A year in the rear-view mirror

and a peek ahead

What’s better than a look back at a year now drawing to a close? Well, a lot of things, really, but looks back are nevertheless often amusing, occasionally saddening, and, hopefully, we get to learn something from them.

This year, for instance, we learned that the planet we inhabit is boiling, burning, roasting, speeding down a highway to Hell, nearing a point of no return towards a climate catastrophe, also known as an apocalypse, a collapse, and Armageddon, which is funny, because Armageddon is not a synonym for a catastrophe but the final battle between good and evil. Uncanny.

Speaking of funny, the past year was a source of much energy hilarity. Climate think tanks cheered record-breaking electricity output from wind and solar globally. Emissions of carbon dioxide also broke a record. So did coal consumption. So did oil demand. So did U.S. oil production.

Germany went a big step further in the direction of becoming a global laughing stock after it closed its last remaining nuclear reactors and was duly forced to reopen a coal mine and increase coal-powered generation. This did not make the government change its mind on nuclear, even as the collective West along with the rest of the world committed to boosting nuclear capacity to cope with growing energy demand.

The UK moved a step further along the way towards totalitarianism by forcing people to install smart meters allowing electricity providers to control supply as they see fit. The EU, too, charged on towards totalitarian control of the continent with binding transition agreement after binding transition agreement, including a ban on internal combustion engine cars beginning in 2035.

Canada’s government cemented its reputation as an out-of-touch grouping by announcing a carbon emissions cap on the oil and gas industry after sucking the life out of Canadians with exorbitant carbon taxes. A passing glimpse at social media reactions suggests Canadians are getting really angry. So are Europeans and Brits. Americans are getting angry too and stopping new wind and solar projects.

The Saudis also got angry this year as algo trading helped push oil prices down when fundamentals were suggesting prices should be higher. Yours truly also got angry after having to write about sub-expectation Chinese oil demand a thousand and one times amid reports that Chinese oil imports were breaking records.

The oil market has never been a rational place but this year it broke a record in irrationality. Must be those algo trades which, apparently, not only follow market trends but also tend to exaggerate them. We went from predictions of a supply deficit to predictions of a surplus in a matter of months even as OPEC+ shrank production.