Australian oil well to gush for nearly two months

A leaking Australian oil well is likely to pour oil into the Timor Sea for nearly two months before it can be stopped, the operator said on Sunday, as environmentalists expressed grave fears for rare wildlife. Rig operator PTTEP Australasia said it planned to drill a relief well and pour mud to stop the leak, […]

Europe's Saharan power plan: miracle or mirage?

A 400 billion euro ($774 billion) plan to power Europe with Sahara sunlight is gaining momentum, even as critics see high risks in a large corporate project using young technology in north African countries with weak rule of law. Desertec, as the initiative is called, would be the world’s most ambitious solar power project. Fields […]

New World Model — EROEI issues

When I published the results on The Oil Drum of my New World Model, based on World3 (the “Limits to Growth” model) – see here, many of the questions and issues that people had were around EROEI. So I’m writing this article to clarify how the model uses EROEI and the results in some alternative […]

Mexico's Declining Oil Production: Clarion Call for Cantarell

The eighth largest oil field in the world will be dead by the end of next year. Shall I repeat that, or did you get it the first time? Like the Time to Die Speech of Rutger Hauer at the end of Blade Runner, the Cantarell complex has surely seen its share of ocean storms, […]

Climate Change Requires Better Water Management, say experts

In Stockholm, Sweden, the annual World Water Week conference ended Friday with a strong call for protection of water resources. Participants endorsed a statement saying water must play a central role in UN climate change negotiations, known as COP-15, scheduled for Copenhagen in December. Cecelia Martinsen, director of World Water Week, says the conference is […]

Solar panel prices to slide into next year

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A steep fall in the price of solar panels has chipped away at manufacturers’ profits this year, and relief is unlikely to come soon, as many in the industry believe pressure will intensify and push prices even lower into 2010 and perhaps even 2011. Global demand for solar power soared last […]

Ghana Debates Viability of Biofuels

Africa is central to the worldwide growth in biofuels, with Dutch, American, Swedish, Japanese, German, and British firms all competing for farmland to grow the next generation of energy producing crops. Some farmers in Ghana are concerned about what biofuels mean for food security. Ghana has made itself a focal point of biofuel growth in […]

Gas prices steady despite oil surge

The average price of gas over the past two weeks was around $2.64 a gallon. Refiners in ‘limping mode’ as demand remains weak. (CNN) — Prices at the pump held steady over the past two weeks, leaving the nationwide average at $2.64 for a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline, according to a survey published Sunday. […]

Nigerian amnesty plan for oil militants falls flat

ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s latest plan to end militant attacks in the volatile Niger River delta that have cut oil production to a 20-year low appears to have collapsed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed the plan during a visit to Nigeria earlier this month, in hopes of bringing some semblance of peace to a […]

Is the world really running out of oil?

The press, and especially those in the Western hemisphere, seems obsessed with the idea of the world quickly running out of oil supplies. This is not a new phenomenon. For some time now, there have been no dearth of pundits clamoring and arguing that world oil supplies are coming to an end and that the […]

Wind farm debate splits property owners

Balancing rights with visual impact of wind turbines is issue in Wyoming GLENROCK, Wyo. – Richard Grant Jr.’s family has ranched Wyoming’s rugged granite-and-grass hills for generations, their 123-year-old ranch dotted with reminders of their long history As the nation’s demand for renewable energy grows, landowners and governments across the West are wrestling with how […]

Brazil develops fossil-fuel fever

The South American nation, long an alternative energy powerhouse, is pushing ahead to drill into a major off-shore oil field Brazil, long proud of its push to develop renewable energy and wean itself off oil, has a bad case of fossil-fuel fever. An enormous offshore field in territorial waters There has been virtually no public […]

In Japan, bikes now use battery power

Riders skip the sweat and gasoline fill-ups Chie Igawa is part of a trend that’s transforming Japan’s roads. The 36-year-old Tokyo homemaker zips her kids around on a battery-boosted bicycle without breaking a sweat or having to worry about traffic rules. Domestic sales of the bikes eclipsed those of scooters for the first time last […]

Could gas shortage happen again?

Few changes made in wake of last year’s crisis ASHEVILLE Some in the industry think it could happen again.

Nuclear Reactors the Lego Way

NuScale Power discusses how it can build a 1-gigawatt nuclear plant with an array of small reactors. And the power will be cheap. In nuclear, smaller is better, argues NuScale Power. The company Experts who reviewed NuScale’s passive water cooling system for the reactors declared that it was “exponentially safer” than traditional systems, said Bruce […]

Our Water Supply, Down the Drain

In the United States, we constantly fret about running out of oil. But we should be paying more attention to another limited natural resource: water. A water crisis is threatening many parts of the country — not just the arid West. In 2008, metro Atlanta (home to nearly 5 million people) came within 90 days […]

Peak Oil And The Generation Gap

Discussions of survival tactics in a post-oil world can be categorized in many ways: pessimistic and optimistic, pacific and militaristic, technophobic and technophilic. But a curious dividing line can be seen between older and younger speakers. The old tend to think of little more than their bank accounts, often to the point of dismissing all […]

Timid oil giants hand back their cash

The world Exxon, BP, Shell, Conoco Phillips, Total and Chevron have in the past 18 months, according to figures compiled by the investment bank Jefferies Broadview, spent $75 billion on share buybacks, which are designed to prop up share prices by reducing the amount traded in the market. That comes on top of $54 billion […]

The vegetable gardeners of Havana

…Cuba exchanged its abundant produce for cheap, imported subsidised oil from the old Eastern Bloc. In fact, oil was so cheap, Cuba pursued a highly industrialised fuel-thirsty form of agriculture – not so different from the kind of farming we see in much of the West today. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, […]

Gulf Coast vulnerable as refiners hit hard times

The Gulf Coast could be the biggest loser in a shakeout of the U.S. refining business that some analysts and industry executives view as inevitable in coming years as rising costs and weaker demand for petroleum fuels pummel the industry. The region is especially vulnerable not only because it has more plants than other areas […]

Kurt Cobb: The show must go on

…So quickly is Lake Mead falling that an intake pipe which supplies 40 percent of Las Vegas’ water may emerge above the lake’s surface by 2012. The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) is working furiously to lay pipe for a new intake that will assure continued supplies should the lake fall below the current intake […]

Climate change: Now Uganda faces a food shortage crisis

With famine still raging on, analysts warn that the government needs to work out a plan on how to let farmers know about the predicted weather if the population is to be assured of constant food supply. Saturday Monitor’s Jenny Vaughan explores the idea: Ms Victoria Kakoko Ssebagereka has lost her entire crop. In July […]

Bangladesh unveils plan to end power crisis

DHAKA …Years of under-investment have meant state-owned power plants generate only around 4,000 megawatts of electricity a day but demand is 6,000 megawatts and growing at 500 megawatts a year due to increasing industrialisation. Kabir said most of the power would be generated by coal and diesel and furnace fuel, ending the country’s long reliance […]

Saudi raises oil output to benefit from prices

Saudi Arabia boosted its oil production by 144,000 barrels per day (bpd) in June apparently to net higher revenue after crude prices climbed by more than $10 a barrel, official figures showed yesterday. Kuwait increased its production by 30,000 bpd, while Iran cut supplies by 30,000 bpd and the UAE gave no figures for its […]

Review of Cleveland rainfall records indicates climate change has arrived

A climate change storm isn’t coming. It’s already here. That’s the conclusion drawn by some climate scientists — and supported by an independent analysis of National Weather Service rainfall records by The Plain Dealer. The rainfall records reveal an increasing number of days each year with heavy storms — those quick, violent bursts that drop […]

Shipping giant feeling effects of recession

Danish container-shipping, oil and gas, tanker and retail giant AP Moller-Maersk said yesterday the economic crisis had a severe negative impact on its business in the first half of 2009. The group, whose oil and gas division is strongly represented in Aberdeen, from where it runs its UK North Sea business, said container-shipping freight rates […]

Mexico senator eyes deal with Brazil's Petrobras

MEXICO CITY, Aug 22 (Reuters) – An alliance between Mexican oil monopoly Pemex and Brazil’s Petrobras would be an “important and fundamental” way to help boost Mexico’s flagging output, a ruling party senator said in a newspaper report published on Saturday. Last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said during a trip to Brazil he was […]

Honda to unveil electric car in U.S. by 2015: report

TOKYO (Reuters) – Honda Motor Co Ltd plans to develop an electric car to debut in the U.S. market by around 2015 as tighter environmental regulations push demand for zero-emission vehicles, the Nikkei newspaper said on Saturday. A spokesperson for the company, Japan’s No. 2 automaker, said it was developing an electric car but had […]

Nigeria rebel group to resume attacks, ends talks

YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigeria’s main rebel group said on Saturday it would resume attacks against Africa’s biggest energy industry next month, overshadowing the surrender of hundreds of arms by rebels in a federal amnesty program. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), responsible for attacks that have wrought havoc on the […]

Peak oil review – Aug 17 by Tom Whipple

1. Production and prices 2. Is China really Recovering? 3. Mexico 4. Briefs 1. Production and prices Since the beginning of August oil has hovered around $70 a barrel as the markets tried to decide whether the prospects for an imminent economic rebound trumped weak global demand. On Friday the pattern was broken when new […]

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