Shell raises production hopes for Niger Delta

Royal Dutch Shell has sent teams into the turbulent Niger Delta in recent months to assess the state of its facilities, raising the prospect that it will be able to re-start production after more than a year. Shell is committed to the biggest capital spending programme of any international energy company, investing $22bn-$23bn this year. […]

The Silver Lining to Impending Doom

ACROSS the world, doomsayers are smiling. The mounting signs of climate change have forced onto center stage the challenges of reducing carbon emissions and quickly adapting human activities to thrive in higher temperatures and more unpredictable weather. Alas, the bad news about climate change is good news for business. nytimes

Oil after Saddam: All bets are in

Saddam himself frames it, is taken by many to be the ultimate goal of American policy toward Iraq. Even friendly Arab nations see it so. Al Ahram, the government-controlled newspaper of record in Egypt, led its editorial page recently with a piece by Palestinian-American Professor Edward Said, who wrote: msnbc

The Next ‘Greatest Generation’

That’s it . . . the Pentagon has officially smelled the coffee on peak oil. They’re not talking efficiency improvements or pilot projects anymore. Oh no. Now they’re singing a much more plaintive tune: “We have to wake up. We are at the edge of a precipice and we have one foot over the edge. […]

Lisa Margonelli on Financial Sense Newshour

2nd Hour Guest Expert Lisa Margonelli, Author Oil On the Brain: Adventures From the Pump to the PipelineAudio downloads in many different formats, including MP3, RealMedia, and Windows Media. Financial Sense Newshour

Pakistan: Traders reject early shop closure to save electricity

KARACHI: Small traders rejected the government Chairman Alliance of Market Associations (AMA) Atiq Mir said that this decision would add to the miseries of small traders that had already suffered losses of around Rs4 billion last month due to frequent power outage in the markets. During the hot days and scorching heat, majority of the […]

Houston’s competition for the energy capital title

… But now Houston is in a contest to keep a title it won decades ago: world capital of the oil industry. This is the city poised to possibly knock Houston from its petroleum pedestal: Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. … Has Houston been bested?

South Africa: Many dark days to come

In the wake of this week’s blackout in areas east of Johannesburg, energy and construction experts have warned of darker days to come. As thousands of homes and businesses from Bedfordview to Germiston were plunged into darkness during this week’s cold snap, the Ekurhuleni metro pointed fingers at Eskom. Meanwhile, the eThekwini municipality in Durban […]

Religion and peak oil: The twilight of fundamentalism

The contemporary predicament of industrial society, as I suggested in last week With the coming of peak oil, however, the religion of progress is headed for a pitfall of its own digging. As cheap abundant energy becomes a thing of the past, the material gifts the great god Progress has heretofore given his votaries will […]

Where gasoline is cheap

And why places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and Russia are making it more expensive for you. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — In Saudi Arabia gasoline costs about 45 cents a gallon. In Iran it’s 33 cents. Venezuelans pay less than a quarter. These absurdly low prices are a direct result of massive government subsidies. While […]

Nigeria: Militants Halt 50,000 Bpd Oil Exports

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has declared a force majeure on the exports of 50,000 barrel per day (bpd) from the Okono-Okpoho oilfield following Thursday’s attack on the Mystras Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel by armed militants in the Niger Delta. According to report, the force majeure will affect a tanker that […]

Muscle cars come roaring back

CHICAGO …Ford is expected to sell at least 170,000 Mustangs annually, Chevy 100,000 Camaros, and Dodge 50,000 Challengers. Hossack said: “Not huge numbers, but profitable numbers while at the same time providing consumers with something not all cars do, a grin and fun for the dollar.” How much fun? If that trio reaches the 320,000 […]

Graduate Develops

Households use nearly one-fifth the total energy consumed in the United States every year newswise

Saudis aim to boost oil reserves by 76%, gas By 40%

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said the country plans to boost oil reserves by 200 billion barrels on top of the 264 billion barrels it currently holds. The kingdom intends to lift gas reserves by 100 trillion cubic feet, or TCF. Saudi Arabia livemint

Failing the Energy IQ Test

History suggests that energy is an IQ test that Americans tend to fail. In response to the Oil Crises of the 1970s, the United States wasted billions in a futile effort to jumpstart oil shale and other synfuels. Then federal automotive fuel-efficiency standards and flush production from newly discovered giant fields in Mexico, Alaska and […]

Spanish solar tower could eventually power an entire city

Just last month we witnessed a gigantic skyscraper / solar tower hybrid that generates a whopping 390-kilowatts of energy, but even that looks like child’s play compared to the 40-story solar power plant that resides in Spain. The expansive system consists of a towering concrete building, a field of 600 (and growing) sun-tracking mirrors that […]

Saved by the bomb

Campaigning in Oklahoma the other day, the Republican senator John McCain was asked what should be done about Iran. He responded by singing, “Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran”, to the tune of the Beach Boys’ Barbara Ann. (Join the hilarity and see for yourself on YouTube.) How can any thinking person disagree? I mean, […]

All that oil and nowhere to go

A combination of East-West geopolitical rivalries and haggling among former Soviet republics is delaying the construction of a series of oil and gas pipelines that could help alleviate the world’s energy-supply concerns. But the debate over the routes the pipelines would take has gotten bogged down in the political ambitions of the US and Russia […]

Chevron in Talks with Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan’s new president has invited Chevron to work in the energy-rich Caspian Sea, government-controlled media reported Friday, as international competition intensifies over access to one of Central Asia’s biggest energy producers. President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov made the proposal Thursday at a meeting with visiting Chevron Corp. executives, the reports said. It may signal a change from […]

Plastic Solar Cell Efficiency Hits 6% in U.S. Lab

Cheap plastic solar cells are now closer to becoming a reality thanks to a team of U.S. scientists at the Wake Forest University Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. The researchers announced last month they had pushed the efficiency of plastic solar cells to more than 6 percent. renewableenergyaccess

Climate Change Mitigation is Achievable and Affordable

Mitigating climate change is feasible without sacrificing economic development and is affordable, according to the summary report for policymakers just released by Working Group III of the UN greencarcongress

Third generation biofuels: scientists patent corn with embedded cellulase enzyme

A new variety of corn developed and patented by Michigan State University scientists could turn corn leaves and stalks into products that are just as valuable as the golden kernels. The variety has cellulase enzymes embedded in its leaves. This makes it a crop typical of so-called ‘third-generation’ bioproducts. These green fuels and products are […]

Wind-Energy Use Growing in U.S., But Guidelines Lacking

Although use of wind energy to generate electricity is increasing rapidly, government guidance to help communities and developers plan wind-energy projects is lacking, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report, which assesses environmental benefits and drawbacks, estimates that by 2020, wind energy will offset about 4.5 percent of the CO2 that […]

U.S. Navy Report Supports Cold Fusion

Almost two decades ago, Fleischmann and Pons reported excess enthalpy generation in the negatively polarized Pd/D-D2O system, which they attributed to nuclear reactions. In the months and years that followed, other manifestations of nuclear activities in this system were observed, viz. tritium and helium production and transmutation of elements. In this report, we present additional […]

Big oil discoveries

The activities of the Chinese oil group in Sudan have fuelled calls for Mr Buffett to dump Berkshire Hathaway’s $3.1bn stake in PetroChina. The latter’s latest discovery off China, said to hold reserves of perhaps 7.5bn barrels of oil equivalent, might conceivably convince its political masters that they do not need to go drilling near […]

Peak Oil Passnotes: Empires That Never Die

Quite rightly human beings do not generally like being ruled over by people from other countries. We could run through a whole host of examples from Vietnam to Ireland to Hungary, Ukraine and Estonia. People also do not like being under the influence of other country The U.S. business and political community – in reality […]

Ready or not

Ready or not the Philippines will be shifting to the use of bio-fuels from petrofuels in less than a week My concern lies in the timing and timeframe given for its implementation. And the uncompromising manner in which the law was written. There is no allowance for contingencies at all. Not a sensible way to […]

Three politicos take a stand on oil profits

There are a few US politicians talking solutions to oil profits, oil shortages, and global climate change. A couple of bills now before Congress would tone down the subsidies for big oil, and one presidential candidate suggests an oil dividend. These are steps toward geonomics, the policy that rewards people for efficient use of Mother […]

Gas price surge leaves customers scratching heads

It’s not even the dog days of summer yet, but that hasn’t stopped gas prices from returning to the record levels reached after Hurricane Katrina hit and shot down refineries in 2005. According to the Automobile Association of American, gas prices have surged 30 cents since early April. More alarming to some motorists is that […]

Internal investigation called for BP firings

An internal BP investigation, detailed for the first time Thursday, recommended that four executives be fired for management shortcomings in a “culture of risk taking” leading up to the 2005 explosion that killed 15 people at BP’s Texas City refinery. The two-part report of the “management accountability” probe also chastised John Manzoni, the London-based company’s […]

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