The White House might be gaping in shock that the US federal court overturned the six-month drilling moratorium, but it really isn't all that surprising. Amid the finger pointing and political posturing, the Obama administration seems to have missed a vital detail – the US oil industry is in a spot of bother.
[Read more...]What Powers Your Google?
June 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
- What do search engines and wind energy have in common? That's the question a lot of investors were asking earlier this month, when Google made an almost US$40 million investment into NextEra Energy Resources, a North Dakota wind energy firm. The simple answer: more than you think.
It's not surprising that the Internet search-engine superstar needs energy. Companies like Google own massive computer frameworks, known as server farms, to store all that digital data floating around in cyberspace. While Google is quite hush-hush about how many computers it owns, estimates put it at about 1,000,000 servers (almost 2% of the world total), and an enormous amount of power is needed to keep them running constantly. And as cyber-information grows – almost 24 hours of video footage is uploaded onto YouTube every minute – more and more computers are required to store and distribute it.
[Read more...]Cheap Oil is Gone, and Thats Good News
January 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Over the next year or two, you will likely find yourself paying a LOT more at the gas pump. Big changes are taking place in the oil industry. With increased global demand and declining supply, easy oil is not so easy anymore.
Everything is about to get more expensive. From gasoline to anti-freeze, life jackets to golf balls, and eye glasses to fertilizer. There are very few things in the modern world that arent made from oil, made by machines dependant on oil, or shipped by vehicles powered by oil.
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The Upside to a Natural Gas Downturn
Isaac Newton showed us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is why every downside force in the energy sector creates upside opportunities elsewhere. The challenge is finding them. It takes an understanding of the entire global energy machine to figure out what areas are benefiting from the changing landscape.
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