That gas-price ‘record’ really isn’t one (or is it?)

Larry Goulder, a Stanford University professor, said the true costs of the country’s driving-dominated culture are hidden, and that Americans actually pay much more for gasoline than the price they see at the pump.

Among the hidden costs he cited are military expenses of protecting Persian Gulf and other oil supplies; health care expenses to treat asthma, cancer and other diseases tied to auto emissions; and expenses to prevent or repair related environmental damage.

Richard Heinberg, author of a 2003 book on the depletion of world oil reserves, said politicians seeking public office in the United States can’t disclose the true cost of gasoline because Americans wouldn’t accept it.

The Bee

Fossil fuel subsidies must end

“The New Economics Foundation (Nef) says the cost of climate change and oil scarcity will otherwise scupper attempts to help the world’s poorest.”

BBC News

Is Al Qaeda Winning in Saudi Arabia?

“We entered one of the companies’ [offices], and found there an American infidel who looked like a director . . . When he turned to me, I shot him in the head, and his head exploded. We entered another office and found one infidel from South Africa, and our brother Hussein slit his throat. We asked Allah to accept [these acts of devotion] from us, and from him.”

LibertyPost

The price of power

“The lack of access to reliable and clean energy supplies is a major barrier to improving well-being around the globe – there are an estimated 1.6 billion people living in the rural areas of developing countries who lack access to to electricity – but so is dependence on fossil fuels. Climate driven “natural” disasters also threaten far worse. Rather than just failing to improve the human condition, we could be about to witness the great reversal of human progress.”

New Economics Foundation

Everything you need to know in 5 Minutes

Everything you need to know in 5 Minutes
19bus

Have you heard of “No 19 Bus” by Stephen Hamilton-Bergin

I was quite inpresed with him when I met him at Berlin ASPO conference and bought 2 books off him. Currently reading them and are worth reading.

Militants claim Saudi security helped killers

A number of troubling questions began to surface about the events surrounding Mr Johnson’s grotesque killing last Friday. Where was the body, which Saudi authorities claimed his abductors were in the process of dumping when they were ambushed? How come the security forces were unable to find the kidnap gang for six days, then tracked them down hours after the murder was carried out? Is it possible – as a jihadi website alleged yesterday – that members of the security forces were somehow in cahoots with al-Qa’ida?

Independant

An American Murdered, A Kingdom Under Siege

As for the Saudi leaders, a U.S. official says they do not yet face a direct threat to their rule. But, he says, “there could be a long period of violence that is almost impossible to defend against.”

Time

Kyoto by Another Name

As noted in the study, world energy demand could triple by 2050. Yet, “energy sources that can produce 100 to 300 percent of present world power consumption without greenhouse emissions do not exist operationally or as pilot plants.” The bottom line: “CO2 is a combustion product vital to how civilization is powered; it cannot be regulated away.”

NRO

French threat to switch off UK power

‘This is no empty threat,’ he said. ‘We have only to throw a switch and the lights will go out over a chunk of England. We will choose a time when demand is high so consumers suffer most and we will get more publicity for our cause.’

TIL

Is ‘global dimming’ under way?

WASHINGTON

Another oil shock?

The world depends for low oil prices on an unstable country that seems to be falling apart. No wonder they are rising

Petroleum World (from The Economist)

Sabotaged line repaired, oil flows

Exports of up to 900,000 barrels a day were expected to resume later today, a representative of the state-run Southern Oil Co. said.

AP – The Salt Lake Tribune

OPEC: Demand for Oil Growing

The producers’ cartel also revised upwards its average world demand forecast for 2004 by 0.17 million bpd to 80.58 million bpd.

This indicates growth of 2.41 percent, the highest rate since the 3.12 percent registered in 1997, OPEC said.

Moscow Times

N-reprocessing seen key to energy policy

The tests operations approved Thursday at Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s nuclear fuel-reprocessing plant in Rokkashomura, Aomori Prefecture, are a giant step toward securing a stable supply of energy for the country, but there are many hurdles still to be overcome.

yomiuri

Why do we need to look beyond fossil fuels?

Even if there were no greenhouse effect, all of the fossil fuels will be depleted within a few hundred years. If humankind is going to have a future on this planet, at least a high-technology future, with a significant population of several billions of humans continuing to inhabit the Earth, it is absolutely inevitable that we’ll have to find another energy source.

PBS

Be all that you can be… or else

Bill Number: S. 89

‘A bill to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.’

Congress.org

Oil: The illusion of plenty

One hundred and twelve billion of anything sounds like a limitless quantity. But in terms of barrels of oil, it’s just a drop in the gas tank. The world uses about 27 billion barrels of oil per year, meaning that 112 billion barrels–the proven oil reserves of Iraq, the second largest proven oil reserves in the world–would last a little more than four years at today’s usage rates.

BAS

Thirty years later oil is still a big gun

By the time the embargo was lifted, in March 1974, the global economy was devastated. In the U.S., unemployment doubled due to the loss of 500,000 jobs, and GNP declined 6%. Europe and Japan suffered a similar fate. The impact on the developing world, especially the poor, newly created countries in Asia and Africa, was even worse. Countries completely dependent on energy imports suddenly found themselves under heavy debt from which many of them have not been able to recover to this day.

IAGS

Oil Up, Iraqi Exports Resumption Doubted

Prices still remained broadly supported by fears that global oil production is nearing its limits, with the Iraqi halt and a Norwegian strike exacerbating the problem.

Reuters

Oil rises on renewed bloodshed

New York’s main oil contract rose on Friday as nerves tightened over bloody insurgent attacks in Iraq and the beheading of a kidnapped American worker in Saudi Arabia.

AFR

The Earl of Oil

Norwegian shipping billionaire John Fredriksen is gushing. His Oslo-based Frontline operates 62 crude oil carriers, the world’s largest fleet, with a total capacity of 110 million bbl. With 50% of crude moving by sea, ship brokers have rushed to secure tankers on the spot market

Yahoo-Forbes

OPEC on Oil Supplies and Prices

Are $2-per-gallon gas prices here to stay for the long run? Is the world running short of oil? Are the globe’s leading petroleum producers committed to increasing supply? Are U.S. consumers paying too little for gas?

WP

registration required

Scammers Strike Oil

Con artists have found a way to capitalize on high oil and gasoline prices — and natural human greed.

Lisa Lee Freeman, deputy editor of the Consumer Reports Money Adviser, said right now, people are thinking that others must be making money on oil and gas ventures — so how can I get on board?

Then, they get a call from some shady character offering what’s touted as a sure-fire way to profit from today’s oil turmoil. Freeman said victims are being pitched investments in new drilling technology that supposedly recovers oil still left in old lines. But the reserves are often overstated, and the offers are nothing more than scams.

The Consumer Reports Money Adviser said if you’re looking for a piece of the action in the oil market, the smart route is to invest in a mutual fund specializing in energy. Some of those have seen handsome returns in recent years.

HC

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Americans leaving Saudi Arabia in droves

“There’s a growing feeling here that al-Qaida has acquired intelligence information on a range of U.S. executives and advisers who live and work in Saudi Arabia,” a Western diplomat said. “This is clearly the assessment of the U.S. embassy in Riyadh.”

WND

A war for oil?

To uproot al-Qaida would be difficult and bloody. It might split the princes and the religious establishment, perhaps even spark a revolution and invite the intervention of foreign powers, the Iranians, the Egyptians, perhaps even the United States with its 130,000 troops next door in Iraq.

Lebanon Daily News

Price of NG to hit consumers, businesses more than gasoline

At the American Chemistry Council, an industry group that began a campaign in late 2002 to get Congress to care about the rising price of natural gas, officials sound almost wistful about the attention being paid to the pump. …

To help make its case, the council compared the average price of natural gas from 1994 to 1999 with the average price so far this year. As of June 4, it had gone up 194 percent (while gasoline prices rose by less than half that).

“The fact that it’s up close to three times what it was just a few years ago is only now starting to sink in,” said Charles W. Van Vlack, the council’s executive vice president, “but we don’t run a pump for ourselves, we just pay a monthly bill.”

NYTimes article – Free Reg. Req.

OPEC Doubtful on Nonmember Oil Output

Several of the world’s oil producers that don’t belong to OPEC may be unable to quickly ramp up their output to help bring down current high oil prices, the group’s president said Friday.

Yahoo-AP

Saudi Oil Crown Slipping Away?

Attacks against expatriates working in the Saudi Arabian oil patch have accelerated in tempo and intensity during the past several months. If this trend is not reversed — which is not likely — Riyadh will slowly fall from its current position as the kingpin of global energy markets. Oil prices will be both higher and […]

Norway Oil Workers Begin Strike, Cutting Output

The action affects fields with total output of 455,000 barrels a day. “It will take about one to two days to shut down production at the fields,” Tjessem, who represents about 2,200 oil workers

Bloomberg

How far are we willing to go for oil?

By GEORGE F. WILL

In 1977 President Carter said we “could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.” But today known reserves are larger than ever.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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