UK: Government unveils high-speed rail plan to ground short flights

The government has made the demise of domestic air travel an explicit policy target for the first time by aiming to replace short-haul flights with a new 250mph high-speed rail network. The transport secretary, Lord Adonis, said switching 46 million domestic air passengers a year to a multibillion-pound north-south rail line was “manifestly in the […]

Limits on Speculative Trading Needed to Protect Energy Markets: U.S. Regulator

The chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Wednesday that the agency wanted to impose new restrictions on so-called speculative traders, not to reduce price volatility but to prevent the energy markets from being dominated by a few huge investment funds. “I believe that at the core of promoting market integrity is ensuring […]

Oil Prices to Heat Up Slowly

Lord Abbett says that a global recovery wouldn’t cause prices to rocket. OIL PRICES, though much less frightening than they were a year ago, have nonetheless shown enough volatility of late to feed the zeal of both the energy bulls and the energy bears. With good prospects for a global economic recovery over the next […]

Carbon Intensity of Algae Biofuels

I just read your article on growing algae to produce bio-diesel. I was wondering about the relative amounts of CO2 input/output, i.e. has anyone done the math to figure out how much CO2 algae take in to produce a gallon of diesel fuel, compared to the amount of CO2 produced when that same gallon is […]

Knocking peak oil

We And above all, it

The Economic Importance of Peak Oil

Why a Shift to Alternate Energy is Critical Oil is an essential component to the economy; it runs vehicles and machinery, is a key source of energy, and is the basis of many products derived from petrochemicals including medications, synthetic rubber, plastics, fertilisers and pesticides, and bitumen. Oil is so essential, in fact, that a […]

'Cash for clunkers' effect on pollution? A blip

Climate experts aren’t impressed with program’s carbon dioxide policy WASHINGTON – “Cash for clunkers” could have the same effect on global warming pollution as shutting down the entire country Compared to overall carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, the pollution savings from cash for clunkers do not noticeably move the fuel gauge. Environmental experts […]

Florida Bay's ecology on the brink of collapse

Man’s push to develop South Florida is slowly killing the bay ISLAMORADA, Florida – Boat captain Tad Burke looks out over Florida Bay and sees an ecosystem that’s dying as politicians, land owners and environmentalists bicker. He has been plying these waters for nearly 25 years, and has seen the declines in shrimp and lobster […]

U.S. awards $600 million in car battery grants

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Companies working with Ford Motor Co, Chrysler Group and General Motors Corp received more than $600 million on Wednesday to further development of batteries for hybrids and electric cars. The awards were part of $2.4 billion in grants being announced by the Obama administration as part of its “green” economy vision and […]

Nigeria oil rebels amnesty offer starts Thursday

BUJA (Reuters) – Niger Delta militants are expected to start turning in their arms at collection centers on Thursday when an unconditional pardon offered by President Umaru Yar’Adua begins, the amnesty committee said. Yar’Adua offered a 60-day amnesty to gunmen on June 24, in an effort to stem unrest in the oil-producing delta region which […]

Keeping Their Eggs in Their Backyard Nests

As Americans struggle through a dismal recession, many are trying to safeguard themselves from what they fear will be even worse times ahead. They eat out less often. They take vacations closer to home. They put off buying new cars. And some raise chickens. Lloyd Romriell, a married father of four in Annis, Idaho, recently […]

Former Enron trader calls for setting commodities limits

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — A former Enron trader who now manages one of the world’s biggest energy hedge funds said Wednesday he supports strict limits on financial investors’ trading in commodities futures, backing a view held by some policymakers upset over surging oil prices. Testifying at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s last of three hearings […]

Review: Blackout by Richard Heinberg

Richard Heinberg And yet, my mind still isn

Oil's more distant future

THE credible forecast of $US200 oil and the latest trade figures provided an important and instructive footnote to the Reserve Bank’s formal abandonment of the ‘Rory clause’. Apart from, that’s the oil price forecast, carrying an ominous but confusingly complicated message on petrol prices – fortunately, five years or more into the future. If correct, […]

Study Finds Rich U.S. Energy-Efficiency Potential

The potential for energy-efficiency improvements throughout the U.S. economy is huge and entirely within reach if annual investments increase fivefold, according to a new McKinsey & Company report. The global consulting firm estimates that $520 billion in investments would reduce U.S. non-transportation energy usage by 9.1 quadrillion BTUs by 2020 – roughly 23 percent of […]

1930s home goes green

A 1930s house built in 2008 is about to undergo the first of three energy efficiency upgrades which will ultimately convert an energy inefficient house into a zero carbon home designed to meet the Government The house was designed as a typical 1930s semi

Australia: Risky price for energy exportation

The Federal government is soon to release a report on the nation GREG HOY, REPORTER: Flick of a switch: power. But now producing 255 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year to power Australia. The nation’s power stations are under increasing pressure – most are ageing, many heavily in debt and 84 per cent coal-fired. […]

Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development

…There is considerable debate about many aspects of the peak oil theory: whether oil production will follow a symmetrical bell curve or an extended & bumpy plateau, whether the peak will correspond to the halfway point in consumption, and (most contentious of all) when the peak/plateau will occur. However, there seems to be a growing […]

Future of electric cars needs juice

In Japan and the U.S., the plan for battery-powered autos is throwing off sparks as they move closer to production. NEW YORK (Fortune) — While the U.S. auto industry celebrates the impact of the government’s cash for clunkers program on July sales, two events separated by thousands of miles should give pause to those whose […]

Foreign Investors Snap Up African Farmland

Governments and investment funds are buying up farmland in Africa and Asia to grow food — a profitable business, with a growing global population and rapidly rising prices. The high-stakes game of real-life Monopoly is leading to a modern colonialism to which many poor countries submit out of necessity. Every crisis has its winners. A […]

Malaysia's top palm oil state sees lower July output

Malaysia’s top palm oil state of Sabah will see output in July falling up to 15 percent because of biological tree stress, potentially cutting into stocks and forcing big buyer China to source more palm oil from Indonesia. Located on the eastern side of Borneo island, Sabah accounts for nearly a third of Malaysia’s total […]

The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction – Part I

Nuclear fission energy is considered anywhere between the holy grail, that can solve all energy worries of the human industrialized civilization, and a fast path directly to hell. Discussions about future energy sources and the possible contribution from nuclear energy are often tainted and dominated by irrational expectations and fears. As a consequence, very little […]

Nigeria: Niger Delta Crisis Hits External Reserves

Finally, the chicken is coming home to roost. The Niger Delta crisis – which has dealt a heavy blow to Nigeria’s oil income and crude production – is finally threatening to consume the country’s foreign reserves which had been the saving grace in the current global financial meltdown. With Nigeria now losing an average of […]

Vestas wins order to repossess plant

The owners of a wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight won a repossession order today in their attempt to end an occupation of the plant by workers protesting at planned job losses. A judge at Newport county court granted the order after environmental activists staged a protest at a second wind turbine factory […]

Kenya Reaps The Wind

From a distance the highlands look like a giant fist resting on the landscape, a series of knuckles forming the peaks of the Ngong Hills. From the top of the escarpment Kenya’s capital Nairobi spreads out to the east, the breathtaking Great Rift Valley to the west. Every afternoon the gentle morning breeze that sweeps […]

India sets out ambitious solar power plan to be paid for by rich nations

India has decided to push ahead with a vastly ambitious plan to tap the power of the sun to generate clean electricity, and after a meeting chaired by the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, it wants rich nations to pay the bill. Although India has virtually no solar power now, the plan envisages the country generating […]

Exxon Additive Fouled New York Groundwater, Jury Told

(Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp. used a gasoline additive it knew would poison groundwater, a lawyer told jurors at the start of a trial in which New York City seeks millions of dollars plus punitive damages from the biggest U.S. oil company. The use of the chemical MTBE to reduce air pollution contaminated water in […]

US players sink dollars in Marcellus

The global recession and low energy prices put the brakes on a lot natural gas exploration, but Anadarko Petroleum and Chesapeake Energy are sinking dollars into the Marcellus shale, the companies said on today. The Marcellus shale, in the northeastern US in parts of Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia, is said to contain enough […]

Q&A: 'Time to De-Grow'

BUCHAREST (IPS) – Serge Latouche, professor emeritus of economic science at the University of Paris-Sud, is one of the main proponents of “the society of de-growth”. He calls for “abandoning the objective of growth for growth’s sake, an insane objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment.” The need for a ‘de-growth’ society stems from the […]

Petrobras Says

(Bloomberg) — Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil The company, known as Petrobras, recorded average output in the first six months of 1.958 million barrels a day after maintenance shutdowns, and Credit Suisse said on July 20 the full-year target is

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