A global energy crunch caused by weather and a resurgence in demand is getting worse, stirring alarm ahead of the winter, when more energy is needed to light and heat homes. Governments around the world are trying to limit the impact on consumers, but acknowledge they may not be able to prevent bills spiking.
But severe weather in the coming months would create huge strain — particularly in countries that rely heavily on natural gas for energy production, like Italy and the United Kingdom.
We mostly rely on firewood for heating our house, and it's paid for, so no problems there. We will see an increase in the electricity bill, gasoline prices will go up and probably inflation will be higher overall.
(Common Dreams) More than half of workers in the global oil and gas sector say they are interested in pursuing employment in the renewable energy industry—a promising development that comes as experts say the pace of the worldwide transition to clean power must speed up to stave off the worst consequences of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.
That's according to a report published Tuesday by the recruitment firm Brunel and Oilandgasjobsearch.com, which includes a survey showing that 56% of fossil fuel workers want to pursue employment in the renewable energy sector, up from 39% last year.
Despite receiving trillions of dollars in subsidies each year, as well as additional bailout money during the Covid-19 pandemic, oil and gas companies responded to the coronavirus-driven decline in demand and prices by firing tens of thousands of workers, rather than furloughing them while production decreased.
Now that demand and prices are on the upswing, many of those same companies are reportedly finding it difficult to rehire the employees they need to increase supply.
According to the survey, 82% of recruiters said that for every 10 job openings, one has remained unfilled for more than three months. Due to a shortage of qualified candidates, 10% of fossil fuel industry employers have had to pay retirees to take open positions.
There is also hydrogen. maybe not something that can solve shortages in 2021, but something that can become a larger part of the mix in the relatively near future:
Renewable Fuel for the Supersonic Air Force One of the Future
by Tina Casey
November 30, 2021
(CleanTechnica) The US Air Force has been nosing around the area of fossil-free jet fuel for years, and the latest candidate takes the concept into the rarified territory of electrolysis. If all goes according to plan, the jet fighter of the future will grab renewable fuel on-the-go from modular systems that tease hydrogen and carbon from water and air.
Beyond Plain Old Renewable Fuel
The electrolysis approach is a sharp departure from previous efforts to shake the US military free of fossil fuels for air and marine craft. Just a few years ago, everyone was all excited about producing jet fuel from renewable resources like algae oil, used cooking oil, and other bio-based resources, including a sort of fermented biofuel cocktail. At one point it seemed like the whole Department of Defense was pursuing bio-based, fossil-free fuel alternatives for aircraft and watercraft, too
…
Hydrogen is a zero emission fuel but it is not a renewable fuel — yet. The global supply of hydrogen comes primarily from natural gas. However, it appears that the hydrogen supply chain is set to undergo a sea change.
Hydrogen is beginning to claim new status as a renewable fuel, thanks largely to the steep and still-falling cost of wind and solar power. That has made it commercially feasible to extract hydrogen from water through electrolysis, which involves applying an electrical current. Electrolysis systems tend to be scalable, which means you could produce hydrogen practically anywhere a supply of water and electricity from renewable resources are available. Local supplies of biogas, wastewater, and other bio-based resources could also be used as hydrogen feedstock.
Gas prices, which have been steadily rising for weeks as the conflict in Ukraine has escalated, hit a new high in the United States on Tuesday.
The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline reached $4.173 on Tuesday, according to AAA, surpassing the previous high in July 2008, when the national average was $4.114. The prices are not adjusted for inflation.
Tuesday’s average represented an increase of about 72 cents from a month ago, including about 55 cents in the past week.
President Biden on Tuesday announced a ban on importing Russian energy into the United States. Russia is a major producer of oil and natural gas, and Western countries had been avoiding Russia’s energy sector when imposing sanctions, conscious of the potential economic pain it could bring at home. But Mr. Biden had come under increasing pressure from Congress to cut off Russian oil.
U.S. consumers have been feeling the squeeze, even though the United States imports relatively little oil directly from Russia. In California, prices for some types of gas hovered around $6 in previous days; on Tuesday the state average was well over $5. Mr. Biden has tried to brace Americans for the sticker shock. In a February press briefing before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said: “I will not pretend this will be painless.”
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
MIAMI (AP via Latino Rebels) — Senior U.S. officials secretly traveled to Venezuela over the weekend in a bid to unfreeze hostile relations with Vladimir Putin’s top ally in Latin America, a top oil exporter whose re-entry into U.S. energy markets could mitigate the fallout at the pump from a possible oil embargo on Russia.
The outcome of the talks with President Nicolas Maduro’s government wasn’t immediately clear.
The surprise visit came together after months of quiet backchanneling by intermediaries —American lobbyists, Norwegian diplomats, and international oil executives— who have been pushing for Biden to revisit the failed “maximum pressure” campaign to unseat Maduro he inherited from the Trump administration.
But the impetus for a risky outreach to Maduro —who has been sanctioned and is indicted in New York on drug trafficking charges— took on added urgency following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing U.S. sanctions, which promises to reshuffle global alliances and add to rising gas prices driving inflation already at a four-decade high. Powerful Democrats and Republicans alike on Capitol Hill last week began voicing support for a U.S. ban on Russian oil and natural gas imports as the next step to punish Putin over the invasion.
The U.S. delegation was led by Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, according to two individuals briefed on the visit on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. policy. He was accompanied by Ambassador James Story, the top U.S. diplomat in Caracas when the Trump administration broke off relations with Maduro in 2019 and recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate president.
Across the country, including the Chicago area, gas prices are soaring, and quickly, but how high could they go?
The price of regular gas broke $4 a gallon on Sunday for the first time in nearly 14 years and is now up nearly 50% from a year ago. Monday's national average of $4.104 per gallon broke a record for the all-time high, though that is not adjusted for inflation, according to GasBuddy.
The previous record was set in 2008, when prices averaged $4.103 per gallon. When adjusted for inflation, however, the record price would be equal to about $5.24.
Still, even that's a number some experts fear could be broken.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
Recently exploring what would happen if gas prices reached $10 a gallon, an MSN Money columnist predicted thousands of truckers going out of business, airplanes sitting idle, and scores of restaurants and stores shutting down. On the rise would be car-pooling, hybrid vehicles, inline skates, telecommuting, rooftop vegetable gardens, home cooking, recycling, and solar and nuclear power.
According to Todd Hale, senior vice president of Consumer Shopping & Insights, Nielsen Consumer Panel Services, at $10 a gallon, the average family’s gas bill would leap from 16 percent of its retail spending to about 40 percent. Consumer spending on eating out, apparel, electronics, and vacations would fall sharply. Businesses and farmers would be squeezed by rising costs of transportation, petrochemical fertilizers and plastics. Food prices alone could jump by a third or more.
Although Goldman Sachs last month predicted gas prices may rise to as much as $5 a gallon if the U.S. economy and dollar doesn’t improve, prices in the U.S. are nowhere near $10. But consumers are already clearly altering their habits as gas prices soar...
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
Well, I think one of the repercussions will be further entrenchment of telecommuting into something that will be a cultural staple of our society from this point on.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
Another effect would be an acceleration toward renewables and in the use of hybrid and electric vehicles. Especially electric vehicles as consumers might just skip past hybrid and go directly to electric. There would also be a greater incentive to retrofit for conservation purposes as well as installation of more solar panels and windmills. Hydrogen powered vehicles and generators might also see an increase. Fusion might be a little too far off to be put into production, but R&D in that source would increase.
(The Conversation) What could ease this shock?
As I see it, the key players that can help curtail this price shock are OPEC – mainly, Saudi Arabia – and the U.S. For these entities, holding back oil supply is a choice. However, there’s no evidence yet that they are likely to change their positions.
Restoring the Iran nuclear deal and lifting sanctions on Iranian oil would add oil to the market, though not enough to greatly reduce prices. More output from smaller producers, such as Guyana, Norway, Brazil and Venezuela, would also help. But even combined, these countries can’t match what the Saudis or the U.S. could do to increase supply.
All of these uncertainties make history only a partial guide to this oil shock. Currently there is no way to know how long the factors driving it will last, or whether prices will go higher. This isn’t much comfort to consumers facing higher fuel costs around the world.
(Common Dreams) While millions of working people have been hurt by surging gas prices, a new analysis out Tuesday shows that 25 of the world's biggest fossil fuel corporations collectively pulled in an "eye-popping" $205 billion in profits last year—and Big Oil is exploiting Russia's war on Ukraine to charge even more at the pump in 2022 and advance its financial interests.
According to a new report from government watchdog Accountable.US, top oil and gas companies took "full advantage" of last year's sky-high prices and record profits. Fourteen firms rewarded shareholders with more than $35 billion in stock buybacks and dividend bumps.
As the report details, Big Oil has been bragging to investors about its windfall profits on recent earnings calls. Chevron, for instance, called 2021 one of its "most successful years ever." Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden described it as a "momentous year." Meanwhile, Coterra CEO Tom Jordan characterized high gas prices as "good," and Equinor CEO Anders Opedal marveled at how the industry has been "capturing value from high prices."
Last year's record profits came as average gas prices in the U.S. steadily increased—hitting around $3.40 per gallon in December 2021, up from $2.10 a year before. As consumer demand rose last year following a brief coronavirus-driven decline in 2020, shareholders pressured fossil fuel corporations to restrict supply to drive prices higher.
caltrek's comment: While that article rightly calls attention to the negative environmental consequences of this development, it does further illustrate that the loss of fossil fuels to the West from Russia is far from all bad news for U.S. corporate interests. In discussing sanctions upon Russia, some on this forum would have you think otherwise. Of course, all of this is small comfort for those of us facing higher prices at the gas pump as well as for countries that rely heavily on imports of fossil fuels to meet their energy needs.
Question?
I wonder who provides that warranty on panels, will they be around in 20 years?
Does the setup include batteries capable of running the house electrical/AC needs through the night, or does it start pulling from the grid?
(Common Dreams) As President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered the release of one million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months in a bid to reduce surging gas prices, Public Citizen released a report that details how Big Oil is intentionally creating "pain at the pump" to boost profits.
While the fossil fuel industry has tried publicly to pin the blame for soaring gas prices on the Biden administration's ostensibly strict environmental regulations, oil executives have admitted behind closed doors that they are suppressing production to maximize shareholder returns.
"Oil and gas companies lost a ton of money between 2010 and 2020, mainly by borrowing way too much to fund an expansion of drilling using expensive oil and gas fracking technology," Alan Zibel, fossil fuels research director at Public Citizen and author of the report, said in a statement. "The result was unsustainable overproduction and massive losses when oil prices plunged, as they did two years ago at the start of the pandemic. Now the industry is keeping production down and making consumers pay."
After a brief coronavirus-driven decline in 2020, demand returned, but shareholders pressured oil producers to restrict supply to push prices higher. Last year, as average gas prices in the U.S. steadily increased—hitting around $3.40 per gallon in December 2021, up from $2.10 a year before—25 of the world's biggest fossil fuel corporations raked in a record $205 billion in profits.
Oil and gas companies have hiked prices even further during the first three months of 2022—especially in the three weeks since Biden announced a U.S. ban on imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, leading to growing accusations of war profiteering. The average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is now hovering around $4.23.
(Bloomberg) U.S. President Joe Biden wants oil drillers to pay penalties when federal leases go unused in an effort to prod the industry into pumping more.
The White House will call on Congress to “make companies pay fees on wells from their leases that they haven’t used in years and on acres of public lands that they are hoarding without producing,” the administration said in a statement on Thursday. “Companies that are producing from their leased acres and existing wells will not face higher fees.”
The proposal threatens to widen the gap between Biden and oil explorers who say his administration’s anti-fossil fuel agenda is partly responsibly for chilling investment in new oil wells. The White House has pushed back, saying the companies are plowing the windfall from $100-a-barrel crude into shareholder dividends and buybacks rather than new drilling that would help tamp down sky-high gasoline prices.
The idea got a powerful backer Thursday. Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a staunch defender of fossil fuels and a key vote in the chamber, said that leasing fees are too low and he would be open to raising them.
“You can hold the lease for almost nothing from the federal government,” Manchin told reporters. “You can’t do it in the private sector. Just make them comparable.”
