August 2019 / We all know instinctively that the U.S. is awash in natural gas. What may be surprising is that in some parts of the country, there isn’t even a drop to burn. As an illustration, earlier this year Con Ed and National Grid placed a moratorium on accepting any new natural gas customers in most of Westchester County, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. The reason is jammed-up supply...
JUNE-JULY 2019 / The NYC Council recently passed legislation setting new standards for greenhouse gas emission from buildings. The measure aligns with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. The bill would cut pollution from city buildings by 40% over the next 10 years as part of New York’s overall environmental goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% to...
May 2019 / The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power. — Jamal Khashoggi While America has been a superpower for almost a century, its emergence as a global energy superpower is relatively new. As an illustration, as recently as 2015 it was illegal to export oil. This all changed with the shale boom which...
March 2019 / The year was 1978 and I was a newly-minted bank lending officer at Irving Trust Company in Manhattan. Fresh out of high school and desperate for any type of recognition, I volunteered to join a small group of adventurers involved in introducing a futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange (the Exchange) to local heating oil dealers. For the uninitiated, the Exchange opened...
January 2019 / If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. — Orson Welles In the world of New York City diesel-based heating oil, the story for No. 6 residual oil came to an end in 2015, while No. 4 oil will be eliminated by 2030. With that looming timetable it is surprising to learn that as many as one-third of all New York buildings are still using No. 4...
Best-selling financial author, Wall Street investment banker, social commentator, award-winning poet, energy consultant, off-Broadway producer, and community organizer in Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, Ron Spurga is the ultimate Renaissance Man.
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