India: Breaking power-lock

Sample this: India’s total installed capacity of power is about 1.28 lakh megawatts. Of this, the capacity for generation of renewable energy from sources such as wind, hydro and biomass is just about 9,225 megawatts (solar energy is negligible and hence not included in this figure). This implies that the journey of drawing power or […]

Chavez proposal puzzles analysts

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s proposal for a South American organization of natural gas producers based on the oil-exporting cartel OPEC has baffled analysts. Chavez said on his radio talk show late Thursday that he had spoken to Argentine President Nestor Kirchner about the idea of forming “a kind of Organization of Gas Exporting and Producing […]

Falling oil prices will reduce Russian federal budget revenues

Russia’s federal budget incomes this year will go down by 170 billion rubles (6.5 bln U.S. dollars) due to falling crude oil prices and a reduction in the GDP, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the Cabinet on Friday. This year’s price of Russian crude oil will average 55 dollars per barrel, while the price assumption […]

China: International input for energy law

International input by leading experts will be considered in the drafting of China’s first energy law, industry executives told China Daily on Friday. According to Wu Zhonghu, a drafter, the draft law is expected to be submitted to the State Council later this year, following an international conference scheduled for next month.The reform of the […]

U.N. climate talks stagnate despite public worries

Governments are making scant progress toward extending a U.N. pact to fight global warming despite mounting public concern about climate change and U.N. warnings it poses a threat as great as war, experts say. “We’re not seeing governments saying ‘yes, we’ll make new commitments’,” one U.N. official said of negotiations sponsored by the U.N. Climate […]

Top polluters aim to build global biofuel market

Leading polluters the United States, China and India on Friday announced a bid to increase global production and use of biofuels so fossil fuel dependence and greenhouse gas emissions can be cut. But the International Biofuels Forum, which also includes Brazil, South Africa, and the European Commission, will not address biodiesel trade and tariff issues […]

Oil, grain prices now on same track: ag economist

Prices for grains and oilseeds have been steadily rising over the past year — and western Canadian farmers can thank high oil prices and the biofuel industry, a Saskatoon economist says. Richard Gray, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan, says things have changed dramatically since a year ago when farmers were looking at […]

Somalia: The oil rich, unstable Horn of Africa

While there is no doubt that the US response to Somalia fits into its overall view of the threat of terrorism influencing so much of its present foreign policy, this does not tell the whole story. It is an open secret that US oil giants are sitting on concessions, expecting to reap huge windfalls from […]

Mexican leader acts to increase dwindling oil production

In a bid to offset plummeting yields from Mexico’s largest oil field, President Felipe Calderon unveiled plans Friday to boost production from a cluster of oil fields known as Ku-Maloob-Zaap. He also announced an effort to speed its offshore exploration effort through an expanded technical cooperation agreement with the Brazilian oil company Petrobras. “We are […]

NORWAY ACCELERATES CLEAN ENERGY IN EMERGING MARKETS BY € 3.7 MILLION

The Norwegian Minister for Development Cooperation Mr. Erik Solheim today pledged 30 million Norwegian Kroner (approximately € 3.7 million Euro) over the next three years to the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) to accelerate clean energy supply in emerging markets. The funding is a follow up to the Norwegian Action Plan for Environment […]

Peak Oil Passnotes: Stock Markets Tumble but Crude Holds Firm

Temporary crashes, stumbles or corrections in the stock market no longer mean energy consumption will be cut. All it means is that down the chain another slice of the public are whittled off into low energy lifestyles. In order to pass the wealth up the chain to the richest who in turn can consume even […]

China and India face pollution timebomb

Beijing’s eerily mild winter has provoked anxious media coverage in the Chinese capital. In India, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the country’s great river systems is alarming policymakers. The world’s two fastest-growing large economies are growing increasingly conscious of the global warming in which their rapid development is playing a part. gulfnews

Oil Cos, Seeking Reserves, See Iran as Long-Term Bet

Oil majors are laying the foundations for potentially lucrative energy deals in Iran, despite the risks, as they face tougher investment prospects in some of the world’s other top energy producing countries. In a signal to Washington that they won’t bow to U.S. pressure to isolate the Islamic republic, many energy giants desperate to boost […]

Researchers Create World’s First Ideal Anti-Reflection Coating

A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created the world’s first material that reflects virtually no light. Reporting in the March issue of Nature Photonics, they describe an optical coating made from the material that enables vastly improved control over the basic properties of light. The research could open the door to much […]

Don

BRITISH GAS has fired the first salvo in what looks set to be a fierce energy price war. Its decision to reduce gas prices by 17 per cent and electricity tariffs by 11 per cent has already triggered a response from rival energy companies. Gas and electricity prices at npower have been cut by 16 […]

Big Profits, Big Worries in Oil Fields

Oil companies have made super profits the last few years thanks to record high oil prices. Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, earned $17 billion in 2006. But oil is harder to find and more expensive to produce. David J. O’Reilly, 60, Chevron’s chairman and chief executive, spoke recently about the challenges big oil companies […]

UCS Shows Flex-Fuel Minivan Design That Could Meet California CO2 Limits

Automotive engineers at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) unveiled a minivan design intended to show that automakers could build affordable vehicles with existing technology that would meet or exceed the global warming pollution standards for cars and trucks that have been adopted by California and 10 other states. Automakers are currently fighting these standards […]

Ethanol Backers Create Biofuels Market

The United States, Brazil, India, China and the European Union have created a forum to promote the use of renewable energy sources known as biofuels. Senior diplomats from participating countries gathered to launch the project at the United Nations Friday, where VOA correspondent Peter Heinlein picks up the story. President Bush has set a goal […]

Genome sequencing reveals a key to viable ethanol production

As the national push for alternative energy sources heats up, researchers at the University of Rochester have for the first time identified how genes responsible for biomass breakdown are turned on in a microorganism that produces valuable ethanol from materials like grass and cornstalks. The findings in Friday 10nbc

The failure of reason

Around once a month, since I first started this blog, I get plans in the mail for saving the world. I don The best publicized of them, and indeed one of the best in practical terms, is the oil depletion protocol originally crafted by the Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group at the University of Uppsala in […]

Gas-burning drivers urged to rethink how they get around

The fuel shortage gripping Toronto has environmental and oil industry experts grumbling about the relationship Torontonians have with gas. Motorists take gas for granted, said Michael Ervin, president of MJ Ervin & Associates, a Calgary-based petroleum and refining consultant firm. Drivers are showing no signs of curbing consumption,he said. Instead of desperately searching for an […]

China’s Oil Dilemma

Tensions in the Middle East are about to reach a boiling point. Where will the oil importing countries of the world turn when the balloon goes up? Recent exchanges in the U.S. showdown with Iran have been heated, with the latest verbal strike coming from Iran and Sudan. They have accused the United States of […]

Biofuel promoter to power boat using human fat

Can human fat really power a diesel engine?

”Switchgrass is cool, dude”

…There was even a titillating little bit about a new report on peak oil that had been completed by the GAO and handed over to Maryland Republican Roscoe Bartlett and to the House Science Committee. The GAO’s Wells said that the report had come to an estimation of what the “consensus” view was on the […]

Iran considers petrol rationing as UN sanctions loom

Iran, OPEC’s second largest oil producer, is expected to start rationing petrol within the next month. The move would come as the international community is discussing what further sanctions to place on Iran for continuing to enrich uranium. The Iranian Parliament has just approved a petrol rationing bill. Although heavily subsidised, like many other basic […]

U.K. – Faulty fuel: mystery deepens

Motorists were yesterday warned to take care where they fill up and to keep all till receipts as mystery continued to surround reports of contaminated fuel. Supermarkets, which have been identified as a possible source of a problem now thought to have damaged thousands of vehicles, continued to deny that there was anything wrong with […]

Fuel shortage hits truckers

Two major fuel suppliers are sounding the alarm for Ontario’s trucking industry amid “critical” shortages of diesel fuel in the province. The fuel shortage, which has seen motorists inconvenienced for more than a week as gas pumps intermittently run dry, has forced Ultramar to suspend diesel deliveries to four Toronto-area service centres and three other […]

A Green Deal on Coal

People who worry about global warming and want the United States to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions received some very good news over the weekend from a very unlikely source. As part of an ambitious buyout deal, TXU, a Texas utility that has long been a target of environmentalists, will abandon plans to […]

The Oil Drum: Saudi Arabian oil declines 8% in 2006

Stuart Staniford puts together a wonderful piece today digging into Saudi production and concludes that, “there is some evidence of a very slight acceleration in November of a process of declining production that was ongoing throughout the second half of 2006 (and in to January of this year). This excess decline does not exceed 200 […]

Cuba and Venezuela agree to build 11 ethanol plants, co-operate on biofuels

As part of a series of bilateral agreements on ‘mutual development’ towards the ‘Bolivarian Alternative’, Cuba and Venezuela have agreed to co-operate on the construction of 11 ethanol plants that will use sugarcane as a feedstock and that, besides liquid transport fuel, will deliver renewable electricity to the grid, obtained from burning bagasse.Biopact

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy