Utilities see big things in store for micro-power units
Flexible, cheap and easy on the environment, mini-hydropower generators are creating a buzz. You don’t have to change the course of rivers and move mountains to generate electricity.
Oil shortage or surplus? It depends on type of crude
OPEC producers insist there is no shortage of oil despite record prices and although plenty of heavy crude is available, refineries are thirsty for light sweet crude which is in shorter supply, analysts say.
Philippines cites urgency to cut dependency on foreign oil
The Philippine presidential palace Wednesday said it is imperative to cut the Philippine dependency on oil to lessen impacts of oil price hikes on citizen’s lives.
The Price of Oil and Economic Growth
It may have come as a surprise to many (particularly market analysts) that the price of oil didn’t just magically stop at US$40 a barrel. As we push beyond the $50 per barrel barrier the G-7 finance leaders seem to have given up demanding the impossible – that OPEC deliver oil at $30 a barrel or less.
Saudi extra barrels wrong kind of crude
The world’s oil refiners are unimpressed by Saudi Arabia’s boost to production capacity that would only swell supplies of sour, high-sulfur crude while they hanker for sweet oil.
Q&A: Ali Samsam Bakhtiari
The Peak Oil message board asks questions of Dr. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, one of the few experts from an OPEC country to speak out on Peak Oil. Dr. Bakkhtiari is Senior Expert attached to the Director’s office in the Corporate Planning Directorate of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
The Sage of the End of Oil
David Goodstein, the Caltech professor of physics and applied physics, who remembered all too well the upheaval caused by short-term oil crises in 1973 and 1979, immediately began to wonder how an ill-prepared world would cope with an irreversible fuel shortage in the near future. The self-evident answer: Not very well.
The End of the Age of Oil
Adaptation of a talk by Caltech vice provost and professor of physics and applied physics David Goodstein, author of Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil (W. W. Norton) // Sidebars on global warming and on Goodstein are included.
Saudi oil and Chinese motorists
TEN years ago China was a net oil exporter. Today it is the world’s third largest oil importer, behind the USA and Japan, and the second largest oil consumer. Ten years ago China produced around 250,000 cars per year. Last year the country churned out more than three million. Committed factory expansions and developments will take capacity to five million cars next year.
Oil price hits $US50 a barrel
Crude oil futures hit $US50 in electronic after-hours trade in New York, setting a new record as supply worries intensified.
Not if, but when: Oil production peak will bring hard transition
The country and the world will have to adjust to declining oil supplies by switching to other energy sources and pursuing efficiency. The sooner that transition occurs, the less wrenching it will be. Instead, oil consumers are driving toward a cliff with their foot on the accelerator, with Americans in the lead.
Q&A: Richard Heinberg
The Peak Oil message board questions Richard Heinberg, educator and writer on Peak Oil
