Whale-Inspired Windmills

Mimicking the bumps on humpback-whale fins could lead to more efficient wind turbines. Marine scientists have long suspected that humpback whales’ incredible agility comes from the bumps on the leading edges of their flippers. Now Harvard University researchers have come up with a mathematical model that helps explain this hydrodynamic edge. The work gives theoretical […]

Canada: Esso stations across the Prairies face fuel shortage

CALGARY – Esso stations across the Prairies are running low on gasoline and face rotating outages for the next few weeks, according owner Imperial Oil Ltd. Operational issues have reduced output at the Strathcona refinery, forcing the company to ration supply to its stations in the Prairies and into British Columbia, Imperial said Wednesday.The 187,000 […]

Pakistan: Karachi power cuts hit millions

Millions of people in Pakistan’s largest city have been without electricity, following a power outage. Pakistan’s state-run utility said it had cut supplies to Karachi because the city’s power company had not paid its bills. Outages occurred in the morning. Some power was later restored, and officials say it will be fully back on within […]

Canada – NAFTA’s legacy: the worst agreement we ever signed

…Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada is an energy “superpower.” But NAFTA virtually guaranteed that the U.S. would be the beneficiary of our energy, and it unleashed a massive increase in energy exports to the U.S. Canada now exports 63 per cent of the oil it produces and 56 per cent of its natural gas […]

OPEC

Brazil’s oil may destabilize OPEC, but not the US. Indianapolis – Brazil’s recent announcement that it might join OPEC reportedly produced a lot of hand-wringing among the experts. According to CNN, “analysts” feared that putting Brazil’s big new oil finds under the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ banner would mean higher oil prices. Just who […]

Oil

From the steps of the Supreme Court to the White House press room, from global trading exchanges to the snowy reaches of Alaska Start at the White House. There, a week ago, President Bush touted tax breaks for oil companies that have just posted the largest profits in the history of American business. Yet he […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Polity on trial

The coming storm will bring one of the most severe tests of the cohesiveness of governments and peoples that the world has known for a long time. Over the last century, the industrial societies have built extremely complex and specialized civilizations. A simple example is that here in America only two percent of us now […]

Oil price soars towards 106 dollars after New York explosion

LONDON (AFP) – Record-breaking oil prices spiked close to 106 dollars on Thursday after the market was rattled by news of a small explosion in New York and following a surprise fall in US crude stockpiles. New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April hit 105.97 dollars per barrel, surging above […]

Peak Oil is a Cost Issue

Underlying nearly all discussions of the oil price is a standard economic concept: supply and demand. It seems so elementary that there is no doubt of it. It says that demand has been growing more rapidly than supply recently and that at some point the world will reach Peak Oil and the price will zoom […]

Being self-sufficient a solution to the collapse of civilization

…In the last 100 years, our entire society has become totally dependent on non-renewable oil, whose production has now reached a plateau, after which the supply will fall, which means – there are no ifs or buts here – our current way of life will disappear, perhaps rapidly. We must prepare ourselves for that, mentally […]

EPA: No timeline for high court request

WASHINGTON – Nearly a year after being told to do so, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday he couldn’t say when he would comply with a Supreme Court directive and determine whether greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles should be regulated. In a tense exchange with a senator, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson […]

Exxon Raises Budget Above $25 Billion as Costs Climb

(Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp., which recorded the biggest profit for a U.S. company last year, will raise 2008 capital spending to more than $25 billion to cope with escalating costs for drilling rigs and engineers. The Irving, Texas-based company will increase spending on exploration, refineries and chemical plants by more than 20 percent from […]

Nigeria charges oil delta rebel Okah with treason

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria has charged Henry Okah, suspected leader of the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, with treason and he risks the death penalty, the country’s top prosecutor said on Wednesday. The MEND was behind a wave of attacks on the Nigerian oil industry in early 2006 that forced the […]

Sinar Mas, Partners Halt $5.5 Billion Biofuels Plan

(Bloomberg) — Indonesian palm oil growers including PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources & Technology are halting or amending plans to make biodiesel after the commodity’s surge to a record made the projects unviable, executives said. Sinar Mas and China National Offshore Oil Corp. had stopped a $5.5 billion biofuels plan, Director Rafael Concepcion said yesterday. […]

Gasoline could go from 10% ethanol up to 20%

WASHINGTON Studies by the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State University at Mankato suggest that ordinary vehicles could burn a mix of 20% ethanol, called E20, as routinely and harmlessly as they now burn E10. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is to announce the study results at a conference here today. “We see E20 not exactly […]

BP, GM see hydrogen in their future

Companies agree that renewable energy is the future fuel of choice, but pursue a variety of options in the meantime. WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNNMoney.com) — Top executives of BP and General Motors Corp., two of the world’s largest corporations, outlined on Tuesday their visions for the future of renewable energy. They came to the same bottom […]

Bush urges electric vehicles, saying U.S. must ‘get off oil’

WASHINGTON — President Bush said the United States must “get off oil” and urged automakers to build fully electric vehicles like the concept Chevrolet Volt. “We want our city people driving not on gasoline but on electricity. And the goal, the short-term goal, is to have vehicles that are capable of driving the first 40 […]

No production boost from OPEC

VIENNA, Austria – OPEC on Wednesday accused the U.S. of economic “mismanagement” that it said is pushing oil prices to record highs, rebuffing calls to boost output and laying blame at the feet of the Bush administration. Oil prices surged past $104 a barrel for the first time after the OPEC announcement and the release […]

Bodman Says High Oil Price Caused by Low Supply

(Bloomberg) — Tight world oil supplies, not speculators, are driving up the price of oil to record levels, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in an interview on Bloomberg Television today. Bodman said the U.S. and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have different views on speculation. …Bodman also said that increasing ethanol output to […]

Heinberg – Post carbon living: beyond technofix

On January 12, The Guardian quoted departing chief scientific adviser Sir David King as saying, If I could debate the point with Dr. King, I would begin with a discussion of our differing understandings of the nature of the crisis itself. In his view, climate change is caused by technology and therefore must have a […]

Australia: $3 petrol prediction a ’scare tactic’

A prediction by Caltex that motorists could be paying more than $3 a litre for petrol within 10 years is an attempt to soften up consumers, Australia’s peak motoring group says. The cover of Caltex magazine The Star predicts prices on service station noticeboards could soar to 334.9 cents within the next decade. Among the […]

Oil prices surge to new record over $104

NEW YORK – Oil prices surged to a new record over $104 a barrel Wednesday after the government reported a surprise drop in crude oil stockpiles and OPEC held production levels steady Most analysts had expected the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration to report oil supplies rose last week for the eighth straight time. Instead, […]

OPEC will ’support’ Venezuela in Exxon Mobil row

VIENNA (Thomson Financial) – OPEC members have pledged their support to Venezuela in its dispute with US oil giant Exxon Mobil, at today’s production meeting in Vienna. ‘The conference expressed its support to the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela and Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), in the exercise of its sovereign rights over its natural resources, […]

Ukraine to pay gas bill, end crisis

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) — Ukraine’s government will force the company that manages its natural gas supplies to pay off its debts to Russia’s Gazprom to resolve a crisis that reduced the flow of gas supplies into Ukraine and threatened to disrupt European gas supplies, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Wednesday. Tymoshenko denied a report […]

Mexico closes main oil ports due to bad weather

MEXICO CITY, March 4 (Reuters) – Mexico closed its three main crude oil exporting ports on Tuesday due to bad weather in the Gulf of Mexico, the government said. The Gulf ports of Dos Bocas, Cayo Arcas and Coatzacoalcos, which together ship around 80 percent of Mexico’s exported oil, all were closed, the transport ministry […]

Jeremy Leggett: The crude fact

Peak oil is no academic debate: the $100 barrel is a harbinger of the energy shortage to come This week, oil reached its highest price ever, exceeding the inflation-adjusted record of $103.76 set in April 1980, at the height of the second oil shock. Then, the world was worried that the high price would trigger […]

Gazprom says Ukraine starts taking transit gas

MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) – Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom said on Wednesday Ukraine had warned it is taking gas from transit pipelines to Europe to compensate for lower supplies for its domestic needs. The world’s largest gas company, chaired by Russian President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, said Ukraine planned to take 60 million cubic metres (mcm) a day, […]

Oil’s Wakeup Call

…If you want to dream about oil prices long term, the go-to guy is Matt Simmons, chairman of Simmons and Company International. Simmons’ thesis called “the Peak Oil Thesis” is awesomely simplistic: The elephantine oil fields of Saudi Arabia peak out in a few years. Unfortunately, this is only a working hypothesis. Saudi Aramco technocrats […]

OPEC, Mindful of Politics, May Informally Cut in Coming Months

Mindful of the political challenge of slicing oil production at a time of triple-digit crude prices, OPEC may opt to informally trim in the coming months as it seeks to act ahead of an anticipated slowdown in energy demand. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries holds its second meeting of the year Wednesday as oil […]

Warming Climate May Cause Arctic Tundra To Burn

Research from ancient sediment cores indicates that a warming climate could make the world’s arctic tundra far more susceptible to fires than previously thought. The findings are important given the potential for tundra fires to release organic carbon — which could add significantly to the amount of greenhouse gases already blamed for global warming.Montana State […]

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