Nigeria: Agip’s Plan to Help Hostages Escape Fails

Italian oil company Agip failed to help hostages taken by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) escape, MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo said on Wednesday. In an email to media, Gbomo said the militant group “discovered an outrageous attempt by Agip to arrange the escape of the prisoners” in its custody on […]

Principles for sustainable tech

…Beyond its practical uses, however, the slide rule has more than a little to teach about what sustainable technology looks like. It is quite literally pre-industrial technology Second, a slide rule is independent. You don

Gas from Norway Could Reduce Dependency on Russia

Western Europe’s dependence on Russia’s natural gas reserves has been a constant source of worry. A new facility being built in Norway to liquify the precious energy source could provide some relief from Russian dependency. …It is estimated that one-fourth of the world’s oil and natural gas reserves lie hidden away in the Arctic. Some […]

Britain Predicts 2007 to be World’s Warmest Year

LONDON (Reuters) – This year is set to be the hottest on record worldwide due to global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon, Britain’s Meteorological Office said on Thursday. The Met Office said the combination of factors would likely push average temperatures this year above the record set in 1998. 2006 is set to […]

Wal-Mart readies large-scale move into solar power

the Wal-Mart proposal called for a system that could be replicated across its stores in five states and make use of available roofing space.

Wal-Mart has set up experimental stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colo. These stores are already using renewable power sources, including solar and wind.

c|net news

Australia: Bike sales outstrip cars

Bicycle sales outpaced car and truck sales in 2006, as more Australians turned to pedal-power to cut petrol bills. The Cycling Promotion Fund (CPF), Australia’s peak bicycle promotion group, said 1,273,781 new bikes were sold last year, well ahead of the 962,521 new cars and trucks retailed. CPF spokesman Ian Christie said Australians were using […]

Eco-friendly trains to connect north and south Taiwan

The sleek, bulbous-nosed new bullet trains here look like they are designed to whisk passengers across wide-open spaces; but on this congested island, they represent the start of a 300-kilometer-per- hour commuter train system.Passengers who travel on a fully loaded train will only use a sixth of the energy they would use if they drove […]

As the world warms, Kiwis are reducing their energy use

People are making lifestyle changes as concern over global warming grows. Nearly four in five people (77.7 per cent) polled in a Herald-Digipoll survey believed they needed to make lifestyle changes to reduce global warming. Two-thirds of the 1003 people surveyed had installed energy-efficient lightbulbs in their home while more than half (56.3 per cent) […]

Poor harvests and biofuel demand trigger wheat shortages

Last July Finfacts reported: The combination of heatwaves in Europe and the US, low global grain stocks and an increase in production of biofuels has seen wheat prices rise to 10-year highs and may lead to big increases in the cost of bread and pasta.Paul Kelly, Director, Food and Drink Industry Ireland, speaking on behalf […]

2006 saw wave energy get hearing

Move over solar and make way wind, because wave power is on the horizon and international energy companies along with local governments are lining up to cash in when the market crests. Proponents of wave energy say that if you were to capture a tenth of one percent of the ocean’s wave energy, you’d have […]

Ukraine: Possible Energy Solution In Coal Beds

Ukraine is believed to be sitting on more gaseous fuel than its principal supplier of natural gas, Turkmenistan. Estimated reserves of 11-12 trillion cubic meters of coal-bed methane would give Ukraine at least three times the amount of natural gas in Turkmenistan, and four times that in Russia’s Shtokman gas field. Considering Ukraine’s plans to […]

Intelligent Growth: A Vision for a New Low-Energy Economy

Continuing with standard economic growth will not halt the unfolding environmental crisis. But employing “tradable energy quotas” to ration the use of fossil fuels just might.Stephan Harding, coordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College, explains why standard economic growth is not the answer, and why personal Tradable Energy Quotas are.[…]But how to […]

Oil-Thirsty China Strives For Persian Petroleum

Based on some estimates, almost every second barrel of crude oil that leaves the Persian Strait of Hormuz in 2010 will head to the Strait of Malacca to be used by the Asia-Pacific economies. China leads the region’s oil consumers, and in 2010 it will have to import 4 million barrels of oil per day; […]

Belarus slaps export duty on Russia oil

Belarus imposed export duty on Russian oil crossing its territory yesterday – with a potential impact on oil markets – as President Alexander Lukashenko hit back at Moscow in an energy row. Belarus Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky said his government was imposing a duty of $45 per tonne on Russian oil that transits his country […]

China’s Coal Future

China’s coal-to-chemicals gasification plants have employed Fischer-Tropsch for decades to yield products such as synthetic fertilizers and methanol. Shenhua’s plant, in contrast, chose Fischer-Tropsch’s lesser-known rival, invented by Friedrich Bergius a decade earlier. Though used extensively by the Nazis, Bergius’s process was subsequently abandoned. The process has come to be known as direct liquefaction, because […]

Raymond J. Learsy: An Energy Agenda For A Newly Energized Congress (Part VI):

Our consumption of oil, given the threats it poses to our national security, its impact on our economy and most importantly on our environment, evidences one of the sad shortcomings of our governance and public discourse. Not a single nuclear energy plant has been built in this country since the 1970’s. yahoo

Geothermal Steams Ahead in Germany, U.S. on Clean-Energy Push

Homes in Unterhaching, a German town of 22,000 south of Munich, will be warmed by hot water piped from 3,300 meters underground starting in May. They’re at the leading edge of a shift toward geothermal power generation that may swell Germany’s capacity 1,000-fold within a decade. bloomberg

Converting Diesel Cars to Run on Vegetable Oil

But drivers willing to spend between $400 and $1,000 on a conversion kit from one of two leading vendors, Missouri-based Golden Fuel Systems and Massachusetts-based Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems, can make the switch. And fryer-friendly restaurants are just about the only economical fuel source right now. Buying cooking oils at the supermarket would be costly, […]

The Investment Column: Insurance and oil head the sectors to watch in 2007

The consensus in the City is that economic growth will slow over the next 12 months, which in turn will moderate earnings growth. This means that cyclical industries like engineering, consumer and electrical goods and so-called general industrials are best avoided. The oil sector also looks set to do well. BP saw its shares price […]

New oil sands drilling system unveiled

Lexcore Services Inc. concluded the fabrication of its exciting new oil sands coring system with the drilling of a test hole at its Calgary facility on December 28th. yahoo

The Peak Oil Chris: 2006 in Review

With flat production and steady or increasing consumption in those countries that publish detailed reports, something had to give or else we would be seeing considerably higher oil prices. The give came in the underdeveloped world where $20 or $30 oil was affordable for generating electricity, running pumps, and for cooking, but $60 or $70 […]

Drilling for self-sufficiency

Economic historians note that current technology — in this case fossil fuels — tends to provide the funding for its replacements. newsobserver

Group Asks US Congress To Probe Exxon Climate-Change Funding

The Union of Concerned Scientists, the latest group to accuse ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) of misleading the public on global warming, is urging the U.S. Congress to take action against the oil giant. According to a report the Union of Concerned Scientists released Wednesday, Exxon spent almost $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to fund 43 […]

A Country Less Dependent on Oil Is Free to Make Other New Year

Paradoxically, although the economy seems somewhat less prone to disruption from energy crises, there remains one enormous group that suffers from high prices: us, the car drivers. Industry has become less and less dependent on energy over time, but the average American commuter is now more dependent. nytimes

Cobasys and A123Systems Partner on Li-Ion Batteries

Cobasys and A123Systems have signed a memorandum of understanding to enter into a partnership to develop, manufacture, sell, and service lithium-ion energy storage systems for hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) applications. greencarcongress

Science activists blast ExxonMobil on warming

Group claims company is following tobacco industry tactics WASHINGTON – ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday. The report by the science-based nonprofit advocacy group mirrors similar […]

California Cow Power: Poop Pays

The California Energy Commission has released a report on a program that transforms cow manure into power by extracting methane – a potent greenhouse gas – from bovine poop and using it to fuel electricity-generating turbines. The conclusion: Cow power can make money for dairies and make them energy self-sufficient as well as provide electricity […]

4 families ‘Go Green’

Here’s how these homeowners got a little more eco-friendly. The Kennedys are downsizing from a 3,600-square-foot spread to a custom-built, totally green 2,400-square-foot contemporary house, in hopes of keeping a tighter lid on energy and water bills. “We’re spending money to heat and cool space we don’t use,” says Paul. It will be made with […]

The Oil Drum: And how is Saudi Arabia getting on?

When I wrote about some of the stories that are likely to be discussed over the next year, one of those that I mentioned is the delay before we see further increases in production from KSA. In the piece I quoted from the Arab News about the latest projections of Aramco production increases over the […]

Iran Cuts Gas Supplies To Turkey To Meet Domestic Demand

Iranian authorities say the country has stopped supplying natural gas to neighboring Turkey in order to meet growing demand at home this winter, Radio Farda reports. Eleven of Iran’s provinces are currently facing gas shortages, including some of the coldest areas like Kurdistan, Zanjan, and East and West Azerbaijan, according to Radio Farda.Iranian Oil Minister […]

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