http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com Just another Foreignpolicyblogs.com weblog Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:51:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Last year, Tim DeChristopher, a student in Utah, bid $1.8 million he did not have in a federal oil lease auction. He won the leases. He stated he did it to protect the environment and to prevent further global warming, arguing that the danger from this drilling was too great ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/19/how-to-challenge-a-gas-or-oil-lease/ Perhaps it is a complete coincidence that Brazil experienced a massive blackout affecting 60 million people only days after last week’s 60 Minutes showed a segment on cyber attacks on infrastructure including banks, internal governmental computer systems and power grids. In it, they mentioned a previously successful attack on a ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/16/electricity-and-the-future-of-war/ Last week, it was revealed that the supposed informant in the bribery case against the Ecuadorean officials deciding the $27 billion pollution case is a convicted felon. (Conspiring to traffic 275,000 pounds of marijuana, sic-ing his pit bull on a woman.) It doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s lying about the bribery ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/09/ecuador-and-chevron-another-round/ For at least three decades now, personal wealth has been a political asset. In both the industrialized and developing worlds, in the words of Deng Xiaoping of China, “to get rich is glorious.” Money was access to political power, political power (especially in the developing world) access to money. I ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/08/money-the-morning-after/ In the past couple days, the New York Times has published two stories about new energy. In one about new controversial gas drilling in Colorado, The Times is pretty clearly against drilling. There is a risk of pollution (there always is an environmental cost in all energy, including green energy). ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/03/the-aesthetics-of-energy/ Remember the fable of the grasshopper and the ant? The ant toils away storing grain for winter, while the grasshopper parties through the summer and dies of starvation in the winter. Something like that is happening in Chile. Chile is the world’s largest copper producer. Like several resource-rich countries --- especially ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/02/bachelet-and-chiles-sovereign-wealth-fund/ Let us now all mourn the passing of Paul Bloom. Who? I hadn’t heard of him either till he died. So I took a few moments to research. Why should you care that he died? Paul Bloom was one of those bureaucrats who --- to many people who do not want to be bothered ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/01/the-passing-of-paul-bloom/ This is “Upgrade Your Electric” week for the Obama Administration.  First, the President announced a $3.4 billion upgrade for the US electric power grid. Then yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the State Department had decided to help Pakistan upgrade its electricity to prevent the frequent outages. These electricity ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/10/29/electricity-as-power/ Right now, with oil rising to $80 a barrel, it is important to recognize that the price of oil does not reflect the value of oil but the value of the dollar. There is still fairly weak demand for oil. Meanwhile, the fate of the greenback is being tugged in different ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/10/27/oil-and-the-dollar/ I hope the new Nigerian peace plan works. For years, Nigeria has been the poster child for everything that can go wrong when a country discovers oil. Instead of the prosperity, thousands have died violently, the country’s infrastructure has crumbled, the Niger River delta has been environmentally devastated, the army ... http://energy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/10/24/will-the-nigerian-peace-plan-work/