“Since at least 1989, Mr. Lynch has made a career of poo-pooing any concept that oil supplies might be finite and that we might find production capability dropping as demand continues to rise…. [Oil supply] not an issue? Do you expect to be dead and gone in the next 4 to 8 years?”
– Charles Armentrout, “Lynch Poo-Poos Peak Oil,” LastTechAge, February 2, 2011.
It is entirely appropriate to recognize an intellectual victory, particularly when a confident, even arrogant, mainstream was overcome. In the case of Peak Oil, the victor is Michael C. Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, a Massachusetts-based consultancy.
Lynch has held a number of research positions at M.I.T. and was chief energy economist at DRI-WEFA. He currently blogs at forbes.com, and his publications have appeared in six languages, focusing on petroleum supply, energy forecasting, and energy policy.…
Continue Reading“While commercial operations would take time to start, India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has struck the first shale gas in a pilot project at Ichhapur in Burdwan, West Bengal. Its drilling started on October 27, 2013, with ConocoPhillips, which helped ONGC in providing technical help in well planning and data evaluation stage. In addition, ONGC has spudded one more well for shale gas and oil exploration in Gandhar area of Cambay basin.”
Shale gas can emerge as an important alternative source of energy in India. Identified shale-gas formations are spread over several sedimentary basins of the country, such as Cambay, Gondwana, Krishna Godavari Onland, and Cauvery. Shale oil is less developed. [1]
Shale gas is important because India wants to add natural gas’s 7 percent share of its energy basket, now filled with coal and oil.…
Continue Reading“Perhaps in a new free-market era the functional equivalent of an anti-Lois Lerner will investigate such rent-seeking entities as the Regulatory Assistance Project. Meanwhile, be warned: RAP may soon be coming to a Public Service Commission or environmental program near you, if they haven’t been there already.”
The Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) may be one of the most influential “clean energy” not-for-profit organizations you’ve probably never heard of. RAP’s long-standing general policy to keep off the radar screen may be changing as this organization becomes emboldened by their own rhetoric. But behind the scenes, RAP is effectively demoting gas-fired end-use technologies, including cogenerated power capacity, in favor of renewables and forced efficiency that favors electrification.
In the beginning, RAP was involved with electric utility rate-case proceedings before state utility commission’s in the area of “energy efficiency.”…
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