Burning Coal at Home, Once Common, Is Making Comeback

SUGARLOAF, Pa. Aptly, perhaps, for an era of hard times, coal is making a comeback as a home heating fuel. Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a cheap, plentiful, mined-in-America source of heat. And with the cost of heating oil and natural gas increasingly prone to spikes, some homeowners in […]

Geothermal energy put to test at schools

Some school districts in Arizona are considering geothermal energy to reduce utility costs. Earlier this month, the Cave Creek Unified School District governing board approved the drilling of a test well at its high-school campus. K.M. Drilling, a Camp Verde firm, will drill a 250-foot test well on Jan. 10 on the campus at Cactus […]

Oil-rich Amara left high and dry

In the village of Al Kahla near the south eastern city of Amara, homes are made of reeds and mud, children don’t have access to a proper education system, health care is virtually non existent, electricity is in short supply and there’s no indoor plumbing. But this could have been one of the wealthiest places […]

Pakistan cancels military leave

Pakistan has cancelled leave for members of its military due to fears of a confrontation with India following last month’s Mumbai attacks. The decision on Friday came after Pakistan’s armed forces were placed on high alert. “Leave has been cancelled because of the situation. All soldiers have been asked to report to duty,” an official […]

Tensions mount as Pakistan shifts troops to Indian border

ISLAMABAD (AFP) “We do not want to create any war hysteria but we have to take minimum security measures to ward off any threat,” a defence ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity. He added that leave for “operational” armed forces personnel had been cancelled “as a defensive measure”. Another senior Pakistani security official […]

‘The nurses’ birthed a better place at Stinking Creek

…Looking back, Kemner and Gall say it was birth control, as much as anything, that changed the fate of Stinking Creek. The daughters of women who had 14 or 15 children in the 1950s and 1960s grew up and had three or four. Their daughters and granddaughters now have one or two, or none. “I […]

Solar Meets Polar as Winter Curbs Clean Energy

Old Man Winter, it turns out, is no friend of renewable energy. This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering […]

Himalayan villagers on global warming frontline

KYANGJIN GOMPA, Nepal (AFP) “We used to play on the glacier, and it came right down to the monastery, but now it’s about two kilometres (1.2 miles) further back.” Temperatures in the Himalayas are rising by around 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.108 Fahrenheit) annually, according to a long-term study by the Nepalese department of hydrology. The […]

John Michael Greer: History’s arrow

…I think most people who have been following the issue of peak oil for more than a few months have noticed, when the subject comes up for discussion in public, one of the most common responses is If that turns out to be humanity

Energy crisis too often left to the next generation

Chances are, when you unplug whatever holiday lights you have, you won’t be thinking about whether there will be enough electricity to use them again next year – or by the time the kids grow up. But there are people doing just that, for next year and the next century, and we should all be […]

Rouble devalued again

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s central bank allowed the eighth mini rouble devaluation of the month on Friday, a day after the price for the country’s main export commodity, oil, neared $30 per barrel, the lowest level since 2004. The collapse of oil and other commodities prices coupled with the global economic slowdown and a capital […]

Report: Alberta Mines Imperil Birds

CHICAGO — About half of America’s migratory birds fly from destinations as far-flung as Chile to nest in Canada’s boreal forest. In Alberta, that forest lies above tar sands that contain oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia’s. The excavation of the tar sands — projected to pump $2.4 trillion into Canada’s economy between 2010 […]

China starts filling tanks at largest oil reserve: report

BEIJING (AFP) This is just the first phase of the reserve, which will eventually have an overall capacity of more than 50 million barrels of crude, mainly produced in Xinjiang or imported from neighbouring Kazakhstan, it said. Total investment in the project is 6.5 billion yuan (950 million dollars), with 856 million yuan invested in […]

Disasters warning for Asia-Pacific

AUSTRALIA’S neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region face an era of “mega-disasters” affecting hundreds of thousands of people as urbanisation, climate change and food shortages amplify the impact of natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and cyclones in coming years, scientific research has shown. The research – which has prompted the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the […]

Nippon Oil Likely to Keep Output Cuts in January Through March

(Bloomberg) — Nippon Oil Corp., Japan

China Turns to

(Bloomberg) — China will become a Energy demand is falling as the fourth-biggest economy enters its deepest slowdown in almost two decades. Sinopec Group, as China Petrochemical is known, supplies more than half of the nation

Coal hard truths

Mattie Reitman went to the coal fields of West Virginia two years ago to listen to the experiences and concerns of residents living in the heart of coal country. There, in Appalachia, with the help of an approach called Born in Sacramento, Reitman, 25, moved when he was only 4 years old, living in Colorado, […]

Refinery may face closure

Big West must convince industry it can pay for oil The Big West refinery on Rosedale Highway could be forced to shut down unless its owner can persuade members of the local oil industry that they will continue to be paid for new deliveries despite the company They said the idea behind the proposal, which […]

China Development Bank Quadruples Loan to Oil-Rich Kazakhstan

(Bloomberg) — China Development Bank quadrupled a credit line to its counterpart in energy-rich Kazakhstan after oil prices plunged. China Development Bank agreed to increase a $100 million line of credit for infrastructure, energy and metals projects to $400 million, the Astana-based National Wellbeing Fund said in a statement today. Kazakhstan, the biggest oil producer […]

The Moment of Darkness

…At a peak oil conference in Cork last year I met a man who had journeyed there from Australia on behalf of his teenaged son. His son, Tasman McKee, learned about peak oil in 2005, read the works of the most dire peak oil prophets, joined list-serves that pore over details of a coming die-off, […]

Russia replaces oil, gas reserves in 2008

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has fully replaced its oil and gas production this year with new reserves, Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said on Thursday. Trutnev said Russia, the world’s largest gas producer and the world’s second largest oil exporter, had discovered 500 million tonnes of new oil reserves this year and 650 billion cubic metres […]

‘Active’ Atlantic Hurricane Season on Tap for 2009

The Atlantic hurricane season will be unusually active in 2009 amid warm ocean temperatures and wind conditions that are conducive to storm development, private forecaster WSI Corp. predicted Tuesday. WSI, based in Andover, Mass., is forecasting 13 named storms, seven hurricanes and three hurricanes of Category 3 or higher in 2009, surpassing the 1950-2008 average […]

Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change

Catastrophic effects of global warming are being felt from the deserts of Darfur to the island nation of Kiribati Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate change has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What’s less talked about is how […]

The Year in Biofuels

The corn-based ethanol boom turned to bust, as investment in cellulosic ethanol and algae-to-biofuel companies took an upward turn. Obama’s victory was seen as a good sign, but economic woes could hurt an industry that needs lots of money to get to commercial-scale production. If it’s made from corn, it’s worthy of scorn. If it’s […]

Economic bright spot: energy prices

Gasoline and some heating costs are expected to be relatively low in 2009. New York – The best economic news that consumers receive next year could be the price they pay for energy. Although it’s almost 2009, prices at the pump Also this winter, residents of the Northeast are expected to see their heating costs […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Confusion In the Markets

If you don’t understand what is going on with the price of gasoline and demand for the world’s oil supply, then join the club. Analysts, pundits, government officials, oil ministers, oil executives, and oil traders are all over the board in trying to explain what is happening and more importantly what is going to happen. […]

Ancient water source vital for Australia

SYDNEY (Reuters) – An ancient underground water basin the size of Libya holds the key to Australia avoiding a water crisis as climate change bites the drought-hit nation. Australia’s Great Artesian Basin is one of the largest artesian groundwater basins in the world, covering 1.7 million sq kms (656,370 sq miles) and lying beneath one-fifth […]

Japan to bring back solar power subsidy for homes

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan plans to bring back subsidies for solar panel equipment from January, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Wednesday, as the world’s fifth-biggest emitter struggles to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. METI said the government would offer 9 billion yen ($99.6 million) in the first quarter of 2009 and […]

Cape Wind Receives DEP Approval

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has approved undersea transmission cables for the proposed Cape Wind project, clearing another hurdle for what could be the nation’s first offshore wind farm. The project, which has met with resistance from some local groups opposed to the sight of wind farms on the horizon, would provide three-quarters […]

Oil decline erodes airline fuel hedge value

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Major U.S. airlines are cheering the jaw-dropping decline in fuel prices, but at the same time are wincing that some of the insurance they bought to hedge against fuel spikes seems to have been a waste of money. To some degree, top carriers all are struggling to blunt the impact of potential […]

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