New controls on publishing research worry US government geological unit's scientists

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, who study everything from caribou mating to global warming, subjecting them to controls on research that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens

MOSCOW -- On Nov. 15, the Russian Interior Ministry and Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant, announced three new senior appointments. Oleg Safonov was named a deputy head of the ministry. Yevgeny Shkolov became head of its economic security department. And Valery Golubev was appointed a deputy chief executive at Gazprom.

All three men had something important in common beyond the timing of their promotions: backgrounds as KGB officers and experience working directly with President Vladimir Putin when he was a KGB operative himself in Germany or later, when he was a rising presence in the local government of St. Petersburg, his home town.

Energy Also Fuels Japan's FTA Drive

Japan is accelerating its drive toward free-trade agreements (FTAs) with trading partners. To be sure, this Japanese move is being largely fueled by an intensifying rivalry with China over leadership in regional economic integration. But it is also being prompted by growing energy security concerns amid increasingly tough global competition for oil, gas and other resources.

US staying the course for Big Oil in Iraq

Once again, it's the oil. The Bush-Cheney system by all accounts went to Iraq to grab those fabulous reserves. The only way for an overall solution to the Iraqi tragedy would be for the Bush administration to give up the oil - with no preconditions, turning the US into an honest broker. Realpolitik practitioners know this is not going to happen.

European Energy Strategy for Ukraine

The new century put the old problem of reliable supply of oil and gas on the radars of the world’s most developed economies.

Russia Sets Deadline for Sakhalin-2 Repairs

Russia has set a deadline of Feb. 1 for Shell's Sakhalin-2 project to repair environmental damage or face the loss of its operating licenses, the Ria-Novosti news agency said citing a Russian federal agency.

IEA warns Russia may stunt region’s oil sector

Nationalism is added to the oil mix: Western producers are pressured to adapt to new terrain

Russia Could Top World Bank '05 List for Gas Waste

PARIS - Russia, the world's top natural gas exporter, was likely the world's biggest producer in 2005 of natural gas flaring -- which wastes energy and contributes to global warming -- the World Bank's global gas flaring reduction partnership (GGFR) said on Wednesday.

Chevron's Brazil Output May Grow to 110,000 Bbl/Day

Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, may produce up to 110,000 barrels a day in Brazil by 2015, an amount equal to 4 percent of its current output.

Coming Soon - Escape from Suburbia!

I’m sure there are very few of you out there who haven’t seen The End of Suburbia. Well, its sequel, Escape from Suburbia is on its way, you can now view the trailer over at You Tube and it does look really rather good.

Review - New Peak Oil Film "Crude Impact"

Book review: Richard Heinburg's The Oil Depletion Protocol

So we are addicted to oil, but what are the larger consequences? Maybe our dealings abroad lead you to think war. And why not? A struggle for control of oil resources has been going on since industrialized nations set up the infrastructure to utilize fossil fuels. But as Richard Heinberg digs deeper in The Oil Depletion Protocol, published by New Society Publishers, he points out that oil has become so entrenched in our everyday existence, from the pump to fertilizers to computer chips to ballpoint pens, that the only solution for a sustainable society is to reduce dependence.

Suburbia: Running on Empty?

Robert Bruegmann argues in his new book that urban sprawl will continue because people like it, but reviewer James Howard Kunstler counters that the petro-dependent suburban era is just about finished.

The Right to Pursue Powerdown: Seeking alternative lifestyles post-peak

Days are numbered for 'cheap oil fiesta'

Cheap oil is the underpinning of everything from suburban sprawl built on car culture to just-in-time trucking to factory farming that relies on petroleum-based fertilizers, author James Howard Kunstler says.

An Interview with James Howard Kunstler

I believe we will see an emphatic reversal of the 200-year-long demographic trend of people moving from the rural places and small towns to the mega-cities. I'm convinced that our big cities will contract substantially, even as they densify around their centers and waterfronts -- and I also believe that maritime transport is in for a big revival in the post-cheap-energy era. I think agriculture will come much closer back to the center of our economic life. I think our smaller towns and smaller cities will do better than the big ones. The process is liable to be rather disorderly and tumultuous.

Newly rich Asians to treble greenhouse gas emissions in 25 years

More Steorn: Tech firm pushes 'free energy' claims

A controversial technology company this week reiterated a series of audacious claims that have outraged scientists around the world.

The Dublin-based engineering company Steorn claims it has created a perpetual motion machine that uses a series of weights and magnets to generate "free energy". The system is claimed to break the laws of physics by producing more power than it consumes, and could potentially lead to the development of everlasting batteries.

Solar-Powered Hydrogen Generation: Rust-based solar panels could make hydrogen cheap and efficient.

This cartoon won an award:

Executives Urge Action to Cut Dependence on Foreign Oil

WASHINGTON — More than a dozen prominent business executives and retired military officers, including the chairman of FedEx and a former commandant of the Marine Corps, are lobbying Congress and the White House to undertake a comprehensive campaign to reduce reliance on imported oil.

OPEC to cut oil output by 500,000 bpd from Feb 1

ABUJA (Reuters) - OPEC has agreed an oil output cut of 500,000 barrels per day, or two percent, delayed until February1 when the northern winter is ending, Qatar's oil minister said on Thursday, sending oil prices more than a dollar higher.

By postponing a further reduction until peak demand has passed, OPEC is responding to importer nations' concern that a cut now will drive prices higher and hurt their economies.

Options Trader: Wednesday Morning Ideas

What? Oh it takes 6 weeks for the tankers to get here? OK -- in just 16 weeks then! Then you will all be DOOMED -- $100 oil is just... What? The U.S. only absorbs 25% of that production cut? OK, OK -- in just 46 weeks then! DOOM! Peak oil! Mu ha ha!

I really don't know who's sillier, the people who buy based on this logic or the analysts who support them...

Bewilderment as Russia's winter shrivels in face of global warming

Gennady Yeliseyev, deputy director of the state's weather service, the Gidrometeocentre, said that since November 20 Russia has experienced the warmest temperatures since records began in the 1870s.

"Average temperatures for the first 10 days of December are minus five degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and the current abnormalities range as high as plus 10 degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit)," he said. "This is the weather we'd normally have in late October."

Tom Whipple - The Peak Oil Crisis: EIA - The greatest failure of them all?

Another world is possible ... but how?

I believe it is far more likely that some form of global crisis – whether an abrupt manifestation of climate change, economic disruption around peak oil and declining availability of fossil fuels, expanding armed conflict, or increased social unrest due to growing global inequalities – will be necessary before we identify ourselves as global citizens and act as if humanity and the Earth’s collective fate requires a great transition.

San Jose will have innovative solar plant: 'Thin-film' cells don't use silicon