How much oil do Opec countries really have?

World over, oil is a major source of energy. But naysayers predict it maybe not too long before we run out of this all-important fuel. However, since the mid-80s, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) has been acting as a swing oil producer of the world. Meaning, Opec produces only that much as to […]

Kunstler: Hunky Dory

…Too many disastrous things are lined up in the months ahead to insure that we’re entering a new phase of history: The Long Emergency. Government at every level is worse than broke. Our currency, the US dollar, is hemmorrhaging legitimacy. Inability to service old debt at all levels or incur new debt. Bad (toxic) debt […]

Oil: Speculating on higher prices

News from China and Washington could send the price of crude higher down the road. NEW YORK (Fortune) — Oil prices hit their highest level in a month Monday on hopes that the U.S. economy was finally on the road to recovery. Still, that recovery is taking a lot longer than oil traders had hoped. […]

Solar Industry: No Breakthroughs Needed

The solar industry says incremental advances have made transformational technologies unnecessary. The federal government is behind the times when it comes to making decisions about advancing the solar industry, according to several solar-industry experts. This has led, they argue, to a misplaced emphasis on research into futuristic new technologies, rather than support for scaling up […]

Black Swans and Plug-in Cars

Last year the global credit crunch and its knock-on effects precipitated the sharpest oil and gas price declines in over two decades. Despite the recent $100+/ Bbl price implosion and subsequent partial recovery, we have now entered an historic inflection point—call it “practical peak oil”—in the global balance of conventional energy supplies due to: 1) […]

Saudi Arabia to see 'small' budget deficit this year

A surge in spending will ally with a sharp decline in oil export earnings to plunge Saudi Arabia into a fiscal deficit in 2009 for the first time in seven years but the shortfall will be easily managed, independent estimates showed yesterday. As the actual shortfall could be as low as four per cent of […]

OPEC

(Bloomberg) — The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries increased oil output for a fourth month in July, with quota compliance slipping as some members took advantage of strong prices, a Bloomberg News survey showed. Oil output averaged 28.39 million barrels a day last month, up 45,000 from June, according to the survey of oil companies, […]

Report: Calif. should gird for heat, rising sea

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Even if the world is successful in cutting carbon emissions in the future, California needs to start preparing for rising sea levels, hotter weather and other effects of climate change, a new state report recommends. It encourages local communities to rethink future development in low-lying coastal areas, reinforce levees that protect flood-prone […]

Aviation industry prepares biofuels for take off

Dr Alan H Epstein, vice president technology and environment at aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney explains how the industry is shaking off its tag of environmental pariahBusinessGreen.com: As vice president technology and environment at one of the world’s largest developers of aviation engines, you must be well used to the charge that the sector […]

Sahara desert goes green, thanks to warming

Scientists are now seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall, all thanks to the rising temperatures due to climate change. According to National Geographic News, these rains could revitalize drought-ravaged regions, reclaiming them for farming communities.This trend is supported by climate models, which predict a return to […]

New El Nino threatens world with weather woe

A new El Nino has begun. The sporadic Pacific Ocean warming, which can disrupt weather patterns across the world, is intensifying, say meteorologists. So, over the next few months, there may be increased drought in Africa, India and Australia, heavier rainfall in South America and increased extremes in Britain, of warm and cold. It may […]

Shell Australia Chairman: Rapid Energy Demand Growth To Resume

Shell Australia Chairman Russell Caplan said Monday rapid growth in energy demand will resume as economic conditions improve and that supply will struggle to keep pace. “In the future, energy demand will resume a rapid pace of growth,” he said in the notes of a speech to be delivered to the Committee for Economic Development […]

Bitter Cost of Replacing Oil Reserves

Imagine an urn filled with good, strong coffee. As you pour cup after cup from the tap at the bottom, you simultaneously refill it at the top with weak, watery stuff. After a while, your supply is as full as ever, but it just doesn’t deliver quite the same kick. The oil majors face a […]

Little Keeps Nigeria From a Crisis of Hunger

The nation blessed with Africa’s largest oil reserves and some of its most fertile lands has a problem. It cannot feed its 140 million people, and relatively minor reductions in rainfall could set off a regional food catastrophe, experts say. Nigeria was a major agricultural exporter before oil was discovered off its coast in the […]

Australia: Climate threat to heritage sites

The Federal Government has warned that Australian icons such as the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park, the Tasmanian wilderness, Carlton Gardens and the Sydney Opera House could be damaged irreparably if the Coalition fails to support Labor’s emissions trading scheme. Less than two weeks before a Senate vote on the Government’s climate change legislation, […]

Biodiesel: Next big thing in Malaysia

“Malaysia Truly Asia” is probably the most recognized national slogan in the marketing world of tourism. But Malaysia is also known for something else that not only benefits their national agenda but can also help with the environment. “Biodiesel has a very promising prospect for the future as an alternative energy source and it’s renewable,” […]

Asian giants put the West's targets for solar energy in the shade

For years India and China have been cast in the West as the biggest obstacles to international agreement on how to tackle climate change. Now the two emerging economic giants of Asia have challenged the West to match their bold plans to develop solar power. India’s unveiling of a National Solar Mission comes soon after […]

College students are flocking to sustainability degrees, careers

Students interested in pursuing a job in sustainability now can choose from a variety of “green” degree programs. With an increased interest in the environment and growth in the “green collar” job sector, colleges and universities are beginning to incorporate sustainability into their programs. From MBAs in sustainable-business practices to programs that give students the […]

U.S. Weighs Cutting Off Iran

The Obama administration is talking with allies and Congress about the possibility of imposing an extreme economic sanction against Iran if it fails to respond to President Obama In a visit to Israel last week, Mr. Obama

The Food, Energy and Environment

At the 2009 Bio World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology, held in Montreal last week, industry players and scientists found themselves pondering two seemingly contradictory concerns. One focused on how rapid advances in genetic engineering and biotechnology can expand the market for cellulosic ethanol and other The other involved the problem of ensuring that exponential growth […]

Gas shortages grow at Calgary stations

A number of Calgary motorists trying to fuel up found themselves running on fumes as temporary shortages continued to plague gas stations across the city Saturday. Filling up the tank became a game of chance for many drivers. Several stations were completely out of fuel, while others were out of certain grades of gas. Lineups […]

Questar President: Natural Gas is Abundant

KAYSVILLE — During the height of the energy crisis in the 1970s, then-President Jimmy Carter projected the United States would exhaust its natural gas supply by 1991. What Carter did not take into account is the advancement in technology that would be made in directional drilling in drawing those natural resources from the earth, said […]

US Energy Consumption – What Does It All Mean?

If the US had not out-sourced a big chunk of its manufacturing base to Asia over the last 30 years, industry sector energy consumption history – indicated by the green line presently hovering around the 30 Quadrillion Btu’s per-year mark – would be tracking, now, closer to 40. How will industrial energy consumption shift between […]

Jeremy Leggett: Another crunch is coming

There is one major similarity between the energy crisis and the financial crisis and one main difference. These two things tell us a lot about the role of cultures in how our modern version of capitalism plays out. The similarity is that we are dealing with two massive global industries who have their asset assessment […]

Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast

Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world’s top energy economist The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned. Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid […]

Clunker trade-ins to boost July auto sales

DETROIT (Reuters) – The punishing four-year decline in U.S. auto sales may have reached a turning point this week — just as Michael Papa handed over the keys to his 1996 Ford Explorer for a government-sponsored trade-in. Papa, a Detroit-area restaurant owner, and thousands of other Americans took advantage of the U.S. government’s “Cash for […]

Iraq oil sector sees militant attacks fall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Attacks on Iraqi pipelines and other oil facilities have dropped sharply, a top security official said, boding well for the safety of foreign firms wading into Iraq’s rich but risky oil sector. The Iraqi oil sector has fallen prey to repeated attack over six years of chaos and insurgency since U.S.-led soldiers […]

Andrew McKillop: Making world cities sustainable

We can be sure that cities, defined as relatively dense and large human settlements, have existed for at least 8,000 years. Uruk for example, probably dating from 5,500 BC, extended over at least 6 square kilometres and probably attained 50,000 to 75,000 population … today’s population of what remains of Uruk, or Ur, is low […]

A Quest for Batteries to Alter the Energy Equation

ALLENTOWN, Pa. This summer the Obama administration plans to announce how it will distribute some $2 billion in stimulus grants to companies that make such advanced batteries for hybrid or all-electric vehicles and related components. International Battery is vying for a modest chunk of it. The hope is that the grants will spur far higher […]

What

Joseph Chamie, whom I interviewed early on here about the population Without more of a focus on the implications of immigration policy for population, there could be 600 million Americans by 2100, he writes. Depending on whom you talk to, that is a boon or a disaster. Mr. Chamie notes that the relatively enormous thirst […]

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