Running on Empty

It used to be that only environmentalists and paranoids warned about running out of oil. Not anymore. As climate change did over the past few years, peak oil seems poised to become the next big idea commanding the attention of governments, businesses and citizens the world over. The arrival of $119-a-barrel crude and $4-a-gallon gasoline […]

GasHole: Dirty Oil and the Biofuel Myth

This week marked the world premiere of GasHole, a new documentary film (narrated by Peter Gallagher) about the history of oil prices and the future of alternative fuels. Biofuel gossip has been everywhere in the news lately. Bolivian President, Evo Morales, condemned the use of valuable farming land for ethanol at the recent U.N. summit, […]

UK: Petrol rationed to stop hoarding as supplies dwindle on the forecourts

Britain’s motorists faced rationing at petrol stations yesterday, as major suppliers tried to stop them hoarding fuel. Concern over supplies as the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland closed down led to fuel queues on forecourts across Scotland, the north of England and parts of Wales. Panic over future supplies grew as news spread that BP’s Forties […]

James Woolsey, Hybrid Hawk

The former CIA director turned clean-energy enthusiast is part geek, part zealot Tall and lanky and dressed in a navy sweater, an oxford shirt, jeans, and Top-Siders, the 66-year-old tells me the story of how he, a self-described “Scoop Jackson/Joe Lieberman Democrat” who served as Jimmy Carter’s undersecretary of the Navy and Bill Clinton’s cia […]

Energy crisis spreading, coal executive says

Growing energy costs will force changes in the ways we live and do business in the United States. A lifelong leader in the coal and transportation industries, Charles T. “Charlie” Jones believes Americans might have to give up their free-traveling lifestyle, where some people drive 50 miles each way to work every day and never […]

US business airline Eos goes bust

US business-class airline Eos has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it will cease operating flights by Monday. The firm said it had “insufficient cash to continue operations” after failing to win an investment that would have sustained the firm until 2009. Eos was launched two years ago, flying between New York’s JFK […]

Rearming the world

Why nations are suddenly locked in an arms race unseen since the early days of the Cold War …With much less fanfare than the early days of the Cold War, the world is entering a new arms race, and with it, a dangerous new web of military relationships. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research […]

Energy author expects coal peak production in 2040

Somerset, MA Author of eight books about energy, Heinberg thinks the end of domestic and world coal supplies may be coming a lot sooner.

Powerful Stocks Bull Market As US Hyper Power Prepares for Global Hegemony

Back in the late 20th century there were predictions that the 21st century would be characterized by We have all heard about

What happens when we’ve used the last drop?

SIXTY years ago the Orkney poet Edwin Muir wrote some lines which, in the panic surrounding the Grangemouth strike, feel like a premonition. They point to a world not too far in the future where our reliance on oil has become all too clear, and the way we live our lives all too fragile. And […]

IEA warns against retreat on biofuels

Biofuel production is critical to meeting current and future fuel demand in spite of its possible role in driving up food prices, the west’s energy watchdog has warned. Amid signs of a growing backlash against biofuels in the wake of the worst food price spike since the 1970s, the International Energy Agency said that the […]

Extreme Ocean Storms On the Rise, Tremors Show

Extreme ocean storms have ramped up in frequency over the past 30 years, according to new research based on small tremors. The faint tremors, called microseisms, are periodic movements of Earth’s surface that can last anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds.“The gist is that we monitor pervasive seismic tremors observed around the world that arise […]

The ‘Energy Fiesta’ is nearing its end

Welcome to America: a country where energy waste remains our most important and prolific product, even though the long emergency ending the“Energy Fiesta” of cheap oil has begun. The only realistic solution to the dilemma this country, and the world faces, is reducing per capita consumption and achieving negative population growth. No society will voluntarily […]

S-Af: Move over, energy and food crises

The South African fuel industry is facing a crisis that is going to make Eskom’s problems look like a picnic, the Fuel Retailers’ Association (FRA) says. This is because the pipelines used to get fuel from refineries along the coast to inland distribution points are crumbling and refineries past their lifespan are unable to cope […]

It’s time to relocalise our lives

Faced with panic at the pumps, Alex Salmond was absolutely right to urge people to behave sensibly and responsibly, by cutting out non-essential trips, and using public transport. But he should have added: “Get used to it”, because we urgently need to realise that this isn’t just a one-off. While we fret about filling the […]

Wind power is great, but not a panacea

Yes, wind power is great and I fully support its vigorous growth, but we should not set our hopes too high. Environmental groups are doing a dangerous disservice by claiming wind (along with solar and conservation) will provide limitless clean energy and will power the hydrogen economy of the future. It is the answer to […]

Google and eSolar make solar power affordable

eSolar, with financial help from Google, has created an affordable solar thermal alternative to power plants utilizing coal and fossil fuel. By developing a modular approach to building solar thermal power plants, eSolar has found a cost effective way to build scalable power plants. Unlike photo voltaic solar panels, eSolar’s process does not require silicon. […]

Punjab reaps a poisoned harvest

The governments of many poor nations are alarmed at the rise in food prices. There are even problems in the Indian region of Punjab, where science once seemed to have found answers for a hungry world. The first thing Satpal Singh sees when he walks out of his bedroom door in the morning is a […]

Record complaints over ‘greenwashing’

Record numbers of complaints have been levelled at major businesses who “severely exaggerate” their environmental credentials, the advertising watchdog will say next week. Airlines, oil companies and car manufacturers have all been censured for adopting the practice known as “greenwash” to cash in on consumers’ growing ecological concerns. Telegraph

Arctic ice melting ‘faster than predicted’

The melting of the Arctic ice is happening quicker than predicted and may now be close to its ‘tipping point’ when the changes cannot be reversed, a conservation group has claimed. The pace at which both the Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet is melting has “severely accelerated” and could bring about rapid […]

Population explosion means oil at $100 a barrel is here for years

‘A whole load of stuff could come apart here,” warned Art Cashin last week on CNBC – the US business channel. “This oil thing – it’s gettin’ crazy”. Cashin was talking from the floor of a nervous New York Stock Exchange. After 46 years “in the pit”, the gnarled trader is rightly seen as the […]

It

THERE are more misunderstandings about the oil market than perhaps any other. In America, drivers are fuming and politicians are demanding explanations because petrol has hit about $3.50 a gallon. That But assume that prices are

Strike in Scotland closes major North Sea oil pipeline

Hundreds of workers at Scotland’s only oil refinery on Sunday began a 48-hour strike that has forced BP PLC to shut a pipeline system that delivers almost a third of Britain’s North Sea oil. BP said it had completed the closure of the Forties Pipeline System by 6 a.m., when 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth […]

Solar Power Lightens Up with Thin-Film Technology

Prices for high-grade silicon (that can generate electricity from sunlight) shot up in 2004 in response to growing demand, reaching as high as $500 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) this year. Enter thin-film solar cells—devices that use a fine layer of semiconducting material, such as silicon, copper indium gallium selenide or cadmium telluride, to harvest electricity […]

Flushing of multi-year sea ice from the Arctic basin

The image below is a low-resolution reproduction of a sequence of satellite images of Arctic ice this past fall and winter. The sequence runs in a continuous loop from October 01, 2007, to March 15, 2008. A link to the high-resolution video file is provided below. Note the stream of multi-year ice flowing out of […]

Australia: Only way is up for petrol prices – Caltex

RECORD oil prices will continue to push up petrol prices for a long time, Caltex has warned motorists. “There is long-term upward pressure on petrol prices and Australians, like motorists around the world, can expect to pay more,” Caltex chairman Elizabeth Bryan told shareholders today at the company’s annual general meeting in Sydney. “Petrol prices […]

Should You Pay $6 Per Gallon?

Why higher gas prices make economic sense. With gas prices constantly hitting new records, John McCain struck a populist chord last week with his proposal for a gas tax holiday. After all, with pump prices for regular now averaging $3.57 a gallon, who wouldn’t like to lop off the 18.4-cent federal tax on each gallon […]

Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World

…Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography. Increasingly efficient […]

Gulf economies: How to spend it

A region awash with oil money has one or two clouds on the horizon THE Gulf is full of loud architectural statements The ailment is one unhappy consequence of the region’s economic transformation. Before 1961, Abu Dhabi lacked even a paved road. Since then, it has enjoyed a startling transition from pearling to petroleum, from […]

Fear not, Canada will get through it

It’s enough to make you stock up on tinned meat and ammo, isn’t it? One day it’s a prediction from CIBC gasoline will reach $2.25 a litre. The next it’s an urgent warning from the United Nations that the world is entering a period of soaring food prices. And don’t forget the U.S. economy, which […]

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