-
2 weeks ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
Rare Earths And Economic Security The issue is that the U.S. imposition of tariffs on China, in a dramatic trade war, has recently led China to ban the export of heavy earth metals to the U.S. Why is this an issue? Rare earth metals are important for energy security and economic advancement.
-
3 weeks ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
An oilfield operator who owns small stripper wells in Oklahoma is nervous. A long-time Republican, Andrew was initially happy with President Trump’s mantra of drill, baby, drill. But then he realized that more drilling by big oil companies would lower the price of oil, which was what Trump wanted to offset inflation. Then came the on-again, off-again tariff games that are a new threat to oil price. Andrew lamented, “I just don’t know anymore.
-
1 month ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
President Trump issued new executive orders, on Tuesday April 8, 2025, that would try to reverse the decline of the coal industry in the U.S. This about-face for coal is driven by the administration’s goal to become number 1 in the world of AI (artificial intelligence). The success of AI depends on data centers that store billions of words and pictures, and data centers need a huge amount of electricity to run. How much electricity?
-
1 month ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
So why is the oil and gas industry interested in providing electrical power that can be generated by gas turbines? First, learned industry people are predicting peak oil around 2030; oil declines after this. Second, natural gas is likely to grow, particularly LNG (liquified naturel gas). But there are headwinds: uncertainties in LNG due to such long-term investments, and solar/storage batteries are now cheaper than new-build gas power plants.
-
1 month ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
Global Electricity Consumption. So why is the oil and gas industry interested in providing electrical power that can be generated by gas turbines? First, learned industry people are predicting peak oil around 2030; oil declines after this. Second, natural gas is likely to grow, particularly LNG (liquified naturel gas). But there are headwinds: uncertainties in LNG due to such long-term investments, and solar/storage batteries are now cheaper than new-build gas power plants.
-
1 month ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer |Yessar Rosendar |Naazneen Karmali |Jonathan Burgos
Mike Cannon-Brookes is cofounder and CEO of collaboration software firm Atlassian, based in Sydney. He and cofounder Scott Farquhar started the company soon after graduating from college, funding it with credit cards. In 2023, he took over Sydney based renewable energy outfit Sun Cable. It was a joint venture with fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest but they fell out. He acquired a minority stake in Australian energy company AGL Energy in 2022. In 2023, he separated from Annie, his wife of 13 years.
-
1 month ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
Recently, President Trump declared an energy emergency, which turned out to be an electricity crisis presaged by huge amounts of electricity needed to drive up to 5,000 new data centers in the U.S. to enable AI expansion. To resolve this crisis, President Trump, through Chris Wright his Secretary of Energy, has turned to natural gas and therefore gas-fired power plants.
-
2 months ago | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
BP has been a leader in the energy transition since 2020, when its goal was 40% renewables by 2030. This was reduced in 2023 to 25% renewables by 2030. The new Annual Report, based on 2024 results, has again lowered its commitment to renewables, and by a substantial amount. “We plan to grow the upstream, focus the downstream and invest with discipline in transition.”The overt reason is that BP’s stock has risen less than other oil majors during 2024.
-
Feb 10, 2025 | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
President Trump announced recently the US had an energy emergency. Is Trump right? No, based on good data. President Biden four years ago announced a climate emergency via his “existential crisis”. Was he right? No, the data show it’s not existential, which means threatening human existence. So is there an emergency? Yes, and the specific emergency is electricity. The rise of artificial intelligence, or AI, is based on data centers that can process trillions of data, words or photos.
-
Jan 30, 2025 | 
forbes.com | Ian Palmer
Takeaways Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) is the third in a series of energy transition innovations becoming a golden age. The other two are LNG and grid-scale battery storage. This vision can be embraced by the oil and gas industry looking to diversify to emissions-free operations. In 2024, field testing by FORGE and Fervo, supported by DOE, have proven EGS to be viable technically, and scale-ups should be viable commercially.
