By Ellen Wald Yesterday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report warning that global carbon dioxide emissions are on track to increase by 5% this year.  The organization predicts that emissions will increase by 1.5 billion tonnes and this will be the “largest single increase in more than a decade.” This sounds dreadfully scary, but a look at the actual numbers reveals that this is just hyperbole. In fact, the IEA predicts that global carbon dioxide emissions in 2021 will...

As energy policy in the United States (and other places) continues to be driven by narrative and lobbyists instead of facts and reliability, ERCOT in Texas has a strange week this week: they issued two power warnings asking customers to conserve energy. In April. Now, I love the great state of Texas but I tend to avoid it in July and August (and June and September) owing to the heat. But April.... is the most pleasant time of year. This...

By Ellen Wald A trio of environmentalist advocacy groups—Greenpeace, Earthworks and Global Witness—have jointly complained to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about advertisements from Chevron that they claim overstate Chevron’s investments in renewable energy and exaggerate its commitment to cutting pollution from fossil fuels. The environmental groups accuse Chevron of unlawfully deceptive advertisements and greenwashing. The complaint was filed a month ago, and has flown under the radar, but could actually turn out to be a much more influential action...

By Ellen Wald In a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for a “minimum global corporate income tax” and said the Biden administration planned to work with the G20 on this issue. Now, the Biden team claims to be working on a global floor for corporate income taxes, though this would go against the interests of most other countries. The Biden administration can’t be so naïve as to think that...

This week, we are joined by Chris Bird of Exponent Energy. Chris was featured in April 2020 in an article in Bloomberg that talked about the great short. We revisit the lockdowns, the short thesis, what’s changed, a look at commodity prices go forward and the federal reserve, its impact and what comes next. Podcast Audio   https://youtu.be/tmhMVogEwE8   About Chris Chris has worked in the oil and gas industry as a Petroleum Engineer since 2008, including time as a District Engineer for BlueStone Natural...

I support intellectual consistency. Everyday. So here are some ideas to consider: If we allow forced vaccinations by employers, we should also allow forced sterilization. We shouldn’t have young productive workers distract themselves from work by pesky children (plus humans contribute to CO2 emissions). If businesses can only serve “those vaccinated”, they should also be able to serve “only non whites.” If I am biologically a man but can identify as a woman, I should be able to identify...

Pioneer continued to show “they get it” when they acquired DoublePoint for a slightly eye popping $6.4B. With $0.9B of assumed debt and $1B in cash, the rest was with equity so 2/3 of the price is a “relative value” and “macro” play on oil prices, buying ~80 mboe/d (roughly $2B PDP) and 95,000 acres ($46k/acre, but DoublePoint had a lot of minerals so nets are likely high). Not surprisingly, I like the deal a lot. All the rock in...

I'm reading 3 "books" right now: Bill Gates "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster", Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and Biden-Harris's "We call it 'infrastructure' but that's not really what we're spending it on." My takeaway? I think we should embrace that the planet is likely going to continue to warm and that humans will (as we always have) simply adapt. The trade offs to get to net zero are not possible. They simply aren't. We are throwing money at...