The Top Ten Reasons for Energy Independence

For those who wonder how to convince resistent people we must move away from fossil fuels due to Climate Change, I have one word of advice: Don’t. There’s actually no need. Not because Global Warming isn’t real – it is, and the overwhelming evidence is that it’s largely fueled by human actions – but because […]

Is this the end of the Oil Age?

Peak Oil Huge and rapid increases in the price of oil last July may well have marked the “peak” of oil supplies and are part of the financial crisis we are now experiencing. This was the context set out by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Towns movement when he spoke before an audience of […]

Down to the Wires

Local resistance to transmission lines is keeping customers from getting the green power they need. INCREASED GENERATION of renewable sources of energy is a key component of the energy and climate change bills circulating on Capitol Hill. The United States can’t possibly hope to reduce its addiction to greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels without harnessing the power […]

Why Cuba's Dreams of Major Oil Discoveries Might Come True

Recent estimates suggest that the island could move into the petroleum big leagues HAVANA Cuba is one of the biggest wild cards in the Western Hemisphere’s energy outlook. It is also the most politically sensitive. The nearly half-century-old U.S. embargo against the Communist country means that American energy companies and consumers cannot partake in Cuba’s […]

Solar-powered cooker nabs climate prize

OSLO (Reuters) Costing 5 euros ($6.60) to make, it can also make it easier to boil polluted water. “We’re saving lives and saving trees,” the Kyoto Box’s developer Jon Boehmer, a Norwegian based in Kenya, said in a statement. Reuters

In Big Green Push, Australia Thinks Too Small On Solar

Australia draws just about 5 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, mostly hydropower and wind. Solar power comprises less than one percent. The Clean Energy Council, Australia’s main clean-tech body, has urged the government to raise to 200 KW the limit for renewable energy installations eligible for generous rebates.Instead, say campaigners, Australia needs to […]

Mobile Phone Industry Seeks To Clean Up Act

Mobile phone equipment makers are taking steps to clean up their act and tackle a goal of powering nearly 120,000 base stations in developing countries by cleaner energy sources by 2012, players in the industry say. The GSM Association, which represents 750 mobile operators worldwide, has said it aims to power 118,000 base stations which […]

Obama may cede Iran's nuclear rights

All signs are that the Great Game is bestirring from its slumber. The United States is focusing on the key Central Asian country of Kazakhstan, which straddles the Qyzylqum and the Karakum, to stage a strategic comeback in the region. Prospects are brighter than ever as Kazakhstan is edging closer to the chairmanship of the […]

Japan solar subsidies lure fewer users than planned

Japan’s subsidies for home solar panels have attracted far fewer applicants than planned, industry data showed on Wednesday, underscoring the likelihood of bold government steps to promote solar power. Greater spending on solar power systems is expected to be a key feature of Japan’s new stimulus plan, its fourth such package in the last year. […]

Turkmenistan accuses Gazprom of causing pipeline explosion

Turkmenistan blamed Russia’s state natural gas monopoly Friday for a pipeline blast that shut off shipments to Russia — an unusual show of tension that could help Western efforts to buy Turkmen gas directly. Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a flurry of statements that Russia’s Gazprom decided on short notice to reduce the amount of […]

Biofuel Production Threatens Water Supplies

The production of bioethanol may use up to three times as much water as previously thought, a new study finds, becoming the latest work that could burst the biofuel bubble. A gallon of ethanol may require up to more than 2,100 gallons of water from farm to fuel pump, depending on the regional irrigation practice […]

The End of the Roads

We have as much road capacity today as we will ever need. In my efforts to get Portland, Oregon When you start to look at peak oil and climate change, it all comes down to how quickly they happen. Technology plays a big role, but it doesn

John Michael Greer: Peak Oil Advice from German Poets

Fairly often, during the three years or so since these essays first started trying to map out the topography of the deindustrial future ahead of us, people have responded with a straightforward question: what do you think we should do about it? Even when it Still, figuring out exactly what sort of change is needed […]

Enjoy the cheap petrol, while it lasts

With demand on the rise, existing wells drying up and a dearth of big discoveries, the oil price is only headed in one direction. IN July 2008, the oil price hit a record high of $US147 a barrel. In its journey from the lows of 1998 to the highs of last year, many reasons were […]

Russia, Iraq aim to revive pre-war deals -minister

Russia and Iraq have agreed to work on restoring contracts that they agreed before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Russia’s energy minister said after the two countries’ prime ministers met on Friday. “The goal has been set to restore the contracts concluded between Russian and Iraqi companies before the war,” Sergei Shmatko said.Reuters

IEA Cuts Oil Demand Forecast to Lowest in Five Years

The International Energy Agency expects global oil demand to decline by 2.4 million barrels a day this year, about the same amount that Iraq produces, as the economic slump reduces consumption to the lowest since 2004. The adviser to 28 nations cut its 2009 forecast for an eighth consecutive month, slashing last monthBloomberg

Energy-Investment Cuts Spark Talk Of Next Price Spike

ConocoPhillips (COP) Chief Executive Jim Mulva didn’t mince words with Wall Street analysts when, in the face of a slowing economy and lower oil prices, he outlined the oil major’s nearly $2 billion cut in capital spending for 2009 and other belt-tightening measures. “We believe our decisions, actions and plans will enable us to live […]

Chevron Production Rises, Halting Two-Year Decline

April 9 (Bloomberg) — Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, said production headed for a quarterly gain for the first time since 2006 as new platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Africa began operation. Chevron pumped the equivalent of 2.645 million barrels of crude a day during January and February, 1.8 percent […]

Global warming reports: poor prospects for corn ethanol

Global warming could scorch the corn economy to the tune of about $1.4 billion a year, according to a report that compiles data from academia and government. The damage would come in the expected places: the Midwest and South, according to the Environment America study released Thursday. The report contradicts assurances from climate-change skeptics that […]

Independent ethanol producers face a tough future

As big oil companies and other players snap up struggling mills at bargain prices, small firms risk being priced out of the market. Heavy debt and rising corn prices add to the squeeze. Gibson City, Ill — . — A smooth road curves toward the hulking ethanol mill that One Earth Energy will open in […]

The Return of $150 Oil?

Believe it or not, there may be one compelling reason why we’d rather not crawl out too quickly from the economic crevasse into which we’ve fallen. Remember less than a year ago when crude was flirting with $150 a barrel? A sudden solution to our mounting economic difficulties in the face of declining oil production […]

Hurricane forecasts make oil sector hopeful

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Forecasts for a relatively quiet U.S. hurricane season have given the country’s storm-weary oil sector hope for reprieve from winds and waves that sank platforms and flooded refineries in recent summers. Colorado State University’s widely watched weather team downgraded its outlook this week for the number of named storms during this June […]

Comments on Steven Chu at the 2009 EIA Energy Conference

As many of you know, I attended the EIA Conference on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I haven’t yet had time to write up anything on the conference, but there were others at the conference who have started writing up posts on the conference on their personal blogs, including Dave Summers (Heading Out) and […]

Energy blamed more than ethanol for food prices

Ethanol bears some of the blame for last year’s rising food prices, but oil and electricity bear more, according to a new congressional study of the food-versus-fuel debate. The ethanol industry and its critics have been locked in a fierce argument over whether the alternative fuel, typically made from corn, pushes up food prices. Thursday’s […]

Developer shrugs off recession, plots all-solar Fla. city

A Florida developer unveiled plans today to build the nation’s first solar-powered city — a cluster of homes, offices and factories less than 20 miles from Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast. “Babcock Ranch” would be built on 17,000 acres in Charlotte and Lee counties, with more than half of the land set aside for […]

Peak Oil: China vs. USA

The US Seeking Alpha

The Peak Oil Crisis: Priorities

In the next few years, most of us are going to have to make many important decisions that will profoundly affect the rest of our lives. How soon these decisions come will depend on one’s individual circumstances. If you are one of the millions who have lost their jobs or homes in the last year […]

Fleet of tankers store fuel at sea

DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – A deep drop in demand has forced many oil companies to use tankers floating at sea to store surplus refined products, with the volume off Europe equating to more than a quarter of the world’s daily fuel use. Shipbrokers and oil traders said at least 24 million barrels of gas oil, used […]

Pessimists don't get a free pass

Thomas Homer-Dixon is a deep thinker who matters. Lots of smart people read his books and plenty of powerful people — some of whom are smart, too — seek his counsel. So it matters when the leading light of the University of Waterloo’s Balsillie School of International Affairs writes something that is seriously misguided. …Obviously, […]

Thomas Homer-Dixon: Make room for doom and gloom

Scorning pessimists as ‘Cassandras’ is destructive: Reckless optimism is what got us into this mess and it may take worry and prudence to get us out Fear is bad, according to conventional wisdom. Our economy is in trouble, we hear, because banks are too afraid to lend and consumers and companies too afraid to spend. […]

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