EU set to scrap biofuels target amid fears of food crisis

The European commission is backing away from its insistence on imposing a compulsory 10% quota of biofuels in all petrol and diesel by 2020, a central plank of its programme to lead the world in combating climate change. Amid a worsening global food crisis exacerbated, say experts and critics, by the race to divert food […]

Oil hits new record $117 a barrel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices hit a record high $117 a barrel Friday as jitters over Nigerian oil supplies outweighed a rally in the dollar and fears of an economic slowdown in giant energy consumer China. U.S. light crude settled up $1.83 at $116.96 a barrel, before hitting a record $117. London Brent crude […]

French ports are headed for paralysis-union

PARIS, April 17 (Reuters) – The French port union, part of the CGT federation, warned on Thursday that ports could be crippled in a stand-off with the authorities over reforms. A 24-hour strike at France’s biggest oil port of Fos-Lavera disrupted on Thursday the traffic of four oil tankers while strikers at the Nantes Saint-Nazaire […]

DOE’s Bodman: No Plans To Hold Off On Adding Oil To SPR

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Friday that the government would “not plan to” hold off on adding oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve even though prices are at record highs. “These prices seem very high, but there are buyers, you know for every transaction there’s a buyer and a seller and the reason people […]

How Far is the US From Food Shortages and Food Riots?

Even the United States is not immune from the potential for food shortages, food riots and food insecurity. We That said, however, we must understand that this situation is not sustainable. While Americans do have more disposable income than the rest of the word, that income is not unlimited and our food supply is much […]

Crunch Time For Natural Gas

As coal, oil and nuclear power are steadily being undermined by environmental and siting concerns, energy purchasers for industrials, power generators and local distribution companies, increasingly dependent on natural gas as a basic fuel, will be at GasMart 2008 in Chicago May 20-22 to hear from gas industry leaders on resource availability, deliverability and cost. […]

Freshening of deep Antarctic waters worries experts

SINGAPORE, April 18 (Reuters) – Scientists studying the icy depths of the sea around Antarctica have detected changes in salinity that could have profound effects on the world’s climate and ocean currents. Voyage leader Steve Rintoul said his team found that salty, dense water that sinks near the edge of Antarctica to the bottom of […]

Ag Secretary: ‘We have never been less secure’ about wheat

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The world has “never been less secure” about the near-term future of wheat as crop failures and disease combine to threaten food supplies, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer told food aid groups Wednesday. Schafer told the International Food Aid Conference meeting that crop failures have left global wheat stocks at their […]

Put a Tyrant in Your Tank

You thought ExxonMobil was bad? Meet the new kings of crude. Jeroen van der Veer is no pushover. The 60-year-old CEO stands out as a tough guy in an industry filled with them. In 2004, after taking the helm of Shell, the frugal, hawk-faced chief executive forced the $300 billion oil company through a painful […]

Mexico Launches Drilling Tenders For Challenging Oil Basin

MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- Mexico’s state oil firm hopes to turn a long-ignored oil basin into a major producer as the country’s traditional fields run dry. This month Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, is collecting bids for two drilling tenders for the Chicontepec basin, according to Compranet, the government’s procurement Web site. Experts say it will […]

World Facing Huge Challenge on Food Front, BAU not an Option

A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely […]

How to Win the War on Global Warming

…The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there’s far less consensus on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to naive wish lists that could cripple America’s growth. But let’s […]

Food miles don’t feed climate change – meat does

That locally-produced, free-range, organic hamburger might not be as green as you think. An analysis of the environmental toll of food production concludes that transportation is a mere drop in the carbon bucket. Foods such as beef and dairy make a far deeper impression on a consumer’s carbon footprint. “If you have a certain type […]

Lakes of Meltwater Crack Greenland

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Washington (UW) have for the first time documented the sudden and complete drainage of a lake of meltwater from the top of the Greenland ice sheet to its base. From those observations, scientists have uncovered a plumbing system for the ice sheet, where […]

China delivers as non-OPEC output disappoints

BEIJING (Reuters) – China, often blamed for fuelling oil’s five-year rally, is also doing more than many big producers to temper the rise by driving its state-owned oil companies to pump more crude — at almost any cost. Oil’s rise from $30 in 2003 to $115 this week has certainly been aided by surging Asian […]

Gas prices push closer to $3.50 a gallon, oil hits $116

NEW YORK – Retail gas prices set new records Friday on their seemingly relentless march toward $3.50 a gallon, and diesel prices pushed further above $4 a gallon. Oil futures, meanwhile, surged to a new record over $116 a barrel after a militant group in Nigeria said it had sabotaged a major oil pipeline operated […]

Billionaire Texas oil man makes big bets on wind

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Legendary Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens has gone green with a plan to spend $10 billion to build the world’s biggest wind farm. But he’s not doing it out of generosity – he expects to turn a buck. The Southern octogenarian’s plans are as big as the Texas prairie, where he […]

The rising impact of high oil prices

New York – Americans cannot avoid the soaring price of oil. They pay for it at the pump, with gasoline at a record $3.42 a gallon. They get hit by fuel surcharges when they book airline flights. Higher fuel prices are a major reason for rocketing food prices Now, rising energy prices

Last Week’s EIA Conference

Last week, the EIA held a special conference, celebrating the 30th anniversary of their founding. They have held smaller one-day conferences in the past, but this was an expanded conference for the occasion. I decided to attend because we use a lot of EIA data, and I thought I might learn more about the behind […]

UK: Refinery strike ‘could spark major fuel crisis’

SCOTLAND could be just days away from a fuel crisis after workers at the country’s only refinery announced a two-day strike in a pension row. Supplies to airports and filling stations across Scotland and northern England could be disrupted by the two-day action at Grangemouth, which begins next weekend. Last night, transport chiefs warned of […]

As Australia dries, a global shortage of rice

DENILIQUIN, Australia: Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. “It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,” he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, “and now it has stopped.” The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once […]

Surge in Natural-Gas Price Stoked by New Global Trade

Americans feeling the pain of record gasoline prices now face the likelihood of another fuel shock, from natural gas. Prices in the U.S. have risen 93% since late August as power-hungry nations like South Korea and Japan compete in a global natural-gas market that scarcely existed a half-decade ago. Still, U.S. prices are as low […]

Abundant clean energy in your back yard

New technologies and higher prices are leading to big new natural gas discoveries in the United States. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Americans are used to hearing that their energy supplies are dwindling. But new discoveries of huge new natural gas fields in the United States and Canada could change that, cutting foreign imports and boosting […]

More demand for oil in Mideast hikes prices

Mideast oil producers increasingly consume their own oil to fuel their fast-growing economies, driving up oil prices. WASHINGTON – Middle Eastern oil-producing nations are behind today’s record high oil prices, but not for the reason you might think. Taken together, oil-rich nations represent a bloc of fast-growing economies that are now sucking up new energy […]

Book Review: Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living

One day roving journalist Doug Fine decided to change his life. He would move to the Mimbres Valley in southern New Mexico, trade in his trusty 12-year-old Subaru for a biodiesel-fueled monster truck, buy a couple of Nubian goat kids and some chicks, start a garden and set out to live an oil-free life. Farewell, […]

Nigerian militants claim oil sabotage

LAGOS (Reuters) – Rebels in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta said on Friday they sabotaged a major pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell, and a company spokeswoman said it was investigating reports of an explosion. A statement from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it attacked the Shell pipeline, which crosses […]

Rice traders hit by panic as prices surge

Rice prices hit the $1,000-a-tonne level for the first time as panicking importers Thursday scrambled to secure supplies, exacerbating the tightness already provoked by export restrictions in Vietnam, India, Egypt, China and Cambodia. The jump came as the Philippines, the largest rice importer, failed for the fourth time to secure as much rice as it […]

Jet stream, America’s storm maker, moving slowly northward

The jet stream — America’s stormy weather maker — is creeping northward and weakening, new research shows. That potentially means less rain in the already dry South and Southwest and more storms in the North.From 1979 to 2001, the Northern Hemisphere’s jet stream moved northward on average at a rate of about 1.25 miles a […]

March the warmest on record over world land surfaces

Planet Earth continues to run a fever. Last month was the warmest March on record over land surfaces of the world and the second warmest overall worldwide. For the United States, however, it was just an average March, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday. NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center said high temperatures over […]

Scientists agree placing wind farms on peatland is ‘disastrous’

Building wind turbines on Scotland’s precious peatland could be catastrophic for the environment, according to a Scottish MEP. Following a seminar given by key scientists at the European Parliament in Brussels, Struan Stevenson, MEP, is calling for action to stop any further building on peatland.There are 980 wind-farm proposals in place across Europe, of which […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy