I’ve said it over and over: Geothermal is a clean and green way of generating electrical power. It has worked for over 100 years. OK, there’s still more new technology to invent. You can always tweak and improve everything. But the basics are there with geothermal. It’s not rocket science.
April 3rd, 2009 | Byron King | 15 comments | ContinuedArchive for Byron King
Byron King currently serves as an attorney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1981 and is a cum laude graduate of Harvard University. Byron is also co-editor of Outstanding Investments.
Dealing With Modern Complexity
How complex our society has become. There are layers upon layers of complexity and astonishing levels of technical expertise. There are so many different organizations, agencies, groupings of people and assemblages of equipment. It all costs a lot of money and consumes a lot of energy. (…) What happens when money, if not energy, gets scarce? The whole process could get overwhelmed…
January 30th, 2009 | Byron King | 5 comments | Continued
Tips from an Obama Insider on the Next Two Years
Now that Obama has officially dropped the “elect” from his title, what can we expect from his administration…and what does it mean for the country? Byron King passes along some rather grim predictions from an “Obama insider”, and gives us some advice on how to deal with the coming fallout…
January 23rd, 2009 | Byron King | 0 comments | Continued
Unsustainable Energy Trends
I’ve been getting a lot of calls and e-mails from people asking about the falling prices for oil in recent weeks. The immediate explanation is that world economic activity is decelerating. Demand is falling. OPEC announced cuts in output. But the markets still believe that economic decline will trump the ability of OPEC to prop up the price of oil. Enjoy it while it lasts.
November 19th, 2008 | Byron King | 15 comments | Continued
The Economy, Too Much for Obama?
Obama is beginning to realize what he’s up against. This is no ordinary cyclical downturn. Typically, a slump brings interest rates down. (Usually accompanied by central bank rate cuts.) Cheaper borrowing arouses business and speculative activity… which, in turn, tends to get the economy moving again.
November 11th, 2008 | Byron King | 2 comments | Continued
Electricity Crisis is Coming
OK, so I don’t have a copy of the Sunday business section from next March. But I think I know what at least one major issue will be within the next 24 months. The headlines will scream, “Power Failures, Price Spikes Plague Northeast U.S.”
October 29th, 2008 | Byron King | 1 comment | Continued
Exhausted Gold Shares
“The price has bounced all over the charts lately, from the mid-$800s per ounce down to $750 and below. The thing is, the ‘paper’ price from gold has just plain disconnected from the price – and the availability – for the real stuff.
October 24th, 2008 | Byron King | 1 comment | Continued
Welcome to Murphy’s Market
If you sold out of the stock market last year – or even back in June or early July 2008 – you probably feel pretty good right now. And if you took the cash and spread it around to a group of well-run banks, so as to take advantage of the FDIC insurance, then you must be feeling fine. Read no further. Take the rest of the day off. But if you still have some skin in the game, you’ll want to hear what Byron King has to say…
October 10th, 2008 | Byron King | 0 comments | Continued
From the Gold Pan… Inflation, Deflation and Precious Metals
The key to the rising price for gold in the 1930s was the effort by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to raise the nominal price of gold from $20 to $35 per ounce. It was still – in many respects – a gold standard world back then. But in raising the gold price, FDR also indirectly spurred the market capitalization of much of the mining industry. One thing to keep in mind is this. We know a few things about inflation, both practically and from economic theory…
September 26th, 2008 | Byron King | 5 comments | Continued
The Markets Are Making Almost No Sense
The future of the U.S. dollar looks terrible, yet the dollar is rising at a record-setting pace. And depletion is causing oil output in some areas to…well, fall off a cliff, if I may use that phrase. Energy and commodity stocks are tumbling like buffalo in the olden days of Alberta. Let’s start with the U.S. dollar. It’s strengthening on world markets, but why? Is there some sort of good news about the U.S. economy we’ve missed? Is the U.S. tax code suddenly more capital friendly?
September 18th, 2008 | Byron King | 6 comments | Continued
2008 Energy & Geology Tour
My journey began in mid-July, when I flew west to Vancouver via Air Canada. I spent a week there, attending the Agora Financial Investment Symposium…
September 3rd, 2008 | Byron King | 0 comments | Continued
The Energy Resources Are Out There
In the world of energy and scarcity, the name of the next president of the United States will matter quite a bit. “People are policy,” as Ronald Reagan used to say. But then again, a lot of energy and scarcity facts defy party labels. The energy resources are out there. They are what they are and where they are. We can exploit the resources or not. But it’s not like in Star Trek…
August 28th, 2008 | Byron King | 4 comments | Continued
What Makes the Wheels on a Bus Go “Round and Round”? Electricity!
What do a bus in Beijing, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, offshore oil production platforms in the Gulf of Alaska and a luxury ski resort in Russia have in common? They all need electricity…and they want that power to be on-site and self- contained. Imagine a municipal bus that’s powered by an electric motor, crawling along the crowded streets of Beijing…
July 31st, 2008 | Byron King | 0 comments | Continued
A View from the Peak of the Global Economy
The theme of this year’s Agora Financial Investment Symposium is “View From the Peak.” The title alludes to Peak Oil, as well as peak everything else. We have 6.5 billion people on Earth, with more arriving every day. A fortunate few hundred million of us already live in the developed world. And now several billion other souls are working their way out of poverty, and that takes resources. So the world demand for everything (energy, steel, cement, food, water, you name it) is rising.
July 25th, 2008 | Byron King | 2 comments | Continued
Rare Earth Elements: A Beginner’s Guide
Rare earth elements consist of a group of 15 metals. In most cases and usage patterns in the modern economy, these 15 elements are oxides. The names of the elements are Cerium, Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Gadolinium, Holmium, Lanthanum, Lutetium, Neodymium, Praseodymium, Samarium, Terbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Yttrium. The bulk of the world’s supply of rare earth elements comes from the mineral bastnasite. Bastnasite is a mixed lanthanide fluoro-carbonate mineral.
June 19th, 2008 | Byron King | 13 comments | Continued
