Thailand worries over food shortages amid palm oil debate

Thailand has started requiring that all its diesel fuel include a component made from palm oil, a move that could reduce costly energy imports but is driving up prices for the commodity, experts say. The switch has sent prices for palm oil soaring, leading to shortages of the commodity that is widely used for domestic […]

Norway: Tensions rise between fishing and oil industries

A feverish quest for new sources of oil, fuelled by high oil prices, is sparking territorial battles between Norwegian fishing interests and oil exploration firms searching for new reserves in the North and Norwegian Last year, three fishing boats tried to prevent the seismic vessel Polshkov from conducting oil exploration in the seas off Vesteralen. […]

Mexico Energy Minister Hopes to See Pemex Form Deepwater JVs

Mexico’s energy minister said Thursday she hopes an upcoming reform will allow the state oil company to form alliances to develop reserves in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. In the U.S., oil firms are already drilling a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico maritime border in 9,000 feet of water, and Mexico risks watching […]

US risks trade dispute with Canada on fuel

Environmental restrictions on the US government The issue is the latest in a string of potential and actual disputes that will test the ability of the rules of the world trading system to regulate highly contentious global warming issues. The rule, contained in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, has the potential to affect […]

Oil, arms and a marriage of convenience

China’s involvement in Sudan stretches back more than a decade and has snowballed to the extent that it now supplies nearly a quarter of the African country’s imports and accounts for about 70% of its exports, mostly oil. But despite growing global criticism of Chinese blank cheques written to the regime in Khartoum, Beijing has […]

Shadow of terrorism looms over oil industry

IN THE darkness the men took their “seats” on the roof of the accommodation block of the Ninian oil platform, 90 miles north-east of Shetland. The first hint of activity was the soft whut-whut of rotor blades, then suddenly a military helicopter, which had approached flying so low it almost skimmed the tops of the […]

OPEC Finance Chiefs to Discuss Dollar Oil Pricing, Khelil Says

(Bloomberg) — OPEC finance ministers will meet to study a proposal from Venezuela to price oil in a currency other than the U.S. dollar, the group’s President Chakib Khelil said. Algeria wants to keep the U.S. currency for pricing the fuel, he said, according to a report published today by the state-run Algerie Presse-Service. “As […]

Nepal strike hits petrol supplies

Nepalese petrol stations have been hit by severe fuel shortages, largely triggered by protesters blockading key roads in the south of the country. Most petrol stations have shut down and those still serving fuel have attracted queues of thousands of motorists. Nepalese activists representing the ethnic Madheshis of the southern plains have been protesting since […]

Canada’s oil sands a massive disaster – green group

OTTAWA

Oceans eyed as new energy source

DANIA BEACH, Fla. – Just 15 miles off Florida’s coast, the world’s most powerful sustained ocean current Florida Atlantic University researchers say the current could someday be used to drive thousands of underwater turbines, produce as much energy as perhaps 10 nuclear plants and supply one-third of Florida’s electricity. A small test turbine is expected […]

Explosions at south Texas gas line

McCOOK, Texas – Multiple explosions are being reported at a south Texas gas pipeline. Authorities say some people are injured. How the explosions happened isn’t immediately clear. Authorities are working to cordon off the area and put out a fire. The explosions were reported near McCook, a town near the U.S. Mexico border.

CERA sees a dozen reactors under way by 2015 in US

HOUSTON, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Challenges facing a nuclear revival in the United States seem only to increase, but industry experts at the CERA conference expect to see a dozen new reactors under construction in the next decade, they said Friday. “It’s execution time,” said Jone-Lin Wang, a senior director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, […]

A modest proposal for curing a whiny nation

…This is why I have come to believe that what Canadians need most at this moment in our history is a good famine. By “famine”, I do not mean those 24-hour fruit-juice-sipping adventures in group narcissism devoted to curing the problems of that continent-wide parade of dysfunction known as “Africa.” No, what I have in […]

Iran May Sell Oil in Rubles to Break `Dollar Slavery’

(Bloomberg) — Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, may use the Russian ruble in trading on its new oil exchange, the country’s ambassador to Moscow said. “Big energy producers like Iran and Russia should try to free the world of dollar slavery,” Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari said on Moscow’s Ekho Moskvy radio station today. The two […]

New Zealand: Low lakes pose risk of power cuts

The security of the electricity supply is on a knife-edge and power cuts are possible this winter. Energy Minister David Parker yesterday admitted the supply situation was becoming dire, although he still believed the country would get through winter without blackouts. Earlier yesterday, however, Meridian Energy chief executive Keith Turner told a select committee at […]

Stabilizing climate requires near-zero carbon emissions

Now that scientists have reached a consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the major cause of global warming, the next question is: How can we stop it” Can we just cut back on carbon, or do we need to go cold turkey” According to a new study by scientists at the Carnegie […]

Ocean Dead-Zones May Be Linked To Global Warming

A review of all available ocean data records concludes that the low-oxygen events which have plagued the Pacific Northwest coast since 2002 are unprecedented in the five decades prior to that, and may well be linked to the stronger, persistent winds that are expected to occur with global warming. In a new study to be […]

World Oil Forecasts Including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE – Update Feb 2008

Executive Summary 1. World total liquids production (Fig 1) remains on a peak plateau since 2006 and is forecast to fall off this peak plateau in 2009. Increasing numbers of oil experts are forecasting impending peak production plateaus. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the current peak production of 87.2 mbd occurred on January […]

U.S. Moving Toward Ban on New Coal-Fired Power Plants

In a report compiled in early 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy listed 151 coal-fired power plants in the planning stages and talked about a resurgence in coal-fired electricity. But during 2007, 59 proposed U.S. coal-fired power plants were either refused licenses by state governments or quietly abandoned. In addition to the 59 plants that […]

Greenspan: Recession chances ‘50% or better’

Former Fed chairman, speaking at Houston conference, also promotes nuclear power and electric cars. …On energy issues, Greenspan said the United States should embrace nuclear power to help solve its energy needs, called for greater use of electric cars, and said limiting carbon emission will be much more difficult and costly than most people realize. […]

After the coal rush

Spiking global prices of coal should make energy experts rethink the wisdom of depending on it for long-term fueling of electricity plants. When natural gas prices soared in recent years, long-range planners for American utilities increasingly turned to coal-fired plants as the most economic way to address rising consumer demand for electricity. Because the U.S. […]

Shrinking timeframe to prevent dangerous climate change?

A growing number of scientists are echoing the concern raised in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) The lead author of the PNAS paper, CSIRO

DoD energy strategy: ”More fight – less fuel”

When Undersecretary of Defense Kenneth Krieg asked Defense Science Board (Memorandum, 2 May 2006) to form a Task Force on DoD energy strategy he specifically used two words very often Section 2.2.2 on peak oil (pages 13-14) briefly describes the Hubbert theory, and the various government reports on peak oil (Hirsch, National Petroleum Council and […]

Oil prices approach 100 dollars per barrel

LONDON (AFP) – World oil prices advanced on Friday towards 100 dollars per barrel, briefly topping 96 dollars, as geopolitical jitters stemming from Nigeria and Venezuela stoked global supply concerns, traders said. Those market fears overshadowed a gloomy warning from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who predicted “a period of sluggish growth” ahead for the […]

Peak Oil: The Next 5 Years

I suppose this post should be titled, “Why you want to own long term oil futures.” The following graph of “all liquids” supply and demand going forward five years gives us an basis to compare recent observations on peak oil by Matt Simmons, Charlie Maxwell and Chris Skrebowski, three very astute oil observers, and draw […]

Goodbye gasoline? Not so fast

Gasoline use over the next two decades is expected to soar as developing nations get richer and more people there buy cars, but gas alone won’t be able to shoulder the burden. Along with their surging economies, the number of cars in India and China is expected to jump to 1.2 billion by 2050 from […]

Asia’s tigers eye nuclear future

The 2005-07 spike in petroleum prices topping out at US$100 a barrel has prodded economic planners across the globe to reconsider their energy options in an age of growing concern over global warming and carbon emissions. The Southeast Asian economies, beneficiaries of an oil and gas export bonanza through the 1970s-1990s, now find themselves in […]

The door to Iraq’s oil opens

The cynosure of Western eyes at the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, commonly known as OPEC, in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, last December 5 was an unexpected personality – Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani. But that wasn’t a chance occurrence. By the time OPEC gathered in Vienna six weeks later, […]

A Better Way to Capture Carbon

Researchers have developed porous materials that can soak up 80 times their volume of carbon dioxide, offering the tantalizing possibility that the greenhouse gas could be cheaply scrubbed from power-plant smokestacks. After the carbon dioxide has been absorbed by the new materials, it could be released through pressure changes, compressed, and, finally, pumped underground for […]

Venezuela’s oil minister says Exxon demands excessive

CARACAS, Venezuela “They ask for too high an amount for their compensation,” Ramirez said. Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil is seeking to freeze billions of dollars in assets belonging to Venezuela’s state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, to guarantee a payoff in the event it wins a decision by an international arbitration panel. […]

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