Will Detroit’s cash crisis kill the electric car?

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Call it an economic and environmental murder mystery in the making: Will a cash-strapped Detroit kill the electric car — again? Stung by an association with gas-guzzling SUVs and pushed to the brink of failure by plunging sales, U.S. automakers have been touting efforts to roll out more fuel-efficient small cars, […]

GM’s possible bankruptcy weighs heavily on Detroit

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Devastating. That’s the word being used to describe the impact on Michigan and its largest city, Detroit, should financially ailing automaker General Motors (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) file for bankruptcy protection. “It would be devastating,” said Liz Boyd, spokeswoman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who is already anticipating the state’s new […]

Top oil exporters’ ship plans unchanged after hijack

DUBAI (Reuters) – Three of the Middle East’s top oil exporting nations, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait, have no immediate plans to alter their crude oil shipping operations despite an increased threat from pirates off East Africa. Somali pirates over the weekend hijacked a Saudi supertanker with a cargo of two million barrels of oil […]

Petrobras postpones 28 rig tenders

Brazilian state oil company Petrobras has postponed construction tenders for 28 deep-sea drilling rigs to the coming year. The rigs were to be tendered exclusively to Brazilian construction companies this year. “These are no longer the conditions to issue the tender this year,” said Jose Jorge de Moraes Jr, general manager for new business at […]

Global energy investment hit by financial crisis

(Reuters) – The growing financial crisis and plunging energy prices have forced companies to scale back spending and delay projects, with expensive ventures in the Canadian oil sands hardest hit. Below is a list of energy projects that have been delayed or scaled back in recent months, as well as other related news. Reuters

Sands shifting under Alberta oil sector

CALGARY — Environmental organizations in Canada and the United States are stepping up their campaign to derail Alberta’s oil sands and seeking funding from deep-pocketed endowments including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Presentations made to the Fund and other potential donors obtained by the Financial Post show a multitude of green groups, including the New York-based […]

Experts warn of severe water shortages by 2080

Climate change expected to drastically reduce availability of drinking water KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Half the world’s population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday. Wong Poh Poh, a professor at the National University of Singapore, told a regional conference that global warming was disrupting water […]

Dubai Vulnerable to Lower Oil Prices, Citigroup Says

(Bloomberg) — Dubai, the second largest of the seven sheikhdoms in the United Arab Emirates, is the most vulnerable place in the Gulf to lower oil prices as real estate prices and debt refinancing pose “real risks,” Citigroup Inc. said. The emirate “has been booming on the oil surpluses” from neighboring Gulf states and Russia, […]

As children starve, world struggles for solution

(CNN) — Some mothers choose what their children will eat. Others choose which children will eat and which will die. …Raj Patel, author of “Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System,” says the right to food should be seen as a human right. But, he says, powerful corporate food distributors control […]

Missing Radioactivity In Ice Cores Bodes Ill For Part Of Asia

COLUMBUS, Ohio It may mean that future water supplies could fall far short of what

Duke study pinpoints potential ‘green collar’ job growth in US

DURHAM, N.C. “Until now, there was no tangible evidence of what the jobs are, how they are created and what it means for U.S. workers. We are providing that here,” said Gary Gereffi, a Duke professor of sociology and lead author of the report. “We don’t guess where the jobs are; we name them. Our […]

Credit crisis dims the lights for power industry

As workers scramble to build an $800 million coal-fired power plant on a patch of farmland here, a crisis that began on faraway Wall Street threatens to stretch America’s power supplies to the brink The industry has faced criticism for blackouts, but it also faces opposition to new new plants and stringing new power lines. […]

Report outlines how to adapt to climate change

Scientists and policy experts yesterday unveiled San Diego County’s first blueprint for adapting to rising sea levels, altered rainfall and other …They said that compared with today, San Diego County in 2050 will require 37 percent more water, the number of days with prime conditions for major wildfires will be up to 20 percent greater, […]

IEA WEO 2008 – Fuzzy Focus on Saudi Arabia

Given the central role Saudi Arabia will play in the world’s energy future, the continued fuzziness regarding its oil prospects is cause for concern. According to the IEA 2008 World Energy Outlook, Saudi Arabia will remain the worldHowever, the results obtained from such a data mining effort are limited not only by the quality of […]

Big Oil: We told you so

With prices sharply lower from the summer’s highs, Big Oil’s decision to hold off on new production now seems rather wise. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — It would be tempting to say they told us so. Back when oil prices were going nowhere but up, public officials, consumer rights groups and newspaper editorials chastised the major […]

Real Price of Gas Approaches a Historic Record-Low

Feeling nostalgic for the days of 17 cent gas in 1931, 20 cent gas during WWI, the gas below 30 cents during the first half of the 1950s, or the $1.40 gas of the early 1980s? If so, you’d be suffering from “money illusion,” the tendency to confuse nominal and real (inflation-adjusted) prices. Gas is […]

Nissan Plans to Start Selling Electric Cars in China by 2012

(Bloomberg) — Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third- largest automaker, intends to begin offering electric cars in China by 2012 as the country seeks to boost sales of fuel- efficient vehicles to cut pollution and oil usage. “The government is interested in our plan because the environmental issues are becoming a critical issue in China,” Yasuaki […]

Russian oil firms may cut output if unprofitable

TARKO SALE, Russia (Reuters) – The world is heading toward a sharp deficit of oil production capacity and Russian companies could cut output and exports should they become unprofitable, Russia’s energy minister said on Tuesday. “Oil companies should decide themselves. If it’s unprofitable, then they could decide to lower production,” Sergei Shamtko told reporters in […]

UK: Inflation slides to 4.5 percent in October

LONDON (AFP) … World oil prices have plunged by around two thirds in value since striking record highs above 147 dollars per barrel in July, as traders worried that a global economic slowdown would sap demand for energy. Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at the Capital Economics consultancy in London, said the British economy was […]

Oil game

A flash game around our favorite subject.

Oiligarchy

A Southward Thrust for China’s Energy Diplomacy in the South China Sea

What could upset the fragile equilibrium in the South China Sea and resurrect emotive issues of national sovereignty, prestige and pride? The biggest risk is that economic recovery, rapid growth and a resurgence of strong demand for energy in Asia will again push China and its Southeast Asian neighbors into contention. China’s oil and gas […]

OPEC again cuts its demand forecast

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, supplier of more than 40 percent of the world’s oil, slashed its 2009 demand forecast for a third month as the looming global recession threatens fuel consumption. The 13-member group reduced its forecast for average oil consumption next year by 530,000 barrels a day, or 0.6 percent, to […]

UN warns of desertification crisis

“Without proper action, both in developing and developed countries, some 50 million people could be displaced by desertification and land degradation within the next ten years” the world conference on desertification, meeting in Turkey last week, was told. The warning from Mr. Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification came at […]

From Bad to Worse: Latest Figures on Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The 38 countries that pledged to restrain their emissions of climate change–inducing greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide (CO2), are failing, according to new figures released today.Most industrialized European nations as well as China and the U.S. (which have not agreed to any emissions’ reductions) have been spewing more carbon dioxide since 1990—up in total […]

Europe’s $14 Billion Clean-Coal Proposal May Go Up in Smoke

A European proposal to spend 11 billion euros ($14 billion) testing how to pump greenhouse gases underground is itself getting buried. The plan to subsidize 12 pilot plants that capture and store carbon dioxide blamed for global warming won initial approval by a European Parliament committee on Oct. 7. Germany, Spain, Poland and at least […]

EU and US back Caspian call

Europe and the US are renewing efforts to loosen Russia’s stranglehold over Caspian oil and gas exports, in spite of lingering fears about the security of pipelines in the region in the wake of the war in Georgia. A declaration signed by the European Commission, the US and 15 countries at an energy summit in […]

50 Countries Discuss in Brazil How to Make Biofuel Without Harming the World

Brazil more than pointing out its great capacity for production of biofuels wants to show during the International Conference on Biofuels, which began today, November 17, in Sao Paulo, that agroenergy is a viable alternative for several countries as complementation of the energy matrix and as an instrument for generation of development. Debating theme “Biofuels […]

Peak-a-boo, I don’t see you?

The WSJ blog reprints an incredibly dumb “You can’t handle the truth!” memo from uber-peaker Robert Hirsch. Yes, the author of the seminal 2005 study [PDF] funded by the Bush Energy Department on “Peaking of World Oil Production” has written a memo “To The Peak Oil Community,” recommending that group “minimize its effort to awaken […]

Western Australia Premier Ends Ban on Uranium Mining

Western Australia, the state with as much as 10 percent of the world’s known uranium reserves, ended a six-year ban mining the radioactive metal after a new government was elected. Mining leases will be granted for uranium, State Premier Colin Barnett said today in an e-mailed statement. His Liberal- National government was won power in […]

”Get Coal Out of the System”

Combating climate change requires dealing with coal emissions–and misinformation, an MIT figure says.To reduce greenhouse-gas emissions enough to avert the worst effects of climate change, “we have to get coal out of the system.” That succinct bottom line was delivered yesterday by Henry Jacoby, professor of management at MIT’s Sloan School and codirector of MIT’s […]

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