Cheap Ethanol from Tires and Trash

Yesterday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, General Motors announced a partnership with Coskata of Warrenville, IL, a new company that claims it can make ethanol from wood chips, grass, and trash–including old tires–for a dollar a gallon. That’s significantly less than it costs to make the biofuel from corn grain, which […]

Turning Waste Heat into Power

Silicon, in the form of photovoltaic cells, is good at generating electricity from sunlight. New research shows that it could also make a good thermoelectric: a material that converts heat into electricity and vice versa. Since silicon is more abundant than the leading thermoelectric materials and has a vast manufacturing infrastructure behind it, it could […]

Oil and the looming threat to Iraq

Access to and control of Middle East oil has figured prominently in the strategic thinking of American policy makers. In the Bush administration, State Department policy planners discussed scenarios for taking over by force the oilfields of the Middle East and internationalising them. Jane Mayer revealed in the New Yorker that a secret Bush National […]

Oil Crisis As Barrels Go Missing, According to Audit

How do you not notice when 308,000 barrels of oil go missing? That’s the question government auditors were asking after they looked into the Department of Energy’s management of oil received for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a critical program to assure energy stability in the U.S. in case of an oil crisis. To help add […]

Closing the Power Gap Between a Hybrid

A HYBRID that drives the first miles of each trip on batteries charged from the electricity grid The prototype is based on a Saturn Vue Green Line, a hybrid crossover that General Motors builds using a low-cost belt-alternator system for its electric drive. With extensive modifications, AFS Trinity

Moving Billions of People on a Still-Green Planet?

…Prof. Ausubel and his co-authors say technological advances and growing wealth could lead, over a century, toward quite a grand vision: A century or more is the rational time for conceiving a transport system. The infrastructures last for centuries. They take 50-100 years to build, in part because they also require complementary infrastructures. Railroads needed […]

The Moral Instinct

…And nowhere is moralization more of a hazard than in our greatest global challenge. The threat of human-induced climate change has become the occasion for a moralistic revival meeting. In many discussions, the cause of climate change is overindulgence (too many S.U.V. Though voluntary conservation may be one wedge in an effective carbon-reduction pie, the […]

Sarkozy Confirms Plans For UAE Nuclear Deal: Paper

DUBAI (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed on Sunday plans to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates amid reports French firms could construct up to two nuclear reactors there. Sarkozy said in an interview with pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat before a three-day visit to Gulf states: “My visit to the United […]

Pincer movement has Britain in grip of an energy crisis

…For years successive governments, both Tory and Labour, have been in the thrall of the free market, claiming that Britain’s liberalised energy regime was the envy of the world. For a while, they were right. EnergyWatch, the consumer body, says that between 1996 and 2001, bills were 40 per cent lower in the UK than […]

Maine residents forced to make difficult choices to keep homes heated

With the costs of home heating fuel skyrocketing, Bangor Daily News reporters set out to discover the actual difficulties those costs are creating. Many alarming stories emerged, some of which will be told in more detail next week. Some are not being told at all because the victims of $100-a-barrel oil feel too embarrassed by […]

See this 42-page peak oil analysis

Chris Skrebowski, Trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre and Editor of Petroleum Review, Energy Institute, London, has written a 42-page peak oil analysis entitled Resource Investor

Study: Winters in Northeast warming quickly

From 1965 to 2005, winter temps increased 2.5 degrees, research shows ALBANY, N.Y. – Earlier blooms. Less snow to shovel. Unseasonable warm spells. Signs that winters in the Northeast are losing their bite have been abundant in recent years and now researchers have nailed down numbers to show just how big the changes have been. […]

Challenging the myths of energy security

On both sides of the Atlantic, foreign policy analysts have convinced politicians that the west faces a severe energy security challenge. The 1970s myth of energy independence is back. We hear the same It is time to challenge this vision. The global oil market is not falling apart. Despite the move towards greater government control, […]

Venezuelan oil reserves will be world’s largest by 2009

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said that by the end of 2009, the country will have 313 billion barrels of certified oil reserves, the largest in the world, Spanish news agency EFE reported on Saturday. Chavez told lawmakers on Friday that the country’s oil reserves stand at 100 billion barrels, including 20 billion “certified in […]

The Pros and Cons of 8 Green Fuels

Our dossiers detail which fuels are overrated US News & World Report

Saudi cannot be launchpad for Iran attack

RIYADH- A leading Saudi newspaper on Saturday ruled out any attempt by the United States to use the oil-rich Gulf kingdom as a launchpad for a possible war on Iran over Teheran

China imports record 163 mln tons of crude oil in 2007

BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) — China’s crude oil imports rose 12.4 percent in 2007 over the previous year to a new record of 163.17 million tonnes, according to customs figure. Crude oil imports for 2006 was 138.8 million tonnes, representing an increase of 16.9 percent from the previous year. The exports, however, fell 38.7 percent […]

Oil Industry Defends Stance on ‘Hot Fuel’

An attorney for the oil industry said Friday that it isn’t fraudulent to sell “hot fuel” because it is legal to sell gasoline and diesel in the U.S. that’s not adjusted for temperature. That argument was made in a Kansas City, Kan., federal courtroom as the industry sought to quash more than 40 lawsuits seeking […]

Uzbek Gas Hike Leaves Neighbours In The Cold

The economies of Central Asia A few days ago, Georgieva heard that Uzbekistan had raised the price once again, this time to 145 dollars per thousand cubic metres, and her dream of turning the gas fires back on evaporated.

Expose on New

A new book, The authors call this

Iranians urged to conserve gas despite cold snap

TEHRAN, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Iran’s oil minister urged Iranians on Saturday to use less fuel after demand surged because of a cold snap, partly blamed for causing domestic gas supply disruptions. Temperatures in Iran, which sits on the world’s second biggest gas reserves, have plunged and heavy snowfalls have blanketed parts of the country. […]

Nigerian fuel tanker blast kills at least 30

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AFP) – At least 30 people were killed and shops and vehicles destroyed Saturday when a fuel tanker exploded in Port Harcourt, the hub of Nigeria’s multi-billion-dollar oil industry and a target of attacks by militants. “The incident happened at Eleme junction in the city. The details are still sketchy,” Rivers state […]

Thai government to import palm oil

Bangkok – Thailand plans to import 60,000 tons of palm oil this month, either from Malaysia or Indonesia, to ease a domestic shortage of the commodity, which is used both for cooking oil and as bio-fuel, news reports said Saturday. Yangyong Phuangrach, director-general of the Internal Trade Department, said the imports were necessary as a […]

China defends economic ties to Sudan: ‘development is key to Darfur peace’

A Chinese special envoy described the true cause of conflict in Darfur as internal competition over resources, saying Thursday that activists should not try to shame Beijing into dropping its support for a Sudanese government accused of carrying out genocide. China has been denounced for not using its economic leverage to apply more pressure on […]

Rising development costs push up oil futures curve

Rising costs for oil companies are driving up prices for crude oil futures through 2016, keeping supplies struggling to match growing oil demand outside the United States. Despite worries a potential recession could clip U.S. demand, forecasts for increases from other OECD nations and emerging markets like China should counter tepid growth in the world’s […]

Economist Predicts $150 Oil: Political Peak Oil Setting In?

If you think oil costs a lot now, just wait a couple years. Jeff Rubin, chief economist of CIBC World Markets, a major financial institution, predicts oil will hit $150 a barrel within four years, possibly sooner, according to the Toronto Star. Why? In a nutshell, the other experts expect too much supply from so-called […]

Science chief: greens hurting climate fight

In an interview with the Guardian today Sir David King, who stepped down last month after seven years as the government’s chief scientific adviser, says any approach that does not focus on technological solutions to climate change – including nuclear power – is one of “utter hopelessness”. He says: “There is a suspicion, and I […]

UK’s coal output falls to pre-industrial levels

Coal production in Britain has fallen to its lowest level since the industrial revolution, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. The ONS’s index of production showed that the coal industry recorded its worst ever reading in October, at 42.9 (with 2003 representing the base index level of 100). Annual production is set […]

High oil prices? You ain

… Simmons and Herrera agree that mounting evidence points to

Factoring in $100 oil

A barrel of oil costs nearly $100 after trading for little more than half that price early last year. Profits in the energy industry are soaring, right? Not at all. The best guess of analysts studied by Thomson Financial is that earnings for U.S. energy companies grew by just 6 percent last year. Estimates for […]

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