OPEC says it's willing to cut oil production

OPEC, supplier of 40 percent of the world’s oil, will reduce oil production if necessary to support prices, Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri said. “I am sure if at the May meeting there is a need to cut, they will take that decision,” el-Badri said Sunday. “In OPEC member countries, 35 projects have been delayed because […]

Squeeze That Sponge

Nearly two-thirds of crude still gets left in the ground. With enhanced oil recovery, companies are determined to lower that number. Often stymied in their quest for new crude, Western oil companies are squeezing more out of the reserves they already have. Despite the engineering advances of the past century, nearly two-thirds of crude still […]

Global warming threatens economic chaos in SE Asia-ADB

MANILA (Reuters) – Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change and could face conflict over failing rice yields, lack of water and high economic costs, a major Asian Development Bank report shows. The region’s economies could lose as much as 6.7 percent of combined gross domestic product yearly by […]

Australia: Food bowl on brink of $5bn catastrophe

THE nation’s key food bowl, the Murray Darling Basin, is on the verge of economic collapse as the value of production plunges by at least $5 billion, experts say. Drought and declining irrigation water have plunged inland Australia’s heartland into crisis with the loss of at least one third of the basin’s $15 billion annual […]

Ocean power surges forward

Wave power and tidal power are still experimental, but may be little more than five years away from commercial development. Three miles off the craggy, wave-crashing coastline near Humboldt Bay, Calif., deep ocean swells roll through a swath of ocean that is soon to be the site of the nation That

The Impending Mother of All Oil Shocks

The other day I had an interesting conversation with someone who decides how much a small but significant portion of the world’s oil reserves gets pumped. I asked a question, “So long as the revenue from the oil that you pump is enough to meet the immediate needs of your country, why pump more?” My […]

Oil will hit peak after recession, says OPEC

Oil could approach the record prices of last July as the global recession halts investment in exploration and energy projects, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) warned last night. At a meeting in Toyko, OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing countries, and 13 Asian finance ministers, called for greater monitoring of global oil prices, claiming […]

Central Asian leaders to gather for water summit

ALMATY (Reuters) – The five leaders of Central Asian nations will hold a summit this week to try to end a bitter row over water use in one of the world’s driest regions. The dispute over cross-border water sharing in the vast region north of Afghanistan is a worry for its leaders who know how […]

Iran can make more of its energy riches: U.S. envoy

SOFIA (Reuters) – Iran could make more of its vast resources if relations with the west improve enough to allow more investment in its energy sector, the United States’ new Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, Richard Morningstar, said on Saturday. The world’s fourth-largest crude producer also sits on the world’s second-largest gas reserves but U.S. […]

Oil could rally to $60 by year-end: OPEC's al-Badri

ALGIERS (Reuters) – World oil prices could recover to $60 per barrel by the end of the year if demand in the global economy picks up, OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri told Reuters in an interview on Sunday. He said now was too soon to judge if fresh output cuts would be needed when OPEC […]

Holdouts for Humble Bulb Defy a Government Phase-Out

TUNBRIDGE WELLS, England Mr. Wright says that in the last two months he has sold 3,000 of the 100-watt bulbs

Women bear brunt of African hunger crisis

Experts warn that malnourished mothers becoming malfunctioning mothers BULAWAYO, Swaziland – Phetsile Ndwandwe, short, skinny and 23 years old, accepts an apple from a development worker and nibbles at it, stripping the peel with her teeth before handing the fruit to Siphokazi, her baby daughter. Siphokazi manages a bite of the apple, the first fruit […]

Groups See Added Risks From Change in Climate

The effects of climate change, especially rising seas, threaten trillions of dollars In a report, it urged that government flood-hazard maps be updated and that local land-use policies bar people from building or rebuilding in areas at high risk of flooding. Property owners should be encouraged to make their buildings more storm-resistant, the coalition added. […]

Prices likely to rise over fears of 'serious oil supply crisis'

A prominent Arab energy analyst has warned of a serious oil supply crisis that could trigger a fresh price spike in the absence of sufficient investments in crude capacity development projects. Nicolas Sarkis, Director of the Paris-based Arab Oil Research Centre, which acts as a consultant to the 11-nation Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries […]

Does understanding complexity beget a tragic view of life?

Sheer exuberance is often enough to carry the young into the most daunting and dangerous of endeavors. But as we age, experience can make us more hesitant. Many people discover that the universe can sometimes be arbitrary, that completely unforeseen events can ruin careers and even end lives, that, in short, life is tragic. But […]

'Smart grid' presents great promise, complications

WASHINGTON – One warm August afternoon in 2003, a power failure originating in Ohio coursed through the northeastern section of the electrical grid, sparking the nation’s largest blackout ever and leaving millions in eight states without air conditioning, traffic lights or cell phone service. A “smart grid” might have averted a shutdown that cost an […]

'Future Earth: Journey to the End of the World'

The first of four MSNBC specials about the planet documents an expedition to study the effects of global warming on the Arctic ice pack. The world is always coming to an end on cable news, where panic is the fallback position. And so it does, hypothetically, in the first of four MSNBC specials on our […]

Fuel-cell cars have a long way to go

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, such as General Motors Corp.’s retooled Equinox — displayed at the St. Louis Science Center last weekend — rely on a reaction between oxygen and stored hydrogen to create electricity. They are the future, automakers say. But when that future will arrive depends on whom you ask.Even if the government and […]

West traps Russia in its own backyard

The Great Game is picking up momentum. The sharp fall in oil prices has complicated Russia’s economic recovery, which in turn would disrupt the dynamics of the integration processes under Moscow’s leadership – political, military and economic – in the post-Soviet space. US diplomats are scouring the region for chance to drive wedges in the […]

Levees can't save New Orleans from floods: report

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Bigger, higher and stronger levees cannot save New Orleans from the worst floods and the city remains vulnerable to a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, the National Academy of Sciences said on Friday. New Orleans had the flood protection of a 350-mile network of levees, I-walls and T-walls ringing the city when Hurricane […]

New York offshore lakes wind project seeks ideas

LOS ANGELES, April 23 (Reuters) – The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said on Thursday the call to develop offshore wind turbines in the Great Lakes by the New York Power Authority may help open up offshore wind development in the United States. The United States in 2008 surpassed Germany as the leading producer of […]

Gulf OPEC nations say world growth is priority

TOKYO (Reuters) – OPEC Middle East oil producers said on Saturday they wanted oil output policy to help support world economic recovery. A month ahead of the next meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, oil ministers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar showed no sign of veering from the moderate production policy […]

Cantarell field in Mexico falling fast as gas cap expands down structure

Analysis by: Michael Lynch Production declines as the expanding gas cap intersects the well bores. Considering that the gas/oil contact is level across the field, many wells are affected simultaneously. Today the end is near with expectations that Cantarell will become uneconomic as early as 2014 and no later than 2019. The three field sub-complex […]

IEA Sees Oil-Supply Crunch by 2013 on Slow Investment

April 25 (Bloomberg) — The International Energy Agency said the world may face a crude oil shortage by 2013 because of slower investments in oil exploration and production by OPEC members and other producing countries. Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have delayed a total of 35 drilling projects, the Wall Street Journal […]

Republicans push nuclear energy to lower costs

WASHINGTON (AP) In contrast, renewable electricity provides roughly 1.5 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to Republicans. Double it or triple it, and “we still don’t have much,” the Tennessee Republican said. Associated Press

California rule could end ethanol's honeymoon

NEW YORK (Reuters) – California’s newly adopted low-carbon fuel standard may mark the beginning of the end of ethanol’s coveted status as the sole U.S. alternative motor fuel. The U.S. state with the most cars late on Thursday approved the world’s first-ever regulations to slash emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide from vehicle fuels. The ruling, […]

Global flu epidemic fear grows

A new flu that has killed up to 68 people in Mexico could start a global epidemic, the World Health Organization warned on Saturday, as tests showed the strain might be spreading in the United States.

Mexico’s crowded capital, where most of the deaths happened and home to some 20 million people, hunkered down in fear of the swine flu.
The new flu strain — a mixture of swine, human and avian flu viruses — is still poorly understood.
Reuters

OPEC, Asian Ministers May Call for Curbs on Speculation in Oil

OPEC and 13 Asian countries may call for measures to curb speculation in crude oil to prevent a surge in prices once the global economy recovers from the worst recession since World War II. Ministers participating in an energy roundtable in Tokyo may seek increased oversight of over-the-counter trades in oil and its derivatives, according […]

A Lean, Green Detroit

American tastes dominated the world’s automotive market for a century, but all that’s changing now. Today it’s the increasingly well-to-do Chinese car-buyer that industry wants to woo and win, thanks to this incredible factNewsweek

My money's on China to produce world-changing electric car

Once in a while an invention comes along that changes the world: Gunpowder. Printing press. Steam engine. Telegraph. Telephone. Model T Ford. Television. Computers – first mainframes, then PCs. The Internet. And now – maybe – the electric car. I’m not talking hybrids here. I am talking a pure electric that runs on batteries, travels […]

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