Africa ‘on front line of climate change’

Attempts to alleviate poverty in Africa will fail unless urgent action is taken to stall dangerous climate change, the Group of Eight nations will be told today. A report, entitled Africa: Up in Smoke?, from a group of aid and environmental non-governmental organisations in the UK, says that because Africa “lives on the front line […]

Scorching drought takes toll in Iberia, Morocco

Severe droughts in Spain, Portugal and Morocco are sparking forest fires, threatening livelihoods and risk wreaking economic havoc, officials in the region say. The worst droughts in Spain and Portugal since the 1940s may fuel inflation and dent economic growth while in Morocco conditions are so bad the government fears an exodus from rural areas […]

Chavez seeks regional gas company

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose country has South America’s largest natural gas reserves, urged the continent’s energy producers to create a regional gas company to help fund social development Chavez, who is attending the Mercosur regional trade summit in Asuncion, Paraguay, said in a televised news conference Monday that the proposed company, Gas del Sur, […]

Nuclear one day may be cheapest

If Congress forces power plants to remove carbon dioxide from their smokestacks to help slow global warming, nuclear power could suddenly become one of the cheapest energy options, according to an analysis by Associated Electric Cooperative. Jim Jura, AEC general manager, delivered that assessment to the Springfield Power Supply Community Task Force on Monday

US power plants could run short of coal

Some U.S. power stations could run out of coal if a long hot summer pushes up demand at plants with already low stockpiles, the chief executive of the No. 2 U.S. coal producer said on Monday. “I don’t think there’ll be blackouts but I think there’s a possibility in a hot summer that somebody could […]

Key quotes from the Reuters Energy Summit

Top executives from the worlds of oil, gas and coal opened the Reuters Energy Summit on Monday with a range of comments on the economy, their assets and the states of their industries. Below are a few select comments from those executives: “At present I’m not real robust on the U.S. economy” — Steven Farris, […]

Leading economic indicators fell in May

A key gauge of the direction of the U.S. economy dropped 0.5 percent last month, resuming a slide that began in January after a standstill in April, a private research group said on Monday. The New York-based Conference Board said its index of leading indicators fell to 114.1 in May, signaling a slower pace of […]

Domenici’s Opposition May Slow Senate Move on Carbon Emissions

U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, chairman of the Energy Committee, declined to support a proposal to limit greenhouse gases, a decision likely to make it harder for the Senate to add emission caps to national energy legislation. Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, said he wouldn’t support an amendment to the Senate energy bill by Senator Jeff […]

Michigan may run out of power

Michigan could face an electric power crisis in the near future — with the threat of brownouts and even blackouts — because uncertainties about electric competition make the climate here too unstable to entice anyone to build a power plant, say officials across the electric industry. The state’s power grid is expected to hold up […]

Pipeline politics

Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has just concluded a successful visit to Iran. Massive deals have been agreed upon, vast prospects for the future defined, and a confident vision of partnership has emerged. We have come a long way from the hesitant efforts of the past, like the joint fertilizer project on Iran

Gas prices heating up for summer

Forecasters say the summer that started early this morning should be relatively normal on the temperature front, but that doesn’t mean consumers won’t be hot over what they have to pay to fill up their cars and cool their homes. With crude oil prices hitting a new record yesterday, only 63 cents off the $60 […]

Aircraft emissions to double by 2030 despite hi-tech jets

GREENHOUSE gas emissions from aircraft will double by 2030 even if airlines invest in new fuel-efficient planes, the industry predicted yesterday.

Any savings in average emissions per flight will be eclipsed by the huge growth in air travel forecast for the next 25 years.




The Times


Which is worse, flying or driving?

Opec supplies may increase as oil nudges $60

Oil prices broke new records on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday, prompting Opec to announce it would begin talks about a further increase in supply.

The price of crude came close to hitting the psychological $60-a-barrel mark yesterday after breaking through $59 in New York.

Analysts said fears over a shortage of supply capacity were exacerbated by an outbreak of political turmoil in Nigeria, a major oil producing nation.

The Independent

The message hits home

Summer heat and sudden floods are a reminder that even the British climate has its extremes. But if the rock-solid scientific consensus on global warming is proved to be right over the coming century, heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding will cease to be a surprise. The earth’s climate is delicate, threatened and changing.

The Guardian

Airlines to reveal their impact on environmen

People booking a flight will be able to assess the damage to the environment as well as to their wallet under plans announced by the industry.

Travellers will be given the price of a ticket as well as information about the amount of fuel used and the noxious gases emitted by individual airlines on specific routes. And Third World carriers which use dirty antiquated aircraft could be banned from flying to Britain under the strategy revealed by airlines, airports, aircraft manufacturers and National Air Traffic Services.

The Independent

Storms, floods and sunshine: welcome to global warming

Unusual meteorological conditions led to the topsy-turvy weather at the weekend, which saw torrential storms in the North contrast with bright sunshine and high temperatures in the South.

A mass of very warm air from south of the Azores moved up over Britain late last week, bringing with it intense heat and humidity unusual for the UK in June. But on Sunday this was destabilised in the North by a cold front coming in from the Atlantic, and thunderstorms of an almost tropical intensity resulted.

The Independent

Is nuclear energy cost-effective?

The debate over the future of nuclear power is set to reach meltdown as the UK prepares to decide how to keep the home fires burning over the next few decades.

Advocates of splitting the atom have been at loggerheads with the anti-nuclear movement for half a century.

Old passions die hard.

The BBC

Cosmos 1: Sailing on sunlight

Cosmos 1 is an ambitious experiment to harness the power of the Sun to drive a spacecraft.Scientists believe “sun-sailing” craft may in the future be able to reach sufficiently high speeds to make travel around the Solar System viable.The probe is due to be launched on Tuesday evening at 2045 GMT from a Russian Delta […]

The Future of Oil

(Interview with Matthew Simmons on “The National Interest” radio show: also includes an interview with “Economic Hitman” John Perkins)

A leading banker to the oil industry says we are living on borrowed time. A ‘fair price’ for oil would be more like $500 per barrel than $50 per barrel.

Audio

Blair told: act now on climate

Tony Blair will arrive at next month’s G8 summit with a powerful mandate from voters to confront George Bush over global warming, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. An overwhelming 83% of voters want the prime minister to challenge the US president on the issue amid record public acceptance that climate change is a […]

UK backs oil firm despite bribery inquiry

The controversial oil firm Halliburton has been awarded new British government backing, despite being at the centre of a bribery investigation, the Guardian can disclose. Halliburton’s British arm, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), is being supported in an oilfield deal in Kazakhstan with a $10m (The Guardian

Jim Kunstler Commentary – June 20th, 2005

My own is theory is that the war is a desperate attempt by a nation desperate over its energy supplies to retain a foothold, and therefore an economic claim, on the region where the oil is. Iraq was supposed to be our police station in a strategically vital bad neighborhood. The salient questions are: 1.) […]

Peak Oil and Nuclear War

Progressing into this new century, the disaster topics of the day are Global Warming and Peak Oil. Nuclear War is nowhere to be seen and is relegated to the “special interests” section. But if Peak Oil is the elephant in the living room, will Nuclear War turn out to be the brontosaurus (don’t ask me […]

Norway Govt Aims to Add 5B Bbl More Oil Reserves by 2015

The Norwegian government hopes to add an additional 5 billion barrels of oil to its reserves by 2015, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said Monday. The NPD, an administrative arm of the Oil and Energy Ministry, said in its annual Resource Report it estimated remaining oil reserves on the Norwegian Continental Shelf at around 7.75 billion […]

Analysts Predict US Nat Gas Reserve Growth Limited Through 2010

Energy Security Analysis Inc., a Wakefield, Mass., consultancy, warned Monday that the U.S. domestic natural gas reserve base will see very limited growth over the next five years, with most new production only managing to offset the steep decline rates of aging fields in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. The consultancy said North America will experience […]

OPEC Will Consult with Ministers Friday if Prices Remain High

OPEC’s president Monday said he would start consulting with other ministers about raising the group’s output ceiling 500,000 barrels a day if high prices continue. Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al Sabah, who is also Kuwait’s oil minister, said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is willing to raise OPEC’s ceiling from 28 million b/d to 28.5 […]

Nigeria Tribal Leader Tells Oil Workers to Leave Delta

Tension in the oil-rich swamps of southern Nigeria continued to boil Monday, despite the earlier release of several kidnapped oil workers, after a tribal leader said more trouble could lie ahead. Joseph Evah, coordinator of Ijaw Monitoring Group, one of the largest ethnic groups in the area warned of dire consequences unless all foreign oil […]

UN Council Concerned Over Iraq’s Handling Of Oil Sales

Members of the U.N. Security Council on Monday expressed concern over Iraq’s handling of oil sales since the transfer of power from the U.S.-led coalition authority, after an audit reported shoddy accounting and mismanagement. The audit, by accounting firm KPMG, had found that Iraq’s interim government mishandled about $100 million in oil money meant for […]

Airlines sport their green colours

Every day at Britain’s airports, hundreds of aircraft take off for destinations across Europe. Each churns out tonnes of carbon dioxide, a by-product of the jet engine and a likely cause of global warming. One thing everyone’s agreed on is that our love of the high life has an environmental cost, and it is a […]

Bloomberg: Iraq Watering Out Cause of Prod. Decline

“The uptrend looks set to continue,” said Aaron Kildow, a broker at Prudential Financial Derivatives LLC in New York. “The news that Iraqi production is falling because of rising water levels is unwelcome. It’s just one more supply-related worry that the market doesn’t need right now.” Iraq, the Middle East’s fifth-largest oil producer, faces a […]

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