Energy Outlook
Natural gas cars: A look under the hood
With U.S. natural gas production booming, and the price of natural gas right now lower than the price of gasoline or diesel fuel, some are asking: Why don’t more of our cars run on natural gas? Compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles – the most common type of natural gas vehicle – have been around for…
Mandating the impossible: The EPA and cellulosic ethanol
Here’s a New Year’s resolution worth making: Let’s not mandate the impossible. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency did just that last week, setting new quotas for 2012 that will require the nation’s refiners to add 8.65 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol to America’s fuel supplies. The only catch: America doesn’t have the cellulosic ethanol to meet that standard.
The Outlook for Energy in the United States
At this time of year there is no shortage of commentators and pundits who will look back on 2011 – but rather than do the same on this blog, let’s instead look ahead at what the future holds for America’s energy. For that, I turn to ExxonMobil’s Outlook for Energy, released earlier this month. The published version of the Outlook focuses mostly on global energy trends to 2040. But as part of putting together the Outlook, ExxonMobil also takes a detailed look at individual countries, including the United States. Here are some of our findings.
How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?
This may seem like a strange question to ask, considering iPhones obviously are charged with electricity, not gasoline. But the answer speaks to why gasoline and other liquid fuels will remain an important part of the energy mix in the future. In ExxonMobil’s recently released Outlook for Energy, we predict that by 2040, about 90 percent of the global transportation fleet will still be powered by liquid petroleum fuels – that is, gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
New report looks at future energy trends and transitions through 2040
For the past week, I’ve been sharing some of the most interesting current energy stories through the Daily Beast’s “Energy Tweet Sheet.” Naturally, most stories focus on what’s going on in the energy industry now – from supply and demand to markets and prices. But the story of the future of energy is about technology, progress and prosperity. ExxonMobil’s just-released Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040 takes a look into the future and finds that technology advancements over the next three decades will produce greater supplies of energy, more diverse supplies of energy and new ways to save energy – all of which will be essential to meeting future energy demand.
New natural gas possibilities
There’s an interesting story in yesterday’s New York Times about the growing potential for natural gas as a source of power generation, in light of the recent nuclear power incident in Japan. In the coming weeks and months, the discussion will continue – here in the U.S. and in countries around the world – about the decisions and investments that have to be made to meet future needs for reliable, affordable, and safe energy.
