Energy security: at last, a response from the EU

But will the EU do it? Will it persuade Gazprom, Transneft and the Kremlin that they are dealing not with 27 `little platoons`, but an integrated and toughly regulated internal market? Production at three of Gazprom`s four major fields is already declining. Even to maintain current levels of production, the International Energy Agency calculates that […]

Shell Relied on Qatar Gas Project to Boost Reserves Last Year

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, relied on the advancement of its gas-to- liquids project in Qatar for more than half of the gain in its proven reserves last year, the company’s annual report showed. Shell, based in The Hague, had proven oil and gas reserves equal to 11.807 billion barrels of oil […]

More Hydrogen Could Boost Biofuel Yields

Seeking ways to improve biofuel production, Purdue researchers say a healthy helping of hydrogen could be just what the doctor ordered Purdue University Professor of Chemical Engineering Rakesh Agrawal and his team have proposed a method of boosting the conversion of plant material, or biomass, into fuel by increasing the amount of hydrogen used in […]

What drives biofuel Bush?

What’s with Biofuel Bush? The (dirty) secret of the new ethanol craze is that it is, once again, a Bush family business. Brother Jeb is one of the three chairmen of the Miami-based Inter-American Ethanol Commission (set up in December) along with a former agriculture minister in the previous Lula administration, agribusiness tycoon Roberto Rodrigues, […]

NZ Govt ready to help rush renewable energy plans

The Government is looking at ways to fast-track several renewable energy consent applications to help reach the ambitious goals in the draft New Zealand Energy Strategy, Energy Minister David Parker says. The Government was considering a “consolidated call-in process” for wind and geothermal projects that would enable a pool of projects to be called in […]

Israeli patent uses seaweed to produce energy

Israeli firm Seambiotic Ltd. has unveiled a technology to produce commercial quantities of fuel from seaweed, Ha’aretz reported. The technology – demonstrated at an international conference on marine biotechnology in Eilat – allows the industrial cultivation of seaweed through the use of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Instead of allowing the polluting gas – […]

Solar Power: The Most Profitable Solution to the Oil Crisis

Opportunities abound for investors in the energy market right now, just looking at what’s being set in motion globally. The end of the age of oil will not be a disaster if we are prepared for it as investors and consumers. Acceptance is the first step.At this moment the United States doesn’t have an energy […]

EB: Responses to the NY Times article on peak oil

On March 5, the New York Times broke their near silence on peak oil by publishing an article by energy correspondent Jad Mouawad, entitled Oil Innovations Pump New Life Into Old Wells. (Also posted at EB and Mobjectivist.) We’ve collected here a number of responses to the article from members of the peak oil community, […]

”No thanks” to IMF from oil-booming Angola

Angola’s Finance Minister Jose Pedro de Morais has told the local representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that his country is no longer in need of the Fund’s services, including its monitoring of the economy. The announcement comes as Angola booms stronger than any other African country and doubling oil exports give the Luanda […]

Will Southern Sudan continue to consider oil as a curse?

“We can’t stand aside from the problems of the communities in which we work. We can’t try to operate in splendid isolation and cut ourselves off from local realities behind a security fence” Sir John Browne (Group Chief Executive, BP Amoco) delivering the Elliott Lecture at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, 1998.The lives of the poor […]

French nuclear giant AREVA to build 6 biomass plants in Thailand and Brazil

France-based multinational industrial conglomerate AREVA announces that it has been awarded contracts to build six biomass power stations – four in Brazil and two in Thailand – worth more than €70 (US$92) million. The power plants have a capacity of between 10 and 12MW each and will be fuelled by wood waste and agro-forestry residues […]

For Indie Gas Firms, Access Is Crucial

Heartened by the rising gas prices for industrial consumers, independent gas producers are looking to the government’s next step: A law that would give them stable access to Gazprom’s main pipelines. Combined, the measures would allow the Russian gas industry to meet the soaring demand both at home and abroad. The State Duma is this […]

Chevron sees output growth from new projects

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Chevron Corp. said on Tuesday its new oil and natural gas projects will produce about 1.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2011, and it will keep exploration spending high in the coming years. The production from those projects will give the company average annual output growth of at […]

Ticking time bombs and last-minute escapes

Walk into any of America’s cineplexes–they used to be called movie theaters–and you will find narratives playing on multiple screens that offer one or another variation of the ticking time bomb and the last-minute escape. Of course, those plot devices are used to create urgency and tension in the minds of moviegoers in order to […]

Mercury Contamination Of Fish Warrants Worldwide Public Warning

The health risks posed by mercury contaminated fish is sufficient to warrant issuing a worldwide general warning to the public, especially children and women of childbearing age, to be careful about how much and which fish they eat. Five other major findings in the declaration were:

Climate shifts — probability of randomness

Severe climate changes during the last ice-age could have been caused by random chaotic variations on Earth and not governed by external periodic influences from the Sun. This has been shown in new calculations by a researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen University. Several large international projects have succeeded in drilling ice-cores from the […]

Increased Atmospheric CO2 Stimulates Soils To Release, Not Store, CO2

Researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center report the results of a six-year experiment in which doubling the atmospheric greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in a scrub oak ecosystem caused a reduction in carbon storage in the soil. The scientists said this response suggests a limited capacity of Earth’s ecosystems to stabilize atmospheric CO2 and […]

Evangelical Split Over the Environment

What has Rich Cizik done to make Jim Dobson so mad? Cizik has, for 26 years, been the Washington-based lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, a job one would hardly call high profile. Over the past year, though, he has become something of a celebrity: the evangelical leader who speaks for the cause of […]

Brazil in Africa: South-South cooperation on bioenergy speeding up

Earlier this month, diplomats of 18 African embassies gathered in the Brazilian capital Brasilia, to attend the announcement of the objectives of the organization’s new office in Africa. Its aims are to promote South-South exchanges of expertise and technology transfers from Brazil to Africa, in order to speed up the transition towards bioenergy and biofuels […]

The Oil Drum: So will it be the Emperor Coal?

I have just finished reading “Coal – a Human History”, which, as I mentioned at the time, was recommended by Tim Appenzeller during his talk on coal, at the Emerging Technologies Summit in Santa Barbara last month. The presentations for which have now been posted, and the DVD’s will follow soon. Since I have also […]

Richard Heinberg: Comments to the National Petreoleum Council

On October 5, 2005, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman requested that the National Petroleum Council conduct a study of global oil and natural gas supply. The motivating concern stated by the Secretary was an investigation into the timing of and responses to peak oil Hundreds of organizations and individuals have contributed input to the process. […]

The case for $3 gas

Some experts say high demand could push pump prices past last year’s highs. Others say relief is in sight. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Nearly everyone agrees gasoline prices are headed higher in the next few weeks as Americans start hitting the road ahead of summer driving season. But whether motorists will again face $3 a […]

Australia’s Oil, Iron Ore Output Hit by Cyclone George

Australia’s oil production has been cut by the storm, with floating production vessels disconnecting from their buoys and sailing out of the path of the cyclone. Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL.AU) said the production vessel from the Cossack-Pioneer oil field, part of the North West Shelf joint venture, has sailed away as has the vessel at […]

Corn prices making Coke gulp

CHICAGO (Reuters) — Coca-Cola may investigate alternatives to high fructose corn syrup, its main sweetener in the U.S. market, because of high corn prices, a company executive said Monday. “The price increases that we’re seeing for corn and high fructose corn syrup are unlike we’ve seen in many a year. We’re clearly feeling the pinch […]

Saudi Aramco to cut supply to Asia by 9%

SINGAPORE: Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest state oil company, will cut crude oil supply to Asian refiners in April by an average 9 percent below contracted volumes, more than the 7 percent reduction in March exports. Saudi Aramco will mainly lower Arab heavy crude oil exports, said refinery officials who received notices from the company. […]

Peru’s alarming water truth

…Peru has the largest number of tropical glaciers in the world. These water towers are crucial for slowly releasing water, particularly in the dry season. And Peru desperately needs the water all year round. Apart from the need for drinking water, 80% of the country’s power has traditionally come from hydro-electricity. And, the current boom […]

Texas grid says TXU unfairly raised prices

Market monitor says the electric company abused market dominance to increase wholesale energy prices by an average of 15.5 percent in the summer of 2005. HOUSTON (Reuters) — An independent monitor for the Texas electric grid said Monday that TXU Corp.’s wholesale power subsidiary, because of its large size, was able to raise power prices […]

Growing political risks imperil oil sands profit, report says

Alberta oil sands producers face growing political risks that could significantly erode their profit margins, and slow the pace of development, says a report from UBS Securities Canada Inc. In an interview yesterday, UBS analyst Andrew Potter said the industry will have to absorb the cumulative impact of regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, […]

Russia, Greece, Bulgaria to sign oil pipeline deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Athens to sign a long-delayed Balkan oil pipeline deal with Greece and Bulgaria on Thursday, ensuring the flow of cheaper Russian crude to the Mediterranean. Ending almost 15 years of negotiations that often saw the ambitious deal on the brink of collapse, the three nations have set aside differences […]

Ethanol boom fuels shortage of some seeds

With ethanol demand driving corn prices to levels not seen in a decade, the nation’s farmers are gearing up to plant massive amounts of the crop this spring, creating shortages of some popular biotech hybrid seeds. While growers should still be able to find plenty of corn seed to plant, it may not be the […]

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