Coming soon: an OPEC for Gas?

MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to set up an energy club within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, voiced at the SCO summit in Shanghai, has been met with alarm in the West. Concerns have been expressed that a gas analogue of OPEC may appear in the East. There are reasons to believe this is […]

Oil addiction’s hidden costs

Next month, for the first time ever, the annual meeting of the world’s leading industrialized nations will be held in a country without a commitment to democratic values. Russia was admitted to the Group of Eight during the 1990s when it seemed to be heading in the right direction. Now, having grown increasingly autocratic under […]

New hydraulic hybrid trucks roll off

WASHINGTON – Recognize that familiar United Parcel Service truck with the trademark brown paint job? Look twice. The government unveiled its model Wednesday, replete with a new hybrid hydraulic system. The new system replaces a truck’s transmission with hydraulics and that, combined with a low-emission diesel engine, yields a 60 to 70 percent saving on […]

Vespa, maker Piaggia goes public

MILAN, Italy – Nothing on wheels more personifies Italian style than the Vespa scooter, whose carefree spirit was immortalized by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck circling Rome’s piazzas in the 1953 film “Roman Holiday.” The Vespa’s familiar curved frame has a found a place in design museums and in the hearts of Europeans, who first […]

Largest Solar Cell Plant to be Built in Bay Area

San Francisco Chronicle – A Palo Alto company will announce today that it will spend about $100 million to build the world’s largest solar cell factory and that it will locate its new plant in the Bay Area. Martin Roscheisen, chief executive of Nanosolar Inc., said Tuesday that his firm is considering sites in San […]

U.S. Crude Oil Supplies Extremely High

(UPI) — U.S. crude oil inventories increased 1.4 million barrels last week, the Energy Department said Wednesday. At 347.1 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories were at the highest level last Friday since the week ending May 29, 1998, and are well above the upper end of the average range for this time of year.M&C […]

Brazil’s Ipiranga Halts Refining as Oil Prices Rise

(Bloomberg) — Refinaria de Petroleo Ipiranga SA, Brazil’s second-largest oil company, said it halted refining operations because it can’t raise fuel prices in Brazil enough to cover the cost of imported crude oil. The shutdown of its refinery is the third suspension in 16 months, the Rio Grande, Brazil-based Ipiranga-based company said in a filing […]

The Oil Drum: Oh Canada!–Natural Gas and the Future of Tar Sands Production

I was investigating sour gas and it turned out that about 30% of the gas produced in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) is sour. As things do, one thing led to another and I found that this gas can be “sweetened” and used although it contains H2S (hydrogen sulfide), which is toxic at levels […]

NIGERIA: Attackers abduct more oil workers in volatile delta

PORT HARCOURT – Gunmen in a speed boat seized two Filipino oil workers in the latest in a spate of attacks targeting oil installations and workers in Nigeria’s oil rich but impoverished Niger delta. Norway-based oil services company Petroleum Geo-Sciences said the two contract workers hired by the firm were abducted around noon on Tuesday […]

The scoop on poop

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) – This is a column about poop: cow manure that can turned into electricity, “green” baby diapers that can be put in the toilet and waterless urinals that don’t flush. Hold your nose if you must, but it turns out that there’s money to be made in finding ways to dispose of […]

Scent of Ballots Is in Air, and Energy Bills Are Blooming

WASHINGTON, June 19 Any notion that energy policy was set for a while after President Bush signed the first major energy bill in a decade last August would be wrong. Not only are gasoline prices higher now than they were then

Little relief seen at pumps for summer drivers

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Faced with high-flying prices at the pump, American motorists won’t get much relief this summer vacation season despite the president’s plan announced two months ago to lower fuel costs, according to energy experts. Gasoline prices are averaging just below $2.90 per gallon, and well over $3 in several U.S. cities, according […]

Panel Reaches Deal on Drilling Off U.S. Coasts

WASHINGTON, June 19 The agreement, scheduled for a committee vote on Wednesday, would replace a longstanding executive order barring most drilling on the shelf with legislation that would bar drilling in the first 50 miles of coastal waters unless states chose to opt out by vote of their Legislature and the approval of their governor. […]

Spoof penalty tickets scare British SUV owners

LONDON (Reuters) – The car owner’s grimace may be real as the “parking ticket” is peeled from the windshield, but it soon becomes clear the penalty notice is a fake. Drivers of huge sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in some of London’s more fashionable areas are being targeted by Blake Ludwig and like-minded environmental campaigners who […]

A Critique of the 2006 EIA International Energy Outlook – Stuart Staniford

The Oil Drum – As you can see – the future is bright to the EIA, unless perhaps you own beachfront or stormbelt property, in which case expect lots of wind and water. It will perhaps come as no surprise that I don’t agree with their projections. Below are some critiques (mainly confining myself to […]

Congress wants oil industry to pay royalties that error let it avoid

WASHINGTON (AP) “To force companies to renegotiate under the threat of … punishment that is to be imposed through legislation … is an attack on the sanctity of contracts,” Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, wrote lawmakers recently. The issue is to be the focus of two House hearings Wednesday at which oil […]

As gas costs rise, so does use of public transit

Officals say lower-income persons more likely to stop using cars PEORIA, Ill. – Hobbled by artificial knees, Tom Mahoney doesn Ridership surged 15 percent in April compared with the same period a year ago on Peoria

Peak Oil = Urban Ruin

Change isn’t going to happen overnight. The automobile industry is one of the most energy-intensive modes of transportation ever created. Car ownership in the United States, at 217 million, is the highest in the world. Because of urban sprawl in the south and west, in places such as California and Arizona, we have a social dependency on car transportation.

Alternet

French Consumer Spending Probably Fell in May as Oil Climbed

French consumers’ purchases of manufactured goods probably fell in May as fuel bills rose, a survey of economists shows.“With expensive oil creating a feeling that they are getting poorer, households have become more price-sensitive,” said Dominique Barbet, a senior economist at BNP Paribas in Paris. “We’re still optimistic for the year, with a recovery especially […]

A windfall for investors in clean energy

As the search for new energy sources continues, the financing tools that are to fund renewable energy projects have moved from being a niche investment product into the mainstream of capital markets. The growing market is supported by the political urge to develop a renewable energy industry, in order to reduce CO2 emissions and to […]

Indonesia, Malaysia turn to biodiesel

Faced with soaring oil prices, Indonesia and Malaysia are turning to biodiesel, a fuel that cuts regular diesel with vegetable oil, to reduce emissions and costly subsidies. Indonesia has long searched for ways to reduce air pollution in Jakarta, one of the dirtiest cities in the world, and the government last month introduced biodiesel at […]

Carbon tax on airlines would never fly

A head of steam, or perhaps a vapour trail, is building up in Strasbourg over the carbon cost of air transport. The European Parliament is to vote in July on a report from its Environment Committee which recommends that airlines be drafted into an emissions trading scheme, similar to the one that operates for European […]

Finding green in the concrete jungle

They are totally artificial constructs and in them we live artificial lives. We travel differently, eat different food, receive water and energy through pipes and wires, live in different kinds of buildings, do different jobs. All of these things come with an environmental price-tag. Given that the world’s urban population is expanding at such a […]

Water crisis over in 2 weeks: Energy Undersecretary; Rationing key

KUWAIT (KUNA): The water-shortage crisis will be overcome completely within the next two weeks, but there is a need for water rationing even after the crisis blows over, said Energy Ministry’s Undersecre-tary for Water and Electricity Saud Al-Zaid. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, he said the problem had first been highlighted in March, […]

Asia Urged to Use Energy More Efficiently

The president of the Asian Development Bank says Asia must use energy more efficiently because as it develops the region will play a big role in climate change. The ADB is holding a three-day meeting in Manila on clean energy sources. Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda says Asia’s growth has brought benefits to the poor, but […]

The Promise and Problems of Those Dirty Black Rocks

With oil prices soaring and the Middle East in turmoil, it may be some comfort to know that the United States is sitting on gargantuan reserves of fossil fuel. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s coal. Just how bad is laid out emphatically in “Big Coal,” Jeff Goodell’s compelling indictment of […]

Zimbabwe: Fuel Prices Skyrocket As Supplies Dwindle

Diesel and petrol prices have skyrocketed to between $400 000 and $600 000 a litre from $206 000 and $280 000 at a time when supplies of the commodities have dwindled. Despite the increase in the price, the commodity was in short supply at most service stations with some fuel attendants professing ignorance on when […]

EU-Russia Energy Charter deal in the autumn?

EU energy Commissioner Piebalgs is “optimistic” that a deal with Russia on the Energy Charter is “possible” but not before the EU-Russia energy conference in October and certainly not during the G8 meeting in St Petersburg in July, the Commissioner told French daily Les Echos. “Russia has shared and will continue to share the principles […]

World’s largest solar plant planned in Bay Area

A Palo Alto company has decided to build the world’s largest factory for making solar power cells in the Bay Area — a move that would nearly triple the nation’s solar manufacturing capacity and give a significant boost to a growing source of clean energy. mercurynews

US asks India to join research on alternative energy sources

The US has invited India to join in its ‘Advanced Energy Initiative Programme’ to expand research and development to bring to market energy produced from alternative sources like ethanol, hydrogen, solar and wind technologies. The programme outlined by US President George Bush will require the best scientists and the best engineers, said US Energy Secretary […]

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