Welcome to The Energy Blog, the CEE’s online forum for all things energy! Launched in 2020, the Blog is an open and interdisciplinary space featuring short reflection pieces informed by the latest energy research from the Centre and beyond. We explore key energy issues of contemporary relevance: from legacies of energy industries to the future of nuclear power, from the politics of gas infrastructures to the potential of hydrogen. Our contributors include geographers, historians, social anthropologists, ecologists, physicists, and even astronomers. We are always keen to hear from new contributors, so if you have an idea to pitch, please write to us at [email protected].
by Mette M. High and Sean Field
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, demand for crude oil fell suddenly. The pandemic exposed the logistics and storage constraints of the US landlocked oil infrastructure that was oversupplied by domestic and imported crude. But it also raised fundamental questions about the role and importance of financial trading on the futures market.
by James Crooks
The production of energy through the burning of biological materials has been considered a renewable, reliable and even relatively clean alternative to the use of fossil fuels. However, as the industry has grown these claims have faced increased scrutiny; critics have claimed that biomass on a large scale has negative long- and short-term environmental impacts not only on pollution but on biodiversity generally. So we have to ask: is biomass an energy source of the future?
Across the world, energy systems are making the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. This energy transition, unlikely as it may sound, is influenced in a small but meaningful way, by whaling. This post considers how findings from environmental research conducted in collaboration with a small whaling community in the Caribbean provide key evidence for the healthy and sustainable benefits of renewable energy systems, especially in the context of small island developing states.
When half the world struggles with inadequate electricity supply, what happens when we have too much energy? In this post, I look at situations in which overcapacity leads to a “renewable overkill”, creating landscapes of abandonment where wind turbines and other renewable energy projects lie as stalled, prevented or temporarily stranded assets.
by Mette M. High and Sean Field
When WTI crashed on 20 April 2020, the COVID-19 crisis with its associated drop in energy demand exposed the serious limitations to the oil infrastructure in the US. How are financial valuations of oil tied to the specifics of place? And how do the material dimensions of moving and storing oil inform the dynamics of its trade?
by Sean Field and Mette M. High
In a world that has been described as ‘petromodern’ and with oil as its beating blood, how can oil trade in negative prices? And how does this highlight the relationship between the physical and virtual dimensions of oil markets?
The global pandemic we are currently living through has plunged us in a state of unprecedented crisis. From the way we live our lives, carry out our work, care for our loved ones, the fundamental structures of our society and our economy have been shattered to the core.
When I am asked about energy, about fracking, about activism, my mind wonders to an unusual suspect amidst my fieldwork notes, pictures and memories: a hand knitted blanket, a patchwork of the stories from the people that I have met.
by Anna Seeger
Whilst many political leaders appear to prioritise the health of citizens over economic growth during this pandemic, why have they not prioritised the health of the planet over economic gains in the face of climate change?
