Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Martin Hastings Many govenments around the world are pushing carbon sequestration as the panacea to global warming. Deeper analysis shows that economic realty will push most economies towards a nuclear solution – the only problem of which is – what to do with the waste.
As the United States gears up for an attack on Iran, one thing is certain: the Bush administration will never mention oil as a reason for going to war.
Michael Klare discusses the recent and proposed changes to locations of US overseas bases in relation to changed geopolitical circumstances and the need to protect its sources of oil.
Saudi Arabia is promising petroleum buyers all the crude they want to build inventories ahead of an expected sharp increase in demand, according to a media report Thursday. The world’s largest oil exporter is offering to pump to capacity, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition, citing an unnamed senior OPEC official.
The $11 billion Gorgon gas project, off the West Australia coast, moved a step closer yesterday with project partner Shell saying it had finalised the sale of 2.5 million tonnes of Gorgon LNG (liquefied natural gas) a year to the US west coast.
For Global Public Media, Chris Skrebowski, author of the important Oilfields Megaprojects Report for the UK Petroleum Review, explains to Julian Darley why 2005 will be a critical year for global oil.
A shift from burning wood to burning charcoal in African households could save millions of lives and substantially reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, say US researchers.
BHP Billiton and BP Plc are among petroleum companies that may commit this year to spend more than A$5 billion ($3.9 billion) in Australia, mostly to produce natural gas as oilfield discoveries decline.
Treasurer Peter Costello has delivered a blunt warning that Australia is running out of oil as existing fields near the end of their productive lives.
But even if [Cornucopian economists] are right about the miraculous and timely appearance of oil substitutes, are they right that the things we would do as a global society to prepare for world peak oil production are a “waste of resources?”
[Cuba has] created what may be the world’s largest working model of a semi-sustainable agriculture, one that doesn’t rely nearly as heavily as the rest of the world does on oil, on chemicals, on shipping vast quantities of food back and forth… No one’s predicting a collapse like the one Cuba endured – probably no modern economy has ever undergone such a shock. But if things got gradually harder? … It’s somehow useful to know that someone has already run the experiment.
If the energy and materials to build nuclear power plants must be taken from other forms of construction, which projects will be sacrificed? Military bases abroad, or houses, schools and hospitals at home?
