Japan’s Westinghouse signs deal to build 2 US nuclear reactors

The Westinghouse Electric Company, a US subsidiary of Japanese firm Toshiba Corporation, said Tuesday it had signed a deal to build two nuclear power reactors in the US state of South Carolina. Westinghouse said it had signed the nuclear plant deal with South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (SCE&G) and Santee Cooper, a South Carolina […]

Research budgets cut amid food crisis, wheat worry

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Dr. Yue Jin, a kind-faced man in a blue lab coat, is the nation’s bulwark against a devastating new plant disease. He’s the only federal scientist whose main mission is protecting the $17 billion U.S. wheat crop from annihilation. His budget’s being cut Jin and other plant scientists have watched in […]

Fed report says climate change risks crops, water

DENVER – Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures, depleting the nation’s water resources and contributing to outbreaks of invasive species and insects, according to a federal report released Tuesday. Those and other problems for the U.S. livestock and forestry industries will persist for at least the next 25 years, said the […]

Over 80 percent of fisheries overfished: report

GENEVA (AFP) – More than 80 percent of the world’s fisheries are at risk from over-fishing and the World Trade Organisation must act urgently to scrap unsustainable subsidies, lobby group Oceana said Monday. “The world’s fishing fleets can no longer expect to find new sources of fish,” said Courtney Sakai, senior campaign director at Oceana. […]

Landowners getting trampled in gas rights rush

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Unsuspecting property owners around the country are getting trampled in an old-fashioned land rush by natural gas companies and speculators trying to lock up long-ignored drilling rights quickly and cheaply. Stories of fast-talking industry representatives using scare tactics to strong-arm people into signing lowball leases are popping up in rural areas and […]

World response needed to oil crisis: PM

LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned Wednesday that the world faced a “great oil shock” that could only be addressed by urgent action on a global scale. “The global economy is facing the third great oil shock of recent decades,” he wrote in The Guardian newspaper, amid worldwide concern and unrest over soaring […]

Refining 201: The Assay Essay

When a refinery purchases crude oil, the key piece of information they need to know about that crude, besides price, is what the crude oil assay looks like. There has been a lot of discussion here at various times about The Oil Drum

Brown urges increased oil boost

Mr Brown told the industry body UK Oil and Gas: “This is not just a national problem – it is a global problem of supply and demand, not just in the short term, but the medium term and the long term. “Therefore, what your ideas and insights are, to contribute to getting the right balance […]

European leaders struggle to defuse oil price anger

European leaders are struggling to defuse growing anger over soaring fuel prices, as fisherman and truck drivers staged protests in several countries, with more strikes planned in coming days. Fishermen and truck drivers were in the vanguard of the protests across western Europe over rising fuel costs, amid recent record global oil prices over 130 […]

France wants G7 to seek boost in oil output

France called on the G7 on Tuesday to press oil-producing nations to boost their output in a bid to bring down prices that have reached record highs and thrown a spanner in oil-fired economies. Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said she would put the request to her counterparts of the Group of Seven club of rich […]

Russia may become one of the world leaders on biofuel production

Russia may become one of the world leaders on biofuel production, according to Head of Comission on AIC of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Ivan Obolentsev. Referring to the estimations of Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, he reported, that domestic agriculture may increase its grain production by 20 mln tonnes and that is sufficient […]

Swedish government approves giant wind farm

Sweden’s government on Tuesday approved the building of the largest offshore wind farm in the Scandinavian country and one of the biggest in Europe, the environment ministry said in a statement. “The government has authorised the building… of a maximum of 108 wind turbines measuring at most 200 metres (656 feet) and with a capacity […]

Enough oil to last ‘for at least another 30 years’

Australia’s rural economic forecaster has challenged predictions the world is about to run out of oil, saying ithas enough to last for at least another 30 years. ABARE chief Phillip Glyde told a Senate estimates committee yesterday that the peak-oil school of thought, which holds that reserves are near depletion, was wrong. “The rough level […]

UK: first tidal-power turbine comes on stream for National Grid

Scotland’s drive to develop new sources of renewable energy took a leap forward yesterday as the first tidal-power-driven electricity was connected to the National Grid. The milestone was achieved by OpenHydro, an Irish-based renewable-energy company, whose tidal turbine device was installed at the European Marine Energy Centre’s (Emec) test site off the island of Eday […]

Nigeria: Lagos Consumers Revolt, Send Back Electricity Bills

A revolt of some sort in Lagos and other parts of the country among a section of power consumers may have commenced with their refusal to pay electricity bills of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) owing to the abysmal level of power generation, supply and distribution nationwide. Vanguard checks revealed that these consumers […]

Indonesia to pull out of OPEC: minister

Indonesia will withdraw from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries as it has become a net oil importer, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said Wednesday. “During the budget planning meeting, the president mentioned that we have to withdraw from OPEC and … when I get back to the office … I will sign […]

From producers to consumers: how rice farmers face catastrophe

The reasons for the global food crisis are manifold, including rising consumption in fast-developing nations like China and India, droughts in Australia, the rising cost of oil, and the increasing use of crops for fuel. But more than any of these, in the Philippines the pressures are demographic. “At the end of the day, it […]

Russian billionaires fall out with BP

A simmering row between BP and the billionaire local shareholders in the company’s Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, has burst into the open. Yesterday BP and the Russian shareholders were forced to acknowledge differences over strategy, with the Russian billionaires who own 50% of the company arguing that TNK-BP, Russia’s third-largest oil producer, should be able […]

Qantas grounds jets over soaring fuel bill

Qantas has blamed the relentless rise in fuel prices for the first major cut in its services since the SARS crisis hit the airline industry five years ago, after announcing plans to retire and ground some of its domestic aircraft from July. Reflecting moves by several US airlines to ground some aircraft rather than fly […]

A really inconvenient truth

To keep our planet clean, until we find some truly clean energy source that is technologically and economically feasible (if there is such a thing), we have to significantly cut back our energy consumption. We must slap restrictions on the size of cars and their use, jack up taxes on vehicles and fuel, and divert […]

Egypt: bread shortages, hunger and unrest

There is a saying in Cairo: nobody dies of hunger in Egypt. But now many of those who rarely took into account the cost of food are going hungry as surging oil and crop prices drive up the price of staples such as rice and pasta. That in turn has forced up demand for heavily […]

Crude Analysis

Goldman’s Spot-On Forecasts Prompt Questions Goldman Sachs oil company analyst Arjun N. Murti and commodity analyst Jeffrey Currie are rattling the oil markets — again. Earlier this month, Murti, 39, and Currie, 41, raised their forecast for crude oil to $141 a barrel for the second half of this year and reiterated their prediction that […]

Soaring Fuel Prices Take a Withering Toll on Truckers

As his logging business expanded in the pine and hardwood forests of eastern Georgia, Jesse Hendley got into trucking. He scraped together the cash gradually to acquire seven tractor-trailers so that he could not only sell timber to mills in the south, but also charge the mills for delivery. Today, though, all seven rigs are […]

Fuel prices’ toll on U.S. economy

A $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil can lower GDP by about 0.2 percent. New York – Obviously, the sharp rise in the price of oil Economists are divided, however, over whether the price of oil has skyrocketed enough to push the economy into a recession. The optimists see Americans making […]

Stung at the Pumps, More Hop on a Bus

D.C.’s Outlying Transit Systems Rush to Add Capacity; Metro Worried Transit systems that ferry commuters into Washington from outlying regions are experiencing significant ridership increases as some gas prices pass $4 a gallon, and Metro officials caution that trains could be overwhelmed if prices go even higher. Officials are looking for ways to buy or […]

Nigeria: Rebels in the Pipeline

Current’s Mariana van Zeller travels to one of the most unstable regions in the world Current (video)

Diesels (Still) Equal Savings

But if diesel fuel prices continue to increase, even greater efficiency won’t be enough to make diesel engines a good buy With the price of diesel fuel pushing $5 a gallon, many Americans might not think this is the best time to buy a diesel car or sport-utility vehicle. But they’d be mistaken. The fact […]

Mechanics, police say gas theft changing with times

DETROIT – Dale Fortin is getting a new kind of customer at his Detroit auto repair shop, customers who have not just been in a fender-bender or had a windshield smashed by a rock. The soaring price of crude oil has turned gas tanks into a cache of valuable booty, and Fortin has replaced several […]

Has Russian oil output peaked?

Production dropped this year after reaching a post-Soviet high in October. On Monday, Putin’s newly convened cabinet made the issue its first order of business. Moscow – The Kremlin often touts Russia’s image as an “energy superpower,” but now the country’s oil production is declining. Some say Russia may have already reached peak oil output. […]

Global Warming Or No, Coal Will Remain King

It has been a hot month so far for investors who’ve backed coal. Soaring oil prices and global coal shortages have powered the most recent bituminous run-up. Investors saw an additional boost Tuesday when the chief economist for the International Energy Agency said coal will be the world’s biggest energy source for the next 25 […]

« 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