Sam Avro, Energy Trends Insider editor, recently received an inquiry from a reader about the popularity of ethanol-free gasoline in the Midwest. Coincidentally, I recently visited Indianapolis and noticed a large billboard advertising ethanol-free gasoline. I thought I’d share what I found. Much to my surprise, there are about 8,000 gas stations offering ethanol-free gasoline and only … Read more
How Is Crude Oil Formed? It is generally believed that crude oil was formed from the remains of animals and plants (called biomass) that lived many years ago. Over eons, the biomass was covered by layers of mud, silt, and sand that formed into sedimentary rock. Geologic heat and the pressure of the overlying rock … Read more
Breathtaking design and practical, clean technology are merged to give us the greenest skyscrapers the world has seen. Clean technology and green design have both resulted in numerous innovations that continue to push the boundaries of energy generation and efficient resource consumption. Today, urbanization and the increasingly dense populations of the world’s largest cities are … Read more
An article over on CNET titled Got a deck? Solar panels now a plug-in appliance, suggest that you can buy from Amazon.com a 1,000-watt solar panel system that plugs into your wall outlet for only $1,099. I thought they were really on to something until I read the comments: This article was written very poorly. At … Read more
Mining the Coal Coal miners use giant machines to remove coal from the ground. They use two methods: surface or underground mining. Many U.S. coal beds are very near the ground’s surface, and about two-thirds of coal production comes from surface mines. Modern mining methods allow us to easily reach most of our coal reserves. … Read more
How Much Oil Do We Import? As events in Iraq continue to unfold, we have been getting quite a few queries on just how much oil the US imports from Iraq. In my previous post – The Top 10 Oil Producers in 2013 — I showed that even though the US is a major oil … Read more
This week BP (NYSE: BP) released their Statistical Review of World Energy 2014. I have been diving into the report, and as always will write a series of articles based on the latest results. Today I want to provide an update of the world’s Top 10 oil producers for 2013 based on the BP report. Top … Read more
How Much Oil Do We Produce, and How Much Is Imported? The United States imported about 58% of the petroleum, which includes crude oil and refined petroleum products, that we consumed during 2007. About half of these imports came from the Western Hemisphere. The United States consumed 20.7 million barrels per day (MMbd) of petroleum … Read more
Last month BP (NYSE: BP) released the Statistical Review of World Energy 2014. This report is one of the most comprehensive sources of global and country-level statistics on the production and consumption of oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power and renewables. Right after the release of the report, I wrote a short post discussing the highlights. … Read more
Different Situation, But Prices Are Not Unprecedented In a previous column, I pointed out that — perhaps surprisingly — the price we’ve been paying for gas lately, compared to 90 years ago, is not as high as people would think — that is, once the rate of inflation is factored in to the equation. For … Read more