Controlling costs key to keeping biofuels competitive

RIVERSIDE, IA — While oil prices were trading in the low-$80s per barrel, renewable energy experts said biofuels, including ethanol, must be able to be competitive with oil at cheaper prices to take control of their destiny. Ethanol needs to be able to compete with oil prices in the $30-$50 range, James Woolsey, former CIA […]

Sudden Surplus Arises as Threat to Ethanol Boom

NEVADA, Iowa The average national ethanol price on the spot market has plunged 30 percent since May, with the decline escalating sharply in the last few weeks.

Others have moved past their oil addiction

Last week, I visited Sao Paulo, Brazil, where I saw something that made me think there is hope for the world after all. While in Brazil, I hired an English-speaking driver to take me on a tour of the city. He arrived in a clean, comfortable, jet-black, new-model Chevrolet, and we took off for Ibirapuera […]

Australia: Meat, vegetable prices to skyrocket soon

AUSTRALIANS have been warned vegetable prices could skyrocket to four times their normal levels this summer, with the cost of some fruits and meat also on the rise as the country grapples with the worst drought on record. The warning on vegetables, from the Australian Vegetable and Potato Growers Federation (Ausveg), came after Prime Minister […]

The Earth is out of time

ANOTHER week on a changing planet. Australian farmers struggling through the worst drought on record are offered $150,000 by Canberra to walk off their land. Federal police chief Mick Keelty declares climate change – not terrorism – as the greatest threat to national security (a position doused down yesterday to an “equal” threat). Scientists drop […]

L.A. County calling for lights-out hour

Coordinating with San Francisco’s plan, officials are urging Angelenos to agree to a voluntary blackout one day next month to help conserve energy. Following San Francisco’s lead, Los Angeles County and city officials are urging people, businesses and government to switch off nonessential lights for one hour next month to save energy. Led by Supervisor […]

Bill McKibben: The Race Against Warming

It’s the oldest and most cliched of metaphors, but when it comes to global warming, it’s the only one that really works: We’re in a desperate race. Politics is chasing reality, and the gap between them isn’t closing nearly fast enough. Consider the news from the real world, the one where change is measured with […]

Canada: Big, bad oil in all its glory

Review of Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn’t Seem to Care) by William Marsden, Alfred A. Knopf Canada. The rise of the loonie has been partially explained by the price of oil, which recently hit a record of almost US$84 a barrel. The Canadian economy has […]

ENVIRONMENT: Algae Against Climate Change?

BERLIN, Sep 29 (IPS/IFEJ) – Research into the use of algae to capture carbon dioxide from the air is changing the negative reputation of these organisms, often seen as a plague associated with agricultural fertiliser run-off. Until very recently, the proliferation algae was interpreted as an undesirable consequence of the overuse of agro-chemicals, whose immediate […]

China to invest vast foreign reserves

The Chinese government launched a company Saturday to invest $200 billion from its vast foreign reserves, creating one of the world’s richest investment funds at a time of rising scrutiny of such state-run entities. Financial analysts are watching to see where the new company invests and the impact on financial markets, especially demand for U.S. […]

Private industry conference finds much less oil

A secretive gathering some of the world The Colorado meeting was attended by technical experts from all the supermajors along with some of the biggest state-owned oil companies such as Saudi Aramco. According to Mr Leonard, a vice president of the recently-formed Kuwait Energy Company, who presented a paper on Russian reserves as the former […]

Just say During a talk Friday in Buffalo, he linked local production and green energy with fighting poverty and cutting the threat of catastrophic global warming. Putting a lid on greenhouse gas emissions

Heating oil prices soar, elderly panic

A warm, summer-like day did nothing to ease the fears of the elderly women who walked into the Brockton senior center earlier this week seeking fuel assistance. And, they have reason to panic, say fuel oil dealers who are paying record-high prices and therefore charging record-high prices even before the winter cold sets in. The […]

Former CIA Chief looks to future

Crude oil and salt have a lot in common, in R. James Woolsey

‘Murderer’s row’ of fund managers targets little firms that can

…”The questions you have to ask is: Is there going to be a recession, how long is it going to be and how severe is it going to be. If you think it’s going to be bad, get out of the market. If you’re wrong, though, there’s a huge opportunity to the upside that you’re […]

Australia: Global food shock real, says former Nats leader

…”This comes at a time of unprecedented concerns globally of very low grain stocks. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that we will see a food shock in the next few years,” Mr Anderson told ABC Radio. “We talk about oil shocks. We have gone on assuming that the supermarket shelves will always […]

Europeans angry after Bush climate speech ‘charade’

George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress. European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush’s failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change. Although the US and […]

Shut up about the deckchairs!

One of the ports of call during the last two weeks that I have been away was the 6th international conference of ASPO (the Association for the Study of Peak Oil) in Cork. This is the body, founded by former oil geologist Dr Colin Campbell, which more than any other has brought to public consciousness […]

New Processes for CO2 Capture in Coal-Fired Power Plants

BASF, RWE Power and the Linde Group are cooperating to develop and deploy new processes for CO2 capture from flue gases in coal-fired power plants. The partners are targeting removal and subsequent underground storage of more than 90% of CO2. Their cooperation includes the construction and operation of a pilot facility at the lignite-fired power […]

A massive wrench thrown in Putin’s works

t almost seemed since the month of May that in the battles of the Caspian energy war, Russian President Vladimir Putin was destined to glide serenely from victory to victory until next March when he leaves office in the Kremlin. But a backlash was bound to happen. Putin’s standing as the ace player in the […]

Nigeria’s Leader Says Oil Production Up

Nigeria’s president said that oil production has been increasing in his country and attacks on oil workers in its crude-rich southern delta region have been decreasing as a result of the dialogue his government initiated with militants. Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua said in an interview Thursday that despite the continued kidnapping of oil workers, a […]

Rising Oil Prices Seen Pushing Costs Higher For Coal Miners

Record high oil prices may dim the prospects for U.S. coal miners looking to rebound from a year of higher costs and stagnant coal prices. Coal miners consume millions of gallons of diesel annually to run their mining equipment. If the price of oil and petroleum products rises significantly, companies will face millions of dollars […]

Brazil’s biofuel blues

Clearly, there are grounds for concern that an over-hasty rush to convert farm land to biofuels could have a negative impact. This is particularly true in the case of the highly subsidised and inefficient nascent US biofuel industry. However, the apparent decision of the UN special rapporteur specifically to include Brazilian sugar cane, where the […]

Myanmar: Gas reserves prop up economy

Although the United States and European countries have slapped economic sanctions on Myanmar, the country has plentiful natural resources, such as natural gas and oil. In the Andaman Sea to the south of the country, large gas fields have been found recently, and neighboring countries such as China, India and Thailand have been competing to […]

Argentine energy crunch looms over next government

Argentina’s next government will have to consider raising natural gas and electricity prices soon after it takes office in December as a way to avoid a repeat of the energy crisis of recent months. President Nestor Kirchner has avoided mass blackouts in the run-up to an Oct. 28 presidential election by imposing energy restrictions on […]

Green IT strategies stifled by inertia

Almost half of IT executives–42 percent–admit their company does not monitor IT-related energy spending. A further 9 percent don’t know if their company has such a monitoring program in place, and of those that do monitor it, a quarter have seen their energy consumption increase over the past two years.The figures come from IBM-sponsored research, […]

Oil income boosts Gulf producers’ foreign buying power

Gulf Arab states’ oil revenues this year are likely to be near last year’s record $336 billion, giving them an edge in buying foreign assets as credit dries up for competing investors. U.S. crude oil futures hit a record of $83.90 a barrel last week. Oil prices have quadrupled since 2002, triggering a transfer of […]

Got $100 to burn? Here are your energy options

Energy bargains are a thing of the past. Oil prices are at record highs of more than $80 a barrel, competition for gas is heating up and $100 won’t even buy you a tonne of coal anymore. After coughing up for their fossil fuels, European users now have to pay extra for the right to […]

Peak Oil Passnotes: Neo-Peak Oil

If we think of peak oil as a subject in itself, rather than a subset of general discourse about oil and energy, then we can see it has been around for something approaching 100 years. After World War One there was sustained and popular debate about the prospect of the U.S. The basics of peak […]

As Myanmar cracks down on protesters, oil companies keep up controversial ties

BANGKOK, Thailand China

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