The Key to Fixing Health Care and Energy: Use Less

Our health-care crisis and our energy crisis are complex dilemmas made of many complex problems. But our biggest problem in both health care and energy is essentially the same simple problem: we use too much. And in both cases, there’s a simple explanation for much of the problem: our providers get paid more when we […]

Scientists attack energy industry

Britain’s energy systems are no longer fit for purpose, according to leading members of the UK’s best-known scientific academy, the Royal Society. A meeting of experts at the society said the government must invest hugely to create a new low-carbon economy. And it must take on the big generating companies who dominate energy policy, participants […]

Saudi hires generators to beat power shortage

Saudi Electric Company (SEC) is hiring generators to help it overcome summer electricity shortages afflicting the Gulf …Despite having the world

Rising sea level to submerge Louisiana coastline by 2100, study warns

A vast swath of the coastal lands around New Orleans will be underwater by the dawn of the next century because the rate of sediment deposit in the Mississippi delta can not keep up with rising sea levels, according to a study published today. Between 10,000 and 13,500 square kilometres of coastal lands will drown […]

Darlington expansion on hold

Ontario balks at huge cost and ‘uncertainty’ over future of AECL despite lowest bid Ontario is indefinitely postponing its much-touted plan to build new nuclear reactors at Darlington in part because the cost is “billions” of dollars too high, Energy Minister George Smitherman announced this morning. Smitherman said Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. delivered the […]

India wilts as monsoon fears grow

NEW DELHI – India could be staring at an imminent drought. It’s not the delayed national budget, but the specter of a delayed – or, in large measure, denied – monsoon that’s giving everyone sleepless nights. The Indian Meteorological Department has stopped short of baneful predictions in an economically stressful year – mindful of the […]

Betraying the Planet

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse […]

IEA sees global oil supply crunch risk recede

The world may escape an oil supply crisis for the next five years because a slow recovery from the economic downturn would hold down growth of demand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Monday. The IEA slashed its mid-term estimate for world oil demand, which it said may rise by an average 0,6% a […]

Off-shore platform burning after explosion

Lagos – Nigerian rebels on Monday announced a new raid against a Shell oil facility and said they had killed at least 20 soldiers in a gun battle, a claim denied by the security forces. While a Shell spokesperson confirmed the raid and said it had caused a loss of production, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s […]

States Consider Gas and Oil Levies

Lawmakers, Facing Budget Deficits, See Revenue in a Tax on Production Cash-strapped states are considering raising taxes on oil production to plug yawning budget gaps, but they face strong resistance from oil companies, which warn the moves could lead to lost jobs and higher energy prices. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania and California have proposed what are […]

Canada is

Downplaying Russia’s recent “jockeying” for position in the emerging polar oil rush, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has declared Canada an “Arctic superpower” that will be guided by science, international law and “world-leading Canadian technology” in securing its claim to resource riches in the North. Mr. Cannon, who made a global media splash earlier this […]

BP solar panel blaze raises concerns

Fresh concerns have emerged over the future of BP In the past, concerns have been raised about some junction boxes manufactured by BP Solar, which were said to be prone to overheating. The company recalled and replaced some of these in 2006 and 2007 as a precautionary measure. Kai Alfermann, head of asset management at […]

China oil demand's good news, but can it be oil's savior?

TOKYO (MarketWatch) — China’s oil demand has grown even as its production declines but analysts question whether the nation’s healthy appetite for crude will last, and cast doubt on whether its demand can single-handedly offset an expected global drop-off in consumption this year. That’s part of the reason why recent upbeat data on Chinese demand […]

Wind, Solar Could Play Bigger Roles in Future US Energy Mix

U.S. climate change legislation now before Congress would mandate that by 2020, 15 to 20 percent of the nation’s electricity supply would come from renewable sources like wind and solar. Currently wind and solar contribute only about 2 percent, with hydropower providing an additional 6 percent. Can these renewable sources meet the nation’s energy needs? […]

Beetles Add New Dynamic to Forest Fire Control Efforts

DENVER Dead trees, depending on how recently they died, may be much more flammable than living trees, or slightly more flammable, or even for a certain period less flammable. The only certainties are that dead forests are growing in size and scale

UT Arlington researchers' work could lead to $35-a-barrel oil

After a year of trying, University of Texas at Arlington researchers say they have succeeded in producing Texas intermediate-quality crude oil out of lignite. In a few years, the researchers predict, their discovery could lead to oil that costs $35 a barrel instead of the current $65 to $70. This could translate into a Lone […]

Dmitry Orlov: The slope of dysfunction

Perhaps you have heard of the Peak Oil theory? Most people have by now, even the people whose job used to involve denying the possibility that global crude oil production would peak any time soon. Now that everybody seems a bit more comfortable with the idea, perhaps it is time to reexamine it. Is the […]

Heavy sandstorm blankets Iraq, delays oil bidding

BAGHDAD (AP) — A heavy sandstorm has blanketed Iraq’s capital, closing the Baghdad airport and delaying the country’s first oil bidding process in 30 years. Visibility is only a few yards and most of the few people on the streets are wearing surgical masks. Doctors at the city’s hospitals said Sunday that people were coming […]

The scramble for Iraq's 'sweet oil'

With proven oil reserves of around 112 billion barrels and up to another 150 billion barrels of probable reserves, Iraq is the greatest untapped prize for international oil companies. To put that in context, if Iraq does turn out to have around 300 billion barrels of oil, it will rival the world’s biggest producer Saudi […]

Craig Venter, the controversial American scientist who helped decode the human genome, has announced the discovery of ancient bacteria that can turn coal into methane, suggesting they may help to solve the world Venter even suggested the discovery could open up the world

In the Andes, a Toxic Site Also Provides a Livelihood

… La Oroya has been called one of the world Citing financial difficulties, the smelter

Oklahoma accused BP of gasoline price-fixing

HOUSTON — Oklahoma Atty. Gen. Drew Edmondson accused BP America Inc. and two subsidiaries of illegally manipulating gasoline prices and other refined products in a scheme said to have started in 2002. In a lawsuit filed in Cleveland County District Court, Edmondson accused BP of deceptive trade practices, saying BP acquired and hoarded short-term supplies […]

A Buffett Turns to Farming in Africa

Warren …He traces his interest in fighting global hunger to his hobby taking photographs on those business trips in Africa. As he was photographing migrating wildebeest and zebra in 2000 from a rickety plane, trying to position his camera for a picture, he saw scars on the ground where poor farmers had used fire to […]

Reactive oil markets won't wait

HONG KONG It looks very much as if the market is ahead of Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi and the oil-exporting countries that say $80 a barrel oil will be here as soon as the global economy gathers steam, probably by yearend in their view. To maintain prices, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries […]

Climate Bill Ignores Our Biggest Clean Energy Source

…The good news is we have such a magical power technology. The big surprise is that it isn’t new. It’s old. It is a fast nuclear reactor known as the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) that was developed by a team of hundreds of scientists working for more than 20 years at our top government national […]

Jeff Rubin on Financial Sense Newshour

What do subprime mortgages, Atlantic salmon dinners, SUVs and globalization have in common? They all depend on cheap oil. And in a world of dwindling oil supplies and steadily mounting demand around the world, there is no such thing as cheap oil. Oil might be less expensive in the middle of a recession, but it […]

The Transition Initiative

Changing the scale of change A WHILE AGO, I heard an American scientist address an audience in Oxford, England, about his work on the climate crisis. He was precise, unemotional, rigorous, and impersonal: all strengths of a scientist. The next day, talking informally to a small group, he pulled out of his wallet a much-loved […]

North Sea tax break plea as oil exploration plummets

Government action urged to protect In the first three months of last year, 13 exploration wells were being drilled by offshore companies. However, this year the number started has slumped to just three, as the oil price dipped as low as $35 a barrel. Last night, industry body Oil and Gas UK said the credit […]

Africa alone could feed the world

DOOM-MONGERS have got it wrong – there is enough space in the world to produce the extra food needed to feed a growing population. And contrary to expectation, most of it can be grown in Africa, say two international reports published this week. The first, projecting 10 years into the future from last year’s food […]

Biofuels could clean up Chernobyl 'badlands'

CONTAMINATED lands, blighted by fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, could be cleaned up in a clever way: by growing biofuels. Belarus, the country affected by much of the fallout, is planning to use the crops to suck up the radioactive strontium and caesium and make the soil fit to grow food again within decades […]

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