Oil consumer hedging recovery? Still early days

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – While Pakistan’s move to consider hedging some of its oil imports may suggest that energy consumers are thinking differently about the outlook for prices, most remain gun-shy after a punishing year. Falling options costs — the first hint of price stability after two months of gains and OPEC’s aggressive targeting of a […]

US Has Almost 100-Year Supply of Natural Gas

The amount of natural gas available for production in the United States has soared 58% in the past four years, driven by a drilling boom and the discovery of huge new gas fields in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, a new study says. The report, due to be released Thursday by the nonprofit Potential Gas Committee, […]

Dealers facing tight supply of SUVs, trucks

If you’ve got your eye on a new SUV, don’t blink. It might be gone. Even with the auto industry mired in depression Now, a year after $4-a-gallon gas nearly killed SUVs, some dealers in this market are selling them for window-sticker prices. Moreover, most late-model used pickups and SUVs have regained all of the […]

African farms becoming too hot to handle

African farmers will soon face growing seasons hotter than any in their experience. To cope with this rapid climate change, they They found that farmers in Africa will face average temperatures outside the current range of experience in their locality in 42% of years by 2025

Rising gas prices hit drivers nationwide

Consumers get squeezed as pump prices rise for 50 days in a row. Prices now average at least $2.50 a gallon in 49 states. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Gas prices have risen for 50 days in a row and the pain at the pump is taking a toll on household budgets across the nation. Nationwide, […]

Extreme makeover chemistry style

In revisiting a chemical reaction that’s been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow […]

Mercury in Mackenzie River delta dramatically higher than previously believed

Edmonton …”There are very few point sources for mercury in the Arctic,” said Graydon. “Mercury is a metal that undergoes long range transport so the Arctic is getting mercury from a global pool.” Graydon says the biggest contributor of man-made mercury pollution is coal-fired power production. EurekAlert

Mexico racing against time at Cantarell oil field

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s state energy company Pemex is scrambling to extract what oil it can from its key Cantarell deposit as growing water and natural gas levels in the giant field depress yields of crude. Cantarell produced more than 2 million barrels per day as recently as 2004, but yield has plunged as […]

Renewable Power Rules, Drilling Backed by U.S. Senate Panel

(Bloomberg) — A Senate energy panel approved legislation that would require utilities to get as much as 15 percent of their power from renewable sources and open more of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 15- 8 today for the measure, which would […]

Government to Guarantee Loans for Nuclear Power Plants

The Energy Department is planning to award $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of new nuclear power plants to four utilities, government sources said today. The companies include UniStar Nuclear Energy, NRG Energy Inc., Scana Corp. and Southern Co. Nuclear power advocates hope that the loan guarantees will help launch a new wave […]

New 'Urban Car' claims to slash CO2 emissions by two thirds

LONDON, England (CNN) — A former motor-racing engineer has unveiled a prototype of a new hydrogen-powered city car which claims to emit less than one third of the carbon emissions produced by its nearest rival. The creators of the ‘Urban Car,’ UK-based company Riversimple, say the vehicle emits less than 30 grams per kilometer of […]

ConocoPhillips chief warns of impending oil crisis

DETROIT, Michigan: Government efforts to curb climate change could soon spur an oil crisis more severe than those already experienced, the head of oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips said on Tuesday. “We’re very concerned that if we don’t keep the supply up we’re going to see another crisis,” said chief executive officer Jim Mulva. Government […]

Re-Engineering the Earth

If we were transported forward in time, to an Earth ravaged by catastrophic climate change, we might see long, delicate strands of fire hose stretching into the sky, like spaghetti, attached to zeppelins hovering 65,000 feet in the air. Factories on the ground would pump 10 kilos of sulfur dioxide up through those hoses every […]

Obama vs. the oil bubble

A financial regulatory overhaul could reduce huge swings in the price of crude oil and gasoline. NEW YORK (Fortune) — Can reinvigorated financial watchdogs take a bite out of surging oil prices? President Obama is scheduled to outline a regulatory reform program Wednesday that will, among other things, call for strong federal oversight of derivatives […]

Canada pushes past North Pole in Arctic survey

Canada’s mapping of the Arctic is pushing into territory claimed by Russia in the high-stakes drive by countries to establish clear title to the polar region and its seabed riches. Survey flights Ottawa conducted in late winter and early spring went beyond the North Pole and into an area where Russia has staked claims, a […]

Clean-energy windmills a 'dirty business' for farmers in Mexico

The windmills stand in rows like an army of Goliaths, steel towers taller than the Statue of Liberty and topped with blades as long as a jetliner’s wing. The blades whoosh through the humid air, carving energy from a wind that rushes across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec on its journey from the Gulf of Mexico […]

Russia 'should join Opec, dictate price'

Russia should join Opec so that the exporters’ group can control more than half of world oil output and dictate its price, a top executive of the country’s biggest private sector oil company said. Lukoil vice president Leonid Fedun made the remarks in an interview in the Kommersant newspaper on Wednesday, months after Russia’s flirtation […]

Sinopec plans wildcat in disputed waters

China’s Sinopec aims to drill its first deep-water well next year in the South China Sea, ending a moratorium on exploration in waters near areas disputed by Vietnam, two company officials said. The move marks the first foray into deep-water offshore drilling for Sinopec, which is mainly a refiner with limited experience in oil drilling. […]

Sympathy refinery strikes staged

An unofficial strike at a North Lincolnshire oil refinery is continuing for a fifth day, and has spread to other sites in Britain. About 1,200 contractors at the Lindsey refinery have walked out. Contractors at Cheshire’s Fiddlers Ferry Power Station and Aberthaw in south Wales downed tools in sympathy. The Lindsey workers withdrew their labour […]

Fusion falters under soaring costs

An international plan to build a nuclear fusion reactor is being threatened by rising costs, delays and technical challenges. Emails leaked to the BBC indicate that construction costs for the experimental fusion project called Iter have more than doubled. Some scientists also believe that the technical hurdles to fusion have become more difficult to overcome […]

Report says peak oil could cause food shortages in S.F.

In May, an obscure city advisory group released the results of a 15-month study of San Francisco’s vulnerabilities to peak oil, a scenario that assumes the global supply of oil will run thin in the near future and that the world could go the way of Mad Max. Produced by the now-disbanded Peak Oil Preparedness […]

Conoco Chief Says Replacing Oil May Take a Century

(Bloomberg) — ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, said it may take a century for the nation to replace fossil fuels with alternative energy sources. The country will need to develop its own oil and natural- gas deposits and continue importing petroleum while developing alternative supplies in the decades ahead, ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Jim […]

Statoil says may pull ex-pats' families from Iran

OSLO (Reuters) – Norwegian oil and gas group StatoilHydro said on Tuesday it is considering pulling the families of its foreign workers out of Iran due to security concerns after Friday’s presidential elections. StatoilHydro, which is part of the South Pars gas project, has 120 workers in Iran. About half are foreigners. “We are very […]

Iran oil flows '100% secure'

Iran’s oil output and exports were unaffected by the wave of protests that have swept the country since Friday’s presidential poll, the country’s Opec governor said today. “The oil industry is 100% secure,” Mohammad Ali Khatibi told Reuters. “There is no affect on production, exports or refining.” Oil traders and shipbrokers also told Reuters there […]

Price of jet fuel jumps 22 percent

For the second straight summer, airlines are staring down the barrel of rising fuel prices. Travelers can expect fewer flights, higher fares, elimination of markets and a drop in less-revenue- producing regional jet service. “It will get very rough out there,” said aviation analyst Mike Boyd, whose Boyd Group is based in Evergreen. The dollar […]

BA asks staff to work for nothing

British Airways is asking thousands of staff to work for nothing, for up to one month, to help the airline survive. The appeal, sent by e-mail to more than 30,000 workers in the UK, asks them to volunteer for between one week and one month’s unpaid leave, or unpaid work. BA’s chief executive Willie Walsh […]

World's megacities ripe for 'megadisaster': UN

GENEVA (AFP) “The trends in disasters particularly from climate change are of enormous concern, we can only expect that this trend is going to continue,” he told journalists on the sidelines of a conference on reducing disaster risks. Some 90 percent of disasters are of climatic origin, caused by storms, floods, drought or other extreme […]

German firms eye huge African solar project

BERLIN (AFP) It wants to place solar power installations in several countries in the region, provided they are politically stable, the paper said, quoting Torsten Jeworek, a board member of insurance giant and consortium head Munich Re AFP

Kunstler: Too Stupid To Survive

Coming home from the annual meet-up of the New Urbanists, I was already agitated from the shenanigans of United Airlines — two-hour delay, blown connection — when I waded into this week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine for further evidence that our ruling elites are too stupid to survive (and perhaps the US with them). […]

Why oil is on the rise again

Prices have doubled since February, but that’s probably not the end of it. Asia’s recovery is igniting demand. NEW YORK (Fortune) — Ask a group of oil analysts about the recent surge in crude costs and here’s the consensus answer you’ll get: Prices have run up too far, too fast and they aren’t supported by […]

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