Bill Powers

Wed, 2013-05-08 12:35Steve Horn
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Interview: Energy Investor Bill Powers Discusses Looming Shale Gas Bubble

On Sat., April 27, I met up with energy investor Bill Powers at Prairie Moon Restaurant in Evanston, IL for a mid-afternoon lunch to discuss his forthcoming book set to hit bookstores on June 18.

The book's title - "Cold, Hungry and in the Dark: Exploding the Natural Gas Supply Myth" - pokes fun at the statement made by former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon at the 2011 Shale Gas Insight conference in Philadelphia, PA. 

"What a glorious vision of the future: It's cold, it's dark and we're all hungry," McClendon said in response to the fact that there were activists outside of the city's convention center. "I have no interest in turning the clock back to the dark ages like our opponents do." 

What Powers unpacks in his book, though, is that McClendon and his fellow "shale promoters," as he puts it in his book, aren't quite as "visionary" as they would lead us all to believe. 

Indeed, the well production data that Powers picked through on a state-by-state basis demonstrates a "drilling treadmill." That means each time an area is fracked, after the frackers find the "sweet spot," that area yields diminishing returns on gas production on a monthly and annual basis.

It's an argument regular readers of DeSmogBlog are familiar with because of our recent coverage of the Post Carbon Institute's "Drill Baby, Drill" report by J. David Hughes. 

Powers posits this could lead to a domestic gas crisis akin to the one faced in the 1970's.

We discuss these issues and far more in the interview below. 

Read more: Interview: Energy Investor Bill Powers Discusses Looming Shale Gas Bubble
Wed, 2012-12-05 10:36Steve Horn
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Fracking Making Its Way Toward the UK

To date, opposition to hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for unconventional oil and gas in the United Kingdom (UK) has been fierce. The opposition, though, seems to be meeting deaf ears in England, according to recent news reports. 

Bloomberg reported on Dec. 4 that England's Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, wants to lift the country's currently exisiting moratorium on fracking. The halt was put in place after drilling sites owned by Cuadrilla Resources caused two minor earthquakes in northwestern England in November 2011.

England's Chancellor of the Exchequer (a position equivalent to the Secretary of the Treasury in the United States), George Osborne, is set to release Britain's new energy plan on Dec. 5 and told Bloomberg he wants to ensure "Britain is not left behind" in the unconventional oil and gas boom.  

"Cuadrilla estimates that the area it is exploring in Lancashire, in northwestern England, could contain 200 trillion cubic feet of gas—more gas than all of Iraq," explained Bloomberg. John Browne, the scandal-ridden former CEO of BP, sits as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cuadrilla. 

Osborne, The Independent recently reported, will also offer tax breaks to oil and gas corporations hungry to profit from England's shale gas prize. 

"Mr. Osborne hopes that tax breaks for shale gas extraction will encourage investors and help economic growth," The Indepedent wrote. "Oil and gas are currently taxed at between 62 per cent and 81 per cent. Shale gas would be taxed at lower rates."

An astounding 64-percent of the English countryside could soon be subject to fracking, which is over 34,000 square miles, according to The Independent. 

Read more: Fracking Making Its Way Toward the UK
Wed, 2012-11-21 05:00Steve Horn
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Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst: Art Berman, Bill Powers

Food and Water Watch recently demonstrated that the dominant narrative, "100 years" of unconventional oil and gas in the United States, is false. At most, some 50 years of this dirty energy resource may exist beneath our feet.

Bill Powers, editor of Powers Energy Investor, has a new book set for publication in May 2013 titled, "Cold, Hungry and in the Dark: Exploding the Natural Gas Supply Myth."

Powers' book will reveal that production rates in all of the shale basins are far lower than the oil and gas industry is claiming and are actually in alarmingly steep decline. In short, the "shale gas bubble" is about to burst.
 
In a recent interview, Powers said the "bubble" will end up looking a lot like the housing bubble that burst in 2008-2009, and that U.S. shale gas will last no longer than ten years. He told The Energy Report:
 
My thesis is that the importance of shale gas has been grossly overstated; the U.S. has nowhere close to a 100-year supply. This myth has been perpetuated by self-interested industry, media and politicians...In the book, I take a very hard look at the facts. And I conclude that the U.S. has between a five- to seven-year supply of shale gas, and not 100 years.
 
The hotly-anticipated book may explain why shale gas industry giants like Chesapeake Energy have behaved more like real estate companies, making more money flipping over land leases than they do producing actual gas. 
Read more: Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst: Art Berman, Bill Powers
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