Lower emissions can cut gas prices, study finds

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday released a University of California study showing that the state can cut gasoline prices and stimulate the economy by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the production of transportation fuels.

What Is Wrong with this Picture?

Yes, the United States does need to invest more money on infrastructure. But without Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns, most of the spending would be squandered.

There’s a Hole in the Bucket

That does it. Time to set this record straight.

If I get one more email petition asking me not to buy gasoline on some day or another, or from one company or another, I'm gonna scream.

For big oil, future profits lie in big gas business

As competition for scarce petroleum resources intensifies and as oil-rich nations limit access to reserves, the multinational integrated majors are beginning to evolve from Big Oil into Big Gas.

Heavy Oil May Play Bigger Role in China's Oil Output Growth

China is showing increasing interest in developing its domestic reserves of heavy-grade crude oil as it struggles to line up energy supplies to feed its booming economy.

More oil firms move into costly oil sands

More oil firms are joining the rush to tap oil from sands in Canada's Alberta province, a costly process that may secure future output but needs higher oil prices to make money.

Mexican Oil Sails in Obsolete Tankers

State-run Petroleos Mexicanos operates five rundown tankers that should have been retired since late 2006, following a 12-month grace period granted in 2005.

An isthmus oil pipeline, why not in Thailand?

Malaysia's prime minister recently affirmed his government's intention to build a peninsula-spanning pipeline to pump oil from the Middle East. This ambitious project will lower crude oil transport costs to China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan and avoid transport through Singapore and the Straits of Malacca. It will reduce the risks of tanker accidents and pirate attacks in the strait and enhance regional energy security.

Increase petrol price call urged

BAHRAIN must start charging higher prices for petrol and utilities such as electricity and water if the country is to improve its efforts to cut carbon emissions, according to experts who attended a high-profile environmental event.

Scottish Power considers clean coal conversions

Scottish Power is looking at converting its two biggest power stations to clean coal technology, the company said on Thursday.

Europe looks to a new generation of atomic energy

After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, most European nations turned away from nuclear power - but global warming has forced a change of heart.

Why We Keep On Truckin'

It's been a rough stretch of road for the U.S. auto industry. Last Monday, we learned that Daimler had sold Chrysler for scrap metal. President Bush vowed to start regulating tailpipe emissions. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced new low-carbon fuel standards, a firm shove to the entire transportation sector. And gas prices hit an all-time high -- bad news for carmakers that keep cranking out gas guzzlers. But probably the worst moment came the week before last, on the reality TV show "Survivor," when Yau-Man gave the pickup truck to Dreamz.

Rising gas prices may fuel minicars' popularity

Will Americans ever take to minicars the way people in many other parts of the world have?

And even then, would they ever embrace one as small as DaimlerChrysler's tiny Smart Fortwo?

KazMunaiGaz to sell refined products to world markets

Kazakhstan intends to sell refined products, not only crude, in the world markets. This is, undoubtedly, more profitable. To this end, over the past few years, the country has been trying to acquire, or build, a refinery abroad. However, so far it has been unsuccessful in “opening a window to Europe.” But Kazakhstan is not discouraged, and it is now looking southeast.

Dominican Republic: Fuels up again, gasoline at all-time high

Fuel prices have gone up yet again, and with an increase of RD$2.40 gasoline is at an all-time high price of RD$149.90.

Peak Oil Now? New Data Leads to Speculation

New data from the U.S. government shows something disturbing. We may be looking at the peak of oil production, right now.

High gas prices spur some families into taking action

Soaring gasoline prices recently led David Martin to seek out an alternative.

The rural Okmulgee County resident last week bought his wife Charlotte a 2001 Chevy Cavalier designed to run on either regular unleaded gasoline or compressed natural gas. Natural gas costs 94 cents a gallon, a price unseen by gasoline customers in at least six years.

A Return to the Land, for Fuel

Here on the West Side of Maui, where lush mountainsides and the warm waters of the Alalakeiki Channel juxtapose increasingly crowded roadways and a spate of new luxury hotels, the push for renewable energy has found an unlikely advocate: the chief executive of one of the most aggressive developers on the island.

Readers Sound Off on gas prices

The price of gas is hurting everyone, pushing up the cost of everything we have to buy. The price of food has gone up, the price of material for anything we do is up, transportation surcharges are up on deliveries. The people who drive to work are seeing shrinking incomes due to these costs. And the worst part is that the oil companies have created these oil supply shortages by shutting down refineries. OPEC has been saying for years that there's plenty of crude oil available. But the oil industry is causing the shortage on purpose.

Here's how Toronto could generate a little heat

This is where the new idea comes in: Why not clean the methane where it's produced and put it into one of the natural gas lines serving Toronto? Methane is, after all, the basic component of natural gas. It's a way of "transporting" the methane, and it would allow the city to install electricity generators where the heat they produce could be used.

Australia: Power cuts, bigger bills on the way

THE water shortage across eastern Australia is now so acute it has begun to affect power supplies, and the country is at risk of electricity shortages next year.

"I think we are in denial, and are going to have brownouts in NSW if we don't get snow this winter," a source within the electricity market told the Herald.

Coal and hydro power generation require very large amounts of water, and the Snowy scheme depends on it for 86 per cent of its generation capacity.

Last Light, by Alex Scarrow

After several years of research into an issue that affects us all, Alex Scarrow has written a chilling thriller that depicts in a harrowingly convincing way just how fragile our society really is, and how we are only a hair's breadth away from its collapse. It begins on a very normal Monday morning. But in the space of only a few days, the world's oil supplies have been severed and at a horrifying pace things begin to unravel everywhere. And this is no natural disaster: someone is behind this. Oil engineer Andy Sutherland is stranded in Iraq with a company of British soldiers, desperate to find a way home to his family, trapped as transport links and the very infrastructure of daily life begins to collapse around him.

Back in Britain, his wife Jenny is stuck in Manchester, fighting desperately against the rising chaos to get back to London, where their children are marooned as events begin to spiral out of control; riots, raging fires, looting, rape and murder. In the space of a week, London is transformed into a lawless and anarchic vision of Hell.

Ahmadinejad and the petrol paradox

He is the son of a blacksmith, portrays himself as a champion of the working man and was swept to power pledging to put Iran’s “oil income on people’s tables”. But despite high oil prices, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has failed to raise living standards. Moreover, Opec’s second biggest oil exporter is venturing into the controversial territory of petrol rationing — a politically sensitive but economically essential measure that has been stalled over for a decade.

Schwarzenegger Rejects BHP Billiton's LNG Proposal

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected BHP Billiton Ltd.'s proposed $800 million natural gas-import facility because it would harm the environment.

At Honda, nothing goes to waste

Honda, working with the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), a foundation established by the government and private companies, is jointly developing a new method of producing the alcohol fuel using the parts of crops that humans do not eat.

Refiners cash in on high gasoline prices

Record gasoline prices are changing the equation of the refining business, generating unprecedented profits for the companies that transform crude oil into fuel.

Gas prices high, well suck it up

Given that Canada is forced to sell petroleum to the U.S. at discount rates, thanks to Mulroney’s NAFTA deal, yes, we do pay more than we should.

Gas prices still climbing

During the energy crisis of the 1970s, Americans responded to skyrocketing prices by buying Toyotas and Mazdas and other gas-sipping imports. Now, while hybrid-electric Priuses have become status symbols since fuel prices started rising, gas guzzlers are still popular. Just ask Bill Hopper, owner of Hopper RV in Jacksonville, where a 31-foot used motor home costs $45,000, even though it gets 8 to 10 miles per gallon.

Ghana: Old manpower devices are back in vogue

There is a saying that necessity is the mother of all inventions, and Ghanaians struggling with the constant lights-out are certainly putting this into practice, with manpower appliances increasingly taking the place of electrical-powered goods.

There are ways to alleviate high gas prices, but action is needed

Who knows, maybe when our children are grown, they'll be driving cars powered by water or by the sun. The possibilities are endless, but in order to avoid pain at the pump, we have to continue moving forward, so one day there will be a solution.

UN: No excuse for lack of action on climate change

"There is no remaining excuse for the governments not to act on climate change. We have the existing technology to reduce emissions," said Yvo de Boer, the head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), at the end of a two-week conference in the western German city of Bonn.

Midwest mulls government help with gasoline crunch

Fuel marketers in the Midwest are considering asking for government help to ease a gasoline supply crunch that has pushed pump prices in the region well above the already record-high national average.

...Fuel marketers said they are mulling requesting waivers that would allow truckers to drive more hours to get additional supplies to the market, or permission to temporarily sell gasoline that doesn't meet federal environmental regulations.

Mexico Pemex Hopes Chicontepec Zone Can Stop Oil Output Fall

Mexico hopes to boost oil production at the under-developed Chicontepec area over the next decade to help offset declining output at the country's largest field, Cantarell.

Gunmen kidnap 3 Indians in Nigeria

Gunmen dynamited the front gate of a residential compound in southern Nigeria on Saturday and kidnapped three Indians in an attack that left one Nigerian dead, the military said.

Climate and the UN: A new bid for control?

At a recent United Nations debate, the UK argued that the Security Council should take a central role in responding to climate change. But, ask Felix Dodds and Richard Sherman in this week's Green Room, is this yet another way for rich nations to protect their own borders and interests?

Live Earth's hot air, burn oil instead: Daltrey

Rock legend Roger Daltrey blasted the forthcoming Live Earth event, saying exhausting the world's supply of oil would force more solutions to be found for climate change problems, in comments published Saturday.

The Who's singer questioned the value of the July 7 concerts and said a better idea would be to "burn all the oil" to force world leaders into action.