Can Less Oil Consumption in the West Lead to Lower Global Demand?

Until recently, there has been a constant refrain to the effect that Western economies seem undeterred by higher oil prices. Demand destruction does not seem to be taking place within OECD, even at today The chart shows that in transport, where fuel costs are almost everything, these notions do not apply. The ratio of the […]

Philippines: After oil and rice crises, a power crisis

More bad news: things are going to get worse before they get any better for Filipinos. First, there is the oil crisis; the price of crude oil is going through the roof in the world market. Then there is the rice crisis; price of the grain is rising and there is an impending shortage. And […]

Russia Drafts Law Limiting Foreign Investment

The Duma passed a bill restricting foreign investment in 42 sectors labeled strategic, including the manufacture and sale of military hardware, the nuclear industry, the extraction of mineral resources and mass media. The bill says that any foreign private investor wanting to buy more than a 50 percent share of a company in any of […]

Rwanda: Gadaffi – Where Oil, Religion And Business Mix

The visit by Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadaffi to Uganda and the inauguration of the Mosque at Old Kampala was a huge statement about the Libyan leader’s strategic interests in Africa. Among the galaxy of African leaders who were there for the opening of the mosque, neither his host President Yoweri Museveni, nor President Paul […]

Chinese demand for oil up 6.2%

Oil demand by China rose 6.2 percent in February, picking up the pace from a sluggish January as state-owned companies increased imports to ensure plentiful domestic supplies before the Olympics, according to data released Monday. The increase exceeded the 3.3 percent rise in January and the 3.5 percent rate for all of 2007. Political pressure […]

Oil falls on Saudi statements assuring increases in supply

Oil fell $1 toward $100 a barrel on Monday, as funds sought to lock in more first-quarter profits and the top exporter, Saudi Arabia, reassured consumers of its plans to increase supply in the coming years.Saudi Arabia said Sunday that it was working to expand its oil production and refinery capacity in order to maintain […]

Biofuel boom threatens food supplies: Nestle

Growing use of crops such as wheat and corn to make biofuels is putting world food supplies in peril, the head of Nestle, the world’s biggest food and beverage company, warned Sunday. “If as predicted we look to use biofuels to satisfy 20 percent of the growing demand for oil products, there will be nothing […]

UAE says to explore nuclear energy for electricity

The United Arab Emirates says it will establish a $100 million agency to look into developing nuclear energy to satisfy rising electricity demand in the Gulf oil exporter on Iran’s doorstep. “Analysis of future domestic electricity demand … has concluded that peaceful nuclear power generation represents an environmentally promising and commercially competitive option which could […]

Double-digit oil price is history: R S Sharma

During the last quarter century, primary energy consumption increased by about 64% (oil by 31%; gas by a spectacular 97%), primarily driven by growing demand from the developing world. CRISIL in a recent report has pointed out that non-OECD countries, particularly China and other Asian countries, have been the largest contributors to the 3.2 million […]

Germany Is Running Out of Energy, Says Expert

Germany could face a serious energy shortage over the next decade if it doesn’t start building new power plants, said the German Energy Agency. As a result, energy prices are likely to rise dramatically. By 2020, Germany could face an energy shortage that is equivalent to the output of 15 power plants, according to a […]

Study: Black Carbon Pollution Major Factor in Global Warming

Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from burning biomass, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere that is three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to a new study published online in the journal Nature Geoscience. Scripps Institution of Oceanography at […]

S-AF: Eskom wants a 60% price hike

Brendan Boyle asked Portia Molefe, director-general of the Department of Public Enterprises, why … Is the increase Eskom has asked for 53 % or 60%? It’s 60% nominal and 53% real — nominal would be before you take out inflation. That’s an awfully big increase, isn’t it? On the face of it. It looks big […]

UK: When Thom met Ken

Thom Yorke questions Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, about his radical eco vision for the capital. KL:…The people in the Department of Energy have done everything possible to block decentralised power. Dear old Malcolm Wicks [the energy minister] wants us all off his back, but they are totally and utterly hostile. I almost persuaded […]

UK: Call to boost water freight

Britain could cut 12% of road freight emissions, or 1.2m tonnes of carbon, within a decade if it shifted large quantities of freight on to water and rail, a report says today. By 2018, road haulage could fall by 22%, accounting for half of total domestic freight, if there was greater investment in infrastructure. This […]

For America and Europe, a sticky oil situation

China’s Chairman Mao Zedong was right when he said, “Power proceeds from the barrel of a gun.” The world has changed a lot since Mao died in 1976. Today, power proceeds from a barrel of oil. Unfortunately, the United States and Europe alike have bet their futures on oil. As Europe’s oil and gas dependency […]

UK: Call for delay to biofuels policy

The UK’s chief environment scientist has called for a delay to a policy demanding inclusion of biofuels into fuel at pumps across the UK. Professor Robert Watson said ministers should await the results of their inquiry into biofuels’ sustainability. BBC

Truckers threatening to strike

What started as a small, online grassroots effort now appears to have the potential for something bigger. Dan Little, the owner/operator of a livestock hauling company in Carrollton, Mo., estimated Tuesday that at least 1,000 other truckers from across the United States have committed so far to joining him in a strike on April 1.Although […]

Peak? maybe just some slippery price waves.

Okay, so what would happen in 4 years when gas is $180 a barrel and conservation becomes cool? Americans may recycle their $30,000 SUV and buy a Aptera that runs on electricity. The economy gets a boost too cause theres more people with jobs building these darn cars. There is an incredible amount of spare […]

Living in a nonsensical Auto Age

As the price of gas creeps ever upward, from the pricey to the obscene, a thought occurs to me. It starts out small, like a little itch. But then it grows. The thought is this: It never made sense. Even when I was in high school and worked at a gas station where gas was […]

‘The Long Emergency’ predicts dire future

James Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency” is something like required reading among peak oil activists, and it’s a great primer for those not yet familiar with peak oil’s full ramifications. But I know of no other book so deeply, consistently pessimistic; it’s a vision of a future that resembles Hieronymus Bosch’s nightmarish depictions of the apocalypse. […]

How the myth of food miles hurts the planet

Ethical shopping just got more complicated. The idea that only local produce is good is under attack. There is growing evidence to suggest that some air-freighted food is greener than food produced in the UK. Robin McKie and Caroline Davies report on how the concept of food miles became oversimplified – and is damaging the […]

Merryn on Money: Nuclear energy

Which brings us to the main thing you need to make nuclear energy: uranium. France alone uses up about 10,000 tonnes yet global production is a mere 50,000 a year – enough to meet about 60% of global demand. So far the other 40% or so has come from stockpiles and odds and ends lying […]

Recycling uranium and plutonium: where’s it heading?

Currently 12 of the countries with nuclear energy programmes are committed to a closed nuclear fuel cycle but there are signs that the number will soon increase. In particular, the USA is reassessing its previous policy, set strongly against reprocessing with subsequent recycling of recovered materials. The decision to introduce MOX fuel from ex-weapons plutonium […]

Producing nuclear energy is anything but green

Government administrators and industry loyalists call nuclear power a green alternative. They fail to admit that the entire fuel cycle, including mining and milling uranium, producing fuel rods, building nuclear power plants and dealing with nuclear wastes is anything but green. These processes use so much fossil fuel that the words describing the amount are […]

Oil crisis is a desperate cry for capital

If this were merely a financial casino, the odds on an eight-year winning streak are too long. The speculators bet correctly on rising demand in China and India and they then correctly assessed that investment by oil companies had been too little for too long to satisfy rising demand for crude. Their third and final […]

S-K: Military to Cut Use of Oil in 2008

The three divisions of the military have decided to consume 11 percent less oil allocated for use this year amid skyrocketing crude prices, minimizing flight of airplanes and mobilization of other vehicles, military sources said Sunday. The decision was made at a meeting Thursday of officers of the Army, Air Force and Navy in charge […]

OPEC chief sees oil at $80-$110 for rest of 2008

Petroleum prices will range between $80 and $110 per barrel for the rest of 2008, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Saturday. Khelil, who is also Algerian energy and mines minister, told Algerian television OPEC was under “big pressures” from consuming nations who liked to portray the group as responsible for high oil prices, when […]

‘Peak oil’ – Are we prepared for it?

Chris Skrebowski, a researcher for the Energy Institute in Britain, told the delegates of the Sub-Saharan Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Conference in Cape Town this past Tuesday that the oil supply will peak in 2011 or 2012 at around 93 million barrels a day. Robert Hirsch, a senior energy analyst at Management Information Services, Inc., […]

The Rising Price of Coal

As the global energy/climate crisis deepens, coal has become the starkest symbol and most telling measure of our predicament. Coal produces more carbon emissions than other energy sources – more than twice that of natural gas per unit of energy output. Consequently, coal-fired power plants are responsible for about one-third of US emissions of carbon […]

Climate change ‘is accelerating’

The growth of developing economies in Africa, Asia and South America has accelerated global warming far beyond official predictions and it is developed nations that must act to halt the potentially catastrophic consequences, according to a new study from the world’s leading temporary power supplier, Aggreko. The warning, which has shocked environment campaigners, comes from […]

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