Abengoa launches world's biggest solar power tower

MADRID, April 27 (Reuters) – Spanish engineering company Abengoa has begun operating a 20 megawatt solar power plant that is the world’s biggest, using a tower to turn the sun’s rays into electricity and can supply 10,000 homes, it said on Monday. The PS20 plant in the southern province of Seville uses 1,255 mirrors to […]

Coast Guard to harness power of tides

Turbines in waters off Maine could serve as model SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine – The US Coast Guard hopes to have a tidal power generator in the water by the end of the summer to provide electricity to its station in Eastport. The agency wants to tap into the power of Eastport’s 20-foot tides and 6-knot […]

Putting A Price On Smart Power

NPR.org, April 27, 2009 The Trouble With Costs There aren’t many estimates of what it would cost to modernize the grid, and the estimates that do exist can range from $100 billion to $2 trillion. Part of the problem is that the grid isn’t one coordinated entity

A key energy industry nervously awaits its 'rebirth'

One of the biggest question marks in the nation’s energy and climate policy is the future of nuclear power. In the past, the United States has made a major commitment to it. The U.S. nuclear power industry is the world’s largest. The nation’s 104 operating plants produce 20 percent of its electricity, making them, by […]

Death knell sounds for Europe's beekeepers

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s beekeeping industry could be wiped out in less than a decade as bees fall victim to disease, insecticides and intensive farming, international beekeeping body Apimondia said on Monday. “With this level of mortality, European beekeepers can only survive another 8 to 10 years,” Gilles Ratia, president of Apimondia, told Reuters. “We […]

Swine flu could hit already ailing fuel demand

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The widening outbreak of swine flu could further quash already weak jet fuel demand if it grows to rival the SARS epidemic that hit global travel six years ago. Already the United States and Europe have urged caution over travel to Mexico, where the virus has killed over 100 people, and […]

Simmons: Energy industry facing enormous challenges

The keynote speaker at the Alliance Expo & Annual Meeting offered a sobering revelation to the oil and gas industry employees seated in front of him: the boom of summer 2008 that sent oil and gas prices skyrocketing was the only truly great situation the industry ever had, and it

How to Live with Ecological Intelligence

Trying to be “green” quickly becomes tricky. A simple question like “Paper or plastic?” can lead to a complicated analysis of deforestation and water use versus peak oil and persistent pollution. That’s why Daniel Goleman, best-selling author of Emotional Intelligence in 1995, has returned to the subject, but with an environmental angle. In an effort […]

PetroChina to raise storage capacity for Russian oil

BEIJING (Reuters) – PetroChina’s largest Daqing oilfield will add eight large crude oil storage tanks by 2010 after having installed two such tanks for offloading Russian oil, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The 10 tanks alone, with planned capacity of 150,000 cubic metres each, will boost Daqing’s crude oil storage capacity by nearly 10 […]

Smart Meter, Dumb Idea?

New devices promise to cut energy use by giving consumers more information. Critics say they aren’t worth the cost. Not everyone thinks smart meters are such a smart use of money. Utilities are spending billions of dollars outfitting homes and businesses with the devices, which wirelessly send information about electricity use to utility billing departments […]

Province should start investing more in green, not nuclear energy

Ontario is facing not one, but three major crises, all interrelated. The economy has slowed to a crawl. Global warming is threatening to undermine world stability and we appear to be reaching, or are past, peak oil production. We need creative, forward-thinking, decisive leadership to meet these challenges. If we do more of what we […]

Obama seeks reversal of mountaintop mining rule

WASHINGTON (AP) Salazar said the rule, finalized with a little more than a month before President George W. Bush left office, was bad policy. Two lawsuits pending in federal court sought to block or overturn the rule. The Obama administration’s decision puts the federal government in the rare position of siding with the parties that […]

Energy security fears boost UK Coal

Growing concerns about Britain’s future energy security are putting coal back on to the centre stage, the boss of Britain’s biggest producer, UK Coal, said today. The company, reporting a loss of Lloyd welcomed government plans announced last week to support the development of four new coal-fired power plants, the first to be built in […]

Brazil's Tupi Oil Field May Be Hurt by Rig Shortage: Week Ahead

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, may be hurt by a rig shortage as it begins development of the Tupi field, the largest discovery in the Americas since 1976, according to Jefferies & Co. Inc. The company expects to almost double the numbers of rigs operating in deepwater offshore Brazil to 68 by 2012, […]

Using Nuclear Power to Extract Oil?

After several years of speculation, the Alberta government last month released a long-awaited “expert’s report” on nuclear power and the oil sands and has now embarked on a series of province-wide public consultations. The move comes on the heels of a decision last month by Bruce Power, a private firm that operates a publicly-owned nuclear […]

Shell, BP Profits May Drop Most in Five Years on Oil

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc, Europe’s largest oil companies, may post the biggest drop in quarterly earnings in at least five years after the recession dragged down crude prices. U.S. oil futures averaged $43.31 a barrel in the quarter, 56 percent lower than a year earlier, after plunging from a record $147.27 reached […]

Utilities amp up lobbying over climate debate

WASHINGTON “It’s what industry does with legislation. They make it better for their bottom line,” said John Coequyt of the Sierra Club, an environmental group. Buoyed by President Obama’s support, House Democrats want a “cap-and-trade” system requiring utilities to cut carbon emissions 20% by 2020 from 2005 levels or buy credits from lesser-polluting firms to […]

Kjell Aleklett: Colin Campbell and 100 months of Peak Oil

Colin Cambell has now written newsletters for 100 months. 100 months is a long tenure. In his first letter he introduced the world to a new term, Today,

Solving The Chalk Mystery To Generate Oil Industry Billions of Additional Income

A piece of chalk in a laboratory at the University of Stavanger in Norway may be the key to unlock a great mystery. If the mystery is solved, it will generate billions in additional income for the oil industry. Associate Professor Merete Vadla Madland at the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Stavanger […]

Can Science Save The Oilsands?

Falling oil prices and bad PR have hammered the oil sands. Out of all that bad news may rise a new era in innovation FORT McMURRAY, ALTA. Dr. Guigard, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Alberta, is trying to prove it can do the same for the Athabasca oil sands. This […]

Who will pay for America's Chernobyl roulette?

As the US attempts to dig out from economic collapse, a little-known nuclear industry liability could seriously derail Obama’s attempt to revive our finances. It is the federal disaster insurance on 104 rickety atomic reactors. Because the industry cannot get its own insurance, we taxpayers are on the hook. …When the nuke power industry first […]

Cellulosic Scale-Up

IN FEBRUARY 2007, the Department of Energy selected six cellulosic ethanol projects to receive up to $385 million in grants. Authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the funding was part of an effort by the Bush Administration to end the U.S.’s “addiction to oil” and enhance the nation’s energy security. The money was […]

Iraqi Oil: Black Gold or Black Hole?

Investors and global oil companies such as Shell Petroleum, Eni, China National Petroleum, and Exxon Mobile betting on Iraq are certain to be disappointed. Ever since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, we have heard about the unlimited potential for the Iraqi oil. Often news reports mention that Iraq has the third largest oil […]

Dr. Mark Jaccard on Peak Oil and Climate Change

Dr. Mark Jaccard, a professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management and a former member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, discusses the essay he contributed to the Thomas Homer-Dixon edited book Carbon Shift: How the Twin Crises of Oil Depletion and Climate Change Will Define the Future (Random House, […]

Some stockpiling to prepare should times turn perilous

Ammo. Canned goods. Vegetable seeds. Fortified water by the case. They are reportedly flying off the shelves, these staples of the stockpile crowd. Adhesive bandages. Gardens in the works

Governments Must Cooperate for "Power-Down" as Oil Runs Out

Oil production is expected to fall by around 3% per year, beyond the oil peak. To avert catastrophe, oil-producing nations must agree to reduce their production by 3% per year and oil-importing nations to reduce their imports by an exactly matching amount. Production will fall and must be planned to fall, while consumers take-up the […]

Searching for Deeper Pockets

Amid tight credit and tough market conditions, clean-technology companies without large backers are looking to better-capitalized suitors. This trend became apparent in the solar-power industry over the past few weeks. “There are a lot of thinly capitalized developers who are struggling to figure out how to develop projects,” says Arno Harris, chief executive of Recurrent […]

Friedman: Moore's Law and the Law of More

By Thomas L. Friedman It is not an exaggeration to say that the team that President Obama appointed to promote his green agenda is nothing short of outstanding — a great combination of scientists and policy makers committed to building an energy economy that is efficient, clean and secure. Now there is only one vacancy […]

What will we tell the next generation?

Last month, the chief scientific adviser to the British Government, Professor John Beddington, predicted a global catastrophe by 2030 on the simple premise that while global demand for food, water and energy is escalating, the supply of these three essentials is diminishing. He predicted civil unrest and international conflict. If this scenario was to come […]

Selling The Green Economy

Few things are more appealing in politics than something for nothing. As Congress begins considering anti-global-warming legislation, environmentalists hold out precisely that tantalizing prospect: We can conquer global warming at virtually no cost. Here’s a typical claim, from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF): “For about a dime a day [per person], we can solve climate […]

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