The Oil Drum

Author to discuss sustainability issues affecting Hawai'i

"Developments distinctive to our time are telling us that Empire has reached the limits of the exploitation that people and Earth will sustain. A mounting perfect economic storm born of a convergence of peak oil, climate change, and an imbalance U.S. economy dependent on debts it can never repay is poised to bring a dramatic restructuring of every aspect of modern life. We have the power to choose, however, whether the consequences play out as a terminal crisis or an epic opportunity. The Great Turning is not a prophecy. It is a possibility."

Cambodia's coming energy bonanza

If the United Nations, World Bank and Harvard University are to be believed, Cambodia is poised to become a major new global energy exporter, with a fossil-fuel windfall that promises to double the country's current gross domestic product (GDP) and potentially lift millions of Cambodians out of poverty.

IEA Says Oil Costs Too Much; EU Official 'Happy' With Prices

The International Energy Agency's chief economist, Fatih Birol, said current oil prices of more than $50 a barrel are too high, at about five times the average cost of production. The European Union's senior energy official, Andris Piebalgs, said he approved of the current prices.

The crunchy mystique: Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and its Return to Roots

You wouldn't expect a cultural conservative to quote Henry Miller in referring to certain aspects of modern existence as "the air conditioned nightmare." But then, challenging your expectations is one thing this book will likely do.As a sustainability activist there were many times when I turned the pages and nodded my head in strong agreement. In fact, there are many points of convergence between this newly identified brand of crunchy (slang for counter-cultural) conservative creature and the eco-hippie crunchy liberal and author Rod Dreher, former columnist for the National Review, readily acknowledges this. He discusses the social and environmental breakdown caused by a corporate consumerism run amok and the antidotes of simple, small, local, and organic that is in many ways indistinguishable from Greens. And he's even peak oil aware, citing the inevitable decline of cheap and easily accessible crude as one of several events that will require an eventual reorientation of American society toward a more local and conservationist way of life.

Australian of the Year lashes government on climate change

The Australian government came under attack for its environmental policies from Tim Flannery, the scientist it named as citizen of the year just a day earlier.

The leading environmentalist and author slammed Australia as the "worst of the worst" on global warming, highlighting its failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

Revolution arising from the Earth: Part I and Part II

The center of the empire, the U.S., is maintained by debt as the petrodollars and other dollars come into the U.S. at the rate of at least two-and- a-half billion per day (purchasing U.S. government bonds) in order to continue the cycle, which keeps the empire and its military power expanding As the elite carry out their strategies of domination they are racing against time. The monster trends of Peak Oil and energy exhaustion, climate change-- which will severely disrupt the seasons of growth in the food supply system, the weakness of the dollar and ecological collapse are pursuing them. An exponentially growing world population with growing material consumption based on dwindling resources and a dying planet won't work, but they have no other option to maintain their power and profit.

China Says Major Shift on Dollar Policy Coming

Some very worrisome news came out of China this Saturday — but it got little more than a blip in the U.S. press.

End of the Road for Hydrogen

Hydrogen cars sound ideal, but there are practical problems. First, the hydrogen tank takes eight minutes to fill and it takes up most of the boot space. Even then, the hydrogen tank provides a range of only 125 miles. To get enough hydrogen into the fuel tank it has to be chilled and liquefied. Gradually it warms up and boils away, so if you don’t use the car over the weekend you’ll find less in the tank. Park up at the airport while you take your three-week holiday and when you get back it’ll be nearly empty.

Indian-Based NGO Harnesses Biofuel From Sweet Sorghum

Manila, Philippines - Indian-based non-governmental organization, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, on Wednesday presented to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo sweet sorghum as an alternative source of biofuel.

Greece: Farmers seek biofuel funding

Farmers said yesterday they will need more European Union subsidies if they are to begin the cultivation of plants that generate biofuels and decrease Greece’s dependence on polluting fossil fuels.

Ethanol fires hope for China's poor Guangxi

Now, hope runs high in China for Guangxi's about 30 million farmers to jump on the biofuel fever. Beijing has begun encouraging ethanol made from non-grain crops, such as cassava -- known also as tapioca -- the region's other main crop.

"We are talking about sugar televisions, sugar washing machines and even sugar brides," said Pan Xunxin, an official in Chongzuo, Guangxi's top sugar cane city west of Nanning.

Energy roadmap backs renewables

Half of the world's energy needs in 2050 could be met by renewables and improved efficiency, a study claims.

The age of technological revolution is 100 years dead

No, research and development do not equate with economic progress. No, the computer is not a stunning technological advance, just an extension of electronic communication as known for over a century. No, the internet has not transformed most people's lives, just helped them do faster what they did before. No, weapons technology has not transformed warfare, merely wasted stupefying sums of money while soldiers win or lose by firing rifles.

Lab plans to make its ideas a reality - “There is no energy shortage. There is no energy crisis. There is only a crisis of ignorance.”

Energy Research on a Shoestring

The hopes for this neglected lab brightened a bit just over a year ago when President Bush made the first presidential call on the lab since Mr. Carter and spelled out a vision for the not-too-distant future in which solar and wind power would help run every American home and cars would operate on biofuels made from residues of plants.

But one year after the president’s visit, the money flowing into the nation’s primary laboratory for developing renewable fuels is actually less than it was at the beginning of the Bush administration. The lab’s fitful history reflects a basic truth: Americans may have a growing love affair with renewables and the idea of cutting oil imports and conserving energy, but it is a fickle one.

Noble CFO: Congress 'Will' Pass Anti-Tax Haven Bill in 2007

The U.S. Congress is all but certain to pass legislation this year addressing the tax status of U.S. corporations that have based themselves in countries with low or non-existent income taxes, Noble Corp. (NE) Chief Financial Officer Thomas Mitchell said Thursday.

State Of The Union: The Danger of a Few Little Words

For anyone concerned about Peak Oil and global warming, Bush’s State of the Union speech Tuesday evening fell far short of establishing a sound program for dealing with the nation’s energy woes or gargantuan carbon emissions. With the exception of a small increase in fuel efficiency standards, the president’s set of recommendations were about producing more energy: more oil, more coal, more solar and wind, and especially more “renewable and alternative fuels.”

Twenty Billion - a Drop in the Barrel for Renewable Energy

Last week, by nearly a 100-vote margin, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to do what OPEC has been unable to: defend a higher price for oil.

Although oil was just at a 19-month low, I’m sure that wasn’t precisely the intent of H.R. 6. The “Clean Energy Act of 2007” could have been more accurately titled the “Cleaning Up Our Energy Act of 2007,” because it was mainly about repealing tax credits and royalty exemptions for the oil and gas industries so that the money could be squirreled away in a fund for later spending on home-grown renewable energy and efficiency.

The Theory of Anyway

My friend Pat Meadows, a very, very smart woman, has a wonderful idea she calls "The Theory of Anyway." What it entails is this - she argues that 95% of what is needed to resolve the coming crises in energy depletion, or climate change, or most other global crises are the same sort of efforts. When in doubt about how to change, we should change our lives to reflect what we should be doing "Anyway." Living more simply, more frugally, using less, leaving reserves for others, reconnecting with our food and our community, these are things we should be doing because they are the right thing to do on many levels. That they also have the potential to save our lives is merely a side benefit (a big one, though).

Is globalisation retreating? - "Reality's revolt against theory"

Another factor unraveling the globalist project is its obsession with economic growth. Indeed, unending growth is the centerpiece of globalization, the mainspring of its legitimacy. While a recent World Bank report continues to extol rapid growth as the key to expanding the global middle class, global warming, peak oil, and other environmental events are making it clear to people that the rates and patterns of growth that come with globalization are a surefire prescription for ecological disaster.

Amid debate, Professor Barazangi asserts that world oil production could delay its peak 'way ahead into the future'

Peak oil production in the Middle East's Arabian/Persian Gulf region could be delayed if oil companies would invest more heavily in drilling and extraction technologies and push to explore new sites.

Does nuclear power now make financial sense?

On Sept. 16, 1954, in a speech to a group of science writers, Adm. Lewis L. Strauss, then head of the agency now known as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made a bold prediction. The potential for peaceful uses of nuclear energy was so great, he said, that electricity produced by nuclear power plants would one day be “too cheap to meter.”

Over the coming decades, the economics of nuclear power turned out to be more problematic.

Rethinking Alternative Energy: Some potentially powerful sources not getting attention

While no research has yet pointed to cold fusion as being a definite possibility or a permanent to solution to the energy crisis, a sufficient number of people are convinced that it is a possibility, enough in fact for there to be an annual cold fusion conference.

Saudi Aramco to Award First Contract on $10B Manifa Field

Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world's largest oil company by production, is expected to award by the end of January an estimated $1 billion contract to Belgium dredging contractor Jan De Nul to help it develop the 900,000 barrel-a-day Manifa offshore oil field.