Valero to run new ethanol plants full throttle

Valero Energy Corp, the recent buyer of seven ethanol plants, said it will run them at full capacity despite poor average margins. (Reuters) – Top U.S. oil refiner Valero Energy Corp , the recent buyer of seven ethanol plants, said it will run them at full capacity despite poor average margins for making the alternative […]

Shrinking airlines park more planes in the desert

MARANA, Ariz. The number of planes in storage has jumped 29 percent in the past year to 2,302, according to aerospace data firm Ascend Worldwide. That includes 930 parked by U.S. operators alone. At Southern California Aviation’s parking and maintenance facility in Victorville, Calif., the influx of planes surprised President Jeff A. Lynn. As recently […]

Kjell Aleklett: Not enough oil for the G20 package

The worldWhen the economies of different nations are compared, one usually compares their GDP(PPP), Gross Domestic Product (Purchasing Power Parity) per capita. If one furthermore compares how much oil nations use one can see that, since the Second World War, all nations have had to increase their oil use to get economic growth. If we […]

Refineries will have to cut production, says Merrill

Refineries will have to substantially under utilise their capacity in 2009 as demand for petrol, diesel and other refined product subsides, Bank of America subsidiary Merrill Lynch has said in its new report. Interestingly, the countries that will suffer due to this are not the oil producing states. Merrill Lynch said the refineries in countries […]

Byron King: Closing the Straits of Hormuz and the Effects on Oil Prices

For many years, we in the West have worried about Iran closing the Straits of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic. An abrupt closure would instantly spike oil prices well into three-digits, and immediately change the energy equation of the world. Indeed, many geostrategic scholars believe that closing the Straits of Hormuz would be tantamount to […]

Oil Going To $200 On Obama's Watch

The saga of North American oil is well underway. The current financial crisis, triggered in part by the global oil crisis, is only serving to mask the decline of oil supply in this region. That the supply of oil would move in reverse to the advance in price over a 6 year period Accordingly, I […]

Detroit's Critics Just Don't Get It

…The Detroit that Washington loves to hate, the one that policy wonks and politicians think they can run better than industry professionals, stopped existing at least 15 years ago. It faded because executives at GM, Ford and Chrysler reached a consensus not fully embraced by Congress or the American consumer. To wit: Oil will not […]

Instability & Depletion Add Uncertainty to Energy Sector

Energy use correlates closely with economic growth. Last month the World Bank forecast the global economy will likely shrink for the first time since World War II. International trade will decline by the most in 80 years according to the report, a stark trend in an economy that has been …Matthew Simmons made an excellent […]

Will Obama's Revolution Deliver Energy Independence?

Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President Obama’s energy secretary, recently gave a speech in which two key words never passed his lips. He talked about energy efficiency, electricity transmission lines and renewable energy sources. He waxed eloquent about technology and the need to fund energy research. But afterward, Chevron vice chairman Peter […]

Report: Wind could supply enough power to meet US electricity needs

Wind turbines off US coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the country’s current electricity demand, the US interior department reported today. Simply harnessing the wind in relatively shallow waters – the most accessible and technically feasible sites for offshore turbines – could produce at least 20% of the power demand for […]

In the Centre of the Storm

…Stan Odut is one of a growing contingent of oilmen now subscribing to the concept of peak oil

Climate change may cost California billions

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Climate change may cost California tens of billions of dollars annually in coming years as sea levels rise and hot days cause people to turn up the air conditioning, a draft report from the state said on Wednesday. Thirsty cities may be able to buy water from farmers and high-altitude forests […]

Ethanol fight gets revved up

Critics say increasing percentage of additive can cause equipment to malfunction and destroy engines Picture a chain saw calmly idling. But then its blade suddenly starts spinning on its own, as if someone had goosed the throttle. The power equipment industry warns that such a scenario could happen if the federal government agrees to increase […]

Germany: The World's First Major Renewable Energy Economy

Germany’s Reichstag in Berlin is set to become the first parliamentary building in the world to be powered 100 percent by renewable energy. Soon the entire country will follow suit. Germany is accelerating its efforts to become the world’s first industrial power to use 100 percent renewable energy — and given current momentum, it could […]

Newest job numbers portend weak energy demand

7/8 COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) With the U.S. and other nations hemorrhaging jobs, demand for gasoline and other fuels has plummeted. The unemployed are not commuting, factories are not producing as many consumer goods, and heat or electricity at millions of homes has been shut off. “We are swimming in oil,” analyst Stephen Schork said. “We […]

Going green

Algae viewed seen promising input for alternative fuels Barry Cohen takes the concept of going green to a whole new level. As director of the National Algae Association, he is a leading advocate of curbing U.S. dependence on oil by harnessing the power of tiny, green waterborne plants known to most as pond scum. Though […]

Did the Oil Price Boom of 2008 Cause Crisis?

Reeling from the housing bust and the banking crisis, it WSJ Blogs

Is It Time to Buy Oil?

Or is it way too early? Even Warren Buffett has been bamboozled by oil. He admitted it in his latest annual report to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) — the holding company he runs. In his own words: “I bought a large amount of ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) stock when oil and gas prices […]

Wind power pushes Congress to tackle grid issue

HOUSTON (Reuters) – The push to boost U.S. electric generation from wind and other renewable energy sources is forcing U.S. lawmakers to address the contentious issue of whether states or the federal government should have final authority to site new power lines, industry officials said on Friday. Denise Bode, head of the American Wind Energy […]

Wordie Ice Shelf has disappeared: scientists

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday. They said the Wordie Ice Shelf, which had been disintegrating since the 1960s, is gone and the northern part of the Larsen […]

Managing a finite resource

How quickly we have forgotten. Yesterday The leading alternative right now

Grim new reality confronts engineers

As he surveys the crowd before him, Nader Zarabi lets out a laugh. “Hundreds of engineers, as far as the eye can see,” he says of the group dominated by mostly middle-aged men toting black briefcases, forming a line that wraps twice around the interior of the convention centre’s main floor. It’s not that the […]

The Age of Oil: When Will It End?

Peak Oil Task Force Prepares for Possible Impact: Q & A With Bloomington City Councilman David Rollo There’s only so much oil on our planet, and it is not a renewable resource. The easy-to-reach deposits will be used up first, then it will become more expensive to reach or pump or transport. Production has been […]

Netherlands to introduce car trade-in bonus

THE HAGUE (AFP) The announcement came as a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government must still decide if it will prolong its own popular 2,500-euro wreckage premium at its current value. Goldman Sachs analyst Dirk Schumacher said “the government is getting cold feet now about the fiscal consequences” and the business daily […]

Russia

(Bloomberg) — Russia OAO Rosneft, Russia

Testimony to the Australian Senate inquiry into public transport funding

by Dr James Buckee, ASPO-Australia I have had 37 years in the oil industry. I was CEO of a large company for the last 16 years and I have just retired. As Bruce pointed out, that company produced about half a million barrels a day, which is sort of Australia The second point is that

Too many cars, and they

After “There was a car bubble,” Steven Rattner, who President Obama recruited to head a Treasury Department group charged with finding solutions to the mountain of problems facing the American auto industry, said in an interview last month. “We had this artificially high sales rate.” During the boom years of the early and mid-2000s, automakers […]

Brazil car sales jump 36 pct, best March on record

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – New car, truck and bus sales in Brazil surged last month to make it the best March on record as consumers flocked to dealerships to benefit from government tax breaks, data showed on Friday. Sales jumped 36.1 percent in March from February to 271,393 units, the fourth straight month of gains, […]

Eco Cuba Exchange

A US-Cuba Partnership for Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development In its 2006 Sustainability Index Report, the World Wildlife Fund, utilizing a combination of the United Nations Human Development Index (a measure of how well a nation is meeting its nutrition, water, health care, and education needs, etc.) and the Ecological Footprint (natural resource use per […]

Lubchenco Shifts U.S. Approach to Climate Science

…On Monday, the newly appointed administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Jane Lubchenco, borrowed Reverend King’s words as well. “ After several years of the Bush administration stalling or obstructing federal climate scientists from fully reporting their findings, Lubchenco, a marine ecologist, brings a stark change in tone. During one of […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy