Energy Editorials

Geothermal power is a highly reliable source of clean, renewable power.  This is a feature that utilities such as CFE, looking to increase their share of renewables in the energy mix while maintaining secure supply, already find attractive.  Despite the relatively high installation costs for a direct-cycle geothermal power plant such as Los Humeros in Mexico, the high capacity factor in operation results in a cost of electricity in the region of US$58 to US$93/MWh, even when taking into account the cost of drilling the wells and building the steam collection system.

Excerpt from autobiography of Dinesh Dhamija, entrepreneur and investor

Investment Strategy

Did you know that the sun delivers more energy to the earth in one hour than humanity requires over the course of a whole year? Or that in the Middle East, using fossil fuels to generate electricity costs fifty times more than solar energy? Fifty times more! These are the kind of statistics that make my investment antenna start bleeping.

"Gas is always more dangerous than oil," says one SBM engineer, "because you can't see it. You can always see oil."

There is a strong possibility that carbon will become a parallel currency to money in the future. Companies will need to operate within a carbon cap, or else pay for the excess they produce. This calculation will include carbon emitted through the supply chain, so it is critical that companies quickly come to understand the implications of both their own and their suppliers' and partners' carbon footprint.

With almost two-third of the world's proven oil reserves, the Middle East has no shortage of fuel and will not run out for many decades to come. Yet the investment rationale of many countries in the region is to diversify away from this superabundant supply and thereby limit the danger of economic hardship in future. It is also a means of capitalising on good fortune, by creating further wealth from the proceeds of oil production.

By 2020 the European Union expects to reduce its energy needs by a massive 315 TWh (terawatt hour) per year, thanks to new measures to combat unnecessary energy use. One terawatt equals a million million watts, and 315 of them is more than Italy uses each year.

Professor Bob Ayres, INSEAD "Either we freeze in the dark, or we boil like a frog in boiling water. It's a very difficult choice."

With jitters, if not outright panic characterising the international markets and threatening to derail any number of deals, dampening growth across most sectors and geographies, the near-term health of the 'risky' Asian markets cannot be guaranteed.