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Money Down a Hole

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It’s long been Barataria’s position that energy independence, followed closely by a decrease in reliance on limited resources, is a very wise policy. The key question is resilience, which is to say the economy’s ability to weather any storm and still provide basic services. Food and energy should not become expensive overnight because of political concerns or currency shifts.

Getting to this point is a bit more controversial, however. Even the paltry $29B spent in 2013 as subsidies for renewable energies has become a political football. That amount comes to $236 per household, which is to say about 5% of what we spend on defense. Nevermind, it seems like a lot.

But according to a new study by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), that’s almost exactly what we spend in subsidy to fossil fuels. And by global standards we’re actually doing far more than our share.

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Putin, Khameni, Netanyahu – and March

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A game of chess has been waged for decades over a part of the world that has seen more than its share of similar games over the last 2,000 years. Turkey, as the crossroads between continents, has always been at the heart of many games of geopolitical intrigue that have sometimes flared into war. Lately, however, the flares have been gasflares ignited along its periphery – valuable fuel often burned as a by-product with nowhere to go.

The game this time is all about putting a pipeline across Turkey to bring that natural gas into Europe. And for a variety of odd reasons, March is a critical month for how it will be played out. The key players are all sources of natural gas – Russia, Iran, and Israel. We will likely know in a month just who wins and who loses.

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No Longer Driven by Oil

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A new international war has started in the Middle East as Syria continues to burn. Russia is slowly being strangled by international sanctions that are now cutting off their ability to produce and sell oil. With all of this happening in the world, something remarkable is happening to the price of oil – it’s dropping.

How could this happen? The short answer is that the US continues to move towards energy independence, producing its own oil while consumption is stagnant. It’s a good thing, all in all, but it means that the environmental degradation that was once found only in distant lands, and conveniently ignored by nearly everyone in the US, is now upon us. What can we do?

There’s a decent chance that the free market will actually sort it all out – once it’s been properly regulated to account for the environmental damage, that is.

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