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Technology that combines food waste with cow manure to produce renewable natural gas or RNG is becoming popular. Black Rock is buying Vanguard Renewables, a company that does this in Vermont for $700 million and investing another $1 billion for RNG production. Trapping methane emissions is part of the program put forward at COP26 Glasgow.

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Economy Minister Habeck says- "Our energy system will be structured differently: we will have 80% renewable energies by 2030."  Germany will close its last 3 nuclear plants this week. Germany is shutting down all nuclear energy when other countries are increasing reliance on nuclear energy. Westinghouse is building Poland's first nuclear plant. Britain, France and Finland are increasing nuclear energy with its very low carbon emissions. Biden administration in the US is backing the building of a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors. Mr. Habeck the Economy minister says for the short term Germany has its natural gas storage tanks half full with the winter heating season over. New LNG terminals and imports help replace Russian supplies. In the long term Germany is way ahead in renewable energy than other countries and will craft its own solution in its own way.

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Exxon is looking for a big oil dealer in the shale patch in the US. It is considering the acquisition of shale company Pioneer Natural Resources with a market cap of $49 billion. Exxon wants to make use of its windfall profits of the last year to good use. An acquisition of Dallas based Pioneer would give Exxon a dominant position in the West Permian basin of Texas and New Mexico. Exxon made windfall profits of $56 billion in 2022 after the jump in oil prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Based in Irving, Texas, it is heavily invested in fossil fuel assets and its thinking is that fossil fuels are here for a long time as it has not made a significant shift to renewable energy. During the cutoff of Russian oil supplies Europe has depended on LNG supplies from the US and Qatar, and on Norway for increased oil and gas supplies. President Biden included drilling concessions in some of the legislation passed in Congress and Conoco plans to drill in Alaska. The transitional period has gained support in places like the US and Norway following the need to support the European Union and Germany in the crisis. This gives oil companies some time to sort out their future plans for renewable investments. ...

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The Potential Gas Committee 2013 report showing the U.S. has 2384 trillion cubic feet of natural gas resources. The report did not identify the resources that can be extracted at a reasonable cost. This figure is 90 times the gas used in the U.S. in 2012, and about 26% higher than a report by the same industry group in 2010. About 20 companies have applied for permits to export liqufied natural gas from the U.S. to other countries.

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Russell Gold's interview with Shell CEO, Jack Voser. Voser describes his perspective on the global oil situation in the next three decades with a doubling of demand in 40 years, a third of which would come from renewables and 10% from nuclear, the rest from fossil fuels. Natural gas plays a large role in Shell's future strategies. Voser sees the potential of China's shale gas supplies being larger than the U.S., with clearer energy policies than the U.S. The cost of producing China's shale gas will be higher because of complex geology. He sees the potential for the reindustrializing of the U.S. midwest with the abundant shale gas supplies, bringing back jobs that were exported to other countries. Clear standards and regulations are needed to make investments. He thinks it will be very unusual if the U.S. did not grasp this opportunity. Shell's operations generate $470 billion in revenues and its capital budget for 2012 was $32 billion, providing enormous scale and requiring careful planning for long term projects in Australia, Africa, Canada and the Middle East....

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Chevron CEO John Watson says the U.S. needs more affordable energy, and this means it needs to find more fossil fuels. It needs more oil gas and coal. He says the U.S. should take advantage of its own fossil fuel resources. People want strong environmental standards, but as Watson puts it, their top most priority is affordable energy which creates economic growth and jobs. He criticizes the Obama administration for not pushing ahead with developing of U.S. offshore oil, because BP's problems were not systemic and industry wide. He calls for dramatically increasing U.S. oil production, and doing this immediately. Worldwide Chevron plans to invest $26 billion for its exploration budget, and plans to drill in Australia, Western Africa, Gulf of Thailand and other locations. Watson points out that the dynamics of oil production are affected by two factors, price and technology. With current prices at over $100 a barrel more oil is accessible. At these prices new technologies can make it possible to use existing older wells to increase production. He cites the example of Bakersfield, where steam flooding is helping get 70 to 80 barrels out of every 100 barrels in the ground, when in the past Chevron could only get 10-20 barrels of oil. Another technology he mentions is hydrofracking for producing large and cheap supplies of natural gas. Chevron acquired Atlas Energy for $3.2 billion in 2010 to enter this market. Watson's overall emphasis is on the U.S. going for affordable energy and affordable conservation that will create economic growth and a better future....