Energy Headlines – May 9, 2005

May 8, 2005

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage


Peak Oil


Pr.Kjell Aleklett interviewed on Undercurrent radio

Kevin Patrick
This interview aired on April 15, 2005 on WGDR-FM in Plainfield, Vermont (US). Kjell Aleklett discusses the importance and immediacy of peak oil and fossil fuel depletion.
Credits: Kjell Aleklett is a nuclear physicist and professor in the Department of Radiation Sciences at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is also the president of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (www.peakoil.net), a European organization dedicated to the study of fossil fuel depletion.
Notes: Undercurrent, hosted by Kevin Patrick, is a weekly discussion of the forces that often go unreported or underreported in the mainstream media, but are shaping our society and our future. It airs on WGDR-FM in Plainfield, VT and on the web at www.wgdr.org.
Two 40minute parts are available for download (~18MB each).


Energy-related News


Chavez: Oil Firms Owing Taxes Must Pay Or Leave

Associated Press
CARACAS (AP) — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela must pay taxes he insists they owe or else leave the country.
“The companies must pay what they owe,” Chavez said during his Sunday television and radio show. “If they don’t pay, they must leave.”
Chavez said that many private oil companies have been evading taxes for years, and they must be charged retroactively with interest on any debts. Officials have said that many declare losses to avoid paying income tax.
“It’s not possible that an oil company can come here, pay 1% royalty and not pay income tax, and still declare losses,” he said.
(8 May 2005)


OPEC Head blames high prices on ‘psychological worry’

Hindustan Times (India)
OPEC president Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah said on Sunday the oil producers’ cartel does not intend to hike its production levels at its meeting next month since markets are oversupplied. …
“The market is covered and supported by suitable quantities of oil that exceed global demand. Therefore, there is no worry over crude oil supply shortages in world markets,” he said.
“But there is always a psychological worry in addition to geopolitical circumstances that impact price differentials,” he said, adding the biggest proof of this is the $1-plus swings.
(9 May 2005)


Cities, Skyscrapers and Energy

Aaron Donovan
In the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of the New Yorker, David Owen published “Green Manhattan,” the most sensible article about the environment that I’ve seen in a long time. Using the communities where he has lived as case studies, he praises walkable communities and bicycling and public transportation and low energy use. The piece begins with some personal history.
My wife and I got married right out of college, in 1978. We were young and naive and unashamedly idealistic, and we decided to make our first home in a utopian environmentalist community in New York State. For seven years, we lived, quite contentedly, in circumstances that would strike most Americans as austere in the extreme: our living space measured just seven hundred square feet, and we didn’t have a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, a lawn, or a car.
That community, we later learn, was Manhattan, or, to use Kurt Vonnegut’s name for the place, Skyscraper National Park.
(13 April 2005)


Ethanol boost in Minnesota fuel heads closer to law

Patrick Condon, Associated Press
The Senate moved quickly Wednesday to send to the governor legislation that would provide a major boost to the production of ethanol in Minnesota. …
The current state standard for ethanol in most gasoline is 10 percent. In moving to boost that requirement to 20 percent, negotiators worked out a deal between the Senate and House versions of the bill that leaves room for ethanol use to increase more naturally. …
The state’s 15 ethanol plants currently produce about 400 million gallons a year; supporters say the higher requirement would create a need for about 574 million gallons.
(4 May 2005)


Markets At A Glance Peak Oil – Are We There Yet?

NewsGateway
For over a year now we have embraced energy as a major investment thesis, publishing our first article on this topic, titled “Slipping and Sliding Down Hubbert’s Peak”, in April of last year. As many of you are aware, we have been and continue to be avid proponents of the peak oil hypothesis. We believed it back then; and, given events as we’ve seen them unfolding, we believe it even more strongly today. …
One of our key points is: we don’t need to run out of oil before we have a problem. Once we used up half our oil the game is over. There is still plenty left, but we won’t be able to extract it fast enough to meet the world’s growing thirst for it. Even if production flattens out and stays where it is we are still in big trouble.
(April 18)


Solutions and Sustainability
None today