China, India face water risk from biofuel

…Right now, biofuel crops use about 100 cubic kilometers, or 1 percent of the total for food. Assuming biofuel usage rises as many expect, IWMI findings point to 180 cubic kilometers of water for irrigation being used for biofuel by 2030. Both China and India are approaching water scarcity, which de Fraiture defines as using […]

A tipping point in Saudi Arabia

‘The oil boom is over’ …These reforms come at a critical time. Saudi Arabia is barreling toward an economic and social crisis if it does not act fast. Almost 75 percent of Saudi citizens are under age 30 and youth unemployment is approaching 30 percent Faced with resistance from the conservative official ulema, Abdullah has […]

Singing the nation electric, part 2: post-oil democracy

Before fossil fuels and industrial machinery transformed the way goods and services were produced, all societies had an energy problem. Some wind power and hydropower was used, but the main energy sources were humans and animals. For the powers-that-were, slavery and serfdom were convenient ways to ensure an adequate supply of human-sourced energy. What will […]

Part 1: A Glimpse of the Energy Future

Buildings offer the greatest opportunity for energy conservation. …Americans work, live and play in boxes of brick, wood, glass, steel and concrete-artificial environments typically kept at constant temperature and lighting levels regardless of season or time of day and notwithstanding the presence or departure of the occupants. The results are obvious. In the United States, […]

Myanmar’s junta imposes fuel hike

Myanmar’s ruling military junta imposed a surprise 100 percent hike on fuel at state-owned gas stations on Wednesday, apparently to keep up with global oil prices. As usual in the tightly controlled country, the price hike was not officially announced and car owners discovered the increases only when they drove up to fill their tanks. […]

Dean developing hurricane traits

Tropical Storm Dean began developing the tell-tale signs of a hurricane-under-construction Wednesday as it progressed toward the Caribbean islands. At the same time, a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico – apparently bound for Texas – was expected to grow into a tropical storm before reaching land Thursday.In the Atlantic, Dean started to form […]

Oil near $73 on storm fears

Crude climbs on concerns that tropical storm could cut Gulf of Mexico output. …Shell shut in 5 million cubic feet per day of gas production in the Gulf of Mexico and began evacuating non-essential personnel as a precaution. Other energy companies operating in the Gulf, which produces roughly a third of U.S. domestic oil and […]

How to Solve Our Energy Issues

Instead of forcing automakers to improve fuel economy, a better way to save gas would be to lower speed limits and encourage telecommuting Wouldn’t it be great if Congress really could legislate the U.S. out of its current energy problems? When you listen to the recent political debates, raising the fuel efficiency for new vehicles […]

Disappointing 1H Douses Hope for ‘07 Big Oil Output Gains

Halfway through the year, hopes for 2007 output growth from the major energy companies have been extinguished. This year is forecast to be the latest in a long string of disappointments, as governments tighten their grip on hydrocarbons resources and rising costs make it increasingly difficult to shore up oil and gas production in mature, […]

Peak Oil Weekly Digest

This weekly digest is a prioritised list of links to newly published internet pages relating to Peak oil/energy security and the global economic situation. Groundswell Cornwall

Rescue crews evacuate oil platform

LONDON – Rescue helicopters evacuated more than 30 workers from an oil platform 125 miles off Scotland’s coast late Tuesday following a fire in the engine room, the platform operators said. Diamond Offshore, the Houston-based owner of the Ocean Guardian platform in the North Sea, said 32 staff had been evacuated and the fire had […]

TOD EUR: Open Letter to Duncan Clarke, author

Earlier this year two books were published, The Last Oil Shock by David Strahan and The Battle for Barrels by Duncan Clarke. Both books address the question of future oil supplies but came to dramatically differing conclusions; Strahan arguing global oil production will soon peak and go into terminal decline, Clarke highlighting complexities concerning the […]

Silicon Nanocrystals for Superefficient Solar Cells

A typical solar cell generates only one electron per photon of incoming sunlight. Some exotic materials are thought to produce multiple electrons per photon, but for the first time, the same effect has been seen in silicon. Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, CO, showed that silicon nanocrystals can produce two […]

Uganda: Utilise Bio-Fuels to Fight Poverty

Reports that dairy farmers in New Zealand are cashing in on milk that is now being processed into fuel should be great news to Uganda. The New Herald newspaper of New Zealand reported last week that farmers in the Indian Ocean island are reaping big from milk sales because the country adopted a policy of […]

Carbon market encourages chopping forests: study

The current carbon market actually encourages cutting down some of the world’s biggest forests, which would unleash tonnes of climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere, a new study reported on Monday. Under the Kyoto Protocol aimed at stemming climate change, there is no profitable reason for the 10 countries and one French territory with 20 percent […]

Somalia reopens to oil majors

Big oil groups that declared force majeure and quit Somalia 16 years ago will be given the chance to resume their activities under the anarchic country’s proposed hydrocarbon law. According to a parliamentary bill, companies that held concessions before December 30 1990, would be given the right to return to those areas under new production-sharing […]

German solar firms boost capacity to meet demand

Germany’s solar companies are driving up capacity to meet strong demand for renewable energy, while access to silicon remained the make-or-break factor for their second-quarter results on Tuesday.An analyst who asked not to be named said: “You can really tell from the results which companies have good silicon contracts and the ones which haven’t.”“Many other […]

Air Force Big: Bomb Iran’s Oil?

Major General Charles Dunlap, the provocative Air Force bigwig who recently mused about disbanding either the Army or the Marines — and mocked the “boots-on-the-ground zealots” and “neo-Luddites” who “quot[e] counterinsurgency manuals from the horse cavalry era” — is at it again. In a new article for Defense News, he wonders aloud whether the next […]

PetroChina discovers more oil reserves

PetroChina Co. Ltd. was pleasantly surprised in its oil exploration recently, as the company confirmed Tuesday the discovery of more oil reserves than expected, China Daily reported. In PetroChina’s exploration at Jidong Nanpu Oilfield in the Bohai Bay, as much as 1.18 billions of tonnes of oil equivalent reserves were found, the Ministry of Land […]

JATROPHA CURCAS: PROMISING BIOFUEL FEEDSTOCK OR INVASIVE SPECIES?

Generally speaking, transplanting a species from one part of the world to another – either accidentally or on purpose – has, on occasion, had some really negative consequences. A prime example is kudzu that was moved from Asia to the southeast US beginning in the 1930’s to control erosion. It did that but now kudzu […]

Environmentally Friendly Coal-Fired Power Plants Based on Human Lungs

Based on the model of the mechanism of alveoli, Hans Fahlenkamp, professor for chemical engineering at Universitaet Dortmund, wants to master one of the biggest current challenges of environment technology: the carbon dioxide separation from power plant flue gas. “The technique of CO2-separation is feasible and going to berealized” Hans Fahlenkamp states. Engineers can just […]

Crude Oil Reaches Seasonal Peak While Natural Gas Begins Its Climb

The normal annual demand forces for oil have reached a crest again. Mid-year driving pressures, which usually peaks in between early August to as late as mid-October, has forced this commodity once more to roar over $78 in early August in similar fashion to last year. Oil then follows a typical path of drifting downward […]

Why Drill for Oil When You Can Sift Soil?

In the fall of 1998, Dr. Susan Leschine, a microbiology professor at Amherst, was sifting through the soil at the Quabbin Reservoir. As she has done for more than two decades, she was looking for new and interesting microbes. Little did she expect that the microbe she discovered that day, and that she named the […]

Scientists : Arctic sea ice is melting at its fastest rate since records began

The sea ice of the Arctic will melt further and faster than at any time since records began nearly 30 years ago, according to the latest data collected by a satellite survey of the polar region. Scientists warned yesterday that the sea ice is already approaching the record minimum set in September 2005, even with […]

Almost half of population want green tax on air travel

Public attitudes to flying have hardened in favour of a tax on air travel to try to curb harmful the CO2 emissions that cause global warming. A major public survey published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics showed that 44 per cent now support the idea that those who fly should bear the cost […]

Oil Gains as Storm, Weather System Threaten Gulf Oil Production

(Bloomberg) — Oil rose more than 1 percent in New York, the biggest gain in two weeks, on concern a tropical storm and a separate weather disturbance may damage oil platforms and pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico. Royal Dutch Shell Plc evacuated staff from the Gulf as a precaution because of a tropical disturbance […]

Iraqi deputy oil minister kidnapped

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Gunmen dressed in Iraqi security uniforms kidnapped Deputy Oil Minister Abdel Jabar al-Wagaa from the compound of the state oil marketing company in Baghdad on Tuesday, an official said. “A gang of armed men dressed in Iraqi security uniforms broke into the compound of the State Oil Marketing Organisation and kidnapped several […]

Radical shift a risk until world agrees on new nuclear rules

There is a case for supplying uranium to India, but only in accordance with a revised globalnon-proliferation regime. THE Non-Proliferation Treaty is the linchpin of a global regime that has largely succeeded in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons since it came into force 37 years ago. When cabinet’s national security committee met yesterday to […]

Blame It on Biofuels

Cornflake makers and socialists alike are pointing to green fuel for high food prices. Are they right? High food prices always hit the poor hardest, and these days there is plenty of bad news. Corn prices are nearly $4 a bushel, almost double their 2005 level. In Mexico, for instance, that translates into a 50 […]

Making global warming cuts expensive but feasible for power industry

WASHINGTON — Making big cuts in emissions linked to global warming could trim U.S. economic growth by $400 billion to $1.8 trillion over the next four decades, a new study says. The study published today by a nonprofit research group partially funded by the power industry concludes that halving emissions of carbon dioxide — the […]

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