Ivory Coast minister hurt in mob attack over toxic dump

The story that won’t go away. It’s hard to get a good picture, hence multiple links. We know that: * 581 tons of “gasoline cargo residue washings” dumped 3 weeks ago * Ivory Coast geovernment resigned * 23.000 afflicted, 7 dead so far * sludge spread all over country, at least 18 sites, much unaccounted […]

2nd Shell oil sands refinery leak in 5 days hurts shares

TORONTO (CP) – Shares of Shell Canada Ltd. closed near a 52-week low Wednesday as the stock dropped after a toxic hydrogen sulphide leak shut down the company’s heavy oil upgrader near Edmonton the previous day. Shell shares dropped 45 cents to close at $32.83 in trading of nearly 885,000 shares. The stock approached its […]

Pragmatists and Heretics – Peak Oil and Runaway Global Warming

“The first paradigm we might call the pej

GM vice chairman wants mass produced hydrogen cars by 2011

Hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles could hit showrooms as early as 2011, General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said Thursday. Calling the effort a “moon shot,” Lutz said it is vital the world’s largest auto maker commits to the new technology, so it can win back its reputation as an innovator and design leader. fuelcellsworks

Oil to boost African growth — IMF

Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy would probably expand 6,3% next year, the fastest pace in more than three decades, boosted by higher output from oil-exporting countries such as Angola, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says in its World Economic Outlook released yesterday. Growth in the region was forecast to reach 5,2% this year, the third consecutive year […]

Dam the Salween, damn its people

Controversial plans to dam the Salween River, Southeast Asia’s longest natural free-flowing waterway, will proceed without a standard environmental-impact assessment study, despite serious concerns about the effect the infrastructure project will have on the area’s people and natural surroundings. This month, Thailand’s state-run monopoly EGAT finally formalized its long-pending plans to build five hydroelectric dams […]

Global oil prices likely to rise again in 4th quarter

Global oil prices are expected to regain momentum and turn to increase again in the fourth quarter of this year since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has hinted to reduce its oil production then, according to an industry executive. Anusorn Sangnimnuan, President of Bangchak Petroleum Public Company Limited (Bangchak), said on Wednesday that […]

Declining oil prices can encourage an attack

The US strategic reserve is the highest in two years and some oil-producing countries, including Iran, are facing difficulties in marketing their oil products. Moreover, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed last week to keep pumping at the high level of 28 million barrels per day until the end of this year. This […]

China Aims to Triple Fuel Ethanol Output By 2010

China plans to more than treble its fuel ethanol output by 2010 to reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil and to boost the income of hundreds of millions of farmers, a government official said on Thursday. “We will only support converting part of our grains into ethanol as long as it does not threaten […]

Warning: bigger carbon cut needed to avoid disaster

Drastic action is needed if Britain is to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change, a ground-breaking environmental report warns today. At the moment, the government’s estimate is that a 60% cut in emissions is needed to avoid a 2C increase in temperatures by 2050. But the authors of today’s study conclude that a […]

Clear and present danger – book review of Monbiot’s Heat

The belief that human beings are masters of the planet dies hard. I cannot count the number of times I have heard environmentalists warning that we have only ten, 20 or 30 years in which we can prevent disaster. The implication is that, provided we apply sufficient intelligence and political will, we can arrest the […]

EU and Ukraine to boost energy cooperation

The EU and Ukraine are to work more closely on energy issues to ensure greater security of supply, Benita Ferrero-Waldner has announced. The EU’s external relations commissioner met Ukraine’s new Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovitch on his first visit to Brussels on September 14 to discuss further steps in EU-Ukraine relations. “I have just signed a […]

Australia may miss solar power boom

Australia faces missing out on a booming solar energy industry in the next three years unless it regulates to create the environment for business to invest in it, a visiting Greenpeace campaigner says. Dutch engineer Sven Teske, who has specialised in solar photovoltaics (PV) for 10 years, says the technology worldwide is now in a […]

Yemen ‘foils oil refinery attacks’

An attempt by four suicide bombers to attack two oil refineries in Yemen is reported to have been foiled. “The first attempt, by terrorists in two booby-trapped cars, was aimed at the Safer oil refinery in Ma’rab, and the second, also by two terrorists in booby-trapped cars, was aimed at oil storage depots at the […]

Arctic ice melting rapidly, study says

Arctic sea ice in winter is melting far faster than before, two new NASA studies reported Wednesday, a new and alarming trend that researchers say threatens the ocean’s delicate ecosystem. Scientists point to the sudden and rapid melting as a sure sign of man-made global warming. “It has never occurred before in the past,” said […]

Fuel Cell Membrane Materials Offer Solution For Removing Salt From Water

The problem of separating salt from water has long been solved by forcing the water through a polyamide membrane in a process called reverse osmosis (RO). However, the water can’t be disinfected with chlorine because it degrades polyamid material. Now, researchers at Virginia Tech have created a new polymer membrane for RO that will not […]

Renewables Making Progress on Capitol Hill

Although federal energy legislation will probably not pass this year, the high number of bills addressing renewable energy in Congress indicates the maturation and growing popularity of renewables, according to various experts in the renewable energy industries. Both partial and comprehensive energy bills supporting the solar, wind, biofuels, biomass, geothermal and oceanic energy industries have […]

The one secret the oil industry doesn

From a mechanical point of view, the oil in your car does not break down. It simply gets dirty. Particles in the air get lodged in your oil, which increases its viscosity, or in other words, increases its thickness and friction, which causes wear and tear on the parts of your engine that are lubricated […]

Stratospheric Sulfur Could Stall Global Warming

To stall global warming for 20 years, one climate scientist on Thursday proposed lobbing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which would work in concert with cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. His research, published in the journal Science, indicates this approach would work together with cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, which are produced by the burning […]

RITE and Honda R&D Jointly Develop Cellulosic Ethanol Technology and Process

Collaborative research between the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) and Honda R&D Co., Ltd., the Honda Motor Co., Ltd. subsidiary responsible for research and development, has resulted in technology and process for the production of ethanol from cellulosic soft-biomass such as the leaves and stalks of plants. greencarcongress

Converting CO2 Back to Fuel

Most of the work on reducing the concentration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is focused on either reducing the emissions from fossil fuel combustion or capturing and sequestering the resulting carbon dioxide. There is, however, a third possible path: the conversion of CO2 back to a hydrocarbon fuel. greencarcongress

Report: Toyota to Emphasize Production of Smaller Cars in US

The Asahi Shimbun reports that Toyota will shift its strategy for the North American market to fuel-efficient small and mid-size cars in response to high gasoline prices and a slowing US economy. greencarcongress

Oil in Cuba? Chavez says Fidel is OPEC-Bound

TurkishPress – Cuba, which for decades has struggled with crippling energy crises, has black gold and could be OPEC-bound, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said with a smile. “Fidel is headed for OPEC … I hope it will be the case,” Chavez joked at a meeting of developing countries in Havana. “He is finding oil,” added […]

Aramco Oil Challenge to Find a Trillion Barrels

Khaleej Times – Saudi Aramco has set the worldKhaleej Times Online

Oil sands refining moves to US

Calgary-based EnCana Corp. is set to acquire an interest in a Chicago-area refinery to process its oil sands crude, part of an effort by a host of companies with planned expansions to find the most profitable way to market the sludge-like crude produced in northeastern Alberta. The deal — which EnCana expects to announce within […]

THE ECOLOGY OF CITIES

Urbanization is one of the dominant demographic trends of our time. In 1900, 150 million people lived in cities. By 2000, it was 2.9 billion people, a 19-fold increase. By 2007 more than half of us will live in citiesEarth Policy Institute

Honda achieves breakthrough in ethanol from cellulosic biomass

Very important news: Honda Motor Co, one of the most innovative auto manufacturers, announced [official release *.pdf] today it has co-developed the world’s first practical process for producing ethanol out of cellulosic biomass in what is a big step towards using non-edible plant materials as fuel. Ethanol is becoming a major source of motor fuel […]

There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea

IN A RECENT ARTICLE entitled Chevron Conquers the Rock,” published Sept. 12, 2006, I discussed the recent announcement by Chevron Corp. that it successfully completed a record-setting production test on the Jack #2 well at Walker Ridge Block 758 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. I discussed the context of the Chevron announcement to include […]

Fun with emergency preparedness

…At the peak oil workshop Catherine and I attended, we learned that grocery stores only have two or three days of food on hand. Should supply lines be cut off due to a gas shortage, the whole town would clear the shelves in a day.. It wasn’t hard to imagine. On New Year’s Eve in […]

Nigeria oil unions stage strike

A three-day strike by Nigerian oil workers has had some impact on production whilst queues are being reported at petrol stations. Union officials say thousands of oil workers have obeyed the order to stay away from work protesting at insecurity in the oil-producing Niger Delta. They want the government to do more to protect workers […]

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