Next Stage on Iran Could Hold Real Peril

LONDON

Pentagon Developing Options to Deal With Iranian Nuclear Program

The United States’ top military officer says the Pentagon must be ready with military options against Iran’s nuclear program in the event the president calls for them. In a document outlining U.S. military assessments and priorities, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said he believes diplomacy offers the best chance […]

Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power

AMBOY, Calif. Developers of the projects have already postponed several proposals or abandoned them entirely. The California agency charged with planning a renewable energy transmission grid has rerouted proposed power lines to avoid the monument. NY Times

Alaska coast erosion threat to oil, wildlife

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A portion of Alaska’s North Slope coastline is eroding at a rate of up to 45 feet (14 meters) a year, posing a threat to oil operations and wildlife in the area, according to a new report issued by scientists at the University of Colorado. The scientists studied coastline midway between […]

US Military Aggression against Venezuela escalating

Caracas On Thursday, President Ch

Japan eyes methane hydrate as energy savior

TOKYO – Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, may have found a way to reduce its almost total dependence on other countries for the oil that drives the industries on which the country’s wealth is built. Betting that Japan can extract and commercially exploit methane hydrate, the hoped-for alternative to oil, investors last week drove up […]

Pricing Crude Oil in "Gulfos"? In Their Dreams

A bloc of oil producing countries led by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others (not OPEC; for some reason they left out Dubai) reported preliminary steps to establish a regional currency: The This is a region of the world strife with tribal mistrust, border skirmishes, oil production quota breaking, and no institutionalized or constitutional outline for […]

The 10 Countries With The Most Dwindling Oil Production

Global oil production saw a 0.4% increase in 2008, according to the 2009 BP Statistical Review of World Energy. But while the overall industry saw a rise in production, several countries saw oil production sink considerably. As the threat of Peak Oil continues to rise, the areas of the world that are running low are […]

NIWA says greenhouse gas methane on the rise again

The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is rising, according to measurements made by NIWA. NIWA has today released measurements from its globally significant Baring Head station showing that southern hemisphere atmospheric methane increased by 0.7% over the two-year period 2007 This is significant in that it follows a three-year period of no growth, and […]

Owning the climate: Will geoengineering help combat climate change?

That’s in part because the “Conference of Parties” negotiations have taken so long. After 17 years, the basic issues remain to be addressed, and overall emissions have grown since 2000 “Geoengineering is plan B,” says oceanographer John Shepherd of the U.K’s Royal Society of plans to deliberately tinker with the planet’s climate. “It’s not to […]

Europe's Flora Is Becoming Impoverished

With increasing species richness, due to more plant introductions than extinctions, plant communities of many European regions are becoming more homogeneous. The same species are occurring more frequently, whereas rare species are becoming extinct. It is not only the biological communities that are becoming increasingly similar, but also the phylogenetic relations between regions. These processes […]

Valuable, Rare, Raw Earth Materials Extracted from Industrial Waste Stream

Researchers from Leeds’ Faculty of Engineering have discovered how to recover significant quantities of rare-earth oxides, present in titanium dioxide minerals. The rare-earth oxides, which are indispensable for the manufacture of wind turbines, energy-efficient lighting, and hybrid and electric cars, are extracted or reclaimed simply and cheaply from the waste materials of another industrial process. […]

Fewer Migratory Birds in Dutch Woods Due to Climate Change

All insect-eating migratory birds who winter in Africa and breed in the Dutch woods have decreased in numbers since 1984. This has been revealed by research conducted by the University of Groningen, the SOVON Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology, Statistics Netherlands (CBS), Radboud University Nijmegen and Alterra, published on 16 December in the Proceedings of […]

Sierra Club's Pro-Gas Dilemma

When energy companies began preparations to drill for natural gas in upstate New York last year, the local Sierra Club quickly organized against them. The group’s New York chapter demanded studies on the environmental risks, pushed for stricter regulations and called for a statewide ban on most gas drilling. The drilling hasn’t begun as the […]

Kurt Cobb: Technology will save us…or not

Technology will save us–it’s the mantra heard around the world when it comes to climate change, fossil fuel depletion, and myriad other environmental and resource challenges. But, that mantra rarely comes with the proviso that technology often has unintended and even perverse consequences. “Yes, yes,” you will say, “we know that.” Then, why, may I […]

Total

(Bloomberg) — Total SA, Europe The Paris-based company has made shale-gas deposits a priority to fill a development gap, de Margerie has said. Total is struggling to counter falling production as OPEC limits oil production to support prices. Total is also seeking to sell refineries in Europe as the economic crisis and energy-saving policies cut […]

Oilwatch Monthly December 2009

Latest Developments: 1) Conventional crude production – Latest figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that crude oil production including lease condensates increased by 261,000 b/d from August to September 2009, resulting in total production of crude oil including lease condensates of 72.59 million b/d. 2) Total liquid fuels production – In November 2009, […]

Green Giant

Beijing In the years that followed, the government pumped billions of dollars into labs and universities and enterprises, on projects ranging from cloning to underwater robots. Then, in 2001, Chinese officials abruptly expanded one program in particular: energy technology. The reasons were clear. Once the largest oil exporter in East Asia, China was now adding […]

Kunstler: Blue Christmas

… The infatuation with technology, and the disgusting cockiness that goes with it (so well-captured in Avatar), is but one facet of the psychosis gripping the nation — and by that I mean the profound detachment from reality. We have no idea what is happening to us and, naturally, no idea of what we are […]

ANALYSIS – IEA gas producers likely to shun "gas OPEC"

LONDON (Reuters) – Cartel opponents Australia, Canada and the Netherlands are unlikely to join an OPEC-like gas group, despite Russian claims that they might. Russian officials heading the GECF, whose 11 members control nearly three-quarters of the world’s proven gas reserves, said last Tuesday the GECF could become a price-influencing group like OPEC. It said […]

FACTBOX: Main Points Of The Copenhagen Accord

U.S. President Barack Obama reached a climate agreement on Friday with India, South Africa, China and Brazil. The deal outlined fell far short of the ambitions for the Copenhagen summit. Here are key points from the agreement, which is titled “Copenhagen Accord.”* LONG-TERM GOALS “Deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science…with a […]

Western Oil Firms May Not Renew Nigerian Licences — Shell to Sell Oil Fields

Western oil companies may not renew their operational licences in Nigeria, as Royal Dutch Shell launched a shake-up of its operations in Nigeria by offering oilfields valued at $5 billion for sale. This, according to sources is coming owing to their dissatisfaction with the handling of the oil sector by the Nigerian government. They are […]

Gulf to keep spending high in 2010 as oil prices up

Gulf Arab states are likely to keep their large spending packages in place next year, even as major economies withdraw stimulus, as higher oil prices give the world’s top oil exporting region enough room to support a fragile recovery. The global financial crisis slashed income for top Arab economies — Saudi Arabia and the United […]

Potatoes, algae replace oil in US company's plastics

HAWTHORNE, California — Frederic Scheer is biding his time, convinced that by 2013 the price of oil will be so high that his bio-plastics, made from vegetables and plants, will be highly marketable. Scheer, 55, is the owner of Cereplast, a company that designs and makes sustainable plastics from starches found in tapioca, corn, wheat […]

Maliki makes his move on Kirkuk issue

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will soon visit the northern district of Kurdistan, aiming to sign a deal with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani regarding the future of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish militia. According to the deal, the Baghdad government will recognize and thereby legitimize the Kurdish militia and, in turn, the Kurdish government will release […]

Gas could be the answer in global warming fight

An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It’s cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet. It’s natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was […]

Oil reserves fall, threaten OPEC quota

THE Nigerian Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has alerted that the Nigeria’s oil reserves are dwindling to the extent that the nation’s Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota might be under threat if the slide is not checked. The corporation has however set a target of $29 billion (about N1.8 trillion) revenue from petroleum resources in […]

OPEC 'consensus' to maintain production levels

LUANDA OPEC oil producers meet on Tuesday at their first ever meeting hosted by Africa’s new crude-pumping giant Angola, with emergency oil quota cuts agreed a year ago expected to remain amid good prices and high stocks. Agence France-Presse

Oil Climbing as Rebound Makes Most-Accurate Forecasters Bullish

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) — Oil Oil is set to rise as China and India lead the world economy from its biggest economic shock since World War II, while the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries caps output, Wittner and Loacker said. Analysts say OPEC will keep supply targets unchanged at a meeting in Luanda, Angola, tomorrow, […]

Violence next in mountaintop mining battle?

More active protests lead to online threats, throat-slitting gesture MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It was the slap heard ’round the coalfields: Cordelia Ruth Tucker, wearing the fluorescent-striped shirt of a miner, strode past West Virginia state troopers and into a stream of marchers protesting mountaintop removal mining to deliver an audible smack. The 54-year-old Rock Creek […]

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