The following guest post was written by the staff of Global Intelligence Report. SITUATION: Japan is advancing with plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and boost its external nuclear exports. These decisions will impact the […]
How the RFA Wastes Your Tax Dollars – Part II: Blatant Dishonesty and a Debate Challenge
In Part I we saw that the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) pays for shoddy studies and then cites them to fear-monger into getting more tax dollars. Hypocritically, when they are challenged with a critical point […]
How the RFA Wastes Your Tax Dollars – Part I: How Much is a Job Worth?
Over the next two posts, I will examine some of the tactics used by the Renewable Fuels Association to justify keeping the $6 billion ethanol subsidy that was made almost entirely redundant when the the […]
Book Review: The Impending World Energy Mess
I actually had low expectations for The Impending World Energy Mess by Robert L. Hirsch, Roger H. Bezdek, and Robert M. Wendling. Not because I thought Robert Hirsch and company would put out a sub-par […]
Cellulosic Ethanol Reality Begins to Set In
Delusional Mandates It is hard to believe that just a few short years ago, Congress mandated a massive increase in usage of cellulosic ethanol. This was remarkable, because no commercial cellulosic ethanol facilities even existed […]
Rank the Top 10 Energy Stories of 2010
Platts’ annual survey of the Top 10 Energy Stories of 2010 is now open and will remain open until Christmas: The top 10 survey: what were the biggest oil stories of 2010? They listed about […]
Addressing Oil Company Subsidies
Following my recent essay on the elimination of the VEETC, the major ethanol subsidy in the U.S., some ethanol supporters argued for continuing the subsidies because oil companies receive subsidies. There are many versions of […]
Taxpayer Subsidized Ethanol Exports May Bite Industry in the Future
Ulterior Motives Behind the Ethanol Pipeline? Ethanol producers in the Midwest have lobbied for support to build a pipeline to ship their ethanol to the East Coast. As I have argued, given that the market […]
Addressing the Ethanol Rhetoric Over the Expiring VEETC
The Ethanol Rhetoric Ramps Up It has been interesting to watch the flurry of ethanol rhetoric since the recent elections. With the $0.45 per gallon subsidy (called the VEETC) and the ethanol tariffs both set […]
Inside Shell’s Bintulu GTL Plant
Bintulu. For many people involved with gasification, that word often invokes a specific image. In fact, colleagues know when I say “Bintulu” that’s shorthand for Shell’s Bintulu, Malaysia gas-to-liquids (GTL) facility (officially, the Shell Middle […]