Top suburbs costing the Earth

SHOPPING has been exposed as the big culprit in rising water use and greenhouse gas emissions - and Sydney's most affluent suburbs are the worst offenders.

New data shows the electricity and water used to produce everything people buy - from food and clothing to CDs and electrical appliances - far outweighs any efforts to save water and power in the home, according to an extensive analysis by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the University of Sydney.

China's new middle class in love with cars - big cars

"It's a vicious circle - more autos, more roads," said Li Junhao, deputy chief of the municipal urban planning department in Shanghai, which has fought the automobile trend more than any other Chinese city by restricting access to license plates and taxing the use of cars in its downtown.

"There's not enough space for the cars or land to build the highways. The dream of Chinese here is much similar to your American Dream, no?" Li said. "It's just the same as anywhere else - you want a car and a bigger house, so you consume and pollute more."

Ultra-deep drilling for oil is simply a red herring as prices militate against it

To go ultra-deep as Kerevan suggests will require very high prices.

That is why the Russians are piddling in the wind over the deep Arctic.

The oil price would have to be well over $100 to make that economically viable. That apart, there is actually no real proof that there is oil and gas to be found there.

Des Moines Gas is Cheaper Than Eastern Iowa's

The other issue involves the Magellan Pipeline. It is not pumping gas to Johnson County. There is a gas shortage in Kansas. Fuel is going to Des Moines, but not Johnson County. So companies here have to drive clear out to Des Moines and back. The transportation cost is passed on to the rest of us.

Too early to tell fire's impact on gas prices

Local and statewide gasoline suppliers said Friday it's too early to tell what, if any, impact the fire at Chevron Refinery Pascagoula will have on fuel prices.

Mideast struggles to power area

An economically burgeoning Middle East is facing stark choices as it decides how to fuel its growth, despite sitting on two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves.

Countries in the region are facing rising demands on electricity, natural gas and fuel oil as their economies experience rapid development.

Israel to renew Gaza fuel supplies after blackout

srael said on Saturday it will allow fresh deliveries of fuel into Gaza, after a freeze which plunged much of the impoverished Palestinian territory into darkness overnight.

...The Palestinian electricity company said on Friday that it had been forced to stop nearly all electricity production in Gaza because of the suspension of deliveries.

'Environmentally friendly' all the rage in world market

Big business fears that the fight against climate change will cost billions are now giving way to a different view: Green can be the color of money.

High gas prices push man to convert truck to electric

The pickup isn't a hybrid. It runs completely on 24 six-volt batteries. They power a direct-current electric motor.

He said the Nissan has a range of about 50 miles before needing recharging. When that need comes, Barksdale simply plugs an onboard charger into an outlet.

Tapping into the sun

Proponents of solar-powered water heaters in Ottawa hope local gas and electric utilities, builders and municipal governments take advantage of a federal pilot project to fund the energy-efficient machines.

Hydrogen power gets up to speed

Albert Gore III was clocked at more than 100 mph in a Toyota Prius. Perhaps police should be glad he didn't get his hands on a Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999.

Ford Motor Co. said this week that it set a land-speed record for a production-based hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered car when its prototype racer ran 207.3 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah.

All the Canaries Have Stopped Singing

Matthew Simmons, Chairman, Simmons & Company International guests on the Financial Sense Newshour.

Crude prices seen unmoved by global subprime woes: survey

: Oil prices are set to remain robust through next year despite the global markets shakedown in recent days, with banks and other institutions trimming their estimates marginally, according to the monthly Dow Jones Newswires oil price survey.

An Act of Economic Madness

A recent piece by energy expert Michael Klare, "Entering the Tough Oil Era," at Tomdispatch.com offers perhaps the crucial context within which to consider Cheney's urge to launch an air assault on Iran. If we are, as Klare writes, leaving the realms of "easy oil" extracted from the most accessible places in the least unstable and least troubled of countries, and entering a new era of "oil that's buried far offshore or deep underground; oil scattered in small, hard-to-find reservoirs; oil that must be obtained from unfriendly, politically dangerous, or hazardous places," if global oil supplies are already under intense pressure and oil prices ready to leap on any hint of possible oil disaster anywhere on the planet, then imagine what a major air assault on Iran before January 2009 might mean for the global economy.

Nicaragua to Study Electricity Saving

Nicaragua's energy sector will discuss a new rationing program amid little hope that the annoying power cuts may drop.

The Philippines: Peasant Group Calls for Review of Biofuels Law; Fears Possible Land Grabbing, Displacement

The militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Philippine Peasant Movement) called for the review of the Biofuels Law fearing that jathropa planting would intensify land grabbing and peasant displacement.

Cuba: Energy on the road to national liberation

ONE day in the not-so-distant future historians will be able to define the dates and routes that led to human beings’ definitive emancipation from the forces that, from the remotest times, have divided them into rich and poor, masters and slaves.

I have no doubt that, at that point, the efforts and leadership of President Hugo Chávez to construct an energy model of solidarity as the basis for winning real Latin American independence, the latter will have to be taken into account – among other extremely important events – as essential to the final push into the abyss of the old system whose paternity in terms of exclusion and social marginalization and dependence nobody questions.

Fiddling While Earth Burns - review of The 11th Hour

The deluge of depressing images and dire predictions from talking heads - 54 of them - with lofty titles like "Professor and Senior Fellow at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy of the Institute for International Studies" is relentless. And mind-numbing.

Just because the subject is dead serious does not mean the documentary has to be. "We are committing suicide," warns one dour expert early on in the film. Bleak stuff, indeed.

Hurricane Dean seen becoming deadly Category 5

Hurricane Dean is expected to grow into a ferocious Category 5 storm as it passes Jamaica and nears Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the oil and gas rigs of the Gulf of Mexico after it smashed into several Caribbean islands, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Saturday.

With top sustained winds of 150 mph early on Saturday, the hurricane center said Dean was a Category 4 storm, the second-highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale and capable of widespread destruction.

The hurricane center said it was expected to strengthen to Category 5, with top sustained winds in excess of 155 mph, before plowing directly over Jamaica toward the Gulf, home to a third of U.S. domestic crude oil and 15 percent of natural gas production.

No waiting game for oil companies

Some can afford to wait. Some can't.

Shell Oil is not taking any chances. Especially with a hurricane churning in the Gulf of Mexico.

...Chevron is moving some workers from its deep-water rigs, but production is still on line.

ExxonMobil, BP and Valero Energy all say they are monitoring Dean, but no evacuations yet.

Russian Oil Production Up but Resource Nationalism Continues

Although Russian news agencies reported that oil production, which includes gas condensates, has increased by 2.8% to reach a level of 285 million tonnes in January through July 2007, the hidden crackdown by Moscow on the private oil sector continues. The Russian Ministry of Oil has reported that during the first seven months of 2007, overall primary oil refining increased by 5.2% to reach a level of 132 million tonnes, while gasoline output increased by 5.8% to 20.4 million tonnes. At the same time, total refinery production of the country has been around 35.7 million tonnes of fuel oil and 1.5 million tonnes of lubricants, respectively an increase of 5.7% and a decrease of 12.7%.

The dark continent - Power shortages have become one of the biggest brakes on development

SEEN from space, Africa at night is unlit—as dark as all-but empty Siberia. With nearly 1 billion people, Africa accounts for over a sixth of the world's population, but generates only 4% of global electricity. Three-quarters of that is used by South Africa, Egypt and the other countries along the north African littoral.

Alternative Energy: It's Not for Everybody: Clean energy for one country could spell disaster for another

Before I go any further, I'd like to say one thing right up front. I think alternative energy is a grand idea. I have fantasies about my country's deserts (I'm American) being covered by massive solar farms, and my nation's long and beautiful coastlines sprouting windmills by the thousands. I have Sci-Fi visions of millions of zero-emissions vehicles clogging America's roads in gloriously carbon free traffic jams.

But the embrace of clean energy by some could mean economic depression for others. After all, what are all the countries whose economies depend on fossil fuel exports going to do when technological advances and the threat of climate change eventually makes their main source of export income obsolete?

Africa: Oil & Gas Discoveries - the Implications

Relatively recently, oil and gas discoveries have been announced in more than ten African countries. These include Uganda, Ghana, Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Egypt, Cameroon, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe. This is great news for our continent.

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Air travel latest target in climate change fight

The statistics look ominous. Aviation currently contributes about 3 percent of global carbon emissions, but air travel is growing at some 5 percent a year, meaning numbers of air passenger kilometers will triple by 2030. Boeing estimates that aircraft numbers will double to more than 30,000 in little more than a decade.

Added to this is the complication that aircraft do not just give off carbon dioxide but nitrous oxide, thought to have at least double the impact of CO2, and condensation trails, which also may contribute to global warming.