Overlooked in the global food crisis: A problem with dirt

WASHINGTON – Science has provided the souped-up seeds to feed the world, through biotechnology and old-fashioned crossbreeding. Now the problem is the dirt they’re planted in. As seeds get better, much of the world’s soil is getting worse and people are going hungry. Scientists say if they can get the world out of the economically […]

How to Use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

…Over the last eight months, the Department of Energy purchased more than 10 million barrels of oil for the SPR as the price rose $40 to above $120. This is not sensible. It puts upward pressure on oil prices at the worst possible time. It is a waste of taxpayer money. It gives aid and […]

Carolyn Baker: 12 Stepping Our Way to Armageddon

“The end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded.” – H.G. Wells, 1946 I recently received an email from a reader, frustrated with my insistence on holding a vision of what is possible alongside the dismal, inevitable current realities of civilization’s collapse. Admonishing me to bear in mind America’s […]

Russian roulette on the pipelines

The chilly front of the Cold War is being replaced with a heating battle, as demand for gas increases along with the price. Russian giant Gazprom appears to have the upper hand in this power struggle but eastern European countries have weapons of their own to keep fuel prices at the low levels they have […]

Global Food Shock

As an American, I’ve taken for granted that I can get just about any food I want at the supermarket. In fact, the number of choices are dizzying. I never really thought about the tenuous chain between myself and my food. Less than 1% of the U.S. population is employed in agriculture, and 40% of […]

Hints of a Shift at OPEC About a Rise in Oil Output

As prices jumped to another record, a member of OPEC signaled on Friday for the first time in months that the oil cartel might increase its output to prick the price bubble. The comments, from Libya But in recent weeks, prices have come under renewed pressure because of a string of export disruptions from Nigeria. […]

The elusive negawatt

As McKinsey points out, there are still hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of unfulfilled but potentially profitable opportunities in energy efficiency available to households and companies. What is holding investors back? One answer is price. In the eyes of many consumers, electricity and fuel are often too cheap to be worth saving, especially in […]

Building Small Prototype Homes, an Israeli Solar Experiment

In Israel’s Negev Desert, engineer Hy Brown is building small prototype homes that run entirely on solar power. He explains, “We have the opportunity by putting solar power on each house, more than what the house(s) use, of turning each house into a mini power plant which is a different way to provide energy for […]

Nigeria’s Production Woes Could Worsen

The recent slump in Nigeria’s oil output may have been disastrous for Africa’s largest oil producer, but problems could worsen. In a recent email to journalists, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta — the group that claims credit for most of the attacks on crude-oil facilities in Africa’s largest producing country — […]

Uranium miners on the prowl, as spot prices fall

Yellowcake miners and processors are on a massive mission, flexing their financial muscles investing in new uranium projects and expanding existing ones, in the face of the metal’s spot price that has recently caught a cold. The uranium spot markets are under pressure and the price has been in freefall. In late June last year, […]

Mystery Indian analyst spooks world economy

They are calling him Arjun “Spike” Murti, but his real middle name is Narayana, the supreme manifestation of the Hindu God Vishnu. Supreme he is, in the oil world. The little known Indian analyst at Goldman Sachs has become a cause celebre — or a doomsday prophet — for his forecasts about oil prices, based […]

Coal is King: Demand worldwide has prices skyrocketing

As increasing numbers of the world’s poor join the middle classes, hooking up to electricity grids and buying up more manufactured goods, demand for coal grows. World consumption of coal has grown 30 percent in the past six years, twice as much as any other energy source. About two-thirds of the fuel supplies electricity plants, […]

Indonesia denies reports of possible coal export quotas

Indonesia has denied that it will set a quota for coal exports as it wants to reserve the coal for future use. The reports had prompted rising interest in the country’s natural resources from energy-hungry China and India.The reports were baseless and the new mining law likely to be passed by Parliament by June would […]

Brazil warns Europe against biofuel import barriers

Brazil on Friday warned Europe not to “distort” trade in biofuel, saying Brasilia was ready to defend its interests before the World Trade Organization if necessary. The director of the energy department in Brazil’s foreign ministry, Andre do Lago, said his Latin American nation — the biggest exporter of biofuel made from sugarcane — was […]

Vietnam starts construction on 6 billion dollar oil-refinery

Energy-hungry Vietnam started building its second oil refinery on Saturday, a 6.2 billion dollar complex, in a bid to feed the nation’s booming economy, the State Oil company announced. Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation (PetroVietnam), the oil monopoly in the communist nation, set up a joint-venture with its counterparts from Japan and Kuwait to build […]

8 Ways to Fix the Global Food Crisis

The world food crisis has two faces. Here in the United States, shoppers stare in disbelief at the rising price of milk, meat, and eggs. But elsewhere on the globe, anguish spills into the streets, as in Somalia last week when tens of thousands of rioters converged on the capital to protest for food. The […]

Rising costs threaten UK wind farm programme

…Two wind farms, Lynn and Inner Dowsing, with a combined 180MW capacity which Centrica has built off the Lincolnshire coast, doubled in price in the time they were built. They are about to come on stream and Centrica has plans at three more sites off the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts. “The worrying trend is that […]

Oil price surge threatens airlines

Almost all the world’s airlines are heading for significant losses if oil prices stay at their current level, experts have warned as crude touched a record high. City analysts said the price rise – up to $126 a barrel in New York – could also trigger a decline in air travel. Oil rose for a […]

Driving and cheap flights lay waste to recycling campaign

Hopes that Britain has turned into a nation of environmentalists were dealt a severe blow yesterday by an official report which found that the nation’s carbon footprint was growing. Although far more households were separating their rubbish for recycling, any benefits to the environment have been more than wiped out by a sharp rise in […]

Sports world begins to sputter under weight of fuel prices

Eight high schools south of Detroit announced this week they are forming a new league of schools within a 15-mile radius. The cost of gas is one major reason. “It makes the most sense, especially in these economic times,” Allen Park athletics director Ken Stephens says. “Where can you save money? You can cut down […]

The Case For $80 A Barrel Oil

Oil prices may hang above $100 a barrel for the rest of this year but will fall as low as $80 next year as world demand slackens and Saudi Arabia tries to buy influence with the incoming president by pumping more crude oil, an influential Lehman Brothers analyst said in a report issued today. Saudi […]

Oil addiction to drive US election

WITH Wall Street suddenly abuzz with talk of crude oil prices reaching $US200 a barrel and the three remaining presidential candidates apparently vying with one another to present the most politically opportunistic (and economically absurd) energy “plan”, it is becoming increasingly clear that America’s addiction to cheap oil is likely to be a major issue […]

G-7 Central Bankers Stymied By ‘Crude Oil Vigilantes’

The Inflation risks are significant under the influence of oil and energy price increases, commodity price increases more generally, and food and agricultural products. This is perceived in all economies without exception. This is no time for complacency for central banks in any respect. In China, food prices rose 21% in the first quarter of […]

Salt water tested as fuel source

SEATTLE Pictures have been floating around for some time of retired television engineer John Kanzius aiming radio waves at a test tube full of salt water in Pennsylvania. “Just like that, if that was a car cylinder, you can see the amount of fire that would be in the cylinder,” Kanzius said. Could it be […]

Record oil prices bring fresh interest in L.A.’s wells

LOS ANGELES “That increase in oil prices has caused expansion of exploration and production throughout the country and especially in California,” says Steve Rusch, vice president of a Texas oil company that does extensive drilling in and around Los Angeles. “There’s a huge incentive.” Oil has been produced in Los Angeles since the early 1900s, […]

State of Connecticut Begins Planning for Peak Oil

State Rep. Terry Backer (D-Stratford) announced passage of a bill he authored, House Bill#5724, An Act Concerning Energy Scarcity And Security, that will take steps to ensure Connecticut’s energy planning is in place and alternative strategies have been designed to address the ever increasing cost and potential supply disruption in the face of global oil […]

‘Peak oil’ is here. Now what?

Last week, noted author Richard Heinberg, a world authority on oil depletion, spoke at the State House before a small group of lawmakers and members of the general public. Heinberg Heinberg, the author of books such as

Iceberg dead ahead!

Canadian and U.S. spotters are being kept busy this year by hundreds of the frozen chunks in Atlantic shipping lanes A surge in the number of icebergs off Newfoundland has imperilled marine traffic and added work for the flight crews who monitor offshore. About 600 icebergs are currently on the Grand Banks, roughly double the […]

Oil stockpile a drop in the bucket

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As part of their plan to tame record oil prices, lawmakers are urging the President to stop putting oil in the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But some analysts say that won’t do much to lower gas prices. … Currently, about 70,000 barrels a day are pumped into the reserve from oil […]

Sea changes could warn of Day After Tomorrow scenario

In the movie The Day After Tomorrow, the world froze pretty quickly when a major ocean current, dubbed the “ocean conveyor belt”, turned off. While that was a work of fiction, slowdowns of the conveyor are possible and researchers have now found a way of giving us a few years’ advance notice. Although even 10 […]

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