Month: March 2022

The UK prime minister said last week that he may consider shifting to nuclear power to offset rising prices of natural gas, which have spurted up by about 150% in Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine. This price increase is more than double. This would also support UK’s strong climate stance of net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — because nuclear power delivers green energy. However, it’s not so clean in other respects – see below. But high-energy countries have been shifting away from nuclear and toward natural…

Canada’s oil producers have been struggling to grow for years. Lack of export routes outside the United States and pressure from the government and regulators have combined to stifle any serious growth ambitions in the oil sands. All this changed earlier this month as oil prices soared to over $100 and the U.S. ban on Russian oil imports automatically triggered a surge in demand for heavy Canadian crude. Bloomberg reported this week that demand for drilling rigs in Canada has jumped to the highest in years. Before the pandemic, Canadian…

To compensate for Washington’s ban on energy imports from Russia, imposed in response to the war in Ukraine, US officials have quietly made overtures to an antagonistic pair of oil producers, Iran and Venezuela. It is too early to tell whether the unorthodox attempt to make up for the oil-supply shortfall will bear fruit. So far, the main result of the administration’s endeavors has been a pushback from Republicans and Democrats alike, along with stern warnings from Venezuelan and Iranian opposition groups about the dangers of hasty overtures to the…