The Oil Drum: Why We Drive

I think most of us on this site would agree that figuring out what to do about this terrible trio: 1. The need to accomodate peaking or plateauing of global oil supply. 2. Carbon emissions contributing to global warming 3. Dependence on oil from politically unstable, especially Middle Eastern, sources is our major generational challenge. […]

Wall Street eyes heart of darkness: global warming

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The topic of the conference was climate change and the rhetoric was sobering, haunted by scientific projections of a roasted world for our children and a looming environmental disaster of Biblical proportions. But this was no talk shop of environmental activists. It was a meeting of Wall Street investors, insurance executives, state […]

A model for tackling the energy challenge

ON JULY 20, 1969, the United States reached the moon, beating the decade’s-end goal set by President John F. Kennedy. Many saw the original timetable as too ambitious. Yet with the country committed to the mission, and with the mission accelerated by federal policies promoting the necessary technological advances, the US flag was planted in […]

Azerbaijan to Stop Importing Russian Gas

Azerbaijan will stop importing Russian gas beginning January, a top Azeri energy official said Tuesday, after Moscow asked for more than double its previous price. “Imports of Russian gas to Azerbaijan will be halted as of Jan. 1,” said Alikhan Melikhov, president of gas company Azerigaz. The move would result in a deficit of 4 […]

US hopes Opec won’t cut output

Tokyo: US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said yesterday that he hopes Opec ministers will not decide to cut crude oil output levels further when they meet tomorrow. Bodman also said he wants to encourage China to rely more on the global energy market and less on acquisitions as a way to bolster its energy security. […]

Is thorium the answer to our energy crisis?

It could power the planet for thousands of years, the reactors would never blow up and the waste is relatively clean. So is thorium the nuclear fuel of the future? It’s a word that’s been generating a steady, background hum in the scientific community for decades now. And the glow of hope emanating from the […]

South Korea builds world’s largest garbage-fuelled power plant

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea has opened the world’s largest garbage-fuelled power plant and expects to reduce its imports of heavy oil by 500,000 barrels a year as a result. The 50-megawatt plant, designed to provide power to more than 180,000 households, began operating on Tuesday. It sits on a mammoth garbage dump in the […]

Britain sets sights on ”zero carbon” homes

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain set out plans on Wednesday to help tackle global warming by making all new housing “zero carbon” within a decade. From 2016 green new homes should generate from renewable or low carbon sources at least as much electricity as they use, local government secretary Ruth Kelly told a news conference. Homes […]

Royalty Rip-Off

The American treasury is already short more than a billion dollars because of the Interior Department The problems are twofold. The first is a loophole in leases signed by the Clinton administration in 1998 and 1999 to encourage deep-water exploration at a time when oil and gas prices were relatively low. The leases gave companies […]

An unstoppable force

Drought, climate change, high temperatures and strong winds have created a new type of fire front that is unstoppable and wreaks permanent damage. “You are talking about megawatts of energy,” “It is a nuclear release of energy out of these so-called mega-fires. It is a title that leads one to exaggerate, but it is probably […]

Shallow methane hydrates prove unstable

Geologists have discovered underwater deposits of hydrates Hydrates are cage-like structures in which molecules of water surround frozen molecules of gas. When dug up and brought to the surface, they release fizzy bubbles of methane into the atmosphere. Nature

Nine billion or bust!

…Yesterday’s reader discussion of the tensions between the world views expressed by technological optimists of the Norman Borlaug stripe, who believe an unending “green revolution” will keep allowing humanity to escape the consequences of its own proliferation, and those who believe that sustainability requires a comprehensive change in how humans live on this planet, inevitably […]

Indonesia to hold tender for nuclear plant in 2008

The Indonesian government will hold a tender in 2008 to select suitable suppliers of nuclear technology and contractors to construct the 15 trillion rupiah (1. 66 billion US dollars) power plant in Central Java, a report said Thursday. The so-called Nuclear Power Implementation Agency would be responsible for preparing the tender and selecting reliable suppliers […]

Grid Limitations Increase Prices for Electricity

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. The problem already affects about 40 million people from metropolitan New York to Virginia as well as 18 million in Southern California. Similar but smaller price increases will hit New England, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle-Portland and Phoenix-Tucson corridors until new transmission lines are built. Over all, the Energy Department […]

South Africa: Biofuels Industry ‘Could Drive Up Staple Food Price’

The government’s decision to establish a biofuels industry — producing fuel from agricultural crops – has been taken without proper consultation and could drive up the cost of maize, a staple food. This is the warning from “dismayed” NGOs, Citizens United for Renewable Energy and Sustainability (CURES) and Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, following last week’s cabinet […]

2006 Warmest Year in Netherlands in 300 Years

This year is on track to be the warmest in the Netherlands since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute KNMI said on Tuesday, linking the record with global warming. The KNMI’s climate scenarios envisage more extreme weather in the Netherlands and northern Europe in the next few decades to 2050. The […]

Indian gas surplus on horizon

A report by India’s Ministry of Petroleum has said that the country will possess surplus natural gas in the next two years and its rapidly growing economy is likely to be fueled by it after major discoveries by state-run and private energy companies. Currently, India meets 70% of its energy requirements through imports. “The major […]

Eco-friendly Biofuel

Diverse mixtures of native prairie plant species have emerged as a leader in the quest to identify the best source of biomass for producing sustainable, bio-based fuel to replace petroleum. A new study, published in the Dec. 8, issue of the journal Science, shows that mixtures of native perennial grasses and other flowering plants provide […]

POPE: ALARM ENVIRONMENT DESTRUCTION AND ENERGY EXPLOITATION

Benedict XVI is worried by the increase of pollution and the impoverishment of the planet due to ‘a race towards available resources that cannot be compared to previous situations’. He vigorously reaffirmed ‘unbreakable link existing between peace among the creation and peace among men. One thing and the other’ – said the pope in the […]

Turkey: Wind Energy Project Fails

New legislation originally intended to increase benefits from wind energy and decrease dependency on foreign sources of energy has failed. Energy Minister Hilmi Guler called on businessmen to take a share of the 30 billion-dollar market in wind energy and some companies were officially granted a license to invest their money, but most of these […]

Exxon’s latest forecast sees coal use rising again

In contrast with other Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) energy forecasts in recent years, the company’s projection outlined Tuesday sees comparatively greater use of coal compared with natural gas over the next 25 years. ExxonMobil’s shift in the projected gas-coal balance drew some attention during a 75-minute conference call with analysts. ExxonMobil Tuesday said it expects […]

Russia gets tough on energy sales to Europe

In a new signal that Russia has toughened its position on energy sales to Europe, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had no intention of observing guidelines in the EU’s energy charter that would allow non-Russian companies access to the country’s vast pipeline network. “We will not ratify the energy charter,” the adviser, […]

Massive growth in the Middle East’s new and renewable energy sector anticipated

Drastic increases in oil prices and increased awareness of the limited availability of traditional fossil fuels is giving the new and renewable energy sector enormous momentum, with many of the world leaders in the field of photovoltaics (solar power), wind power and other environmentally friendly energy schemes accelerating product innovations that are being embraced across […]

Peak Oil to Peak Gas is a short ride

Peak Oil precedes Peak Gas, but the time interval between the two is not ‘canonical’ or fixed, exactly like the division of ‘associated’ gas and ‘unassociated’ or ’stranded’ gas – the first being associated with oil production, the second not. How fast we arrive at Peak Gas, or a permanent decline in net total gas […]

The Oil Drum: Some Predictions from the Time when Today Was the Future of Oil

After my post about the “The Prize” video there was a short discussion in comments about earlier predictions made by Dr Yergin, and the book “Energy Future – Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School, ” which he co-authored with Robert Stobaugh. Now back when those studies came out I was also […]

Nigeria: Fuel Scarcity Paralyses Activities

Nigeria has again been gripped by fuel shortages. Long queues and black marketeering has resurfaced again in Kano, Katsina and Dutse following recent shortages of petroleum products to the states. The cost of a gallon of petrol jumped up between 37 and 50 per cent yesterday. Before the scarcity, a gallon of petrol sold for […]

Biofuels seen as a luxury China cannot afford

China cannot afford to embark on industrial production of grain-derived biofuels because supplies of corn and other crops are needed to feed the country’s 1.3 billion people. “It would be a disaster for us if we depend on a huge amount of corn and other grains for energy,” said Zhai Huqu, president of the Chinese […]

Peak Oil at the Movies: Oil Crash & Crude Impact

Documentaries have recently broken new ground with a series of high profile, lucrative, theatrical releases such as Super Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11 and most notably Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Peak oil proponents have adopted the format with the 2004 release of End of Suburbia, Peak Oil: Imposed by Nature in 2005 and The Power […]

The Oil Drum: The forecasting record of CERA and other commentators

Central to the Peak Oil debate, is the ability of individuals to forecast the future, based upon information that is available to them today. Different people and organisations come up with different forecasts based on the same data. So how does anyone know who to believe? Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) in March 2006 presented […]

James Lovelock delivers dire prediction to humanity about fate of planet

A speech given by Professor James Lovelock at IChemE’s 5th John Collier Memorial Lecture, Savoy Place, London, 28th November 2006. … The history of global heating 55 million years ago suggests that the injection of gaseous carbon compounds took place over a period of about 10,000 years, much slower than we are now doing. In […]

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