Zenn Says Lithium Off the Table, Still Bets on EEStor

If Canadian electric vehicle maker Zenn Motor Co. once saw lithium-ion batteries as a possible alternative to devices from its controversial investment in ultracapacitor developer EEStor, the more standard technology is now officially out of the running for its future cars. According to Zenn In essence, Zenn is saying that if everything goes well with […]

Peak energy and cultural fragmentation

…It has to be said that ethnic nationalism met with varied successes. Brittany stands somewhat in the middle ground. While nationalist parties failed to establish themselves as major players, cultural revivalist have managed to build a modern Breton identity around a mixture of cultural leftovers from a disintegrating peasant society, of foreign imports (the pipe […]

Analysts skeptical about Pemex's 2009 production forecast

Mexico’s state oil company Pemex recently revised its 2009 production forecast down to 2.65 million b/d from 2.75 million b/d, but the company’s forecasts are usually taken with a grain of salt given its repeated inability to meet its own predicted production levels. According to BNamericas, analysts believe the drop could be even more severe. […]

Beyond prices at peak oil: $20 per gallon

SUV plants shut down, the airline industry collapses, public transportation is revitalized and farms go local as gas prices skyrocket, predicts Forbes writer Christopher Steiner in a new book. What will the world look like as the price of gasoline climbs, $2 at a time, from $4 to $20 a gallon? Christopher Steiner, a staff […]

Proven oil reserves of OPEC go up to 1.02 trillion barrels in 2008

OIL is found in the minds of men, energy fraternity is often found boasting about. It continues to be the case In the meantime, it is also a known that Saudi Aramco wants to improve its oil recovery rate to 70 percent from 50 percent over the next 20 years by focusing on enhanced oil […]

The Failures Of Alternative Energy

It was a bad sign when T Boone Pickens gave up, at least partially, on building a mammoth wind farm in Texas. The process was not only going to be expensive; the ability to get the energy from the windmills to large population centers would be complicated by flaws in the electric grid. Wind energy […]

A Civilizational Tipping Point

In recent years there has been a growing concern over thresholds or tipping points in nature. For example, scientists worry about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to a point from which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned about the point where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery. […]

Africa: U.S. Military Holds War Games on Nigeria, Somalia

In May 2008, the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, hosted “Unified Quest 2008,” the army’s annual war games to test the American military’s ability to deal with the kind of crises that it might face in the near future. “Unified Quest 2008″ was especially noteworthy because it was the first time the […]

Tradable Energy Quotas: A Policy Framework For Peak Oil And Climate Change

The severity of the climate emergency is widely recognised, yet the other side of our energy crisis is less commonly discussed. With UK oil production in decline for a decade now, and global oil production possibly having peaked in 2008, there is a real tension between our need for energy and our obligation to reduce […]

Warming ocean contributes to global warming

The warming of an Arctic current over the last 30 years has triggered the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from methane hydrate stored in the sediment beneath the seabed. Scientists at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton working in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, Royal Holloway London and IFM-Geomar in Germany […]

After years of decline, Cleveland aims to go green

CLEVELAND (Reuters) The city which was once America’s fifth largest now ranks 41st in the U.S. Census with a population of 433,748. “The first thing we must do is stabilize our housing market,” said Jim Rokakis, treasurer of Cuyahoga County which includes greater Cleveland. “Then we’ll need to work out what to do with all […]

China Cashes In On Overseas Shopping Spree

The second largest energy consumer, China is quickly becoming one of the most significant energy players in the world. Increasingly in need of fossil fuels to power its burgeoning economy, China’s state-owned oil companies have sought to acquire oil and gas access rights beyond its borders, snapping up additional reserves that span both hemispheres. Already […]

EPA economy ratings vs. the GM Volt: A square peg in a round hole

What a difference a number makes. The projected EPA economy rating of the GM Volt has set off a storm of criticism across the Internet. While a number of blogs played the story straight, the Good Math blog attacked it as nonsense, which got picked up by Reddit. Critics say that the actual fuel economy […]

Wall Street players oil up rigged game

…You’ll recall the great oil price rise of 2008, which not only doubled gas prices across the border, but led to worldwide food riots in poorer countries. In retrospect, what made this price hike truly weird was that oil production had actually increased during this period, while global demand had dropped. The price hike was […]

Study Finds Big Storms on a 1,000-Year Rise

The North Atlantic Ocean has spawned more hurricanes and tropical storms over the last decade than it has since a similarly stormy period 1,000 years ago, according to a new study. The research, published yesterday in the journal Nature, tries to trace the pattern of storms along North America’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts back to […]

Wastewater Disposal Well May Have Caused Texas Earthquakes

A series of minor earthquakes in North Texas may have been caused by a wastewater disposal well connected to natural-gas production in the area, Chesapeake Energy Corp. told state regulators Thursday. Chesapeake said it had shut down two disposal wells “as a precautionary measure.” The Dallas-Fort Worth area has experienced more than a dozen small […]

Big Oil and Clean Coal: Shell Joins CCS Group in U.K.

There’s been plenty of hand-wringing in Britain over the lack of progress on clean coal (well, over the lack of progress on anything energy-related, come to think of it). Could Big Oil bring the coal back to Newcastle, as it were? Royal Dutch Shell said today that it was joining a consortium to compete for […]

Australia: Coal Industry Expands, Faith in Its Future Declines

The Australian government’s cap and trade scheme to reduce the country’s carbon emissions seems to be a serious attempt to wind back coal production, but the coal industry continues to expand and environmentalists are expressing disbelief. The recent concern stems from Queensland State Premier, Anna Bligh’s endorsement of plans to spend more than $6 billion […]

Rwanda: Country On Course to Produce Bio-Diesel

Rwanda is poised to be among the first African countries to start the commercial production of the sulphur-free environmental friendly bio-diesel, following a major breakthrough by the government sponsored, Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (IRST). The institute which has for the last one year been undertaking a pilot project to produce bio-diesel, says it […]

China calls halt to Gwadar refinery

Cash-strapped Pakistan, which has had to accept more than US$11 billion from the International Monetary Fund, is threatened with the loss of a huge foreign investment after China said it had shelved its multi-billion dollar coastal oil refinery project at Gwadar, in southwest Balochistan province. China has formally informed the Pakistani authorities that the refinery […]

OPEC Spare Capacity May Stymie Oil's Rally: Chart of the Day

Crude oil prices, which have surged 60 percent this year, may not rise above $80 a barrel because spare production capacity among OPEC members has swollen. The CHART OF THE DAY shows the relationship between crude oil futures traded in New York and excess output capacity of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries this decade. […]

McLUHAN'S WAKE: MEDIA AND ENVIRONMENT

Marshall McLuhan was “the media guru” of the 1970s and ’80s, a Canadian scholar who titillated the imagination of many with his enigmatic and illuminating pronouncements — “We invent things and thereafter they invent us.” But he may have had more to say about environmental issues than he intended. As is often the case with […]

Why the Gloom on Solar-Energy Stocks?

Solar-power equipment makers’ profits have been hit by the credit crunch and the glut of a key raw material The global credit freeze and a supply glut of polysilicon—the key raw material used in photovoltaic solar panels—have hurt solar-power equipment manufacturers’ earnings this year. Over the long run, some analysts are hopeful the lower prices […]

Blacklight Power Returns With More Lab Validation

For readers who aren’t familiar with Blacklight Power (likely the majority), here’s the executive summary: A company formed in 1991 (right after the cold fusion claims of Fleischmann and Pons were torn apart) claims that it can extract nearly limitless amounts of energy from water, by moving hydrogen atoms to a theoretical state almost all […]

Country oblivious to next oil shock

The spike in oil prices to US$147 a barrel last winter helped trigger the global recession. And soon after a global economic recovery, the inevitable return to triple-digit oil prices will lead the world right back into recession. So argues Jeff Rubin, who was until recently the chief economist at CIBC World Capital Markets, the […]

'Our country will have absolutely no control over its energy prices'

National Stripper Well Association Chairman Dewey Bartlett Jr., in an Aug. 12 statement on a US Energy Information Administration prediction that the Obama administration

Demand forecasts IEA forgets decline fields

The supply issue is clear, non-OPEC supply will be higher, not only due to new fields but largely caused by stringent OPEC production quota agreements. As long as OPEC members comply to this in full, new demand will have to be covered by other sources, largely Norway, Russia, FSU, Canada and new production regions. The […]

Solar stocks down on dim results

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shares in solar power companies fell on Thursday, led by a 14-percent drop in LDK Solar Co Ltd, which posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. The slump came as Barclays Capital downgraded the U.S. solar energy sector to “neutral” from “positive,” as it sees slower-than-expected demand growth and recommended investors wait for […]

Oil won't rise even as economy recoups: report

NEW YORK (Reuters) – World oil prices are unlikely to rise much even as the global economy rebounds, Oil Analyst Ed Morse writes in the next issue of Foreign Affairs. Oil prices are unlikely to go above $75 to $85 a barrel, as world output capacity rises and demand stagnates after oil prices spiked to […]

Antarctic glacier 'thinning fast'

One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was ten years ago, according to research seen by the BBC. A study of satellite measurements of Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica reveals the surface of the ice is now dropping at a rate of up to 16m a year. […]

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