Hybrids, We Never Knew Ya

Scott Nathanson, the national field organizer for environmental activist group the Union of Concerned Scientists (or UCS), contends the term “hybrid” is confusing at best and misleading at worst. “People think that it if you slap a hybrid label on something, that makes it a green vehicle,” he said. Not so. Nathanson said that while […]

Volvo Group Introduces Heavy-Duty Hybrids

The Volvo Group has unveiled a prototype hybrid system for heavy-duty vehicles (buses and trucks) which promises fuel savings of up to 35%, depending upon usage. The company is targeting series production of the hybrid vehicles by 2009. Designated I-SAM (Integrated Starter, Alternator, Motor), the parallel hybrid system comprises a combined starter motor, drive motor […]

The New Biofuel Republics

Poor developing nations are to feed the voracious appetites of rich countries for biofuels instead of their own hungry masses, and suffer the devastation of their natural forests and biodiversity. The end of cheap oil and the impending fuel crisis have convinced the European Union and the United States to seriously tackle their long-standing and […]

US Became Top Global Producer of Ethanol in 2005

The United States slipped past Brazil to become the worldgreencarcongress

Burn, hydrogen, burn

However, all that is about to change, not in 10 years, not in five. In fact, the solution is just right around the corner and has already been test-proven on Malaysian roads. Claimed to cut petrol consumption by half, the Hydrogen Fuel Technology (HFT), developed by HFT Sdn Bhd, works by fuelcellsworks

Botswana: Energy Officials Meet Over Fuel Shortage

Energy authorities are holding crisis talks with petroleum providers to try and resolve the fuel shortage situation. Principal Energy Officer in the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Kesetsenao Molosiwa said government had to intervene following a countrywide fuel shortage that hit Botswana this week. “Oil industries have been rationalising amongst themselves,” said Molosiwa […]

China Car Making Shifts Into Overdrive

LINDA O`BRYON: While the U.S. auto industry faces huge job cuts and plant closures, auto makers in China are hiring. The communist nation now exports over half of the cars and trucks it makes and its global market share is growing. Nick Mackie profiles China`s newest automaker. NICK MACKIE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Yin Mingshan […]

Researcher Investigates the Deaths of Canada’s Ghost Towns

Debra Davidson is chasing ghosts. The University of Alberta academic is no paranormal researcher: In the first national study of its kind, sheThe Star Phoenix

The Oil Drum: Will Unconventional Natural Gas Save Us?

This story is about natural gas supplies in North America and the US in particular. Lately, TOD has had some posts on Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) imports as the way to solve the North American natural gas crisis. The point of these posts concerning LNG is that there are real unavoidable concerns that LNG imports […]

The day the earth stood still

The title is borrowed from a 1951 movie in which an alien lands and tells the people of earth they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets. To show he means business he halts all mechanical things and instantly nothing that is powered by oil or electricity can move. Fast […]

Peak Oil and Deep Oil, part II

NEWS FLASH: “The concept of Peak Oil has not been widely written about. But people are talking about it now. It deserves a careful look — largely because it is almost certainly correct.” — The New York Times, March 1, 2006 “Almost certainly correct,” states the Old Gray Lady. That is about as close to […]

An Explosive Gas Deal

Putin’s Hard Bargain Could Undermine Democracy in Europe Sometimes the stumbling blocks in international affairs are glaringly obvious — such as the victory of Islamic fundamentalists in Palestinian elections, which has at least temporarily paralyzed the Bush administration’s policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East. Sometimes, though, they are complicated, confusing or simply opaque, […]

Oil Gleaners

Giant reservoirs are getting hard to find. So Weatherford helps oil companies pick over the fields that are already on the map. Of the 25,000 wells Weatherford International helped drill last year, the gnarliest was in the Knotty Head prospect in the Gulf of Mexico. For nine months the ship Transocean Discoverer Spirit used 360-degree […]

Ecuador Oil Workers Block Road to Field

QUITO, Ecuador – About 100 subcontracted oil workers blocked a road leading to one of Ecuador’s main oil fields Thursday as a state of emergency declared by President Alfredo Palacio to end the strike stretched into a second day. Ecuador’s oil production slowly crept up Thursday as some striking workers began returning to their jobs, […]

Ponying Up for Alternative-Fuel Research

I’ve long opposed giving government money to corporations. Ideally, they should be able to fund whatever they need the old-fashioned way — through profits. But we have a real energy crisis facing us, though it may not be readily apparent as long as the lights are on and the highways are humming. We actually are […]

Buried at sea: Shell’s plan for greenhouse gases

The biggest-ever scheme to bury greenhouse gases below the seabed is being planned by energy groups Shell and Statoil. The plan will allow Norwegian gas to be developed for Britain with less environmental damage. Up to 2.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide annually – the same as would be produced by 1m cars – is to […]

Cape Town’s infrastructure ‘in crisis’

Cape Town’s infrastructure is in “crisis”, warns the Cape Town Partnership, with the recent electricity cuts causing “immeasurable damage to the economy” and “severely denting” investor confidence. Speaking at a meeting of the Business Forum on Thursday, CTP chief executive and former city manager, Andrew Boraine, said: “It’s not that we have an energy crisis, […]

Jihad Against Oil

Energy Dependence: Al-Qaida and Democrats in Congress have a curious objective in common — sabotaging the supplies of oil available to America. The Saudi Arabian branch of al-Qaida this week provided religious justification for its attempt last Friday to car-bomb the huge oil-processing complex in the eastern Saudi town of Abqaiq. “Targeting oil interests is […]

Oil pipeline breach sparks one of worst spills in Alaska

ANCHORAGE, United States (AFP) – An oil pipeline leak on Alaska’s North Slope has spewed up to 220,000 liters (58,000 gallons) of crude onto the tundra, causing one of the region’s worst spills, officials said. The leak, apparently caused by metal corrosion, was detected in the United States’ largest oil field a week ago and […]

No future for fusion power, says top scientist

Nuclear fusion will never be a practical source of electrical power, argues a prominent scientist in the journal Science. Even nuclear fusion’s staunchest advocates admit a power-producing fusion plant is still decades away at best, despite forty years of hard work and well over $20 billion spent on the research. But the new paper, personally […]

Superhot test one step closer to fusion energy

A particle accelerator at Sandia National Laboratories has heated a swarm of charged particles to a record 2 billion degrees Kelvin, a temperature beyond that of a star’s interior. Scientists working with Sandia’s Z machine said the feat also revealed a new phenomenon that could eventually make future nuclear fusion power plants smaller and cheaper […]

Saudi Arabia Steps Up Security at Oil Facilities

Speaking at the OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said Wednesday his government has tightened security around all its petroleum installations. He said the move was prompted by last month’s attempted suicide bombing of the Abqaiq facility – which is the world’s largest oil processing plant and handles two-thirds of the […]

China faces uphill energy-saving drive

To Bejing opera singer and law-maker Liu Changyu, the bright lights that Premier Wen Jiabao wants to dim are a sign of China’s progress, and need to stay on. More serious opposition to Wen’s plan to reform the country’s energy-guzzling ways will likely come from local officials and entrenched economic interests in affected sectors from […]

U.S. oil addiction could make us sick

..Canada has become the leading energy satellite of the U.S. at a time when America has reasserted itself globally with imperial ambitions, as witnessed by the ongoing war in Iraq. Furthermore, the fact that securing energy supplies has risen to the top of the U.S. national security agenda during George W. Bush’s presidency, has put […]

China’s boom is killing sea that gives it life, warn scientists

China’s spectacular economic boom will mean the death of its major economic and maritime hub, the Bohai sea, unless action is taken to stop industrial pollution of its waters, environmental advisers said yesterday. The warnings, yet another example of the crisis gripping the world’s fastest-growing major economy, come as China tries to balance its desire […]

Find Quick Solution to Power Crisis – Traders

Kampala City Traders Association (Kacita), has appealed to President Yoweri Museveni to look for an immediate solution or alternative to the current power shortage in the country. Kacita’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Issah Ssekitto, told Daily Monitor, at his office that the 12 -hour load-shedding schedule has greatly jeopardised businesses in the city. Ssekitto added […]

Iceland: Mulling First Oil Devt Licensing Round for 2007

Iceland’s government is considering offering its first oil exploration and development licensing round next year, an official at the country’s energy agency told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday. The country was previously thought not to have any significant oil or gas resources, but new seismic data has shown several geological structures off the coast with potential […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Rationing by Price

..In the last few months, riots, some resulting in many deaths, have taken place across the underdeveloped world as governments have been forced to raise fuel prices. The returns aren’t in as yet but the conclusion seems obvious. To Americans and others in the industrialized world $2.50 or even $6 gasoline is, or will be, […]

Why Iran’s oil bourse can’t break the buck

By F William Engdahl ..The argument by those who believe the Tehran oil bourse would be the casus belli, the trigger pushing Washington down the road to potential thermonuclear annihilation of Iran, seems to rest on the claim that by openly trading oil to other nations or buyers in euros, Tehran would set into motion […]

The Oil Drum: St Patrick and the Shortage of Engineers

If you are going to rely on technology to solve the problems of running short on various fuels, as they are currently produced, then you need certain folk (engineers, scientists and technologists), who understand the current ways of producing those fuels, to come up with that technology. It is likely that some of the new […]

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