LNG terminal

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pages: 483 words: 143,123

The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters by Gregory Zuckerman

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, addicted to oil, Alan Greenspan, American energy revolution, Asian financial crisis, Bakken shale, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, Buckminster Fuller, Carl Icahn, corporate governance, corporate raider, credit crunch, energy security, Exxon Valdez, Great Leap Forward, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, Kickstarter, LNG terminal, man camp, margin call, Maui Hawaii, North Sea oil, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, Peter Thiel, reshoring, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, Timothy McVeigh, urban decay

Local technocrats did their research and received promising reports about Souki’s sites on the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Souki couldn’t get Attiyah or anyone else to sign on the dotted line, however. Cheniere just seemed too tiny and risky. Souki had made a career out of raising cash, but he couldn’t raise a measly $20 or $30 million. There already were four LNG terminals in the United States that had been built in the 1970s, some potential investors noted. Two had been mothballed, and the other two hardly were in use. Who needed another costly LNG conversion facility? Souki, still pitching his crazy idea, flew to a breakfast meeting with Michael Smith at Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel.

Souki described his three-step strategy: Once Cheniere received a permit to build its first plant, Souki planned to find customers willing to give Cheniere lucrative contracts to convert their LNG to natural gas. After Cheniere signed a client or two, Souki figured it would be easy to find backers willing to finance the billion-dollar construction of an expensive terminal and connecting pipeline. After he built one terminal, he’d build a few more. By then, his plan included building four LNG terminals. When he heard Souki’s idea, Smith gave an immediate and blunt reaction. “You’re out of your mind,” he said. “No one’s built an LNG facility in this country in over twenty years. . . . One terminal is a massive undertaking, four at the same time makes no sense.” Just read our plan over, Souki insisted.

The United States needed to become a major importer of liquefied natural gas, he told Congress. The country then could get its hands on cheaper natural gas being produced around the world. Then Greenspan uttered words that could have come out of Charif Souki’s own mouth: “Access to world natural gas supplies will require a major expansion of LNG terminal import capacity,” he said. Alan Greenspan’s speech changed everything for Souki. It was a seal of approval, out of the blue, as if Martin Scorsese had pointed to a struggling actor, ready to give up on Hollywood, as the next Marlon Brando. Within weeks, investors and potential customers gained confidence in Souki’s strategy, helping Cheniere’s stock jump to six dollars a share.


pages: 306 words: 79,537

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (Politics of Place) by Tim Marshall

9 dash line, Admiral Zheng, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, British Empire, California gold rush, Charlie Hebdo massacre, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, drone strike, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hans Island, Kickstarter, LNG terminal, market fragmentation, megacity, Mercator projection distort size, especially Greenland and Africa, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Nelson Mandela, oil shale / tar sands, Scramble for Africa, South China Sea, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, transcontinental railway, Transnistria, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, zero-sum game

The massive boom in shale gas production in the United States is not only enabling it to be self-sufficient in energy, but also to sell its surplus to one of the great energy consumers—Europe. To do this, the gas needs to be liquefied and shipped across the Atlantic. This in turn requires liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and ports to be built along the European coastlines to receive the cargo and turn it back into gas. Washington is already approving licenses for export facilities, and Europe is beginning a long-term project to build more LNG terminals. Poland and Lithuania are constructing LNG terminals; other countries such as the Czech Republic want to build pipelines connecting to those terminals, knowing they could then benefit not just from American liquefied gas, but also supplies from North Africa and the Middle East.


pages: 497 words: 144,283

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 9 dash line, additive manufacturing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Basel III, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, borderless world, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, British Empire, business intelligence, call centre, capital controls, Carl Icahn, charter city, circular economy, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, complexity theory, continuation of politics by other means, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital map, disruptive innovation, diversification, Doha Development Round, driverless car, Easter island, edge city, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, failed state, Fairphone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, Ferguson, Missouri, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, forward guidance, gentrification, geopolitical risk, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Hernando de Soto, high net worth, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, ice-free Arctic, if you build it, they will come, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, industrial robot, informal economy, Infrastructure as a Service, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, John von Neumann, Julian Assange, Just-in-time delivery, Kevin Kelly, Khyber Pass, Kibera, Kickstarter, LNG terminal, low cost airline, low earth orbit, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, mass affluent, mass immigration, megacity, Mercator projection, Metcalfe’s law, microcredit, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Monroe Doctrine, Multics, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, off grid, offshore financial centre, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, openstreetmap, out of africa, Panamax, Parag Khanna, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, Planet Labs, plutocrats, post-oil, post-Panamax, precautionary principle, private military company, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, Quicken Loans, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, rolling blackouts, Ronald Coase, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, telepresence, the built environment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, young professional, zero day

In a supply chain world, Transneft is a quiet executor of connectivity—paradoxically helping Europe win the tug-of-war against Russia. Furthermore, as American LNG terminals switch from gasification to liquefaction to export excess supply across the Atlantic, Europe will soon have a far more resilient energy infrastructure than before the Ukraine crisis. As of 2014, a new floating LNG terminal called Independence has been positioned off the coast of Lithuania, additional LNG terminals are under construction in Poland, and a Danish North Sea terminal can reverse flows to export excess gas imports southward—all of which means that Europe may soon supply more gas to Ukraine than vice versa.

(And unlike oil, there is no gas cartel.) Chevron, which has been operating in Asia for a century, develops almost half the gas reserves of Indonesia, Thailand, and Bangladesh and leads production of Western Australian gas as well—all mostly offshore reserves that require LNG tankers to ship.*4 An LNG terminal network and Asian gas pipeline grid, along with a gas-trading hub to replace rigid contracts with flexible pricing, would together represent the triumph of supply-demand complementarity over geopolitical division.*5 For Asians, “Drill, baby, drill” is a rallying cry for both energy security and regional stability.


The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", 3D printing, 9 dash line, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, addicted to oil, Admiral Zheng, Albert Einstein, American energy revolution, Asian financial crisis, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bakken shale, Bernie Sanders, BRICs, British Empire, carbon tax, circular economy, clean tech, commodity super cycle, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, decarbonisation, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disruptive innovation, distributed generation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, energy transition, failed state, Ford Model T, geopolitical risk, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hydraulic fracturing, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), inventory management, James Watt: steam engine, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kickstarter, LNG terminal, Lyft, Malacca Straits, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, Masayoshi Son, Masdar, mass incarceration, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, new economy, off grid, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, paypal mafia, peak oil, pension reform, power law, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Russian election interference, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social distancing, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Suez crisis 1956, super pumped, supply-chain management, TED Talk, trade route, Travis Kalanick, Twitter Arab Spring, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, ubercab, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, women in the workforce

The first, dealing with natural gas, was to build resilience and greater energy security into the natural gas system and push for the formation of a single gas market for the entire continent. Companies increased connections among pipelines to make it easier to move gas from one part of Europe to another. They reengineered pipeline systems so that the direction of gas flows could be reversed, if needed. Investment in LNG terminals and storage was promoted. “Destination clauses,” which limited the ability to shift gas supplies from one buyer to another, were eliminated. This package of policies and initiatives would end up reshaping the entire European gas system. European policy also aimed at doing away with the traditional rigid contracts that ran twenty years or longer and in which price was indexed to oil.

It wanted “markets,” a world of buyers and sellers, not “relationships.” It was not necessarily against long-term contracts, but it wanted market-related pricing—that is, based on the short-term prices that emerged at the “trading hubs”—the places primarily in the UK and the Netherlands, where pipelines, LNG terminals, and gas trading converged. The EU also wanted contracts to be transparent to prevent what it defined as “anti-competitive” behavior, and it prohibited Gazprom from owning the pipes through which its gas moved across Europe.3 The second major thrust of the EU was around climate, aiming at decarbonization and efficiency and making a rapid march to renewable energy.

She added that Russia would “no longer be able to exert political pressure” by manipulating gas prices. Just to be sure that no one missed the point, the terminal was christened “Independence.” Lithuania’s energy minister tried to be a little more diplomatic. “The Russians are very good people, but it is difficult to negotiate with them,” he said. “We built a small LNG terminal to have a stronger position in negotiations with them. And it worked. Gazprom reduced its price.” A year later, Poland, also until then totally dependent on Russian gas, opened a much larger LNG import terminal.10 Europe now has more than thirty receiving terminals for LNG, which can be ramped up on short notice.


pages: 257 words: 67,152

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein

addicted to oil, An Inconvenient Truth, carbon footprint, clean water, glass ceiling, hindcast, hydraulic fracturing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), LNG terminal, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, profit motive, public intellectual, Saturday Night Live, the scientific method

On Deepwater Horizon—the oil rig that exploded in 2010, killing eleven workers and causing the BP oil spill—the energy went out of control.7 In creating massive amounts of power, there’s always the risk that we’ll lose control of the power. This can mean a nuclear meltdown, a massive fire at an LNG terminal, an explosion in a coal mine, a downed live power line, or even a flying windmill. When energy goes out of control, you can both lose the energy (sometimes permanently) and often lose lives. Obviously we want to avoid this as much as possible. Fortunately, modern technology has made energy production much, much safer.

., 192 Kenya, electricity in, 53–54 kerosene, 73 Kerry, John, 87, 100, 109, 127 Keystone XL pipeline, 9, 190 knowledge, integration of, 28, 33, 113–14, 183 Krupp, Fred, 136 land: for farming, 56, 81–82 and rising sea levels, 130–31 scarcity of, 46, 178 lice, 146 life, and energy, 37–39 life expectancy: and climate livability, 128 and fossil fuel use, 13, 14, 15, 30, 77–78, 77, 119–20 as leading indicator of human flourishing, 119–20 and natural environment, 86 rising, 174–76, 174 Life magazine, 7 Lindzen, Richard, 90 liquid fuel, 55, 68 Lovins, Amory, 9, 12, 194, 196 machine calories, 40–42 Maddison, Angus, 77 malaria, 145–47 malnutrition, 15, 174–75, 174 manure, 82 McKibben, Bill, 135, 178, 197 debate with author, 5, 187–91 dire forecasts of, 8, 22, 108, 127 Eaarth, 31–32 The End of Nature, 30–31, 108 influence of, 9, 189–90, 194 on outlawing fossil fuels, 9, 189 mechanization, oil-powered, 81 media: dramatic stories in, 164–65 on pollution, 6–7, 8 mercury, 165–66 methane, 83 methanol, 68 methyl alcohol, 68 Michaels, Patrick, 90 Miliband, David, 178 mobility, 132–33, 171 models, see computer models Monterey Shale, California, 191 morality, 13 mosquitoes, 145–46 Mother Nature, 86, 128, 129 NASA, on temperature change, 22 natural gas: availability of, 17, 18, 178 consumption of, 11, 18, 44, 44 drilling of, 74 energy from, 3, 66, 69–70 and fracking, 70 LNG terminals, 70 methane, 83 and peak-load electricity, 69 reliability of, 12 resources required for production of, 49–50, 49 and safety, 159 nature: enjoyment of, 170 hazards of, 176 nonimpact on, 194, 195, 199 preservation of, 32, 171–73 pristine, 30 transformation of, 129 Neff, Wes, 190 neodymium, 49 Netherlands, sea level in, 130–31, 134 Newcomen, Thomas, 141 New Scientist, 45 New York Times, 80 97 percent fabrication, 109–11 nitrogen: and coal, 154, 168 plant absorption of, 82, 93 synthetic, 83 nitrogen oxides, 68 no-threshold fallacy, 166–68 nuclear fusion, 195–96 nuclear power, 59, 61–63, 135, 195 government control of, 62–63 opponents of, 9, 54 reliability of, 12 resources required for production of, 49–50, 49 and safety, 61–62, 159, 168 as supplement, 44 Obama, Barack, 109, 206–7 oil: availability of, 17, 17, 178 consumption of, 11, 17, 44, 44 crude, 73 energy from, 3, 61, 71–72 exploration and extraction of, 71, 152 portability of, 71, 72 as raw material, 72, 73, 74 and resource creation, 73 shale, 71 spills, 159 strength to weight ratio of, 71 as transportation fuel, 68, 70, 71, 81–82 oil sands (tar sands), 26, 71 oil wells, first, 73 oxygen, 93 Paracelsus, 166 Parry, Simon, 155–56 peat, 131 Phelps, Michael, 40, 41 philosophy, study of, 5 phosphorus, 49 photosynthesis, 55 plants: and CO2, 92, 114–17, 115, 208 dead, 65–66, 114, 151 energy from, see biomass poisonous, 168 plastics, raw material for, 69, 74, 154 poisons, 62, 166–68 polar melt, 4, 130 polls, limited value of, 27 pollution: catastrophic, 16 legislation of, 160–61 media stories about, 6–7, 8 overregulation of, 158 reduction of, 19, 19, 149–50, 156–59, 199 risks and side effects of, 151–54, 153, 165 smog, 20, 79, 143, 152, 158 polymers, 74 population, growth of, 15, 77–78, 77, 121 positive feedback loops, 99–100 Powder River Basin, Wyoming, 192 power: cost of, 8–9, 63 definition of, 41 and energy, 41 out of control, 152, 159 rationed use of, 9 see also specific sources precipitation, 93 predators, threat from, 128 quantification, use of term, 110 radiation, 97, 168 radiation poisoning, 62 radioactive metals, 61 radioactive waste, 47 railroads, 82 Rand, Ayn, Atlas Shrugged, 138–39 rare-earth elements, 49, 154–55 Reiter, Paul, 146–47 religion, standard of value in, 30 renewability, 181 resources: creation of, 18–19, 73, 75, 180–82, 185, 195 depletion of, 8, 16, 179 evolution of, 75–76 increases in, 16–19, 181–82 proven reserves of, 17, 17 underpredicted availability of, 17–18 Ridley, Matt, The Rational Optimist, 81 Rifkin, Jeremy, 196 risks: and alternatives, 43 and benefits, 15, 28–29, 134 dire forecasts of, 16, 18, 21 media attention on, 15 minimizing, 43, 159–60 Rockefeller, John D., 74 Rokita, Todd, 29 Rolling Stone, 108, 189 Russia, gas from, 69 sanitation systems, 21, 142, 147–49, 148 SASOL, 68 Saturday Night Live, 45 Scafetta, Nicola, 111 scalability, 56–57, 63, 65, 86–87 Schneider, Stephen, 111 scientific method: ethical bind in, 112 and hypothesis presented as fact, 113 sea levels, rising, 4, 95, 106, 107, 130–31 shale energy technology, 191, 207; see also fracking shale oil, 71 Shaviv, Nir, 111 Shikwati, James, 54 silicon, 49 Silliman, Benjamin Jr., 73 SkepticalScience.com, 110 slavery, 41 smog, 20, 79, 143, 152, 158 Socrates, 91 solar cells, 47 solar power: backup required for, 53 concentrated solar power (CSP), 47–48 cost of, 46 cutting-edge promise of, 12 diluteness of, 48–50, 49, 65 energy from, 3 in Germany, 50–55, 51, 52 inadequacy as energy source, 57–58, 135 intermittency problem of, 48, 50–53, 65 niche uses for, 58 process of producing, 46 solar photovoltaic (solar PV), 47 supporters of, 9 unreliability of, 12 world use of, 11, 12, 44, 44 specialists, specialization, 27, 71, 112–14 standard of value, 29–33, 136, 195, 201; see also human life Standard Oil, 74 statistics: about disasters, 120–26, 121–25 cherry-picking, 54 computer models, 100–104, 102, 103, 108, 138 explicit endorsement without qualification, 110–11 hindcasting with, 101, 103 limited value of polls, 27 manipulation of, 17, 29, 99, 108, 109, 111–12 political uses of, 109 satellite data, 120 speculative models, 164–65 steam engine, 68, 74, 141, 142, 184 storm energy, 105, 105 storms, deaths from, 23, 121, 123–25, 123, 125, 128 storm walls, 131 sugarcane, energy from, 56 sulfur, 154, 168 sulfur dioxide, 47, 68, 158 sun, infrared radiation from, 97 sunlight, see solar power Superstorm Sandy, 24, 25 supply and demand, 75 sustainability, 177–79, 180–81 synthetics, 72, 83 technology: abuse of, 162–63 and climate livability, 126–29, 133, 137 development of, 18 energy needed to run, 129 energy needs met by, 34, 128–29, 172–73 opponents of, 196–97 solutions via, 134–35, 156–59, 207 technophobia, 164 temperature inversion, 158 temperatures: and CO2, 22, 23, 108 deaths from, 23, 121 excessive, 128 and greenhouse effect, 22, 97, 102–3 rising, 7, 22, 104 and weather, 93 Tesla Roadster, 72 thorium, 61 3D seismic imaging, 71 Three Mile Island, 62 time, 172, 183, 185–86 titanium dioxide, 49 Tol, Richard, 111 transformation, as moral ideal, 200–202 transportation: cost of, 82 high-energy, 128 improved, 123 travel, 84–85 trucks, 82 tsunamis, 130, 142 tuberculosis, 145, 146, 175 Turkey, hazelnuts grown in, 46 underdeveloped nations, 136–37 United Nations (UN): on energy supply, 26 The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 56–57 United States: air pollution in, 152–53, 153 energy availability in, 41–42 life expectancy in, 128 storms in, 124–25 technology in, 128 zero deaths from drought in, 126 uranium, 61, 196 value: of human life, see human life standard of, 29–33, 136, 195, 201 Washington, George, 147 waste disposal, 21, 142, 147–49, 148 water: bacteria-filled, 128, 142, 145 clean, 19–20, 20, 67, 86 distilled, 167 for irrigation, 83 lesser meaning of, 31–32 purification of, 144, 148–49 quality of, 143–45, 143, 163–64 shortages of, 178 for solar and wind installations, 56 water purification plants, 21 water vapor, 94, 97, 99 wealth, creation of, 18 weather: misrepresentation of, 105–6 storm-related deaths, 23, 121, 123–25, 123, 125, 128 unsettled conditions, 21 use of term, 93 wet mass movement, deaths from, 121 wilderness, pristine, 30 wildfires, deaths from, 121 wind, cause of, 47 wind power: backup required for, 53 cutting-edge promise of, 12 diluteness of, 48 energy from, 3 in Germany, 50–55, 51, 52 inadequacy as energy source, 57–58, 135 intermittency problem with, 48, 50–53 in Netherlands, 131 niche uses for, 58 resources required in, 49–50, 49, 56, 154–55 turbine blades, 49 unreliability of, 12 world use of, 11, 12, 44, 44 wood, energy from, 55, 56 World Bank, 28 Yergin, Daniel, The Prize, 159


pages: 391 words: 97,018

Better, Stronger, Faster: The Myth of American Decline . . . And the Rise of a New Economy by Daniel Gross

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, asset-backed security, Bakken shale, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, congestion pricing, creative destruction, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, demand response, Donald Trump, financial engineering, Frederick Winslow Taylor, high net worth, high-speed rail, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, If something cannot go on forever, it will stop - Herbert Stein's Law, illegal immigration, index fund, intangible asset, intermodal, inventory management, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, LNG terminal, low interest rates, low skilled workers, man camp, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, Mary Meeker, Maui Hawaii, McMansion, money market fund, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, plutocrats, price stability, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reserve currency, reshoring, Richard Florida, rising living standards, risk tolerance, risk/return, scientific management, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, Skype, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, superstar cities, the High Line, transit-oriented development, Wall-E, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game, Zipcar

In 2010 just 3 percent of ethanol production was exported.8 In 2004 and 2005, when U.S. companies were building facilities to allow for the importation of liquefied natural gas (LNG), it was a sign of America’s energy desperation. The thirst for fuel led to a Bad Idea for the Ages: a proposal to set up a floating LNG terminal smack in the middle of Long Island Sound, equidistant between the North Shore of Long Island and the South Shore of Fairfield County, two of the most expensive real estate markets in the nation. It was ultimately abandoned due to environmental concerns. Natural gas signifies vast export potential, and thanks to the advent of hydraulic fracking, U.S. reserves have risen dramatically.


pages: 356 words: 112,271

Brexit and Ireland: The Dangers, the Opportunities, and the Inside Story of the Irish Response by Tony Connelly

"World Economic Forum" Davos, air freight, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, call centre, centre right, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, electricity market, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Thompson, knowledge economy, land bank, LNG terminal, low skilled workers, non-tariff barriers, open borders, personalized medicine, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, tech worker, éminence grise

‘Because all of our electricity and gas interconnections are with Britain,’ Environment Minister Denis Naughten told Reuters, ‘it would be irresponsible of us not to explore all other options.’ In the same Reuters report, EIB Vice-President Andrew McDowell, Enda Kenny’s former Chief Economic Adviser, confirmed EIB interest in both the interconnector, and the development of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal at Shannon that would pump up to 28.3 million cubic metres of gas per day into the Irish grid, further reducing Ireland’s dependency on the UK. ‘The EIB is very conscious that Ireland is uniquely exposed to the economic consequences of Brexit,’ he said. ‘The need to show tangible European support for Ireland is becoming more pressing and the EIB is part of that.’


pages: 501 words: 134,867

A Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice by Tony Weis, Joshua Kahn Russell

addicted to oil, Bakken shale, bilateral investment treaty, call centre, carbon footprint, clean water, colonial exploitation, conceptual framework, corporate social responsibility, decarbonisation, Deep Water Horizon, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, Exxon Valdez, failed state, gentrification, global village, green new deal, guest worker program, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, hydraulic fracturing, immigration reform, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Jevons paradox, liberal capitalism, LNG terminal, market fundamentalism, means of production, megaproject, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, new economy, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, profit maximization, public intellectual, race to the bottom, smart grid, special economic zone, WikiLeaks, working poor

I spent time in Oklahoma working with Sac and Fox Tribal Environmental Protection Agency, under the tutelage of the late environmental justice warrior Jan Stevens, to learn about the legacy of one hundred years of oil and gas on America’s Indian Country—Oklahoma being one of the end-up points of the shameful Indian relocation era. I joined grassroots peoples on the Bay of Fundy in an epic battle against the state of Maine and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer that wanted to build a massive LNG terminal on their community’s sacred site, known as Split Rock. The terminal, had it been built, would have provided natural gas to the city of New York for their power plants. I worked extensively with youth on the Navajo reservation in America’s Southwest who were fighting the Peabody Energy coal mining company, to try to stop the mining of Black Mesa, a source of water and a known sacred site in the Navajo Nation.


Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, Anthropocene, Asperger Syndrome, Bernie Sanders, Bob Geldof, Boeing 747, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, clean tech, clean water, climate anxiety, Corn Laws, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, energy transition, Extinction Rebellion, failed state, Garrett Hardin, Gary Taubes, gentleman farmer, global value chain, Google Earth, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hydraulic fracturing, index fund, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, land tenure, Live Aid, LNG terminal, long peace, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, meta-analysis, Michael Shellenberger, microplastics / micro fibres, Murray Bookchin, ocean acidification, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, Potemkin village, precautionary principle, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, renewable energy transition, Rupert Read, School Strike for Climate, Solyndra, Stephen Fry, Steven Pinker, supervolcano, Ted Nordhaus, TED Talk, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, union organizing, WikiLeaks, Y2K

But that is still twice as high as Australia’s coal mines. As always there is a large range, with some petroleum fields producing as little as 100 W/m2. A typical natural gas well in Alberta, Canada, has a power density of 2,300 W/m2 while the Netherlands’ gas fields have a power density of 16,000 W/m2. A Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminal has a power density of 4,600 W/m2 while a regasification terminal has a power density of an astonishing 60,000 W/m2. Smil, Power Density, 197. 76. Chris Mooney, “Why We’re Still So Incredibly Confused About Methane’s Role in Global Warming,” Washington Post, May 2, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com. 77.


pages: 554 words: 168,114

Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century by Tom Bower

"World Economic Forum" Davos, addicted to oil, Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, bonus culture, California energy crisis, corporate governance, credit crunch, energy security, Exxon Valdez, falling living standards, fear of failure, financial engineering, forensic accounting, Global Witness, index fund, interest rate swap, John Deuss, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, kremlinology, land bank, LNG terminal, Long Term Capital Management, margin call, megaproject, Meghnad Desai, Mikhail Gorbachev, millennium bug, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Nelson Mandela, new economy, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Oscar Wyatt, passive investing, peak oil, Piper Alpha, price mechanism, price stability, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, transaction costs, transfer pricing, zero-sum game, éminence grise

Only Western oil companies possessed the expertise to exploit the field, 342 miles from the shore and containing an estimated 141 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Ever since its discovery in 1988, Russia had dithered about granting a license. Five Western companies believed they had won the Kremlin’s approval in 1990, but two years later the agreement was canceled. In 1995, Norsk Hydro of Norway, Conoco, Total and others were encouraged to consider an LNG terminal in the Barents Sea, but that was also abandoned. In 2000, Gazprom signed agreements with Exxon, Conoco, Chevron and Shell, and in 2005 invited their bids to build an LNG plant, but the following year Putin excluded all the American companies. By October 2006, in the midst of the argument with Shell, Putin had decided that Russia would develop Shtokman itself.


pages: 594 words: 165,413

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

Ada Lovelace, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, financial independence, impulse control, LNG terminal, operational security, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, trade route, Upton Sinclair

The Dallas and the Pogy were still submerged, somewhere aft, sniffing for additional interference as they neared Capes Henry and Charles. Somewhere farther aft an LNG (liquified natural gas) carrier was approaching the passage, which the coast guard had closed to all normal traffic in order to allow the floating bomb to travel without interference all the way to the LNG terminal at Cove Point, Maryland—or so the story went. Ryan wondered how the navy had persuaded the ship's skipper to fake engine trouble or somehow delay his arrival. They were six hours late. The navy must have been nervous as all hell until they had finally surfaced forty minutes earlier and been spotted immediately by a circling Orion.


pages: 777 words: 186,993

Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani

"World Economic Forum" Davos, addicted to oil, affirmative action, Airbus A320, BRICs, British Empire, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, carbon credits, carbon tax, clean water, colonial rule, corporate governance, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, distributed generation, electricity market, farmers can use mobile phones to check market prices, flag carrier, full employment, ghettoisation, glass ceiling, global supply chain, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, informal economy, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), joint-stock company, knowledge economy, land reform, light touch regulation, LNG terminal, load shedding, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, market fragmentation, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, open economy, Parag Khanna, pension reform, Potemkin village, price mechanism, public intellectual, race to the bottom, rent control, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, Silicon Valley, smart grid, special economic zone, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, unemployed young men, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population

In India itself new gas discoveries in the Krishna Godavari basin and in Cochin are quickly driving up our total reserves—Reliance Industries’ oil and gas discoveries in parts of the Krishna Godavari basin, it estimates, could supply 40 percent of our domestic production. Dr. Nicholas Stern thinks that these finds make an ambitious nationally networked gas infrastructure viable. “Encouraging LNG terminals and pipelines on both sides of India and extending the country’s gas pipeline should be a core energy strategy,” he says. In fact a complex, intricate grid for piped gas is emerging across the country. And once there is a gas grid in place, we will see economies of scale taking over, with CNG networks into homes and into outlets for buses and cars, and more gas-powered plants.