Chief Scientist & Professor of Exploration Geoscience, Heriot-Watt University
Assistant Professor, Durham University
Chair of Urban & Regional Planning and Director of Canberra Urban & Regional Futures, University of Canberra, Visiting Professor, University of Warwick
Associate Professor in Biophysics, University of Pretoria
Production
Turkey to launch second Cypriot drillship
Turkey’s energy minister Fatih Donmez has told Turkish television that Ankara will send a second drillship to look for gas in maritime territory that is seen as within the Republic of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Dolmez said of Greek-Cypriot efforts to drill for gas: “Turkey will not accept any unilateral action in this region.” […]
Transmission
Equinor commissions offshore wind platforms
Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor is working with Oslo-based Kvaerner to study ways to design and build a floating concrete substructure for wind turbines at the 88-megawatt Hywind Tampen project in the North Sea off Norway’s coast. The floating farm, which is due to use photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and large batteries, is being […]
Storage
EU targets derail VW plans
Volkswagen says it must sell 600,000 more electric vehicles per annum to comply with carbon dioxide emissions goals released by the European Union this week. Under the goals, car manufacturers must reduce their carbon dioxide emissions in new fleets by 15 per cent by 2025 and 37.5 per cent by 2030. Light commercial vehicle emissions […]
Consumption
Serbs eye gas future through twin pipelines
Serbia’s energy agency says Azerbaijan is seen as a potentially cost-effective source of gas imports. In a document, the agency says, along with Russian gas imported by Gazprom, a “potentially cost-effective source of natural gas in the Republic of Serbia, as well as in the region of southeast Europe, is natural gas from Romania” and […]
Policy
Pence targets EU’s Iran policy
The US vice president, Mike Pence, has accused France, the UK and Germany of trying to sabotage Donald Trump’s oil and gas sanctions against Iran and called on the three nations to follow Washington in withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear agreement. In a blunt attack on traditional allies, Pence told a summit in Warsaw that […]
Environment
Scotland re-launches tidal energy prize
A European hotbed of renewable innovation, Scotland, has re-launched a £10-million prize fund to boost tidal energy, as recent technological advances have sparked renewed interest in the sector. The north of Scotland has some of the world’s leading tidal firms, such as Orkney-based Orbital Marine Power and Nova Innovation and Simec Atlantis Energy’s Meygen project […]
Industry
Single-use plastic bans could damage environment: BP
The 2019 BP Energy Outlook argues that a global ban on single-use plastics, including packaging, by 2040 could have the unintended consequence of increasing the carbon emissions that cause climate change. The report said alternatives to plastic packaging, like glass, could require more energy to produce and transport and would, therefore, prove more environmentally damaging. […]
Opinion
Book Review: ‘Energy Kingdoms’ Explains Why Gulf States Must End Free Energy
At the office tower where I worked, colleagues propped open lobby doors when they went outside to smoke so that they could feel a steady blast of artificially chilled air. —Jim Krane, Energy Kingdoms, p. 5 Outdoor air conditioning and cigarettes are an extraordinary combination these days. Only in a political economy as extraordinarily rich […]
Double Trouble: the Pitfalls of Parallel Pipelines
Oil and gas pipelines may now be popular news items, but that wasn’t always the case. Geopolitics is one reason: the closure of natural gas pipelines through Ukraine since 2006 has made Europeans more keenly aware of their dependence on Russia for their energy security. Climate change is another: the environmental movement and political left […]