China Issues Plan on Global Warming

With global warming high on the agenda for the world nytimes

20 countries interested in floating nuclear plants

A Russian nuclear official said Monday that over 20 countries are interested in the floating nuclear power plants (NPP) Russia is building. A floating NPP, which can produce both electricity and fresh water, would be a perfect solution for Cape Verde’s leadership,” Krysov said. indianmuslims

Making Water From Thin Air

Two architects pursuing PhDs at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have devised a low-tech way to collect dew from the air and turn it into fresh water. Their invention recently won an international competition seeking to make clean, safe water available to millions around the world. The brainchild of Technion Architecture and Building Planning grad […]

Ford engineer says plug-in hybrid fuel-cell cars may reach market first

With the Hydrogen Highway still largely a dream outside California, Ford Motor Co. sees plug-in hybrid fuel-cell cars as a transitional step, says one of the automaker’s top engineers in the field. Ford and its partner Ballard fall in line with its other competitors in forecasting fuel-cell cars will begin hitting dealers in the latter […]

Big Solar’s day in the sun

This is the real deal. This is industrial-strength solar energy, sold to public utilities in 20-year contracts measured in gigawatts. Stirling Energy Systems of Phoenix, whose giant flowers are gleaming in the New Mexico sun, has signed agreements to provide up to 900 megawatts of solar energy to San Diego Gas & Electric (Charts, Fortune […]

BG to Spend $1B on Egypt Gas, Grow Domestic Supply

BG Group PLC (BG.LN) will invest $1 billion in upstream projects in Egypt to help meet surging domestic gas demand in the Arab world’s most populace state, a company executive told Dow Jones Newswires Sunday. The investments will focus on producing more gas from West Delta Deep and the Rosetta concessions in Egypt’s Nile Delta, […]

WEC Survey: Energy Execs See Oil in $60-80 Range for 5 Years

Senior energy executives don’t expect oil and gas prices to increase dramatically in the next five years, but the political risk attached to them means coal and nuclear power will become an ever more important part of the global energy mix, a survey from the World Energy Council published Monday showed. rigzone

Severe climate change unlikely before we run out of fossil fuel

The total sum of all fossil fuel resources that industry considers accessible is reported every year in the BP Statistical Review. If we use this optimistic value then the total energy available from all reserves of oil, natural gas and coal equals 36 ZJ (Zeta Joules, 1×1021 joules), a gigantic quantity. This is more than […]

Space solar power: opposition and obstacles

In reality, the main obstacles to space solar power are technological and economic. There seem to be few real scientific problems, but of course there will be a constant need for studies to show how safe, or comparatively safe, these systems are. Low-cost access to space is the first and hardest hurdle to overcome. While […]

Ethanol boom won’t threaten food supply: analysts

Fears of world food shortages caused by booming use of sugar cane and corn to produce ethanol fuel for motor vehicles are overblown and politically motivated, analysts and politicians said on Monday. But many agronomists and global political leaders argue that the world has enough arable land to ramp up biofuel production without risking the […]

Biofuel plants generate new air, water, soil problems for Iowa

Can ethanol and biodiesel production rise without bigtime damage to resources? Iowa’s ramped-up ethanol and biodiesel fuel production led to 394 instances over the past six years in which the plants fouled the air, water or land or violated regulations meant to protect the health of Iowans and their environment. In addition, many biologists consider […]

Erosion: Drive to increase corn acres could damage soil

Plowing trees and native grasses on land held in conservation to plant more corn will reverse decades of work to prevent crop-related pollution, scientists say. State researchers suggest that Iowa farmers will put 500,000 acres now in the Conservation Reserve Program back into production, as a result of the demand for corn-based ethanol and rising […]

Air: [Biofuel] Plants emit higher levels of toxics than expected

Facilities have run key tests at less-than-full capacity and exceeded limits for harmful emissions. Six plants in Iowa have released more lung-harming particles than their permits allow. Other plants have failed to do required tests for extended periods of time. Air pollution from the plants can irritate lungs and contribute to smog that threatens people’s […]

Water quality: [biofuel] Wastewater often pollutes rivers

Eleven biofuels plants have been cited by the state Department of Natural Resources for wastewater violations that include polluting streams based on permit limits under the federal Clean Water Act, according to the Register’s analysis of state records for 34 plants in operation during six years. Ethanol production requires purified water. When plants treat the […]

Water use: Biofuel plants’ thirst creates water worries

State regulators fear some parts of Iowa won’t have enough water to handle the booming biofuels industry. Plant operators say they have reduced the amount of water needed to produce ethanol, but the facilities still need abundant local water supplies. A single plant producing 100 million gallons of ethanol a year – a capacity quickly […]

Financial Planning for Peak Oil and Global Climate Change

The economic effects of climate change and oil shortages present a unique challenge for planners. We’ve gotten used to paying $3 for a gallon of gasoline and come around to the idea that global warming is a real phenomenon. Helped by United Nations reports backed by thousands of scientists, and our own ability to observe […]

U.S. cuts back climate checks from space

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases. A confidential report to the White House, obtained by The Associated Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon […]

Scientists predict Southwest mega-drought

Climate models indicate region will be as dry as Dust Bowl for decades WASHINGTON – Changing climate will mean increasing drought in the American Southwest The consensus of the models was that climate in the southwestern U.S. and parts of northern Mexico began a transition to drier conditions late in the 20th century and is […]

Russian nuclear store – a powder keg.

Scientists have identified a risk of an “uncontrolled chain reaction” at one of the world’s largest radioactive waste stores in northern Russia. According to environmentalists, this could trigger a disaster worse than the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986. But the probability of such a disaster is regarded as very small by regulatory […]

Australia: Trading delay could spur power cuts

EASTERN Australia could face blackouts because of the Howard Government’s decision to hold off carbon trading until 2012, warns a sustainability investment specialist. Amanda McCluskey, a fund manager at Portfolio Partners and deputy chair of the Investor Group on Climate Change, said carbon trading needed to be introduced by 2010 at the latest to head […]

Could Pipelines Move Ethanol From Iowa to Major Markets?

Iowa Congressmen Leonard Boswell has introduced bipartisan legislation to increase the availability of alternative fuels at gasoline stations across the country. The legislation calls for funding a study to find out whether underground pipelines would be a good way to transport ethanol and biodiesel. Boswell, a Democrat who represents central Iowa, explained the legislation at […]

Research finds evidence tropical cyclones have climate-control role

Purdue University researchers have found evidence that tropical cyclones and hurricanes play an important role in the ocean circulation patterns that transport heat and maintain the climate of North America and Europe. “It was thought that hurricanes occurred over too short of a time period and over too small of an area to affect the […]

The Oil Drum: Hurricane Gonu Coverage

There’s a storm in the Persian Gulf called Cyclone Gonu. It has the potential to disrupt supply and other oil assets…Much more after the jump to The Oil Drum.

A sound way to turn heat into electricity

New method to cool electronics, harness waste heat and sunlight University of Utah physicists developed small devices that turn heat into sound and then into electricity. The technology holds promise for changing waste heat into electricity, harnessing solar energy and cooling computers and radars. “We are converting waste heat to electricity in an efficient, simple […]

Cost of gas hobbling area’s poor

There aren’t any hybrids parked outside the Franklin County South Opportunity Center. The welfare office lot on S. High Street is full of the aging and the midsized, and not many have fuel gauges pointed to F. Eleven years ago, any kind of car — even an old gas-guzzler — was likely to be seen […]

Oil, The State And Economic Policy In Iraq

Despite the plethora of US and Iraqi government-sponsored meetings inside Iraq, and even more outside, and the numerous documents produced on IraqThe successive Iraqi governments have failed to produce an integrated long-term economic program. This is invariably blamed on violence, insecurity and Saddam-era economics. Their piecemeal economic policies, however, are not effective because of the […]

The Oil Drum: Gasoline Prices

As of this writing in late May 2007, gasoline prices have increased by over $0.70 per gallon since March. This is great news if you bought gasoline futures in March, but bad news for most consumers, and the politicians that answer to them. If you knew where to look, there were early indications of trouble […]

Gas prices are budget busters for many

Single mom Esther Guzman is used to juggling her family finances. But lately, it’s gotten harder to make ends meet. The 38-year-old mother of four’s monthly gasoline bill has jumped to more than $300. Guzman, of Monmouth Junction, N.J., makes $11 an hour helping others apply for low-income energy aid, and receives $400 a month […]

Super cyclonic storm Gonu

Super cyclonic storm Gonu is forecast to strike Oman as a severe cyclonic storm at about 00:00 GMT on 6 June. Data supplied by the US Navy and Air Force Joint Typhoon Warning Center suggest that the point of landfall will be near 22.0 N, 60.3 E. Gonu is expected to bring 1-minute maximum sustained […]

Use of cow dung as fertiliser decreasing

NILPHAMARI, INDIA: The age old tradition of use of cow dung as fertiliser by farmers is decreasing in the northern region. It is due to the shortage of firewood in the region that has forced local poor people to use cow dung as fuel. They collect cow dung from the roadsides and grazing fields. They […]

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