Grid Limitations Increase Prices for Electricity

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — It is a tiny, flickering signal of an expensive problem looming for tens of millions of Americans: The cost of electricity for households in this southern Pennsylvania town soared this year by 31 percent, or an average of $24 a month.

Like the nation’s highways and bridges, the network of transmission lines has not been maintained and expanded enough to meet growing demand, the United States Department of Energy says.

A model for tackling the energy challenge

Project Apollo surfaces repeatedly as a model for tackling the energy challenge. Given the urgency of the situation, achieving a secure energy future will, indeed, call for a similar commitment in funding, policies, and passion. The execution, though, will have to be different. More than a discrete undertaking with a single goal, the energy project will have to deliver a broad portfolio of solutions, playing out on timetables measured over a few years to several decades.

Indonesia may cancel huge gas pipe project ends with this interesting bit:

Indonesia, the world's largest gas exporter, has mostly sold liquefied natural gas to foreign buyers but recently adopted a policy to allow bigger share of domestic consumption to deal with the energy crisis.

"We choose to develop domestic industries by cutting (gas) export," [Vice President Jusuf Kalla] said.

Russia gets tough on energy sales to Europe

BERLIN: In a new signal that Russia has toughened its position on energy sales to Europe, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had no intention of observing guidelines in the EU's energy charter that would allow non-Russian companies access to the country's vast pipeline network.

Azerbaijan to Stop Importing Russian Gas

Azerbaijan will stop importing Russian gas beginning January, a top Azeri energy official said Tuesday, after Moscow asked for more than double its previous price.

US hopes Opec won't cut output

Tokyo: US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said yesterday that he hopes Opec ministers will not decide to cut crude oil output levels further when they meet tomorrow.

Bodman also said he wants to encourage China to rely more on the global energy market and less on acquisitions as a way to bolster its energy security.

Cuts Prompt Home Focus for Scottish Oil and Gas Sector

The high price of oil and a shortage of manpower and equipment have prompted Scottish oil and gas companies to concentrate more of their activity in the North Sea, according to a survey by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI).

Indian gas surplus on horizon

NEW DELHI - A report by India's Ministry of Petroleum has said that the country will possess surplus natural gas in the next two years and its rapidly growing economy is likely to be fueled by it after major discoveries by state-run and private energy companies. Currently, India meets 70% of its energy requirements through imports.

Nigeria: Fuel Scarcity Paralyses Activities

Nigeria has again been gripped by fuel shortages. Long queues and black marketeering has resurfaced again in Kano, Katsina and Dutse following recent shortages of petrol-eum products to the states.

In Jos, most of the filling stations have not opened since last Friday.

Shortages were denied in Abuja by the manager of the NNPC station, who said queues were caused by 'panic buying'.

Biofuels seen as a luxury China cannot afford

China cannot afford to embark on industrial production of grain-derived biofuels because supplies of corn and other crops are needed to feed the country's 1.3 billion people.

"It would be a disaster for us if we depend on a huge amount of corn and other grains for energy," said Zhai Huqu, president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, in comments quoted by the official China Daily.

South Africa: South Africa: Biofuels Industry 'Could Drive Up Staple Food Price'

The government's decision to establish a biofuels industry -- producing fuel from agricultural crops - has been taken without proper consultation and could drive up the cost of maize, a staple food.

2006 Warmest Year in Netherlands in 300 Years

DE BILT, Netherlands - This year is on track to be the warmest in the Netherlands since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute KNMI said on Tuesday, linking the record with global warming.

Massive growth in the Middle East's renewable energy sector anticipated

Drastic increases in oil prices and increased awareness of the limited availability of traditional fossil fuels is giving the new and renewable energy sector enormous momentum, with many of the world leaders in the field of photovoltaics (solar power), wind power and other environmentally friendly energy schemes accelerating product innovations that are being embraced across the region as alternative power sources.

Turkey: Wind Energy Project Fails New legislation originally intended to increase benefits from wind energy and decrease dependency on foreign sources of energy has failed.

Pope alarmed over environmental destruction and energy exploitation

Vatican City - Benedict XVI is worried by the increase of pollution and the impoverishment of the planet due to 'a race towards available resources that cannot be compared to previous situations'.

Sun worship

Long ago the ancient Egyptians practised a religion of the sun, now we can no longer afford to ignore this inexhaustible resource.

Wall Street eyes heart of darkness: global warming

CHICAGO - The topic of the conference was climate change and the rhetoric was sobering, haunted by scientific projections of a roasted world for our children and a looming environmental disaster of Biblical proportions.

But this was no talk shop of environmental activists. It was a meeting of Wall Street investors, insurance executives, state treasurers and pension fund managers, who between them manage about $3.7 trillion in assets.

IEA: OPEC oil cut already tightening world market

LONDON - OPEC oil cuts already in place are tightening the world market ahead of winter and may prevent a recovery in consumer stocks, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday, urging OPEC to hold off on a new reduction.

OPEC ministers say may hold off on more oil cuts

ABUJA (Reuters) - OPEC appeared willing on Wednesday to pull back from more oil output cuts, responding to consumer nation calls to hold off until winter has passed to guard against price spikes that would hurt the world economy.

End oil, gas free ride

Lease royalties add up. Agency must audit records and make companies pay what's owed to taxpayers.

Royalty Rip-Off

The American treasury is already short more than a billion dollars because of the Interior Department’s failure over the last decade to collect all the royalties owed from oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico. The new Congress needs to fix the problem, or persuade a sluggish Bush administration to do so.

Britain sets sights on "zero carbon" homes

LONDON - Britain set out plans on Wednesday to help tackle global warming by making all new housing "zero carbon" within a decade.

South Korea builds world's largest garbage-fuelled power plant

SEOUL - South Korea has opened the world's largest garbage-fuelled power plant and expects to reduce its imports of heavy oil by 500,000 barrels a year as a result.

U.K: Revised wind farm plans unveiled. But the locals still vow to fight.

Is thorium the answer to our energy crisis?

It could power the planet for thousands of years, the reactors would never blow up and the waste is relatively clean. So is thorium the nuclear fuel of the future?

Shallow fuels bring bad news

Geologists have discovered underwater deposits of hydrates — icy deposits of frozen methane gas — at far shallower depths under the ocean floor than expected. The finding suggests that, in a globally warmed world, the hydrates could melt suddenly and release their gas into the atmosphere, thus warming the planet even more.

Exxon sees oil use, carbon emissions soaring. The biggest change to their new forecast is they see coal use soaring.

$20bn gas project seized by Russia Shell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.

Nine billion or bust!

Yesterday's reader discussion of the tensions between the world views expressed by technological optimists of the Norman Borlaug stripe, who believe an unending "green revolution" will keep allowing humanity to escape the consequences of its own proliferation, and those who believe that sustainability requires a comprehensive change in how humans live on this planet, inevitably led to the invocation of the ultimate prophet of doom, Thomas Malthus. Some believe we are already well past the breaking point of how many humans the planet can support. Others believe that further technological innovations will only prolong the inevitable reckoning. It's an argument that's been raging for at least 200 years, and the addition of another three billion or so humans to the total already living on the planet in the next fifty or sixty years is going to keep the debate hopping quite nicely.

But what I draw from the U.N.'s report is that this is a question that may well have an answer. As population and per capita consumption stabilize by the middle of this century, my daughter will have a pretty good idea of whether Malthus was right, or finally, absolutely, indubitably wrong.