imitation Game.

Yet, in the years to come, I believe that Turing will be most remembered as the father of artificial intelligence (AI). Read More

04.12.19- The U.S. Oil Story Nobody is Telling
Jody Chudley

Everyone knows that American shale oil production is booming.

The mainstream media has been all over the story.

They should be. After all, what the entrepreneurial U.S. oil and gas industry has done to free oil long-trapped in shale rocks has been incredible.

But…

What not so many people know is that the shale producers are pumping the wrong kind of oil. U.S. refineries are desperately short of a different kind of oil than what the shale producers are delivering. Read More

04.11.19- The World’s Cheapest Natural Gas
Nick Cunningham

Natural gas prices fell into record negative territory in the Permian basin, dragged down by booming oil production and a limited ability to move gas out of the region.

Unlike in other places, such as the Marcellus and Utica shales, natural gas in West Texas is produced as a byproduct. This “associated gas” is essentially an afterthought, a surplus and almost irrelevant product that comes out of the ground due to the relentless pursuit of crude oil. Precisely because the natural gas is not the target is exactly why more gas continues to be produced regardless of what prices do. Read More

04.10.19- The Geopolitics Of Oil In The Trump Era
Thierry Meyssan

The United States have become the leading world producer of hydrocarbons. As from now, they are using their dominant position exclusively to maximise their profits, and do not hesitate to eliminate their major rivals in oil production, plunging their citizens into misery. Although in the past, access to Middle East oil was a vital necessity for their economy (Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr.), then a market over which they presided (Clinton), and then again a failing resource whose supply they wanted to control (Bush Jr., Obama), hydrocarbons have now become black gold (Trump). Read More

04.09.19- PV inverter leader Sungrow’s energy storage revenues up 500% year-on-year
Andy Colthorpe

Sungrow has partnered with Samsung SDI for some of its energy storage activities. Image: Sungrow-Samsung SDI. 

Chinese solar inverter manufacturer Sungrow not only continues to lead the global market for inverter shipments, the company’s energy storage business enjoyed huge growth in revenue during 2018.

In a blog for our sister site PV Tech, senior news editor Mark Osborne writes that in its recently-published annual report for 2018, Sungrow reported global inverter shipments of 16.7GW, a 1.2% year-on-year increase with cumulative global shipments topping 79GW. Revenue generation in the fourth quarter surpassed “anything any PV company has ever experienced”. Read More

04.08.19- Saudi Arabia Threatens To Drop Dollar For Oil Trades
Irina Slav

Saudi Arabia has threatened the United States to stop using dollars for its oil trades in an attempt to discourage legislators from passing a bill dubbed NOPEC aimed at holding OPEC liable for cartel practices under U.S. law.

Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources, that the switch from U.S. dollars to other currencies had been discussed in senior Saudi circles and that it had also been shared with U.S. government officials from the energy department. Read More

04.06.19- The Massive Increase Of Central Bank Paper Assets Warns Of Financial Danger Ahead
Steve St Angelo

By purchasing increasingly worthless paper assets, we can thank the central banks for propping up the global economy for the past decade.  Since the 2008 financial crisis, the top central bank’s have acquired $13 trillion worth of assets on their balance sheets.  While the central banks label these balance sheet items as “Assets,” they are nothing more than glorified Paper IOU’s.

And these trillions of dollars worth of paper IOU’s can only get their value from the burning of energy… a critical factor overlooked by mainstream financial analysts.  Without growing global oil production, most of these “supposed” assets would see their values plummet.  Unfortunately, the world is heading towards a collapse of global oil production due to the Falling EROI – Energy Returned On Investment and the Thermodynamics of oil depletion. Read More

04.06.19- The Energy Solution That Could End The Border Wall Debate
Haley Zaremba

Since making his initial promises of a border wall on the campaign trail in 2015, United States President Donald Trump has been pushed to back down on the word “wall”. In the past year we’ve hear fence, barrier, and other fuzzier terms, but the one constant is that Trump wants some sort of physical buffer between the U.S. and Mexico, and he wants it now.

So far, the fight over the wall has led to heated debate, a highly controversial declaration of national emergency, and even the longest U.S. government shutdown in the nation’s history. While politicians fight over the terms and the funding of the wall/fence/barrier and constituents remain highly divided on the issue, some factions of the scientific community are getting down to business. Read More

04.04.19- Coal Fueled Teslas
Larry LaBorde

Several countries are making proclamations that state all new cars shall be electric by a certain date.  Who decided on electric cars?  I know they sound “clean” but where does that electricity come from?

About 30.4% of electricity in the United States is generated from coal.  About 19.7% is generated from nuclear.  So over 50% of the US power is from coal and nuclear. The remaining is as follows:  natural gas = 34%, hydro = 6.5%, wind = 5.6%, biomass = 1.5%, solar = <1% plus other misc. sources. Read More

04.03.19- "World's first working thermal battery" promises cheap, eco-friendly, grid-scalable energy storage
Loz Blain

South Australia has recently put the world's biggest lithium battery into operation – but perhaps it should've waited. A local startup says it's built the world's first working thermal battery, a device with a lifetime of at least 20 years that can store six times more energy than lithium-ion batteries per volume, for 60-80 percent of the price.

Climate Change Technologies, also known as CCT Energy Storage, has launched its TED (Thermal Energy Device) with a set of remarkable claims. TED is a modular energy storage unit that accepts any kind of electricity – solar, wind, fossil fuel-generated or straight off the grid – and uses it to heat up and melt silicon in an insulated chamber. Read More

04.02.19- Scientists discover "angel particle" that is its own antiparticle
Michael Irving

Every fundamental particle in the universe has an antiparticle, which has the same mass but the opposite charge. If a particle should ever meet its antiparticle, the two would annihilate each other in a flash of energy. But it's long been theorized that there's an exception to the rule, with certain particles that are actually their own antiparticles. Now, scientists from Stanford and the University of California have found the first strong evidence for this type of particle, which they dub the "angel particle."  Read More

04.01.19- Expect Higher Oil Prices As OPEC Clashes With Trump
Cyril Widdershoven

The ongoing turf war between U.S. president Donald Trump and OPEC+ where the oil market needs to be heading is again heating up.

With a barrage of accusations, Trump has resorted again to Twitter to call upon OPEC+ to reopen its valves and bring more crude on to the market to counter increasing prices. The reaction of OPEC+ has been muted, which goes to show that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the UAE are not at all inclined to answer Trump’s demands any longer. At the same time, the effects of Trump’s Twitter war with OPEC and Russia are also waning, as analysis is showing that the market reacts violently to a Trump tweet on OPEC but very quickly recovers to its old price levels. Trump’s anti-OPEC rhetoric is clearly losing importance and impact. Read More

03.30.19- Midwest Apocalypse: According To Satellite Data, “At Least 1 Million Acres Of U.S. Farmland” Have Been Devastated By Floods
Michael Snyder

We have never seen anything like this before.  According to satellite data that was just released by Reuters, “at least 1 million acres of U.S. farmland” were covered by water for at least seven days this month.  That is an agricultural disaster without equal in modern American history, and yet the mainstream media is treating this like it is some sort of second class story.  It isn’t.  This is the biggest news story of 2019 so far, and people want to know what is going on.  A few days ago, I posted a story entitled ‘“As Many As A Million Calves Lost In Nebraska” – Beef Prices In The U.S. To Escalate Dramatically In The Coming Months’, and it has already been shared on social media more than 145,000 times. Read More

03.29.19- Lithium metal battery prototype boasts 3 times the capacity of lithium-ions
Mike Williams

The high energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries has led to them powering everything from tiny mobile devices to huge trucks. But current lithium-ion battery technology is nearing its limits and the search is on for a better lithium battery. But one thing stands in the way: dendrites. If a new technology by Rice University scientists lives up to its potential, it could solve this problem and enable lithium-metal batteries that can hold three times the energy of lithium-ion ones. Read More

03.28.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: How America Becomes a Police State
Doug Casey

Is a police state in the U.S. possible? Absolutely.

That’s because people are essentially the same the world over, regardless of their culture, religion, race, or what-have-you. A certain percentage of them are sociopaths.

There is a standard distribution of sociopaths across time and space. It’s a function of Pareto’s Law, better known as the 80-20 rule.

20% of the people do 80% of the work. Another 20% are responsible for 80% of the crime. 20% of the population always winds up with 80% of the wealth.  Read More

03.27.19- Onboard Hydrogen: Is This The Future Of Zero Emission Vehicles?
Robert Rapier

Last week I wrote an article — Water Is Not A Fuel — discussing a press release I had received from Australian-Israeli startup Electriq~Global. As I noted in that article, it wasn’t my intent to criticize the company’s technology, but rather to explain how a person should approach these sorts of press releases.

In general, one should apply a healthy dose of skepticism, and then ask a number of critical questions. This press release didn’t go into enough details to ascertain the credibility of the technology, but I was contacted by the company to clear up my questions. Read More

03.26.19- Electric Vehicles
Are Unquestionably The Future
Silver Bullion

Caspar Rawles from Benchmark Minerals Intelligencecomes on SBTV to discuss the electric vehicle revolution and sheds light on the ongoing global battery arms race of which the US is a bystander.

Simon Moores' testimony on supply chains of key battery raw materials before US Senate: Read More

03.25.19- How Big Oil Could Become
Big Electricity
Irina Slav

When Big Oil majors started buying EV charging networks and battery producers, they probably earned some praise for venturing into new business directions away from their increasingly unpopular core business. Now, they are taking this a step further: supermajors have super utility plans.

It was only a matter of time, really. Integrated oil companies know the importance of covering the whole supply chain in an industry, so it only made sense to grow into power generation once you’ve established a presence in one of the biggest growth segments in power demand: electric vehicles. Read More

03.23.19- Rumors Of Chinese Subsidy Cuts Send Shockwaves Through Solar Markets
Tsvetana Paraskova

Last year, China sent a shockwave through the global solar market after it cut subsidies and stopped approving new solar installations in the middle of 2018, aiming to curb a huge renewable subsidy payment backlog and push for subsidy-free solar power amid continuously declining costs. This year, China has yet to announce its policies for subsidizing solar photovoltaic (PV) installations and purchases of electric vehicles (EVs). Read More

03.22.19- Qatar Leverages LNG In Geopolitical Stroke Of Genius
Tim Daiss

By now it should be evident that the Saudi-led economic and political boycott of tiny, gas-rich Qatar has caused Doha to push back and chart its own course. A Saudi-led boycott was put in place in 2017 over allegations that Qatar had been funded terrorist groups and over claims that it has sought better ties with Saudi arch-rival Iran to underline Riyadh. Doha vehemently denies both claims. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have also taken part in the boycott. Read More

03.21.19- U.S. ‘’Oil Weapon’’ Could Change Geopolitics Forever
Tim Daiss

In a dynamic that shows just how far U.S. oil production has come in recent years, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Monday that in the last two months of 2018, the U.S. Gulf Coast exported more crude oil than it imported.

Monthly net trade of crude oil in the Gulf Coast region (the difference between gross exports and gross imports) fell from a high in early 2007 of 6.6 million b/d of net imports to 0.4 million b/d of net exports in December 2018. As gross exports of crude oil from the Gulf Coast hit a record 2.3 million b/d, gross imports of crude oil to the Gulf Coast in December—at slightly less than 2.0 million b/d—were the lowest level since March 1986.  Read More

03.20.19- Silicon-perovskite solar cell cracks
new efficiency record
Peter Reagan

Silicon has long been the go-to material for solar cell technology, and for good reason: It's inexpensive, it's stable and it's efficient. Unfortunately in that last regard silicon is fast approaching its theoretical limit, but pairing it up with other materials could help break through that ceiling. Now, researchers at EPFL and CSEM have developed a new technique for combining silicon and perovskite solar cells, and reported an efficiency of 25.2 percent – a record for that combination. Read More

03.19.19- The Billionaires Battling It Out Over Biofuel
Haley Zaremba

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has been under pressure from the Trump administration to put together a proposal for how they plan to overhaul the current system of biofuel credits trading, which has been denounced by many industry insiders as shady and volatile. The EPA has been working on a solution since last year, and has finally put together a draft proposal, which is currently being reviewed by White House officials and could be formally made public as soon as this week.  Read More

03.18.19- Solid-state, ion-drive airplane silently flies with no fuel or moving parts
David Szondy

A team of MIT engineers has flown what was long thought impossible – a heavier than air craft that needs no moving parts for achieving powered lift. The 5-lb (2.3-kg) prototype with a 16-ft (5-m) wingspan doesn't use propellers, turbines, or fans, but instead relied on a silent stream of ionizedair to maintain steady flight on an indoor course of over 197 ft (60 m) at MIT's duPont Athletic Center. 

The principle behind the MIT team's 10 recent test flights is called "electroaerodynamics" and uses an ionic wind to create thrust. The idea isn't new. The effect was first observed in the 1920s, and thanks to the work of Major Alexander de Seversky and others, it has gained a niche following in aeronautical and hobbyist circles. Read More

03.16.19- This Is the Next “Space Race”
Jeff Brown

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union made history…

It successfully launched Sputnik I into Earth’s orbit, the first-ever artificial satellite to make the trip.

Not only was the Soviet Union first to launch a satellite, it managed to put the first human into space in 1961 with Yuri Gagarin’s historic spaceflight.

Thus, began a race for technological superiority between the United States and the Soviet Union – the “Space Race.”

It was a tremendous time in human history. Read More

03.15.19- OPEC Threatens To Kill U.S. Shale
Irina Slav

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will once again become a nemesis for U.S. shale if the U.S. Congress passes a bill dubbed NOPEC, or No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, Bloomberg reported this week, citing sources present at a meeting between a senior OPEC official and U.S. bankers.

The oil minister of the UAE, Suhail al-Mazrouei, reportedly told lenders at the meeting that if the bill was made into law that made OPEC members liable to U.S. anti-cartel legislation, the group, which is to all intents and purposes indeed a cartel, would break up and every member would boost production to its maximum. Read More

03.14.19- Planetary Collapse Threatens Our Survival: A New Study Says That More Than 1,200 Species “Will Almost Certainly Face Extinction”
Michael Snyder

We are witnessing a worldwide environmental collapse, and nobody seems to know how to stop it.  As you will see below, a study that was just released that looked at more than 5,000 species of birds, mammals and amphibians discovered that nearly a quarter of them “will almost certainly face extinction”.  Never before has our society faced such a massive collapse of life on a planetary scale, and yet the vast majority of the population doesn’t seem concerned about what is happening.  Species after species is being permanently wiped out, and most of us couldn’t care less. Read More

03.13.19- Refrigerants not required: Flexible metal cooling prototype demonstrates extreme efficiency
Loz Blain

A German research team has prototyped an extraordinary heating/cooling system that stresses and unloads nickel-titanium "muscle wires" to create heated and cooled air at twice the efficiency of a heat pump or three times the efficiency of an air conditioner. Crucially, the device also uses no refrigerant gases, meaning it's a much more environmentally friendly way to heat or cool a space. Read More

03.12.19- Global Warming A "Hoax And Scam" Pushed By Greedy Government Scientists:
Greenpeace Co-Founder
Tyler Durden

The co-founder and former president of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, says that climate change is a "complete hoax and scam," which has been "taking over science with superstition and a kind of toxic combination of religion and political ideology." 

Moore, who recently made headlines for calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a "pompous little twit" and "garden-variety hypocrite" on climate change, sat down with SiriusXM's Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak. Read More

03.11.19- And Now for Something Entirely Different: Constitution of the Confederate States of America ~ March 11, 1861
Jeffrey Bennett

Delegates from the newly formed Confederate States of America agreed on their own constitution. Here is a look at this little-known third constitution that controlled the lives of about 9 million people for a short period of time.

Much of the Confederate Constitution mirrored the Constitution of the United States as it existed at the time, with bigger differences in the matters of slavery and states’ rights. Read More

03.09.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: How Much Longer Will The Middle-Class Politely Tolerate Its Own Destruction?
Robert Gore

The Experiment

How much longer will the middle class politely tolerate its own destruction?

A middle class that outnumbers the combined poor and aristocracy is a relatively new phenomenon, dating back to around 1900. The rise of the middle class was the result of Industrial Revolution capitalism. It has been one of the most significant and epochal developments in history, yet the intellectual reaction for the most part has been to either ignore it or treat it with disdain. Now the project to destroy the middle class is well under way, with unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences that promise to be just as epochal as its creation. Read More

03.08.19- Should We Rethink Nuclear Power?
Haley Zaremba

While it seems to fly in the face of everything we believe and have been taught about nuclear power, it may actually be the safest form of power production that we have. Ironically, the immense potency of the power of splitting an atom is simultaneously what makes nuclear weapons so dangerous as well as what makes nuclear power so safe.

Despite high-profile nuclear disasters like Chernobyl in Ukraine (then the Soviet Union), Fukushima in Japan, and Three Mile Island in the United States, the deaths related to nuclear meltdowns are actually very few. In fact, climate scientists Pushker Kharecha and James Hanson discovered that overall, nuclear energy actually saves lives--their study found that up until now, nuclear power has already saved nearly two million lives that would have been lost to air pollution-related deaths from the contamination that would have been produced by other, more traditional, sources of energy. Read More

03.07.19- U.S. Will Soon Export More Oil, Liquids Than Saudi Arabia
Rystad Energy

In a pivotal geopolitical shift, the United States will soon export more oil and liquids than Saudi Arabia. This remarkable turnaround is made possible by the continued rise in oil production from US shale plays and the increased oil export capacity from the Gulf Coast.

The U.S. has for decades relied on large-scale imports to satisfy its thirst for oil, but this is about to change. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported last week that the United States exported more crude and petroleum products than it imported.  Read More

03.06.19- The Myth Of Water As A Fuel
Robert Rapier

Each week I receive press releases about “game-changing technologies” in the energy space. The number of these technologies that ultimately end up as game-changers is pretty close to zero, but I don’t immediately disregard such claims unless they clearly violate laws of science.

I am, nevertheless, naturally skeptical until convinced otherwise.

Such was the case this week when I received a press release from Australian-Israeli startup Electriq-Global. The press release read in part: Read More

03.05.19- Russian LNG Is About To Transform European Gas Markets
David Woroniuk

Russia has long been established as a crucial component of most European natural gas import portfolios, with most imports received via pipeline through the Yamal-EuroPol pipeline (Poland) or the Baumgarten gas hub (Austria).

However, in the month of February, Russian LNG flows played a pivotal role in price formation within Europe. Many analysts have attributed the increased dependence on Russian LNG imports to the combined factors of weak Asian demand, driven by unseasonably warm winter temperatures, and the earlier-than-anticipated start of the Yamal LNG project. This article reviews whether this is an anomaly, or, if it is the ‘new normal’, and the potential ramifications for European natural gas security. Read More

03.04.19- When Bubbles Burst - Tesla, The Everything Cycle, & The End Of Global Warming
Tom Luongo

As the center of the U.S. freezes this weekend, Elon Musk is trying to figure out how to save Tesla from going the way of Enron.

Religions die hard. It takes an orgy of evidence to change a person’s mind on a subject that is integral to their moral and ethical structure.

In the case of Tesla, the mania surrounding it over the past decade has been inextricably bound up with the hysteria of global warming. Read More

03.02.19- Miners Eye The Moon For
Trillion Dollar Payoff
Mining.com

European scientists have announced plans to start mining the moon as early as 2025, though what they’ll be extracting is neither gold nor diamonds, but waste-free nuclear energy thought to be worth trillions of dollars.

The goal is to place a lander on the lunar surface to mine and process regolith for useful materials such as water, oxygen, metals and an isotope called helium-3, which may prove useful for fueling future fusion reactors.

Regolith, Universe Today reported, is a dust-like material that covers the lunar surface and is the result of billions of years of meteor and comet impacts. If anyone ever lives on the moon, they could use the regolith to build habitats for a base. Read More

03.01.19- Electric Vehicle And Battery Metal News
Gregor Gregersen

SBTV brings you the latest news from around the world on the Electric Vehicle Revolution and Battery Metals.

1)  Amazon Invests in Rivian, a Tesla Rival in Electric Vehicles 

• Online retail giant is leading a $700 million investment in Rivian, a Michigan company that is developing a battery-powered pickup truck and an electric sport utility vehicle.
• The deal is the latest example of how the auto industry is being reshaped by new technologies and nimble companies that have raced ahead of many traditional carmakers.
• Amazon's investment is seen as a good way to enlarge their bet on the EV market without having to tool up a plant to find out if it will succeed. Read More

02.28.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Israeli Attorney General Indicts Netanyahu On Charges Of Bribery, Fraud & Breach Of Trust
Tyler Durden

Three months after Israeli police recommended that the country's attorney general pursue charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his alleged involvement in "Bezeq Walla Affair", it appears an indictment is finally being handed down on Thursday, much to the longtime leader's chagrin.

Since Netanyahu and his wife have become embroiled in multiple scandals over the past few years, seemingly all of which have yielded recommendations of prosecution, let us pause a moment for a quick refresher on the most serious allegations. Read More

02.27.19- Natural Gas Prices To Remain Low…
For Now
Nick Cunningham

The U.S. suffered though multiple bouts of severe cold in the last few weeks, but the weather has done very little to rescue low natural gas prices.

Henry Hub gas prices have been wallowing below $3/MMBtu for much of this winter, after briefly trading at multi-year highs late last year. Low prices are remarkable for several reasons. First, the U.S. entered the peak winter demand season with gas storage at its lowest level in 15 years. Indeed, a thin cushion of gas sitting in storage helped spark the price rally in November. Read More

02.26.19- Hydrogen Cars Struggle To Compete With Electric Vehicles
Vanand Meliksetian

The electrification of most industrialized societies has taken off in a big way. In the EU and China government support such as regulations and subsidies are pushing automakers towards alternative technologies which don’t utilize fossil fuels as a source of energy. Also, in North America, despite Trump’s support for the fossil fuel industry, carmakers are embarking on the path of electrification with Elon Musk’s Tesla being one of the frontrunners. Virtually all big auto brands have several EV models planned for the coming years. Hydrogen, however, is not part of the hype.

The smallest and most abundant particle in the Universe has been branded as an alternative environmentally friendly technology compared to EVs. Hydrogen has several pros and cons regarding its application for transportation and energy storage purposes. Read More

02.25.19- 12 Empty Supertankers Tell Us Everything We Need To Know About
The Oil Market
Tyler Durden

As the US battles with its OPEC+ rivals over the direction of global oil prices (Trump wants to keep oil prices subdued, while Saudi Arabia and Russia, reeling from years of prices too low to balance their budgets, are desperately hoping to push them higher with another round of production cuts), 12 supertankers sailing across the Atlantic can tell us a lot about the changing supply dynamics in the global oil market.

The tankers have been traveling a route spanning thousands of miles with no cargo other than some seawater needed for ballast. Of course, in normal times, the ships would be filled with heavy Middle East oil for delivery to refineries in places like Houston or New Orleans. Read More

02.23.19- The Fate Of Venezuela’s President Could Be In The Hands Of A US Judge
Tsvetana Paraskova

The ongoing power struggle in Venezuela has extended to a row over who is managing its state oil firm PDVSA and its key asset, U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum—and this could be decided by asking a judge in Delaware who the legitimate president of Venezuela is.

Last week, opposition leader Juan Guaido appointed new directors at the two companies in a challenge to Nicolas Maduro and in an effort to take control over Venezuela’s oil assets—pretty much the only assets that generate hard currency for the struggling Latin American country sitting on top of the world’s largest crude oil reserves. Read More

02.22.19- The Empire: Now or Never
Fred Reed

Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something. It is a curious belief,  Washington being interested in all of them. Other people are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America’s international behavior. Really, the explanation is simple.

The reason of course is empire, the desire for which is an ancient and innate part of mankind’s cerebral package. Parthian, Roman, Aztec, Hapsburg, British. It never stops. Read More

02.21.19- New battery design for electric cars would stack up to 1,000-km range
David Szondy

One of the big stumbling blocks preventing the wide scale acceptance of electric cars is dreaded range anxiety. With an average range of around 100 mi (161 km) per charge, all-electric vehicles still can't compete with more conventional cars – especially if lights, windscreen wipers, or air con are needed. To level the playing field a bit, Fraunhofer is working on a new battery design that could increase an electric car's range to 1,000 km (621 mi).

Electric cars don't have a single battery, but a collection of battery packs made of hundreds or thousands of individual battery cells that are packed in and wired together. These separate battery cells each require a housing as well as terminals, wiring, cables, and electronic monitors, which all combine to take up 50 percent of the space of a whole battery pack. Read More

02.20.19- U.S. Nuclear Has A Tough Road Ahead
Tim Daiss

The United States nuclear industry is in a tough spot. It’s unpopular with the public due to high-profile disasters like 1979’s Three Mile Island meltdown, and its bottom line has been hit hard by the rise of ultra-cheap domestic shale oil and gas as well as a nearly plateaued post-recession demand for electricity. Some states, including New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have approved financial packages to revive their failing nuclear industries, and now Pennsylvania could be the next if they can push past a plague of doubt. Read More

02.19.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: How 1984 turned into an
instruction manual
Simon Black

“Sometimes [two and two are four], Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”

One of the key themes from George Orwell’s dystopic novel 1984 is that the Party can do and say whatever it wants.

And more importantly, you must believe it, with all your heart. No matter how absurd.

That’s doublethink. It is impossible for two plus two to equal three, four, and five simultaneously. But if the Party says it is so, it is so. Read More

02.18.19- EXXONMOBIL U.S. OIL & GAS
FINANCIAL TRAIN-WRECK:
Producing Shale Is Destroying Its Bottom Line
Steve St Angelo

The United States largest oil company, ExxonMobil, is facing a financial train-wreck in its domestic oil and gas sector.  And, the majority of the blame can be attributed to Exxon’s move into shale.  After Exxon acquired XTO Energy in 2009, a U.S. shale oil and gas producer, it has seriously begun to ramp up shale oil production in the Permian.

ExxonMobil plans on expanding Permian shale oil production to 600,000 barrels a day (bd) by 2025, up from the 115,000 bd as of October (thanks to the data from Shaleprofile.com). Exxon’s Permian shale oil production shot up from less than 50,000 bd at the beginning of 2018, to over 115,000 bd in October:Read More

02.16.19- Researchers Scramble To Find Better Biofuel Alternatives
Haley Zaremba

With the aid of high profile political and media events like the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Climate Change Summit, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming have become one of the hottest topics and most urgent international crises of this century. Around the world, researchers and scientists are rushing to find realistic solutions to our oil addiction and overwhelming, unsustainable dependence on traditional, fossil-fuel based energy. One of the most likely candidates for replacing our gas-guzzlers with more eco-friendly forms of transportation is the ever-expanding biofuels sector. While the current biofuels industry is far from ecologically perfect, one team of scientists from University of California Santa Barbara says we can do a lot better. Read More

02.15.19- Brent Crude Hits 2019 High At $65
Tsvetana Paraskova

Brent Crude hit $65 a barrel early on Friday, reaching the highest price so far this year and the highest level since November, as larger-than-expected cuts from Saudi Arabia and OPEC’s resolve to rebalance the market outweighed concerns over slowing global economy this week.

At 10:20 a.m. EST on Friday, WTI Crude was trading up 1.60 percent at $55.27. Brent Crudewas up 1.44 percent at $65.50. Read More

03.14.19- Martin Armstrong Slams Al Gore's Deliberate Global Warming Fraud To Increase Governmental Power
Martin Armstrong

There is a serious question that no one wants to address. How did Al Gore create the global warming scare and earn hundreds of millions of dollars in the process? Before Al Gore, science was worried deeply about what we are experiencing today — global cooling. On April 28, 1975, Newsweek magazine published an article in which they sounded the alarm bell and proposed solutions to deliberately melt the ice caps: Read More

02.13.19- Solar supercapacitor creates electricity and hydrogen fuel on the cheap
Michael Irving

Hydrogen-powered vehicles are slowly hitting the streets, but although it's a clean and plentiful fuel source, a lack of infrastructure for mass producing, distributing and storing hydrogen is still a major roadblock. But new work out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) could help lower the barrier to entry for consumers, with a device that uses sunlight to produce both hydrogen and electricity. Read More

02.12.19- Chemical conversion process gives plastic waste new life as fuel
Wolf Richter

Chemical engineer Linda Wang (right) led a research team at Purdue University in coming up with a new way to convert a common plastic into oil, opening up some exciting possibilities (Credit: Purdue Research Foundation image/Vincent Walter)

The United Nations estimates that more than 8 million tons of plastics flow into the oceans each year. A new chemical conversion process could transform the world’s polyolefin waste, a form of plastic, into useful products, such as clean fuels and other items. Read More

02.11.19- The Achilles Heel For EV Makers
Vanand Meliksetian

Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming more and more popular in most industrialized countries. Although conventional cars claim 99 percent of the market, the announcement of substantial investments by automakers in EVs signals a new era: Volkswagen is investing $40 billion in EV production, Daimler just announced a $23 billion battery order, and American firms are undergoing massive restructuring to keep up.

Despite the overwhelming abundance of EV news in the mobility sector, producers are not overly optimistic about their finances. General Motors, for example, doesn’t expect its electric vehicles to turn a profit in the coming years. European car makers are selling EVs for near-production value to maintain sales. The Achilles heel of the industry is the high production costs which need to be overcome to achieve the sustainable production and development of new models. Read More

02.09.19- Energy Dominance Isn't Just A Trump Obsession
Tom Luongo

Energy Dominance should be the catchphrase of the day. It’s on the minds of every political figure, and the focus of every economy.

This is especially true of those vulnerable to a change in the status quo, namely Saudi Arabia.

While some continue to believe the gyrations of the oil market over the past few months are evidence of our running up against the limit of the petroleum based global economy, I disagree. Read More

02.08.19- The U.S. Faces A Catastrophic Food Supply Crisis In America As Farmers Struggle
Mac Slavo

American farmers are battling several issues when it comes to producing our food.  Regulated low prices, tariffs, and the inability to export have all cut into the salaries of farmers.  They are officially in crisis mode, just like the United States’ food supply.

“The farm economy’s in pretty tough shape,” said John Newton, chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation. “When you look out on the horizon of things to come, you start to see some cracks.” Average farm income has fallen to near 15-year lows under president Donald Trump’s policies, and in some areas of the country, farm bankruptcies are soaring.  And with slightly higher interest rates, many don’t see borrowing more money as an option. Read More

02.07.19- 2019 Is the Dawn of a New Era in Energy
E.B. Tucker

A society is only as strong as its access to supplies of reliable energy. While the source of that energy changes over time, one thing doesn’t: Controlling the supply of that energy is as close to printing money as you’ll ever get.

Throughout time, the richest barons in history sold society its energy.

Last century, oil fueled society. Barons like Jean Paul Getty made so much money supplying society with oil, the wealth became a burden. From the Rockefellers to the Saudi royals, the story is the same. Controlling the supply of energy is equivalent to a levy on the entire economy. Read More

02.06.19- The Mobile Space Heater
Eric Peters

Have you ever run an electric space heater in a room with no other source of heat – when the air temperature is say minus 10 (or lower) as it is right now in many states? You stay warm, sort of – but you can almost see the dollars burning in the red hot glow of the coils.

The good news is the space heater doesn’t have to move the room down the road at 60 MPH, too.

It’s also connected to the grid – not a battery. So while it costs a fortune to run, at least you won’t run out – of heat, that is.

Range, on the other hand . . . Read More

02.05.19- Could This Material Kill
Lithium-Ion Batteries?
Irina Slav

Sodium, an element far more abundant than lithium, is expanding its claim to fame in the battery field. A new study from a Japanese university has suggested that a sodium compound could relatively easily replace lithium in batteries.

The study, by researchers from the Nagoya Institute of Technology, found a way around the main obstacle for swapping lithium with sodium: the larger size of the ions in sodium and its different chemistry, Phys.org reports. They did this by finding a sodium compound that displayed a crystal structure that was compatible with battery use, along with a favorable electric structure and electrochemical properties. The compound yielded shorter charging times than lithium-ion batteries and a potentially longer battery life. Read More

02.04.19- Virtual Power Plants – Time for Some Truly Whole-systems Thinking
Kevin Stickney

By definition then, VPPs are an attempt at whole-systems thinking; looking to combine DERs in such a configuration that they’re greater than the sum of their parts.

Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are a hugely promising development in both the US and worldwide. By intelligently integrating and managing dispersed pockets of distributed energy resources (DERs), utilities can reap the grid-balancing benefit of a new power plant without having to build it. Various blends of solar, battery storage, combined heat and power (CHP) and other power technologies make up a variety of VPP projects across the country. Read More

02.02.19- And Now, for Somethng Entrely Different: The Ruling Class &
An Undeclared Civil War
Steve McCann

Over the past 73 years, devoid of any meaningful national misfortune, the American social order has undergone a major transformation.  Historically, societies tend to stratify themselves along economic or pre-ordained class lines.  The United States has long prided itself on the belief that class distinctions were no longer a part of a unique American culture.  However, the current social structure has evolved into a near impregnable three-tier categorization in which the ruling class, that sits astride the social order, has revealed, thanks to the election of Donald Trump, open and unabashed disdain for the two lower classes and the unleashing of a radicalized army of malcontents. Read More

02.01.19- This Will Be the Biggest Winner of the EV Revolution
Justin Spittler

Volkswagen is taking matters into its own hands.

On Friday, the German auto giant said it’s going to spend €870 million (about $995 million) by 2020 to develop electric vehicle (EV) components.

It did so because there isn’t a major battery manufacturer in Europe, which leaves European car makers at the mercy of Asian suppliers.

This blockbuster announcement comes just two months after Volkswagen said that it plans to spend almost $50 billion on developing EVs, self-driving cars, and new mobility services. It’s gearing up its production capacity so it can manufacture one million EVs. Read More

01.31.19- The Major Risk That Oil Markets Are Underestimating
Nick Cunningham

The U.S. campaign for regime change in Venezuela could drive up oil prices.

The oil markets barely budged last week when the Trump administration first recognized Juan Gauidó as President of Venezuela, and prices hardly moved even after follow-up reportingshowed that the U.S.’ effort to topple Nicolas Maduro was a lot more coordinated than it may have seemed at first glance. Oil prices also largely shrugged when American sanctions on PDVSA were announced earlier this week.

However, by Tuesday, oil traders finally woke up to the fact that the U.S. campaign to topple Maduro by essentially issuing an embargo on Venezuelan oil exports could lead to major disruptions in the market. WTI and Brent both rose sharply. Read More

01.30.19- New Exploration Tech Finds 1.5 Billion Barrels Of Oil In Alaska
Irina Slav

Digital technology adoption in all stages of upstream operations in the oil and gas industry has seen a steep rise recently. While a lot has been written about the benefits of digitizing various aspects of the well-drilling, extraction, and field maintenance processes, there is also another major field where digital tech is changing the game: before the well-drilling even begins.

In Alaska, for instance, new technology in oil and gas exploration has led to the discovery of more than 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil in the North Slope in just two years, S&P Global Platts recently reported. These are deposits that were known to be there but the resources they held could not be mapped or measured, so the deposits were considered unproductive before digital tech, in the form of advanced 3D seismic surveys and new processing techniques, came along. Read More

01.29.19- Oversold Lithium Could Be
About To Rally
Alex Kimani

It’s been a decade of lows for commodities after posting 7 declines in 11 years, but we’ve seriously underestimated lithium. It’s back with a vengeance in 2019.

The commodities market endured yet another annus horribilis, with just four commodities—natural gas, uranium, cocoa and wheat—recording any uptick at all. Last year’s 12 percent slide by the Bloomberg Commodity Index--spurred by 20 percent-plus declines by industrial bellwethers like West Texas Intermediate crude, steel and platinum—came in the wake of two years of modest gains. Read More

01.28.19- Fueling the Future: How Batteries are Improving, in Three Ways
Anna Hirtenstein

In the race for the next generation battery, lithium-ion technology has made huge leaps in recent years. But the power packs continue to have drawbacks: they use raw material mined in unstable countries, they’re dangerous if they break and they could pack more power.

Solving those conundrums is the focus of hundreds of companies and thousands of scientists all over the world. And in that crowded field, Tesla Inc., a French billionaire and a startup in Massachusetts are pulling ahead. Read More

01.26.19- Another EV Giant Enters The Battery Business
Mining,com

German auto maker giant Volkswagen has just upped its bet on electric vehicles (EVs) by announcing it will begin manufacturing batteries and charging stations for those cars, which the company plans to also start mass producing soon.

The Wolfsburg-based company said it would invest 870 million euros (about $985 million) by 2020 to develop e-vehicle components, adding that its components division, which makes engines and steering parts, will now be in charge of producing, packing and overseeing recycling of  battery cells and packs. Read More

01.25.19- Electricity-free air con: Thermoacoustic device turns waste heat into cold
using no additional power
Loz Blain

Beginning with the principles of the Stirling engine, SoundEnergy's THEAC thermal acoustic engine takes heat – either industrial waste heat or solar heat – and turns it into powerful cooling without requiring any other power source. This completely renewable technology could prove highly disruptive.

The THEAC system uses no mechanical moving parts, no refrigerants, no CO2, no precious metals or materials. Instead it uses Argon gas, which is plentiful and has zero global warming potential, and is totally sustainable, relying solely on the energy of incoming heat to produce cold. The technology is also claimed to make about as much noise as a running shower, and is scalable. Read More

01.24.19- The 7 Factors Driving Oil Prices In 2019
Osama Rizvi

Last year, oil prices rallied all the way up to a four year high before plunging more than $30. There were many factors at play during that volatile period, most notably the Iranian sanctions and the resultant promise by OPEC+ to boost production to avoid a supply shortage. Volatility appears to have continued into 2019, with uncertainty rife across a number of key areas in this year’s oil markets.

Demand- OPEC estimates suggest that there will lower oil demand in 2019 due to various factors. In its most recent Monthly Oil report, the cartel revised its demand growth forecast down by 100,000 bpd. Goldman Sachs has also “slashed its oil price forecast” due to concerns regarding oversupply and relatively weaker demand. If these predictions are accurate then falling demand growth will likely impact prices throughout the year. Read More

01.23.19- IEA Chief: EVs Are Not The End
Of The Oil Era
David Schectman

Electric vehicles (EVs) today are not the end of global oil demand growth, nor are they the key solution to reducing carbon emissions, Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said during the ‘Strategic Outlook on Energy’ panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.

According to Birol, analysts need to put things into perspective and consider that five million EVs globally is nothing compared to 1 billion internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.

“This year we expect global oil demand to increase by 1.3 million barrels per day. The effect of 5 million cars is 50,000 barrels per day. 50,000 versus 1.3 million.” Read More

01.22.19- Texas Now Produces More Oil Than Every Country in the World Besides Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq
Mark J. Perry

This “energy miracle” in the Lone Star State has to be one of the most remarkable energy success stories in history.

As a result of the impressive, "eye-popping," and ongoing surges in Texas’s oil production over the last decade, the Lone Star State recently surpassed Canada’s oil output for the first time this year (except for a few previous outlier months when production in Canada dropped sharply, see chart below), and now produces more oil (4.6 million barrels per day) than all other countries except for Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq (see map below). Read More

01.21.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: A Manifesto For A ‘Deplorable’ Party
Charles Hugh Smith

We want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and that is our only demand for global human justice.

The “deplorables” now include vast swaths of citizenry around the world:everyone who voted for Trump in the U.S. (and all those who haven’t virtue-signaled their contempt for everyone who voted for him); everyone who voted for Brexit in the U.K. (and all those who haven’t virtue-signaled their contempt for everyone who voted for Brexit), and more recently, everyone who wears a yellow vest in France, and everyone who has yet to virtue-signal their contempt for the yellow vest dissenters. Read More

01.19.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The White Man’s Burden... Reflections on the Custodial State
Fred Reed

A storm, methinks, is just over the horizon: The genetics of intelligence, perhaps of behavior. Geneticists know that intelligence is largely genetic. They know better than to say so. But research advances rapidly. Laboratories close in on the responsible genes. Things like genomic-sequence correlation proceed apace. Within ten or fifteen years, I will guess, the genetics of IQ will be firmly established. If the results turn out as seems likely…then what? What does a pseudo-democracy do when clearly stratified by intellectual capacity? Read More

01.18.19- Land Market Predictions for 2019
Randy Dickhut

As the calendar flips into a new year, farmers, ranchers, and landowners are pouring over the financial numbers of how their business totaled up for the past year. For producers, profit and loss is calculated, assets and liabilities are tallied, cash flows and loan needs are projected for the upcoming year, and everything is readied for the meeting with their lender. It is an important time of the year for farmers and ranchers as they evaluate their operations and seek capital to operate another year. Most non-operating landowners don't have the need for operating capital, so their year-end is different, but they are still valuing their main asset, land. Read More

01.17.19- Why Saudi Arabia Can Never Be
The King Of Solar
Tim Daiss

The often-used phrase “becoming all things to all people” may work well in many contexts but in the energy patch, particularly with Saudi Arabia, it’s falling flat. The de facto OPEC leader and world’s largest oil exporter and third largest oil producer has been pledging many things lately, including going long on more gas investment and development both at home and abroad (including increasing investment in the U.S.-liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, as well as expanding its already massive downstream investments globally. The kingdom has also tried to present itself as a more moderate Arab state, but since the October killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, that image has largely been tarnished. Read More

01.16.19- Harvard's new organic flow battery uses a long-lived recipe of Biblical proportions
Michael Irving

Storing renewable energy is just as important as generating it, and flow batteries might be one of the most promising ways to do that. While there are plenty of hurdles to jump over in perfecting the tech, a team of Harvard engineers has been making strides over the past few years with organic flow batteries, and has now tested a new molecule that makes for the longest-lasting, high-performance organic flow battery so far.

Flow batteries are built with two liquid electrolytes that are stored in external tanks and piped into the cell as needed. During charging and discharging, they pass electrons back and forth through a membrane in the cell, and their storage capacity and power output can be tweaked by changing the size of the tanks and membrane, respectively. Read More

01.15.19- Bearish Bets On Diesel Tell
A Worrying Story
Tsvetana Paraskova

The mood in the crude oil and oil product futures market turned decisively sour in the fourth quarter of 2018 as building crude oil oversupply and signs of slowing global economic growth rate hit investor sentiment.

Hedge funds and other money managers liquidated a lot of bullish positions in crude oil and in middle distillates in October, November, and December.  

By the end of 2018, the net long position—the difference between bets that prices will rise and bets on a drop—in U.S. diesel futures had flipped to a net short position, where bets on a drop prevail over bets on price increases. Read More

01.14.19- The Shale Oil Revolution Actually Reflects a Nation in Decline
Chris Martenson

Faster consumption + no strategy = diminished prospects

Here in the opening month of 2019, as the US consumes itself with hot debate over a border wall, far more important topics are being ignored completely.

Take US energy policy. In the US press and political circles, there’s nothing but crickets sounding when it comes to serious analysis or any sort of sustainable long-term plan.

Once you understand the role of energy in everything, you can begin to appreciate why there's nothing more important to get right. Read More

01.12.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different:Ending the War on the Non-Drug
Known as Hemp
Chris Calton

With the recent legalization of hemp in the United States, one may ask the question of why it was ever illegal to begin with. Being a non-psychoactive form of cannabis, its uses were entirely industrial. One need not be a libertarian to recognize that the prohibition of hemp ranks among the most absurd and pointless laws our government passed in the twentieth century.

Prior to the War on Drugs, the United States had a long history of hemp production, going all the way back to the colonial era and Britain even before that. Before governments arrested people for growing hemp, they used to fine farmers for not growing it. In the sixteenth century, King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I fined English farmers who failed to contribute to the country’s hemp industry. Read More

01.11.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: The Mainstream Media Warns America Will Be Facing An “Economic Hellscape” If The Government Shutdown Continues
Michael Snyder

Is the mainstream media over hyping the economic impact of the government shutdown for political purposes?  Of course they are. Once upon a time the mainstream media in the United States at least attempted to maintain a facade of objectivity, but those days are long gone.  In this case, they want to stir up as much public resentment against President Trump as possible in order to try to force him to end the government shutdown.  And when NBC News breathlessly declared that the U.S. “would face an economic hellscape” if this shutdown stretches on for an extended period of time, their article quickly went viral all over the Internet. But will it really be “a hellscape”? Read More

01.10.19- Largest ever continuous oil and gas resource found in the United States
David Szondy

Some 46.3 billion barrels of oil, 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 20 billion barrels of natural gas liquids are estimated to be under Texas and New Mexico

As the United States becomes a net oil exporter for the first time in 75 years, the US Department of the Interior has announced the discovery of the largest continuous oil and gas field ever found. Situated in the Wolfcamp Shale and overlying Bone Spring Formation in Texas and the Permian Basin in New Mexico, the new resource is estimated to contain 46.3 billion barrels of oil, 281 trillion cu ft of natural gas, and 20 billion barrels of natural gas liquids worth trillions of dollars. Read More

01.09.19- U.S. Gasoline Prices Could Be
About To Skyrocket
Irina Slav

Gasoline prices at the pump are at more than a year’s low, but this may change in the coming months, according to the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, Patrick DeHaan, as quotedby MarketWatch.

DeHaan said that right now, the average price per gallon of gasoline in the United States was at the lowest for the start of a year since 2016, when the metric was also falling sharply to end up at a low of US$1.66 per gallon. “Americans are spending $260 million less on gasoline today than they did some 80 days ago,” the analyst said. Read More

01.08.19- What Apple’s Tailspin Means
For Oil Prices
Tim Daiss

Global equity markets are entering the New Year in the doldrums and are spooking traders and investors alike, closely mirroring the decline in manufacturing growth in both the U.S. and China amid ongoing trade tensions. Last Thursday, all three major U.S. stock indexes plunged by 2 percent after a dire revenue warning from Apple heightened fears of a global economic slowdown.

The development comes a day after Apple chief executive Tim Cook wrote in a letter to investors that the company had not foreseen the extent of China’s economic deceleration, which was exacerbated by U.S.-China trade tensions. The company’s shares dropped 10 percent after the disclosure. Apple’s problems are also impacting the overall technology sector. S&P Technology companies, meanwhile, dropped 5.1 percent yesterday, its biggest drop since August 2011. Read More

01.07.19- Geoengineering Watch
Global Alert News
Dane Wigington

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01.05.19- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: President Xi Orders Chinese Army To "Prepare For War"
Tyler Durden

In just a few short days, China has proved that investors who have been underestimating the geopolitical risks stemming from the simmering tensions between the US and China over the latter's territorial claims in the South China Sea and paranoia over the fate of Taiwan - a de facto independent state that President Xi Jinping is aggressively seeking to bring under the heel of Beijing - have done so at their own peril.

Earlier this week Xi Jinping, the Chinese emperor for life president provoked an angry rebuke from Taiwan's pro-independence president when he demanded during a landmark speech earlier this week that Taiwan submit to "reunification" with Beijing. Read More

01.04.19- Oil Is At The Mercy Of Financial Markets
Nick Cunningham

Oil prices regained more ground on Wednesday, pushed higher after equity markets rebounded from an initial selloff at the start of 2019 trading.

The price gains are not entirely convincing. WTI and Brent posted strong gains, each up more than 3 percent by midday in New York, but come largely after U.S. equity markets shook off an earlier bout of pessimism.

In fact, the trajectory and health of the global economy has moved to the top of the list in terms of variables exerting influence on oil prices. On any given day, stock prices offer a clue into investor sentiment in this regard. “Energy markets are following lockstep with what the equity markets are doing here, and I think that’s going to continue to be the case,” Brian LaRose at ICAP Technical Analysis, told Reuters. Read More

01.03.19- Future batteries, coming soon: Charge in seconds, last months and power over the air
Max Langridge

While smartphones, smarthomes and even smart wearables are growing ever more advanced, they're still limited by power. The battery hasn't advanced in decades. But we're on the verge of a power revolution.

Big technology and car companies are all too aware of the limitations of lithium-ion batteries. While chips and operating systems are becoming more efficient to save power we're still only looking at a day or two of use on a smartphone before having to recharge. Thankfully, universities are getting involved. Read More

01.02.19- The New Oil Order
Nawar Alsaadi

In the decades preceding the arrival of U.S. shale oil, the oil market had only one stabilizing force, namely OPEC. The reason the oil market was structured as such was due to the nature of conventional oil production, most non-OPEC oil production prior to U.S. shale oil fell in one of two categories: major offshore projects that took 5 to 7 years to build (North Sea, Gulf of Mexico … etc.) or mature conventional onshore fields (U.S. conventional fields, Russian Siberian fields … etc.); both of these conventional oil supply sources were either non-responsive, or only slowly reactive, to changes in the oil price, major offshore oil projects tended to come online regardless of the oil price environment, while conventional onshore oil production with shallow decline rates (sub-10 percent) meant that even a slowdown in drilling would not impact total production in any meaningful way for an extended period of time. Read More

01.01.19- Imagine if We Paid for Food
like We Do Healthcare
Ryan Neuhofel

Imagine if you purchased food like most Americans obtained healthcare.

No, I really want you to try to envision it…

Struggling?

I am a family physician whose father worked in a grocery store, and I enjoy eating at Mexican restaurants, so maybe I can help. Read More