News
Saddam Hussein’s favorite movie was reportedly “The Godfather.” A central theme in the story is the attempts of Michael Corleone, the godfather, to turn the Corleone Family into a legitimate business. Many of today’s leaders of Iraq’s Iran-aligned militias (and their families) were persecuted by Saddam’s security services and could not enjoy the luxury of foreign films, but they would understand Michael’s dilemma. The “founding charter” of Iraq’s militias is arguably Coalition Provisional…
Pakistan has been at the center of media coverage of the Middle East war as the country that took up the initiative to moderate peace talks. It also happens to be the country arguably most hurt by the war without being directly involved in the hostilities. Pakistan is a big importer of liquefied natural gas from Qatar. With QatarEnergy suspending production following Iranian strikes on its LNG infrastructure, Pakistan has been in a race with many others to secure deliveries from alternative sources. Yet Pakistan is among the poorest nations in…
The oil market is heading into unknown spaces. To paraphrase Starship Enterprise, “Oil markets ('Space' the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”. As we can now see, there is a moment in every crisis when the language of markets, which is normally based on price discovery, marginal barrels, and supply-demand balance, quietly but dangerously stops making sense. For the oil…
In April 2026, a new 500 MW sodium-cooled reactor in Kalpakkam, India, attained criticality. The reactor maintained a nuclear chain reaction—which is a pretty big step for any new nuclear plant. There are a number of things that struck us about this news. The haters and skeptics will point out that this unit began construction in 2004 with a 2010 expected completion date. No cost escalation figures were provided by the Indian government. But the real question here is why a molten salt reactor? It’s not a new technology. President Jimmy…
The United Kingdom has been rapidly increasing its deployment of new renewable energy capacity in recent years, to the point that it now has some to spare during peak production hours. While the U.K. gradually increases its battery storage, the government is encouraging consumers to use more electricity during certain times of the day to help shift reliance away from fossil fuels to green alternatives. Consumers are being asked by the government to use high-consumption appliances, such as dishwashers and washing machines, as well as electric vehicle…
