Falling oil prices are good for the US economy, right? I can fill up my tank for less, and the inflation rate won’t be quite so bonkers, right? James Hamilton on the dark side: But really the key question for purposes of assessing the economic consequences of falling oil prices is, Why did oil prices …
There’s a hint of fall in the air right now. They’re roasting chiles across the street from my parents’ house, and the temperature dropped below 60 a couple of times this week (16C). I’ve been working on a piece for the paper on energy-saving steps you can take to get ready for higher natural gas …
From today’s Albuquerque Journal*, a thoughtful discussion of the risks posed by the current lack of regulation of desalination of deep brackish groundwater in New Mexico. The backstory is significant interest in drilling into deep aquifers around Albuquerque, bringing up brackish fossil groundwater, cleaning it up and using it to support continued growth that might …
Apparently, when the price of something goes up, consumption goes down. Who knew?
The United States has undergone a remarkable petroleum belt-tightening in the face of rising oil prices. We’re down 800,000 barrels per day over the first six months of 2008 compared to year-ago numbers, the largest drop in 26 years, according to EIA. But in global terms, oil consumption continues to rise despite the 2008 price …
Looks like those darn speculators are messing with the price of oil again: The latest data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed a large jump in bets by hedge funds on oil prices falling.
My bird of the week (bird of the day?) is the Lazuli bunting, a lovely little blue seed-eater that showed up at the feeder this morning. According to both Sibley and the Cornel bird site, we live at or just beyond the southern edge of Lazuli bunting’s summer range, so what we’ve really got here …
I’m not a serious birder, but I’ve gotten totally hooked lately on eBird. I heard about it from Chris Witt, the UNM ornithologist I wrote about last month. It’s run by Cornell and the Audubon Society, and provides a platform for birders to enter their observations. It makes it easy to keep your lists, and …
So here’s my question of the day. We have two dominant Little Brown Bird types here – house finches and house sparrows. At home yesterday, I had only finches in backyard. At work, the crowd by the lunch tables is entirely sparrows. What’s different about the two ecosystems? (Note that I don’t expect actual answers.)
Kurt Zenz House lays out the reasons to both laud France’s insight 30 years ago to go nuclear, as well as be concerned: So today, France looks rather smart. It acted decisively in the 1970s to limit its dependence on fossil fuels, and now it’s better positioned than any other non-oil-exporting power to deal with …