oil prices

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We seem to be headed for collapse, because humans’ growth is so far out of line in relationship to that of other species. In addition, there are many other limits, including the cost of oil extraction and availability of fresh water.[read more]

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Longer-term, oil and gasoline prices remain as unpredictable as ever. However, the trends producing today's weaker prices could have staying power, including the US shale, or "tight oil" upsurge, and fuel economy improvements.[read more]

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With prices for tar sands oil breaking below $60/barrel for the first time since 2010, the fate of the tar sands oil industry seems more tied to the approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline than ever.[read more]

There is ample evidence that spikes in oil prices leads to recession, at least in the US, which is an oil-importing nation. James Hamilton has shown that 10 out of the last 11 US recessions were associated with oil price spikes. How does this happen? An oil product, such as jet fuel, is in some ways analogous to a specialized employee, with skills different from what human employees have.[read more]

A person might think from looking at news reports that our oil problems are gone, but oil prices are still high.Figure 1. US crude oil prices (based on average prices paid by US refiners for all grades of oil based on EIA data) converted to 2012$ using CPI-Urban data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.In fact, the new “tight oil”...[read more]

Prof. James Hamilton of University of California recently wrote a post called Thresholds in the economic effects of oil prices. In it, he concludesAs U.S. retail gasoline prices once again near $4.00 a gallon, does this pose a threat to the economy and President Obama’s prospects for re-election? My answer is no.He looks at a variety of...[read more]

Governments and economists around the world have not figured out that what the world economy is suffering from, to varying degrees, is “high-priced fuel syndrome“.High-priced fuel syndrome has a number of symptoms:Slow economic growth, or contractionPeople in discretionary industries laid off from workHigh unemployment ratesDebt defaults...[read more]

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Are lower oil prices good news? Not really, if it means the world is sinking into recession.We know from recent past experience and from common sense that higher oil prices are a drag oil importing economies, since if more $$$ are spent on the same amount of oil, there is less to spend on discretionary goods and services. In addition,...[read more]

There are growing indications that Wall Street speculators are driving up the price of crude and Americans are paying for their profits at the pump.“Americans overpaid $10 billion dollars for gas at the pump in the last month alone,” said Gene Guilford, president of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association, speaking at a...[read more]

Photo by Guillaume Cattiaux via Flickr

How often have we heard that installing renewable energy sources like wind and solar power will improve US energy security and reduce oil imports? There are other reasons for promoting these technologies, but this one has little substance, because we generate less than 1% of our electricity from oil. Ironically, this logic looks much...[read more]

With the President of the United States currently playing the role of pessimist-in-chief with regard to US energy independence, it's refreshing to see that goal raised as a serious possibility by someone whose experience and position give him deeper insights on the subject. A few years ago Ed Morse was running the oil trading operation...[read more]

While we wait to see whether the next big move in oil prices--and hence gasoline prices--is up or down from today's level of around $125 per barrel, two stories in today's Wall St. Journal highlight some of the challenges facing manufacturers of equipment used to produce renewable energy.[read more]

Without much fanfare, the Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy released a report on 2011 energy commodity prices yesterday. It confirmed that crude oil and key petroleum products set annually averaged price records last year. This largely snuck up on us, because it occurred without the kind of dramatic price spike we experienced in 2008 or in the oil crises of the 1970s. Prices rose early in the year, during the Libyan revolution, and they didn't fall much, subsequently.[read more]

It is a little early to be making predictions for 2013, but here is one: Within 12 months the folly of tying the fate of light vehicle transportation to a single, vulnerable commodity will again become apparent to the American public. When that happens, consumer interest in PEV’s will move sharply in the other direction.[read more]

In ancient Greek mythology, the Hydra was a deadly monster that had many heads.  If one was cut off two grew in its place.    Killing Keystone XL won't stop Canada from developing its tar sand deposit.  Even if no new pipeline crossing the US border is ever approved, US ability to import as much tar...[read more]