Military leads the way in breaking our oil addiction

By U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords The safety and security of the United States will depend on how well we as a nation address the challenges of climate change. That was reaffirmed for me at the recent United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen, which I attended as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation. Opponents of climate […]

Venezuela rations water supplies

Large parts of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, will be without water for up to 48 hours over the next week after officials began water rationing. The measure is the start of a possible six months of rationing before the rainy season in Venezuela begins again. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said the unseasonably dry past […]

Ethiopia rejects hunger warning

An Ethiopian minister has denied reports that millions of people need urgent food aid after failed rains. Ethiopia has been extremely sensitive to images showing its people as starving since the famine of 1984-5. He admitted that 5.7 million people were currently getting food aid but argued that “in the Ethiopian context, there is no […]

A year without getting into a car

Maybe it was the eve of a new year. Maybe it was the Champagne. Maybe it was simply the right time. Whatever it was, Adam Greenfield of San Francisco made a resolution at a party on Dec. 31, 2008: He would not drive, or ride, in an automobile for all of 2009. This futuristic experiment […]

Russia 2009 oil output hits new high after 2008 blip

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian oil output grew by around 1.5 percent in 2009 to a new post-Soviet high, putting the world’s largest crude producer on an upward trend again after a 2008 blip, when production fell for the first time in a decade. Energy ministry data showed on Saturday the country extracted 9.925 million barrels […]

Farms-to-forest plan worries Vilsack

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerized forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food. The latest Agriculture Department economic-impact study of the climate bill, which passed the House this summer, found that the legislation would profit farmers […]

Studies Find Heavy Heating Oil Has Severe Effect on Air Quality

When it comes to finding a major culprit for the tainted air in a wintry New York, one often needs to look no farther than out the window to see a big building spewing black smoke. The source is often No. 6 heating oil, the cheapest but most viscous type pumped into aging boilers, or […]

With help from Sweden, 4 Northern Virginia families are Climate Pilots

If Americans really take the plunge and enter a carbon-constrained world, it might look a little like the Stokes family’s home in Falls Church. Nolan Stokes and Kathy Harman-Stokes — a financial planner and a lawyer with two children in elementary school — are installing a geothermal heat pump in their front yard that will […]

Exxon

ExxonMobil’s buyout of XTO Energy was the story of December. It might be the story of 2009. But equally important are the details now emerging about the deal. Particularly the “escape hatch” that Exxon built in. Exxon is buying XTO to get into the shale gas game. Shale gas is one of the true revolutions […]

Zimbabwe: Kariba Hydro Plant Needs U.S.$400 Million for Expansion

AN estimated US$400 million would be required for the planned expansion of the Kariba South hydropower plant in the next three years. Kariba Hydro Power Station is currently churning an average 750 megawatts, its optimal capacity, following recent rehabilitation of the plant. However, the expansion of the power plant’s capacity will not result in consistent […]

In the new cold-war on energy, China wins.

During the Cold War (1945-1991), China was the only major country that stood at the intersection of the two superpower camps, a target of influence and enmity for both the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, China is creating a path to sustainable energy that could conceivably make it the most powerful nation in […]

Belarus resists Russian oil terms, flows survive

Belarus on Friday accused Russia of applying “groundless and unacceptable” pressure during failed year-end talks to agree on oil prices and transit terms for 2010 and avert a new energy war that could cut supplies to Europe. While Russian oil is still flowing without interruption to Belarus, the breakdown of talks on New Year’s Eve […]

Iraq inks preliminary deal to develop supergiant oil field

Iraqi Oil Ministry signed on Tuesday a preliminary contract with a consortium led by Russian Lukoil to develop the West Qurna Phase 2 oil field in southern Iraq. Lukoil, partnered with Norway’s Statoil ASA, will develop the oil field to produce 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) from its proven reserves of 12.88 billion barrels […]

Rare Tortoises Could Stand in Way of California Solar-Energy Complex

On a strip of California’s Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation’s quest for cleaner power. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 […]

An elemental challenge for China and the world

Beijing would be foolish to hoard supplies of rare earth materials Though rare earth elements are not, geologically speaking, all that rare, they are still largely unknown to the general public. That, however, could be about to change. The likes of lanthanum and holmium could soon be names as familiar to us as gold and […]

Precious metals that could save the planet

Rare earth elements are driving a revolution in low-carbon technology. Cahal Milmo reports on the commodity that has become the new oil Baotou was of little interest to the outside world for millennia. When one of the first visitors reached its walls in 1925, it was described as “a little husk of a town in […]

Concern as China clamps down on rare earth exports

Neodymium is one of 17 metals crucial to green technology. There’s only one snag – China produces 97% of the world’s supply. And they’re not selling Britain and other Western countries risk running out of supplies of certain highly sought-after rare metals that are vital to a host of green technologies, amid growing evidence that […]

Best read at PO.com in 2009

Here’s the uplisting of best read stories at Peakoil.com in 2009, in monthly order. January: Automakers all charged up over electric cars February: Giant oil field decline rates and their influence on world oil production March: We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction April: The rich prepare for the apocalypse May: ‘Earth 2100′: the Final Century […]

Arabia takes the New Silk Road to China, spurning the West

With hindsight we can see that two events occurring within days of each other in late 2001 brought about an epochal change in the world’s strategic system, drawing China and the Mid-East oil powers into each other’s arms again after five centuries of estrangement. The old Silk Road came back to life. The Twin Towers […]

'Carousel' frauds plague European carbon trading markets

Why are mysterious UK businesses registering to trade carbon in Europe? It is a building site, formerly a derelict car park, in a deprived part of West London, where the neon glow of curry houses and late-night grocery stores could not be further from the wealth and glamour of London’s financial markets. Described as a […]

Oil To Lift Gulf States In 2010, Debt Remains Concern

Arab Gulf states may get a boost from higher oil prices in 2010 but the region’s real-estate and banking sectors still face head winds. “We are going to see an improvement in macro-economic conditions, mainly due to higher oil prices, which will trickle down to corporate activity,” said Faisal Hassan, head of research at Global […]

Hawaii's future depends on developing sustainable industries

Q: Why do you think Hawaii’s economy could get that bad? A: Our major economic bases at this time are tourism and U.S. military spending and both of those are very fragile and not very good, if you are interested in local sustainability. Over the years I have been using the phrase “the unholy trinity […]

Water Crisis, Energy Crisis, Vicious Cycle

Reading Steven Solomon’s excellent new book “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization” I was reminded again of the connection between the water challenge and the field to which I dedicated my life — energy security. It is widely accepted that water shortage can — and most probably will — lead to military […]

The Past and Future of Smart Grid

Smart grid may be the most hyped words of 2009 in the green tech space, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of hard, cold cash behind the hype. Will 2010 bring a bursting of a smart grid bubble, or a continued unfolding of its promise to provide a framework for renewable energy, efficiency […]

All

Cap and trade talk, green energy expansion, new, unconventional oil and gas reserve exploration, and economic recession notwithstanding, Saudi Aramco is confident that the future will entail a growing demand for the Kingdom It is not that an effort won

2 Very Different Visions of Our Energy Future

Farewell, fossil fuels In the November issue of Scientific American, two professors presented a plan to put the world on 100% renewables (i.e. wind, water, and solar) by 2030. This makes other recent studies on how to get the U.S. to 20% wind or 10%-20% solar within the same time frame look pretty unambitious. More […]

Energy DoubleTalk

In the atrocious headline sweepstakes, AP on Yahoo wins today’s award with “Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight.” The article’s author, alleged ‘AP Energy Writer Mark Williams’, ignores all the simple chemistry and energy science of fossil fuels to feed the hype machine being run by Exxon’s purchase of XTO Energy for […]

Pakistan: Energy crisis may cripple country by 15th

ISLAMABAD: The country may plunge into the worst imaginable energy crisis as virtually all refineries are teetering on the verge of financial default and may close down operations by Jan 15. All the oil refineries of the country, currently working on a negative gross revenue margin, and with their borrowing limits already exhausted, are likely […]

Why Ecological Revolution?

It is now universally recognized within science that humanity is confronting the prospect The term

Pioneers aim for cleaner, greener lives in suburbia

SYDNEY residents concerned about peak oil and government inaction on climate change are taking matters into their own hands, forming groups to turn their suburbs into low-carbon ”transition towns”. The movement, which began in the town of Totnes, in Devon, is called Transition Towns and aims to reduce reliance on global sources of energy and […]

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