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 on Jul 10, 2008 - View this thread

Meet Joules the climate change-sceptic robot. Joules is employed to teach 8-14 year-old school children in the UK about energy use. Joules says: "oil and gas could be in short supply in about 50 years time. The earth is believed to be getting warmer and sea levels apper to be rising. Energy Chest is funded in part by the world's biggest oil company: ExxonMobil.
posted on May 27, 2008 - View this thread

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 light. (we have talked about this before and the fact that CO2 powers the algae production is not insignificant) More details here.
posted on Apr 17, 2008 - View this thread

Titan find - The hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn’s moon may contain hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all of Earths known oil and natural gas reserves.
posted on Feb 13, 2008 - View this thread

"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.
posted on Oct 22, 2007 - View this thread

Peak Oil no more? Prophets of peak oil are being proven wrong as new technologies increase oil recovery rates. In fact, the entire peak oil theory might be based on flawed assumptions.
posted on Mar 6, 2007 - View this thread

Lawrence Livermore National Lab produces fascinating charts of energy flow in the US (more). More energy use statisitics can be found at the Energy Information Administration.
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - View this thread

The End of Ingenuity (NYT OpEd by Thomas Homer-Dixon)"..cheap energy is tightening, and humankind’s enormous output of greenhouse gases is disrupting the earth’s climate. Together, these two constraints could eventually hobble global economic growth and cap the size of the global economy." See also The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization. (2006).
posted on Nov 30, 2006 - View this thread

This Israeli process could turn the gigantic oil shale deposits of the US into the largest energy production in the world, outstripping the Middle East's role and dramatically altering the world economy to be even MORE US-centric.
posted on Nov 18, 2006 - View this thread

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 on Jun 24, 2006 - View this thread

Supertankers are so cool. Click previous sentence for more information.
posted on Apr 29, 2006 - View this thread

All Your Oil Are Belong To Us. Coming off of a recordbreaking profitable quarter, the good chaps at ExxonMobil laugh at your puny attempts to get off of oil.
posted on Feb 7, 2006 - View this thread

Iraq - All oil, no gas. A consortium of 34 Turkish companies have joined together to stop all exports of petrol / refined oil products to Iraq, because Iraq's government owes them over $1 billion that they have so far been unable to pay. Iraq's largest refinery was forced to shut down in December, after its truck drivers walked off the job due to insurgent threats. They reopened ten days later, only to shut down again after an insurgent swarm attack killed and wounded more drivers. The refinery has once more ceased activity, as their reserves of refined fuel are full and there is no way to get them to their customers. Iraq's diesel-driven power plants are undersupplied too, leading to worsening outages.
posted on Jan 22, 2006 - View this thread

As of today, world oil reserves are five percent lower than previously thought. Well informed early toppers like Jeremy Leggett (previously discussed here) won't be surprised by the news, though they may be disappointed that it didn't make bigger headlines.
posted on Jan 20, 2006 - View this thread

The jolly green Hummer? The growing band of environmental offset companies which give you the chance to offload your SUV driving, energy squandering guilt onto an annual subscription and a fancy bumper sticker looks like one way that we'll be able to live with ourselves in the power hungry 21st century. Is this the placebo we've all been waiting for?
posted on Jan 13, 2006 - View this thread

"Richard Rainwater made billions by knowing how to profit from a crisis. Now he foresees the biggest one yet". Rainwater discovers peak oil and wants to profit from it. Among other things, "he's thinking about opening a for-profit survivability center". Admittedly, his peak oil obsession goes beyond profiting:

But there may be something more important than making money. This is the first scenario I've seen where I question the survivability of mankind. I don't want the world to wake up one day and say, 'How come some doofus billionaire in Texas made all this money by being aware of this, and why didn't someone tell us?'

posted on Dec 13, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Nov 5, 2005 - View this thread

By a 52-47 vote on S.1932 §401, the US Senate today directed the Department of the Interior to begin selling oil leases within four years in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), with the goal of raising $2.4 billion to lower the deficit and, tangentially, help pay for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Oil would not be available for another ten years, and according to a 2003 DOE report, opening the Alaska refuge to drilling would only reduce U.S. dependence on imported crude oil in 2025 from 70 percent to 66 percent. The House of Representatives decides next week on whether to keep the drilling measure in the bill.
posted on Nov 4, 2005 - View this thread

Your Mr. Fusion is ready. Sort of.
posted on Sep 14, 2005 - View this thread

Resource wars and gas rations, what will be next ? I bet you didn't know we gobble oil like two-legged SUV's.
posted on Aug 31, 2005 - View this thread

US energy bill is held up by a pro-MTBE provision that bipartisan Senators promised they would not sign into law. Nervous MTBE manufacturers, in an effort to divest themselves of potential asbestos-like liability lawsuits, have been donating millions in campaign contributions to the cause, despite peer-reviewed research pointing to lingering questions about safety (PDF) and utility (PDF).
posted on Jul 15, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Apr 13, 2005 - View this thread

The Sky (and Global Oil Production) is Falling! With all the recent news on Global Warming, here's an article on the root cause of the problem: Global Energy Use. Has oil production peaked? Is the real focus of the Iraqi insurgency foreshadowing an energy-dominated future? Is there a solution to the problem??
posted on Feb 18, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Oct 18, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Oct 15, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Oct 5, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Dec 12, 2003 - View this thread

Has anyone heard anything more about the State Dept's Oil and Energy Working Group?
posted on Sep 17, 2003 - View this thread

U.S. Energy Scenarios for the 21st Century. There are three for you to choose: Awash in Oil and Gas, Technology Triumphs or Turbulent World.
posted on Jul 30, 2003 - View this thread

Path of a Pipeline: Oil, Empire, and Influence in the New Eurasia While so many of us talk about Iraq and war in terms of oil, it might prove useful to note what is going on close by. Not mentioned, however, in the article is the guess that China will have stupendous energy needs in the next decade, and what is taking place here will have an impact on their needs.
posted on Feb 11, 2003 - View this thread

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 on Jan 28, 2003 - View this thread

Hubbert's Peak: the impending oil shortage Is this the REAL reason behind the push to invade Iraq? In 1956. M. King Hubbert, a respected petroleum geologist, predicted - to within a year! - the peak in US oil production: 1970. US oil production has declined every year since. Using the same statistical methods, others now predict a world peak in oil production within a decade or even as early as 2006.
posted on Oct 18, 2002 - View this thread

Russia to Sign Oil Deal with Iraq. We saw this coming (right?) But is the timing significant?
posted on Aug 30, 2002 - View this thread

The best even-handed treatment I've seen of the ANWR controversy appeared in the May 13th issue of Sports Illustrated (Sorry, no link to the article, but my summary and other helpful links inside).
posted on May 14, 2002 - View this thread

The Saudis are about to deliver an ultimatum to Bush In a bleak assessment, he [Prince Abdullah] said there was talk within the Saudi royal family and in Arab capitals of using the "oil weapon" against the United States, and demanding that the United States leave strategic military bases in the region. Such measures, he said, would be a "strategic debacle for the United States." How should Bush respond?
posted on Apr 25, 2002 - View this thread

Senate blocks attempt to open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The vote was, it sounds, an attempt to end a democrat-led filibuster that has kept the proposed energy bill on the Senate floor for five weeks.
posted on Apr 19, 2002 - View this thread

Why am I and a few others the only ones interested in this angle of the war story. I have been doing research about our disappearing VP and have found lots more than I can link here. No implied conspiracy theory, just more of those things that make you say Hmmmm. See if you can connect the dots!
posted on Oct 15, 2001 - View this thread

He gives a whole new meaning to the word "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." NY Times
posted on May 1, 2001 - View this thread

Teenager runs his VW Jetta with used canola oil.
posted on Jul 20, 2000 - View this thread