Nuclear power inches back into energy spotlight

The nation’s nuclear power industry Several companies have taken significant steps that will likely lead to completion of four reactors by 2015 to 2018 and up to eight by 2020. All would be built next to existing nuclear plants. Southern Co. says it will begin digging an 86-foot-deep crater this June in Vogtle, Ga., to […]

ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Total taking no chances

…While many experts have cloaked the international oil and gas industry in an aura of mystery suggesting that an era of peak oil production beckons and that OPEC, with some 30 million bbl/day of capacity is the master of the oil industry, the fact is that it is a simple business and OPEC, while large, […]

$100+ Oil, Not

While it seems like ages ago, it was a just a year or so ago when oil was rising sharply and experts were knocking one another over to be the first to scream for $100, $150 even $200 oil around the corner. The public outcry grew with each rise in gas prices. The crowd in […]

OPEC seaborne exports continue to fall, analyst says

LOS ANGELES — Seaborne oil exports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, except Angola and Ecuador, will decline by 770,000 b/d in the 4 weeks to Apr. 11, according to shipping analyst Oil Movements (OM). Exports will average 22.23 million b/d, down from 23.00 million b/d in the 4 weeks to Mar. 14, OM […]

OPEC cuts put floor under oil price; prevented collapse: Muhanna

Dubai (Platts) – OPEC’s decision to cut production by a combined 4.2 million b/d last year succeeded in putting a floor under oil prices, balanced the market and prevented an “unusual” build in consumer oil stocks, according to a senior Saudi oil adviser. Ibrahim al-Muhanna, an adviser to Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi, said in […]

Europe's oil refining set to shrink

LONDON (Reuters) – Vanishing gasoline demand from the United States and a long-term fall in local oil use mean Europe’s refiners are shutting down capacity — for good. Already Total, Europe’s largest refiner, has said it will shut a quarter of its Gonfreville plant, the biggest in France. Old refineries are particularly vulnerable. Swiss-based Petroplus […]

Kunstler: Under a Flourescent Moon

…What By this I mean our methods for getting food, for moving about the landscape, for deploying capital, for trading and manufacturing, for schooling, doctoring, and running public services all destabilize and, to some degree or other, fail to deliver their contribution to normal daily life. Banking (capital deployment) is already mortally wounded. It remains […]

White House questions viability of GM, Chrysler

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama and his top advisers have determined that neither company is viable and that taxpayers will not spend untold billions more to keep the pair of automakers open forever. In a last-ditch effort, the administration gave each company a brief deadline to try one last time to convince Washington it is worth […]

Collapse of crude prices heralds wave of oil industry consolidation

The oil industry is bracing itself for a wave of consolidation as cash-rich companies acquire more vulnerable rivals that are struggling after the collapse of the price of crude, analysts say. Over the past ten days British-listed oil companies have been involved in a string of proposed deals worth a total of The deals have […]

Aramco to continue its long-term outlays

RIYADH: State oil company Saudi Aramco renewed its commitment to long-term investment plans in oil and gas during the global financial crisis, which has dampened demand for sources of energy. Aramco cited two projects —  a SR100 billion ($26.67 billion) integrated refinery and petrochemical project with US Dow Chemicals and a second development phase of […]

GM boss to step down at White House request

DETROIT – General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will step down immediately at the request of the White House, administration officials said Sunday. The news comes as President Obama prepares to unveil additional restructuring efforts designed to save the domestic auto industry. The officials asked not to be identified because details of the […]

U.S. to push for UN climate deal but no "magic wand"

BONN, Germany (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration promised to push for a new United Nations climate treaty on Sunday but said Washington had no magic wand and that all countries had to help. "The United States is going to be powerfully and fully engaged," U.S. special envoy for climate change Todd Stern said […]

Why doomer porn is good for you

Spend an afternoon reading peak oil doomer sites on the Internet and you may alternate between the desire to reach for a kitchen knife and end it all and the inclination to dismiss the information on the sites as complete bunk. Hence the often voiced criticism of this approach to the peak oil issue: It […]

Price caps hits China oil refiner

Profits at top Asian oil refiner Sinopec nearly halved in 2008 because of caps on how much it could sell fuel for, even as oil prices soared. Annual net profit fell 47% to 13.3bn yuan ($1.94bn; BBC

Kuwait happy with price of crude at $50 a barrel

Kuwait is happy with an oil price of $50 a barrel as the world battles the economic crisis, the countryTheNational

Baghdad’s petrol queues may be gone, but its motorists still grumble

Parking in front of a pump at a petrol station in Baghdad, a man steps out of his car and smiles while he fills his tank. Two years ago Ali Sayeed, like most other Iraqis, spent up to 48 hours queueing for fuel in the capital as attacks on oil pipelines, smuggling and a lack […]

Bosphorus future in the pipeline

After the $3.6bn Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline was commissioned in May 2006, tanker traffic through the strait fell for the first time in 16 years, declining by 100 vessels in 2007 from a peak of 10,154 tankers the previous year. The pipeline delivers up to 1 million barrels per day of Azeri crude to an export […]

Green cars: will someone hit the accelerator

Carmakers, hurt by the recession, have embraced the drive for eco-friendly vehicles. But are they ahead of the science? It’s astonishing how suddenly and absolutely the motor industry has been converted to the green cause. The “environment” used to be regarded as that boring blurry thing that flashed past between Esso stations. Now data about […]

‘Crunch year’ for world’s forests

Efforts to mitigate climate change could be hampered if nations do not agree to protect the world’s forests by the end of the year, warn researchers. Earthwatch says it is vital for leaders attending a key UN summit in December to find a way to halt deforestation. Deforestation accounts for about 20% of the greenhouse […]

Wind-powered car breaks record

A British engineer from Hampshire has broken the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. Richard Jenkins reached 126.1mph (202.9km/h) in his Greenbird car on the dry plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada. Mr Jenkins told the BBC that it had taken him 10 years of “hard work” to break the record and that, […]

Military eyes Alaska for synthetic fuel project

JUNEAU They estimate needing about 5,000 barrels per day of product, excluding Eielson Air Force Base

Washington is stimulating ‘underwater’ projects

Several shovel-ready projects being funded by the stimulus bill could be scuba-ready within the century. Highways, housing and a school receiving some $60 million under President Obama’s massive economic recovery plan face increased flooding — or complete submersion — within the lifetime of his daughters, environmental groups and scientists warned yesterday. Take Highway 87 in […]

Did Goldman Goose Oil?

How Goldman Sachs was at the center of the oil trading fiasco that bankrupted pipeline giant Semgroup. When oil prices spiked last summer to $147 a barrel, the biggest corporate casualty was oil pipeline giant Semgroup Holdings, a $14 billion (sales) private firm in Tulsa, Okla. It had racked up $2.4 billion in trading losses […]

Is Thorium an Energy Alchemist’s Dream?

Advocates say that already existing thorium fuel and reactor technology could provide centuries and perhaps millennia of safe, abundant nuclear power. Are they right? Ancient alchemists attempted to turn base metals into gold. Modern physicists have succeeded where the alchemists failed. The physicists have transmuted one element into another through nuclear reactions that have mostly […]

Hard times mean new opportunities for Big Oil

HOUSTON (AP) At $50 per barrel, these countries are far more constrained and can’t adequately fund some oil and gas projects. Experts say Western oil corporations, who stockpiled cash when profits were flush, can shift operations to any corner of the globe and have the capital that allows them to strike deals with state-controlled producers […]

The RV: Going the way of the dinosaur?

The economic crisis threatens an industry and an American lifestyle. ‘This is the worst it’s ever been.’ Reporting from Forest City, Iowa — In the realm of conspicuous consumption, few things are larger than the RV, the multi-ton vehicular brontosaurus that has taken generations of families on the great American highway adventure. But in the […]

Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don

SAN FRANCISCO Take the case of Karen Zuercher and her husband, in San Francisco. Inspired by watching the movie

Can the West cultivate ideas from Cuba’s ‘Special Period’?

(CNN) — Since the revolution in 1959 Cuba has been many things to many people, but the collapse of the Soviet Union meant few have seen the island state as a vision of the future. But that could be changing — at least in one aspect. As worries about “peak oil” grow in developed nations, […]

The Pentagon going green

THE Pentagon may seem an unlikely promoter of alternative energy, but the biggest consumer of oil in the United States is looking at ways to become just that by partnering with private firms. “When you don’t use as much fuel, not only does it not cost you as much, but it also saves lives and […]

Keys to the kingdom: Inside Saudi Arabia’s royal family

The crown prince is seriously ill, and Saudi Arabia’s normally secretive royal family is openly clashing over who will take the throne A dispute over Saudi Arabia’s royal succession burst into the open yesterday, revealing a power struggle in which one of the most senior princes in the oil-rich kingdom is reported to have disappeared. […]

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