Asian competitors shadow German solar industry

Germany’s solar power industry, until recently the world leader in the technology, is facing an unprecedented crisis, analysts say, outshone by cheaper competitors from Asia, most notably Chinese firms. The crisis in the German solar industry is affecting small companies as well as giants such as Q-Cells. Only three months ago, start-up Sunline declared bankruptcy […]

Why Urban Farming is the Future

The first odd thing about Cam Macdonald’s Mt. Pleasant lawn is that it isn’t a lawn. It’s a farm. Standing out amid the typical suburban sea of grass patches are his potatoes, carrots, beats, peas, shallots, squash, parsnips and more — enough to have given food to 70 people by the beginning of July. The […]

Ghana Girds for Vagaries of Oil Production

With drilling set to begin next year, Ghana is ready to become the latest oil-producing nation in Africa, joining the likes of Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Chad. For most African nations, oil has turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing, and Ghana is trying to find ways to avoid the […]

Gulf exporters will need to make a clean break

Saudi Arabia, the world The kingdom

US troops to return to Iraq despite Barack Obama

The US military is planning to send thousands of American soldiers back to the oil-rich north of Iraq to prevent a civil war between Arabs and Kurds. The emergency move, which partially reverses a recent drawing- down, is the first major sign that President Obama Kurdish and Arab leaders have agreed in principle to allowing […]

Computer game taps creativity of scientists to solve energy problems

WASHINGTON Players use their own computers to register on a Web site using an alias or an avatar. The computer asks players to consider a fictitious yet plausible scenario in which there is a rich abundance of cheap, efficient, and “green” energy sources in the year 2026, which happens to be the 150th anniversary of […]

Asia facing unprecedented food shortage, UN report says

Asia faces an unprecedented food crisis and huge social unrest unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems to grow crops for its burgeoning population, according to a UN report published today. India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant […]

Wheat gets worse as CO2 rises

You may have thought that the silver lining of rising carbon dioxide levels would be a boost in crop yields. But evidence is mounting that we may trade quantity for quality. The discovery that staple crops like wheat have less protein when grown in high concentrations of CO2 has already caused concern, but the bad […]

India's thirsty farms drain rocks dry

India, a land of famine until half a century ago, could soon go hungry again for want of water to grow crops. “Some areas of India are going to run out of water, with very severe economic and social consequences,” says the chief author of a UN-backed study of water supplies for Asian agriculture, published […]

America's Warfare State

… Because the Iraq war crippled that country

Our Last Chance to Preserve Life On Earth Is Slipping Away

A few years ago, we invited a group of low-income children from urban Pittsburgh to visit a distant natural area in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, for an owl watch. As night fell, the children became startled as they got their first glimpse of the myriad bright stars set in a clear, black sky. These kids had […]

Nigeria: The End of Subsidy

The Federal Government last Tuesday signalled stoppage of petroleum subsidy in Nigeria, saying modalities to deregulate the sector is at its peak. The government hinges the reason to deregulate the industry on the increasing funds the Petroleum Support Fund scheme is gulping from the Federal Government coffers. For instance, between January and May this year, […]

Kunstler: The First Die-off

…All this frightful hyperbole is really mere pr The funniest of these lately are the glad tidings from (“The New” ) General Motors. They came out last week with a laughable hype-fest for their proposed electric car, the “Volt,” scheduled to arrive in the showrooms around 2011 (about the same time that all the mortgage-backed-securities […]

Geothermal power search holds promise, threat

On a high ridge in the Mayacamas Mountains, a drill slowly bores into the earth to test a new way to generate electricity. The test, by a Bay Area company called AltaRock Energy, could give the world another source of renewable energy, a valuable weapon in the fight against global warming. It could also trigger […]

Explosion at Russia's Largest Hydroelectric Plant Kills 8

MOSCOW The plant’s dam was not damaged, and the accident posed no threat to towns further south along the Yenisei River, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said. The accident caused an oil spill, however, and the slick was floating downriver, the ministry said. Two of the plant’s 10 turbines in the engine room were destroyed, […]

China: The new Big Oil

The country is snapping up oil fields from Africa to South America to the Middle East. Soon it may be able to rival the Western giants. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — China is on an oil buying binge. Over the past few months, the Chinese government — or its big government-controlled oil firms — have closed […]

Mayawati

INDIA – On 12th August, thousands of farmers gathered to lodge strong protest against Anil Ambani It is imperative to mention here that Anil Ambani

Chinese coal purchase could start a trend

The takeover of a major Australian coal mining company by Chinese-owned Yanzhou has raised fears coal markets could be dominated by China. Felix Resources owns coal projects in New South Wales and Queensland. Gavin Wendt, from broker Fat Prophets, says if the takeover is approved, it could be the first of many similar acquisitions by […]

Biofuel production 'is harming the poor'

The production of biofuels is fuelling poverty, human rights abuses and damage to the environment, Christian Aid warned today. The charity said huge subsidies and targets in developed countries for boosting the production of fuels from plants such as maize and oil palm are exacerbating environmental and social problems in poor nations.And rather than being […]

Energy Efficiency: Fact or Fiction?

You’re a savvy consumer and you know how to cut corners when it comes to energy. You’ve given your dishwasher a rest and picked up a soapy sponge again. You even make sure never to fill your gas tank more than half way because you get more miles to the gallon. Or wait, is it […]

Solar-Energy Loses Some Shine

Solar-energy companies are feeling the pinch of the global downturn, leading investors to dump what had become popular growth stocks. Particularly damaging to the global market for photovoltaic solar panels, which transform sunlight into electricity, has been the collapse of demand in Spain, after the government cut what had been generous aid for the sector.Spain […]

Pickens & Turner: New Priorities For Our Energy Future

By T. BOONE PICKENS AND TED TURNER Renewable energy and clean-burning natural gas are the basis of a new strategy the world needs to create a cleaner and more secure future. And the global transformation to a clean-energy economy may be the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century. According to the authoritative Potential Gas […]

Turkmen join Arabs to stop vote on Iraq oil province

Arab and Turkmen politicians in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province have banded together to try to block an impending referendum on the future status of the disputed oil-rich region. Kurds, reckoned to form the majority of the province’s 900,000 population, are eager to press on with the vote in the hope of removing direct control of […]

Book Review: The brighter side of expensive oil

Review of: $20 Per Gallon: How the inevitable rise in the price of gasoline will change our lives for the better by Christopher Steiner During the boom years, there was a spate of books warning that we were all doomed. One of the most popular spine-chillers was the threat of peak oil: the prospect that […]

Learning from the British in Iraq

Under the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), President Barack Obama is currently bound to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011. Three factors, however, make it probable that the president will attempt to renegotiate the terms of the agreement as it approaches its conclusion: Iraqi security forces will […]

Selling Americans on a 'Green-Collar' Economy

Van Jones may have one of the hottest assignments in the Obama administration — selling the notion of a new “green-collar” economy — but in a country burdened with a 9.4 percent unemployment rate, it’s not easy. How do you tell an unemployed construction worker that it’s time to start thinking about installing solar panels […]

Oil trader under scrutiny for phenomenal success

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An oil trader who has rocked Wall Street and the White House over his nine-figure salary clings to a low profile, quietly making trades from a former dairy farm in Connecticut and emerging occasionally to satisfy his passion for art. Andrew Hall, 58, a British-born naturalized American, has been phenomenally successful […]

The IEA Shills For OPEC, The Oil Speculators and the Peak Oil Pranksters

And then of course there is the chicken-little pronouncements of Fatih Birol the Chief Economist of the IEA who garnered much press recently by rehashing the depletion theories of that star peak oil prankster Matt ($500/bbl oil) Simmons. Thereby aligning himself with such soothsayers as Sam Kier’s Pennsylvania ‘Rock Oil’ of 1855. The U.S. Geological […]

River Basin Fight Pits Atlanta Against Neighbors

ATLANTA A recent court defeat has left Atlanta howling that its enemies, including Alabama and Florida, are trying to choke off the city

Food to win out over fuel

Food will win through over fuel in the end, according to a Taiwan academic, speaking at the Food in Health Security in the Asia-Pacific Region (FIHS) conference in Taipei last week. Dr Yue-Wen Wang, Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, discussed the issue of biofuel production versus crops for food. “We need to eat but […]

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