Renewable revolution is here, says UN report

A gold rush of new investment into renewable power over the past 18 months has led the United Nations to conclude that clean energy could provide almost a quarter of the world’s electricity by 2030. More than Guardian

Mass dump of iron filings ‘to remove CO2′

A San Francisco-based company is poised to dump iron filings in the Pacific off the Galapagos Islands in an experiment designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Planktos, Inc, a for-profit “geo-engineering” company, intends to sell carbon “credits” to individuals who want to offset their personal greenhouse gas emissions. But the proposal has alarmed […]

Western outsourcing pushes up Asian CO2

It said that by shifting manufacturing production to the third world by “outsourcing”, the west had transferred the environmental effects there also. “All we’ve done is export a great slice of the west’s carbon footprint to China, and today we see the result,” said its UK director, John Sauven. “The West moved its manufacturing base […]

The Oil Drum: This Week in Petroleum

This morning at 10:30 am EST, the Department of Energy released their weekly supply reports for crude oil and refined products. Gasoline stocks increased for the 7th consecutive week, and the build of 1.79 million barrels to 203.3 million barrels was higher than the market expectation of a 1.19 mb rise. Gasoline prices initially sold […]

Science Panel Finds Fault With Estimates of Coal Supply

The United States may not have nearly as much coal as is popularly believed, and mining the remaining resources may be more dangerous for workers and the environment than current operations, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report Wednesday. With domestic production of oil, gas and uranium far below peaks, coal has been […]

The green market hustlers

On a global scale, carbon trading is little more than an untested economic experiment that may not avert climate catastrophe in time. Moreover, carbon trading aids and abets climate injustice. In the main, trading is designed to parcel, privatize, and sell the right to pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. The very same petroleum, natural-gas, […]

European Union energy companies court Moscow

As European Union (EU) leaders – meeting Thursday for a two-day summit – struggle to establish a unified energy security policy that will lessen the bloc’s dependence on Russia, the close ties between many European energy companies and Moscow pose a signficant challenge. In a bid to secure a foothold in Russia’s vast natural-gas reserves, […]

Iceland Teaches the World to Dig for Energy

Icelanders more than anyone else find most of the energy they need beneath their feet. In the world of renewable energy, this is geothermal energy, a way of tapping into the heat below the earth surface and turning it into heat and power.Icelandic leaders say they are keen to share know-how in geothermal energy with […]

Vertical Farming in the Big Apple

A Columbia University project proposes “vertical farms,” or greenhouses stacked together in a large building in an urban environment. This would enable local, organic agriculture in large cities like New York. Link to BBC article

A paradigm shift

Saudi Arabia is expanding their refining nameplate capacity to 3.6 million barrels per day. It is hard to reconcile such large capital expenditures in a context where the Saudis have diminished expectations about their future oil production. They will not want that expensive capacity sitting idle, nor the petrochemical industry upon which it depends. The […]

Read the sunspots

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, […]

Venezuela sees oil majors signing accord this week

A sizable group out of the six foreign oil majors negotiating with Venezuela the nationalization of multibillion dollar projects are about to sign deals, the OPEC member’s energy minister said on Wednesday. ConocoPhillips and Exxon are having the toughest talks over whether they stay in the projects, where the government wants to increase its stake […]

Oil due for a slide

Rising worldwide demand on all fronts (though driven by China in particular), continuing OPEC uncertainties led by Iran plus diminished production from Venezuela, and constrained refining capacity in the U.S. and some fresh concern about summer hurricane patterns, would seem to auger for still-higher oil prices to come; perhaps taking aim at the all-time price […]

Global Investment in Renewable Energy Up

Renewable energy has moved out of the fringe and into the mainstream, with investors worldwide pouring $71 billion of new capital into the sector in 2006, up 43 percent from the previous year, and more is expected, a U.N. report said Wednesday. Fears about global warming, frustration over high oil prices and growing backing from […]

Pentagon Forming ‘Africom’ Amid Threats to Resources

The Pentagon is to reorganize its military command structure in response to growing fears that the United States is seriously ill-equipped to fight the war against terrorism in Africa. These high-quality reserves – West African oil is typically low in sulfur and thus ideal for refining – are easily accessible by sea to western Europe […]

UW-Madison Engineers Produce Higher-Energy Liquid Transportation Fuel From Sugar

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a two-stage process for converting biomass-derived sugar into 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF), a liquid transportation fuel with 40% greater energy density than ethanol. The work by Professor James Dumesic and his research team, reported in the 21 June issue of the journal Nature, leverages the process they developed last […]

NRDC Report Ranks States Most Vulnerable to Rising Gas Prices

When oil prices go up, families in many states suffer WASHINGTON (June 19, 2007) — A report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) ranks, for the first time, states based on their vulnerability to high gas prices and on policies that protect consumers and the environment and reduce vulnerability to oil price […]

Colombia to Create Oil Price Stabilization Fund

Colombia’s government is creating an oil price stabilization fund (FEPC) that will be used to cushion domestic oil prices from unexpected rises on international markets, government news agency SNE reported. Congress has approved the fund, which is included in the national development plan and must go to the president for final authorization. The finance ministry […]

Driving small doesn

Along with the size of small cars, crash protection has been growing …Crash fatalities in the smallest cars on the road fell by 15 percent between 1985 and 1995, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. That was the period when airbags went from a novelty on luxury vehicles to standard equipment on all […]

Power shortage adding to Musharraf

KARACHI: Pakistan An 18-year-old man in the NWFP shot himself in the head with a Kalashnikov assault rifle on Saturday, in what his family said was a protest against the continual supply problems. He died instantly. Mobs angered by the blackouts hurled stones at passing cars and burned tyres in Karachi on numerous occasions last […]

China in our hands

Why should China – now the world’s top polluter – commit to reducing emissions when western countries have failed spectacularly to do so? Everyone in the climate change community is obsessed with China. The United States may be the great ogre – with massive per capita emissions and a president in denial – but China […]

Pay Attention To the Oil Price Naysayers

The folks over at The Oil Drum are a persistent bunch. As the years go by and it continues to look as though Steve Forbes’ post-Katrina prediction of $35 oil will forever fail to materialize, the forecasts by the crew at TOD appear increasingly likely to prove more accurate than predictions from most Wall Street […]

Research president discusses the economic threat of peak oil

Well, as we said earlier, the price of oil reached a 10 month high yesterday making a debate about the realities of peak oil timely. Peak oil is when the world’s oil production literally peaks before going into terminal decline with dramatic ramifications for global economy. Just when that time will come is the subject […]

PEMEX Cries out for Investment

Mexico, Jun 19 (Prensa Latina) Mexico s PEMEX oil company needs an annual investment of about 15 billion dollars to prospect for new deepwater oilfields. The company requires such an investment to be able to maintain a daily production of 3.1 million barrels of oil and six billion cubic feet of gas, the director of […]

The lowdown on alt-fuel cars

Hybrid vs. diesel vs. flex-fuel: Which will do the most for the environment, fuel supplies and your bank account. Hybrid Gas/electric hybrids use electric motors to assist a gasoline engine in driving the vehicle. In hybrid cars now on the market, the batteries for the electric motor are charged by the gasoline engine and by […]

Google’s future is green

Google might be a privacy watchdog’s worst nightmare, but give the Mountain View company this much credit: It puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to protecting the environment. Google announced this week that it will give $1 million in grants to promote use of plug-in hybrids — vehicles that run primarily […]

The Oil Drum: Nigeria: A Closer Look at ‘Above Ground Factors’

Oil prices recently passed $69/barrel in New York (and above $72/barrel for Brent) over fears that a looming general strike in Nigeria will exacerbate already tight oil supplies. The Let’s talk about it. Much more after the jump to The Oil Drum.

Once Seen As Elusive, $70 Crude Looks Increasingly Likely

Crude oil futures have their eye on the $70 mark again. Benchmark futures in New York set a fresh nine and half month high of more than $69 a barrel Tuesday but fell back after failing to take out the psychologically significant $70.00 a barrel mark. But a breach, which has proved elusive all year, […]

International flights cancelled in Nigeria due to petrol shortage

The short of petroleum products caused by the upcoming general strike in Nigeria has prompted international airlines to abort flights into Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, and other parts of the country. Some international flights billed to arrive on Wednesday from London and other European cities were cancelled because the airliners would not be refilled after […]

Senate OKs plan to sue OPEC for price-fixing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a plan that would enable the federal government to sue OPEC for price manipulation, but the White House has threatened to veto the measure and opponents warned OPEC members could retaliate by turning off the taps. The bill, sponsored by Democrat Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and […]

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