Woody plants adapted to past climate change more slowly than herbs

If past is prelude, trees and shrubs may have a harder time keeping pace with global warming. Durham, NC Because woody plants have longer reproductive cycles, they also tend to accumulate genetic changes at slower rates, prior research shows. “If genetic mutations build up every generation, then in 1000 years you would expect plants with […]

The population delusion

Overpopulation is often singled out as the planet’s root problem. If only it were that simple. Leading thinkers on population can’t agree on what the answers New Scientist

Senate blocks bid to keep offshore drilling policy

WASHINGTON Last year, with gasoline prices soaring, Republicans sought political momentum by advocating new offshore drilling. “Remember last summer where almost all of America said, ‘This is ridiculous, drill here, drill now. Let’s use our own resources and not be held captive to foreign interests,’” Vitter said. “Do you remember that?” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar […]

Canada Acquires Subs To Chart Arctic Claims

The Canadian government has taken delivery of two remote-controlled submarines that will be used to document its territorial claims in the Arctic. “Canada is the first country in the world to use this type of technology” to map the Arctic, John Weston, a member of parliament, said at a ceremony in Vancouver Tuesday marking the […]

AONE IPO charges car battery market

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Shares of A123 Systems, one of just a handful of U.S.-based makers of batteries for electric cars, debuted sharply higher from its offering price Thursday as investors cheered the closely watched firm. A123’s stock, which now trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol AONE (AONE), surged as high as $19.26 […]

El Nino shift could boost hurricanes, droughts: study

PARIS (AFP) Such is the case with the current El Nino, which is likely to remain in place well into next year, the World Meteorological Organisation said last month. El Nino disrupts weather patterns around the world, causing drought in Indonesia, Australia, India and eastern Brazil, and unusually heavy rainfall in the US Gulf Coast […]

John Michael Greer: Why Economists Fail

…Economists are not, by and large, stupid people. Those who work in some of the less glamorous subsets of the field have worked out a great many useful tools for businesses and individuals, and the level of mathematical skill to be found among today First of all, for professional economists, being wrong is much more […]

Oxy oil discovery could spark new interest in California's energy potential

The biggest find in the state in 35 years, somewhere in Kern County, could herald new exploration in California and the U.S., experts say. But some worry it could lead to a false sense of security. A few years ago, Occidental Petroleum Corp. executive Stephen I. Chazen sounded like a cryptologist out of a Dan […]

New doomsday map shows planet's dire state

Human activities have already pushed the Earth beyond three of the planet’s biophysical thresholds, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world, conclude 29 European, Australian and U.S. scientists in an article in Nature. This force has given rise to a new era – Anthropocene – in which human […]

Global Oil Companies Cut Fuel Shipments to Iran, WSJ Reports

(Bloomberg) — Oil companies have reduced fuel exports to Iran as the Middle Eastern country may face sanctions because of its nuclear program, the Wall Street Journal said, citing traders it didn President Barack Obama said yesterday Iran may face new sanctions if it doesn

Putin urges foreign investors to tap gas fields

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday invited foreign investors to develop a huge untapped gas region in Siberia and indicated that the state could provide tax breaks for projects there. Putin chaired a meeting with government officials and foreign investors in Salekhard, courting investors to work in the Yamal peninsula which is thought to contain […]

Natural disasters displacing millions: U.N. study

Floods, storms, drought and other climate-related natural disasters drove 20 million people from their homes last year, nearly four times as many as were displaced by conflicts, a new U.N. report said Tuesday. The study tried to quantify for the first time the number of people forced to flee their homes because of climate change.Global […]

Spain's Answer to Unemployment: Go Greener

As world leaders converge in Pittsburgh for a major economic summit this week, one of the biggest questions they face is this: How do you begin to replace the millions of jobs destroyed by the Great Recession, now that the worst of the crisis has potentially passed? Here on the sun-drenched and windy Iberian Peninsula, […]

Bringing Solar Power to Africa's Poor

Politicians from 11 southern African countries gathered in Maputo, Mozambique, over the weekend to examine how to address climate change issues without reducing access to energy. Off-grid solar is seen as one of the continent’s strongest options, capitalizing on Africa’s abundant sunlight without the need to invest in expensive grid networks.Lawmakers and renewable energy experts […]

What Was Missing from Obama

President Obama dedicated the first part of his talk to a recital of what his administration has done to make the U.S. a cleaner-energy economy. He cited renewable energy, wind power, solar panels, hybrid cars, energy-efficient buildings, offshore wind power, new fuel-economy standards for cars, and work on clean coal. He did not mention nuclear […]

German army stops wind turbines as security threat

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German army has identified a series of wind park projects as a threat to national security and blocked investments worth 1.5 billion euros because it fears spinning wind turbines will interfere with its radar systems. The Bundeswehr has launched an investigation into the impact of the wind turbines planned for northern […]

U.N. climate summit dims hopes for Copenhagen pact

OSLO/LONDON (Reuters) – A summit of world leaders has dimmed hopes for a strong new U.N. climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen in December, with details looking ever more likely to be left for 2010. But climate change experts and observers also refused to focus on the negative, noting that many countries […]

High-tech materials may boost geothermal appeal

RICHLAND, Wash. — New nanomaterials could provide the boost in efficiency needed to make heat beneath the earth’s surface a practical source to generate nearly pollution-free electricity if research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory proves out. Geothermal resources largely fell out of favor in the early ’80s for power generation when few places proved to […]

Judge overturns OK of Roundup Ready beets

USDA criticized over how genetically engineered product might spread GRANTS PASS, Ore. – A federal judge overturned government approval of a variety of sugar beet genetically engineered to resist a popular weed killer produced by agricultural giant Monsanto, according to a ruling released Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco found the U.S. […]

Are Biofuels Ready for a Comeback?

Biofuels typically get a lot of attention as gas prices go up in the summer driving season. This year was different. After the love affair with biofuels throughout 2006 and the bitter attack on biofuels in late 2007 and 2008, there was a general slowdown in interest from the press moving into 2009. As oil […]

Oil Industry Sets a Brisk Pace of New Discoveries

The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement across the petroleum sector, despite falling prices and a tough economy. These discoveries, spanning five continents, are the result of hefty investments that began earlier in the decade when oil […]

2008 oil reserve replacement lags production: study

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Global oil and natural gas reserve replacement fell to 88 percent of production in 2008, despite a 23 percent increase in development spending in that year, according to a study released on Wednesday. That was the first year since 2004 when global production was not replaced, according to the study done by […]

China deal boosts speculation in oil sands juniors

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Shares in a handful of small companies active in Canada’s oil sands have been whipped up in frenzy speculative trading for more than a week based on little more than hope that foreign buyers may be interested in them. Shares of Opti Canada Inc (OPC.TO), UTS Energy Corp (UTS.TO), Ivanhoe Energy […]

Asheville to lead goal of averting another gas crisis

ASHEVILLE This time last year, hurricanes shut down fuel flow from the Gulf of Mexico, raising gas prices to more than $4 a gallon and causing the worst shortage in the Southeast since the 1970s. The biggest problem was that the region gets almost all its fuel from the Colonial Pipeline, whose closest terminal is […]

Chesapeake says $4 natgas too low to grow output

GREENWICH, Conn. (Reuters) – U.S. natural gas prices will have to move higher to spur a resurgence in drilling activity and keep output of the fuel steady, the head of Chesapeake Energy Corp said on Wednesday. The weak U.S. economy has knocked natural gas prices sharply lower in the past 14 months, and sluggish demand […]

NASA data: Greenland, Antarctic ice melt worsening

WASHINGTON Some of those areas are about a mile thick, so they’ve still got plenty of ice to burn through. But the drop in thickness is speeding up. In parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003. These new measurements, […]

Burgan, fabled Kuwait oil field in irreversible decline with high water cut

Production from the world’s second-largest oil field may decline without the help of international oil companies. Kuwait, which produces 2.2 million bbl/day, has failed to renew agreements with several international oil companies including BP and Chevron. The Burgan, second in size only to Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, has an estimated capacity of 1.4-1.5 million bbl/day. […]

German Nuclear Plants

(Bloomberg) — Angela Seidler, a 41-year-old tour guide at E.ON AG Seidler works at one of Germany

China firms selling fuel to Iran as U.S. sanctions loom

BEIJING/LONDON (Reuters) Iran is the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter but imports up to 40 percent of its gasoline as it lacks the refining capacity to meet domestic demand. State-run Chinese firm Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, the world’s largest Iranian crude buyer by company and among the first to heed Tehran’s call to pay in euros instead […]

Dust Storm Blankets Sydney as Drought Bites

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A huge outback dust storm swept eastern Australia and blanketed Sydney on Wednesday, disrupting transport, forcing people indoors and stripping thousands of tonnes of valuable farmland topsoil. The dust blacked out the outback town of Broken Hill on Tuesday, forcing a zinc mine to shut down, and swept 1,167 km (725 miles) […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy