News from February 2007

Petro-Canada closes 25 gas stations in Ontario because of gas shortage

TORONTO: Petro-Canada temporarily closed 25 gas stations in the Toronto area on Wednesday because of a gas shortage in Ontario. A fire at Imperial Oil’s 118,000 barrel-a-day Nanticoke refinery this month and a strike by Canadian National Railway has slowed down crude oil supply in Canada’s most populous province. The strike has since ended and [...]

Gunmen again kidnap foreigner in Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria – Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese worker Wednesday in Nigeria’s restive southern oil region, the latest in a string of attacks across the increasingly lawless area, police said. The man, whose name was not released, was working on a construction project in Rivers State when he was seized, Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said by [...]

Iraq’s New Hydrocarbon Law: Victor’s Term to US Big Oil Companies

… This is precisely what Cheney was getting at in his 1999 talk to the Institute of Petroleum. In a world of dwindling petroleum resources, those who control large reserves of cheaply-produced oil will reap unimaginable profits – and command the heights of the global economy. It’s not just about profit, of course; control of [...]

Advanced Energy Technologies: Challenges to Development and Deployment

Why GAO Did This Study For decades, the nation has benefited from relatively inexpensive energy, but it has also grown reliant on fossil fuels What GAO Recommends GAO

The Oil Drum: What are the REAL energy equivalents of a cubic mile of oil?

A lot’s been said lately about how much energy is in a cubic mile of oil. This is roughly the amount the world uses in a year. Leaving aside some errors (the coal and nuclear numbers are off by about 10% to each other, and the capacity factor of wind turbines should be closer to [...]

Film: Towards the Bio-based Economy

The following short film offers a basic overview of what our post-oil future will look like. Towards the Bio-based Economy shows how most products we use on a daily basis – from fuels, medicines, and Euro banknotes, to washing powder and plastics – can be made from biomass. For almost all petroleum-based products, a plant-based [...]

An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New

Stewart Brand has become a heretic to environmentalism, a movement he helped found, but he doesn He divides environmentalists into romantics and scientists, the two cultures he

The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036

A fascinating 91-page document that probably represents some of the best thinking by the global elite. Below are a few selections that might be of particular interest to Energy Bulletin readers. …During the next 30 years, every aspect of human life will change at an unprecedented rate, throwing up new features, challenges and opportunities. Three [...]

Economic growth cannot continue indefinetely without conservation

You may have heard people talking about economic systems. You may also have heard of the energy of systems. The laws of thermodynamics state that the amount of energy in any system is finite Traditional macroeconomics holds that the march of technological progress increases economic efficiency, thereby improving everyone

Bahamas: Life on Easy Street coming to an end

…Professor Klare notes that “Crude oil is trading at well over $50 a barrel. Congress has authorized oil exploration in the protected lands on Alaska’s north slope, but the reality is that oil reserves there are limited. Given current patterns of consumption, the United States will need to import 60% of the oil it uses [...]