Nick is very passionate, opinionated, and a little eccentric. In a world in which shale gas is generally portrayed in a negative light, Nick instead sees it as a bridge to a low carbon environment. So enjoy below some colorful responses from ‘The Shale Gas Guru’.

–Would you describe yourself as an environmentalist?

Certainly, but I’m from the pragmatic, and dare I say, optimistic wing of environmentalists.  I think the Dark Green eco purists will go the way of peak oil, Y2K, worldwide AIDS pandemic and all the other catastrophist narratives.  What will be unfortunate is they may take the good parts of progressive politics down with them.

–You describe yourself as ‘a recovering energy consultant’. How is that recovery going, and what first piqued your interest about shale gas?

I think most people don’t need energy consultants in the UK sense where people for some bizarre reason think they need to fix prices instead of going with the flow of market forces.  Shale gas interested me as being a disruptive game changer which upset conventional thinking – just like me.

–You moved to New York in your teens, and stayed for two decades. What made you stay for so long, and what made you leave in the end?

I was kidnapped by my parents in the first instance,  but no one in their right mind would have lived in the UK in the 1970′s or 80′s.  I moved to London to get married.  Two of the best things I ever did.

–Has your view of shale gas changed dramatically in the past few years as so many developments have been made?  

Being Anglo-American, life is a battle between optimism and pessimism, but I wanted to believe.  The main mistake I made was to underestimate the impact, even where I was often saying things that at the time sounded as coming from the far-fetched to the lunatic.

–Who is your favorite superhero?

Pass.  Although I would say that with great power there must also come great responsibility.

–Why did you land on the name of No Hot Air for your consultancy?

My original thought referred to Hot Air in the CO2 sense and the rest is obvious.  Also, Noinconsequentialb******t.com was taken.

–Which country do you think is most wasting the biggest opportunity with shale gas?

Big field.  Ireland is near the top, but also France, UK, Germany.  But world number one is South Africa.  Outrageous that white liberals have transmuted into enemies of the majority.

 –You’re quite controversial and outspoken in your views. Do you get hate mail or nasty phone calls?

Only from South Africans.

 –Do you think shale gas will always be somewhat vilified, or will perceptions gradually change with its increasing presence?

Shale gas is inevitable, I’m lucky to have a job doing something I really believe in by trying to gee it up.

–Do you have a favorite motto or saying?

Shale gas won’t change everything. It’s much more important than that.

Great stuff, Nick – thanks for playing!

–Solar jobs outnumber ranchers in Texas, actors in California.

–What if we never run out of oil? (h/t Jeff Sullivan)

–10 Stop signs with song lyric graffiti.

–Natural gas use to expand for the long-haul. (h/t Trace Meyer)

–Banning diesel-powered boats in Venice points to a bigger trend.

–Quiz time! Do you know more science than the average American? (h/t Adam Spangler)

–Solar power should break up with wind, and date natural gas.

–Report says UK shale unlikely to mean cheap gas.

–YEESSS!!! Professors embrace pop culture to teach economics.

–Why are young Americans driving less?

–Infographic: How Americans improve their homes.

–LNG exports would have a minimal impact on prices.

–25 hilariously mischievous pranks.

The Burrito Deluxe Award of the Week goes to shoulder month weather. Heating demand, consider yourself banished!

The Burnt Burrito Award of the Week goes to refining in the US, which dropped by whopping 2.8% – due to outages rather than maintenance. This caused a large draw to gasoline stocks, rallying gasoline and crude prices alike.

May your weekend be full of monkeying around!

After the first few screens, it becomes progressively easier to predict what is coming next: dollar down = risk on, equities up = bond prices down, risk off = metals down. But joining the dots has gone askew recently. So from the starting point of mortgage rates to a crude conclusion, here’s how joining the dots isn’t as simple as going from A to B.

Whether financial markets float your boat or not, what is a useful thing to know if you have a mortgage, want to buy a house, or want to refinance, is the biggest influence on mortgage rates. And while logic dictates that a 30-year government bond would be a decent guide for a 30-year mortgage rate, that would be somewhat inaccurate. It is actually a 10-year treasury bond:

It is also fair to say that mortgage rates are low when times are hard, with low interest rates to stimulate borrowing and bond yields driven lower by a flight to safety.

It is also fair to say that as optimism in the economy improves, greater risk appetite should mean bond yields (and mortgage rates) should rise, and equities should see a corresponding rally.

And we have. That is, until the past few months, when we have seen the two diverge:

So what does this mean? Well, at the crux of it, one of the markets appears to be wrong.

Falling bond yields indicate the battening down of hatches, while equities indicate better times ahead. And what is doubly interesting is that commodities – and specifically oil, which has taken part in the risk-on trade for much of the recovery of the last few years – is diverging also:

Which leaves us at a fascinating juncture. Either commodities/bonds are correct, or the equity market is. Regardless, one is lagging, and will likely experience a significant correction in the coming months – be it equities tumbling, or commodities/bond yields melting up. Or even a bit of both.

Either way, today sees the S&P500 within grasping distance of a new record high, while on the same day mortgage rates are making record lows. The dots, for now…….do not connect.

–Using solar power to get more out of natural gas.

–Peak oil fades, fracking on the rise in Google searches.

–Art from food.

–Air travel to get bumpier as CO2 emissions rise.

–Shale gas isn’t a low-emissions fuel…yet.

–Nine things you probably didn’t know about swearing.

–The tale of three shale states.

–Quiz time! Coal vs. natural gas (also known as the anti-coal quiz).

–Infographic: why the sun is good for you.

–Europe take note! Austerity is good for your health.

–Eight inventions that never needed updating.

–How Cheniere Energy is leading the LNG export revolution.

–File under: awesome…man leaves water running all winter to irk developers.

The Burrito Deluxe Award of the Week goes to the US meeting the Kyoto protocol (without ever embracing it).

The Burnt Burrito Award of the Week goes to skipping the office Powerball pool and them winning…

Have a flourishing weekend!

First up is the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, which highlights a couple of key trends through some simple graphics. This first one is economic growth illustrated through painting by numbers – the darker the blue, the stronger the growth. The seeping from beige to red…the worse it gets.

Yes, the most obvious observation is that the OECD (the developed nations) appear to be lagging the most in terms of economic growth.

But what is most fascinating from an energy perspective is that all three of the outliers across the globe – the pink in South America (Venezuela), the beige in Africa (Sudan), and the red in the Middle East (Iran) – are all petro-states, and have seen deteriorating economic conditions due to falling oil flows. Iran’s problems are due to sanctions, Sudan due to its border war with South Sudan, and Venezuela due to underinvestment in its oil industry.

The second chart from the IMF report underscores how commodity prices not only trend with industrial and manufacturing activity, but also with equities. Something to consider as we see equities and commodities diverging of late…one of them has to be wrong.

Th IEA released the Clean Energy Progress Report for 2013 this week, which is a whopping 154 pages long. Here are two charts plucked from the depths of it, with the first illustrating how coal-fired power generation will continue to be a dominant force this decade – a sentiment echoed in other IEA reports.

In fact, the report highlights an ‘alarmingly slow‘ rate of progress from technologies which are supposed to help diversify the world away from reliance on fossil fuels. In the foreword, the IEA’s executive director Maria van der Hoeven says ‘the carbon intensity of the global supply has barely changed in 20 years, despite successful efforts to deploy renewable energy‘.

This reliance on fossil fuels, and specifically coal, is reflected most clearly through the shift in global industrial energy consumption over the past decade. The shift in consumption has basically been a transfer from the OECD to China. And given that China is the largest coal consumer in the world – accounting for almost 50% of global consumption - it is no surprise to see the aforementioned ongoing favorability towards coal.

Next up we visit the EIA and its Annual Energy Outlook, which is being released on a staggered basis. Part of  this week’s release focuses on international market trends.

Global production of biofuels, coal-to-liquid, and gas-to-liquid fuels totaled 2.1 million barrels a day in 2011, making up 2% of the total of all liquid fuels. The EIA projects this number will nearly triple to 5.7 million barrels a day in 2040.

But these numbers are tiny compared to total global consumption of petroleum and other liquids. Current consumption is 46 million barrels a day for the OECD, and 43 million for non-OECD.

However, by 2040 this is expected to have shifted to 65 million barrels a day for the non-OECD, compared to a minorly minor rise in the OECD to 47 million barrels. Demand in the OECD will continue to be driven at the margin by price, while non-OECD demand will be driven by economic growth.

Thanks for playing alphabetti spaghetti. Until next time…rock on!