Donald Fournier: Oil Depletion and the US Army (Transcript)

Global Public Media – David Room: Hello, Don. Could you please tell me about the report you co-authored, “Energy Trends and Implications for the U.S. Army Installations”? Don Fournier: The intent of this report was just to gather and summarize the energy issues and options. The intended audience was the folks who run the military […]

The Oil Drum: The Importance of Social Capital

I am now near the end of my reading of Robert Putnam’s seminal work on Social Capital, Bowling Alone. Social Capital is one of those very hard to define subjects, but my interpretation is that it measures the level of trust, connectedness and mutual reciprocity in society. This is important for a wide range of […]

The Permanent Energy Crisis

Welcome to the permanent global energy crisis. Though experts differ on when the precise moment of “peak oil” (also known as the end of cheap oil) will come, few deny that it’s on the way. Already, supply is tightening, even as demand surges, pushing the price of oil (and gas at the pump) skyward. Increasingly, […]

U.S. at Risk of Dependence on Foreign Natural Gas

The United States, long “addicted” to foreign oil, now risks becoming dependent on foreign natural gas as well, according to an article in the summer Issues in Science and Technology. In Natural Gas: The Next Energy Crisis?, Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, writes that demand for natural gas is rising rapidly, but supply […]

The Origin Of Challenge

Commercial media, professional journals1, magazines and institutions2 normally focus on reserves and resources, an over-simplification of factors that affect supply. This work includes a sensitivity analysis to identify the critical factors among the variables; demand growth, exploration potential, OPEC reserves, OPEC outtake growth, reserve growth and yearly developed reserves (Figure 8). The Base Case is […]

The Dirty Secret Of China’s Economy

Yes, China is a remarkable growth story. But it is also fast becoming an ecological wasteland, home to world-class smog, acid rain, polluted rivers and lakes, and deforestation. Environmental problems play a role in the death of some 300,000 Chinese people each year, according to World Bank estimates. The good news is that some effective […]

New tidal generator could mean cheaper electricity

Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed a new kind of marine generator they say could substantially reduce the cost of electricity generated from tidal power. Dr Steve Turnock said the design was a new take on tidal energy generation: “This is a compact design that does away with many of the moving parts […]

Big Coal The Dirty secret Behind America’s Energy Future

Later we are informed that coal produces over twice the carbon dioxide emissions of natural gas per unit energy–taken with the previous statement this is not a good combination. In the first section of the book many of coals’ most potent myths are crushed. Chief amongst these myths is that ‘clean coal’ technology is clean. […]

Licences for North Sea oil hit 35-year record

Any suggestion that the North Sea oil and gas industry is in its twilight years was swept aside yesterday with the announcement that the 24th licensing round for UK exploration and production is at a 35-year record. Fears that Chancellor Gordon Brown’s oil tax increase might have a serious impact have proved unfounded in a […]

OPEC Sees 2006 World Oil Demand Growth Steady at 1.4M b/d

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Monday kept its forecast for 2006 global oil demand growth steady at 1.4 million barrels a day and said there were signs that high prices were starting to hit demand. In its monthly oil market report, OPEC said even though the largest share of the increase in world oil […]

The Third Electrical Current

A US Patent has been awarded to John Timothy Sullivan for the Sully Direct Current, which is not AC nor DC. Discovered as part of a new electrolysis technique. But, what would happen if you have a polarity reversal within the (+) positive and (-) negative electrode without swapping the polarity of the supply voltage? […]

Genencor Introduces New Protease Enzyme for Ethanol Industry

Genencor International, a US-based biotech subsidiary of Danisco A/S, will introduce a new acid fungal protease enzyme product for use in the ethanol industry at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. greencarcongress

Japan a testing ground for clean-energy technologies

Burnaby’s Ballard Power Systems is using Japan as a testing ground for what the company hopes will be its first high-volume commercial product by 2008 — a new fuel cell system for generating heat and electricity for Japanese homes. Ballard announced this month it has delivered the prototypes that will be used to develop the […]

Researchers Work on Alternative Jet Fuel

(AP) — The spike in oil prices has prompted plenty of drivers to consider biodiesel-powered or hybrid cars for their daily commute, but what about that gas guzzler we use to fly across country? Government and corporate researchers are looking into ways to power commercial jet engines with alternative fuels, although many caution that widespread […]

The Interstate Highway System at 50

San Francisco Chronicle – America in fast lane with no exit; Freeways have changed our way of life and given birth to new industries Fifty years ago from a hospital room, President Dwight Eisenhower changed America with a flick of his wrist, sending it speeding down an on-ramp toward the future of an automobile-oriented society. […]

A Crude Awakening

EV World – Interview with Swiss television journalist Basil Gelpke on his new 90-minute documentary on peak oil. Gelpke, who was worked for a decade in television news, said that he’s covered a lot of stories and seen a lot of things and he isn’t easily impressed… “But when I came across the story of […]

5 ways to save by living green

It’s good for the environment and your wallet. NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) – This summer the scariest movie at the multiplex isn’t your garden-variety horror flick, and it doesn’t star anyone named Tom. It’s an indie film called An Inconvenient Truth, and it’s…a documentary. Not only that, but it’s a documentary that on the surface […]

Buenos Aires fears power outage during World Cup match

The Argentina capital of Buenos Aires fears a shortage of electricity due to the match of Argentina against The Netherlands upcoming Wednesday. Because tens of thousands of Argentinians are turning on their tv set at the same time, this will cause a spike in the electricity demand. When this results in a electricity failure, thousands […]

A Megaproject List from the Oil & Gas Journal

The Oil Drum – Herumph! There I go and take a couple of days to finish a report, and whoops, there is all sort of stuff that I should be posting about. Whether it is the realization that LNG contracts are going to be needed as the US need will grow from 2 – 10% […]

Europe Has ‘No Alternative’ to Russian Energy – Gerhard Schroeder

Interactive Investor – The European Union has no reliable alternative to Russia for energy imports, former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Monday in a speech that emphasized Russia’s role as a stable energy supplier. “There is no reliable alternative to Russia,” Schroeder, hired in March as a top executive for a Gazprom-led pipeline project, told […]

A car guy who wants you to drive less

America’s biggest auto dealer has a plan to cut oil imports but it won’t win him many friends in the business. NEW YORK (FORTUNE) – Mike Jackson has a prescription for reigning in energy usage that is simple, straightforward and guaranteed to be effective. The CEO of AutoNation (Charts), the largest chain of auto dealers […]

Angry football fans attack power supply offices

BANGALADESH – Angry football enthusiasts attacked Paikgachha and Batiaghata Palli Bidyut Samity offices in Khulna on Tuesday night, as they could not watch World Cup matches due to power outage. They hurled stones at both the offices and damaged the windowpanes at about 10:45pm protesting the load-shedding. Security forces deployed at the centres, however, foiled […]

The Most Powerful Force on Earth

When I was born, there were fewer than two and a half billion people on the planet. Now, barely 60 years later, there are six and a half billion. When my father first went to work on Wall Street in 1926, it had taken 125 years for the world If you

Free ‘Peak Oil’ conference in London, 15th July 2006

A free-to-attend conference looking at many aspects of Peak Oil is taking place on Saturday 15 July 2006 at the BedZed development in Hackbridge, just outside London. The event, Peak Speak 2, is the follow up to the successful Peak Speak 1, held at the same location last year. Organised by PowerSwitch.org.uk, and run in […]

Demand for OPEC oil up, cartel says

VIENNA (AFP) – OPEC’s estimate for demand for its oil in 2006 is up by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), even if high prices are reducing growth in oil demand in certain key regions, especially Europe, the powerful cartel has said in a report. “The estimated demand for OPEC crude in 2006 is expected to […]

Jatropha fuels country’s hope for cheaper bio-diesel

Just like many other countries of the world, the Philippines has always been dependent on imported fossil oil for its fuel requirements. Aside from draining the country’s financial resources, there is no saying when the fossil fuel deposits will be depleted. There is no knowing whether the Arab countries will be able to supply fuel […]

Chinese officials judged on efficiency

Chinese officials, for decades expected to foster economic growth at almost any cost, will now have to weigh up the amount of energy their firms are burning, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Zhejiang, a province on the booming east coast, has added energy efficiency to the criteria used to evaluate local officials’ performance and […]

Japan begins studying Islamic financial practice to lure oil money – report

Japan will study Islamic financial practices in a bid to attract Middle Eastern oil money amid record oil prices, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. The government-backed Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has formed a four-man advisory board of Islamic legal scholars from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Pakistan, the paper said.Forbes

Premier of Canadian province takes on Big Oil

Danny Williams may be a multimillionaire and a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, but these days he is being compared to a self-proclaimed revolutionary, the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. Not that Williams, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, minds. Since walking out on talks with a group led by Exxon Mobil and the […]

Russian oil giant seeks to win over wary investors

Rosneft, the second-biggest Russian oil producer, is mounting a lavish public relations campaign to win over wary foreign investors before planned flotation on the London and Moscow stock exchanges next month. With glossy advertising on Russian television, flights on private jets to remote production sites for foreign journalists and an array of Western media communications […]

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