Today, gambling....the casino kind and more.  But first, a few more things about petroleum, my feature yesterday:  Iran warns oil could hit $200 as it fires on merchant ships . WTI Crude Oil dropped from $110/barrel ( price just before the market re-opened on Monday ) to $82/barrel yesterday, but increased to $87/barrel today. The stabilization occurred because Donald Trump said this would be a short war, plus the International Agency recommended the release of 400 million barrels from global strategic reserves.  Note that the world roughly produces 106 million barrels of oil/day, and the USA is #1 with 13.6 million barrels/day.  Amazingly enough, North America is the largest oil-producing region, with over 31 million barrels/day. The world strategic petroleum reserve holds over 2 billion barrels, of which 20% will be released.  The USA has 415 million barrels in Gulf Coast salt caverns, which are designed to hold 714 million barrels.   President Trump...

For Wednesday science-technology day I return to the  latest issue of  Energy Matters , compiled by the American Energy Society. India is not buying crude oil from Russia.  Politics?  No, cost. When the Ukraine War started, the West reduced imports from Russia, so  India became the second largest purchaser, next to China .  Then this sudden drop. One reason is that freight costs have risen, plus petroleum is now cheaper from places like the UAE. 91% of the global economy has pledged to cut emissions to zero.  However, a  lot of promises, but no action . That net zero pledge is supposedly for 2050.  Air travel will cripple that attempt. To begin, the U.N. climate science panel has said that man-made carbon dioxide emissions need to fall by about 45% by 2030 to limit warming to only 1.5 C ( 2.7 F ). Some say planting more trees can help.   I say planting more trees will hurt .  Most analysts don't consider methane in their calcul...