SC passes ethanol law challenged by oil companies

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) But oil companies moved quickly to stop it here and vow to do so elsewhere: They filed a lawsuit in the state’s Supreme Court on Thursday

California unveils major plan to slash emissions

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California on Thursday took a major step forward on its global warming fight by unveiling an ambitious plan for clean cars, renewable energy and stringent caps on big polluting industries. The plan, which aims to reduce pollutants by 10 percent from current levels by 2020 while driving investment in energy technologies […]

Rising temperatures force many plants higher: study

LONDON (Reuters) – Rising temperatures have forced many plants to creep to higher elevations to survive, researchers reported on Thursday. More than two-thirds of the plants studied along six West European mountain ranges climbed an average of 29 meters in altitude in each decade since 1905 to better conditions on higher ground, the researchers reported […]

Natural Gas 75% Gain Speeds Horizontal Drilling at Devon, Range

June 27 (Bloomberg) — U.S. natural-gas producers are drilling wells previously deemed too costly and resurrecting abandoned fields from Appalachia to the Rockies, spurred by the biggest rally in fuel prices in eight years. Devon Energy Corp. and Range Resources Corp. are drilling horizontal wells that cost three times as much as traditional vertical shafts […]

Oil Falls From Record as U.S. House Passes Speculation Measure

June 27 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell in New York, retreating from the record $140.39 a barrel reached yesterday, as the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill aimed at curbing excessive energy-market speculation. The bill, which passed 402-19, would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to consider using position limits, or constraints on the […]

Must read CIBC report: $7 per gallon gas by 2010

CIBC World Markets has just released a stunning yet detailed economic analysis of near-term oil prices and impacts. The PDF has some excellent figures I will convert to JPEGs. “Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history. By 2012, there should be […]

$140 oil and speculation

As you may have heard, oil prices have reached a new high above $140. I can already hear the outcry against speculators and their out-of-control games to enrich themselves at our expense. Nope, it is just too convenient, too irresistible and, let’s say it, too comfortable an excuse that speculators are to blame. It’s not […]

Oil’s momentum play – or panic?

Some analysts call this a momentum move. To others it looked like a spasm — a mindless flinching of the market’s nervous system in reaction to pain felt elsewhere. It’s not that simple. In their mad dash to the lifeboat, most investors overlooked the Energy Department’s prediction that crude could fall as low as $70 […]

Kunstler: Life Without Cheap Oil

Running on Empty It’s not a question of if, but when. Futurist and author James Howard Kunstler talks about life in a world without cheap oilWe were alarmed at $50 dollars a barrel. Then again at $100. Now, as the cost of a barrel of oil is inching towards $150, the question has become, how […]

Michael Klare: End of the Petroleum Age?

At the hastily convened global oil summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on June 28, top officials of producing and consuming nations from around the world attempted to find a combination of solutions that would somehow extricate us from the current crisis over sky-high energy prices. These proposals ranged from increased output by major producers like […]

Feeling oil’s trickle-down effect

Have skyrocketing gas prices got you down? The same crude oil that is refined into fuel is also used to make plastics, fertilizers, roofing material and asphalt for roads. You might be surprised to see some of the many ways rising oil prices are affecting you. Dry cleaning Natural gas, which powers dryers at commercial […]

Rising seas threaten west Antarctic

There’s a ‘big gorilla hiding the closet’ whose collapse could have a dramatic effect on sea levels, according to Australian researchers. Dr Bradley Opdyke, a paleoceanographer from the Australia National University (ANU) believes the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) could partially collapse within 20 years, resulting in a dramatic jump in sea levels. His talk […]

The Petro – Manipulators

Anyone who lived on the West Coast during the phony energy crisis of 2000 and 2001 cannot help thinking of Texas and two of its worst products The price of energy spiked

Volcanoes and hot springs could supply up to 25 per cent of America’s power need

As fuel prices soar, Alaskan officials announced the exploration of the state’s volcanoes, saying they could be exploited to provide energy for thousands of homes. …”If we really want to go all out for it, we could easily achieve a substantial amount, 20, 25 per cent of US energy needs within a few decades. We’re […]

U.S. crude futures leap to record above $140

NEW YORK – Oil futures shot above $140 Thursday after OPEC’s president said oil prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production. Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose as high as $140.05 in afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before retreating slightly […]

Nigeria needs $85bn to fix power

Nigeria needs $85bn ( Most of Nigeria’s 140m residents live without reliable power. BBC

Report

CSIRO today released a national overview of climate change impacts and adaptation options for Australian agriculture. …

The most dangerous form of Peak Oil

Robert Hirsch describes another form of Peak Oil: political peaking. Perhaps the Middle Eastern nations can produce more oil to meet the world 1. No risk of foreign investments being expropriated. 2. No danger of losing money from instability of financial markets or poor investment decisions. 3. No way foreign bankers and brokers can siphon […]

Mexico Cantarell oil field output falls again in May

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Crude output from Mexico’s struggling Cantarell oil field fell in May for the eighth month in a row to 1.038 million barrels per day, its lowest level in more than 12 years, Energy Ministry data showed on Thursday. The fading jewel of Mexico’s oil industry, Cantarell has declined rapidly since 2004 […]

Singular Simplicity

The story of the Singularity is sweeping, dramatic, simple—and wrong … The trouble begins with the singularitarians’ assumption that technological advances have accelerated. I’d argue that I have seen less technological progress than my parents did, let alone my grandparents. Born in 1956, I can testify primarily to the development of the information age, fueled […]

Hawaii suffers a tourism blow

High fuel prices have forced up airfare, pushing a Hawaiian vacation out of reach for many cash-strapped Americans. Honolulu (CNN American Morning) — A balmy breeze gently blows across the beach, with the warm, clear water of the Pacific Ocean just a few feet away. It’s a place honeymooners and families go to get away […]

OPEC president: Oil could soon hit $170

Crude oil prices will likely rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer, OPEC President Chakib Khelil was quoted as telling a French television station. Khelil, in an interview with France 24, said much would depend on the European Central Bank’s policy on the euro, as well as whether the West puts more […]

John Michael Greer: The ‘Silent Running’ fallacy

…It What makes this irony mordant is that nature is also a great deal more resilient than industrial humanity. A recent book on global warming, Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, argues that a global temperature rise of 11

Q&A with Marcel Coutu

Marcel Coutu: Natural gas is in vast supply around the world but oil is not. Crude oil production in most of the producing countries in the world is in decline. All OPEC can now do is raise prices by cutting production. They cannot lower prices by increasing production because they don At these prices you […]

Libya May Cut Oil Output as Market Is Oversupplied, Ghanem Says

(Bloomberg) — Libya may cut oil production because the market is oversupplied, the nation’s top oil official said. “We are also weighing such a move because of the threats and intimidation against OPEC,” National Oil Corp. Chairman Shokri Ghanem said in a telephone interview today from Tripoli. “We have to protect our interests.” He declined […]

Fuel costs drive bus company out of school contract

A major bus company is walking away from a five-year contract with Nova Scotia’s Acadian school board, blaming high fuel prices. Perry Rand Transportation, operating under the name The Bus Boys, transports 2,700 students a day for the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial. The company is paid per trip, per day. But the skyrocketing price of […]

Major turbulence ahead for airlines

America’s aviation system could be at risk of collapsing by the beginning of next year. That warning from aviation experts has prompted some industry leaders to call for re-regulation, something considered almost heresy until now. Others are urging Washington to do more to rein in the oil speculators pushing up fuel costs. But there is […]

California water shortages to boost some crop prices

Water shortages in California, coupled with high fuel costs, mean customers can expect rising prices for some fruits and vegetables, particularly melons, canned tomatoes, and perhaps lettuce. The situation turns the screws on Sacramento to solve the state’s decades-old water standoff between its cities, farmers, and environmentalists. “We have wrung much of the flexibility out […]

Thieves target farm diesel supplies as prices soar

With the price of diesel skyrocketing, farmers and ranchers around the country are being targeted by ne’er-do-wells armed with syphon hoses and pumps. Sheldon Wilder, who owns a cotton gin 30 miles east of Memphis, Tenn., has endured worse already. Twice in two weeks, he had diesel drained from saddlebag tanks on a truck at […]

Nitrogen madness: The costs of unsustainable agriculture

Depending on mined and fossil-fuel produced nitrogen for our food is no more sustainable than depending on peaking oil and mountain-top removed coal for our energy. There’s no more “cheap” food and fuel, because, really, there never was. The huge irony — currently obscured by the psychological jolt of widespread shortages of food and fuel […]

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