Time for Humanity to 'Grow Up' If Global Problems Are to Be Overcome

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug. 6 /PRNewswire/ — Times improved for most of the global community during the past 20 years, but the worldwide recession and climate change, among other issues, have cast a grim cloud over prospects for the coming decades, according to the 2009 State of the Future – the 13th annual Millennium Project […]

Higher oil prices boost Gulf fiscal outlook: study

DUBAI (AFP) “The strengthening in oil prices will be extremely positive for the hydrocarbon-dependant GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries, which will see high oil revenues,” EFG-Hermes investment bank said in a report received Monday by AFP. “We have revised upward our GCC macro forecasts in line with the changes in our oil price forecasts. The […]

Indonesia's Texas? Rural Java braces for oil boom

Few things seem to happen at speed in this sleepy Java town where rickshaws ply the streets. But this rural area of rice fields and teak forests is set to be transformed by Indonesia’s biggest oil find in years. Oil production could start to flow from the huge Cepu field straddling East and Central Java […]

China to unveil plan for 'new energy' by year-end

Coal-dependent China will unveil a plan to foster the development of “new energy” sources, including wind, solar and nuclear, by the end of this year, state media on Monday quoted a senior energy policy official as saying. Sun Qin, vice head of the National Energy Administration (NEA), told a forum in southern Guangzhou city that […]

Solar industry : "We are within 5-15 years of full competitiveness"

Last week, solar-industry experts at a symposium of the National Academies in Washington DC on the topic of scaling up the solar industry complained that the emphasis on finding new technologies was misplaced. Prof. Ken Zweibel, director of Solar Institute at the George Washington University, answers Scitizen’s questions.The meeting was about channeling public funding into […]

Portable solar power systems: Growing supply chain props up industry

China’s portable solar power systems segment is benefiting heavily from substantial investment in PV cells and related products. The latter is driven by the rapid growth of the worldwide solar power industry, which has registered more than 40 percent CAGR in the past 10 years. More importantly, it has resulted in a bustling support chain […]

Horn River Basin has natural gas producers envisioning another Barnett Shale

A spot in the Canadian wilderness is drawing comparisons to North Texas There

Crisis and climate force supply chain shift

Manufacturers are abandoning global supply chains for regional ones in a big shift brought about by the financial crisis and climate change concerns, according to executives and analysts. Companies are increasingly looking closer to home for their components, meaning that for their US or European operations they are more likely to use Mexico and eastern […]

Kurdish faultline threatens to spark new war

The only thing keeping Arabs and Kurds from fighting is the glue of US occupation It is called the “trigger line”, a 300-mile long swathe of disputed territory in northern Iraq where Arab and Kurdish soldiers confront each other, and which risks turning into a battlefield. As the world has focused on the US troop […]

Why commodity inflation won't go away in a hurry

… We are staring at Hubberts Peak (declining oil prices) here onwards. The Society of Petroleum Engineers (www.spe.org) endorses that view. So does the Association for study of peak oil (www.peakoil.net) and these are men and women who brave the elements to hunt for oil. Many myths have been floated by investment analysts — primary […]

Blurring the urban-rural line in Damascus (Oregon)

…The region’s growth regulators seeded the new city of Damascus on Thompson’s 77-acre farm. In Thompson’s vision, the city can be a place where urban development and agriculture entwine like his graceful marionberry canes. Part of the farm could be developed for housing, he suggests, while he continues to farm the better soil. The farm’s […]

You Say Tomato, I Say Agricultural Disaster

As we begin to grow more of our own food, we need to reacquaint ourselves with plant pathology and understand that what we grow, and how we grow it, affects everyone else. …So what But weather alone doesn

Clinton on oil mission to Angola

LUANDA (AFP) Clinton was going to Angola “to strengthen that relationship with one of Southern Africa?s emerging countries, a country which has enormous economic potential,” said Johnnie Carson, her top Africa aide. He dismissed talk of rivalry with China, saying that was a “Cold War paradigm.” China, hungry for resources to fuel its rapidly growing […]

UK: Do not discount the threat of peak oil

By Will Whitehorn and Jeremy Leggett Last week, the government published a review of the UK’s energy security situation. In a report commissioned by the prime minister, Malcolm Wicks, the former energy minister, pronounced that “there is no crisis”. His findings were in marked contrast to those of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil […]

Ecuador: Paying to keep oil in the ground

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa is often dismissed as a radical leftist. Such has been the response to his proposal that the world pay him not to extract oil from Yasuni National Park in the western Amazon. Yasuni is home to almost 850 million barrels of oil, or 20% of Ecuador’s reserves. A closer look at […]

'Enough oil to keep the crude culture going'

RIYADH: The global oil scene is not bleak as pundits are now coming round the assertion that there is enough oil beneath the surface to keep this crude civilisation moving. In recent weeks the Saudi crude production capacity has touched the 12 million barrels a day mark. This was achieved by carrying out developments at […]

Peak Oil for Dummies

Over the past decade, a fierce debate has emerged amongst energy experts about whether global oil production was about to reach a peak, followed by an irreversible decline. This event, commonly known as Nonetheless, geological limitations will disrupt this improbable scenario. In fact, a growing proportion of energy experts argue that Peak Oil is impending […]

Other Countries Ink Deals for Oil Drilling Off Florida Keys

While the debate about drilling off the coast of Florida continues in Washington and the state Legislature, several international companies are getting started on projects that could bring oil rigs within 60 miles of the Keys by year’s end. Companies from nations like Norway, Spain, India, China, Russia and Brazil have signed exploration agreements with […]

Scottish Agenda: North Sea oil still has a platform for success

Scotland Unfortunately the worst slump in global demand for oil since 1980, halving the oil price from $147.50 (

China: Where Poisoning People Is Almost Free

In addition to its cheap labor costs, China has another comparative advantage as the world’s factory: Companies often pay almost nothing to pollute China’s air, water and soil and to poison its people. Need pliant workers to handle toxic chemicals? Wages are just $2.60 a day. What if the chemicals contaminate a town? Compensating a […]

Wish you weren't here: The devastating effects of the new colonialists

A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, says Paul Vallely, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs To understand the impotent fury that provokes in […]

Shrimp Shells Could Produce Faster and Cheaper Biofuel

Scientists in China have developed a catalyst made from shrimp shells that they believe could transform the production of biodiesel fuel into a faster, less expensive more environmentally friendly process. Today’s biodiesel production processes, however, require catalysts to speed up the chemical reactions that transform soybean, canola, and other plant oils into diesel fuel.Traditional catalysts […]

Book review: Wilson's 'Julian Comstock'

Review of Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America By Robert Charles Wilson Robert Charles Wilson’s post peak-oil, post-technological collapse America is a vastly different nation from the one his readers know: ruled by a president elected by acclimation, it is a nation where class system is in effect, slavery is legal and Senate seats […]

Climate change: is population the problem?

We face a climate crisis and something needs to change. The world’s resources are finite, as is the amount of destruction humans can do to this planet if we are to survive. As such, there is a debate in the environment movement about whether or not curbing population is an essential part of the solution. […]

Oil prices climbing with economy

Rise belies usual laws of supply and demand as dollar gains strength. NEW YORK Energy prices usually rise with positive economic news. But crude has moved steadily higher even as the amount of oil placed into storage grows, an apparent exception to the traditional rules of supply and demand. Austin Statesman

No one ever went to war over a windmill

And yet there have been squabbles in the Middle East for decades about ownership of oil fields. Nigerian rebels use violence and sabotage to halt Shell and Chevron Peak oil pessimists fear that World War Three could erupt when countries begin to hoard their resources and bicker over ownership of oil-rich land. This is an […]

Why grow your own food?

Over the next several years food prices will increase sharply. These coming price increases are as unavoidable and inevitable as an increase in the price of oil. In fact the price we pay for food is interestingly and inextricably linked to the oil price, and this article will not only show how the two have […]

Panel gives mixed review to U.S. biofuel rules

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did a reasonable job in estimating the U.S. biofuel industry’s role in causing greenhouse gas emissions overseas, but some of the work was problematic, a scientific review panel concluded on Friday. EPA ordered the independent review in May, when it proposed regulations for expansion of U.S. biofuel […]

"Cash for clunkers" gets a $2 billion boost

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate approved and sent to the White House on Thursday a $2 billion extension of the “cash for clunkers” autos sales incentive program. The measure, approved by 60 to 37, extends the successful program that has raised sales of the U.S. auto industry. President Barack Obama was expected to sign […]

China starts building first 10-GW mega wind farm

JIUQUAN (Reuters) – China started construction of the country’s first 10-gigawa wind power base in Jiuquan of northwest Gansu province on Saturday as Beijing seeks more clean power to fuel its fast economic growth. China, the world’s second-largest energy user, has said it would bring its total wind power capacity to 100 GW by 2020 […]

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