Recession grows interest in seeds, vegetable gardening

Hard economic times are acting like instant fertilizer on an industry that had been growing slowly: home vegetable gardening. Amid the Washington talk of “shovel-ready” recession projects, it appears few projects are more shovel-ready than backyard gardens. Veggie seed sales are up double-digits at the nation’s biggest seed sellers this year. What’s more, the number […]

The end of the world?

Noted Author Jared Diamond Predicts 49 Percent Chance of Civilization Collapse Jared Diamond is no doom-and-gloomer; he’s a Pulitzer Prize winning author of thoughtful, carefully researched books about the rise and fall of societies. Diamond is best known for Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of […]

Oil-Price Decline Provides Diplomatic Opening to Iran

Last fall, before the world economy had fallen completely out of bed, the International Monetary Fund estimated that oil prices would have to stay at $90 a barrel for Iran to make enough money to balance its books. Now that the slump in global economic activity has driven oil prices to around $36 a barrel, […]

DOE to OK stimulus energy projects by early summer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday he hopes the department can begin approving loan guarantees authorized by the stimulus for renewable energy projects by early summer. “We need to start this work in a matter of months, not years — while insisting on the highest standard of accountability,” Chu told reporters at […]

Biofuels boom could destroy rainforests

STANFORD, Calif., Feb. 19 (UPI) — A U.S. researcher is warning the boom in the production of biofuels might lead tropical farmers to destroy rainforests to plant biofuel crops. Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, said policies favoring biofuel crop production might actually contribute to, not slow, the […]

Solar shines at these wastewater plants

California sites track the sun during the day, adding efficiency Two California counties this week unveiled new solar power installations that track the sun during the day “The solar panels follow the sun, increasing the system

Energy prices drive up wholesale costs

NEW YORK: Stabilizing energy prices halted a five-month decline in producer prices last month, the government said Thursday, but inflation remained a remote concern during a deepening recession. The producer price index, which measures wholesale prices for goods ranging from food to automobiles to children’s toys, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.8 percent in January after […]

Nigeria’s oil production dips further, as militants continue onslaught

PRODUCTIONS at Nigeria’s oil facilities may have continued to drop drastically, owing to increasing tension in the oil-producing region, Niger Delta. Leaving no respite for smooth operation, the act of militancy in the region has halted several production activities, which had resulted in shut-in of about 25 per cent of the nation’s oil production capacity […]

U.S. short on line capacity to fully use wind, solar power

The U.S. has inadequate transmission capacity to carry the electricity that wind and solar power projects could produce, according to a report by two renewable-energy groups. The wind power projects waiting to be hooked up to transmission lines could supply 20 percent of the nation’s electricity needs, according to the report issued by the Solar […]

U.S. crude stocks off unexpectedly as imports drop: EIA

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. crude oil inventories fell unexpectedly last week, chalking up their first decline in eight weeks, as imports dropped and demand from refiners edged up, government data on Thursday showed. Commercial crude oil inventories fell to 350.6 million barrels, a drop of 200,000 barrels for the week ended February 13, said […]

BP to Produce Cellulosic Ethanol by 2012

BP and Verenium announced a new joint venture to produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale by 2012. The initiative aims to begin construction on a large-scale cellulosic ethanol refinery in Highlands County, Florida, by 2010. The plant will produce 36 million barrels of ethanol per year. Cellulosic ethanol is a biofuel produced from wood, […]

Ethanol companies run into trouble, but experts say the industry will survive

Not so long ago, the biofuel ethanol was a political and policy darling as gas prices soared and the world focused on reducing emissions. But the companies that produce the colourless liquid appear to be running into trouble as the global economy tanks. Canadian producers are shelving plans to build or expand plants and U.S. […]

Financial Crisis May be Creating the Best Investment Opportunities of our Life

MM: What about the long term? KF: Longer-term, the world won MM: I know that your expectations for China have a lot to do with this. And India. KF: Yes, they do. From a macroeconomic standpoint, both nations are growing by leaps and bounds – even with the problems posed by the global financial crisis. […]

Food security

There are many who are extremely concerned by the threat posed to agriculture by climate change and a world running low on fossil fuels. But when Patrick Holden first started to consider the implications of trying to run his organic farm without fuel or even electricity, he became so alarmed he re-thought his entire philosophical […]

Apache, Williams scale back ‘09 capital spending

Natural gas and oil production companies Apache Corp. and Williams Cos. said Thursday they would rollback spending this year for developing new energy projects following the steep decline in commodity prices. If the current downward trend in commodity prices continues, we may scale back spending even more, and our production growth likely will land in […]

Report examines links between water and energy

A new study using research from Cambridge Energy Research Associates examines such topics as the strategic significance of water, water’s role in energy production, and how energy is used in providing water. The report is titled “Thirsty Energy: Water and Energy in the 21st Century,” and it is the product of a collaboration between the […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Parsing the Numbers

Someday peak oil will be about high gas prices and lines at the pumps, but for the time being it is mostly about numbers – lots and lots of numbers. There are numbers for prices, numbers for oil reserves, numbers for oil demand, numbers for oil supply, numbers for oil depletion and most importantly numbers […]

Analysts skeptical of plan to hike Venezuela oil output

Venezuela plans to boost oil output at least 12 percent in a joint venture with foreign investors that will cost more than twice what the government previously estimated, a confidential document shows. The project would increase Venezuela The new estimate follows a 76 percent drop in oil prices from record highs in July and decisions […]

Stuck in a Multi-Year Oil Demand Downturn?

Increasingly the economists and politicians discussing the current economic downturn are referencing the early 1980s recession, or in some cases the 1973-74 recession. Both of these recessions were hard and lasted about 16 months, whereas the current recession is only 13 months old, but is already a challenging one. There has also been talk by […]

Iraq was the first ‘resource war’ of the century

UK government’s former chief scientific adviser says Iraq war was about oil, not weapons of mass destruction “I’m going to suggest that future historians might look back on our particular recent past and see the Iraq war as the first of the conflicts of this kind

US nuclear plants must prepare for plane attacks

WASHINGTON (AFP) The new regulations — which come after nearly two years of deliberations — were approved on Tuesday according to Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the NRC. “This is a common sense approach to address an issue raised by the tragic events of September 11, 2001,” said NRC Chairman Dale Klein. The new regulations […]

Oil demand may begin to peak soon: report

LONDON (Reuters) – World oil demand could begin to peak over the next decade as worries over security of supply, extreme price swings and climate change force a move towards other forms of energy, consultancy Arthur D. Little said. In a report entitled “The Beginning of the End for Oil?,” the consultancy’s Peter Hughes suggests […]

Oil Market May Need 2010 OPEC Boost, Bernstein Says

(Bloomberg) — OPEC may be called upon to boost output in early 2010 to meet oil demand after a decline in operating U.S. rigs causes production volumes to fall, according a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. report today. Well shut-ins are U.S. rigs exploring for or producing oil have dropped by 38 percent since Nov. […]

H&P and PDVSA still negotiating

Venezuela state-run giant PDVSA and US drilling company Helmerich & Payne continued negotiations to settle PDVSA debts and to reactivate the operations of two rigs located in Monagas state, east Venezuela, which have been halted since late January. The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based drilling company has accused PDVSA of failing to pay a $100 million debt. As […]

America

Wind power could feed 20 percent of the US energy diet. But first, the country needs a new energy network. MADISON, S.D. – Out across this wind-swept, wheat-growing state, Jeffrey Nelson sees a new crop rising Depending on whom you talk to, emerging plans to build 765,000 volt transmission lines to bring power from the

A New North American Consensus in Biofuels

A Joint Statement of the U.S. Renewable Fuels Association and the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association on President Barack Obama’s Visit with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper While the first meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will focus on a variety of issues, there is little doubt that the economy, […]

Peak Oil: Facts At Your Fingertips

The following may indicate some of the more important We should first keep in mind that everything in the modern world is dependent on oil. From oil and other hydrocarbons we get fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, lubricants, plastic, paint, synthetic fabrics, asphalt, pharmaceuticals, and many other things. On a more abstract level, we are dependent on […]

Low prices may stir U.S. gasoline demand recovery

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Low gasoline prices are beginning to entice Americans to take to the roads again and may nurture a nascent rebound in gasoline demand after a year of high pump prices and the slumping economy throttled consumption. U.S. gasoline demand rose by 0.1 percent in the four weeks ending February 6, according […]

North Sea oil minnows at risk of being swallowed

LONDON (Reuters) – Tighter global credit has forced independent oil companies to sell their North Sea assets cheaply and the trend is set to last until oil prices rally. Even oil companies with valuable assets have been hit hard by a plunge in oil prices from a record high of more than $147 in July […]

Conoco says access to offlimit areas key for economy

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Governments should allow oil and gas companies greater access to energy sources to help drive economic growth even as states push to expand alternative energy, the head of oil major ConocoPhillips (COP.N) said on Wednesday. “Our hope is that the resource-rich countries will recognize that the industry needs greater access to […]

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