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U.S. 2008 oil demand to drop most since 1980: EIA
Tom Doggett, Reuters
The weak U.S. economy will slash America’s oil demand this year by 1.1 million barrels per day, or 5.4 percent, the first time annual oil consumption will fall by more than 1 million bpd since 1980, the federal Energy information Administration said on Wednesday.
For 2009, total U.S. oil demand was projected to drop by an additional 250,000 bpd, or 1.3 percent, the Energy Department’s analytical arm said in its new monthly forecast.
(12 November 2008)
Dirty coal to remain world’s top power source: IEA
Nao Nakanishi, Reuters
Coal, the dirtiest source of fuel, will remain the world’s main source of power until 2030 and nuclear will lose market share, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday.
Expectations of slower economic growth have led the IEA to downgrade its 2030 world electricity demand forecast to 23,141 terawatt hours (TWh), but the share of coal generated power would rise to 44 percent by 2015 from 41 percent in 2006.
It would stay at that level to 2030.
(12 November 2008)
Study Points to Major Source of Natural Gas in Alaska
Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
Federal scientists have concluded that Alaska’s North Slope holds one of the nation’s largest deposits of recoverable natural gas in the form of gas hydrates, a finding that could open a major new front in domestic energy exploration.
Researchers have speculated for years that gas hydrates — a combination of gas and water locked in an icelike solid that forms under high pressure and low temperatures — could provide an important source of natural gas in the United States and worldwide.
Today the U.S. Geological Survey will release a study estimating that 85.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be extracted from Alaska’s gas hydrates, an amount that could heat more than 100 million average homes for more than a decade.
… The prospect of extracting methane from gas hydrates, some of which lie below the permafrost of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, worries some environmentalists.
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Athan Manuel, who directs the lands program for the Sierra Club advocacy group, said that the refuge should remain “inviolate” and that tapping into gas hydrates can harm less-pristine areas as well.
“The process is still pretty damaging to ecosystems,” Manuel said …
(12 November 2008)
