END:CIV [full 75 minute movie] "If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?" [more inside]
posted by Burhanistan
on Mar 9, 2012 -
37 comments
Unusually for a spring season, gasoline prices
have been steadily climbing in the US since the beginning of 2011, and have surpassed $4/gallon in many US states, largely due to
political instability in many oil-producing African and Middle-Eastern nations.
"Not so fast," says the Department of Energy. Although the price of crude oil has climbed steadily throughout the year, the price of gasoline has climbed much faster -- a disparity known as the
crack spread, which
has remained at its highest level in 32 months, even in light of a sharp decline in the price of crude oil at the beginning of the month. The DoE speculates that although crude oil is cheap and plentiful enough, the
2011 Misssissippi River Floods are currently more to blame for $4 gas than the uprisings in the Middle East.
posted by schmod
on May 19, 2011 -
125 comments
In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company received a patent for a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium that feeds solely on carbon dioxide and excretes liquid hydrocarbons.
Joule Unlimited, co-founded by
George Church, appears ready to forever alter the way we produce fuel.
[more inside]
posted by Baby_Balrog
on Jan 18, 2011 -
140 comments
On May 10th, 2010 ExxonMobile had an oil spill in Nigeria Delta. It is somewhere around the
16th worst oil spill in [wikipedia reported] world history, at
95,000 tonnes (696,350 barrels or 214,475,800 gallons).
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it. Oil spills are a regular occurrence in Nigeria, about 300 a year, it is estimated over the past 50 years about 1.5 million tons have been dumped in the Delta, equivalent to the Gulf War oil spill (the largest spill on record) or 50+ Exxon Valdez.
[more inside]
posted by stbalbach
on May 30, 2010 -
50 comments
The fire is out on the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. But since the rig sank last Thursday, Coast Guard officials believe about 13,000 gallons (7,400 bbl) of crude oil per day is coming out of the exploratory hole drilled by the rig, about
41 miles offshore from Plaquemines Parish, LA. "An early suggestion that damage would be minimal because the fire was consuming most of the fuel 'does have the potential to change,' BP official David Rainey told the
New York Times."
[more inside]
posted by toodleydoodley
on Apr 26, 2010 -
99 comments
A
Saudi Prince tells America to give up futile dreams of energy independence.
Op-Ed in the NYT says Peak Oil is a waste of energy and an illusion. Meanwhile, the OECD's energy advisors, the IEA are saying cheap oil will
run out in ten years, a decade sooner than estimates made as recently as 2007.
posted by bystander
on Aug 26, 2009 -
88 comments
Pickens Plan -- oilman T. Boone Pickens has a plan to reduce America's oil dependency problem: exploit the country's massive windpower potential for domestic energy, replacing natural gas, and then use natural gas to power cars instead of foreign oil. Some
problems with the plan.
posted by Laugh_track
on Jul 10, 2008 -
41 comments
Pond scum saves the planet? In the beginning, there were algae, but there was no oil. Then, from algae came oil. Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting. In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae. ^ Power your ride with pond scum. In some
iterations you don't even need l
ight. (we have talked about this
before and the fact that CO2 powers the algae production is not insignificant) More
details here.
posted by caddis
on Apr 17, 2008 -
28 comments
"
The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This
change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost
all aspects of our daily life."
The new Oil Report from Energy Watch Group makes a strong case that we have now passed peak oil.
[more inside]
posted by roofus
on Oct 22, 2007 -
87 comments
The average American uses
20 pounds of coal a day. "our shiny white iPod economy is propped up by dirty black rocks.. I see more people dying of particle air pollution than are dying of AIDS." Coal accounts for nearly 40 percent of America's carbon dioxide emissions.
Big Coal by Jeff Goodell.
posted by stbalbach
on Jun 24, 2006 -
79 comments
Boundless energy or bad math? Randell Mills thinks he has the solution to our energy problems. In his company's patented
process,
"energy is released as the electrons of atomic hydrogen are induced to undergo transitions to lower energy levels producing plasma, light, and novel hydrogen compounds." It also implies that quantum mechanics is wrong.
posted by Espoo2
on Nov 5, 2005 -
73 comments
Whereas, in the past, national power was thought to reside in the possession of a mighty arsenal and the maintenance of extended alliance systems, it is now associated with economic dynamism and the cultivation of technological innovation. To exercise leadership in the current epoch, states are expected to possess a vigorous domestic economy and to outperform other states in the development and export of high-tech goods. While a potent military establishment is still considered essential to national security, it must be balanced by a strong and vibrant economy. 'National security depends on successful engagement in the global economy,' the Institute for National Security Studies observed in a recent Pentagon study.Regarding
Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency by Michael T. Klare, here is an
excerpt from the book and here is his most recent article--
Oil and the Coming War With Iran. Well, at least he has been consistent--consider
The Geopolitics of War,
Wars Without End,
Oiling the Wheels of War, and
Imperial Reach from his
articles for
The Nation alone. Here is an excerpt from his previous
Resource Wars and here is
Scraping the bottom of the barrel and
Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil. Well, as to his position on current events, I don't think we need to draw a picture here.
posted by y2karl
on Apr 13, 2005 -
52 comments
Peak Oil? Include Me Out, is one of the best reads about the whole issue of peak oil. Its author, Mick Winter "is a former Y2K community activist who currently suffers from chronic déjà vu and still hasn't figured out what to do about Peak Oil." I am a
peaknik and I can tell you this is a good read, no matter your stance on peak oil! (
psssst, if you are already a peaknik, or just curious, Winter maintains a good a peak oil metadirectory. )
posted by samelborp
on Oct 18, 2004 -
41 comments
Greenspan on oil (speaking to the the National Italian American Foundation, which
De Niro would never do :) "We will begin the transition to the next major sources of energy perhaps before midcentury as production from conventional oil reservoirs, according to central tendency scenarios of the Energy Information Administration, is projected to peak." And just to make it political, here's
a chart relating presidential approval ratings to gas prices!
posted by kliuless
on Oct 15, 2004 -
9 comments
Pederasts of the
mind: Of
kids, lies and Oil. The American Petroleum Institute
partners (in 2004)
with The
National Science Teacher's
Association (NSTA) and
Scholastic
(see: Scholastic's
creedo) to
provide K-12 lesson plans, on energy and oil, which resemble the
API's own "Teacher Lesson
Plans" and snappy
flash presentations such as
Progress
Through Petroleum! which are bundled with
fun stuff and
cool facts. The NSTA/API lessons teach all about energy and oil except the
global environmental impacts. Didactic bonus from
NSTA's oil-friendly curriculum :
a surrealistic gallery of oil industry
imagery for kids to download.
Recent glacial melt speedup in
Greenland and
Antarctica shocks researchers, while the Pentagon games
scenarios of
Abrupt
Climate Change : Don't worry, says the DOE's
Energy Ant - oil's
good, like cows,
m'kay
? . Extra credit : Play the
Oil and natural Gas
Crossword Puzzle, or the "Industry Lesson Plan Game" (that, and more, inside)
posted by troutfishing
on Oct 5, 2004 -
21 comments
We're filthy rich - now help us!! This is mostly an artice about Kyoto, but one little paragraph left my jaw wide open to see that OPEC thinks they should be compensated if the world finds a better way... I guess it's not a unique concept though - does anyone have some other examples of a (potentially) failing industry that wants compensation?? My apologies if I've missed this in another thread somewhere...
posted by matty
on Dec 12, 2003 -
17 comments
The State of the Energy: Ahead of
rumors Bush is set to propose a hydrogen fuel plan, fuel cell producer stocks
jump. In the event of an Iraqi war, the oil fields there will be
siezed to prevent their drestruction and Colin Powell says the US will hold them "
in trust".
posted by raaka
on Jan 28, 2003 -
41 comments
