Saudi Arabia may join nuclear club

"Saudi Arabia will not watch as its neighbors develop nuclear weapons," a Gulf source said. "It's a matter of time until a Saudi nuclear program begins."

Peak oil crisis will require fundamental cultural change

Like addicts, we have our drug of choice, "The American Way of Life," which, by Vice President Dick Cheney's recent statement, "Is not negotiable." However, in this case, there isn't a new dealer on the planet.

Wars For Water?

For years, experts and pundits have predicted that conflicts will increase over an ever scarcer and more valuable commodity: water. The fear has been that as populations grow and development spreads, vicious battles will erupt between water-rich and water-poor nations, particularly in major river basins where upstream nations control the flow of water to those downstream. To the doomsayers, global warming will only make those battles worse by decreasing rainfall and increasing evaporation in critical areas.

The Power is On

The Middle East is synonymous with the booming oil and gas industry. While Saudi Arabia is widely considered the frontrunner of the global oil and gas industry, producing approximately 10 million barrels of oil a day as well as sitting on a reported 25% of the world’s oil reserves, it is easy to overlook the wealth of oil producing countries in its shadow, and even easier to overlook the prominent role IT plays at the front and back end of energy operations.

Kenya: Fuel shortage expected to persist beyond Easter period

Operators in the fuel industry have said that the shortage in the commodity may persist beyond the Easter period.

Shell country chairman Engineer Patrick Obath on Sunday blamed the scarcity on fuel transport capacity hiccups.

Oil prices endure volatile week

World oil prices jumped to almost $70 a barrel during a shortened trading week, owing to heightened tensions over Iran’s capture of 15 British sailors ahead of their release.

But the strong gains were later erased as profit-taking set in ahead of a long holiday weekend to mark Easter. Elsewhere, base metals struck record highs on dwindling stockpiles.

Keep natural gas plan alive

Building Cabrillo Port will give California more control over its energy destiny.

Conserve, don't buy into LNG

No one denies California faces an energy crisis. However, we prefer to see efforts directed toward conservation and the development of alternative sources, instead of continuing our dependency on imported energy.

Iran to build first European ethanol refinery in Bosnia

Iran will establish Europe’s first ethanol refinery in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Managing Director of Mashal Khazar Darya (MKD) Esmaeil Shahmir reported on Sunday.

Corn, which due to shortage of water in Iran cannot be cultivated, gives off ethanol, a cheap fuel, he added.

Danish Energy Plan Boosts Hydrogen

The Danish Government's latest energy plan will accelerate the development and market acceptance of hydrogen vehicles by exempting them from taxes. The plan also calls for $166 million per year to be spent on energy research, with as much as $33 million annually going to hydrogen fuel cell development.

Thanks to heat of the Earth, I’m warm

Deep beneath the surface will lie an invisible skein of black plastic piping, encased (against sharp rocks) in a core of sand. And the piping will converge on two valves beneath a manhole, from which will run two big conduits, leading through the wall of our holiday cottage into the utility room. Here will sit, humming softly, a machine about the size of a fridge-freezer. One conduit will bring “brine” (water laced with antifreeze) from beneath the field where it has been gently warmed by the soil, into the machine. The other will carry away the brine, refrigerated by the machine, to rewarm beneath the field. The machine will provide us with copious hot water for central heating and domestic use.

Iraq claims largest oil reserves in the world

Iraq has oil reserves that are estimated at over 300 billion barrels, making the country the world leader in this sphere, the Iraqi oil minister said Saturday.

Road network to connect China with oil-rich nations

Centuries after it disintegrated with the decline of the Mongol empire and the rise of sea power, the old Silk Road is to be reinvented in a network of highways and arteries linking the remote desert of northwest China with cities in Europe, the Middle East and Russia.

China on Friday unveiled plans to build thousands of kilometers of roads to create a network that would broadly follow the ancient route linking old trading hubs such as Samarkand in Uzbekistan and Merv in Turkmenistan. The vast transport system is a crucial element in Beijing's strategy to tighten trade links with the oil and gas-rich countries of central Asia.

It is all about oil in Somalia-Ethiopia

Nearly two-thirds of Somalia’s land to prospect and exploit oil reserves was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before the, at that time, Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Conoco inc. even kept an office in the capital the next years. This would later become the American Embassy when Bush Sr. tried to secure American interests under the pretext of an humanitarian mission.

Outlook on power, oil & gas and telecom sector for 2007

International crude oil prices have softened considerably from peak levels. This trend is believed to continue, though with temporary spikes stemming from geopolitical uncertainty and weather-related demand.

U.N. report raises pressure on China to cut pollution

Economic growth has brought environmental disaster, but fixing it is complicated by politics, poverty and tradition.

Confusion reigns supreme over biofuel policy

India’s biofuels policy is clearly suffering from a too-many-cooks syndrome, with multiple ministries holding divergent views on the basic contours of the policy.

Ethanol on rise, but moving it is a challenge - The fuel can't go through normal pipelines, giving industry a problem

With U.S. ethanol production on the rise, one major obstacle facing the alternative fuel is getting a closer look: the rather inconvenient system for transporting it around the country.

Unlike gasoline and diesel fuel, which shoot around the nation in pipelines at high speeds and in vast quantities, ethanol travels almost exclusively by rail, truck and river barge.

Chevron exec calls for realism on energy

Politicians who call for U.S. energy independence are engaging in rhetoric and poor leadership, says the vice chairman of the second-largest oil company in the United States.

How Russia and its allies will be able to turn up

They will never admit it, but the nations meeting in Qatar this week want to form an Opec-style cartel, writes former Yukos director Alexander Temerko.

Scientists get last say in climate study

Two distinctly different groups, data-driven scientists and nuanced offend-no-one diplomats, collided and then converged this past week. At stake: a report on the future of the planet and the changes it faces with global warming.

Mountaineers testify to warming's effect

Mountaineers are bringing back firsthand accounts of vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations and flood-prone lakes where glaciers once rose.

Forces dig in for energy battle

A four-year battle to bring liquefied natural gas to California comes to a head beginning this week, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and two state commissions make key decisions on a project that pits the state's dependence on fossil fuels against the push to boost renewable energy and combat climate change.

Analysis: Global nuclear boom expected

A global "nuclear renaissance," the cliché for a growth in nuclear power plant construction, is not merely talk, according to a new report by the Cambridge Energy Research Associates. New reactors are in various phases, from planning to construction, and even the United States, which hasn't approved a new reactor since 1978, will likely take part.