The Oil Drum: 4%, 11%, Who the Hell Cares?

Who cares about the depletion rate? It’s some small fussy number that we don’t know, right? Peak Oil is PEAK OIL! Once we hit the peak all bets are off. Wrong, I say. Once we are post-peak, the depletion rate is going to be the single most important variable by far. I argue it controls […]

India announces fuel price rise

India has raised petrol and diesel prices by 7% in response to a surge in global oil prices. The decision was made at a cabinet meeting held on Tuesday. India’s centre-left coalition government has been under pressure to increase prices to stem losses at state-owned oil companies. But the move sparked calls for protests from […]

Readers offer answers to high gas prices

…Could the United States Congress nationalize the gas trucking industry? There by forcing the oil companies to lower the price of gas? …Why is nobody suggesting that the government combat high gas prices by adding additional taxes onto foreign oil imports to artificially drive the prices up further and decrease demand? To me this seems […]

EU says high oil prices and nuclear power to stay

Brussels predicts that oil prices will stay high in the foreseeable future and that the EU will need to build more nuclear reactors, while pressing for extra transparency on oil markets as part of new measures to curb inflation. “There are no miracles that we can use now to decrease the prices below the current […]

Climate Change Raises Risk of Hunger, Scientists Say

About 50 million more people, most of them in Africa, could be at risk of hunger by 2050 due to climate change and reduced crop yields, scientists predicted on Monday. Roughly 500 million people worldwide already face hunger but rising levels of greenhouse gases could make the problem worse. ENN

A Sunshine Deal

California may host the largest solar-energy project in history. Southern California Edison (SCE), with 13 million customers, has just announced a deal with Phoenix-based Stirling Energy Systems that could result in a huge solar farm. “This is a very high efficiency system,” says Frank Wilkins, solar thermal team leader in the U.S. Department of Energy’s […]

Bidding begins for oil reserves

Refiners have through Friday to vie for 30M barrels of crude from the U.S. emergency stockpile. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hurricane-hit refiners have until Friday afternoon to submit bids for 30 million barrels of crude oil offered for sale from the government’s emergency stockpile, the Energy Department said Tuesday. The sale was expected to help calm […]

Will a gas tax holiday save the day?

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Consumers may finally be getting a break at the pump as some states moved to suspend gasoline excise taxes. Drivers in Georgia are already seeing lower pump prices after the state suspended taxes on gasoline last week. Other states may follow. After peaking at $3.06 Monday, the average price for a […]

Protests Paralyze Jamaica Amid Caribbean Oil Summit

Caribbean leaders met to sign oil agreements on Tuesday in Jamaica, where protests against rising prices paralyzed parts of the capital and hampered access to the city where the summit was taking place. There were no reports of violence in Montego Bay, the tourist area where Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez […]

NYC Sets Record for Energy Use During Summer

New York used a record amount of energy this summer, according to Con Edison, which said it would spend $1 billion to upgrade and improve its systems. The new investment comes on top of the $1 billion the utility spent earlier in 2005 to buy 175 new transformers and invest in wires and its 125,000 […]

Iran offers US Katrina oil relief

Iran has offered to send 20m barrels of crude oil to the US to help with the consequences of Hurricane Katrina. The two countries have had no diplomatic relations for decades, but America did send help to Iran when a severe earthquake hit Bam in 2003. Speaking on state-run radio, Iran’s envoy to OPEC said […]

Some antique gas stations can’t raise prices

BOSTON (Reuters) – As gasoline prices vault to well over $3 a gallon in many parts of the United States, some gas retailers are turning customers away because their pumps can’t be set above $3. About 200 gas sellers in rural Vermont own pumps too old to compute the higher prices, state authorities said on […]

The Oil Drum: Record Oil Company Profits and High Gas Prices: A Connection?

There’s been some grumbling in the media about how Big Oil is gouging the public by charging record prices for gas while they reap record profits. No one can dispute that oil companies are doing really well. And certainly no one can dispute that gas prices are high. But is the connection as straightforward as […]

Holiday travel slows as higher gas prices squeeze consumers

NEW YORK (AP) Drivers paid an average of about $3.20 a gallon for unleaded regular on Monday, up $1.35 from a year ago, and 75 cents more than they did before the hurricane, according to Randy Bly, director of community relations for AAA Auto Club South. The federation of motor clubs had originally forecast that […]

US braced for pain from crippled oil production

A week after Hurricane Katrina ripped through America’s Gulf coast, estimates of the cost of repairing the stricken southern states and the potential effect on the US and global economies are growing daily. Initially, economists thought that as the affected areas were relatively poor states, there would be a brief impact on the wider US […]

Chavez: Oil ‘could surge to $200′

Caracas – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned on Monday that world oil prices would surge to $200 a barrel if the United States attacked his country. “If they attack us with their battleships, with waves of intelligence officers, bombs, marines and all of that, well, you can forget about oil,” Chavez said in a CNN […]

The Search for Solutions to Africa’s Energy Problem

Germany has been behind the formation of the Forum for Energy Ministers of Africa (FEMA). Mr Holger Liptow, the GTZ Director of Energizing Africa and Climate Change Projects, attended the inauguration of FEMA in Entebbe, Uganda recently. He talked to Bamuturaki Musinguzi: The only options now are either you build hydropower which is renewable and […]

Ozone layer making a recovery

A study just published by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences shows declining ozone levels have leveled off from 1996 to 2002, and in some areas there even are small increases. “We will absolutely have to monitor for at least another decade before we can be confident,” said Betsy Weatherhead, one of the […]

China farmers steal oil in plastic bags

Farmers in impoverished central China, tempted by soaring global crude prices, are stealing oil from state pipelines in plastic bags, the official China Daily newspaper reported on Tuesday. Villagers in dusty Shaanxi province are siphoning off enough crude every day to fill up to five bags each, which weigh around 50 kg (110 lb) when […]

Petrol rationing in a country awash with oil

Drivers in Baghdad, the capital of a country with the world’s third largest oil reserves, can now use their cars only on alternate days because of the continuing petrol shortages. Under a new government directive that has left residents furious and traffic police complaining that the plan is unenforceable, cars with odd numbers at the […]

Russia values European pipeline – Foreign Ministry

Russia attaches great significance to a project to build the North European Gas Pipeline (NGP) and so would like to see Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly, and its German partners sign the relevant agreements in Berlin, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. ..In addition, the diplomat said the two countries were preparing […]

It’s All Bush’s Fault

In light of recent accusations that the recent hurricane was the fault of President Bush (for not fighting against global warming), liberal groups have now decided that the following disasters are now the fault of President:Reality Television: The New England Patriots: Britney Spears: Mad Cow Disease:TheSpoof

Oil will peak at USD 90 per barrel in March 2006 – CNOOC Dep. Chief Economist

Oil will peak at USD 90 per barrel by March of next year, CNOOC Dep. Chief Economist Zhang Weiping said at conference discussing China’s energy needs in Beijing on Monday. Zhang also expected global oil production to peak at 94-100 mb/day during the next five years. …China is facing oil shortages on the eastern coast, […]

Central America on ”maximum alert” due to energy crisis

Central America countries on Monday declared a state of “maximum alert” in response to the ongoing energy crisis and announced visits to Venezuela and Colombia to explore the possibility of oil assistance. “The consequences of the world oil crisis we are faced with arepretty much like that of an earthquake or a tsunami,” said El […]

China mulls raising renewable energy commitment

Beijing currently aims to get one-tenth of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and this year passed a law forcing power suppliers to buy more electricity from plants that do not burn fossil fuels. But with imports rocketing and the environmental toll of dirty coal climbing — Premier Wen Jiabao said on Monday it […]

The real looters are the fat oil companies

PRESIDENT Bush on Thursday told ABC-TV, “there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud.” In a thinly disguised attempt to act as if it cared about the […]

Corn-husk use studied for ethanol

Corn-based ethanol long has been the alternative of choice, but legislators and a host of companies and non-profit research centers are searching for more efficient ways to fuel America’s auto obsession, looking to diesel, solar power and, most recently, crop waste such as corn husks and cobs.Kris Berglund, a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan […]

Desperately seeking alternatives

As gasoline prices continue to rise, the possibility of powering your car with fuel made from soybeans, recycled vegetable oil or corn doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.All these methods are viable options to help with the gasoline crisis, but getting the public, the oil industry and the government to change their mindset about alternative fuels […]

The Role of Titanium in Hydrogen Storage

As part of ongoing research to make hydrogen a mainstream source of clean, renewable energy, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have determined how titanium atoms help hydrogen atoms attach to an aluminum surface. Their study isolates the role of titanium, which is used as a catalyst in the crucial first […]

Europe plans laser-fusion facility

Laser physicists in Europe have put forward plans to build a PhysicsWeb

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