Diesel popularity revs car sales

Sales of new cars rose 2.5% last year to 2.4 million vehicles, driven by the rising popularity of diesel models, said the industry’s main trade body. Diesel cars, which are more economical, now total 40% of all UK car sales, up from 10% in 2000, said the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Its […]

Strong Argument for a Slow Decline

There is a lot of doomer FUD circulating in the peak oil community about how global oil production will collapse or decline rapidly in the post-peak period. Some of the worst offenders are suggesting that production will decline at rates of 8-12%, or more. These people are fearmongering, plain and simple, and have no sound […]

Of black swans and greedy oilmen

It is not often that a school of thought comes along at exactly the right time that markets, economists and policymakers are worried about a specific event or crisis. When a book setting out these new views does come along, it is usually ignored, then quietly buried, and then only is quoted by increasingly esoteric […]

Efficient Biofuel Made From Genetically Modified E. Coli Bacteria

Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new method for producing next-generation biofuels by genetically modifying Escherichia coli bacteria to be an efficient biofuel synthesizer. The method could lead to mass production of these biofuels. Concerns about long-term fossil fuel availability, coupled with environmental problems resulting from […]

Where Did Uganda’s Oil Reserves Go?

It took only a couple of days to paralyse Uganda. Within 48 hours, the violence in Kenya had led to severe fuel shortages all over the country, pushing up oil prices, doubling bus fares, raising food prices and seriously affecting business and public life. Dealers were greatly taking advantage of the crisis to hoard and […]

Once sidelined, Siberia’s Tomsk enjoys oil boom

About 1,900 miles east of Moscow and sitting on a frozen swamp the size of France, the city of Tomsk has struggled economically since the Trans-Siberian Railway passed it by at the end of the 19th Century. Now it is at the forefront of a Siberian economic boom, fuelled by the post-Soviet privatization of oil […]

Polar bears vie with oil for US government focus

The U.S. government will soon decide whether polar bears are in danger because global warming is melting their icy habitat. But last week, the government offered some of that habitat as a place to drill for oil. Strangely enough, both those decisions are the province of the Interior Department.The department’s Fish and Wildlife Service is […]

Oil $200 Options Rise 10-Fold in Bet on Higher Crude

The fastest-growing bet in the oil market these days is that the price of crude will double to $200 a barrel by the end of the year. Options to buy oil for $200 on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 10-fold in the past two months to 5,533 contracts, a record increase for any similar […]

ASEAN, China, India race for energy reserve

The International Energy Agency (IEA), which was formed in 1974 by industrialized economies to develop collective measures to offset oil supply disruptions, has just issued a report warning that today’s energy market is more prone than ever to unexpected shocks and that many Asian countries — including China, India and Southeast Asian oil importers — […]

Rising energy prices fuel inflation fears

With the price of crude oil hitting $100 per barrel, European citizens must prepare for large increases in gas and electricity bills in the coming weeks, with major companies in the UK and France already announcing plans to raise prices by as much as 27%.Trade unions and consumer bodies in both France and the UK […]

The hidden holocaust — our civilizational crisis, part 3

This global system is hugely destructive of human life. Devoid of the capability to recognize and enact ethical values, it is driven purely by the imperatives of profit, efficiency, growth, and monopoly. Consequently, it is not only destructive of human life; it is destructive of all life, nature, and even itself. It is now generating […]

The people’s car coming to India

After years of secret preparation, the world’s cheapest car will be unveiled in Delhi this week – delighting millions of Indians as much as it is horrifying environmentalists. At 100,000 rupees ( Ratan Tata, 70, chairman of the family-run business, who has spearheaded the race for a cut-price car, wrote on the company website: ‘That’s […]

[ANALYSIS] Are we running out of oil?

Developments in the oil market in recent years have helped build up a rather pessimistic and widespread perception about the future of oil and the oil industry, which is focused on one common question: Are we running out of oil? The short answer is, “No!” That is the good news. The bad news is that […]

UK – Darling: I want answers over energy price hikes

ALISTAIR Darling has summoned energy regulators into a Whitehall meeting to discuss the cost of power after one of the UK’s biggest energy suppliers announced double-digit price increases. The Chancellor has written to Sir John Mogg, who chairs the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority, and Alistair Buchanan, the chief executive of the industry regulator Ofgem, […]

Gazprom Nigeria move bodes ill for the west

Russia’s moves to tap Nigeria’s huge energy reserves will send shivers through western governments already concerned about a shortage of global gas supplies. Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant, has offered to invest billions of dollars in developing the gas sector in Nigeria, where western majors have traditionally put most of their efforts into extracting oil. […]

Severe delays and rising costs hamper Baltic Sea gas pipeline

A landmark Gazprom pipeline project intended to bring vital new supplies of Siberian natural gas into Western Europe and, ultimately, Britain is suffering severe cost inflation and delays. The first gas was expected to flow through Nord Stream by 2010, but completion and testing of the 746-mile (1,200km) pipeline, which runs the length of the […]

A ‘Fame-Hungry’ Speculator in New York Raises Oil Prices to over $100 a Barrel

…There are many questions that arise upon investigating such matters even further, such as: Is there enough oil to cover this increasing demand for energy, especially with the spread of the “peak oil” theory in western states, which doubt the reserve figures of OPEC countries? The problem with this new-old theory, which finds listeners whenever […]

Why We Can

It’s becoming evident that the rising price of oil has little relationship to anything Americans do, or don’t do. …But demand is booming elsewhere, especially in the Middle East. The nations that have grown rich on petrodollars aren’t just spending money on champagne and lavish hotels on the French Riviera. They’re plowing cash into diversifying […]

Japan, U.S., EU to float energy body

Japan, the United States and the European Union will jointly propose at this year’s Group of Eight summit meeting that an international organization be established to study and evaluate the energy-saving measures of countries, including China and India, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Saturday. The launch of the organization is part of international efforts to provide […]

Soaring price oils wheels for green power

S arah Hall’s novel The Carhullan Army, which won this year’s John Llewellyn Rhys prize for literature, paints a bleak portrait of a world where the oil has almost run out. Set in the not-too-distant future, the Orwellian novel describes a Britain run by a dictatorship called the Authority, where electricity is rationed, the miserable […]

Greased Pigs

Gee, I’d really like to let bygones be bygones, but recent events make that quite impossible. I want everyone to stop looking forward to January 21, 2009 just long enough to settle an old score. This week it happened — oil topped $100 a barrel. Back in early 2001 when Dick Cheney pulled together secret […]

First US Commercial Wave Energy Power Purchase Agreement

Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced that it has entered into a long-term, two megawatt (MW) commercial wave energy power purchasing agreement (PPA) with Finavera Renewables. Located off the Northern California coast, the Humboldt County Offshore Wave Energy Power Plant will be developed by Finavera Renewables. The project is expected to begin delivering renewable, clean […]

The Forecast in the Streets

The physical impacts of the global warming forecast can be bracketed with some degree of statistical confidence. Biological effects are more difficult to gauge, except in special cases such as the likely demise of polar bears that would result from the demise of Arctic sea ice. The societal effects, however, are nearly uncharted territory, at […]

Analysis: Venezuelan oil production down

Venezuela’s oil industry shrank by more than 5 percent in 2007, according to the Venezuelan National Bank, raising concerns the Venezuelan government is not investing enough of its petroleum wealth in the sector. Oil production was off 5.3 percent in 2007 from the previous year and contributed $3.14 billion to the country’s gross domestic product, […]

Yergin: $100 oil ‘tells a lot of what’s going on in the world’

CALGARY — As one of the world’s foremost experts on energy, particularly oil and gas, along with geopolitics, Daniel Yergin is sought out for his insight on the dynamics of world crude and natural-gas markets and their impact on the economic and political sphere. Yergin is the chairman and a co-founder of Cambridge Energy Research […]

Oil price fuels fresh look at coal

VAST coal reserves in Asia are gaining attention as major energy consumers such as China and India grapple with the reality of oil prices around $US100 a barrel and the risks they pose to their economies. Multibillion-dollar facilities that convert coal to oil are being studied across Asia, while utilities are shelving plans to build […]

Malaysia Rations Cooking Oil, Stokes Inflation Fears

KUALA LUMPUR The government has said there is sufficient cooking oil in the country, adding it would beef up security at the border with Thailand and Singapore to prevent smuggling into neighbouring countries. “We want to show we are serious in combating the problem which has been in existence for decades,” Che Jamil Ahmad, customs […]

Saudi 2009 oil capacity plan on track: official

RIYADH (Reuters) – State oil giant Saudi Aramco is on track to hit its oil production capacity target of 12 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2009, an Aramco official said on Sunday. The start of Aramco’s 500,000 bpd Khursaniyah oilfield was delayed a few months to the first quarter this year from December last […]

How $100 oil will change your life

As a new era of expensive energy has arrived, our reporters survey the unnerving implications for consumers and nations ….The latest figures, for the August-October period of last year, show that energy use in homes, shops and offices was down another 0.1% (after taking weather conditions into account). Some observers fear the energy crisis will […]

Crude oil barrel at $100 ‘not necessarily very high’: OPEC president

PARIS (AFP) – The price of 100 dollars for a barrel of crude oil is “not necessarily very high” given the high demand of oil and higher production costs, the president of OPEC said Sunday. …Algeria’s Energy Minister Chakib Khelil — who took over the rotating presidency of OPEC on January 1 — told AFP […]

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