The Next Energy Crisis?

Bob Horton has survived the arrival of Home Depot and more economic downturns than he can remember. Yet this winter may be the last for his 40-year-old plumbing and heating supply shop in Osceola, Iowa, just south of Des Moines. The heating bill at his business soared to $602 last month, up from $250 a […]

A power station in every home

Last year was Australia’s hottest on record and summer peak power demands now exceed winter peaks, mainly because of the consumer stampede towards residential air-conditioning. More than 60 per cent of Australian dwellings are now air-conditioned, compared with 33 per cent in 1994. And last month was Australia’s sunniest on record; an average of 10.4 […]

Power companies predict return of coal

The world is on the brink of a big switch from gas to coal as the preferred fuel for power stations, according to projections from Alstom, Siemens and General Electric, the world’s three biggest power equipment makers. Independent forecasts from France’s Alstom and Germany’s Siemens, made available to the Financial Times, show that about 40 […]

Government has hope for bio-diesel

There is a hope that bio-diesel enjoys the same popularity that solar energy has enjoyed in Barbados. Noting that internationally the bio-diesel industry is positioning itself to become a future leader in the renewable energy production world-wide, Education Officer, Ministry of the Environment, Donna King-Brathwaite, said that Barbados is taking a step in the right […]

Oil prices threaten Baltic eurozone ambitions

High oil prices could hit plans for the expansion of the 12-member eurozone next year, as Estonia and Lithuania battle to keep inflation below the club’s limit of about 3 per cent. Only Slovenia, the former Yugoslav republic, looks certain to join the single currency area on its target date of January 1 2007, according […]

Battle rages around oil platform in Nigeria

Nigerian troops battled militia fighters in swamps around a Royal Dutch Shell PLC oil platform that militants attacked at dawn Sunday, the third assault on Shell oil facilities in less than a week in the troubled region. Shell confirmed the attack on the Benisede oil platform in the southern oil-rich Niger Delta and said some […]

Embargo on oil too costly

THE world cannot afford to impose an embargo on Iranian oil exports to punishTehran for its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, a leading oil market researcher says. “The UN Security Council would be hurting the world more than it was hurting Iran if it restricted Iranian oil exports,” said John Lichtblau, head of the Petroleum […]

Experts call for increasing oil, gas exploration

About 80 percent of India’s sedimentary basins with potential for oil and natural gas reserves remain unexplored, energy experts here have said. The experts said stepping up off- and on-shore oil and gas exploratory activities was the only way to bridge the gap between the demand and supply for energy resources in the country William […]

2005 Year in Review, U.S. Biomass Energy Policy

Until recently, biomass has been on the backburner for many renewable energy advocates, but the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), numerous agriculture organizations and several Members of Congress have been promoting this renewable energy source for years. Biomass used to displace petroleum, especially in the transportation sector, will take center stage next year. Transportation […]

BLM Meetings on Oil Shale and Tar Sands Development Surface the Water Issue

The Bureau of Land Management, part of the US Department of the Interior, has begun public meetings to obtain comments for the programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) required to support commercial oil shale and tar sands leasing on federal lands in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. According to a report in the Salt Lake Tribune, a […]

Oil prices are gushing but could soon plunge

OF all the hurdles to be negotiated by the economy this year, one of the most interesting will be that of high oil prices. Last year, no matter how hard you looked, it was difficult to detect much of an oil-price effect on the world economy, though Gordon Brown blamed it for some of Britaintimesonline

Whatever happened to energy deregulation?

When the state deregulated the natural gas and electricity markets, ratepayers expected that competition would keep pressure on prices. But after more than five years, there are few alternatives to traditional utilities. In 2002, the year Fox joined the BPU, regulators tried something new. The entire state’s electricity load was put out to a reverse […]

Dr. Faustus and the global energy conundrum

Most experts recognise that the age of conventional oil will fade during the next century. Fortunately, price and technology will allow for production of heavy oil, tar sands and shale oil, whose combined global reserves far exceed those of conventional oil. Natural gas is a cleaner burning and more efficient method of producing power than […]

Variety of oil, gas plays developing around Basin

With the world increasingly thirsty for crude oil and natural gas, producers continue to explore the Permian Basin for new reserves. “One of the big plays (recently) has been the Devonian horizontal play in the Central and Delaware Basins,” said Sandy Rushworth with IHS Energy of Houston. “It has high initial potentials, 500 to 1,900 […]

Global warming to speed up as carbon levels show sharp rise

Global warming is set to accelerate alarmingly because of a sharp jump in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.Preliminary figures, exclusively obtained by The Independent on Sunday, show that levels of the gas – the main cause of climate change – have risen abruptly in the past four years. Scientists fear that warming […]

A nuclear revival in Southeast

With guaranteed federal loans and insurance protection promised to the first power companies to build a new wave of nuclear plants, the race is on for up to 10 stations between Maryland and Mississippi. Progress Energy, which has almost 1.4 million customers in North Carolina and South Carolina, expects to announce a preferred site in […]

Biodiesel called Florida’s future fuel

Take some vegetable oil, add lye and methanol, shake it up and let it settle. Make the mixture wrong and you’ll produce soap. But the right mix produces a fuel fit for use in any diesel engine, which advocates say will help free the nation from its dependence on foreign oil and clean the air. […]

China Now the World

Statistics from the China Automotive Industry Association (CAIA) indicate that China has surpassed Japan as the second-largest auto market in the world, behind the US. The total number of automobiles sold in the Chinese market reached more than 5.9 million in 2005, outstripping the 5.8 million of the Japanese market. Of those, 5.76 million were […]

Russia’s ‘oil-for-knowledge’ scheme

Whenever you fill up your European compact car’s gas tank, or that of your American SUV, you pay as much as a Russian schoolteacher earns in a month. And every time you pay, you subsidize a regime that relies on energy, not information, as its main product. You finance the pre-modern and the inefficient, and […]

Running on empty

A coastline bereft of oil rigs is as worrying a sign as low lake levels for a country counting down to an energy crisis. Summer is usually the time when towering semi-submersible rigs head south to drill for oil and gas off New Zealand’s coastline. This summer, the seas are empty.Stuff

Iraq’s future still going up in smoke

The Iraqi people have never benefited from the oil their country’s so rich in. It’s always been abused. It’s always been used to buy weapons, and persecute the people.’ Bayan Rahman, chair of the Kurdistan Development Corporation, hopes her war-torn country is finally ready to break with that sad tradition, and build a thriving free […]

N-plant plans revive spent-fuel concern

..five decades into the era of nuclear energy, with 103 nuclear reactors powering one-fifth of the nation’s homes, there is still no accepted method for ridding the world of nuclear waste that remains lethal for thousands of years. The waste is so dangerous that after 50 years in storage it emits gamma rays potent enough […]

Energy is an eternal delight

William Blake said that ‘‘Energy is eternal delight’’. Indeed, overtime, progress has become equal to energy. That is why the future of India’s energy policy is central to our growth aspirations. Delineating a policy which deals with long-term demand and supply of energy, considers different energy modes, examines the economics of alternative fuels, promotes energy […]

The Saudis May Have Enough Oil

Oil doomsayers have a lot of material from which to spin conspiracy theories, since several big oil countries are secretive about their reserves, which they consider a matter of national security. Recently, oil expert Matthew Simmons accused Saudi Arabia of inflating the size of its proven oil reservesNewsweek

Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Jaber Dies

The emir of oil-rich Kuwait, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has died in his late 70s, a court statement says. Sheikh Jaber, who had led the country since December 1977, suffered ill health and was seldom seen in public after suffering a minor stroke in 2001.BBC

Drivers feel pain at the pump

The flirtation with low gasoline prices is over. After falling for several weeks, gas prices once again are on the rise. The average cost of a gallon of unleaded gas in Fresno was almost $2.41 Friday, up nearly 14 cents from month ago, according to AAA of Northern California. Gas was $2.42 a gallon in […]

Energy analyst urges conservation

Here’s an unsettling thought. By the year 2020, global production of crude oil is expected to peak and begin to decline. The ramifications will be severe. It’s a reality that policy makers and consumers must deal with. The only real solution is conservation, said Charles Maxwell, senior energy analyst at Greenwich-based Weeden & Co., who […]

Govenor seeks probe in natural gas price spike

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has called on federal agencies to investigate recent spikes in prices of natural gas. Sticker shock over December’s heating gas bills have prompted dozens of Utahns to call the Governor’s Office for an investigation as to whether natural gas prices were being manipulated by commodity traders. “The U.S. Energy Information Administration […]

Opening the gas bill? Get ready for ’sticker shock’

I was paying bills the other night, employing the I removed the billing statement, with one eye still on the TV. I

Iran Sanctions Could Mean $100 Barrel of Oil

Rapidly deteriorating relations between the West and Iran, Opec’s second biggest oil producer and the world’s fourth-largest exporter, could see energy prices hit record highs in coming weeks. Experts warn that the growing tension over Iraq’s nuclear programme, and the possible withdrawal of Iranian oil from the market if sanctions are imposed, has put a […]

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