David Nield — Huge Global Study Just Smashed One of The Last Major Arguments Against Renewables

Think "money" is the biggie. Think again. Energy is real game changer. 

"Money" is to the fore right now, but soon it is going to be energy. Keep your eye on energy technology. The world is in the process of scaling down carbon-based energy use and scaling up alternatives. 

The industrial revolution took off with the coal-fired steam engine that powered steam ships, and railroads and factories. The harnessing of electricity and coal-fired power plants enabled the proliferation of factories and the widespread use of lighting, lengthening the day. The introduction of petroleum-based energy made automobiles and aircraft possible. The standard living of societies was measurable in the amount of energy use.

Shifting among energy sources and scaling up alternatives to replace carbon is a huge challenge. So is replacing petroleum as transportable energy. Batteries are only one solution. This article sets forth another.

Science Alert
Huge Global Study Just Smashed One of The Last Major Arguments Against Renewables
David Nield

Gordon M. Hahn — Russia, the West, and Recent Geoeconomics in Europe’s Gas Wars

Gordon M. Hahn explains why he concludes that Russia is poised to win the gas wars at this point, while the US is in a weak position.

Russian and Eurasian Politics
Russia, the West, and Recent Geoeconomics in Europe’s Gas WarsGordon M. Hahn, analyst and Advisory Board member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, member of the Executive Advisory Board at the American Institute of Geostrategy, a contributing expert for Russia Direct, a senior researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Akribis Group, and; and an analyst and consultant for Russia – Other Points of View

Brad DeLong — Nikola Tesla

It is traditional to talk about Thomas Alva Edison. The most famous inventor in the world, "the wizard of Menlo Park", New Jersey, registered more than 1000 patents and founded 15 companies—including what is now called General Electric. But that story is too well-known. Let’s talk about Nicola Tesla instead....

If you look at a chart of economic growth relative to energy usage, it is understandable why Nikola Tesla is arguably the most important person in the economic history of humankind, having pioneered alternating currency as the basis for the modern power grid and inventing the induction motor to make it useful. Tesla and Westinghouse's AC beat out Edison's DC system in that it was more efficient. The world now runs on AC.

The world from space at night, illuminated by the electric power grid, is Tesla’s world.

See also William Nordhaus on the falling cost of artificial light, Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not.

Grasping Reality
Nikola Tesla
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Ruslan Ostashko — Did the EU just sign off on Ukraine's last winter?

 

Pipelines and why they are crucial. Europe has no domestic energy resources.

Fort Russ

Did the EU just sign off on Ukraine's last winter?
Ruslan Ostashko, PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski

Alexey Anpilogov — Global Energy Forecast: Oil, Gas, Fusion or War?

Ukrainian energy expert's (pessimistic) assessment of where global energy is heading.

For Russ
Global Energy Forecast: Oil, Gas, Fusion or War?

Alexey Anpilogov, Zavtra.ru (original in Russian)
Translated by Kristina Kharlova

John Hellevig — Sberbank CEO German Gref is wrong about Russian economy

The CEO of Russia’s biggest bank, the state owned Sberbank, German Gref delivered a scathing criticism of the country’s economy at an economic forum in Moscow 15th January. According to Gref, the biggest trend in the world economy is the “end of the hydrocarbon era”. He willingly shares the belief peddled in the Western media that Russia has foolishly relied on an economic model based on export of oil and gas while neglecting to develop its industry and modern sectors of the economy. Russia is thus doomed, Gref points out, to rank among the “downshifter countries” shedding their wealth as the oil money drains.

Strange enough, Gref contends that the dramatic fall in the price of oil is due to the “radical changes in global energy consumption patterns.” Obviously, no coherent analysis of the problem and its possible solutions can follow from such faulty premises. The drop in the oil price has certainly not been caused by any shifts to alternative energy sources and it is dubious if there has been a decrease in consumption at all beyond the effect of the overall downturn in the world economy. In reality, the sharp fall in the oil price reflects this global downturn, coupled with the over-supply caused by North American speculative investment in new oil wells fueled by zero-financing lending to super risky, and the sanctions trade wars…

Awara Blog
German Gref is wrong about Russian economy

John Hellevig

Ramez Naam — Why Energy Storage is About to Get Big – and Cheap

Storage of electricity in large quantities is reaching an inflection point, poised to give a big boost to renewables, to disrupt business models across the electrical industry, and to tap into a market that will eventually top many of tens of billions of dollars per year, and trillions of dollars cumulatively over the coming decades.

Why Energy Storage is About to Get Big – and Cheap

Ramez Naam

ht Brad DeLong

Salman Rafi Sheikh — The Iran deal and the Western Geo-Politics

Geopolitics, geostrategy, and energy resources. Doesn't it always come down to oil and gas?

It is apparent that the deal with Iran is going to have repercussions at global level. The reason for this is involvement of all major powers in this issue directly or indirectly. It is not out of a sudden that Iran has emerged as a strategic necessity for the US and the EU. This change has necessarily emerged due to the collapse of the US-EU-Russian relations due to the former’s interference in Ukraine to restrict the rise of Russia. The deal is, as such, as much a part of the West’s new containment policy as of the new outlook towards the Middle East—-the erstwhile home to all sorts of conflicts: political, strategic, economic, ethnic and religious. 

 New Eastern Outlook
The Iran deal and the Western Geo-Politics
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

Ajay Shah — Can India leapfrog into decentralised energy?

India woke up to telecommunications through the reforms of the late 1990s: the power of DOT was curtailed, VSNL was privatised, private and foreign companies were permitted, new methods of working were permitted. At the time, wired lines were mainstream and wireless communications was novel. However, setting up wire lines in India is very hard. India leapfrogged, and jumped into the mobile revolution for both voice and data. The concept of not having a land line at home was exotic in the US when it was normal in India. In similar fashion, India was an early adopter of electronic order matching for financial trading, and of second generation pension reforms: these things became mainstream in the world after they were done in India. 

Could similar leapfrogging take place in the field of electricity?

Game-changer.

This can be done since it is already being done in off-the-grid housing in many countries, including the United States, where building out the grid would be profitably expensive unless it were subsidized. Less expensive to subsidize decentralization, which California undertook some time ago with a 50% credit initially and later scaled back.

There are now university level programs in sustainable living in the US, as well as non-profits dedicated to promoting sustainable living. A wide range of products and services is also available commercially.

It's happening. Moreover, the issue of scale is minimized since decentralization through on-site and local provision are fundamental. The only issue of scale is producing enough products and training enough service people to meet the growing need. This, of course, provides a host of new job opportunities.

Surprisingly (or not) Shah does not mention negative externalities in his market-based analysis, although he does mention positive externalities. When negative externalities are accounted for, the true cost of carbon-based energy is far higher than the market price, and the difference is being socialized. That is uneconomic as well as anti-social.

Ajay Shah's blog
Can India leapfrog into decentralised energy?
Ajay Shah

F. William Engdahl — Iran and a Possible New Energy Geopolitics

Read this with the Michael Pettis post linked to recently. While Engdahl is way out of paradigm with MMT, he correctly summarizes the thinking of important factions geopolitically not only in Iran but also Russia, China, Europe and the US. This is very likely why Foreign Policy, the organ of the Council on Foreign Relations, requested Pettis to write an article on it.

Actually, the first country to adopt this view publicly was the French government of Charles de Gaulle. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing coined the term "extraordinary privilege" about the US as issuer of the global reserve currency as a result of the Bretton Woods agreement. But while the economic effect being the issuer of the global reserve currency may be overblown, there is political truth to it.

Much has been made of the economic advantage this gives the US, with many believing that US hegemony stands or falls with it. Michael Pettis debunks that myth. However, since most world trade is conducted in the USD, and the US controls the international and financial institutions that underlie global commerce, the US gains significant geopolitical power that it can bring to bear geostrategically, for example, through sanctions and declaring states or groups terrorist or criminal organizations. This is a large part of current resistance to use of the dollar as a global standard. This resistance is real and there are real reasons for it in addition to the myths about extraordinary privilege economically and financially.

I suspect we will be hearing much more about these matters from the pundits, so it's good to understand the fundamentals behind the thinking. Geopolitics is based not only on global economics, but also perceptions of global economics, in which the perception is taken to be the reality even through it may be wide of the mark. The result will then be geostrategy and tactics that not only miss the mark but may result in unintended consequences, or even boomerang back.

And the matter is greatly complicated by the relationship of global finance to energy, which is the vital resources driving global politics both economically and militarily. Since WWI, the great powers have understood that whoever controls energy resources controls global politics economically and militarily.

New Eastern Outlook
Iran and a Possible New Energy Geopolitics
F. William Engdahl

Scott Belinski — Putin May Have Last Laugh Over Western Sanctions

Both Yamal LNG’s move to China and Russia’s newfound partnership with India are key steps in Moscow’s plan of undermining Western sanctions. What has become clear is that emerging powers and partners of Russia are more than willing to fill in the gap that has been left wide open by fleeing Western investors. For its part, the US, which recently gave indication that it saw no end to sanctions until Crimea was returned to Ukraine, might run the risk of allowing political aims to weaken its own economic output, specifically the future growth of its bulging energy industry sector.

While US economic sanctions have unwantedly brought Russia and its Asian partners closer together than ever before, De Margerie was always quick to point out the obvious: “Can we live without Russian gas in Europe? The answer is no. Are there any reasons to live without it? I think […] it is a no”. While EU member states and the US government are striving to sway Putin from his present course in Ukraine, they should also think about the unintended long-term consequences that foregoing collaboration with Russian companies in the arctic would have for their own economies.

As stated a by senior analyst at the Forex Club, Alyona Afanasyevna, “times of crisis always present the possibility to strengthen one’s position in a certain market” and while other international companies flee the scene, Total’s commitment to Russia and to Novatek’s Yamal LNG plan, “guarantees it future dividends in the form of closer cooperation”. Western governments and other energy companies should take note.

Oilprice.com
Putin May Have Last Laugh Over Western Sanctions
Scott Belinski, Moscow-based energy consultant

Red Pill Times — Vicky Nuland said it best, “F*** the EU.” Gazprom will send all gas to Europe via Turk Stream

Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller made the announcement on Wednesday and Europe just had a major coronary.…

Victoria Nuland must be a psychic or something…because her “F*** the EU” statement is about as precise a summary of Europe’s overall situation as you can get.

Red Pill Times
Vicky Nuland said it best, “F*** the EU.” Gazprom will send all gas to Europe via Turk Stream

Alexpt

Michael Hudson — Pipeline Politics

Video and transcript. Short.

Pipeline Politics

Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City

Pepe Excobar — "Turk Stream": Huge Win for Turkey - Big Win For Russia - Historic Loss for EU

So the EU “defeated” Putin by forcing him to cancel the South Stream pipeline. Thus ruled Western corporate media.

Nonsense. 

Facts on the ground spell otherwise. This “Pipelineistan” gambit will continue to send massive geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia for quite some time.…

Russia Insider
"Turk Stream": Huge Win for Turkey - Big Win For Russia - Historic Loss for EU
Pepe Excobar

Also

Deep Resource
Russian-Turkish Rapprochement

Sebastian Anthony — Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline

The researchers are very careful about not actually saying that cold fusion/LENR is the source of the E-Cat’s energy, instead merely saying that an “unknown reaction” is at work. In serious scientific circles, LENR is still a bit of a joke/taboo topic. The paper is actually somewhat comical in this regard: The researchers really try to work out how the E-Cat produces so much darn energy — and they conclude that fusion is the only answer — but then they reel it all back in by adding: “The reaction speculation above should only be considered as an example of reasoning and not a serious conjecture.” 

Anyway, now that we’ve got the necessary cynicism/scrutiny out of the way, let’s get down to what everyone’s really interested in: The utterly insane amounts of energy produced by the E-Cat.…

Breakthrough, or more of the same?

Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline
Sebastian Anthony

Merijn Knibbe — Already!

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Already!
Merijn Knibbe

Zero Hedge — Europe Goes "All In": Will Sanction Rosneft, Gazprom Neft And Transneft

Raising the stakes in what's beginning to look like a winner takes all game with the Global North facing off against the Global South. Has a decision been taking to go for permanent dominance now instead of letting the opponents get stronger, which many Western strategist think was the mistake after WWII in not confronting the USSR and China when the Allies were still dominant militarily and the US had "the bomb." It's pretty certain that this is the way that some geostrategists are going to be thinking about it.

Zero Hedge
Europe Goes "All In": Will Sanction Rosneft, Gazprom Neft And Transneft
Tyler Durden

The Guardian — Putin likens Ukraine's forces to Nazis and threatens standoff in the Arctic

Amping up the rhetoric.

The Guardian
Putin likens Ukraine's forces to Nazis and threatens standoff in the Arctic
Shaun Walker in Mariupol, Leonid Ragozin in Moscow, Matthew Weaver and agencies

The world situation is now pretty clearly focused on the West's addiction to energy. China is a major consumer, too, and it will be serviced by Russia and Iran, likely creating an economic alliance opposed to Western interests.

BBC News — Russia warns EU of Ukraine gas shortage

Russia says there is a risk that gas shortages this winter could force Ukraine to siphon off supplies of Russian gas meant for EU customers. 

Ukraine's gas reserves have reached a "critical" state, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. 

He was speaking after talks in Moscow with EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger. The EU is anxious to ensure secure gas supplies for the winter.

Well played.

BBC News
Russia warns EU of Ukraine gas shortage

Anatole Kaletsky — China-Russia is a match made in heaven, and that’s scary

Western analysis of the geopolitical and geostrategic significance of the Russian-Chinese rapprochement sparked by the crisis in Ukraine. One sided but insightful.

Reuters
China-Russia is a match made in heaven, and that’s scary
Anatole Kaletsky | Chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, founder and co-chairman of GaveKal Dragonomics, an economic consulting and asset management group based in Hong Kong and Beijing, and a columnist for Reuters and the International Herald Tribune
(h/t Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism)

Kaletsky is an out of the box thinker who proposes that apparently intractable problems can be solved by leapfrogging, on the assumption that nothing is written in stone so all institutions are potentially adaptable to changing conditions through flexibility. See his, Suddenly, quantitative easing for the people seems possible

Last week I discussed in this column the idea that the vast amounts of money created by central banks and distributed for free to banks and bond funds – equivalent to $6,000 per man, woman and child in America and £6,500 in Britain – should instead be given directly to citizens, who could spend or save it as they pleased. I return to this theme so soon because radical ideas about monetary policy suddenly seem to be gaining traction. Some of the world’s most powerful central bankers – Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank last Thursday, Eric Rosengren of the Boston Fed on Monday and Mervyn King of the Bank of England this Wednesday – are starting to admit that the present approach to creating money, known as quantitative easing, is failing to generate economic growth. Previously taboo ideas can suddenly be mentioned.