Reality Check - All Comments

re: Coming Energy Taxation

sanasawa — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:41:14 GMT

Your politicians arent arguing for raising taxes to save the planet, but pretends the planet needs to be saved in order to raise taxes.

//someone-from-Sweden

re: Coming Energy Taxation

Marc — Sat, 02 May 2009 08:45:57 GMT

Is there a podcast version of Reality Check?

re: Coming Energy Taxation

Karen — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:21:53 GMT

Jim and Richard you talked about several tax items, is there anywhere to get the list of 10 with a definition of each and perhaps a status on each. Have they been enacted or are they just proposed?

re: Coming Energy Taxation

TC — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:54:40 GMT

I have always been a firm believer in taxing something you want to use less of, and encentivising something you want more of. If the federal government is trying to reign in consumption then we should increase the tax on the consumer. If we are trying to prevent companies from increasing supplies of domestic energy then these taxes make a lot of sense. I wonder how many oil and gas producers are profitable in this environment?

re: Coming Energy Taxation

Linda — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:20:41 GMT

I'm so proud of you two guys for doing this series. After growing up in East Texas where the Black Giant oilfield was primarily emptied out supplying 90% of the oil for World War II, I see those surrounding towns being little more than antique shops now. We had a good thing back then. But we don't seem to learn how to take care of our resources in this country.

The same attitudes are in play today. The same shooting ourselves in the foot. I hope that the programs you're putting out for public consumption will help change policies of this country.

Please don't stop trying. Some of us are listening.

re: Energy Planning in an Uncertain Environment

David Wilson — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:23:34 GMT

Hard to believe that these firms can actually survive with crude inventories so high and natural gas at multi-year lows.

If I were a CEO, I'd just curtail refinery production and slow down drilling just to make enough money to pay the bills, and wait for higher prices. Too bad all this good oil is getting sold and consumed at these ridiculously low prices. We are squandering a scarce asset, I don't know why these oil CEO's don't recognize that they have a scarce asset and they should be hoarding right now. In a few years, there won't be much left to hoard, all the easy stuff will have been pumped out.

re: Energy Planning in an Uncertain Environment

John — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:39:42 GMT

I guess right now we still need to be convinced about the demand supply story. Some people argue demand has fallen off a cliff others e.g. like EIA demand charts indicate this is not the case.

Now it seems in 2009 estimates of demand will be some 2 m b/d lower than last year. Add to this the natural decline rate according to IEA from existing fields of som 9%, 6% after heavy (and I guess by now postponed investments) and its really hard to figure out why we're currenly trading at these low price ranges.

re: Energy Planning in an Uncertain Environment

Tim — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:02:59 GMT

Somehow I don't think supply and demand is going to run this show. I also think you need to look carefully at what the Obama adminstration is doing both with the EPA and with Cap and Trade. They are effectively going to regulate the energy space and cause prices to go back up very quickly. This should be good for the oil and gas companies that are having trouble planning. As the price rises many of the projects on hold or cutting back will be brought back on line.

re: Energy Planning in an Uncertain Environment

Stanley — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:41:27 GMT

Matt makes some very good points, it is very difficult to plan forward if you cannot depend on market and price. However, here is a role the government could play in securing our energy future. The government wants to put subsidies into alternative energy. What if we decided to focus on Energy instead. Perhaps the government should be more concerned about developing domestic sources of Energy and less concerned with what type of energy. If we are truely experiencing a pull back from the edge, basically caused by Peak oil, we need to get serious right now.

re: Energy Planning in an Uncertain Environment

Fred — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:47:50 GMT

I am very interested in what Matt Simmons has too say, but the resolution of the video/viewgraphs is almost too low to be able to read, and certaintly not comfortable viewing. Can you improve?

re: Energy Planning in an Uncertain Environment

Daniel Myers — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:48:23 GMT

listen to webcast

re: The Worlds Biggest Bet

TC — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:32:58 GMT

The US economy will rebound far more quickly than the media seems to believe. Reporting bad news brings better ratings. Having said this i am not sure that the two necessarily are related. With low prices consumption will go up, causing prices to go up. With the addition of cap and trade prices will go up. With the added restrictions and lack of tax breaks the oil and gas boys will sit on thier hands and prices will go up. This means that if you are in the oil and gas economy good times are coming back fast.

re: The Worlds Biggest Bet

Jim — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:56:28 GMT

The coming energy crisis may be delayed for many years due to collaspe of the American and EU economies. The producing nations will at some point stop taking paper money for real goods. China has been providing vendor financing for their production. That will change and our lives will forever be different. Bye bye high standard of living and an ever increasing number of cars.

re: The Worlds Biggest Bet

Mark Thomas — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:51:51 GMT

Matt is remarkably cogent and brilliant, as typical. But, it is enormously distracting to hear "basically" about a bazillion times in his talks. Surely, he can get over this "crutch?"

re: The Worlds Biggest Bet

Mathew — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:26:45 GMT

I don't know if anyone noticed but Reality Check previous videos are now avaiable on the World Energy Web site. It is kind of fun to compare Jim and Richard from last year to thier latest. You guys are really getting good.