Ferdinand E. Banks, Uppsala University (Sweden), performed his undergraduate studies at Illinois Institute of Technology (electrical engineering) and Roosevelt University (Chicago), graduating with honors in economics. He also attended the University of Maryland and UCLA. He has the MSc from Stockholm University and the PhD from Uppsala University. He has been visiting professor at 5 universities in Australia, 2 universities in France, The Czech University (Prague), Stockholm University, Nanyang Technical University in Singapore, and has held energy economics professorships in France, Hongkong, and the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok). The main portion of his military service was in Japan (infantry) and Germany (artillery), and he was employed for one year in the engineering department of the U.S. Navy at Great Lakes Naval Training Station (Illinois). He has also been a lecturer in mathematical economics in Dakar (Senegal) and Lisbon (Portugal). He was an econometrician for UNCTAD in Geneva, Switzerland for 3 years, and fellow of the Reserve Bank of Australia when he was visiting professor of mathematical economics at the University of New South Wales (Sydney). He has been a consultant for the Hudson Institute in Paris. He has published 12 books, to include 2 energy economics textbooks and one book on international finance, and more than 200 articles of various lengths.
Several nights ago I participated in a debate (arranged by Russia Today TV – 24-7 – CrossTalk, and transmitted internationally in English) in which I…
In my forthcoming energy economics textbook (2012), the two natural gas kings are three – Russia, Qatar and Iran – while if I were beginning…
Berthold Brecht put it as follows: “If you don’t know the truth, you are a fool, while if you know the truth but say that…
I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil ? Alan Greenspan (2008) Alan…
Many years ago, although it seems like centuries, I was sitting in a small bar-disco in a town near Stuttgart Germany, talking to an Ivy…
Miracles take place in every war. The United States accounted for some of these during the Second World War, of which two were decisive. These…
When recently asked why the (West Texas Intermediate) oil price at the end of June (2011) had declined from 112 dollars per barrel (=$112/b) to…
According to the United Nations energy organization (IAEA), statistics indicate that for 2009 and 2010, nuclear reactors in Sweden and Germany managed by the Swedish…
In the summer of 2001, a few months before the 9-11 attacks on the Trade Towers and Pentagon, I was invited to Hong Kong as…
Lets start with the bottom line, or what I usually call ‘The Message’ While Germany might temporarily abandon nuclear facilities located in Germany, they will…
In my forthcoming textbook Energy and Economic Theory (2011), the last chapter contains a section called ‘On the Sunny Side of the Nuclear Street’, which…
When the subject was oil, my students at the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok) were politely asked to study the situation in the United States.…
Many years ago in Chicago, a man that I knew and heartily disliked, married to a beautiful actress and dancer, abandoned his bed in the…
As I pen these few humble words, Swedish combat aircraft are being tuned up for the long flight from Sweden to somewhere in the Mediterranean.…
Some years ago I was engaged in a half-serious one-man crusade to stop electric deregulation in Sweden. As with most one-man or one-woman crusades, it…
As most readers of this short paper probably know, Dr Steven Chu is the energy secretary of the United States, a physicist, and a Nobel…
I had hoped to give a provocative lecture on the economics of nuclear energy at the forthcoming international meeting of the International Association for Energy…
This short paper borrows from my forthcoming energy economics textbook (2011), and consists of a part of the lecture that I once desperately wanted to…
An article published in the Infantry Journal (U.S.) many years ago contained the following exotic question: “If you only had an hour in which turn …
Several years ago I politely asked every student in my course on oil and gas economics at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) to master…