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An illuminated BP logo is seen at a petrol station in Gateshead, Britain, September 23, 2021. REUTERS/Lee Smith/File Photo

LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) – BP (BP.L) is considering ending the publication of its Statistical Review of World Energy, over 70 years after it first published the benchmark report, as the energy major focuses on its shift to renewables, the company told Reuters.

The Statistical Review has been a go-to resource for the wider energy sector since it was first published in April 1952, providing detailed data on global oil, gas and coal production and consumption.

However the report has been seen by some BP executives as detrimental to the company’s new direction, sources told Reuters.

A BP spokesperson confirmed the company has launched an internal review of the report.

“We’re looking at options for publishing the annual Statistical Review of World Energy, but as yet we’ve taken no decision,” the company said.

“The world of energy is changing fast and becoming ever more complex, and our energy and economics team are focused on understanding different elements of the energy transition and their implications for BP.”

The company added that “the Review is a valuable source of objective and comprehensive data, and ensuring this continues is an important consideration.”

Chief Executive Officer Bernard Looney has radically shifted BP’s focus since taking office in 2020, aiming to sharply reduce oil and gas production while rapidly building a renewables business in order to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

The company has in recent years also cut its ties with several oil and gas associations and has sought to raise its profile as a clean energy provider.

“Put simply, it (Statistical Review) is bad PR,” one company source said.

The report is compiled by BP staff and in recent years with the help of the Edinburgh, Scotland-based Heriot-Watt University.

Science Snippets: Peak Fossil Fuels

November 30, 2022

Science Snippets: Peak Fossil Fuels

Latest peer-reviewed journal article appears in the prestigious Elsevier series of journals:

McPherson, Guy R., Beril Sirmack, and Ricardo Vinuesa. March 2022. Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events. Results in Engineering (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2022.100342.

Full text:

When the head of the conservative International Energy Agency admits we are in the midst of the “first truly global energy crisis,” then you know we’re in serious trouble. According to the chief of the International Energy Agency—the IEA—that’s the current situation. The story was published by Reuters on 25 October 2022.

Let’s turn back the clock a bit. According to the IEA, the extraction of conventional oil for the world peaked in 2006. Conventional oil refers to crude plus condensate, and it’s the relatively easy oil to extract and refine. The tough stuff comes next, which is why we have been rabidly pursuing shale and other petrochemicals that have a low energy return on investment, often called EROI. It comes as no surprise that 16 years after the conservative IEA concluded we had passed the peak of crude-plus-condensate, the most important element in the history of industrial civilization, we have similarly, and in a much worse state, passed the peak of all oil. All, as in the whole shebang.

According to the headline of a story published on January 15th, 2021 by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Fossil fuel production expected to increase through 2022 but remain below 2019 peak.” Of course, the US EIA is referring to extraction, not production. It’s not as if humans are producing oil. Oil is not ice cream, after all. Even though we do not produce oil, we’re doing a great job sucking it out of the bowels of the planet and turning it into gasoline, diesel, and other energy-rich materials that make our lives easier..

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Peter Zeihan: You’re Being Instructed Not to Notice This!!!

November 29, 2022

Peter Zeihan: You’re Being Instructed Not to Notice This!!!

https://youtu.be/6pLAaWUUM6c

Canadian Banks Slammed For Continued Fossil Fuel Investments

November 29, 2022

Canadian Banks Slammed For Continued Fossil Fuel Investments

Canadian banks are receiving backlash from investors for their continued investments in fossil fuels.
All Canadian banks were revealed to have increased their exposure to fossil fuels between 2020 and 2021, by between 25 percent—TD and BMO—and 132 percent for CIBC.
The report is the latest example of investor pressure on financial institutions to reduce their lending to fossil fuel companies.

An investor group has criticized Canadian lenders for investing heavily in fossil fuels despite the Paris Agreement, noting that all of the largest Canadian banks still need to be ready for net zero.

In a report titled Net Zero Policy Report Card, Investors for Paris Compliance graded Canada’s largest banks on several indicators, including fossil fuel investments, climate targets, and emissions reporting.

In fossil fuel investments, all banks were revealed to have increased their exposure between 2020 and 2021, by between 25 percent—TD and BMO—and 132 percent for CIBC.

According to the report, RBC invested $48.5 billion in fossil fuels last year, up 101 percent on 2020, and Scotiabank increased its exposure to the sector by 87 percent to $38 billion.

TD’s fossil fuel investments rose to $26.4 billion, and BMO’s went up to$23.5 billion. CIBC invested $27.8 billion in fossil fuels in 2021, Investors for Paris Compliance said, noting that the sixth bank under review, National Bank, had no data published on its fossil fuel industry exposure.

The report is the latest example of investor pressure on financial institutions to reduce their lending to the fossil fuel sector and focus on emission reporting and reducing measures in line with international Paris Agreement commitments.

This, however, stands in stark contrast with warnings, including from the IEA, that not enough is being invested in the new supply of fossil fuels, including coal, which this year saw a real renaissance.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Spotlight: The Diesel Fuel Crunch

November 27, 2022

SPOTLIGHT: THE DIESEL FUEL CRUNCH

PRICE OF DIESEL FUEL SETS RECORD

While gasoline prices have risen 14 percent so far this year, diesel’s price has shot up by 50 percent to a record $5.35 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

As of 17 November, the U.S. average price of diesel was $1.61 more than that of gasoline; a year earlier, the difference was 23 cents, The Wall Street Journal noted.

Diesel is more expensive than gas because of the additional steps involved in refining clean versions of it from crude oil and because it carries higher taxes.

Also as of last week, the U.S. had only a 25-day reserve of diesel, the least since 2008, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported.

The shortage is due to the Ukraine war and Western sanctions; unlike Russia’s crude oil exports, its diesel shipments have fallen sharply because of the conflict.

Also, Russia has cut off virtually all natural gas supplies to Europe, forcing electricity generating plants there to shift from gas to diesel as fuel, spiking demand for shrinking supplies.

In addition, an unusually cold winter and hot summer in North America hiked natural gas prices when demand jumped. Oil refineries, which are fueled by natural gas, cut gas use when their fuel’s price leaped.

China’s heat waves this year were related to blackouts, leading Beijing to cut exports of oil and related products to protect domestic supplies.

The diesel shortage also is partly a byproduct of the COVID era.

During the COVID War, demand crashed for transport fuels. As a result, some U.S. refiners permanently shuttered older plants and have not found it economically feasible to start them up again, in part because expensive equipment upgrades would be required.

Also because of the war, U.S. refiners have been shipping diesel to Europe to help ease its fuel shortage. The shortage has lifted diesel prices there well above what they are at home.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Renewable Energy Transition Is Failing

November 23, 2022

The Renewable Energy Transition Is Failing

**Not sustainable**: Vast quantities of minerals and metals are required for the renewable energy transition. (Photo credit: AleSpa/Wikimedia Commons)

Renewable energy isn’t replacing fossil fuel energy—it’s adding to it.

Despite all the renewable energy investments and installations, actual global greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing. That’s largely due to economic growth: While renewable energy supplies have expanded in recent years, world energy usage has ballooned even more—with the difference being supplied by fossil fuels. The more the world economy grows, the harder it is for additions of renewable energy to turn the tide by actually replacing energy from fossil fuels, rather than just adding to it.

The notion of voluntarily reining in economic growth in order to minimize climate change and make it easier to replace fossil fuels is political anathema not just in the rich countries, whose people have gotten used to consuming at extraordinarily high rates, but even more so in poorer countries, which have been promised the opportunity to “develop.”

After all, it is the rich countries that have been responsible for the great majority of past emissions (which are driving climate change presently); indeed, these countries got rich largely by the industrial activity of which carbon emissions were a byproduct. Now it is the world’s poorest nations that are experiencing the brunt of the impacts of climate change caused by the world’s richest. It’s neither sustainable nor just to perpetuate the exploitation of land, resources, and labor in the less industrialized countries, as well as historically exploited communities in the rich countries, to maintain both the lifestyles and expectations of further growth of the wealthy minority.

From the perspective of people in less-industrialized nations, it’s natural to want to consume more, which only seems fair…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

“The Oil Machine” and the Changing Climate.

November 23, 2022

“The Oil Machine” and the Changing Climate.

Released smartly in time for the COP27 climate change conference, the film “The Oil Machine”, presents a stark picture of the imperative to cut our use of fossil fuels, in particular crude oil, but moreover of our utter dependency on the “black gold” for practically all aspects of modern civilization. While it is clear that further licenses should not be permitted for new oil exploration and production, in line with the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero by 2050 roadmap, it is likely that oil companies would need to be accordingly compensated for their losses. However, although the UK government appears set to grant another 100 licenses in the North Sea, this would not necessarily guarantee energy security for the UK, since much of the production there is in the hands of foreign agencies.

A tricky dilemma is nonetheless presented, as European nations scramble to get hold of hydrocarbons from alternative sources, in part to avoid supporting Putin’s war machine, but also now that there is no Russian gas coming to Europe down the Nord Stream 1 pipelines, which have suffered damage from deliberate sabotage, although it is not yet clear exactly who put the explosives there for the job. While the finger of blame seems to oscillate in its direction, depending on exactly who is pointing it, efforts to maintain current levels of oil and gas through this winter and beyond, strengthen their grip, while renewable energy is pushed onto the proverbial back burner.

The film admirably emphasises the extent and complexity of the oil and gas pipeline network under the North Sea, and on land too, which is conveniently but deceptively out of sight and hence out of mind; yet it is this sprawling and fragile infrastructure whose bounty underpins the mechanics of our daily lives…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

#243. The Great Inflexion

November 23, 2022

#243. The Great Inflexion

A SYSTEM UNRAVELS

INTRODUCTION

As everyone surely knows by now, the global economy has entered a recession which is likely to be both severe and protracted. For the most part, governments and central bankers are concentrating on the task of trying to tame inflation.

Their critics tend to argue for more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, contending that stimulus could soften or shorten the recession. They claim, in defiance both of experience and of logic, that expansionary monetary policies needn’t contradict the effort to bring inflation under control.

Where almost everybody is in agreement is that, however long it takes, the recession will end. But there’s a striking absence of explanations for how or why growth is supposed to resume. The fall-back position is no more than an assumption – a recovery will arrive for no better reason than that all previous economic downturns have been followed by rebounds.

The underlying presumption here is cyclicality, a process accepted as routine, not just by policy-makers and central bankers, but by investors, business leaders and the general public alike. It is well understood that the Big Numbers – like economic output, and the aggregate value of the markets – oscillate in sine-wave patterns around central trends.

It’s further assumed that these secular trends are always positive – each recovery exceeds the preceding recession, and each market rebound more than cancels out the latest dip.

This latter assumption has reached the point of invalidation. What economies and markets are now experiencing is trend-inflexion. Cyclicality may indeed continue but, from here on, it will do so around downwards-inflected trends. This process of reversal can only be managed if it is recognized.

The consequences of trend inflexion are readily summarised. On an ex-inflation basis, economic output will deteriorate, whilst the real costs of necessities will carry on rising, even if there are some retreats from the severe spikes experienced in recent times.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Electricity vs Oil

November 21, 2022

Electricity vs Oil

The epic battle that never was

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

In light of the diesel crisis unfolding around the globe I thought it would be worthwhile to touch upon the topic of electrification. Will EV-s be our saving grace? Can we save the climate and our modern way of life by switching to electric vehicles? Has this transition begun in earnest at all? As someone with an engineering background and a direct involvement in the electrification of road transport, I long felt the need to dispel some of the myths around the topic, and to offer a bigger picture view than what is usually available from the media. So, without much further ado: here you go.

In what eerily resembles a PR campaign, we are under a constant bombardment of messages from the International Energy Agency, company CEOs, corporate media outlets and pundits how oil demand is peaking and how electric vehicles and ‘renewables’ are making oil less and less necessary. How all we need to do is to invest in smart grids, build more wind, more solar and how battery metals will serve as the basis of our clean green economic growth from this point on.

On the other hand, we see more and more news that a recession is looming, and as a result oil demand would fall as clear sign of economic turmoil. In order to prevent this, we see extorted efforts by our leadership class to lower prices at the pump. Begging the Saudis to pump more. Considering waiving sanctions. Maybe its just me, but the two simply doesn’t add up. Shouldn’t we be less dependent oil with all those electric cars zooming around in our cities? Why is everyone scrambling for cheap oil then?

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Most plastic isn’t recycled, burns in fires at recycling centers

November 21, 2022

Most plastic isn’t recycled, burns in fires at recycling centers

Preface. Plastics are just one of 500,000 products made out of oil and gas, but very important to just about every aspect of society, from making vehicles lighter so go further using less energy, to clothes, food storage, bags, toothbrushes, buckets, garbage bins, toys, carpets, fleece, plastic lumber, chairs, bottles and more.

The reason fossil fuels are used to make half a million products is that they are mostly just carbon and hydrogen: Natural gas 20% C 80% H, petroleum 84% C 12% H, and coal 84% C 5% H.

If you wanted to make plastics from something “greener” and more sustainable, what on earth is both abundant and chock-a-block with carbon and hydrogen that can replace fossil fuels? Let us start with abundant. The world is mostly made of soil, air, water, and plants. Dirt will not work, it’s 47% oxygen, 28% silicon, 8% aluminum, 5% iron, 3.6% calcium, 3% sodium, 3% potassium, and 2% magnesium. Air is nitrogen and oxygen. Water is hydrogen and oxygen, but no carbon.

That leaves biomass — plants such as trees, crops, and grasses, which has both carbon and hydrogen. But there’s a whole lot of other crap that would have to be removed at great energy and monetary expense since there’s also O, N, Ca, K, Si, Mg, Al, S, Fe, P, Cl, Na, Mn, Ti. Biomass carbon varies quite a bit, from 35–65% of the dry weight, and hydrogen roughly 6%.

But it also takes a lot of energy to use biomass instead of oil and gas, which flows through pipelines cheaply. Biomass has to be cut, transported, cut or mashed into tiny pieces, and conveyed to a plastics factory before it composts or spontaneously combusts. And it’s expensive to remove some or all of the non carbon and hydrogen elements out.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

384 billion serfs

November 19, 2022

384 billion serfs

Why it’s so hard to scale down fossil fuels

In an 8-hour workshift, a healthy 35-year-old man can generate about 75 watts of mechanical power per hour, enough to keep a bright old-fashioned light bulb going. In a year, he can generate about 140 kilowatt-hours.

How does that compare to the energy embodied in a barrel of oil?

A standard 42-gallon (159-litre) barrel of oil can perform 1,700 kilowatt-hours of work. Modern oil-driven power stations are about 37 percent efficient, since they produce lots of waste heat. So one barrel of oil has the same work potential as the physical labour of 4.8 human men over a year.

Oil is a super-concentrated form of energy!

Fossil fuel serfs

In 2019, before lockdowns began, the world consumed about 35 billion barrels of oil, corresponding to the services of 165 billion labourers. Oil makes up two-fifths of all the fossil fuel energy the world consumes, the rest being mostly coal and natural gas. Our total fossil fuel use in 2019 amounted to the work of 380 billion men.

Those fossil fuel-equivalent workers are always on tap, don’t take holidays, don’t need to sleep and don’t go on strike. They have no rights. Let’s call them our fossil fuel serfs.

You can think of a fossil fuel serf as the work capacity of a full-time human labourer for a year, measured in terms of oil, coal or natural gas.

A Ford Focus, for example, has a 52-litre (11.5 gallons) fuel tank. One barrel of oil would provide the petrol for three fill-ups. Each fill-up corresponds to 1.5 fossil fuel serfs.

Those 380 billion fossil fuel serfs power our cars and factories, keep the lights on, heat or cool our houses and cities, produce fertilizer for our fields, help to make the concrete, steel and asphalt in our buildings, roads and dams, and provide the plastics, synthetic clothing, tyres, detergents and hospital equipment that make our lives so convenient…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How Inflation Will Impact The 2020s & 2030s

November 18, 2022

How Inflation Will Impact The 2020s & 2030s

Economic Macro Trends Of The Coming Decades And How They Shape My Investment Strategy.

Recently, people have been asking me a lot about what the next 10–20 years will look like.

How inflation will impact the economy and what this means for them personally.

This article describes the general outlook I have for the next one to two decades. I will explain how — in my opinion — inflation and potential deflationary crashes will shape the future and how I as an investor will prepare for this.

Buckle up, it’s gone be a wild ride.

Disclaimer: Please note that the following is a summary of what I believe has a high chance of happening. However, I DO NOT claim that things will exactly play out like this. And as always, this article is intended to educate people. It should not be taken as financial advice.

Going From A Non-Inflationary To An Inflationary World

We are facing difficult times.

After decades of living in a non-inflationary environment (not for all goods and assets, but in general) supported by lots of cheap high-density energy and a globalized economy, we are now facing strong price increases in all areas.

To understand the background of why that is happening, I recommend you to check out this article I wrote. It offers a detailed explanation about why inflation is suddenly picking up, and how this impacts my investment decisions in the short to medium term.

Here is a very short summary: We are running out of cheap high-density energy (fossil fuels) to run everything and grow our economies. Governments try to substitute missing energy by pumping money into the system. But this does not bring back growth and is also contributing to rising prices.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

#242. The dynamics of global re-pricing

November 10, 2022

#242. The dynamics of global re-pricing

IN SEARCH OF EXPLANATIONS

SUMMARY

There is a growing acknowledgement that the World economy has entered a new era. We know that the cost of capital is trending upwards, with adverse consequences for asset prices. But there’s been remarkably little inclination to examine the underlying processes that are causing this to happen. Neither is there much in the way of recognition that entire sectors could be crushed, or even eliminated altogether, as re-pricing becomes more selective.

We need to dismiss any idea that this is temporary. There are some linkages connecting the resurgence of inflation with pandemic-era QE, and with the war in Ukraine, but these are little more than symptoms.

The underlying dynamic is that the economic driver of the industrial era – the supply of low-cost energy from oil, natural gas and coal – is winding down, and there is no assured replacement at hand. Transition to renewables is imperative, but there’s no guarantee that an economy based on wind-turbines, solar panels and batteries can be as large as the fossil-based economy of today. The probabilities are that it will be smaller.

Had we been prepared to do so, we could have seen this coming. The chain of causation starts in the 1990s, when the authorities responded to “secular stagnation” with deregulation programmes that made credit easier to obtain. The subsequent financial crisis forced the adoption of QE, initially to prop up the banking system, and latterly as a self-standing form of stimulus. We were assured, quite wrongly, that QE would not be inflationary, but it has created a systemically-dangerous “everything bubble” in assets.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The UN Reveals Plan To BAN All Fossil Fuels

November 9, 2022

The UN Reveals Plan To BAN All Fossil Fuels

I want to go over and address this climate change summit. The cop37 or whatever it’s called in Egypt has allegedly produced some extremely inflammatory rhetoric. Absolutely insane.

The scary reality is that if this rhetoric continues, it could kill hundreds of millions of people. I’m not being melodramatic, this is the cold hard truth.

I want to show you how these people are void of any cost-benefit analysis.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this is intentional, or they intentionally avoid a cost-benefit analysis, or they’re just too stupid. They’re just too emotional.

There’s a complete absence of any type of critical thinking whatsoever.

So a sinking Pacific Island nation issues a historic call for a treaty to phase out fossil fuels. And they did this at this COP27 convention, which we’ll get into later in the above video, where this UN chief comes out and basically calls for the end of all fossil fuels.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Not just gas, oil, diesel, and natural gas. And it’s not just about energy destruction. But also the death and destruction that comes with it. You’re talking about something that would likely eradicate the human race.

Without fertilizer, there would be no food. Buying necessities would be impossible.

How do you build a house that requires fossil fuels?

A tiny population, no greater than a couple of million people maximum, would know how to go back to living in caves and the Stone Age. They’d have to scrape by and find food for themselves where they could. These people would survive. Everyone else. You’re pretty much gone. And that’s not exaggerating.

It is clear that fossil fuels are not only essential to the economy, but to the continuation of civilization itself. These are just facts. Bottom line.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

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