It’s incredible how some old, bad ideas linger on in human minds and make their way through history even or despite having been roundly disproven and everyone just trying to defend them should be laughingstock. However, they persist and camouflage…
Already in 2008, Smart Grids were all the rage. Everything was to become smart but when I hit my first Smart Grid conference in Paris in 2010, I was disappointed beyond any description. What I saw there was as smart…
I was born in 1969 – the year of the moon landing. My parents bought their first black and white television set at the time and they still had it when I went to school. The moon landing was accidentally…
This blog is full of speculation. Why? Because I like to imagine things how they are likely to turn – at least the way I see them. Worry not – this is not a spiritual but rather a spirited journey…
I was born in 1969 into a world that was thrilled with a much less significant event (at least for me). Neil Armstrong strode down the lunar surface with his enigmatic words “It’s just a small …” – well, you…
Let me give you some figures straight. Iran consumes a little more than 30 billion liters of diesel fuel per year to keep its economy chugging on (pulled that from Google). I am not even talking about gasoline here. Because…
In September 1815, 3 leading powers of 19th-century Europe signed a document that gave birth to the so-called holy alliance. At the behest of Alexander I of Russia, the rulers of Austria and Prussia decided that the revolutionary idea fomented…
This blog is almost two years old now and I have been asked multiple times why I avoided the F-word. Let’s clear up that misconception right now – I am not avoiding it. There only was so much else happening…
News on another potential Russian gas crisis is galore. Not a week without page-filling analysis if Russia will cut the gas or Ukrainians will simply resort to stealing or, or, or. All this commenting on the troubles between Russia and…
Anyone knowing this blog and I sure knows the rationale. Diesel is garbage that is incinerated in a driving waste processing plant (the diesel engine). This produces huge amounts of highly toxic side products, which reach us through the exhaust…
Multiple times since I have turned into the Pitbull, I have faced the same questions. How do I get myself into the LNG business? How will I get LNG spot cargo or even a term commitment? What shall I do…
It is hard to ignore Russia in today’s newscast and even those not interested in European energy policy become acutely aware that we Europeans utterly depend on them, the folks from the East, for a large part of our energy…
Some days ago I met an old couple from Düsseldorf on the tram. They were on a Danube cruise from Düsseldorf through the Rhine, the Main, the Rhine-Main-Danube channel, and all the Danube River down to the Black Sea and…
Robert Kennedy said in a 1966 Cape Town speech “There is a Chinese curse which says ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty, but they…
No cash – no business. That’s stone old wisdom. Any LNG venture – even a smallish fuelling outfit – needs a certain amount of cash to get rolling. Most people don’t have the necessary cash in their bank account so…
In the dying days of WW2, the situation in the Führerbunker escalated. Hitler was insane and just like Napoleon in the dying days of his reign, he was pushing imaginary armies across the map. Armies that did not exist. The…
Hydrogen is often being touted as the final solution to all our problems with pollution from vehicles. It does not produce any CO2 (at least not directly) and for that fact alone it’s the darling of the tree huggers. But…
The last couple of years have been thrilling for the Natural Gas business. The single most exciting reversal was the US becoming a potential gas exporter after having enjoyed its position as the future biggest importer of LNG for many…
America rapidly transforms from the energy problem child to become the new energy El Dorado. The economy is pimped by all the investment going to the other side of the Atlantic. The population is blessed with much cheaper fuel and…
LNG is a fringe fuel – or it still is because we can see it becoming mainstream very fast. The old fuelling world is staging a fierce defense battle. And they will not shy back from making it ugly to…
About 3 years ago my old friend Fernando Viveiros brought me to Colombia. I went there on my spree to secure volumes of LNG for EconGas’s GATE commitment which remains unutilized to this very day. Readers of this blog will…