Big oil’s expensive black gold quest

One study says oil company spending is having little impact on boosting supplies, but firms continue to hunt. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Soaring crude prices may have prompted oil companies to venture into ever hostile terrain to bring supplies to market, yet by one account all the spending may merely serve to hold production levels […]

Major oil producer Venezuela to build 17 ethanol plants

In an interesting but as yet unclear development, Venezuela’s most recent Energy Strategy Meeting concluded with the announcement that the country will be investing massively in ethanol production. The OPEC member is the world’s 7th largest oil exporter, so it comes as a surprise to see Venezuela investing in biofuels. According to Prensa Latina, state-run […]

The green nanotech revolution: apricot, cashew nuts to replace petrochemicals

Apricot kernels and cashew nuts. We have been eating these delicacies in large quantities for decades. But who would have thought they would one day become the object of interest for nanotechnologists and biochemists looking to use them as renewable and biodegradable substitutes for petrochemicals? The use of renewable biomass as an alternate source for […]

The Oil Drum: The First Ever Off-Shore Wind Farm Financed by Banks…

This Wednesday, a few banks, including mine, signed and disbursed a ground-breaking loan: we put 378 million euros on the table, to build 60 wind turbines in the North Sea, 25 kilometers off the coast of the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. The wind farm, at 120 MW is not the biggest to be built offshore (that […]

Grain Drain: Get Ready for Peak Grain

Now Whenever there

OPEC says British climate change report ”unfounded”

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A hard-hitting report on climate change published by the British government on Monday has no basis in science or economics, OPEC’s Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said on Tuesday. The report written by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said that failure to tackle climate change could push world temperatures up by 5 […]

Warned of costs, world seeks way to fight warming

OSLO (Reuters) – U.N. climate talks in Kenya next week will hunt for new ways to fight global warming, stung by a warning that long-term inaction may trigger a cataclysmic economic downturn. But delegates say the 189-nation talks from November 6-17 look unlikely to make any big breakthroughs and may shy away from setting a […]

U.S. drops royalty claims against Chevron

The U.S. Interior Department has dropped claims that the Chevron Corp. underpaid the government for natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. The decision could have far-reaching impacts, allowing energy companies to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties, the Times reported. The Interior Department […]

Oil firms drill for deepwater profits

With global demand for oil showing no sign of abating, the industry is going to ever greater lengths to secure supplies. Tall as a nine-storey building and as long as two tennis courts, the anchor handling vessel is the work horse of the offshore oil industry. The entire deepwater exploration and drilling industry has boomed […]

U.N. chief asks new uses for atom energy

UNITED NATIONS – U.N. nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei urged the world’s nations Monday to adopt a broad new plan for the use of atomic energy to address mounting concerns about the further spread of sensitive technology. He said a new approach is essential because rising global demand for energy has made atomic power a more […]

Pumping profits from the seabed

The quest for the dark fluid that keeps the world ticking has gone beyond conventional wells, all the way to the bottom of the ocean. And leading this hunt for oil is a bunch of Singapore companies, probing where no man has probed before. This switch to deepwater exploration has translated into contracts worth billions […]

Kuwait: We want our piece of the oil pie

At yesterday’s opening session of Kuwait’s second legislative session of the eleventh Parliament, about 50 citizens rallied in silent protest in front of Parliament requesting a bailout of citizens’ financial debts. The group calling itself, “Al Takafal Al Ishtemai” were draped in black scarves and adorned with black badges saying “Yes to the waiver of […]

Australia: Researcher urges shift to solar power, carbon trading

A leading researcher in solar panels says Australia could make the entire domestic market power-neutral if there was some kind of carbon trading or emissions tax. Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) say Australia’s sunny climate could allow every home to generate enough power using solar panels during the day that it could be […]

India: Energy map reveals rising dependency on coking coal

A new National Energy Map for India, prepared by the Energy and Resources Institute, along with the office of the principal scientific advisor, has predicted that in a high growth scenario, import dependency for coking coal will increase to 85% in 2031. The figure amounts to 2,475 million tonnes of coal imports, creating the need […]

Uganda: Sorting Out the Power Problem

Loadshedding has become a way of life in Uganda. And even when the power is available, its cost is ever rising. Power cuts have become more frequent because of drastically rising demand. This demand is an indicator of growth, but also of poor planning.Because of the fall in Lake Victoria’s water levels, unpleasant power cuts […]

Ghana: Biofuel Begins to Attract As Crude Oil Prices Fluctuate

When Ghana’s Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama visited Thailand at the beginning of September this year, he was fascinated by that country’s level of technological advancement in biofuel generation.He said although Ghana had set in progress the development of bio-diesel, the stride Thailand has made by way of research would illuminate the path for Ghanaian […]

NZ clean and green – or poor

New Zealand’s economic future could be under threat from mounting global warming fears and it must convince the world it is a clean, sustainable producer, Prime Minister Helen Clark has warned.Dire forecasts about the impact of climate change could trigger a new round of trade protectionism based on environmental barriers and tariffs – damaging this […]

‘Switch to Renewable Power Before You’re Forced to’

The world is slowly but steadily shifting from fossil fuels toward renewable energies. It is unavoidable for related industries to fit themselves into the wind of change or otherwise fade away, said Lee Hyun-seung, chief of GE Energy Korea. “If a company does not take action beforehand, it will inevitably fall behind the trend,’’ he […]

EU’s energy future takes centre stage

On the day of the UK’s publication of the Stern report on the costs of climate change (more on EurActiv later today), two important energy meetings underlined again how the issue of energy security has catapulted itself onto the Commission’s political agenda. In Moscow, Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs participated in the Energy Dialogue Conference between […]

China cut off exports of oil to North Korea

China cut off oil exports to North Korea in September, amid heightened tensions over that country’s nuclear and missile programs, Chinese trade statistics show.North Korea depends on China for up to 90 percent of its oil, much of which is sold on credit or for bartered goods, according to Chinese energy experts. Any sustained reduction […]

Global oil output

Global oil liquids output will hit a plateau in the next five to 10 years and then permanently decline, whilst global gas production will keep on rising through to 2020 and beyond, an international oil expert says. Even with high oil prices, offshore exploratory drilling in South East Asia, where the majority of exploration expenditure […]

BOSTON WORLD OIL CONFERENCE

The findings of Hirsch Report 2, while focused exclusively on big business solutions, are very realistic and some would say pessimistic. FTW loves to see this type of hard data published because it tells us precisely where we stand, and what is clear from this report is that we have run out of time to […]

BP-Shell merger back on the cards

Shell was at the centre of buyout moves and speculation on Monday after it unveiled plans to spend C$7,7-billion ( mg

Statoil: Kristin Oil, Gas Output Steady to Avoid Risks

Statoil ASA (STO) is producing oil and gas at its Kristin field in the Norwegian Sea at a slower-than-expected rate in order to mitigate against the risk of collapsed reservoirs, the company’s chief financial officer said Monday. rigzone

Is big business coming clean?

BP, one of the biggest oil companies in the world, is also one of the world’s biggest makers of photovoltaic cells, which produce electricity from sunlight. Formerly British Petroleum, the company now has a sunflower logo and an advertising tag line, “Beyond Petroleum,” that are supposed to signal its ecological concerns. On its corporate Web […]

Energy boom to cool: experts

Energy companies are churning out big profits, but there are signs that firms are growing more cautious as costs rise and prices drop for oil and natural gas. Driven by record prices that sparked a boom in activity, oil and gas firms have been raking in rising profits over the past couple of years. But […]

UNFCCC Reports Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trending Upward; Transport a Key Problem

The secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) today released new data showing an upward trend in greenhouse gas emissions of industrialized countries (Annex I parties to the UNFCCC) in the period 2000 greencarcongress

Stern Review Lays Out Economic Argument for Urgent Action on Climate Change

HM Treasury (UK) today published the much-anticipated Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change, the most comprehensive review yet carried out on the economics of climate change. Calling climate change greencarcongress

Monbiot: Drastic action on climate change is needed now – and here’s the plan

So how do we do it without bringing civilisation crashing down? Here is a plan for drastic but affordable action that the government could take. It goes much further than the proposals discussed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday, for the reason that this is what the science demands. energybulletin

Alternative fuels still in first gear

The panel members, who gathered here Monday at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Opportunity Forum, said that the automobile and energy industries have a long way to go to meet government targets to reduce dependence on foreign sources of fuel and to lower polluting emissions. The FreedomCar & Vehicle Technologies Program, funded by the Department […]

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