Russia to push on with Yukos sale

Russia has said it will auction off a key production unit of embattled oil company Yukos as planned this weekend despite a US court injunction. Authorities aim to sell Yuganskneftegas on Sunday, 19 December, to pay Yukos’ $27.5bn (£14.2bn) tax bill. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4099673.stm

SUV Sales Roar Ahead

File under “Slouching Towards Armaggeddon”: Americans are buying more SUVs than ever; in some states (Colorado and Wyoming), there’s already one SUV for each five licensed drivers, vs one for eight nationwide. 77% of all trucks (which includes SUVs) were used for personal transportation.

Energy of the future

Qatar has reached a $12 billion deal with ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, to supply liquefied natural gas to Britain by 2007, Energy Minister Abd Allah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said.

Al Jazeera

Rampant Insider Selling Raises Red Flags

NEW YORK – Talk about a double standard. While corporate leaders tout the benefits of investors owning their stocks, many executives seem to be running for the doors themselves. The Miami HeraldSelling of shares by insiders – which includes executives and other top officers and directors at a company – has been rampant in recent […]

Oil surges on heating oil weakness

“Most people were looking for distillate supplies to get better because last week was not that cold,” said Phil Flynn, an oil analyst at Alaron Trading. “Now we’re going into a cold week with heating fuel supplies at a deficit compared with their levels last year,” Flynn said.

CNN Money

Landslides from permafrost melting could destroy pipeline

50 feet diameter boulder that rolled over 2 miles, destroying everything in it’s path.

The article warn that:

“Frequent landslides triggered by global warming will threaten safe operation of the proposed $7-billion Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, a Canadian permafrost expert warned here yesterday.”

The Star

The End of Fossil Fuels: Part 1. How Long the Twilight?

This country and the world are in for profound change as the petroleum boom winds down. I find that even specialists in the fields that will be most affected have not seriously considered what that transition will be like or how they will handle it. This study is an effort to describe the transition and […]

Iraq Review: Major push to tap oil wealth

Iraq, which has the second largest oil reserves in the world, is going all out to lure foreign companies to tap its vast resources and boost production.Iraq has launched a major drive to attract investments from multinational companies for its vast oil wealth. Iraq, which sits atop the world’s second largest oil reserves, plans to […]

Expensive tastes

It [OPEC] can set a floor under the price, but it cannot set a ceiling. To do that, it would have to maintain a larger margin of spare capacity, probably about 4m bpd, which could be tapped whenever prices rise too far or too fast. As recently as 2002, the organisation had a cushion of 6m bpd. But now OPEC is operating with precious little to spare: only about 1m bpd in an 83m-bpd market.

Economist

China to Build Oil Reserve in Stages to Limit Effect on Prices

In addition to stockpiling fuel, China’s government is encouraging the country’s oil companies to buy oil resources abroad, promoting coal-to-fuel conversion projects, energy conservation measures and the use of hydropower and wind power to reduce reliance on crude oil imports.

Bloomberg

U.S. Ready to Face Energy Dilemmas, Abraham Says

As Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham prepares to leave his post, worldwide energy demand continues to intensify, prices have climbed to near-record levels and national security tops the concerns of many Americans. They won’t be painless issues to resolve, but the former U.S. senator from Michigan is feeling confident he has helped clear a path for […]

Tanker splits in two near wildlife haven

December 11, 2004

THOUSANDS of gallons of heavy-duty oil were pouring from a grounded cargo ship off the Alaska coast last night in a disaster that appears to have claimed six lives and threatens an environmental catastrophe.

The 40,000-tonne Malaysian-registered Selendang Ayu, carrying 480,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil and 21,000 gallons of diesel, yesterday split in two off the coast of Unalaska island, a region near a wildlife refuge that is home to sea lions, seals, otters, halibut fishing stocks and several endangered species.

Timesonline

Record Number Need Heating Help

Demand for heating assistance from low-income households is expected to jump to the highest level in two decades this winter, putting a significant strain on government and charitable groups, according to state energy directors.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=677&e=23&u=/usatoday/20041210/bs_usatoday/recordnumberneedheatinghelp

U.S. Companies, Libya Scratch Out Production Deals

Occidental Petroleum and ChevronTexaco lead the charge to modernize Libya’s oil infrastructure, reports the Los Angeles Times. The country’s stated goal is to roughly double production to three million bpd, vs the current rate of 1.6 Mbpd.

Highlights from IEA December Oil Market Report

Mild weather and higher November refinery runs eased distillate supply concerns and, combined with rising crude stocks, triggered a near $10 fall in crude futures in early December. Light/sweet crude differentials versus heavy/sours in the spot market saw their premium fall from their October highs. Upside price risks remain from the weather, geopolitical issues, low spare capacity and economic uncertainty.

IEA

IEA Oil Projections Disputed

Therefore, whenever one seeks to postpone the time when production can no longer meet demand, the situation at that point becomes more unfortunate.

Odac-Info/ Klaus Illum

Fusion: Now Only 15 Years Out!

Fusion’s always been thirty years out, or so say the cynics. Today slashdot passes on a Christian Science Monitor article about the fine folks at ITER, the next generation, internationally-funded fusion research reactor, who tell us that we’re closer to commercial fusion power plants than ever before. Oh, sure, you can snarkily observe that the […]

China outlines ten programs for energy efficiency

According to the especial plan for medium-and-long-term energy conservation for the 11th five-year period (2006-10), China will set its focus of energy saving in the industrial sector, transportation and construction industries, as well as commercial and civil power use, said official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently.

Peoples Daily Online

DOE Report on

Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

Introduction
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science (SC) was approached in late 2003 by a group of scientists who requested that the Department revisit the question of scientific evidence for low energy nuclear reactions. In 1987 Pons and Fleishmann first reported the production of “excess” heat in a Pd electrochemical cell, and postulated that this was due to D-D fusion (D=deuterium), sometimes referred to as “cold fusion.” The work was reviewed in 1989 by the Energy Research Advisory Board (ERAB) of the DOE. ERAB did not recommend the establishment of special programs within DOE devoted to the science of low energy fusion, but supported funding of peer-reviewed experiments for further investigations. Since 1989, research programs in cold fusion have been supported by various universities, private industry, and government agencies in several countries.

…snip…

More at http://www.sc.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/index.htm

National Commission on Energy Policy

Bipartisan Commission Issues Strategy to Address Long-Term U.S. Energy Challenges. Links to 148 p. report (.pdf) and other info: National Commission on Energy PolicyDetailed Recommendations on Oil Security, Climate Change, Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy, and Other Key Topics the Result of 2 Years of Research and Consultation. “Political and regional polarization has produced an energy […]

UK May Miss Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets

The UK may miss its internal carbon dioxide emissions targets, mainly due to increased coal burning in power plants following a sharp spike in natural gas prices. Kyoto targets will be thus far unaffected.

New worry for OPEC: Oversupply

Because of OPEC’s efforts, there is now more oil on the market than is needed. With the group’s production at its highest in 25 years, some producers fear oil prices will tumble as demand slows next year on high prices and a usual seasonal brake in the second quarter. OPEC might be tempted to act preemptively and reduce output.

International Herald Tribune

Tribal timebomb

Although Saudi Arabia has developed remarkably over the past decades and has become more urbanized, thanks largely to oil wealth, compared to many Middle Eastern countries its tribal system is still strong and deep-rooted.

Asia Times

EIA/DOE Oil Price Forecast

The following excerpt is from the Annual Energy Outlook for 2004 published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the United States Department of Energy (DOE). Excerpt: EIA/DOE Annual Energy Outlook 2004 with Projections to 2025. Oil Prices Are Expected To Remain Near Recent Historical Levels Crude oil prices are determined largely in an international […]

The Cardboard House

Design concept

The Cardboard House represents the reduction of technology and the simplification of needs. By demonstrating that we are able to recycle 100% of the building components at extremely low cost, the Cardboard House is a direct challenge to the housing industry to reduce housing and environmental costs.

http://www.housesofthefuture.com.au/hof_houses04.html

Oil industry expert gives warning on conservation of energy

and another thing … Getting away from it all from: Offshore Engineer by: Rick von Flatern Monday, November 01, 2004 In the US, the survival of the government hinges largely on the retail price of a gallon of gasoline. So it is surprising how few solutions to rising oil prices have been forwarded by any […]

Energy prospects after the petroleum age

Deutsche Bank Research

– from peakoil.de/ Partner-Seite und Forum (parsimony.net) –

West meets East

Russia’s oil and gas power Putin’s ambitions
…
Ironically, the unreliability of oil supplies from Iraq, caused by the US occupation, has increased American reliance on alternative sources such as Russia. The same applies to other big economies dependent on imported energy such as Japan and India.

The Guardian

Russia’s Putin begins India visit

Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun a three-day visit to India to discuss defence, energy and oil deals.

Mr Putin and his hosts will hold talks on a joint cruise missile project and an intellectual property deal to patent weapons systems.

BBC

Solar Cell Doubles as Battery

Solar Cell Doubles as Battery November 29, 2004 A practical solar energy system usually includes solar cells that convert light to electricity and batteries that store the energy for later use. Scientists from Toin University of Yokohama in Japan have designed a single, compact device that can both convert solar energy to electricity and store […]

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