Biodiesel Aviation Becoming a Reality

The days when the great promise of biodiesel lay in getting a ’72 VW Bus to sputter a few miles down the road for its weekly trip from the organic rutabaga commune to the farmer’s market are over. In just a few short years, biodiesel has emerged as an increasingly promising energy alternative, embraced by […]

India: Uranium, that strategic metal

India’s ambitious nuclear program is based on the availability of sufficient uranium. But, do we have enough uranium resources in our country to meet the increasing demand? M S S Murthy thinks not.The key to the success of a country’s nuclear program is the availability of uranium. At present, the share of nuclear power in […]

China Spurs Coal-Price Surge

China is doing for coal what it once did for oil: pushing prices to new highs, adding more pressure to the creaking global economy. China has long been a huge supplier of coal to itself and the rest of the world. But in the first half of last year, it imported more than it exported […]

S-Af: Expect tight energy supply for four years

South Africans can expect tight energy supply for another four years, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said in Cape Town on Monday. The country’s energy supply problems are no different from those of other developing countries, he told a media briefing in Parliament. “We are in exactly the same position as every other developing country,” […]

You Vote: What Megabubble Will Be The Next To Bring Us Down

Hollywood tag lines fit Exxon Mobil’s $40 billion profit as well as the movies: “There will be Blood. There will be Greed. There will be Vengeance.” Our “war of civilizations” is not of theologies but a primal battle to control basic resources essential to survival. Yes, there is blood … and oil … and greed […]

Terrorism, Political Peak Oil And One Bad Dream

Here’s how terrorism and political peak oil play out in the real world. A 23-year-old worker on an oil rig has a dream. In it, there is a bomb. She tells her coworkers and, according to accounts in the British Press, the floating hotel beside a North Sea oil rig is evacuated.A military response, hundreds […]

Peak Oil and ”The Limits to Growth”: two parallel stories

The figure above is taken from the 2004 edition of “The Limits to Growth”. It shows the typical curves that the models of the study produce. These curves are similar to those of oil depletion studies based on the “Hubbert model”. The similarity is not casual, the theory and the method behind the two approaches […]

David Strahan: Peak oil and the seismic silver lining

The launch of International Hydrographic & Seismic Search Magazine raises an interesting question: have the publishers taken leave of their senses? True, the coffers of their target audience have been swollen by the near-$100 barrel, but the outlook for the global oil industry and economy is darkening by the week. The fate of the oil […]

ConocoPhillips Lobbied on Climate, Trade

ConocoPhillips Spent $4 Million in 2007 to Lobby Government on Climate Change, Polar Bears WASHINGTON (AP) — Oil company ConocoPhillips spent more than $4 million in 2007 to lobby the federal government on environmental, energy and trade issues. The company spent more than $1.8 million in the second half of 2007 to lobby the federal […]

Don

AS a suburban environmentalist, Mike Tidwell, 45, of Takoma Park, Md., always felt like a walking contradiction. Though he had quit his job as a journalist to work for environmental nonprofit organizations, Mr. Tidwell viewed suburbs (his own hometown is just outside of Washington) as places built For years, Mr. Tidwell led an environmental campaign, […]

How an Iranian ‘Oil Bourse’ Threatens the American Empire

… Bush’s response to Iran’s “Oil Bourse”, his response to the end of American empire, is pre-stonge age in nature. Indeed, the US empire will collapse when the dollar collapses. Because we have an ape-man and not a real President, the consequences will be tragic. A commenter to this blog used the term “sunset fuel” […]

Oilsands producers can’t fill gap if Venezuela cuts of oil to U.S.

CALGARY – With Venezuela talking tough about cutting off its oil exports to the United States, the Americans might look to their friendly neighbour to the north – already the No. 1 exporter to the U.S. – for a stable fuel supply. But the question is whether companies who operate in Northern Alberta’s vast oilsands […]

Russia Writes Off Iraq’s Debt In Return For Greater Access To Oil

(RTTNews) – Russia signed an agreement with Iraq to write off the lion’s share of 13 billion dollarsIraq owed to them in debt. Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiar Al Zibari, who is on a state visit to Russia, in turn, assured renewed opportunities for Moscow’s participation in the country’s lucrative oil sector. As per the agreement […]

Economics: Energy mercantilism

The machinations of giant economic actors on the global oil and gas scene suggest that with diminishing reserves of oil, the interplay between nature, state, and market will become increasingly complex, and deserving of scrutiny, in the decades to come …Jeff Vail, an energy analyst, describes the phase that the world of oil is moving […]

Clouds on the Horizon

Peaceful Kurdistan has been the silver lining amidst the upheaval of the Iraq War. But controversial oil deals threaten the stability. In the summer of 2006, as a wave of sectarian killings spread through central and southern Iraq, leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan were promoting a less violent enterprise: tourism. Dubbed the “Other Iraq” campaign, the […]

Gunmen attack Naval escort boat in southern Nigeria, killing one sailor

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria: Unidentified assailants on Monday attacked a Naval vessel escorting petroleum-industry watercraft in chaotic southern Nigeria, killing one sailor and injuring another, officials said. The gunmen fired on the boats serving the natural gas industry as they headed toward an island hosting an oil-export terminal, said a senior security officer on condition of […]

Petrobras’ global quest for power

The Brazilian oil giant has emerged as an innovator willing to stake claims far afield. MELGAR, COLOMBIA — For most of Latin America’s state oil companies, these are hardly halcyon days: Although high global prices have lifted revenue, crude oil production is either in decline or moving sideways. Then there’s Brazil’s go-go Petrobras. The company […]

Oil Rises to 1-Month High After Valero Shuts Delaware Refinery

(Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose to a one-month high after Valero Energy Corp. shut its Delaware refinery because of a power failure late yesterday. Valero, the biggest U.S. refining company, said it is starting units at the Delaware City plant after the shutdown, caused by storm-related high winds. Prices also rose because the coldest weather […]

Daniel Ortega brands Exxon Mobil’s move as another US attack

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega slashed out at US oil firm Exxon Mobil for launching “a clear offensive of the empire in order to push (Venezuelan state-run oil firm) Pdvsa into bankruptcy,” Efe reported. The Sandinist leader claimed it was not by chance that the US National Security Director Michael McConnell told the US Congress that […]

Producer prices at 16-year-high

Price inflation of goods leaving UK factories has reached its highest rate in 16 years, driven higher by petrol and food costs, official figures show. Annual output price inflation reached 5.7% in January, up from 5% the previous month, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Prices paid by factories for their raw materials […]

Oil rig dream bomb taxpayer bill ‘astronomical’

A false bomb alert over the weekend led to scores of offshore workers being unnecessarily evacuated by helicopter from a North Sea platform at taxpayers’ expense. Blame for the panic is being placed variously on oil company management (by unions) and on a young female worker aboard the rig (by management). The unnamed young woman […]

Overpopulation: Root Cause of Many Problems

People often speak of the many problems affecting the world as separate issues which ought to be solved individually. Few realize that a great number of these problems can be directly or indirectly linked to a single root cause: overpopulation. Let’s take a look at some examples of this… POLLUTION: The more people there are, […]

Venezuela moves bank accounts after Exxon embargo

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has moved its export payment accounts to UBS bank in Switzerland, traders said on Monday, after Exxon Mobil Corp secured an embargo of up to $12 billion of PDVSA’s global assets. Exxon Mobil won rulings from courts in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands that froze assets […]

BP: Changing perspectives on Peak Oil – Investment vs. Supply vs. Demand

Retrospectively, trying to understand Big Oil on the subject of peak oil is about as difficult as penetrating the comments of central bankers, sometimes called Fedspeak here in the U.S. In 2004, the British Petroleum (BP) exploration consultant Francis Harper told London’s The Business newspaper that world oil supply would be peaking earlier than expected, […]

Biofuel demand leading to human rights abuses, report claims

EU politicians should reject targets for expanding the use of biofuels because the demand for palm oil is leading to human rights abuses in Indonesia, a coalition of international environmental groups claimed today. A new report, published by Friends of the Earth and indigenous rights groups LifeMosaic and Sawit Watch, said that increasing demands for […]

China Turns to Economic Controls

BEIJING (AP) — Fighting stubbornly high inflation, China’s leaders dusted off a blunt tool from its pre-market reform era and commanded utility companies to freeze electricity prices. Households got temporary relief after that September order, but the capitalist-style economy produced unwanted consequences. Coal shortages cropped up as power companies cut back on buying and mines […]

Oil Insufficiency

The law of supply and demand suggests that prices will rise as access to any good thing in life becomes scarce. One of these products just happens be oil, a finite resource. As Michael T. Klare explains, “Petroleum is, of course, a finite substance, and geologists have long warned of its ultimate disappearance. The extraction […]

Southern Iraq being drained of oil

BASRA, Iraq, Feb. 11 (UPI) — The Iraqi government has accused neighboring Iran of taking over more than 15 oil wells on the Iraq-Iran border. Inadequate security permit militia groups in the south — allegedly backed by neighboring countries — to loot the region’s riches, particularly along the borders, the Alsumaria Iraqi satellite network reported […]

Malaysia: Running on biodiesel

If everything goes as planned, Malaysians can expect a third pump to be installed at petrol stations by the end of this year. Malaysian Palm Oil Board chairman Datuk Sabri Ahmad was quoted in a Reuters report last month as saying that there are plans to introduce palm oil-blended diesel in the local market.Drivers of […]

EU biodiesel output growth slowed in 2007

Growth of the European Union’s biodiesel output slowed to not more than 10 percent in 2007 due to increasing competition from the U.S biodiesel, a senior European Biodiesel Board (EBB) official said on Friday. “If we look at 2007 production, we expect an increase of not more than 10 percent compared to the previous year,” […]

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