IEA Bearish on 2009 Oil Demand, Overlooks U.S., Barclays Says

(Bloomberg) — The International Energy Agency remains too bearish on its outlook for oil demand this year and has overlooked U.S. industrial output that will boost consumption in the coming months, Barclays Plc said. The IEA, energy adviser to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, yesterday raised its forecast for global oil demand after […]

Oil May Fall Below $10 in Next Decade, Prechter Says

(Bloomberg) — Crude oil may plunge to less than $10 a barrel in the next decade after surging to a record $147 last year, said Robert Prechter, who achieved fame for cautioning on Oct. 5, 1987, that stocks would crash. Oil should fall to between $4 and $10 a barrel based on a technical analysis […]

July sees big jump in fuel efficiency of new cars

WASHINGTON – Cars and light trucks sold in July got more miles per gallon than those sold in previous months, say researchers, who credit the Cash for Clunkers program. The average mileage for new vehicles rose from 21.4 miles per gallon in June to 22.1 mpg in July. That may not sound like much, but […]

World Oil Exports; US Oil Imports; and a Few Thoughts on Canada

The major thing we note from Figure 1 is that the peak in oil exports seems to be in 2005, with recent exports down less than two percent. If oil production in 2009 is down, it is likely there will be a bigger drop off exports than in prior years. The two major exporting countries […]

The Influence of ''Peak Oil''

An article in the Washington Post this weekend, together with a must-read interview in The Independent, a paper I used to read regularly when I lived in London, reminded me of an observation I made several years ago concerning the similarities between Peak Oil and Y2K. Having spent a fair amount of time in my […]

Food crisis: Fields of gold

The world food crisis is front and centre on Bay Street’s radar. A bumper crop of corn set to come in at harvest in the U.S. this year. A global recession hogging all the attention. That The edge he

Mexican Oil Output May Fall to 2.6 Million Barrels

(Bloomberg) — Mexico may pump as little as 2.6 million barrels a day of oil this year amid declines at the country Mexico

Apocalypse Later? I'm Going Local Now.

GRANT COUNTY, N.M. – I’ve spent the past three years trying to get petroleum out of my life and live locally. Where I differ from many locavore cruncholas is in my determination to do these things without giving up digital-age comforts — you know, the ones that allow me to file this essay from a […]

So Much For That; EPA Won't Back Up GM's 230 MPG Claim

Oh GM, I knew you were getting ahead of yourself. Early this morning, CEO Fritz Henderson claimed thatthe Chevy Volt, a gas-electric plug-in hybrid would earn an EPA-estimated rating of 230 MPG. But according to Green Car Advisor, the EPA has said no such thing. The EPA had this to say in response to GM’s […]

Japanese Utilities to Test 'Low Emissions' Coal Plant

Two of Japan’s largest utilities — Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER) and The Chugoku Electric Power Co. — have joined forces in a new company, Osaki CoolGen Corporation, to undertake a large-scale demonstration test of oxygen-blown coal gasification combined cycle technology and CO2 separation and recovery technology. To date both companies have positioned coal, […]

Greenland Shark Waste as a Biofuel: Making the Most of Throw-Aways

The meat of the Greenland shark is potentially an ingredient for a biofuel. According to AFP, the Greenland shark is often caught and dies in the nets of Greenlander fishermen. This results in many Greenland shark catches being disposed of in the ocean. It’s predatory on other marine life like fish and seals, according to […]

The Biofuel Future

The only way that biofuels will add up is if they produce more energy than it takes to make them. Yet, depending on the crops and the logistics of production, some analyses suggest that it may take more energy to make these fuels than they will provide. And if growing biofuels creates the same environmental […]

Cameco Says Utilities in China Stockpiling Uranium

Cameco Corp., the world’s second- largest uranium producer, said power utilities in China are continuing to stockpile uranium, making them the market’s single-largest group of buyers. Utilities in China have bought an estimated 8 million pounds of uranium, the raw material in nuclear-reactor fuel, on the spot market this year, said George Assie, Cameco’s senior […]

Russian army drills to defend oil, gas exports

The Russian army is holding its first major training exercises to protect against what Moscow sees as possible terrorist attacks on its vital oil and gas export routes, the military and media said Wednesday. Sweeping drills in the Siberian Military district, covering a theater of operations spanning hundreds of miles (km) from Irkutsk to Buryatia […]

The Peak Oil Crisis:A Disruptive Technology

Every now and again there comes along a new technology that changes civilization. Gunpowder, steam engines, electricity, internal combustion, nuclear energy, transistors, and the integrated computer circuits readily come to mind. Looming just over the horizon is the possibility that another such disruptive technology may, and I emphasize may, be in the offing. This technology […]

Next-Generation Biofuels: Field of Dreams, or Feasible?

The U.S. pinned a big part of its hopes for future transport fuel on cellulosic ethanol, something that doesn The upshot? There are no theoretical barriers, but a host of practical ones, the laboratory found in a study soon to be published in Bioresource Technology. Basically, cellulosic ethanol can

Oil depletion hastens green energy race

Dwindling oil reserves provide an opportunity for the country to become carbon-neutral, the opposition argue COPENHAGEN – The opposition is echoing calls from the Danish Energy Agency for the country to become entirely free of its fossil fuel dependency by 2050, reports Politiken newspaper. In a report released this week, the agency indicated that the […]

India depleting key water source, study finds

Researcher: Farming collapse and severe drinking water shortages possible NEW DELHI – Excessive irrigation and the unrelenting thirst of 114 million people are causing groundwater levels in northern India to drop dramatically, a problem that could lead to severe water shortages, according to a study released Wednesday. Levels have dropped as much as a foot […]

Automakers charged up over EVs … again

The race towards That

New problem for automakers: Not enough cars

It typically takes a month for factories to ramp up for a full-fledged sales revival, and automakers worry current levels of demand won’t last that long. Sales are usually dry in the early fall anyway, when the next model-year’s vehicles hit dealer lots and summer clearance sales end. MSNBC

Germany's first offshore wind farm starts working

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s first offshore wind power park, Alpha Venture in the North Sea, has begun the gradual commissioning of the first three of its total 12 turbines, a spokesman for the venture said on Wednesday. “I had information last night that the three have started running and full test production levels will be […]

U.S. court blocks plan to curb mountaintop mining

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. court on Wednesday blocked an attempt by the Obama administration to overturn a Bush administration rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump mountaintop debris into valley streams. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said that the Interior Department’s request to vacate the regulation […]

China signals long-term plans to control greenhouse gases

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will make “controlling greenhouse gas emissions” an important part of its development plans, the government said, blaming climate change for increasingly frequent weather disasters. China is now widely considered to be the world’s biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases from human activity stoking global warming, and it has faced continued pressure […]

BUY OR SELL: Should heavy crude cost as much as light?

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Heavy, sour crude has rallied against light, sweet crude in recent months, bringing grades like Mexico’s Maya and U.S. Mars sour into close range with light-sweet crudes, such as West Texas Intermediate. …Light/sweet crude normally fetches large premiums since it is easier to refine into prized light fuel. But high inventories […]

Oil refiners investment in complex plants backfires

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil firms that invested in complex refineries to process the most difficult crude and in theory generate big profits have inadvertently forced up the cost of feedstock, wrecking the economics of their plans, especially in Europe. An increase in the cost of high quality lighter crude, which began about seven years ago, […]

Mexico: Falling oil could greatly worsen recession

MEXICO CITY Mexico is the third-largest oil supplier to the United States but its reserves are drying up, and Petroleos Mexicanos has been slow to explore deep-water deposits. Even with the declines in output, oil revenues funded 40 percent of Mexico’s budget last year. The government protected oil income this year by hedging prices at […]

Inventories may distort oil prices, IEA says

Oil prices may repeat the swings seen in the first quarter as inventories of the benchmark U.S. West Texas Intermediate rise at a time of the year when they are normally depleted, the International Energy Agency said. Crude stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the New York Mercantile Exchange light sweet oil, registered […]

When oil becomes too expensive

That oil supplies will run out one day is inevitable. It doesn’t grow on trees. And new sources of the black stuff are proving too expensive to extract when each barrel is trading at less than $100. But once we’re out of recession, the price of oil can only go one way. Up. A long […]

Beijing to Triple Use of Renewable Energy by 2010

(Bloomberg) — Beijing, China China plans to invest at least 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion) to more than double its wind-power capacity by 2010 from last year. Beijing, whose population exceeds 17 million, will boost the use of renewable energy to 2.6 million metric tons of coal equivalent by next year and 7.2 million tons […]

Rising ocean acidity: 'The other carbon problem'

What happens if there’s no more “shell” in shellfish? A new documentary on Discovery’s Planet Green network, Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification (premiering Wednesday, 10:30 p.m. ET/PT, and repeating throughout the month), explores this and other questions related to ocean acidification, a little-known but potentially disastrous consequence of global warming. Known by […]

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