Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Struggling with rising oil prices, Pacific island nations are increasingly looking to coconut oil, long a basic foodstuff and massage lubricant, as an economically and ecologically sound petroleum alternative.
American companies might join a long-delayed trans-Afghan natural gas pipeline project expected to be launched in 2006, the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan said Tuesday.
With up to 14 “enduring bases” being built in Iraq it seems the US’s fabled “exit strategy” may be not to exit at all.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) Tuesday warned of a possible renewed oil demand boom in 2005 and is telling oil producers to be on their guard against unexpected events.
Andrew Michelmore, the chief executive of the Australian mining group WMC Resources, will tell investors in London this week that the world faces a shortage of uranium and that his company has the world’s biggest deposit of the metal.
Industrialised countries are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, especially oil and gas. Gas and oil together provide 70% of the energy used in both the US and UK. But the world’s reserves are rapidly diminishing, and they don’t have to actually run out before precipitating a crisis. (An introductory article to Peak Oil)
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reviews Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, by Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute.
Hopedance magazine devotes its Jan/Feb issue to “Transitioning from Cheap Oil to a Post-Carbon World.”
Every day natural gas flares around the world burn off 10 billion cubic feet of energy–the equivalent of 1.7 million barrels of oil. A tiny R&D company in Tulsa, Oklahoma called Syntroleum Corp. claims it has refined a gas-to-liquids process to the point that it’s now cheap and safe, and can be used in the field to produce more easily transported fuels.
An oil-free New Zealand is on the Green Party’s agenda. … co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons warned of an oil crisis within 10 years. “The end of cheap oil is coming towards us with the force of a tsunami and New Zealand is not ready,” she said.
An energy tsunami formed due to a number of multi-billion dollar energy deals in oil and gas involving Iran, India, Russia and China has been unleashed in Asia, with great economic and political implications for the United States in particular and our global society in general.
New Zealand electricity companies begin planning for the construction of an LNG refinery.
