First strategic oil reserve due for completion by August

China will complete construction of its first strategic oil reserve facility in Zhenhai, East China’s Zhejiang Province, in August, a top energy official said in Beijing on Friday. But he refused to comment on when the pumping of crude oil into the Zhenhai reserve would begin. “A lot of people ask what China should do […]

Lots Of Energy Left In Oilfield Services

The oilfield equipment and services industry has enjoyed a tremendous run, with stocks averaging a return of 79% over the last 12 months and 48% annualized over the last three years. Investors are concerned about whether the group can continue to deliver such lofty returns, given uncertainty surrounding the future of energy prices. But despite […]

Duma votes for Russian gas export monopoly

A law that will reinforce Gazprom’s monopoly on Russian gas exports gained preliminary approval in Russia’s lower house of parliament on Friday, in a snub to European demands for Russia to open up its pipeline network. The bill says that Gazexport, the export arm of the state-controlled natural gas giant, should have “exclusive right to […]

Asphalt prices skyrocket, highway officials scramble to adjust

Skyrocketing asphalt prices this spring are causing governments around Wisconsin to scramble to cover the cost of planned road building by using a lower grade of material, recycling some of it or considering a work cutback. Homeowners and businesses are also debating whether to go ahead with plans for new driveways or parking lots at […]

EU Leaders Endorse Energy Imports Plan

EU leaders on Friday endorsed plans to secure Europe’s energy imports, a blueprint that calls for creating new supply routes and signing energy treaties with producers such as Russia. “There is a continuing need for the EU to respond to the worldwide competition for access to increasingly scarce sources of energy,” the heads of state […]

Clean energies receive EU research funding boost

The European Parliament has allocated 2.4 billion euros to energy research in a vote on the EU’s next seven-year R&D programme (2007-2013). Some two thirds are allocated to renewable energies and energy savings. The overall programme is allocated a total budget of €50.5 billion euros, a substantial increase compared to the €16.3 billion available under […]

U.S. Economy ‘Up to Challenge’ of High Fuel Prices, Fed Chairman Says

Short-term energy prices are likely to remain volatile and high, but market forces will respond with incentives for production and use of new, energy-saving technologies, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said yesterday. “The days of persistently cheap oil and natural gas are likely behind us,” Bernanke told the Economic Club of Chicago. “The good news […]

Technology that holds the key to world’s demand for power

Steep oil prices have fuelled rising interest in alternative sources of energy. Investors willing to accept high risks may consider following the founder of one of Britain’s biggest firms of independent financial advisers into a tiny energy company. Peter Hargreaves explains why he has put some of his own fortune at stake The world found […]

Tanzanian budget focuses on energy and the environment

The energy crisis in Tanzania has been felt throughout the country and as such has been identified as a priority area in Thursday’s budget. The budget speech reveals tax policy measures to also alleviate this crisis while considering the environment at the same time. The most obvious change is the focus on petroleum products and […]

New Interference on the Horizon for U.S. Wind Power Development

At Tehachipi pass, a well-known wind farm in Central California, even the smallest wind turbine, the tips of its blades whirling at just the right speed, gives off a radar signal larger than that of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, according to Gary Seifert, Program Manager, Idaho National Laboratory, who spoke at last week’s annual […]

Shell strategy leaves room for alternative fuels

John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., kicked off a 50-city public relations tour Friday in Dallas, the latest attempt by a big oil executive to explain that consumers aren’t getting ripped off. The head of Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s U.S. operations outlined a plan to ensure that the U.S. has plenty of affordable energy: […]

Where Did the Good Investments Go?

By and large, American companies are flush with cash. That has led many economists and policymakers to predict that an upsurge in business investment will smooth the sharp edges of the next economic slowdown. The thinking goes like this: As consumers retrench in the face of higher gas prices, higher interest rates and staggering household […]

Iraq to tap northern fields

Iraq is ready to export around 4m barrels of oil from its troubled northern oil fields,, reported Reuters. The country resumed oil flows through its pipeline to Turkey last week for the first time in four month and will issue tenders for the oil from Turkey’s Ceyhan terminal. Before the US led invasion of Iraq, […]

Shenhua Group Has 8 CTL Projects in Pipeline

China Daily. Shenhua Group. China greencarcongress

Is Our Collective Oil Dependence an Addiction?

The recent post exploring whether or not our relationship to oil can be seen in terms of a dependency certainly got you going, and yielded some fascinating comments. Some other discussion boards on the net picked up the article and some people could barely restrain their fury at the notion that we might be addicted […]

New Energy Plants: Not in My Back Yard

A quarter of U.S. residents oppose any energy plant or facility in their hometown, including solar plants or wind terminals. A survey of 1,001 people by RBC Capital Markets also found that respondents in that 25 percent group are also more likely to believe that high energy prices are temporary, RBC said Friday in a […]

Quebec unveils carbon tax

Quebec plans to adopt tough vehicle emissions standards and will become the first province to levy a “carbon tax” on oil and gas companies as part of an ambitious plan to fight global warming. The tax will raise about $200-million a year over six years, provincial government officials said yesterday, and will finance a $1.2-billion […]

Looming energy crisis requires new ‘Manhattan Project’

The United States urgently needs an effort similar to the Manhattan Project or NASA’s moon mission to confront a looming energy crisis, according to scientists at a high-level energy conference. Soaring global demand for energy and rapid depletion of resources need to be addressed by a long-term government-led project similar to the World War II-era […]

Reuters: Food movement encourages buying local

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – For the last two years, California bookstore manager Sage Van Wing has helped organize the Eat Local Challenge, where, for one month, participants only buy food produced within 100 miles of their homes. She is one of many people across the United States who are joining the burgeoning local food movement. In […]

A Personal Peak Oil Discovery Process, Part II

Raise the Hammer – (Ed. Note: This is Part II of a two-part series. Part I chronicled the process by which John Rawlins discovered the scale and extent of the coming peak oil crisis. Part II details the steps he has taken to prepare for a world of diminishing oil resources.) We live on the […]

Nanotubes Make Ocean Water Potable

InTech – A water desalination system using carbon nanotube-based membranes could significantly reduce the cost of purifying water from the ocean. MIT Technology Review reported the technology could potentially provide a solution to water shortages both in the U.S., where populations will soar in areas with few freshwater sources, and worldwide, where a lack of […]

Social Capital and Peak Oil

The Oil Drum NYC – 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 […]

Are our cities making us fat?

Fitness experts call for new urban design to fight America’s obesity problem DENVER – It

Think Tank: Urgency Picks Up for Alternatives

The Age – AUSTRALIA’S dwindling crude oil reserves will run out within seven years at current production rates, if there are no new discoveries. Likely further finds will only delay the inevitable: the nation’s fleet of 13,920,105 vehicles will become increasingly reliant on oil imports, unless and until alternative fuels fill the breach. The decline […]

The Oil Drum: Consumption Winners and Losers

Continuing with exploration of what’s in the new BP report, I wanted to update information on how consumption changed in various countries as a result of the tightening of world supplies through 2005. I looked at this question in Who has to conserve how much? based on EIA data, but the BP data breaks out […]

Quebec unveils carbon tax

Province hopes levy on oil and gas firms will put $1.2-billion toward its Kyoto goals QUEBEC Environmental groups welcomed the measures, but a petroleum industry spokesman said the tax will be passed on to consumers. Quebec Premier Jean Charest and Environment Minister Claude B

Aussies Show Off Their Solar Ferryboat

The next big new thing on San Francisco Bay may be a ferryboat powered by electricity, the sun and the wind. A prototype of the boat, called the Solar Sailor, is in operation in Sydney harbor in Australia. “The operators love it, the passengers love it, and it produces zero water pollution,” said Robert Dane, […]

Detroit’s Midsize SUV Problem

It’s not just the mammoth SUVs that are suffering. The once-powerful midsize segment is also dwindling as gas prices rise and boomers age In the 1990s, NASCAR dads and soccer moms ditched their minivans for hauling kids and groceries and flocked instead to mid-sized, truck-based sport utility vehicles such as the mega-selling Ford Explorer and […]

Rural Kenyan women on vanguard of African ’solar revolution’

KAJIADO, Kenya (AFP) – Elizabeth Leshom may not know it, but she is among a legion of African women at the vanguard of what many hope will be a “solar revolution” that could empower them and help save the environment. The 25-year-old Kenyan is part of a rapidly growing programme across east and central Africa […]

China to fill cars with cassava ethanol

BEIJING (Reuters) – China, trying to cut dependence on imported oil, will use cassava-based ethanol fuel for cars in the southern region Guangxi in 2007, state media said on Friday. The region will build ethanol plants with a combined annual capacity of 1.0 million tonnes to deal with a fuel shortage, Xinhua news agency quoted […]

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