The Oil Drum

Oil Shockwaves From U.S. Shale Boom Seen by IEA Ousting OPEC The U.S. shale boom will send “shockwaves” through the global oil trade over the next five years, benefiting the nation’s refiners and displacing OPEC as the driver of supply growth, the IEA said.

North America will provide 40 percent of new supplies to 2018 through the development of light, tight oil and oil sands, while the contribution from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will slip to 30 percent, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA trimmed global fuel demand estimates for the next four years, and predicted that consumption in emerging economies may overtake developed nations this year.

“The supply shock created by a surge in North American oil production will be as transformative to the market over the next five years as was the rise of Chinese demand over the last 15,” the Paris-based adviser to 28 oil-consuming nations said in its medium-term market report today.

The IEA Says Peak Oil Is Dead. That’s Bad News for Climate Policy No one—aside maybe from survivalists who’d stocked up on MREs and assault rifles—was really looking forward to a peak-oil world. Read this 2007 GQ piece by Benjamin Kunkel—while we’re discussing topics from the mid-2000s—that imagines what a world without oil would really be like. Think uncomfortable and violent. Oil is in nearly every modern product we use, and it’s still what gets us from point A to point B—especially if you need to get from A to B in a plane. If we were really to see the global oil supply peak and decline sharply, even as demand continued to go up, well, apocalyptic might not be too large a word. And for several years in the middle of the last decade, as oil prices climbed past $100 a barrel and analysts were betting it would break $200, that scenario seemed entirely plausible.

But there was an upside to peak oil. Crude oil was responsible for a significant chunk of global carbon emissions, second only to coal. Only the shock of being severed from the main fuel of modernity would be enough to make us get serious about tackling climate change and shifting to an economy powered by renewable energy and efficiency. We’d have to because we’d have no other choice, save a future that might look something like Mad Max. We’d lose oil but save the world.

The World is Not Running Out of Oil – but Europe Is Contrary to popular belief, peak oil alarmists and Greenpeace propaganda, the world is still and will continue to be for at least a century, largely powered by oil. And not just for transport. An endless number of consumer goods depend on a steady supply of petroleum products for their manufacture. As Marin Katusa, chief energy investment strategist for Casey Research points out, “A country without oil simply cannot continue to expand or even be competitive on the world stage.” Katusa explains, most of Europe’s oil comes from the North Sea region. A source where production has dropped to less than half of what it was in 2002. Much of the rest of it comes from countries such as Libya, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, all countries threatened by political instability and social unrest. Europe could, of course, push development of its own potential oil resources. Or they could if the ludicrously inept EU Energy Road Map wasn’t studded with anti-fossil fuel pot holes and renewable energy cul-de sacs that are deterring investors.

It Doesn't Matter If We Never Run Out of Oil: We Won't Want to Burn It Anymore Like whale oil in the 1860s, oil today has become uncompetitive -- even at low prices -- and that will only become truer with time.

No, Really: We're Going to Keep Burning Oil—and Lots of It No matter how much we wish it were otherwise, the economics favor burning fossil fuels.

Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics driving Syria conflict Syria's dash for gas has been spurred by its rapidly declining oil revenues, driven by the peak of its conventional oil production in 1996. Even before the war, the country's rate of oil production had plummeted by nearly half, from a peak of just under 610,000 barrels per day (bpd) to approximately 385,000 bpd in 2010.

Since the war, production has dropped further still, once again by about half, as the rebels have taken control of key oil producing areas.

Faced with dwindling profits from oil exports and a fiscal deficit, the government was forced to slash fuel subsidies in May 2008 - which at the time consumed 15% of GDP. The price of petrol tripled overnight, fueling pressure on food prices.

The crunch came in the context of an intensifying and increasingly regular drought cycle linked to climate change. Between 2002 and 2008, the country's total water resources dropped by half through both overuse and waste.

China Seen Boosting Emergency Oil-Storage Capacity, IEA Says China will probably commission additional storage sites for its strategic petroleum reserve this year, boosting crude demand even as construction work on the program takes longer than expected, according to the International Energy Agency.

The nation, the world’s second-biggest crude consumer, will add 245 million barrels of capacity in the second phase of its emergency stockpile plan, the Paris-based IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report released today. That’s up 45 percent from the IEA’s original estimate of 169 million barrels. Completion may be delayed to 2015, according to the agency, which originally forecast the project would be finished by the end of this year.

Shell Targeted With BP in EU Price Fixing Probe for Oil Three of Europe’s biggest oil explorers are among companies being questioned by European antitrust regulators about potential manipulation of prices in the $3.4 trillion-a-year global crude market.

EU Oil Manipulation Probe Shines Light on Platts Pricing Window Two weeks after Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Platts changed the way more than half of the world’s crude is valued, the companies along with BP Plc and Statoil ASA are being probed by European antitrust regulators about potential manipulation of oil prices.

The investigation by the European Commission shines a light on how price reporting companies including Platts, the energy news and data provider owned by McGraw Hill Financial Inc., help determine the cost of raw materials used in everything from plastic bags to jet fuel. The suspected violations are related to the Platts’ Market-On-Close assessment process, or so-called window, and may have been ongoing since 2002, Statoil said.

Britain urges oil firms to comply with probe LONDON (Reuters) - Britain expects oil firms to fully comply with a European Commission's probe into energy pricing and would be deeply concerned if prices have been driven up, a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday.

WTI Crude Near Two-Week Low; Europe Probes Oil Pricing West Texas Intermediate crude fell for a fifth day in its longest run of declines since December. Antitrust regulators are questioning European oil companies about possible manipulation of prices.

Futures traded near their lowest closing level in almost two weeks in New York. Crude inventories gained 1.1 million barrels last week, the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute said yesterday. A government report today may show stockpiles climbed 450,000 barrels, according to a Bloomberg survey. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, Statoil ASA and Platts said they’re being investigated after the European Commission conducted raids on their offices in three countries.

“The world will remain well-supplied,” said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London. “Higher prices lately have triggered a boost to capacity that will continue to outpace slack post-crisis demand growth.”

Nebraska could see another spike in gas prices Drivers in the Plains states, including those in Nebraska, could be paying another 10 to 20 cents a gallon for gasoline in the next few days, and that's on top of the 15- to 20-cent increases of the past week, according to industry analysts at GasBuddy.com

“Most states have seen increases over the past week, and the national retail average reflects that with a 6-cent-per-gallon increase, but clearly, these states have gotten the brunt of it,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst, GasBuddy. He was referring to North Dakota (up $0.19 per gallon over the past week), Kansas ($0.17), Nebraska ($0.16), Iowa ($0.15), Oklahoma ($0.14), South Dakota ($0.13) and Minnesota ($0.12).

Ex-Goldman Trader Saiz’s Fund Assets Drop 86% Following Loss Vector Commodity Management LLP’s assets under management slumped 86 percent this year after losing money since 2011.

The energy hedge fund run by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. trader Gilbert Saiz managed $43 million by the end of April, according to a letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg News. Its December statement showed assets of $318 million. Vector’s trading of mainly crude and oil products resulted in a 4.9 percent loss from January through April, the letter showed. A Vector executive in London, who asked not to be named in line with company policy, declined to comment by phone today.

Pertamina embarks on shale gas exploration Indonesia’s biggest energy firm, PT Pertamina, will tap into shale gas exploration this year in the state-controlled company’s bid to discover unconventional natural gas amid dwindling crude oil production.

Pertamina CEO Galaila Karen Agustiawan signed the production-sharing contract of the Sumbagut block in North Sumatra during the inauguration of the of the 37th Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) convention in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Brazil Oil Auction Gathers Drillers With Taste of Africa More than 60 oil companies are set to bid on exploration permits offshore Brazil, taking on risks of drilling in virgin waters after similar geology across the Atlantic in Ghana and Ivory Coast yielded major discoveries.

Contestants in Brazil’s first oil auction in five years range from Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., the largest U.S. producers by market value, to Brazilian startup Ouro Preto Oleo & Gas, a government registry shows. They’re betting that deep-water deposits off the northern coast hold reserves like those found thousands of miles across the ocean in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. The two-day sale, estimated to generate as much as $5 billion for the government, started today in Rio de Janeiro.

Russia Seeks $2 Billion Gain With Oil Extraction Tax Increase Russia’s Finance Ministry is seeking to raise $2 billion by raising taxes on crude output as the world’s largest oil-producing nation seeks to boost budget revenue, according to a plan presented to government officials.

A higher mineral extraction tax rate will be partly offset by a decrease in export duties, according to the document. The budget’s gain is based on an average oil price of $100 a barrel.

Anadarko’s Walker Named Chairman as Hackett’s Reign Ends Hackett remade Anadarko through deep-water exploration projects in Africa and the Gulf of Mexico and more than $21 billion in acquisitions. Analysts are looking for Walker, 56, to extract more value from the oil and natural gas assets Hackett assembled, while helping the company move beyond an environmental lawsuit and its association with BP Plc’s 2010 Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Greece to break up state-owned power company by 2016 ATHENS -- Greece's conservative-led government has announced plans to break up the state-run Public Power Corporation by 2016, as part of a privatization program demanded by the crisis-hit country's creditors.

Taiwan to sanction Philippines, send naval ships in fishing spat TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan on Wednesday recalled its envoy to the Philippines, froze applications for work permits and ordered military exercises in waters between the two sides to press its demand for an apology for the shooting death of a Taiwanese fisherman.

Andrew Weaver makes history in BC, becomes first Green in provincial legislature Andrew Weaver — a University of Victoria climate scientist — has won his seat in the Vancouver Island riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head becoming the first Green Party candidate elected to a provincial legislature in all of Canada.

B.C. vote shifted on one word: Pipelines The NDP looked way ahead before voters went to the polls in British Columbia. Then it all changed. Why? One word: “Pipelines.” Or more precisely, two: “Kinder Morgan.”

Until two weeks ago it was the election of the NDP’s Adrian Dix to lose. Then he got greedy. Worried about an emerging Green threat, Mr. Dix sought to pre-empt the party by going greenier-than-thou, specifically by promising to ban significantly greater tanker traffic out of the port of Vancouver, which would doom the export of Alberta oil to the Pacific. This was a stunning turnabout on a clear promise to withhold judgement until the pipeline application had been filed with details made available.

His gamble failed and, more importantly for the future of the NDP, the Greens elected their first MLA. This will split the vote on the left for years to come.

Ex-BP Engineer Says U.S. Withheld Evidence in Spill Case A former BP Plc (BP/) engineer charged in the first criminal case arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill said U.S. prosecutors withheld evidence that might clear him and urged a judge to sanction them.

Why natural gas exports would benefit clean energy The renewable energy industry would benefit from higher natural gas prices--and higher coal prices, for that matter--since, as these fuels for electric power plants become dearer, renewable energy sources become more competitive. The costs for renewables are in the production and installation of the solar panels, wind towers and dams; the fuels--sunlight, wind, and water--are essentially free.

Fuel-Cell cars set to gain momentum in US, but will consumers want to pay for the vehicles? Considered by many to be more efficient than even electric vehicles, fuel cells aren’t limited by the dynamics of thermodynamics, notes NextGreenCar, which enables them to achieve higher conversion efficiencies than conventional engines that only make use of 20 percent-25 percent of the fuel’s energy (as in gas-powered cars) – fuel cells can achieve up to 60 percent.

M-B-Hydrogen-FCVHowever, unlike a battery the reactants – fuel and oxygen – have to be continually supplied for an electric current to be produced.

Fuel cell vehicles have been known to have a driving range of up to 240 miles or more.

North Carolina May Ban Tesla Sales To Prevent “Unfair Competition” From the state that brought you the nation’s first ban on climate science comes another legislative gem: a bill that would prohibit automakers from selling their cars in the state.

The proposal, which the Raleigh News & Observer reports was unanimously approved by the state’s Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, would apply to all car manufacturers, but the intended target is clear. It’s aimed at Tesla, the only U.S. automaker whose business model relies on selling cars directly to consumers, rather than through a network of third-party dealerships.

Petrobras Besting Sugar Mills in Ethanol Boom Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the state-run oil producer, stands to profit the most from Brazilian measures to boost ethanol output as rising biofuel supplies reduce the need to sell imported gasoline at a loss.

£11billion energy smart meter roll out delayed by a year because 'more time is needed for testing' The roll out of energy smart meters in to 30 million UK homes is being delayed by a year because more time is needed to design and test products, the government has announced.

The £11billion project will start in the autumn of 2015, rather than next summer, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said.

Homeowners Warm to Solar Power When Linda and Jay Mathews moved back to their native California nearly two years ago — after 20 years in New York and Washington — they found their dream home in Pasadena. It had everything they wanted, plus a few items not on their shopping list. Among the latter: solar panels on the roof that keep their electric bill to about $100 a year, less than what they paid each month when they were living in the East.

Moreover, because the power generated by their panels contributes to the region's overall electric grid, they also receive credit for energy they produce but don't use — a policy known as "net metering," which adds additional savings to their overall electric costs.

US holds wind farm radar tests The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has conducted trials on technologies designed to solve the problem of wind farms’ impact on radar.

The tests were organised by the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Energy, and assessed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory.

Fewer Rain Forests Mean Less Energy for Developing Nations, Study Finds The loss of tropical rain forests is likely to reduce the energy output of hydroelectric projects in countries like Brazil that are investing billions of dollars to create power to support economic growth.

UN: Eat more insects; good for you, good for world ROME (AP) — The latest weapon in the U.N.'s fight against hunger, global warming and pollution might be flying by you right now.

Edible insects are being promoted as a low-fat, high-protein food for people, pets and livestock. According to the U.N., they come with appetizing side benefits: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and livestock pollution, creating jobs in developing countries and feeding the millions of hungry people in the world.

Potato may help feed Ethiopia in era of climate change With unpredictable annual rainfall and drought once every five years, climate change presents challenges to feeding Ethiopia. Adapting to a warming world, the potato is becoming a more important crop there – with the potential to feed much of Africa.

Canada Sells Out Science Over the past few years, the Canadian government has been lurching into antiscience territory. For example, they’ve been muzzling scientists, essentially censoring them from talking about their research. Scientists have fought back against this, though from what I hear with limited success.

But a new development makes the situation appear to be far worse. In a stunning announcement, the National Research Council—the Canadian scientific research and development agency—has now said that they will only perform research that has “social or economic gain”.

Crucial Carbon Dioxide Reading Revised Downward One of the two programs that monitor greenhouse gases said on Monday that it had revised a reading from last week suggesting that carbon dioxide in the air had surpassed the symbolic level of 400 parts per million.

The new reading by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is 399.89 parts per million for the 24 hours that ended at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday. However, a second monitoring program run by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography continues to show a level of 400.08 parts per million for the same period — a historic level indicative of the rapid rise in human-produced emissions.

Biggest Emitter China May Not Import Carbon Credits for Decades China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas, will probably avoid importing carbon credits for two decades, as diplomats worldwide craft a new emissions market that will increase supply, the nation’s climate negotiator said.

Using offsets from outside China in that period is an “unlikely scenario,” Su Wei said in a May 2 interview in Bonn. “Rather, internally we will have a lot of offsetting credits.”

Cutting Carbon Dioxide Isn’t Enough This effort should not be confused with ongoing efforts to capture CO2 and sequestering it at its source, for example, from outgoing flue gas from coal-fired power plants. That area is important, too, but it’s already being explored, and the technological demands are quite different.

Extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, even with its current level of 400 ppm, is very different—and in some ways more difficult—than extracting it from flue gas, where the CO2 concentration is much greater. But on the brighter side, extracting ambient CO2 from the atmosphere does not have to be anywhere near 100 percent efficient. Both of these factors imply different constraints on the extraction process that will affect its ultimate cost.

6 big challenges confronting the Arctic Council During Wednesday's sessions, the conference agreed to let nations that are far from Earth's north to become observers to the council's operations.

The decision boosts rising superpowers China, India and Korea, which seek to mine the north of its untapped energy and other natural resources. The European Union also was tentatively granted observer status but must first address several questions about its bid, including concerns about its ban on Canadian seal exports.

Arctic nations must urgently improve rescue services - Canadian experts OSLO (Reuters) - Arctic nations must urgently improve rescue services in the resource-rich region that is opening up fast to shipping, energy and mining companies, Canadian experts said on Monday.

As sea ice thaws rapidly, ships are increasingly using a shortcut between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and competition is intensifying for Arctic oil and gas - estimated at 15 percent and 30 percent respectively of undiscovered reserves.

Ice melt, sea level rise, to be less severe than feared - study OSLO (Reuters) - A melt of ice on Greenland and Antarctica is likely to be less severe than expected this century, limiting sea level rise to a maximum of 69 cm (27 inches), an international study said on Tuesday.

Even so, such a rise could dramatically change coastal environments in the lifetimes of people born today with ever more severe storm surges and erosion, according to the ice2sea project by 24, mostly European, scientific institutions.

For Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change rom Hurricane Sandy’s devastating blow to the Northeast to the protracted drought that hit the Midwest Corn Belt, natural catastrophes across the United States pounded insurers last year, generating $35 billion in privately insured property losses, $11 billion more than the average over the last decade.

And the industry expects the situation will get worse. “Numerous studies assume a rise in summer drought periods in North America in the future and an increasing probability of severe cyclones relatively far north along the U.S. East Coast in the long term,” said Peter Höppe, who heads Geo Risks Research at the reinsurance giant Munich Re. “The rise in sea level caused by climate change will further increase the risk of storm surge.” Most insurers, including the reinsurance companies that bear much of the ultimate risk in the industry, have little time for the arguments heard in some right-wing circles that climate change isn’t happening, and are quite comfortable with the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is the main culprit of global warming.

“Insurance is heavily dependent on scientific thought,” Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, told me last week. “It is not as amenable to politicized scientific thought.”

Old Technology Fuels New Energy Boom What’s happening today is not a new-technology revolution; it’s an evolution of new applications for existing technology. Oil companies are doing things that they’ve been doing for decades more efficiently, more effectively, and in much wider applications.

That may sound like a fine distinction, but it’s an important one: Silicon Valley has for years invested in sexy new technologies, from smartphones to social media to exotic solar power materials. The cleantech industry itself has not benefited from a fascination with the new, the exotic, and the high-tech. The technology for embedding sensors with fiber-optic connections in a drill head so that technicians on the surface can map a formation as they drill it is not all that sexy, and it didn’t come from a VC-funded startup in a Mountain View garage. It came from drilling engineers in the field figuring out, gradually, how to do things better, cheaper, and smarter. Often, as in the case of the 21st century oil and gas boom, imaginative tinkering can be more fruitful than reinvention or laboratory R&D.

WTI Drops a Third Day; OPEC Output at Five-Month High West Texas Intermediate crude fell for a third day, the longest run of declines in four weeks, as OPEC boosted output to the highest level in five months.

WTI futures slid as much as 1.2 percent in New York, and London-traded Brent decreased for a second day. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries produced 30.46 million barrels a day last month, up from 30.18 million in March, the group’s secretariat said May 10. That’s the most since November. Morgan Stanley predicted that the spread between WTI and Brent will widen as U.S. supplies accumulate.

Singapore bunker fuel sales rise 8.5 pct in April on lower prices The outright price for the Singapore marine fuels benchmark 380-centistoke (cst) between April 1 and 18 fell $42.50 a tonne to $592.50 a tonne, which was also the lowest price for the month, Reuters data showed.

This drop was triggered by a plunge in global crude oil benchmarks in April, following a slew of negative economic data from the world's largest oil consumers, the United States and China. Brent crude was down nearly 7 percent on the month, while U.S. oil was 3.9 percent lower.

Iran says $100 per barrel is 'fair' price for oil TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's oil minister says the country supports prices of $100 for a barrel of crude.

A Monday report by the ministry website quotes Rostam Ghasemi as saying, "For the price of crude to remain at about $100 is fair, and Iran supports it."

China Oil Refining Falls to Eight-Month Low; Power Output Gains China’s crude processing fell to the lowest level in eight months in April as refineries shut units for maintenance and industrial production expanded at a slower pace than forecast. Electricity output increased.

Refining in the world’s second-largest oil consumer dropped to 9.36 million barrels a day last month, according to data published today on the website of the Beijing-based National Bureau of Statistics. That’s the lowest since August and 8 percent below December’s record.

Chinese Sneeze Startles OPEC China has been the driving force behind oil-demand growth since 2008, when much of the rest of the world stalled.

Now OPEC has added its voice to the debate, warning that weaker-than-expected economic growth in China may dent oil consumption. OPEC may well be concerned—Saudi Arabia, the cartel’s kingpin, is the No. 1 supplier of oil to China and the Middle East represents some 40% of Chinese oil imports, according to the Saudi Gazette.

China's debt: a crisis in the making? HONG KONG (CNNMoney) The world's second largest economy has a debt problem.

China's credit boom has saddled unworthy businesses with large loans, fueled the country's shadow banking system and put local governments on the hook for billions.

Swiss bank UBS calculates that central government debt was equal to 15% of the economy at the end of 2012. That number spikes to 55% when debt racked up by local governments and agencies is included.

If corporate and household debt is also counted, China's total debt load balloons to more than 200% of gross domestic product.

Indonesia to Seek Higher Price From China for LNG Indonesia will send a delegation to China later this month to seek a higher price for its liquefied natural gas, the head of oil and gas upstream watchdog SKK Migas said Monday.

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan Launch Caspian Rail Link Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have launched a direct railway linking their oil-and-gas-rich Caspian Sea regions, bypassing Uzbekistan. The new line promises to benefit "tens of countries" in the region, opening the remote areas to major markets, says Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Mexico sees oil and gas theft upsurge in 2013 Hydrocarbon theft in Mexico so far this year has nearly doubled in comparison with 2012, with the worst hit zones corresponding to some of Mexico's drug war hotspots.

Oil Minister: Iran Plans New Petrochemical Hubs TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi lauded the eye-catching growth of Iran's petrochemical industry, and said that new petrochemical hubs will be created in the country.

British Columbia Vote Risks Oil-Sands Exports British Columbia’s provincial election threatens to stymie efforts by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ) and other Alberta oil-sands companies to sell crude to Pacific markets.

Transocean Chairman Talbert to Step Down Amid Fight With Icahn Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest offshore oil rig contractor, said Chairman Michael Talbert plans to step down as the company fights board nominees from billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Chesapeake Ruling Shocks With $117 Million Loss: Credit Markets Last week’s court ruling against a group of Chesapeake Energy Corp. bondholders exposes another risk for investors seeking gains in a market where securities valuations are already at record highs.

Prices on the second-biggest U.S. natural gas producer’s notes have fallen by as much as 9 cents on the dollar, erasing $117 million, after a judge ruled May 8 that Chesapeake could redeem the securities at par. Investors including the hedge-fund firm run by former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. President Bart McDade were betting the Oklahoma City-based company had missed a deadline and would have to pay as much as $400 million to retire the debt early.

Our Enron-style justice system There is Too Big to Jail – and now there is Too Big to Keep In Jail.

This is the envelope-pushing precedent being set by the Justice Department in its dealings with convicted Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling – a.k.a. one of the hucksters whose rip-off schemes were responsible for, among other things, losing more than $2 billion of retirees’ pension funds.

Is Canada’s Oil Too Dirty for Europe? As the debate over the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline continues in the United States, a Canadian trade delegation is insisting that Canadian oil extracted from tar sands — the product that would be transported by an expanded pipeline — should not be classified as being dirtier than other types of oil.

Last week Canada’s natural resource minster, Joe Oliver, threatened to take the European Union to the World Trade Organization over its plans to classify oil harvested from tar sands as “highly polluting.”

Cameron Says Oil, Mineral Companies Need Improved Transparency U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron set his sights on oil, gas and mining companies in his drive for greater corporate and government transparency ahead of the summit of G-8 industrialized nations next month.

Cameron, who will chair the summit in Northern Ireland in June, singled out the sector as he outlined his plans to forge an international deal to tackle tax evasion and avoidance and increase the openness of corporations.

Canadian oil company threatens the survival of Peru’s ‘Jaguar people’ The Yaquerana River in the Amazon rainforest marks the border between Peru and Brazil, but to the Matsés tribe, who live on both sides of it, this international border is meaningless. To them the streams, floodplains, and white-sand forests make up an ancestral territory that is shared by the entire tribe.

Today they are at risk of losing their land to a Canadian oil company which plans to cut hundreds of miles of seismic testing lines through their forest home and to drill exploratory wells.

Gas tax alternative drive takes wrong turn Gas taxes are not perfect. Unlike transponders, they don't allow for peak-hour pricing to reduce congestion. And, as many states have figured out, they raise less money when people buy more efficient cars.

But they have the great virtue of being uncomplicated and fair. The people who pay the most gas tax are those who drive the most and use the most gas. Makes sense to us.

Mileage fee now Congress has not raised the federal gas tax in 20 years, partly because gasoline is the only commodity Americans purchase with real price information supplied every time they pass gas station signs. Given the roller coaster of gas prices, it is no mystery that people don't like the gas tax, which half of Americans mistakenly think is increased every year.

With the purchasing power of the gas tax dwindling, the most promising funding alternative is a vehicle-mile-traveled fee (VMT), which Oregon is helping to develop as an alternative revenue source.

New taxes make electric vehicle owners pay their share (WIRED) -- Electric vehicles use the same roads, the same bridges and the same infrastructure as the rest of us. But because they don't burn gasoline, they're immune from paying taxes at the pump to fund that infrastructure. That's going to change.

Tesla sales beating Mercedes, BMW and Audi NEW YORK (CNNMoney) You know the Tesla Model S, the $70,000 (and-up) electric car that "nobody can afford"? Well, evidently, more than a few people can afford it.

In fact, in the first quarter of this year, more people bought a Tesla Model S than bought any of the similarly priced gasoline-powered cars from the top three German luxury brands, according to data from LMC Automotive. About 4,750 bought a Model S while just over 3,000 bought Mercedes' top-level sedan.

Dubai looks to rooftop solar power revolution Dubai is finalising legislation that will enable property owners to feed solar power into the grid and may even allow them to make money from it.

The Government last year unveiled plans for a 1,000-megawatt solar park, but it believes that small-scale applications are important for meeting its renewable energy targets.

Better batteries could revolutionize solar, wind power The battle to build a better battery is intensifying as the United States and other countries, faced with growing global demand for electricity and a need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that worsen climate change, look to expand carbon-free renewable energy such as wind and solar.

The Hidden World Under Our Feet There are numerous threats to soil life. Modern tillage agriculture is a big one, because it deprives soil life of organic matter it needs for food, allows it to dry out and adds pesticides, herbicides and synthetic nitrogen. Soil “sealing” from the asphalt and concrete of suburban sprawl destroys soil life, as do heavy machinery and pollution. Even long-ago insults like acid rain still take a toll on life in the soil by having made the soil more acidic.

Clock is ticking, slowly, on rules for coal-fired power plants The fate of many coal-fired power plants may rest on how boldly Obama tries to fulfill his pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

India must develop own climate model: US expert New Delhi (IANS) India is amongst the countries most vulnerable to climate change and must develop its own model to study changes at the regional level and take necessary mitigation measures, a senior US scientist of Indian origin said.

Anjuli S. Bamzai, program director of the Climate and Large Scale Dynamics Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a US government agency, said India has a historic database of 130 years of weather and it can be used for climate modelling. The country has a monsoon model but not a climate model.

Cities need the resilience to face future Sandys Whether or not Hurricane Sandy had a connection to climate change, climate change will make future Hurricane Sandys more common, imposing enormous costs on cities.

Since we seem to lack the will to reduce this threat by cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, we should at least make ourselves more resilient to severe weather.

Perceptions based on perhaps too small a collection of information can lead into opinions that, on investigation, turn out to be incorrect. Just recently a couple of friends had mentioned that charities that they are associated with were seeing a decline in donations. I built this into a picture of the general public being less able to afford earlier levels of giving, perhaps because of the continued impact of higher costs of fuel. However, the perception is as a general statement, wrong, and (via the National Park Service from The Giving Institute) I learned that:

Americans gave more than $298.42 billion in 2011 to their favorite causes despite the economic conditions. Total giving was up 4 percent from $286.91 in 2010. This slight increase is reflective of recovering economic confidence.

The greatest portion of charitable giving, $217.79 billion, was given by individuals or household donors. Gifts from individuals represented 73 percent of all contributed dollars, similar to figures for 2010.

In the perception that is becoming increasingly prevalent on the future of energy supplies, and particularly on crude oil, the current adequacy of supply is projected forward to anticipate no problems with supply in the future. Peak oil is now suggested to occur not because the supply is limited, but because with the increasing use of renewable energy, demand will peak, and then decline. Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich is quoted as projecting that the growth in fossil fuel use will almost stop by 2030, while Citi Commodity Researchers are suggesting that the increases in prices will drive increases in efficiency that will bring a peak in oil demand “much sooner than the market expects.”

Figure 1. Projected changes in global oil demand (Citi Commodity Researchers)

This anticipation of future gains in efficiency of use is a common thread to pictures of the future from the three major oil companies that I recently reviewed. All three, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP expect that energy efficiency gains will have a major impact on demand. BP, for example, anticipates that through 2030 energy demand will increase 36 percent, but that without this improvement in efficiency global energy would have to double by 2030.

One of the problems in assessing the changes in efficiency over time is that when looking at the past decade, one has to recognize the significant impact of the recession. For example, the Odyssee project looked at energy use in Europe and clearly showed the impact of the recession on demand.

Figure 2. Changes in electricity use in the countries of Europe following the start of the recession (Odyssee)

What also caught my attention in looking where most of the energy savings were occurring was that it was in countries catching up to Western Europe, rather than in the more established West, and that when the overall savings are totaled these appear to have slowed significantly.

Figure 3. Overall energy savings in the EU relative to a 2000 baseline (Odyssee)

The second problem with the curve that Citi projects lies in the rate at which vehicles are switched from diesel and gasoline to natural gas power. There is currently an economic incentive in parts of the world to make this change. It currently sells at around the equivalent of $2.10/gallon in the USA. Yet it requires both infrastructure and an investment of capital to make the change at any level of significance. Nevertheless it remains a key ingredient of the Pickens Plan that Boone Pickens has been selling around the country for a number of years now.

The fact that Clean Energy Fuels can list all 22 stations that added natural gas pumps along the “Natural Gas Highway” in the November-January period, this does not indicate a great rush to build that infrastructure. It is easier to change the local distributor networks, with companies such as Waste Management indicating that they will use CNG in 80 percent of their new trucks, than it is to see the rapid change of the longer distance haulers, and for passenger vehicles. A recent article in the Washington Post noted that only 20,381 vehicles ran on natural gas of the 14.5 million new cars and trucks sold last year. Further not only does a CNG vehicle cost more to purchase, it also has a lower range, although for some applications that may not be much of a handicap.

Figure 4. Average Annual Vehicle miles travelled by category (Alternate Fuels Data Center)

Yet, at the moment, it is the use of ethanol that is having the most impact on alternate fuel use. Other than that, there has been little indication of much change in the market.

Figure 5. Alternate Fuel Vehicles in use from 1995 to 2010 (Alternate Fuels Data Center )

And in this regard, Europe has also seen little movement toward the use of natural gas in contrast with the use of biofuels, and neither has made large gains.

Figure 6. Comparative penetration of liquid fuels market in Europe by biofuels and natural gas (Odyssee)

The problem, of course, is that if these improvements in efficiency and switches to alternate fuels do not occur, then the demand will continue along the Business-As-Usual line, and, as BP forecasts, demand will double by 2030.

The question as to what will be available to meet that enhanced demand remains one of the great imponderables that folk seem, again, unwilling to face. Certainly with a steadily increasing demand, and the constraints on supply that these pages have continued to document over the years, it becomes very difficult to see how price stability can be maintained where demand exceeds supply at a given price. The problems that this will bring, particularly to those nations that now subsidize fuel, a policy that is unlikely to change in Asia, are likely to be major. Yet for countries such as India, which last year spent the allocated fuel subsidy budget for the year by the end of July, the political costs of change remain very high and could well remain in place until the financial burden becomes intolerable.

Unfortunately, with the current complacency, at that point it will then be too late to start searching for alternate answers.

Icy Arctic rising as economic, security hot spot WASHINGTON (AP) — The icy Arctic is emerging as a global economic hot spot — and one that is becoming a security concern for the U.S. as world powers jockey to tap its vast energy resources and stake out unclaimed territories.

Diplomats from eight Arctic nations, including Secretary of State John Kerry, will meet next week over how to protect the thawing region as its waterways increasingly open to commercial shipping traffic.

U.S. officials estimate the Arctic holds 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil reserves, and 30 percent of undiscovered gas deposits. Until recently, however, the lucrative resources that could reap hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues were frozen over and unreachable.

But global warming has melted sea ice to levels that have given rise to what experts describe as a kind of gold rush scramble to the Arctic.

WTI Crude Falls a Second Day on Dollar Rally West Texas Intermediate crude fell for a second day as the dollar climbed, reducing the appeal of raw materials priced in the U.S. currency.

Futures declined 0.4 percent as the Dollar Index advanced above 83 for the first time in more than two weeks. Gold dropped 2.2 percent. The 12 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries bolstered oil output last month, a report from the group’s Vienna-based secretariat showed. OPEC’s demand forecast was little changed. Crude rebounded sharply in the last 30 minutes of floor trading.

Brent Pressured by U.S. Tripling Crude to Canada U.S. oil exports are poised to reach the highest level in 28 years as deliveries to Canada more than triple, helping bring down the price of the global benchmark Brent crude relative to U.S. grades.

The shipments will rise to at least 200,000 barrels a day by the end of the year, according to Ed Morse, head of global commodities research at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Exports were 59,600 in 2012 and haven’t averaged more than 200,000 since 1985. The U.S. restricts companies from sending American crude abroad, with Canada an exception.

Middle East-U.S. Tanker Rates Seen Higher as Ships Head to Asia Charter rates for the largest oil tankers hauling Middle East crude to the U.S. climbed after stronger demand drew vessels to Asia, according to shipbroker Braemar Seascope Ltd.

Earnings to carry cargoes to China topped those for crude bound for the U.S., London-based Braemar Seascope said today in an e-mailed report. Rates “jumped up” because shipowners were unwilling to accept lower returns, it said.

No ‘Peak Natural Gas’ Anytime Soon ne does not hear much these days about “peak oil”, as new technologies are developed and implemented that, together with market conditions, make feasible the exploitation of previously uneconomical or irretrievable deposits. A new report by the Diplomatic Center for Strategic Studies (DCSS), based in Kuwait, just published, confirms an International Energy Agency report from two years ago, estimating that under present rates of consumption, global supplies of natural gas could last up to 250 years, until the middle of the twenty-third century.

The Obama Administration's Natural Gas Policy Is Tragically Misguided The Obama administration has come out in support of the idea of exporting U.S. natural gas. This stance is counterproductive and shortsighted, and if followed, it will prove harmful to domestic manufacturing (i.e., value generation) and to future generations of Americans.

While exporting natural gas would certainly prove to be an economic boon for a very select minority of companies and individuals, it makes no sense from an energy standpoint and undermines our national interests. All it will do is enrich a few while boosting prices for all domestic consumers and shortchanging the energy and environmental inheritance we pass along to our children.

Struggling at home, US coal finds markets overseas Coal companies in the US have been unable to compete with natural gas at home, Alic writes, but overseas this coal market is getting hotter by the minute.

Algeria after terrorist attack: Don't count on security promises Four months after militants linked to Al Qaeda attacked the In Amenas gas facility in eastern Algeria – triggering a four-day confrontation with the Algerian army and the deaths of nearly 40 hostages – the Algerian government has beefed up border security and pledged to deploy the army to protect energy sites.

Threatened with a potentially weakened oil and gas sector, which accounts for more than 95 percent of Algeria’s exports, Algerian authorities had every incentive to quickly shore up confidence. This is particularly true at In Amenas, which represented over 10 percent of Algeria’s natural gas production and nearly 18 percent of its gas exports prior to January’s attack. The concerns of foreign governments, energy companies, and other investors, however, should not be assuaged by Algeria’s security window-dressing or assertions that the country’s woes can simply be traced back to a resurgent Al Qaeda.

18 dead in explosions on Turkey's border with Syria Istanbul (CNN) -- At least 18 people were killed and more were wounded when two car bombs exploded Saturday afternoon in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, along its southern border with Syria, Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said.

Guler said one of the bombs erupted in front of the post office and the other in front of the municipality building.

Electric energy requirement for 13 Indian mega cities estimated at 168 billion units by 2017 KOLKATA: Data compiled by the Electric Power Survey Committee (EPSC) estimates that total electric energy requirement (EER) for the 13 Indian mega cities by the end of 12th Plan (2016-17) will be about 168 billion units and by end of 13th Plan the requirement would be 233 billion units.

Turkey to help Iraq build oil pipeline ANKARA: Opec member Iraq will need new oil pipelines to export its crude to world markets as it prepares to raise production, and Turkey is keen to help its neighbour build the infrastructure, Turkey’s Energy Minister said yesterday.

Iraq, the world’s fastest-growing oil exporter, aims to boost the 2.4 million barrels per day of oil it ships to world markets this year, mostly by increasing output from the fields around the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Clashes likely to delay Myanmar-China pipeline start-up - official YANGON (Reuters) - Security concerns will likely delay the first shipments of gas and oil from the Myanmar coast to China through a new pipeline running across territory controlled by ethnic militia groups, a Myanmar energy official said on Saturday.

Down the line: How TransCanada fumbled the Keystone pipeline project TransCanada wanted to build its Keystone XL project through the middle of the Thompsons’ corn field. The family was worried that it would disrupt the farm’s irrigation system. But there was a solution. If TransCanada would move the pipeline an eighth of a mile – 200 metres – the Thompsons could live with that.

“We said, ‘you just run this thing down to the end of our field so it’s not cutting our field in half, and we’ll sign the damn easement,’ ” he says.

TransCanada said no, arguing that the move would require too sharp a bend in the pipe. It threatened expropriation if the family would not sign a deal. Mr. Thompson grew angry. His face, the Stetson-bearing image of the “pissed-off farmer” he calls himself, became the symbol of an opposition that sprung out of the corn fields and spread all the way to the White House. Mr. Thompson would go on to personally meet with some of the most powerful political leaders in the United States to argue against Keystone XL.

But, he says six years later, it didn’t have to be this way – TransCanada could have just moved the pipe route at the time and settled the matter.

It is a common sentiment.

Apache Seen Leading Industry in Offshore Lapses Three years after BP Plc’s oil spill fouled Gulf of Mexico beaches, drilling safety is improving, though deficiencies remain at some of the same companies operating offshore, Democrats on a House panel said in a report.

The downwinders: Fracking ourselves to death in Pennsylvania More than 70 years ago, a chemical attack was launched against Washington state and Nevada. It poisoned people, animals, everything that grew, breathed air and drank water. The Marshall Islands were also struck. This formerly pristine Pacific atoll was branded "the most contaminated place in the world". As their cancers developed, the victims of atomic testing and nuclear weapons development got a name: downwinders. What marked their tragedy was the darkness in which they were kept about what was being done to them. Proof of harm fell to them, not to the US government agencies responsible.

Now, a new generation of downwinders is getting sick as an emerging industry pushes the next wonder technology - in this case, high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Whether they live in Texas, Colorado, or Pennsylvania, their symptoms are the same: rashes, nosebleeds, severe headaches, difficulty breathing, joint pain, intestinal illnesses, memory loss and more. "In my opinion," says Yuri Gorby of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, "what we see unfolding is a serious health crisis, one that is just beginning."

China battery plant protest gives voice to rising anger over pollution SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters gathered in the Chinese financial hub of Shanghai on Saturday to oppose plans for a lithium battery factory, highlighting growing social tension over pollution.

This Bill Wants to Cut Ethanol Production in Half The Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, was first passed in 2005 to mandate the use of biofuels in America's transportation sector. Despite being amended in 2007, it still has some pretty big flaws that need to be addressed. Now, four members of Congress have drafted legislation that seeks to make some pretty important changes. The proposed bill is far from perfect, but it could devastate the country's biggest ethanol producers and even disrupt the global ethanol market. Here's what investors need to know and two potential opportunities to keep in mind.

The Real Reason Tesla Is Still Alive (And Other Green Car Companies Aren't) So what’s different about Tesla?

Experience, for one thing. While most of the other green car start-ups were founded by traditional car guys with a dream but little experience running a company, Tesla founder Elon Musk, with degrees in physics and business, had already built and sold one successful company, PayPal, (to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion) and also runs SpaceX, a maker of rockets and spacecraft. He had the stomach to push through difficult times, and the chutzpah to twist the arms of reluctant investors.

Environmental Review to Delay Two Engineered Crops Genetically engineered crops that could sharply increase the use of two powerful herbicides are now unlikely to reach the market until at least 2015 because the Department of Agriculture has decided to subject the crops to more stringent environmental reviews than it had originally intended.

Why Federal Efforts to Ensure Clean Tap Water Fail to Reach Faucets Nationwide MONSON, Calif. — Laura Garcia was halfway through the breakfast dishes when the spigot went dry. The small white tank beneath the sink that purified her undrinkable water had run out. Still, as annoying as that was, it was an improvement over the days before Ms. Garcia got her water filter, when she had to do her dishes using water from five-gallon containers she bought at a local store.

Ms. Garcia’s well water, like that of her neighbors, is laced with excessive nitrates, a pollutant associated with agriculture, septic systems and some soils. Five years ago, this small community of 49 homes near the southern end of the Central Valley took its place on California’s priority list of places in need of clean tap water.

Today the community is still stuck on that list, with no federal help in sight.

Paris projected as pivotal climate point So, in other words, it's Paris or bust, he suggests, for COP meetings to deal with climate change on the international level, because he doubts that the COP process will survive if agreement fails at such a notable meeting. We'll see. At least the meeting participants should be able to find a good meal, as they see how this climate prediction pans out.

Carbon dioxide level crosses milestone at Hawaii site WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere topped 400 parts per million at a key observing station in Hawaii for the first time since measurement began in 1958, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Friday.

At Least 9 More Decades for North Sea Oil Oil and gas production in the UK North Sea can continue until the end of this century provided the right government policy decisions are made, according to Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing.

..."In domestic terms, the [Scottish] industry is having a second major opportunity with a huge number major new developments going ahead, some of which are extensions of existing developments. For example, the Clair Ridge field has the potential to produce oil until 2055 according to BP."

..."The Clair field was actually discovered in 1977, and that's ironic because we were told by London that the oil would run out in the 90s, and then in the 90s that it was going to run out in the Noughties," Ewing said.

"I think it's a theme that's losing credibility because if BP comes along and says the Clair Ridge field will continue to produce until 2055 it's a bit liberal to say the oil is going to run out because it ain't."

Saudi Arabia Seeks Stable Crude Prices, Minister Al-Naimi Says Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, welcomes additional supplies from other producers that may help to stabilize prices, Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said.

“New supplies are welcome,” Al-Naimi said today in a speech in Istanbul, where he traveled to meet Turkey’s energy minister Taner Yildiz. “They will add depth and, I hope, greater stability to world markets.”

Saudi Arabia “remains committed to its role as a stable and reliable supplier” that has consistently stepped up production to offset any shortfalls, Al-Naimi said.

WTI Drops a Second Day; Goldman Sees Brent Gap Narrowing West Texas Intermediate crude fell a second day, reversing a third weekly gain, as rising supplies countered signs of economic growth.

Futures slid as much as 1.8 percent, extending yesterday’s 0.2 percent drop, as the dollar gained versus the euro, damping the appeal of commodities priced in the U.S. currency. Brent crude retreated 1.5 percent, leaving its premium versus WTI at $8.24 a barrel. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a report today that spread may narrow to $5 in the third quarter.

OPEC Crude Production Rises to Five-Month High on Saudi Increase OPEC boosted crude output in April to the highest in five months as Saudi Arabia increased production, helping lower oil prices amid concern that global economic growth is slowing.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries produced 30.46 million barrels a day last month, up from 30.18 million in March, the group’s Vienna-based secretariat said today in its Monthly Oil Market Report. That’s the most since November. The estimates are based on secondary sources.

OPEC, before meeting, sees higher oil demand in second half LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC will need to pump slightly more oil than it thought in 2013 and expects global consumption to be much higher in the rest of the year, signs of a stronger market that argue against any calls for supply restraint when the group meets on May 31.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in a monthly report on Friday forecast 2013 demand for its crude will average 29.84 million barrels per day (bpd), up 90,000 bpd from the previous estimate.

Mideast Gasoline Imports Shrinking on Refinery Boom The largest-ever expansion of Middle Eastern oil-refining is poised to curb the region’s imports of gasoline, reducing dependence on shipments from India and Singapore and sapping margins for European and Asian processors.

Saudi Arabia, the region’s biggest gasoline importer, will add enough processing capacity to cut purchases of the fuel 50 percent by this time next year, according to a Bloomberg survey of four traders and analysts based on data from state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co. The United Arab Emirates expects to become self-sufficient in gasoline when it starts units at the Ruwais plant in 2014, Sultan Al Mehairi, the head of refining at Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., said April 22, while Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman are also developing operations.

Shale gas could curb Gazprom prices: EU commissioner (VILNIUS) - The development of shale gas in Europe could help the continent obtain better deals from its current key supplier, the Russian giant Gazprom, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Friday.

"I am sure (that) to have some shale gas option is a good instrument for our long-term negotiations (with) Gazprom and Russia", Oettinger told journalists in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

Success with shale gas in the United States has encouraged exploration in several EU states including Britain, Poland and Hungary. Lithuania is also considering an exploration deal with Chevron.

Availability of oil in the long term is dubious, as oil prices could in fact retreat, helping the tanker market The finite supply of oil could result in a highly unstable market environment if the oil market reaches its peak. According to a recent report from market analyst's Poten & Partners, "conservationists and industry have been at odds over the ability of crude oil to continue to serve as a primary conduit for meeting the energy needs of an ever-expanding population and associated economic output almost since the inception of commercial-scale crude oil production. Although preceded by other doomsayers, the theory of “peak oil” is most frequently associated with “Hubbert’s peak,” which argues that oil production rates generally follow a bell-shaped curve, tapering off once infrastructure investment reaches a point of diminishing returns and the resource begins to be depleted. While production has struggled in some regions (notably in the North Sea), a common argument among commodity analysts of late has been that we are approaching not “peak oil” in a supply sense, but rather “peak demand”, the report stated.

Peak Oil Revisited - Oil Limits Are Now Debt Limits Oil and energy limits are more complex than what we have imagined so far. The crossover from OECD Old World dominance of oil market demand, to Rest Of World dominance was more than 7 years ago, but the perception of what this means has been slow. Very slow.

Fracking and Shale May Keep the Price of Oil Low Forever Good news is here for consumers who hate high gasoline prices. There is something at work that may keep the price of oil from rising too much, but the price may not fall too much either. A fresh report from ETF Securities is underpinning oil at $80 and also putting $100 as the implied peak oil price for the foreseeable future.

California Postpones Oil, Gas Lease Auctions California's Monterey Shale is continuing to be the talk of the industry after the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently announced plans to postpone upcoming federal lease auctions in the state. The prolific play, that holds more shale oil than anywhere else in the country, has the potential to pull the state out of its downward debt spiral but has been caught in a tug of war between proponents and environmentalists since the shale boom occurred in the nation.

India Says Canada Investment Rules May Cut LNG Spending Changes to Canada’s rules governing investment by foreign state-owned enterprises may discourage Indian oil companies from participating in projects to ship natural gas from the North American country, India’s top diplomat in Ottawa said.

Indian state-controlled energy companies, seeking to meet domestic demand for the heating and power-plant fuel, want to source natural gas from Canada, Admiral Nirmal Verma, India’s high commissioner said today at a conference in Calgary. Revisions to the Investment Canada Act may stop companies from buying stakes in export projects, Verma said.

U.S. Should Export Natural Gas, Not Coal President Barack Obama’s suggestion last weekend that he may favor greater U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas is a welcome sign. More exports would spur more domestic production and help balance U.S. trade.

LNG exports could also help counter the unsettling increase in American exports of coal to Europe. In 2012, the U.S. sent about 66.4 million short tons (60.2 million metric tons) of coal across the Atlantic, 23 percent more than the year before. Exporting coal works against the progress the U.S. has made in lowering its own greenhouse-gas emissions by replacing coal power with cleaner-burning natural gas.

Apache to Divest $4 Billion in Assets and Buy Back Shares Apache Corp., this year’s third-worst performing oil and natural gas producer on Standard & Poor’s energy index, plans to sell $4 billion in assets by yearend and buy back shares as first-quarter profit missed analysts’ estimates.

China's CNOOC to pay more for BP Indonesia gas (Reuters) - China National Offshore Company, China's largest offshore oil and gas producer, will increase the price it pays for gas from BP's Tannguh project in Indonesia, the head of Indonesia's energy regulator said on Friday.

The existing 25-year supply deal, under which CNOOC ships around 2.6 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually from Indonesia's West Papua province to China's second LNG terminal in Fujian, was signed in September 2002.

US Imposes Ban on 2 Firms over Trade with Iran TEHRAN (FNA)- The US Treasury Department blacklisted two companies for their trade with Iran irrespective of Washington's unilateral sanctions against Iran's oil sector.

Source: Patients from Syria being tested for chemical weapons (CNN) -- The Turkish government is treating around a dozen patients who have exhibited unusual symptoms suggesting they were exposed to a chemical weapons attack, a Turkish source said.

"They were not injured by any kind of conventional arms. Tests showed excessive results which produced findings to let us make that statement," a Turkish source with access to Turkish government findings told CNN, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the allegations.

5 reasons Syria's war suddenly looks more dangerous (CNN) -- While the world's attention was focused on Boston and North Korea, the conflict in Syria entered a new phase -- one that threatens to embroil its neighbors in a chaotic way and pose complex challenges to the Obama administration.

What began as a protest movement long ago became an uprising that metastasized into a war, a vicious whirlpool dragging a whole region toward it.

Ex-Enron workers: Keep Skilling in prison NEW YORK (CNNMoney) News that former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling may get out of prison early isn't sitting well with some of the company's former employees.

Skilling has cut a deal with the Justice Department that could see his 24-year sentence for his role in Enron's collapse cut by almost 10 years.

For some employees -- who collectively lost more than $2 billion in retirement funds -- that just isn't right.

Senate Republicans Block Committee Vote on Obama EPA Nominee Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee blocked a vote on confirming Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency by boycotting a meeting called to consider the nomination.

Foes Suggest a Tradeoff if Pipeline Is Approved WASHINGTON — President Obama’s first major environmental decision of his second term could be to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, profoundly disappointing environmental advocates who have made the project a symbolic test of the president’s seriousness on climate change.

But could some kind of deal be in the offing — a major climate policy announcement on, for example, power plant regulation or renewable energy incentives — to ease the sting of the pipeline approval?

Chevron Wins Suit Against U.S. Over California Oil Field Chevron Corp. is entitled to unspecified damages against the federal government in a contract dispute over oil deposits in California worth $37 billion, the U.S. Court of Claims ruled.

The Department of Energy “repeatedly and materially violated” two agreements governing determination of equity interests in oil and gas deposits located in the Elk Hills Reserve of California, Judge Susan Braden in Washington wrote in a 90-page ruling.

N.Y. Senate Fracking Backer Tied to Firm With Gas Lease Senator Tom Libous, a champion of fracking in the New York Legislature, is blocking a bill that would delay drilling for natural gas for at least two more years. Passage of the measure would harm the prospects of a real-estate company founded by Libous’s wife and run by a business partner and campaign donor.

The donor, Luciano Piccirilli, operates Da Vinci II LLC, which owns 230 acres near Oneonta, west of Albany. Da Vinci II’s rights to underground natural gas are leased to a drilling company, property and corporate records show.

Russia plowing $32 billion into nuclear over next two years When a country sits on the world’s largest proven natural gas reserves, possessing nearly a quarter of the known total, it plans an energy future dominated by natural gas plants, right?

Not if the country is Russia. The vast land with 47.6 trillion of the planet’s 208.4 trillion cubic meters of the stuff is plowing 1 trillion rubles - $32 billion - into nuclear power development, state-owned news agency Itar-Tass reports. And that’s just through 2015.

Aquino Sweats to Solve Mindanao Power Failure: Southeast Asia Shrinking water levels threaten to cut Mindanao’s power supply by as much as a third just as President Benigno Aquino seeks to convince voters he’s reducing electricity shortages in the Philippines’ second-biggest island.

The water elevation at Lanao Lake, which powers the 700-megawatt Agus hydroelectric plant, may decline this month and require state-run National Power Corp. to cut output from the facility supplying more than a third of the island’s electricity, it said on April 8. Factories and shops must shut May 13 to ensure voting precincts have power for nationwide elections, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said May 8.

The market 'bubble' you've never heard of FORTUNE – Following the collapse of U.S. home prices in 2007, analysts and economists have been eager to spot the next big bubble. There's been talk of a bond bubble. And as U.S. stocks hover near a five-year high, many have wondered if a bubble is in the works. There have also been worries over the market for student loans in which defaults have recently risen.

Then there's apparently a new bubble that few have ever heard about: America's farmlands.

Freeloading Yeast Make Unstable Communities Cooperation is common in nature, but there will always be some who cheat the system. A new study on yeast shows that cheaters can persist in populations but put the entire group at greater risk for extinction.

A colony of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) survives by breaking down sugar (sucrose) into simpler sugars. Freeloading yeast that survive by mooching off others can exist at ratios as high as 90 percent of the population, but a shock to the environment could wipe out the whole population, the new study reported.

Goats to clean up at Chicago's O'Hare International And while goats are new to O’Hare Airport, environmentally conscious efforts to operating an aviation facility are not.

“The CDA strives to be the most sustainable airport in the country,” said Pride.

O’Hare already has a soil-free, aeroponic garden in one terminal growing vegetables and herbs that are used by many airport restaurants and sold to travelers at a kiosk. There are also beehives on property and a host of other good-for-the earth initiatives underway.

Flood alarms threatened by budget cuts WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) - The U.S. flood alarm system is about to get smaller.

On May 1, the U.S. Geological Survey began turning off some 150 stream gauges that monitor water levels on the nation's rivers and streams, thanks to the federal spending cuts, also known as sequester.

It's a one-two punch for the flood monitoring system -- the agency could be turning off another 200 gauges because of funding cutbacks at states, cities and towns that are struggling with their own budget crises.

Why You Can’t Talk About Fixing The Electric Grid Without Talking About Climate Change This morning, CAP Senior Fellow Daniel J. Weiss testified before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce about electric grid reliability. He made a strong case for confronting the elephant in the room –the impact climate change has on the reliability and security of the electric grid. The other elephant in the room is the effect that burning fossil fuels for electricity has on our climate.

Carbon Champions Undeterred by Kyoto Dead-End, EU Envoy Says Carbon-market supporters from China to California will push for emissions trading even as they prepare for the end of the United Nations Kyoto Protocol in seven years, Europe’s top climate negotiator said.

Nations including China and New Zealand and some U.S. states have formed an informal group, “kind of the champions of the carbon market,” Artur Runge-Metzger said in a May 2 interview in Bonn, Germany. “It’s that club that’s going to set international standards” rather than UN talks, he said.

UN Carbon Has Biggest Jump Since 2011 as EU Factories Tap Quota United Nations Certified Emission Reduction credits had their biggest one-day gain since Dec. 20, 2011 amid speculation factories and utilities are using the carbon offsets to meet European Union pollution targets.

CERs for December rose 18 percent to close at 40 euro cents ($0.52) a metric ton on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. The contract has jumped 33 percent since May 3 and is heading for its biggest-ever weekly increase.

Does Obama Have a Secret Plan to Combat Climate Change? The Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the duty to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and the Obama administration has been using this authority in a number of important ways over the years. What it hasn't yet done are promulgate regulations on existing sources of climate pollution rather than on hypothetical new sources. One reason it hasn't done that is that for a long time nobody could really think of an economically feasible way to do this. Just shutting down random power plants would be extremely disruptive. But back last winter I wrote about a very clever strategic outline from the Natural Resources Defense Coucnil that paints a path forward for using this power in a way that would give states more flexibility in terms of how to reduce emissions, while still making huge progress on climate issues.

Jon Chait has recently revived interest in this issue among generalist pundits by arguing that Obama not only can but probably will do this.

Alberta's oil sands crude: the science behind the debate Canada’s oil sands have been called “dirty oil,” a “carbon bomb,” and “game over” for the world’s climate. But beyond the caustic descriptions of one of the world’s biggest oil resources, almost everyone agrees that production from Alberta’s oil sands takes more energy to extract and process than conventional oil – thereby producing more greenhouse gas emissions. How much more is the focus of widespread study and debate, as researchers assess the oil sands industry’s impact on climate.

Shale gas: green groups condemn methane flaring plans for wells The two companies exploring for shale gas in the UK have confirmed that they intend to flare methane gas from their wells in a move that has been condemned by environmentalists. It is likely to be the most visible sign of the fracking revolution that many in business and government would like to bring to the UK.

When it comes to climate change, Shell is backing the wrong horse ‘Shell faces up to climate change challenge” ran the headline in this paper last week. I wish it were true but the company has a credibility problem when it comes to the issue. It is betting everything on the presumption that we will keep burning the fossil fuels that it keeps pulling up out of the ground.

It is hard for Shell to be talking climate one minute and a new “golden age of gas” the next. It is a major player in the energy game and that cannot but affect how it sees our energy future.

Greenland's Glacial Melt May Slow, Study Suggests Greenland's galloping glaciers will likely slow their rapid retreat in the coming century, scientists project based on a new computer modeling study.

In the study, published today (May 8) in the journal Nature, researchers resolve one of the biggest uncertainties about Greenland's future contributions to sea-level rise: the behavior of its outlet glaciers. These massive ice rivers drain to the ocean, adding both surface runoff water and icebergs to the sea. The researchers discovered that Greenland's outlet glaciers retreat in episodic pulses, which account for the past 10 years of dramatic ice loss.

Studies of the Past Show an Ice-Free Arctic Could Be in Our Future There are still pieces to the climate puzzle that need to be filled in. The study shows that unusually warm temperatures in the Arctic seemed to persist even as glaciers we’re begin to expand in the Northern Hemisphere. But studies like this one help us understand just how changeable our climate—so secure during the history of human civilization—has been in the past, and underscores just how momentous our impact on the planet through the burning of fossil fuels is likely to be. We are well into uncharted territory.

But there’s something about the sheer scale of what’s happening that makes it hard for us to really comprehend. The same day the Science paper came out, a new Yale University poll came out showing that the percentage of Americans who believed global warming had dropped to 63% from 70% in the fall—a change that pollsters blamed on the unusually cold winter and spring that hit parts of the country. That’s not surprising—belief in climate change has usually been broad but deep, easily affected in either direction by passing weather events. But as the deep past show us, the climate works on time scales far bigger than a single season. It’s something we may have to experience before we can ever understand it.

Shale Oil and Gas: The Contrarian View No one is questioning the fact that we have either reached or will soon reach “peak oil”; that existing fields are being depleted at the rapid rate of 7 percent a year, and that the search is on for “unconventional oil” as alternative forms of energy are slow to reach critical mass.

There are many kinds of “unconventional oil” – meaning hydrocarbons that are not found in fluid form, but that can be “fluidised” in a straightforward way (unlike coal, for instance). These resources include Venezuelan heavy oil and Canadian tar sands.

But the big change in the last two decades is shale gas and “tight oil” – a liquid, trapped in shale (rock), where it doesn’t flow naturally but can be extracted by horizontal drilling and “fracking”. Fracking uses high-pressure water to fracture the shale and then chemicals that reduce the viscosity of the oil trapped in the interstices of the rock and allow it to flow.

King Coal Losing Crown as U.S. Gains Energy Independence After working 37 years in the coal mines of West Virginia, Ronny Justice punctuates his sentences with coughs. He lost his job a year ago, leaving him without health insurance just as he’s battling the early stages of black-lung disease.

Justice, 57, had planned to work four more years in a job that paid him about $58,000 a year, enough to eat out anytime he wanted. Now he can’t remember the last time he hit the Park Avenue Restaurant and Motel for a $6.95 steak dinner.

Boone County, where he lives, hosts 91 mines and an annual festival meant to celebrate “coal and its heritage.” Like Justice’s health, that heritage is under siege. In the next three years America will close a record number of coal-fired power plants, enough electricity to power 18.4 million households for a year, government estimates show. Lower-cost gas, new environmental rules and increased use of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, are reducing coal usage.

Oil companies target America for investment NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - Here's an intriguing switch in the energy market: U.S. oil firms have been selling off their assets overseas and investing the money in America's domestic fields.

Brent Drops for Second Day Amid Rising U.S. Crude Supply Brent futures dropped for a second day after industry data showed U.S. crude inventories climbed for a second week.

Futures dropped as much as 0.8 percent after declining 1 percent yesterday. U.S. crude supplies increased 680,000 barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said. An Energy Information Administration report today may show stockpiles gained 2 million barrels, rising from the most in more than 82 years, according to a Bloomberg News survey. The EIA cut its forecasts for West Texas Intermediate and Brent on increasing output and lower global consumption. Bank of America Corp. said WTI will drop to average $90 a barrel this year.

Chesapeake wins bond dispute with Bank of NY Mellon (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ruled in favor of Chesapeake Energy Corp in a dispute with Bank of New York Mellon Corp over the natural gas company's effort to buy back $1.3 billion of notes early.

Shell to develop Stones deepwater oil field in Gulf of Mexico (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc said on Wednesday it plans to go forward with the Stones ultra-deepwater oil and natural gas project in the Gulf of Mexico.

Minister: Iran's Oil Industry Moving Ahead Despite Sanctions TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi played down the effectiveness of the US-led western sanctions against Iran, and reiterated that the country's oil and gas industries are moving on the right track of development.

DNO profits slip as output falls in Kurdish region Profits halved for DNO, the Norwegian oil producer with part-UAE ownership, following pared-back output in Kurdistan.

Profits at Abu Dhabi's Taqa fall on outage at North Sea oil platform Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) on Wednesday said first-quarter net profit tumbled 80 per cent partly because of an outage at one of its facilities.

Taqa, 75 per cent owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, reported a net profit of Dh106 million for the first quarter compared with Dh534m in the year-ago period.

EON’s First-Quarter Proprietary Energy Trading Returns to Profit The utility’s profit from trading energy for its own account was 7 million euros ($9.18 million) on an earnings before interest and tax basis in the three months through March, according to the Dusseldorf, Germany-based company’s report published today. That compares with a loss of 4 million euros in the same period last year, the utility said.

Enbridge's adjusted profit rises on higher volumes (Reuters) - Enbridge Inc , Canada's largest pipeline company, reported a 31 percent rise in first-quarter adjusted profit, driven by higher oil export volumes.

Enbridge, whose pipelines carry the bulk of Canada's crude oil exports to the United States, said adjusted earnings rose to C$488 million, or 62 Canadian cents per share, from C$373 million, or 49 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier.

Taqa Quarterly Net Falls as North Sea Oilfield Halt Hurts Sales Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., the state-owned utility and oil producer, said first-quarter profit fell to about a fifth of last year’s level as a production halt in the North Sea hurt revenue and asset sales weren’t repeated.

CNPC Said in Talks to Buy Brazil’s Barra for $2 Billion China National Petroleum Corp., China’s largest oil producer, is in talks to acquire Barra Energia Petroleo e Gas, a Brazilian oil startup, for about $2 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The negotiations are under way and a deal could be reached as soon as this month, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. First Reserve Corp. and Riverstone Holdings LLC have invested a combined $1 billion in the Rio de Janeiro-based company, in addition to $200 million in pledged investments from other funds, according to Barra’s website.

Marathon Oil to quit Poland's shale gas operations on poor results (Reuters) - U.S. oil and gas exploration company Marathon Oil decided it would quit its Polish shale gas operations due to unsatisfactory drilling results, the company said in a statement.

Natural gas no longer just a footnote in nation's hydrocarbon story Abu Dhabi's recent history, economy and even identity are dominated by oil. From modest beginnings the emirate is now one of the world's largest producers.

Natural gas has been a footnote in the emirate's hydrocarbon story so far. It accounts for only a fraction of export revenues and is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Abu Dhabi abroad.

But the low visibility of gas hides its growing domestic importance, and the fuel has played a central role in energy plans for some time. Abu Dhabi is not without gas. It holds the fourth-largest reserves in the Middle East, and is also the region's fourth-largest producer.

EU leaders to square the circle of cheap energy EU leaders will grapple with controversial issues including shale gas development and climate change mitigation at an energy summit on 22 May, documents obtained by EurActiv show.

As agreed at the 14-15 March summit (see background), EU leaders will meet to discuss how to lower energy prices and so improve the Union’s industrial competitiveness.

Record $2.25-billion fine urged in deadly San Bruno blast Utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric should pay a record $2.25-billion penalty for a 2010 natural gas explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people and devastated a neighborhood, regulators recommended Monday.

If approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, it would be by far the largest penalty even levied by the agency. The largest fine ever handed out by the PUC was $38 million against PG&E for a 2008 natural gas explosion in Rancho Cordova.

Pipeline Wars Seen Spreading After Fight on Keystone XL The fight over TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL project probably will be repeated as companies build more conduits to carry oil and gas to U.S. markets, the former chief pipeline safety regulator said.

Brigham McCown, who led the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for President George W. Bush, said the lengthy review for TransCanada’s application to transport a type of heavy crude from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast will embolden opponents of fossil fuels.

‘No such thing as ethical oil,’ Al Gore tells Toronto audience When Mr. Stackhouse asked whether Alberta oil was more ethical because it came from a democratic nation with a commitment to human rights, Mr. Gore rejected the term.

“There’s no such thing as ethical oil,” he said. “There’s only dirty oil and dirtier oil.” The remark triggered applause from a nearly full house at the Globe-sponsored event at a Ryerson University auditorium.

Japan eyes opportunities in UAE's new nuclear age ABU DHABI // Shinzo Abe has not been shy about putting Abu Dhabi at the top of his agenda, whether in 2007 when he became the second Japanese prime minister to visit the emirate, or today as he arrives for an official visit just months into his second run as head of state.

But a different set of opportunities today hang in the balance, from an onshore oil concession where Japan's Inpex has emerged as one of an elite set of nine bidders, to potential nuclear service contracts, a lifeline for Japanese companies with little business at home after the Fukushima disaster.

Not to mention the prime set of offshore oilfields where Japan's stake expires in five years.

As Price of Nuclear Energy Drops, a Wisconsin Plant Is Shut WASHINGTON — The Kewaunee nuclear power plant in Wisconsin shut down for the last time on Tuesday, but it is preparing to break new ground for the American nuclear industry.

It may go to sleep, Snow White-style, for 50 years, to be awakened when its radioactivity has subsided. Or it may be dismantled in the next decade or so. In either case, the responsibility and the expense, probably near $1 billion, will be borne for the first time by a for-profit company, not a regulated utility.

Is China Mining a Rare Earth Monopoly? What if there were rare minerals so valuable to many of the United States' most advanced weapons systems that their disappearance from the marketplace could threaten America's national security interests? And, what if those rare minerals were, in fact, almost solely in the hands of the country's fiercest global economic competitor — who held a monopoly over them?

Well, guess no more — it's true. Despite years of concern in the United States and around the world, China still holds a monopoly on rare earth elements (REEs) that are critical to a number of advanced weapons systems, mobile devices and emerging green technologies. And the situation isn't likely to change any time soon.

Is Tesla Made of More Than Just Green Credits? Through these political efforts to bring electric cars to the wider market, Tesla has been endowed with credits worth about $35,000 for each Model S sedan that the company sells. While these ‘subsidies’ are viewed as a wholly positive aspect of helping gasoline-alternative vehicles reach the masses, there is a slight twist to the tale: Tesla can then sell the green energy credits to other car manufacturers, who snap them up as fast as it chooses to put them up for sale. Car makers need a certain number of credits to operate in California, where pollution regulations are especially strict. And Tesla has plenty of credits on hand to pass along.

According to analyst estimates, while these credits have earlier been responsible for Tesla’s survival, this year the system may put an extra $250 million in its pockets. ”At the end of the day, other carmakers are subsidizing Tesla,” said Thilo Koslowski, a Gartner analyst.

How Congress Can Expand Clean Energy Investment Last year, The Pew Charitable Trusts organized roundtable discussions across the country to gather input from clean energy industry leaders on strategies for enhancing U.S. competitiveness in this key sector of the global economy. Throughout these discussions, we heard from business leaders, investors, and innovators about the importance of eliminating barriers to competition and low-cost capital for clean energy technology development. The Master Limited Partnership Parity Act, or MLP Parity Act, provides an opportunity for U.S. businesses to mobilize private capital and better compete.

Our research indicates that nations with consistent, transparent clean energy policies do better in attracting private investment. This bill, a measure with bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, is an important step toward providing the U.S. clean energy sector with a steady, long-term policy that can help leverage private capital and provide financial certainty to investors and companies alike. For investors, it will provide the same tax treatment for certain investments in fossil fuels and, for the first time, clean energy.

German Scientists Use Offshore Wind Farms to Replenish Lobsters German scientists are betting that offshore wind farms can help replenish the North Sea’s fledgling lobster population.

Scientists from the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven will release 3,000 lobsters next year around the stone field section of the foundations of EWE AG’s 108-megawatt Riffgat project. The gaps between the rocks make for ideal lobster habitat, said Heinz-Dieter Franke, a biologist at the institute.

Scientist: Cassava Disease Spread at Alarming Rate Scientists say a disease destroying entire crops of cassava has spread out of East Africa into the heart of the continent, is attacking plants as far south as Angola and now threatens to move west into Nigeria, the world's biggest producer of the potato-like root that helps feed 500 million Africans.

"The extremely devastating results are already dramatic today but could be catastrophic tomorrow" if nothing is done to halt the Cassava Brown Streak Disease, or CBSD, scientist Claude Fauquet, co-founder of the Global Cassava Partnership for the 21st Century, told The Associated Press.

A Dream of Trees Aglow at Night Hoping to give new meaning to the term “natural light,” a small group of biotechnology hobbyists and entrepreneurs has started a project to develop plants that glow, potentially leading the way for trees that can replace electric streetlamps and potted flowers luminous enough to read by.

The project, which will use a sophisticated form of genetic engineering called synthetic biology, is attracting attention not only for its audacious goal, but for how it is being carried out.

Rather than being the work of a corporation or an academic laboratory, it will be done by a small group of hobbyist scientists in one of the growing number of communal laboratories springing up around the nation as biotechnology becomes cheap enough to give rise to a do-it-yourself movement.

Giant Swamp Rats Are Literally Eating Louisiana On the southern edge of Louisiana, there is almost as much water as land. You can't drive to anyone's house, you have to travel by boat, and sometimes there are hours of water between neighbors. It takes a special breed to make a home here, in the swamp, amongst the mosquitos and almost annual hurricanes. But those who do call it home, love it. They see a magical space of strange stillness and subtle rippling greens and grays where time worries no one and the freedom of the water is at your doorstep.

But this Huck Finn way of life is being attacked on multiple fronts. Climate change's stronger storms are beating away at the fragile coastline, and the oil and gas industries are scarring the skyline while luring younger generations away from the local farming and fishing way of life. As if that weren't enough, 20-pound, semi-aquatic rodents, called nutria, which are native to Argentina, are taking over the marshes, devouring the native plants that hold the soil in place, and causing massive coastal erosion.

Coal Mines’ Methane Curbs Fall Victim to EPA Budget Cuts Methane emissions from coal mines escaped being curbed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which said mandatory U.S. budget cuts didn’t leave it with the resources to determine if the pollution is a significant risk.

The EPA rejected a petition from environmental groups, which three years ago asked the agency to limit the greenhouse gases released from the mines.

Will California fall into the REDD trap? California is world famous for its visionary environmentalism. So the state's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), intended to reduce carbon emissions from nearly all sectors of the economy, was welcomed as forward-thinking legislation. Yet good intentions may turn sour if California decides to use rainforests in Mexico and Brazil as sponges to absorb its emissions instead of reducing pollution at source.

How science works: follow the money There's a growing campaign in the US to get universities to stop investing in fossil fuels. UK science should take note.

US defends plan for countries to set their own climate goals A global deal on greenhouse gas reductions can be effective even if countries are allowed to set their own targets, the US special envoy for climate change Todd Stern has said. “It is very hard for us to imagine a negotiation with dozens and dozens and dozens of counties actually negotiating everybody else’s targets and timetables,” said Stern from the sidelines of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin.

The main criticism levelled at such a system is that nations would be able to set the bar low.

New emissions plan could energise global climate talks, says US envoy The United States' proposal to let countries draft their own emissions reduction plans rather than working toward a common target can unlock languishing UN climate negotiations, the US climate change envoy said on Tuesday.

The proposal that a global climate deal by 2015 should be based on national "contributions" gained traction at last week's round of UN talks in Germany, although China, the world's biggest carbon emitter, said it wanted far more binding commitments by wealthy countries.

Seven Reasons Why China May Be the World Leader in Fighting Climate Change China is an environmental mess. Smog in Beijing is so bad it’s literally broken the air-quality index. In Shanghai, it’s at times turned the city into a scene from Blade Runner. (It almost matches the infamous Cleveland smog of the 1970s.) Meanwhile, thousands of dead pigs—cause of death not yet known—have been floating down a river that cuts through Shanghai and provides part of the region’s drinking water. More than half of China’s water is so polluted, in fact, that even treatment plants can’t make it safe to drink. And China is now responsible for almost half the world’s coal consumption. That coal burning not only contributes to climate change—it’s also saddled China with severe cases of acid rain, something the United States dealt with a generation ago.

All of that makes what I’m about to say sound even crazier: China may one day be the world’s leader in combating climate change. In almost every way you cut it, China is already taking a much more aggressive approach toward climate change than the United States is.

Ed Davey hits out against coalition climate change sceptics Ed Davey, the energy and climate change secretary, is to use a major speech at Clarence House on Wednesday afternoon to fight back against the increasingly vocal climate change scepticism of other sections of the coalition.

What do taxpayers owe at-risk communities? Floodwaters or not, it’s still buyer beware in Delaware. Last month, a state advisory panel on sea level rise decided against requiring sellers to tell buyers how vulnerable a house is to future flooding. We suppose no one can blame the panel from backing away from a controversial action like that. But, considering the topic the group is charged with studying, one might think the members would opt for something a little stronger than recommending an education campaign.

Climate Change Makes Life Tougher for Solomon Island Farmers HONIARA, Solomon Islands (IPS) - Life is difficult enough for communities on the remote southern Weather Coast of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Sustaining a livelihood from the land is a daily struggle on the steep coastal mountain slopes that plunge to the sea, made worse by the absence of adequate roads, transport and government services. And now, climate change is taking its toll on the already precarious food situation here.

“From mid-March to June it is always raining and whatever crops we grow will not go to harvest,” Alice, a member of a farming family on the Weather Coast, told IPS, referring to the period locals here call “time hungry”.

Rising seas in southern Caribbean offer dark preview of future amid climate change TELESCOPE, Grenada — The old coastal road in this fishing village at the eastern edge of Grenada sits under a couple of feet of murky saltwater, which regularly surges past a hastily-erected breakwater of truck tires and bundles of driftwood intended to hold back the Atlantic Ocean.

For Desmond Augustin and other fishermen living along the shorelines of the southern Caribbean island, there’s nothing theoretical about the threat of rising sea levels.

“The sea will take this whole place down,” Augustin said as he stood on the stump of one of the uprooted palm trees that line the shallows off his village of tin-roofed shacks built on stilts. “There’s not a lot we can do about it except move higher up.”

The Oil and Gold Booms Are Over The Malthusian specter of rising demand and shrinking supply has been replaced by a new realization that, for most commodities, demand is flat and supply is rising fast. Oil demand in developed nations has been stable since 1995, because high oil prices have inspired conservation efforts in countries such as Japan and the U.S.

Now, as emerging nations begin to embrace energy efficiency as well -- China is working hard on electric cars, for instance, despite continuing to build dozens of coal plants -- global demand might flatten out this decade. The debate over “peak oil” scenarios may shift from the threat of dwindling supply to the threat of peaking demand.

The fallacy of ‘Peak Oil’ theory There are plenty of reasons to fret about our nation’s future.

Government debt is growing at an unsustainable rate. Increased taxation and regulations calcify the sinews of the economy and monetary distortions threaten to sow the seeds of a future economic calamity. However, many people fear a world bereft of energy resources.

Politicians and scaremongers stoke these fears through fallacious theories like Peak Oil, which foretell an imminent world shortage of oil, and warn that we must follow a centrally-planned energy policy that conveniently steers millions of dollars to well-connected donors and lobbyists of so-called green energy firms.

Energy Independence and Other Myths: A Q&A with Michael Levi, Author of The Power Surge Levi has a new book out on the energy debate called The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity and the Battle for America’s Future. It’s one of the best analyses of the amazing changes taking place in the energy sphere today, touching on everything from fracking to climate change to the Keystone XL pipeline debate. I had a chance to talk with him about Canadian oil sands, the myth of energy independence and why we need a negotiated peace settlement to end the energy wars.

WTI Crude Advances After Syria Blames Israel for Attacks West Texas Intermediate crude headed for the biggest three-day gain in nine months as air strikes in Syria renewed concern that unrest will spread in the Middle East and disrupt supply. London’s Brent oil rose.

WTI futures climbed as much as 1.6 percent in New York after Syria’s state news agency said Israeli aircraft attacked a military research center on the outskirts of Damascus yesterday. The offensive was a “declaration of war,” Syria’s deputy foreign minister told CNN. Israel didn’t confirm involvement. The Middle East accounted for 33 percent of global crude output in 2011, according to BP Plc (BP/)’s Statistical Review of World Energy. WTI capped a second weekly gain May 3 after U.S. employment rose more than forecast.

Surging US Oil Production Strains Distribution System NEW YORK - Surging oil production has put the United States on track toward greater energy independence, pushing U.S. reserves to their highest levels in 30 years.

But analysts say bottlenecks in the distribution system are keeping oil from reaching markets.

U.S. Gasoline Prices Rise to $3.545 a Gallon in Lundberg Survey The average price for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps rose 0.84 cent a gallon in the past two weeks to $3.5447 a gallon, according to Lundberg Survey Inc. It’s the first price increase in eight weeks.

The survey covers the period ended May 3 and is based on information obtained at about 2,500 filling stations by the Camarillo, California-based company. The average price has fallen 25.03 cents from the peak on Feb. 22, and 30.05 cents from this time last year, the survey showed.

Saudi oil output rises in April Saudi Arabia produced 9.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in April, up from 9.14 million bpd in March, an industry source said on Monday.

Supply to the domestic and export markets was around 9.2 million bpd, up slightly from the 9.15 million bpd supplied in March, the source said. The other 100,000 bpd of oil produced is likely to have been put into storage.

Saudi Aramco Raises June Premium for Arab Light Crude to Asia Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the largest crude exporter, raised the premium used to determine June official selling prices for its Arab Light blend for customers in Asia and cut premiums for other light grades to the Far East.

Norway's Statoil warns proposed tax change could harm future oil, gas projects ondon (Platts) - Norway's Statoil warned Monday that a proposed change by the government in the tax regime could have a damaging effect on the development of future new oil and gas projects offshore Norway.

Statoil, 67% owned by the Norwegian state, said a proposed reduction in a tax break on new energy projects from 7.5% to 5% could slow the impetus for development which is gearing up after years of production declines.

U.N. official: There are strong suspicions Syrian rebels used sarin gas Damascus, Syria (CNN) -- A U.N. official says there are strong suspicions that Syrian rebel forces have used the deadly nerve agent sarin gas in the country's civil war.

Israeli Jet Strike Near Damascus Sends Fireball Over City Syria threatened retaliation against Israel after an aerial strike on the outskirts of Damascus caused explosions that rocked the capital, increasing the risk of a wider regional conflict.

Israel didn’t confirm involvement in the assault yesterday. Its military also carried out an airstrike in Syria on May 3, The Associated Press reported, citing unidentified Israeli officials who said the attack targeted a shipment of missiles thought to be bound for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Eight killed in Nigeria's Delta oil region gunfight Gunmen opened fire on a group of former militants in the oil producing Niger Delta late on Saturday, leading to a shootout that left eight people dead, a security official said.

Plans to Harness Chinese River’s Power Threaten a Region BINGZHONGLUO, China — From its crystalline beginnings as a rivulet seeping from a glacier on the Tibetan Himalayas to its broad, muddy amble through the jungles of Myanmar, the Nu River is one of Asia’s wildest waterways, its 1,700-mile course unimpeded as it rolls toward the Andaman Sea.

But the Nu’s days as one of the region’s last free-flowing rivers are dwindling. The Chinese government stunned environmentalists this year by reviving plans to build a series of hydropower dams on the upper reaches of the Nu, the heart of a Unesco World Heritage site in China’s southwest Yunnan Province that ranks among the world’s most ecologically diverse and fragile places.

Squeezing More From Ethanol WASHINGTON — Faced with a crop of lemons — too much ethanol, a population of cars not tuned to burn it effectively and a driving public leery of the fuel’s properties — the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to make lemonade.

The effort to untangle itself from this sticky situation is part of a larger proposal by the federal government to make the most sweeping changes in gasoline since lead additives were banned.

State Sale of 100 Longhorns Stirs Debate, and Proposed Law, on the Breed’s Future Supporters say that maintaining the herd is vital to preserving Texas’ ranching heritage. But opponents say longhorns strain natural resources and are difficult and costly to maintain.

Neighbors Resist a Plan to Clean a Toxic Canal Almost everybody wants the Gowanus Canal cleansed of its toxic gunk.

But a $500 million plan by the Environmental Protection Agency to do just that has run into protests from otherwise environmentally conscious residents in several Brooklyn neighborhoods. They want the canal purged of pollutants like PCBs, lead, mercury and raw sewage, but are fighting the methods the agency has chosen.

Canadian minister takes fight for oil sands crude to Europe OTTAWA (Reuters) - A European Union plan to label crude from the Alberta oil sands as dirty is unfair and could damage Canada's bid to find new export markets, the Canadian resources minister said at the start of a mission to lobby against the idea.

As part of a plan to cut greenhouse gases from transport fuel, the EU's executive commission has developed a Fuel Quality Directive that would single out oil from Alberta's tar sands as more polluting than conventional crude.

Getting rich off global warming A decade ago, the word adaptation was dirtier than coal. Among professional greens and activists focused on mitigation, even discussing it meant surrender. Only the long stall of international climate negotiations and stark signs of irrevocable climate change put an end to their distaste. If we have already caused warming, possibly setting unstoppable feedback loops into motion, then opposing adaptation was the intellectual and political equivalent of carbon sequestration, of burying our brains in the ground. During the aughts, the major green groups began to build adaptation divisions, one by one.

The Third Option This time the problem is a “carbon bubble”. The market valuation of the world’s 200 biggest oil, gas and coal companies is about $4 trillion, a figure based on the assumed value of their confirmed reserves that are still in the ground. Or, more precisely, a figure based on the assumption that they will eventually be able to sell all of those reserves to customers who want to burn them.

On the strength of that assumption, the fossil fuel companies have been able to take on $1.5 trillion of debt, and last year alone they spent $647 billion in the search for even more oil, gas and coal reserves. But what if they will never be able to sell all of their reserves? What if the need to avoid runaway warming forces governments to curb the burning of fossil fuels, so that much of those reserves has to stay underground forever?

Hawaii in Climate Change Bullseye Tropical cyclones of the future may have the Hawaiian islands in their cross hairs, according to a new study of how climate change will alter eastern Pacific Ocean storms near the end of the 21st century.

Va. scientist finds rising East Coast sea levels In a 2010 study, Virginia Institute of Marine Science oceanographer John Boon looked at decades of tide-gauge readings for evidence of this ever-faster-rising water.

Boon didn’t find the accelerating sea levels, and he was skeptical that they existed.

But using a more sophisticated statistical method, Boon looked at the tide-gauge readings again in a 2012 study. This time, he found that sea levels are indeed rising at an increasing rate from Norfolk to Nova Scotia.

To a layman, this might look like a flip-flop. But to scientists, this is how the job is done.

Rising sea levels threaten migratory birds Sydney: Millions of birds that stop at coastal wetlands during annual migrations could die as rising sea levels and land reclamation wipe out their feeding grounds, researchers warned Monday.

The study into the migratory habits of shorebirds predicted that a loss of 23 to 40 per cent of their main feeding areas could lead to a 70 per cent decline in their population.

Arctic Ocean 'acidifying rapidly' The Arctic seas are being made rapidly more acidic by carbon-dioxide emissions, according to a new report.

Scientists from Norway's Center for International Climate and Environmental Research monitored widespread changes in ocean chemistry in the region.

They say even if CO2 emissions stopped now, it would take tens of thousands of years for Arctic Ocean chemistry to revert to pre-industrial levels.

Greenhouse Gas to Reach 3-Million-Year High The proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is set to break 400 parts per million this month, levels not seen in 3 million years, according to one of the best climate records available.

A City That Turns Garbage Into Energy Copes With a Shortage Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn.

The problem is not unique to Oslo, a city of 1.4 million people. Across Northern Europe, where the practice of burning garbage to generate heat and electricity has exploded in recent decades, demand for trash far outstrips supply. “Northern Europe has a huge generating capacity,” said Mr. Mikkelsen, 50, a mechanical engineer who for the last year has been the managing director of Oslo’s waste-to-energy agency.

Yet the fastidious population of Northern Europe produces only about 150 million tons of waste a year, he said, far too little to supply incinerating plants that can handle more than 700 million tons. “And the Swedes continue to build” more plants, he said, a look of exasperation on his face, “as do Austria and Germany.”

Approaching 'peak oil'? The idea of 'peak oil' - or the point in time when maximum petroleum extraction has been reached - is something that has been around since the 1950s.

These days though, the debate centres on whether oil has or has not yet reached its 'peak', given that we have extracted so much of it, and that reserves are declining.

But as new extraction techniques evolve - things like fracking, tar sands, deep water drilling - do we really have fuel that could last for centuries?

Global oil reserves In response to the comments/discussion I had received in relation to the article that I wrote and was published in this column two weeks ago under the title: ‘The Falsehood of Peak Oil Theory’, I would like to further clarify my opinion by defining the term “Hydrocarbon Reserves” as per the official definition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), the international official nonprofit Petroleum Engineering Professional Society. Hydrocarbon Reserves are defined as “those quantities of petroleum resources claimed to be commercially recoverable by application of development projects to known accumulations under defined conditions”.

Crude Advances to One-Month High as U.S. Payroll Gains West Texas Intermediate crude surged to the highest level in a month as U.S. employment rose more than forecast in April, stoking speculation that demand in the world’s biggest oil-consuming country will increase.

Prices capped a second weekly advance after the Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls grew by 165,000 workers last month. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a 140,000 gain. The jobless rate unexpectedly declined to a four-year low of 7.5 percent. Crude also climbed as U.S. stocks rallied.

Iranian Governor: Oil Market Oversupplied TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's OPEC Governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi said the oil market is currently oversupplied by 1.5 million barrels a day, a situation causing weak prices.

Khatibi made the remark to Dow Jones after oil prices this week fell under the key threshold of $100 a barrel and as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries prepares to discuss its output May 31.

Ras Tanura Oil-Tanker Capacity Seen Gaining 30% in Latest Week The combined carrying capacity of oil tankers calling at Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura gained 30 percent in the week ended April 27, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The implied capacity of vessels calling at the world’s largest crude-export complex climbed to the equivalent of 9.94 million barrels a day from 7.66 million barrels for the prior week, according to signals gathered by IHS Fairplay, a Redhill, England-based maritime research company. The data may be incomplete because not all transmissions are captured.

North Dakota Bakken Weakens to Largest Discount Since January Crude from the Bakken shale formation declined to a three-month low against domestic benchmark West Texas Intermediate.

Prices dipped even after Enbridge Inc. said crude deliveries to the Clearbrook, Minnesota, hub were interrupted by a shutdown of Line 81 because of a 10-gallon spill.

Marathon Barge Damage Halts Loading of Crude at Wood River Dock Marathon Petroleum Corp. is unable to load oil from a barge dock on the Mississippi River at Wood River, Illinois, which may depress Canadian oil prices if repairs are lengthy.

The unloading arm at the dock was damaged early today when a barge it was filling with crude was struck by other vessels in the river that became unmoored, Shane Pochard, a Findlay, Ohio- based spokesman for the company, said in a phone interview. Repairs will begin soon.

Northeast Gas Poised to Surge on Pipeline Limits Natural gas prices in the U.S. Northeast are poised to reach five-year seasonal highs this summer because increasing demand from power plants may be too much for pipelines to handle.

Japan seeks to extend oil concessions from UAE Abu Dhabi: Japan has sought extending its existing oil and gas concessions from the UAE, which is its second largest oil import source after Saudi Arabia. .

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his official meeting on Wednesday evening with General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Deputy Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, requested to provide oil supplies to Japan in a stable manner, Japanese officials said at a press conference in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

Death toll rises in Syrian city of Baniyas (CNN) -- Fears rose in Syria on Saturday that widespread killing in the coastal city of Baniyas would continue for a third consecutive day.

At least 247 people have died in fighting across Syria since Friday -- 105 of them killed by government troops in Baniyas or its suburbs, an opposition activist network reported.

Israel bombs Hezbollah-bound missiles in Syria: official (Reuters) - Israel has carried out an air strike targeting a shipment of missiles in Syria bound for Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon, an Israeli official said on Saturday.

Israel had long made clear it is prepared to resort to force to prevent advanced Syrian weapons, including President Bashar al-Assad's reputed chemical arsenal, reaching his Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah allies or Islamist insurgents taking part in a more than two-year-old uprising against his government.

Brzezinski Joins Lugar Warning Against U.S. Role in Syria President Barack Obama’s declaration that a Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” was a mistake, according to two veteran U.S. foreign policy leaders who warned against deeper U.S. engagement there.

Namibian Well May Revive Oil Drilling After Misses HRT Participacoes em Petroleo SA is expecting results this week from a well off Namibia’s Skeleton Coast that may revive interest in oil exploration after two failures last year in the southwest African nation.

Occidental’s Irani Out as Investor Revolt Ends Rule Irani’s departure is more than a year ahead of the retirement date he announced following previous shareholder criticism of his industry-leading compensation package. According to a new policy the company announced April 29, Irani’s successor as chairman would have to be an independent director.

Shell says Basrah Gas Company starts operations South Gas Company, Shell and Mitsubishi have officially announced the commencement of operations of Basrah Gas Company (BGC), which will be the largest gas project in Iraq’s history and the world’s largest flares reduction project, global energy major Royal Dutch Shell said last week.

Iran's Central Oil Fields Produce More Than Envisaged TEHRAN (FNA)- Managing-Director of the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company (ICOFC) Mehdi Fakour said the company produced 264 mcm/d of gas in the last Iranian year (which ended in March 2013)

Fakour said that the output was 32 mcm/d more than planned.

He said the company is investing 29.67 trillion rials in its nine oil fields in a bid to enhance their output by 140,000 b/d.

Iran to Start Gas Delivery to Iraq in Summer TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's deputy oil minister announced that Tehran would start supplying natural gas to Iraq by summer.

Javad Oji said that Iran would be exporting 45 million cubic meters a day (mcm/d) of natural gas to its western neighbor.

Iranian Insurance Company Ready to Insure Tankers TEHRAN (FNA)- Head of Iran's Bimeh Markazi (Central Insurance) organization said the country is ready to insure oil tankers against Western sanctions.

"In case of tighter insurance sanctions by Western governments, Iran's insurance industry is capable of insuring oil tankers," Mohammad Karimi told Shana.

Iran offers new oil contracts to lure India Tehran: As US and European sanctions cripple its economy, Iran today offered India a new production sharing regime for oil exploration in an attempt to keep its third largest buyer of oil engaged.

Indonesia to woo Iraq to invest in oil refineries Indonesia, a main importer of crude oil and its refined products in Southeast Asia, is likely to partner with Iraq, one of the world’s largest petroleum producers, to build local oil refineries in a bid to meet domestic needs.

Gas tax based on mileage -- yes or no? Yes: It's a fairer system no matter what you drive There's a price to pay as the fuel mileage of the cars we drive increases. Increases in miles per gallon mean less gasoline is consumed. That means less fuel tax revenue for highways. Unless new revenue is found, the result is more potholes and more traffic jams.

Many experts believe we should eliminate the fuel tax and replace it with a user fee based on the number of miles we drive. That's easier said than done given the current political climate around taxes. So here are some ideas that add a spoonful of sugar to help the mileage user-fee go down. The first challenge is coming up with an accurate way to determine the number of miles you drive.

$120 million water plant to capture Y-12 mercury OAK RIDGE — A water treatment plant in the heart of a nuclear weapons complex is the cornerstone of a new strategy to keep the toxic element mercury from seeping into a creek that flows through Oak Ridge.

Protests in Chinese city over planned chemical plant (Reuters) - Hundreds of people took to the streets of the Chinese city of Kunming on Saturday to protest against the planned production of a chemical at a refinery, in the latest show of concern over the effects of rapid growth on the environment.

China's increasingly affluent urban population has begun to object to the model of growth at all costs that has fuelled the economy for three decades, with the environment emerging as a focus of protests.

You are a guinea pig A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We cannot escape it in our cars. It is in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there's a reason why you have never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name - and no antidote.

US beef prices set new high as spring barbecue season heats up CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. wholesale beef prices rose to an all-time high on Friday as the delayed spring grilling season is heating up and as supermarkets buy meat for the May 27 U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend, commonly seen as the unofficial start of the summer cookout season, analysts said.

Early Wildfire Drives Thousands From Homes in Southern California LOS ANGELES — Walls of wind-driven fire swept across Ventura County on Friday, forcing thousands of home evacuations, shutting down schools and offices and ravaging acres of woodland as firefighters struggled for a second day to bring an ominously early California wildfire under control.

There were no reports of injuries or homes destroyed as the heat abated and fierce winds began tapering off Friday evening. But the intensity and early arrival of the year’s first major wildfire — months before such fires normally break out, just a few weeks after the end of the rainy season — offered a worrisome sign of what appears to be a severe fire season on the horizon.

Nations seek flexible climate approach, but no breakthrough in Bonn BONN, Germany (Reuters) - New, more flexible ways to fight climate change were sketched out on Friday at the end of a week of talks between 160 nations, but there was no breakthrough in bridging a deep divide between China and the United States.

Historical responsibility of developed countries unevadable: China's chief negotiator BONN (Xinhua) -- As global representatives gathering at German city of Bonn for a new round of UN climate change talks, China's Chief Negotiator Su Wei warned developed countries that their historical responsibility for climate change is unevadable.

Extreme weather is making Americans climate-change believers, study finds WASHINGTON – A year of strange and often devastating weather that included extreme hurricanes, drought and wildfires appears to have increased the number of Americans who want government action on climate change, a new study shows.

Unfortunately, researchers say, this higher level of global-warming awareness is not translating into political action.

Study: When Republicans understand climate science, they support climate action Republican voters are told over and over by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and GOP leaders in Congress that climate change is a sham, a scare campaign orchestrated by scientists with liberal agendas. Ergo, Republicans are less likely than others to believe that fossil-fuel burning is changing the climate. It stands to reason, therefore, that they are less likely to support efforts to tackle the problem.

But once Republicans come to understand that the world is indeed imperiled by global warming, they begin to support government actions to try to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

Study: Global warming could shift global rainfall patterns GREENBELT, Md. (UPI) -- NASA says a study it led suggests global warming will drive changes in global rainfall patterns, with increased risks of both extreme rainfall and drought.

Model simulations spanning 140 years show warming from carbon dioxide will change the frequency that regions around the planet will receive rain, and while periods of no rain and heavy rain will increase, moderate rainfall will decrease, the space agency said Friday.

JPMorgan Caught in Swirl of Regulatory Woes Government investigators have found that JPMorgan Chase devised “manipulative schemes” that transformed “money-losing power plants into powerful profit centers,” and that one of its most senior executives gave “false and misleading statements” under oath.

The findings appear in a confidential government document, reviewed by The New York Times, that was sent to the bank in March, warning of a potential crackdown by the regulator of the nation’s energy markets.

...The JPMorgan case arose, according to the document, after the bank’s 2008 takeover of Bear Stearns gave the bank the rights to sell electricity from power plants in California and Michigan. It was a losing business that relied on “inefficient” and outdated technology, or as JPMorgan called it, “an unprofitable asset.”

Yet under “pressure to generate large profits,” the agency’s investigators said, traders in Houston devised a workaround. Adopting eight different “schemes” between September 2010 and June 2011, the traders offered the energy at prices “calculated to falsely appear attractive” to state energy authorities. The effort prompted authorities in California and Michigan to dole out about $83 million in “excessive” payments to JPMorgan, the investigators said. The behavior had “harmful effects” on the markets, according to the document.

Russia’s April Oil Output Near Post-Soviet Record, Ministry Says Russia, the world’s biggest oil producer, boosted crude and condensate production 1.5 percent in April from a year earlier to 10.47 million barrels a day, close to a post-Soviet era record.

Daily output grew 0.2 percent from March, according to preliminary data sent by e-mail today from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. The record of 10.49 million barrels was reached in November. Soviet-era production in Russia peaked at 11.48 million barrels a day in 1987.

Brent Advances a Second Day Before U.S. Employment Data Brent crude rose for a second day, extending its biggest rally in six months, before a report that may show U.S. employers hired more staff in April.

Brent futures climbed as much as 0.8 percent, reversing an earlier decline of the same magnitude. U.S. payrolls increased by 140,000 workers following a gain of 88,000 in March, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 90 economists. The jobless rate stayed at 7.6 percent, matching the lowest since December 2008, the survey showed.

European Sour Crude to Stay Tight on Iran, Fuel Oil: JBC Supplies of sour, or high sulfur, crude oil in Europe will continue to be tight because of the loss of Iranian and Syrian exports and “strong” refining margins for fuel oil, according to JBC Energy GmbH.

“Fuel oil is finding support in arbitrage to Asia,” and while exports of Urals crude from Russia may increase in June, “the continued loss of the bulk of Iranian and Syrian crude will keep the sour crude market tight in the region,” a JBC Energy team of analysts led by David Wech in Vienna said in a report today.

US oil supplies reach new peak amid shale boom US oil stocks reached a new three-decade high and pressed crude prices lower Wednesday, as US oil production continued to surge while domestic demand remained anemic.

..."It's just indicative of these shale plays ramping up," said Matt Smith, an analyst at Schneider Electric, an energy management firm. "It tells us we're in the middle of an oil boom."

Alaska North Slope Oil Output Fell 5.8% in April, State Reports Alaska’s North Slope has been yielding less oil every year since 2002 as output from wells naturally declines and isn’t replaced. March output decreased 4.9 percent from the year before. The shrinking supply has boosted foreign crude imports to the U.S. West Coast and prompted Flint Hills Resources LLC to shut a crude unit at the North Pole refinery last year because of rising oil prices.

OPEC Exports Seen Stable Amid ‘Glum’ Demand, Oil Movements Says The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will keep shipments little changed this month as “glum” demand in the U.S. and Europe counters rising consumption in Asia, tanker tracker Oil Movements said.

The group that supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil will ship 23.67 million barrels a day in the four weeks to May 18, stable from 23.68 million in the previous period, the researcher said today in an e-mailed report. The figures exclude Angola and Ecuador. U.S. crude imports by tanker have fallen about 13 percent this year, the consultant said.

Nigeria’s oil exports to crash to lowest level in June Crude oil exports from Nigeria will by June crash to lowest in nearly four years, shipping lists have shown, highlighting how badly theft from pipelines is affecting Africa’s largest economy.

Ethanol’s Discount to Gasoline Widens as Production Rates Climb Ethanol’s discount to gasoline widened after a government report showed production of the biofuel climbed to the highest level in 10 months.

Petro-Canada stations running dry across Prairies Some Petro-Canada stations in the Prairies are running out of gasoline because of some unexpected repairs that have to be done at an Edmonton refinery.

U.S. West Gasoline Strengthens as Supplies Fall to Seasonal Low Spot gasoline on the U.S. West Coast surged against futures after the Energy Information Administration said regional stockpiles of the motor fuel dropped to a record low for this time of year.

What determines energy abundance? Flow. Okay, I'm going to give you the shortest course ever in energy abundance: Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow. Let me say it again: Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow.

Now, here is what it does NOT depend on: supposed, but often unverified, fossil fuel reserves in the ground; hypothetical, sketchy, guesstimated, undeveloped, undiscovered resources imagined to be in the ground by governments or by energy companies and often deceptively referred to as "reserves"*; claims about future technological breakthroughs; mere public relations puffery about abundance in the face of record high average oil prices.

Statoil Profit Slides More Than Estimated as Production Declines Statoil ASA, Norway’s biggest energy company, said profits fell by 29 percent in the first quarter on lower oil and gas output in Norway, Brazil and as a terrorist attack shut a facility in Algeria.

Angola Plans to Simplify Tax Codes to Boost Non-Oil Revenue Angola, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, plans to simplify taxation and more than double revenue from sources other than petroleum to curb the government’s reliance on crude.

The target is to pass three tax codes this year that will cut fees and modernize laws, some which date from 1948, Gilberto Luther, director of the reform project, said in an interview on April 29 in Luanda, the capital. The changes will increase receipts from industries including manufacturing and retail to about 20 percent of gross domestic product by 2017 from 8 percent in 2011, he said. In Nigeria, Africa’s largest crude producer, non-oil tax was 6.3 percent of GDP in 2011.

Japan spots three Chinese government ships near disputed islets TOKYO (KUNA) -- Three Chinese government surveillance ships were spotted near Japanese territorial waters off the disputed islands in the East China Sea on Friday, the Japan Coast Guard said.

Billionaire Kaiser Exploiting Charity Loophole With Boats When Oklahoma energy billionaire George Kaiser opened the Northeast Gateway liquid natural gas terminal in 2008, the floating depot’s first delivery was shipped on the Excellence, a 909-foot supertanker that holds 138,000 cubic meters of LNG -- enough gas to meet more than 4 percent of daily U.S. demand.

The Excellence is owned by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, a charitable organization that also owned a 36 percent stake in Solyndra LLC, the Fremont, California-based solar system maker that went bankrupt in 2011 after receiving a $535 million U.S. Energy Department loan.

Duke Earnings Rise as Cool Temperatures Boost Heat Demand Duke Energy Corp., the largest U.S. utility owner, said first-quarter profit rose as cooler temperatures than a year earlier boosted demand for power.

Net income increased to $634 million million, or 89 cents a share, from $295 million, or 66 cents, a year earlier, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Duke said in a statement today on PR Newswire. Excluding one-time items, per-share profit was $1.02, one cent less than the average of 13 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Rocks in India Coal Supply Means More Power Blackouts: Energy Dharmendra Kumar owes his job to rocks masquerading as coal.

He drives a payloader at NTPC Ltd., the country’s largest electricity producer, scooping out boulders from mountains of coal disgorged from open-topped railway cars. He drops the rocks, some as large as a bathtub, into a pile forming its own mountain at NTPC’s Dadri power plant in north India.

The pile of rubble represents a brewing conflict between state-owned Coal India Ltd (NTPC). and NTPC that’s threatening to cut electricity supplies in 20 states across India, Asia’s third- biggest economy. The country already has a 9 percent shortage of power at peak demand, shaving about 1.2 percentage points from gross domestic product, according to government estimates.

PetroChina's Sichuan refinery has no clear start date after quake (Reuters) - PetroChina has yet to decide when it will start up its new $6 billion refinery complex in China's landlocked southwest, after local residents expressed safety concerns following an earthquake two weeks ago, according to a company statement.

The company would go through "stringent check and approval procedures according to national standards," before deciding on a start-up schedule, it said in a statement published on Friday on sina.com and cited by a PetroChina media official.

Gazprom Granted Four Arctic Gas Fields MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) – The Russian government bypassed a state tender to grant Gazprom on Friday the right to explore four gas fields in the northern Barents Sea.

The four offshore fields hold an estimated 1.8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, according to figures provided in the decree of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Russia produced 655 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2012, according to official statistics.

Spread of Hydrofracking Could Strain Water Resources in West, Study Finds The rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing to retrieve once-inaccessible reservoirs of oil and gas could put pressure on already-stressed water resources from the suburbs of Fort Worth to western Colorado, according to a new report from a nonprofit group that advises investors about companies’ environmental risks.

“Given projected sharp increases” in the production of oil and gas by the technique commonly known as fracking, the report from the group Ceres said, “and the intense nature of local water demands, competition and conflicts over water should be a growing concern for companies, policy makers and investors.”

Could fracking solve China's energy problems? The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that China may have as much as 1,275 trillion cubic feet of shale gas reserves — 50 percent more than the U.S., which has already extracted enough natural gas from shale to put it on a path to energy independence. Unlocking those resources would help China meet its enormous energy demands, while allowing it to cut down on coal — one of the main causes of the deadly, off-the-charts pollution clogging up the country.

But progress toward natural gas production has barely budged. So far only 60 shale exploration wells have been set up, compared to about 200,000 in the U.S. And production remains at zero.

Enbridge Expansion Could Turn Into Keystone-Like Fight A new front may soon open in the battle over pipelines that transport Canadian oil to the U.S.

And this one involves a line that would carry even more oil derived from Alberta’s tar sands than TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL, a project that has inflamed environmentalists who say it would exacerbate climate change.

Japanese-French consortium to build Turkish nuclear plant ANKARA — A Japanese-French consortium has won a $22 billion dollar contract to build a nuclear power plant on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, a senior energy ministry official said on Thursday.

“An inter-governmental agreement is expected to be signed between the prime ministers of both countries (Turkey and Japan) on Friday,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Duke suspends COL application for new Harris nuclear plant reactors Boston (Platts) - Duke Energy told the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday that it plans to "suspend" its application for a combined construction and operating license for two new nuclear units at Duke Energy Progress's Harris nuclear station in Wake County, North Carolina.

'A very fragile situation': Leaks from Japan's wrecked nuke plant raise fears TOKYO — Like the persistent tapping of a desperate SOS message, the updates keep coming. Day after day, the operators of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant have been detailing their struggles to contain leaks of radioactive water.

The leaks, power outages and other glitches have raised fears that the plant — devastated by a tsunami in March 2011 — could even start to break apart during a cleanup process expected to take years.

Fusion Scientists See Progress as Obama Shows No Ardor Bishop is a fusion evangelist. He has devoted six years to this corner of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, wielding a laser that delivers 1,000 times more energy than the U.S. electrical grid at any instant in time. If the laser can spark atoms to fuse in a self-sustaining reaction known as ignition -- the equivalent of a laboratory-scale microbomb -- scientists may be on their way to rewarding the planet with unlimited and nonpolluting energy, Bishop says.

“Fusion is a rich source of power,” he says.

Cross-Country Solar Plane Expedition Set for Takeoff Conceived of as a grand demonstration of what can be done with clean technologies — a Jules Verne-style adventure with a dash of P. T. Barnum thrown in — the project has more practical implications. While it could be decades, at least, before ordinary travelers line up to board solar electric planes, the technology is under consideration for drones, which risk damage each time they land to refuel.

Renewable energy firms accuse activists of scaremongering over biomass A major row has broken out between green campaigners and companies using wood, straw, waste and other "biomass" fuels to run power stations over how environmentally friendly such fuels are.

Water Conservation Becomes a Higher Priority in U.A.E. DUBAI — Running a farm is not easy in the Middle East, part of a region, along with North Africa, defined by the World Bank as the most water-scarce in the world.

Russia set for its biggest ever wind farm RUSSIA: Russia's largest wind power plant is expected to be built in the southern Stavropol region by 2015.

Kazakhstan to launch biggest solar power station According to the press-service, the power station with an average annual generation capacity of 65 million kWh will become the biggest solar pant in Kazakhstan. The project is estimated at $93.1 million.

Indonesia Aims To Build 36 Solar Power Plants In 2013 The Indonesian government has allocated a higher budget for solar development this year. The government is planning to build 36 new solar power plants especially in isolated and border areas.

Peaks islanders fight peak oil with weatherization effort Helping people tighten up their island homes against the sometimes brutal Maine winters, exacerbated by winds off Casco Bay, is an easy sell, especially as the realization settles in that cheap fuel is a thing of the past.

And it's a relatively inexpensive investment with a quick and long-term return.

The giants of the green world that profit from the planet's destruction Now it turns out that some of these groups are literally part-owners of the industry causing the crisis they are purportedly trying to solve. And the money the green groups have to play with is serious. The Nature Conservancy, for instance, has $1.4bn (£900m) in publicly traded securities, and boasts that its piggybank is "among the 100 largest endowments in the country". The Wildlife Conservation Society has a $377m endowment, while the endowment of the World Wildlife Fund–US is worth $195m.

Let me be absolutely clear: plenty of green groups have managed to avoid this mess. Greenpeace, 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Rainforest Action Network, and a host of smaller organisations such as Oil Change International and the Climate Reality Project don't have endowments and don't invest in the stock market. They also either don't take corporate donations or place such onerous restrictions on them that extractive industries are easily ruled out. Some of these groups own a few fossil fuel stocks, but only so that they can make trouble at shareholder meetings.

Study Finds No Single Cause of Honeybee Deaths WASHINGTON — The devastation of American honeybee colonies is the result of a complex stew of factors, including pesticides, parasites, poor nutrition and a lack of genetic diversity, according to a comprehensive federal study published on Thursday. The problems affect pollination of American agricultural products worth tens of billions of dollars a year.

The most insane roommate ads ever posted on Craigslist I would like to assemble a house full of people who, like me, are preparing for the fast-approaching zombie apocalypse, also known as peak oil, economic collapse, peak water, and so on. My patience with head-in-the-sand, "optimistic" people is wearing thin and, while I can't do much about my co-workers, I would prefer to live among people who are a bit more courageous.

I work. I drive. I shop. I do these things as little as possible, though, and usually only in the service of my dream: complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. I don't want to play this game any more and I hope to find people who feel the same.

As much as possible, this house will function as a tiny transition town. We will build a community strong enough to survive collapse and wise enough to shape the life that follows. Extra points will go to runners, practicing meditators, gardeners & farmers, urban foragers, WWOOFers, and fans of the following: The Extraenvionmentalist, the C-Realm, Radio EcoShock, Chris Hedges, Gar Alperovitz, Michael Parenti, Steve Keen, Dimitry Orlov, Daniel Suelo, and Michael Ruppert.

This is the end: Team of experts say humanity faces extinction A team of mathematicians, philosophers and scientists at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute say there is ever-increasing evidence that the human race’s reliance on technology could, in fact, lead to its demise.

The group has a forthcoming paper entitled “Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority,” arguing that we face a real risk to our own existence. And not a slow demise in some distant, theoretical future. The end could come as soon as the next century.

EU Factories Double Use of UN Carbon Credits Last Year in Survey Power stations and factories in the European Union’s emissions market probably doubled their use of United Nations carbon offsets to meet their pollution limits last year, according to a survey of analysts.

EU Factories Used Fewer Carbon Offsets Than Expected in 2012 Factories and power stations in the European Union surrendered 500 million carbon offsets to cover emissions last year, 20 percent less than analysts estimated.

Keystone Foes Seek Climate Measures in Case They Lose President Barack Obama is being pressed by opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline to tie any approval to measures that would curb climate change, reflecting mounting pressure on the administration to mitigate the project’s impact if it goes forward.

Energy secretary urges Michael Gove to reinstate climate change on curriculum Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has written a private letter to Michael Gove, the education secretary, urging him to rethink his plans to downgrade climate change in the new national curriculum.

Amid protests from environmentalists and some students, Gove has removed debate about climate change from the draft geography curriculum.

Is the federal government turning Canadian science into for-profit only? Science is under attack in Canada.

It's hard to have to write that, given that Canada has some of the leading scientists and research facilities in the world, but it's also hard to draw any other conclusion, based on what the federal government has been up to for the past 7 years.

Midwest 'Weather Whiplash' Sign of Climate Change The term "weather whiplash" is being invoked to describe the drought-flood cycles beginning to take over the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

The cause of the maddening weather extremes and their huge and varied consequences is none other than climate change, according to a new report by the climate science communication organization Climate Nexus, and backed by climate researchers.

Six months after Sandy, N.J. is still not building smarter As we move forward in the aftermath of the storm, we are not doing so in a way that will better protect our communities and environment. Instead, the governor is taking away transparency and oversight, ignoring climate change and allowing rebuilding to move forward in the same places that were just destroyed.

Australia joins climate displacement group Australia is being urged to take a leading role in the protection of people forced to leave their homeland because of climate change.

Would we give up burgers to stop climate change? If you find it demoralizing that we are incinerating the planet and dooming future generations simply because too many of us like to eat cheeseburgers, here’s that good news I promised: In their report, Goodland and Anhang found that most of what we need to do to mitigate the climate crisis can be achieved “by replacing just one quarter of today’s least eco-friendly food products” — read: animal products — “with better alternatives.” That’s right; essentially, if every fourth time someone craved, say, beef, chicken or cow milk they instead opted for a veggie burger, a bean burrito or water, we have a chance to halt the emergency.

What would ‘wartime mobilization’ to fight climate change look like? There’s no libertarian choice here. A huge, global challenge like climate change is inevitably going to mean more government action and intrusion. The choice is, do you want managed big government, with a bounded set of plans and some amount of oversight built in, or do you want panicked big government, responding to migrations, famines, and conflict? I’m not exactly excited about either choice, but the former definitely strikes me as the lesser of two evils.

With Arctic sea ice vulnerable, summer melt season begins briskly The Arctic saw a record loss of summer sea ice in 2012, and the 2013 melt is off to a faster start than a year ago. Another record is uncertain, but warming has sapped the ice's staying power.

White House warned on imminent Arctic ice death spiral National security officials worried by rapid loss of Arctic summer sea ice overlook threat of permanent global food shortages.

UN says 2012 was 9th-hottest year since 1850 GENEVA (AP) -- The World Meteorological Organization says last year was the ninth-warmest since record-keeping began in 1850, despite the cooling effect of the weather pattern called La Nina.

The U.N.'s weather agency says this marks the 27th year in a row the global average temperature — 58 degrees Fahrenheit (14.45 degrees Celsius) in 2012 — surpassed the 1961-1990 average.

On 18th September 2014 the Scottish People will have a referendum on their future within the United Kingdom where they will be asked the simple question: Should Scotland be an Independent Country? Yes or No.

Should the people say yes then this will not only have far reaching political and socio-economic consequences for Scotland and the rest of the UK but it will also leave the rest of the UK’s energy security in a parlous state since the bulk of the remaining oil and gas reserves of the North Sea and Atlantic margin lie in Scottish waters. Or is it that simple?

UK crude oil + condensate + natural gas liquid production. Accelerated declines in recent years are the result of inept changes to the taxation regime, increased scheduled maintenance in the wake of Macondo and increasing numbers of unscheduled platform shutdowns attributed to ageing infrastructure. Data from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA).

The University of Aberdeen will host a two day conference / debate on The Politics of Oil and Gas in a Changing UK on the 8th and 9th of May 2013. Entrance is free for all those who wish to attend.

In order to understand the events leading up to the current situation it is necessary to go back to 1707 when the current Union between Scotland and England was established. This came in the wake of a disastrous investment enterprise undertaken in the new world of Panama called the Darien Scheme where many Scottish nobles lost significant portions of their wealth leaving Scotland impoverished.

However, not all were in agreement and come 1745 the second Jacobite rebellion against The Union culminated in the battle of Culloden where the Jacobites were slaughtered and a period of military occupation followed accompanied by clearing farmers from the land to make way for Nobles from the South. Many fled to the colonies of Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand.

Since 1745 Scotland has been part of one of the most successful political and monetary unions in history and was part of the global super power that conquered the world. Despite this there has always been discontentment and those who saw a brighter future as an independent Scotland. In 1934 The Scottish National Party (SNP) was born with sole purpose of lobbying for independence via the ballot box.

The success of the SNP has fluctuated with time but on an ever upward trajectory. In 1999, a large number of executive powers were transferred from Westminster to the new Scottish Parliament, a move that had very broad cross party support. However significant powers remained with the UK, mainly fiscal powers, foreign policy and energy policy. The proportional voting system for the Scottish Parliament was designed specifically to not enable any single party to gain an overall majority.

The SNP were naturally in favour of devolution of power from Westminster to Edinburgh even though this did not go far enough for their cause. Under the leadership of Alex Salmond, one of the UK's most astute politicians, the SNP fared well in Scottish parliamentary elections.

The last election took place in May 2011. In March of that year, in an act of political ineptitude, UK Finance Minister George Osborne launched a £2billion tax raid on North Sea oil and gas profits which in some measure determined the outcome of the election. Come May, the SNP won a resounding landslide victory winning an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament, an event that was never supposed to happen. Whilst there was no constitutional case for doing so, the UK government could quite clearly not deny the SNP and the Scottish people a referendum vote on their political destiny. Osborne has since learned the error of his ways with sweeping reforms to the North Sea taxation system in order to encourage investment in marginal fields.

The SNP face an uphill struggle to convince the Scottish electorate to vote yes. Looking towards Europe, we can all see how difficult it is to form a successful political and monetary union. I do not want to go into the many facets of the political debate, but energy security will form a central plank. With control over North Sea oil and gas, Scotland would be an exporting nation. Not on the scale of Norway, but not far behind. England and Wales would be left in a situation similar to France, with very little indigenous oil and gas production and heavily dependent upon imports. This is the ace up the sleeve of the SNP.

But it is not that simple. Much of the remaining oil and gas reserves lie to the east and west of the Orkney and Shetland islands that are both strongly opposed to severing links with The Union. Should the Scottish people vote yes, and the Islands vote no, Salmond may be deprived of The Prize he has fought so long and hard to win.

Editor's note added 14:25 British Summer time. I received via email a fairly assertive comment pointing out that status of the Orkney and Shetland Islands may be rather different to that described above. The A to Z of Independence - Sorting myth from fact

If Scotland becomes independent Westminster won't be able to hang on to Shetland, Orkney, Rockall or any other part of Scotland (see: Shetland and Orkney).

However, even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn't be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway, so ya boo sux. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.

The continental shelf off the Atlantic coast is Scotland's to exploit and develop, even if Westminster clung on to Rockall like a plook on the face of an adolescent sociopath. According to the Law of the Sea: "rocks which could not sustain human habitation or economic life of their own would have no economic zone or continental shelf." Westminster could pauchle its way to keeping Rockall, but as far as oil and fishing exploitation rights are concerned, they'd be entitled to rockall.

Neither would Westminster gain much by holding onto Shetland and Orkney. When an island belonging to one state sits on the continental shelf of another state, the islands are treated as enclaves. This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited

Most of the rights to the continental shelf would remain Scottish, Map 2 on page 29 of the legal paper shows the most likely sea boundaries. Westminster would be entitled only to a small zone around the islands, and the waters between Orkney and Shetland. This area contains no oil fields. If Shetland and Orkney were to remain under Westminster's control, Shetland would no longer have an oil fund. The map is reproduced here, so you can do a reverse Jeremy Paxman and sneer derisively at Westminster's pretensions.

Westminster's Shetland threat is a bluff. Westminster knows it's a bluff. They just don't want us to know too.

The U.S. Has Much, Much More Gas and Oil Than We Thought The United States has double the amount of oil and three times the amount of natural gas than previously thought, stored deep under the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, according to new data the Obama administration released Tuesday.

In announcing the new data in a conference call, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell also said the administration will release within weeks draft rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing, technology that has come under scrutiny for its environmental impact but that is essential to developing all of this energy.

“These world-class formations contain even more energy-resource potential than previously understood, which is important information as we continue to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign sources of oil,” Jewell said in a statement.

'Peak Oil' Is Back, but This Time It's a Peak in Demand Remember peak oil? It’s the theory—current about a decade ago—that global oil production would soon top out, leading to an inexorable rise in prices. Reports and books painted a grim picture of the effects this would have on the global economy; as fracking and seabed discoveries have unlocked new sources of the fossil fuel, most have dismissed peak oil as a flawed concept.

Now a pair of reports from energy-sector analysts say we’re approaching peak oil from the opposite direction: demand.

Natural Resource Scarcity Is a Real Thing Long story short, we're in nothing like the peak oil nightmare that a naive forward projection of the 2003-08 hockey stick would have led you to expect. But we've hardly conquered oil scarcity either. New discoveries are having trouble keeping pace with rising car ownership in Asia and declining production from many established oil sources. Meanwhile, unconventional oil is coming onto the market in part because oil is scarce and expensive, which makes it profitable to extract hard-to-extract oil. That's better for the economy than if we didn't find any, but it also means we haven't returned to the 1990s oil bounty and most likely never will.

Brent Crude Drops a Second Day as Global Supplies Climb Brent crude fell for a second day after OPEC’s production increased to a five-month high and an industry group said U.S. stockpiles climbed for the first time in three weeks.

Futures slid as much as 1.7 percent in London after dropping 1.4 percent yesterday. U.S. crude inventories rose by 5.2 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said. Government figures today are projected to show a gain of 1.1 million barrels, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Daily output by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries increased in April by 194,000 barrels a day, a separate survey indicated. An index of manufacturing in China signaled weaker expansion in April.

Saudi will raise crude output to 15m bpd - prince Saudi Arabia wants to raise its crude oil production capacity from its current 12.5m barrels per day to 15m barrels per day by 2020, a prince in the kingdom was quoted as saying.

Prince Turki Al Faisal, a former intelligence head, said that the increase would allow for the Gulf country to export up to 10m barrels per day. Prince Turki was speaking at an event at Harvard University on April 25, although a transcript of his comments were only published this week.

Saudi Oil Minister: America Will Remain a Consumer of Saudi Oil Washington, Asharq Al-Awsat—Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi stated that Saudi Arabia is committed to a stable global oil market in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington yesterday morning.

Naimi stressed that Saudi Arabia does not want to see a rise in oil prices, except where this reflects actual market conditions: “In 2012, I came out and called for lower oil prices…. I stressed to the media and others that supply fears were unfounded and that the current prices were not a true reflection of supply–demand fundamentals.”

Making reference to the the peak oil crisis of 2009, Naimi criticized experts who predicted that the world was running out of oil and predicted a shift to other energy sources.

Iraq cements position as second-biggest Opec oil exporter Iraq's oil exports rose in April to 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd), the country's oil minister said on Tuesday, helping to keep global markets well supplied as shipments from regional rival Iran are crimped by tightening Western sanctions.

Kuwait could see KD 12bln budget surplus in FY13/14 - report KUWAIT (KUNA) -- Kuwait's budget of the FY 2013/2014 is expected to produce a large surplus as high as KD 12 billion, despite a drop in global oil prices against the backdrop of a weaker economic outlook and stronger non-OPEC oil supplies, the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) forecasted in a report released Monday.

The report argued that an oil price of between USD101 and USD105 pb in FY13/14 could generate a budget surplus for Kuwait of between KD 8 and 12 bn this fiscal year, following a surplus of KD 15 bn in FY12/13.

Texas oil sails to Canada, refiners fume over tanker law New York/London: Oil traders including commodities giant Trafigura and Australian bank Macquarie have quietly begun shipping US crude oil from Texas to Canada, raising the ire of US East Coast refiners who may pay four times as much for a similar voyage.

In the latest oil trading trend to emerge from the unexpected boom in US shale production, the firms have hired at least seven foreign-flagged tankers to run the route to Canada this year, most of them for the first time, according to market sources and data analysed by Reuters.

US refiners, however, are required by a shipping law from 1920 known as the Jones Act to use more costly US-owned and operated ships if they want to tap into the oil bounty emerging from the Eagle Ford fields of Texas, highlighting the uneven playing field that is taking shape in the Atlantic basin.

Kazakh oil heads to Asia away from saturated Europe LONDON (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's oil exports to Asia are on the rise as it seeks to cultivate new buyers for its light crudes outside the saturated European market before steep output increases in the next few years.

Since U.S. shale production has boomed, North American demand for light sweet oil grades from countries such as Libya, Algeria, Nigeria and Azerbaijan has plummeted, creating a global glut of light oil.

Leviathan group raises estimate at Israel gas field to 18.9 tcf (Reuters) - The U.S-Israeli consortium developing the Leviathan natural gas field off Israel's Mediterranean coast raised on Wednesday the field's estimated reserves to 18.9 trillion cubic feet (tcf).

Leviathan was the world's largest offshore gas discovery of the decade when Texas-based Noble Energy and its Israeli partners found the deposit about 80 miles (130 km) west of the Israeli port of Haifa in 2010.

Shell Starts World’s Largest Gas-Capturing Plant in Iraq Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and Mitsubishi Corp. started operations at a $17-billion joint venture to capture gas from some of Iraq’s largest oil fields.

The Basrah Gas Co. project, the biggest of its kind, captures so-called associated gas flared from the southern oil fields of Rumaila, West Qurna-1 and Zubair, according to a statement on Shell’s website. Iraq’s state-owned South Gas Co. holds a 51 percent stake in the 25-year venture, while Shell owns 44 percent and Mitsubishi the remainder.

Billionaire Plots to Beat Chevron to Largest Latin Shale Argentina’s Eurnekian family, after becoming billionaires from media and airports, is planning to become the government’s first shale oil and gas partner.

Eduardo Eurnekian, tapping a fortune of at least $1.3 billion, has pledged $700 million in two deals to hasten a definitive partnership with Argentine government-owned YPF SA to develop its Vaca Muerta fields. After his $500 million preliminary accord with YPF in October, the 70-year-old last week paid about $200 million for 81 percent of Cia. General de Combustibles SA, an oil producer and shareholder in pipelines to YPF’s first operating shale-gas well.

Shell bid for sour gasfield wins out Royal Dutch Shell confirmed yesterday it had won the tender for Abu Dhabi's Bab sour gasfield, a technically challenging project that underpins the emirate's industrial diversification.

Cnooc Considers Dollar Bond Issue Cnooc Ltd., China’s biggest offshore energy explorer, is considering a sale of dollar-denominated bonds, five people familiar with the matter said.

The company may raise about $5 billion in the offering, two of the people said, asking not to be identified because the terms aren’t set. A borrowing that large would match the biggest note sale in the U.S. currency in Asia outside Japan, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Beijing-based Cnooc may begin marketing the securities to investors as early as this quarter, one of the people said.

Canadian Oil Sands profit drops on weak production Canadian Oil Sands Ltd, which owns the largest stake in Syncrude Canada Ltd, said on Tuesday that first-quarter profit fell by nearly half as operating problems and the oil sands facility lowered production.

Canadian Oil Sands, which has a 37% stake in the massive Syncrude tar sands mining and synthetic crude operation in northern Alberta, said profit fell 44% to $177-million, or 37 cents a share, from a year-earlier $318-million, or 66 cents.

Chesapeake Swings to Profit as Demand Spike Boost Prices Chesapeake Energy Corp., the U.S. natural gas producer that replaced its chief executive officer in March amid conflict-of-interest questions, swung to a higher profit than expected as gas prices rallied on strengthening demand.

Net income was $58 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with a loss of $28 million, or 11 cents, a year earlier, the Oklahoma City-based company said in a statement today. Excluding non-cash hedging losses and severance expenses, per-share profit was 5 cents higher than the average of 28 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Talisman Energy posts loss as production falls (Reuters) - Talisman Energy Inc posted a quarterly loss as the sale of some North Sea assets hurt production but the oil and gas company said it expected significant growth in higher-margin liquids output in the second half of this year and into 2014.

The Canadian company, which has been refocusing operations to deal with low natural gas prices, completed the sale of a 49 percent stake in its North Sea operations to Sinopec Corp for $1.5 billion in December.

High oil prices can cushion impact of Iran sanctions Even at reduced export levels, Iran is benefiting from near-record oil prices. As recently as the 1999 oil price slump, it was receiving just $250 per person in oil export revenues; in 2012,that grew to $875. And 2011's inflation-adjusted oil revenues of around $95 billion were the second-highest the country has ever received, after 1974.

The sanctions have laid bare the Iranian administration's remarkable incompetence and waste. This historic oil boom was squandered on handouts, corruption and a surge of imports encouraged by a wildly overvalued exchange rate.

If anything, the collapse of the rial has returned it to a realistic rate, given Iran's continuing high inflation, making domestic industry more competitive. Ironically, sanctions pressure has spurred Tehran's fractious polity to take long-needed steps, upgrading domestic oil refining and removing costly energy subsidies. The economy shrank 1.9 per cent last year - serious, but hardly comparable to Greece's 6.8 per cent fall.

Has Nigeria's Niger Delta managed to buy peace? So far around 30,000 people have been granted amnesty by the Nigerian government.

In what is a very expensive commitment, each is supposed to receive 65,000 naira ($410, £265) per month.

Thousands have also been given training for jobs as diverse as pipe welding and learning to become a pilot.

The amnesty programme costs close to $500m a year, but that is small change compared to the extra oil money accrued since the peace deal was struck.

Massacre in Nigeria Spurs Outcry Over Military Tactics MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Days later, the survivors’ faces tensed at the memory of the grim evening: soldiers dousing thatched-roof homes with gasoline, setting them on fire and shooting residents when they tried to flee. As the village went up in smoke, one said, a soldier threw a child back into the flames.

Even by the scorched-earth standards of the Nigerian military’s campaign against Islamist insurgents stalking the nation’s north, what happened on the muddy shores of Lake Chad this month appears exceptional.

Search for oil expands in Somaliland Somaliland hopes that exploration by international oil companies will unearth reserves similar to those in nearby Yemen, and is in talks to increase the number of companies taking on acreage in the quasi-autonomous region.

The region, which considers itself independent from Somalia but is not recognised by the international community, last week signed its second deal with an established international player - Norway's DNO International, a company that merged with the UAE's RAK Petroleum.

A Hidden Victim of Somali Pirates: Science Scientists from around the globe, specializing in subjects as diverse as plate tectonics, plankton evolution, oceanography, and climate change, are decrying a growing void of research that has spread across hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Indian Ocean near the Horn of Africa—an immense, watery "data hole" swept clean of scientific research by the threat of Somali buccaneering.

Major efforts to study the dynamics of monsoons, predict global warming, or dig into seafloors to reveal humankind's prehistory have been scuttled by the same gangs of freebooters who, over the course of the past decade, have killed dozens of mariners, held thousands more hostage, and, by one World Bank estimate, fleeced the world of $18 billion a year in economic losses.

The cost to science may be less visible to the public. But it won't be borne solely by scholars.

Shell Moves Australia Head to U.S. Arctic Program Royal Dutch Shell PLC is moving its Australian head to run operations in the U.S. Arctic Ocean, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday, as the oil major attempts to recover from a series of drilling setbacks in the icy north.

Ann Pickard, who has been overseeing billions of dollars of investments in Australian gas-export projects, will take up a new role in the U.S. on June 1, the person said.

BP Will Finance $340 Million in Gulf Restoration Projects LAFITTE, La. (AP) — Gov. Bobby Jindal says BP has agreed to finance $340 million in restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Jindal said Tuesday that the money was part of the $1 billion that BP agreed to pay for early restoration work after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Fracking Ruled Out by Pennsylvania in Town’s Water Case Methane in the water wells of a Pennsylvania town visited by Yoko Ono in her campaign against hydraulic fracturing wasn’t caused by nearby drilling for natural gas, the state environmental regulator said.

In the northeastern town of Franklin Forks, samples from three private water wells are comparable in their chemical makeup to the natural spring at a nearby park where methane had been detected long before fracking began in the area, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Japan Utilities Raising Prices Offer Abe Wrong Inflation Japan’s power utilities reported combined losses of about 1.6 trillion yen a year ago, the equivalent of $20 billion at the time. Yesterday, they repeated the performance.

On the face of it, the bad news for the companies looks like a boost for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his 2 percent inflation target in Japan as the utilities will probably raise electricity tariffs. Except it’s the wrong kind of inflation.

Japan eyes opportunities in UAE's new nuclear age ABU DHABI // Shinzo Abe has not been shy about putting Abu Dhabi at the top of his agenda, whether in 2007 when he became the second Japanese prime minister to visit the emirate, or today as he arrives for an official visit just months into his second run as head of state.

But a different set of opportunities today hang in the balance, from an onshore oil concession where Japan's Inpex has emerged as one of an elite set of nine bidders, to potential nuclear service contracts, a lifeline for Japanese companies with little business at home after the Fukushima disaster.

New Brighton man charged with stealing copper from nuclear plant property SHIPPINGPORT — A hole in a fence allowed a New Brighton man to steal more than 1,400 pounds of copper since January from a building within the shadow of a nuclear reactor, authorities said Friday.

U.S. electric car maker Coda files for bankruptcy U.S. green car startup Coda Holdings Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after selling just 100 of its all-electric sedans, another example of battery-powered vehicles' failure to break into the mass market.

Biofuel Pioneer Forsakes Renewables to Make Gas-Fed Fuels Alan Shaw, the chemist and executive who led a six-year effort to turn inedible crops into fuels to displace gasoline, has renounced the industry he helped pioneer and decided the future instead lies with natural gas.

Formerly chief executive officer of Codexis Inc., the first advanced biofuel technology company to trade on a U.S. exchange, Shaw now says it’s impossible to economically turn crop waste, wood and plants like switchgrass into fuel. He’s trying to do it instead with gas, in his new post as CEO of Calysta Energy LLC.

Verizon to invest $100 million in solar, fuel cell technology WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Verizon said on Tuesday it plans to invest $100 million in solar power and fuel cells at 19 facilities in seven U.S. states to cut its carbon footprint and make its operations more resilient to storms and other disasters.

The energy project should be complete by next year, with installations at corporate offices, call centers, data centers and central offices of the telecommunications giant in Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.

California Joins Chinese Province to Go Green Wouldn't it be nice if China and the United States fixed the problem of climate change? Wouldn't it be nice if the globe's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the two largest energy users and the two largest industrial producers found a way to help each other succeed on an issue that neither they, nor anyone else, can afford to lose?

The Modern American Farmer Many came to agriculture through an interest in food systems and social justice. They included young men and women who believe organically grown local food should be available to people of all races and income levels. Such activists believe the U.S. food system needs to get out from under the control of multinational corporations, and that a warming planet demands sustainable, regional food systems. To make these things happen, they seek careers in farming.

The students in New York City’s first Farm Beginnings class represent a new chapter of an enduring American story. Immigrants and ethnic minorities have always gone into farming — some against their will, some willingly. But in an important way, this is a different version of that story. When software engineers from India and social justice activists from the South Bronx want to enter agriculture, something has changed in American culture. Farming’s new cachet is impossible to deny — and its appeal is more widespread than many cynics believe.

Endless growth will not deliver a healthy economy To judge the health of the economy by whether growth rises or falls by a fraction of 1% is like measuring the height of the tide to see whether the ocean is thriving, or sick and polluted. Regardless, in the eyes of commentators, a mere 0.3% increase in growth granted a reprieve from the harshest judgment on the economic strategy of the chancellor, George Osborne, and by extension the whole austerity programme of the coalition.

It's ironic that lust for unsustainable growth of returns in the financial sector destroyed conditions for significant wider growth in the economy. Now all mainstream politicians yearn for nothing more than its return.

What passes for meaningful public debate about economics today concerns almost entirely who has the most convincing plan to restore growth. Who, in other words, can exert the strongest lunar pull to deliver a high tide, in the unscientific hope that this will be the same thing as ensuring a healthy, thriving ocean.

A possible new way to manage water and snow in thirsty California Like a pitcher taking the mound on opening day, Frank Gehrke gets the spotlight in California every early April. That’s when the otherwise obscure state water official trudges into the Sierra Nevada mountains, media in tow, and plunges aluminum tubes into the snow.

With those snow samples — and historical data and mathematical formulas — Gehrke and his colleagues can tell anxious farmers and hydroelectric power generators how much water they can expect for the coming summer.

Ofgem to investigate energy firms for missing home efficiency targets British Gas, SSE and Scottish Power are among six energy firms to be investigated by the energy regulator Ofgem after failing to deliver enough energy efficiency measures to UK households.

Under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (Cert), legislation which was in place until the end of 2012, the big six energy companies had to introduce measures such as installing insulation or switching a household's heating fuel from oil to gas to help reduce UK carbon emissions.

U.S. pragmatic approach leads climate talks: Wynn (Reuters) - A U.S. submission to U.N.-backed negotiations shows how a scaled-down global climate deal which falls short of a full treaty can be agreed in 2015.

Much will depend on the United States, as the world's second biggest carbon emitter whose present administration will be in place beyond the deadline for agreement on a new deal.

Report Cites Large Release of Sewage From Hurricane Sandy Over 10 billion gallons of raw and partly treated sewage gushed into waterways and bubbled up onto streets and into homes as a result of Hurricane Sandy — enough to cover Central Park in a 41-foot-high pile of sludge, a nonprofit research group said in a report released on Tuesday.

Climate change: When rain, rain won't go away This wasn't just another 1-in-500-years event happening, a freak occurrence, a one-off event. Rather, experts see it as the new normal across the Northeast, the latest in a series of calamitous weather events occurring because of, or amplified by, climate change.

From valleys staggered by Irene, to coasts battered by Superstorm Sandy, the 24-hour outbursts of rain and snow, or "extreme precipitation," has increased by 74% in the past six decades there, according to January's draft of the federal National Climate Assessment report.

Such storms have become the signature of climate change across the Northeast, afflicting older cities and towns built at a time of more modest rainfall. This heavy flooding is undermining aging bridges, eroding roads and overwhelming drainage systems.

Ready (or Not?) for a Great Coming Shale Boom

The Cline Shale, thousands of feet underground in a roughly 10-county swath, is just one of many little-tapped shale formations in Texas and across the nation, geologists say. That means the potential for oil and gas discoveries is theoretically huge, and the reason is technology. The rock-breaking process known as hydraulic fracturing, coupled with the ability to drill horizontally underground, has allowed drillers to retrieve oil and gas from previously inaccessible areas.

Many shales will be too expensive or too small to develop, especially if oil prices fall or environmental regulations tighten. But in Texas, which is already the top oil-producing state, bullishness about a new era is pervasive.

“We’re back into another phase of wildcatting, like the old-timers,” said Jamie Small, the president of Icon Petroleum, a Midland-based company that has worked in areas including the Cline Shale and another early-stage formation, the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale. Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency, has said that oil production in Texas could roughly double by 2020.

Excluding the US, rest-of-world crude production in 2H2012 was not higher than in 2005

Excluding the US, rest-of-world crude oil production in the 2nd half of 2012 was on the same level as in the 2nd half of 2005, despite 85% higher oil prices. There are many reasons for this. Declining oil production in many countries which cancelled out growth elsewhere. The 2nd Russian oil peak petering out. Saudi Arabia’s swing role response to US shale oil. Financial crises impacting on oil demand. High investment costs in the oil sector to keep production going. Geopolitics around Iran. Oil wars and civil unrest in Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Syria. Hurricanes impacting on offshore oil. Altogether, there simply were (and still are) too many problems, often one after the other.

WTI Crude Rises to Near Two-Week High; OPEC Basket Above $100

West Texas Intermediate crude advanced to near its highest closing level in more than two weeks. OPEC’s reference price rebounded above $100 a barrel.

WTI reversed losses of 0.6 percent as European stocks and the euro rose amid speculation central banks will maintain monetary stimulus. Brent crude traded near its highest closing price in two weeks as Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta prepared to finish installing a new government.

Crude prices drop on demand concerns, reports NBK

NBK’s Economic Update reports that after trading broadly flat through March, crude oil prices dropped sharply in early April. The price of Kuwait Export Crude (KEC) fell from a peak of $107 per barrel (pb) on 2 April to just under $100 ten days later. This was its first spell below the $100 mark since July 2012. Other global benchmark blends also scored notable declines. Brent crude fell $8 to $102, and stood some $17 below its February peak. The fall in West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was less steep – by $6 to $91 – and this blend remained slightly above its levels of early March.

The fall in prices seems to have been mostly generated by demand side factors, said NBK. Firstly, oil demand is believed to have softened for seasonal reasons: the (northern hemisphere) spring period is typically the maintenance season for refineries, which reduces the demand for crude feedstock. Historically, Q2 quarter-on-quarter oil demand has fallen by around 1.6 million barrels per day (mbpd) relative to its trend. These regular demand patterns – although predictable – seldom seem to be ‘priced in’ well in advance.

UK Gas Hit As Norway Pipeline Supply Cut

Fears are raised for gas prices as a key North Sea pipeline is hit by an outage - with supplies possibly affected until May 6.

Land-locked Alberta mulls oil pipeline to Arctic port

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's oil-producing province of Alberta, trying to deal with a lack of pipeline capacity to the Pacific Coast and the United States, is mulling the idea of building a line north to an Arctic port, the province's energy minister said on Friday.

Ken Hughes said he has been talking to the government of Canada's Northwest Territories, which lie directly north of Alberta, about a pipeline to a port such as Inuvik or Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea, a section of the Arctic Ocean.

Exxon Mobil Begins Production at Kearl Oil Sands

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest company by market value, began production at its Kearl oil sands project in Alberta, which is projected to produce 4.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the next 40 years.

The project will produce 110,000 barrels per day later this year and that’s expected to double by late 2015, the company said in a statement. The Kearl site is 46 miles (75 km) northeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta, and is operated by Imperial Oil Ltd., which is 70 percent owned by Exxon Mobil.

China's Sinopec threatens to quit Ghana gas project over funding: reports

Cape Town (Platts) - China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, has threatened to pull out of the $700 million gas project in Ghana if the government fails to honor its financial commitments to the project, local news agencies said Friday.

KazMunaiGas eyes $10 billion investment to boost reserves

ASTANA/ALMATY (Reuters) - State-run KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan's second-largest oil producer, will invest 1.5 trillion tenge (6.3 billion pounds) in exploration in the next 10 years as it aims to nearly double its reserves of crude oil and gas condensate, the company's head said on Monday.

KazMunaiGas Chief Executive Officer Lyazzat Kiinov said the company's current reserves stood at over 800 million tonnes of liquid hydrocarbons.

Namibia to Sell 49% Stake in $1.1 Billion Gas Power Plant

Namibia Power Corp., a state-owned electricity supplier, plans to sell 49 percent of the $1.1 billion gas-fired power plant it’s building.

CNOOC Revenues Grow on Higher Sales

Chinese offshore giant – CNOOC Ltd. reported first-quarter 2013 revenues of 56.18 billion yuan ($8.95 billion), up approximately 14% from the year-earlier level. The upside came primarily from growth in production volume.

Total Profit Drops 7% on Lower Oil Price as Production Falls

Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil producer, reported a 7 percent decline in earnings as output fell and weakening fuel demand pushed down the price of crude.

Profit excluding changes in inventories retreated to 2.9 billion euros ($3.8 billion) in the first quarter from 3.1 billion euros a year earlier, the Paris-based company said today in a statement. That met the 2.92 billion-euro average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Iraq offers 3-month credit for Egypt oil deal - Sources

DUBAI/BAGHDAD--OPEC member Iraq has agreed in principle to offer cash-strapped Egypt 4 million barrels of crude a month on a three-month credit term, in a move that could ease the fuel shortage that has recently hit the Egyptian economy, officials from the two countries said Monday.

The officials told Dow Jones Newswires that Baghdad would supply Cairo with 2 shipments of Basra light crude each month at international prices but the payment will be deferred for three months with no interests incurred. The first cargo is expected in Egypt next month once the deal is finalized, they said.

State TV: Syrian prime minister escapes bomb attack

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's prime minister escaped an assassination attempt Monday when a bomb went off near his convoy in Damascus, state media reported, the latest attack targeting a top official in President Bashar Assad's regime.

Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi was unhurt in the bombing in the capital's western neighborhood of Mazzeh, state TV said. The TV showed footage of heavily damaged cars and debris in the area of the blast as firefighters fought to extinguish a large blaze caused by the explosion.

Beyond sanctions, Iran squeezed by higher edible oil costs

Iran is having to pay a premium for basic foodstuffs such as cooking oil, highlighting the increasing strain on Tehran from Western sanctions aimed at its disputed nuclear programme, even though the sanctions don't cover food, Reuters reported.

Putin and Abe play ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ on natural gas

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in Russia today for a sit-down with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Near the top of the agenda: Japan’s insatiable appetite for natural gas, which Russia has in abundance. Lurking in the background is China, which has a complicated history with both nations, and an intensifying need for natural gas imports of its own.

Japan is the world’s biggest importer of natural gas, and its needs have only grown since the nuclear crisis at Fukushima led to the shutdown of 48 of the nation’s 50 commercial nuclear reactors. Even if some of those power plants resume operations later this year as proposed, Tokyo is under pressure to find alternative sources of energy to replace nuclear power, which generated around 30% of Japan’s electricity before the tsunami.

BP seeks $1.5 bn incentive for deep sea gas

NEW DELHI: Europe's second-biggest oil firm BP plc has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a $1.5 per mmBtu additional "incentive" for deep-sea fields over and above the near doubling of domestic gas price suggested by the Rangarajan Committee.

Exxon Mobil’s Baytown Refinery Facing Labor Deadline, Union Says

Exxon Mobil Corp. and union steelworkers at the company’s Baytown, Texas, refinery and chemical plant face a June 15 strike or lockout after failing to agree on a contract at the largest petroleum and petrochemical complex in the U.S., United Steelworkers said today.

Problems choke India's coal industry

MUMBAI // India's coal industry is choking under a heap of problems, including inefficiency, corruption and environmental concerns.

With coal being India's main source of power, these issues pose substantial risks to the country's economic growth, analysts warn.

Norway oil industry rapped by Eva Joly

MEP Eva Joly castigated oil nation Norway when she spoke at environment Party De Grønne’s congress in Oslo, Saturday.

Amongst other things, Norwegian-French Joly pointed out the lack of coherence between Norway’s rainforest commitment on the one hand, and its Sovereign Wealth Fund and Norsk Hydro's investments in Brazil on the other.

600 hectares covered with oil wastes in Mangistau oblast

600 hectares of land are covered with oil wastes in Mangistau oblast in western Kazakhstan, Lada writes. According to the regional Akim (Governor) Alik Aidarbayev, 2.2 million tons of oil wastes are scattered across the territory.

He called oil companies to take better care to solve ecological problems. “Subsoil users have to deal with the issues of utilization not through some pilot project, but use solid approach and construct highly-effective units for soil treatment,” Aidarbayev said.

BP’s Ula Oil Leak Could Have Been ‘Major Accident,’ Norway Says

Norway said an oil and gas leak at BP Plc’s Ula field could have been a major accident with loss of life and substantial damage, and ordered the company to review maintenance procedures after discovering “serious breaches.”

The estimated 125 barrels of oil and 1,600 kilograms (3,520 pounds) of gas that leaked at the North Sea site last year was due to the fracture of corroded bolts on a valve in a separator outlet, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway said today in a statement. While no one was injured, output closed for 67 days.

UK ministers consider offering communities fracking sweeteners

(CNN) -- The government is proposing to bribe communities with cheaper energy bills in exchange for dropping opposition to local fracking projects as part of plans to push ahead with shale-gas extraction.

Several options to cajole rural England to accept the contentious drilling schemes are being discussed as ministers prepare to announce that the UK's shale-gas reserves are much larger than previously estimated.

EPA report on methane further divides fracking camps

PITTSBURGH — The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change?

Oil and gas drilling companies had pushed for the change, but there have been differing scientific estimates of the amount of methane that leaks from wells, pipelines and other facilities during production and delivery. Methane is the main component of natural gas.

Keystone Pipeline Support Enlists Oil Firms to U.S. Jews

Almost 50 groups representing everything from oil companies to American Jews have stepped up their Washington spending as the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline proves to be a bonanza for lobbyists.

The American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based oil industry trade group, increased its lobbying spending on all issues, including Keystone, to $2.1 million in the first three months of the year from $1.8 million during the same period a year earlier, Senate records show. The American Jewish Committee lobbying costs rose to $40,000 from $30,000.

China cracks down on military use of luxury cars

HONG KONG (CNNMoney) - Top military officials in China might soon be forced to trade in their luxury cars for something a little less flashy.

China has banned the use of military license plates on expensive cars, according to official state media. The new guidelines were issued by the Central Military Commission, and are the latest anti-corruption measures undertaken by the image-conscious government of President Xi Jinping.

Hyundai pulls ad that plays suicide for laughs

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - Korean automaker, Hyundai, has apologized for an advertisement that featured a man attempting to commit suicide with exhaust fumes from one of its SUVs.

The ill-conceived punch-line was that the SUV, an iX35, runs on hydrogen and, therefore, emits only water vapor, so the man can't kill himself.

6 greenest cars made in America

Buyers who want "green" cars carefully read the fine print pertaining to emissions and gas mileage, choosing between battery-powered electrics (EVs) and gas-electric hybrids. Buyers who worry about job creation in the U.S. pay attention to where the car was built.

Future-Proofing Energy Markets

In energy markets there are few more contentious theories than that of peak oil.

The idea was first posited by M. King Hubbert, a geologist for what was then known as Shell Oil—he asserted that oil discovery, and therefore production, would follow a bell-shaped curve.

Long-term focus needed for India's improved energy security

There are several dimensions to India's energy challenge. First of all, they have a great issue with access. Making sure that people have access to reasonably affordable energy is a very high priority for India, of course. They have a rapidly growing economy. They have an increasing energy demand in general. They have quite a large number of infrastructure investment needs, so they need to invest a lot of money into their energy system, regardless of what kind of system they're looking for. We believe that fundamentally to keep and, even worse, to grow their dependence on coal in the long run is fundamentally unsustainable.

In Abu Dhabi's energy oasis, setbacks and progress

FORTUNE -- The last time we visited Masdar -- the green city being built in the desert sands of Abu Dhabi -- the project wasn't much more than an architect's scheme. Fast-forward and what you'll find is an operating university, the Masdar Institute, and nearby the energy-saving Middle East headquarters tower of Siemens, plus various shops and restaurants -- including a sushi joint, a bookstore, and an organic supermarket. To date, Masdar's buildings reduce energy demand by 56% and potable water demand by 54% compared to traditional Middle Eastern structures. What's perhaps most impressive is that the small city is currently powered 100% by renewables. Electricity is generated by a 10-megawatt solar PV plant located on-site and a rooftop solar PV installation totaling 1 megawatt.

Turkey to say in days who will build 2nd nuclear plant

(Reuters) - Turkey's energy minister said Ankara will announce by the weekend which country will construct its second nuclear power station, a project expected to cost around $22 billion.

Turkey, likely to overtake Britain as Europe's third-biggest electricity consumer within ten years, plans to build several nuclear plants over the next decade to reduce its dependence on imported oil and gas.

West Virginia: Lawmaker wants kids to work for ‘free lunch’

“I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed, make them earn it,” said Ray Canterbury, a Republican from Greenbrier and a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, during debate over Senate Bill 663, also known as the Feed to Achieve Act.

The bill — the first of its kind in the nation — would create a partnership between private donations and public funds to make breakfast and lunch available for free to every student, kindergarten through high school senior, in West Virginia. It’s based on a model program in Mason County that’s improved attendance and decreased discipline problems, according to the school district’s food service director.

When One Man’s Game Is Also a Marauding Pest

In 1990, fewer than two million wild pigs inhabited 20 states, according to John J. Mayer, the manager of the environmental science group at the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C., who tracked the state populations. That number has now risen to six million, with sightings in 47 states and established populations in 38 — “a national explosion of pigs,” as Dr. Mayer put it.

The swine are thought to have spread largely after escaping from private shooting preserves and during illegal transport by hunters across state lines. Experts on invasive species estimate that they are responsible for more than $1.5 billion in annual agricultural damage alone, amounting in 2007 to $300 per pig. The Agriculture Department is so concerned that it has requested an additional $20 million in 2014 for its Wildlife Services program to address the issue.

Carbon Markets Drive China, India Climate Efforts, Center Says

Carbon markets are a key driver for investment in the biggest emerging nations’ greenhouse-gas reducing efforts, and allowing them to collapse would be a “disaster,” according to the Center for American Progress.

The United Nations carbon market has spurred $356 billion of investment in emission cuts, encouraging climate-protection policies in at least 10 nations including China, India and Brazil, the Washington-based policy institute said in a study, citing UN data. More than 3,000 projects in China supported $202 billion in investment and seven pilot carbon markets.

PR smokescreen cannot hide the holes in climate teaching proposals

The new national curriculum provide a less in-depth introduction to climate change, and misses out vital information about risks.

What's climate scientist James Hansen's legacy?

Just a few weeks ago, one of the biggest names in climate science made one of the biggest announcements possible. Dr. James (Jim) Hansen said that he will "retire" from his duties at NASA to focus his energies elsewhere. This is a "retirement" that is anything but. Dr. Hansen has made clear that he will become more engaged in communicating climate science to the general public and he will continue to carry out the high-quality work which he is known for.

What does this mean for climate science and the future of the Earth? It is impossible to know now but instead of looking forward, I want to shine a light on what Jim has done for climate science, what he signifies to the larger public, and how he is viewed by current and upcoming scientists.

Along N.J. bay, rising sea draws ever closer

The night Meghan Wren got stranded by floodwaters and had to sleep in her car, she knew it was time for a reckoning.

She had been driving to her waterfront home along the Delaware Bay in South Jersey. As she crossed the wide marsh in the dark, the water rose quickly. It became too deep - ahead and behind. She had to stop and wait.

To her, no longer were climate-change predictions an abstract idea. Sea level has been rising, taking her waterfront with it.

In this post I present the results from dynamic simulations using the typical tight oil well for the Bakken as recently presented by the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC), together with the “2011 average” well as defined from actual production data from around 240 wells that were reported to have started producing from June through December 2011.

This post is an update and extension to my earlier post “Is Shale Oil Production from Bakken Headed for a Run with “The Red Queen”?” which was reposted here.

The use of the phrase “Typical Bakken Well” by NDIC as shown in Figure 01 is here believed to depict what is to be expected from the average tight oil well.

The results from the dynamic simulations show:

• If the “Typical Bakken Well” is what NDIC recently has presented, total production from Bakken (the portion that lies in North Dakota) should have been around 1.1 Mb/d in February 2013, refer also to Figure 03.
• Reported production from Bakken by NDIC as of February 2013 was 0.7 Mb/d.
• Actual production data shows that the first year’s production for the average well in Bakken (North Dakota) presently is around 55% of the “Typical Bakken Well” presented by NDIC.
• The results from the simulations anticipate a slowdown for the annual growth in oil production from Bakken (ND) through 2013 and 2014.

Figure 01: The chart above is taken from the NDIC/DMR presentation Recent presentations “Tribal Leader Summit” 09-05-12 slide no 5 (pdf; 8.7 MB). The chart shows NDIC’s expected average daily oil production by year. The first number (on the y-axis) is the IP (Initial Production) number, and this is followed by the average daily production by year.

The well shown above has a first year total oil production of 156 kb (427 Bbl/d).

Similar well profiles may be found in other NDIC presentations.

In this post the term well productivity is used to describe total tight oil production from a well during the first 12 months of reported production.

In this case, the Bakken refers to tight oil production from Bakken (Sanish, Three Forks) as this is reported by the authorities of North Dakota.

As of February 2013, around 84% of North Dakota’s oil production came from 4 counties; Dunn, McKenzie, Mountrail and Williams. These 4 counties cover an area of around 8 700 square miles of North Dakota’s total area of 70 700 square miles.

Figure 02: The chart above shows monthly net additions of producing wells (green columns plotted against the right hand scale) and development in oil production from Bakken (ND) (thick dark blue line plotted against the left scale) as from January 2000 and through February 2013.

Approximately 1,770 producing wells were added during 2012, in Bakken (ND), but the timing was not distributed evenly throughout the year. The big ramp up began in the summer of 2011. There was an increase in general from 63 to 144 producing wells (more than 120%) on average each month from July 2011 and through 2012. From January 2010 and through June 2011 63 producing wells were added on average each month. During the winter months of 2010/2011 oil production growth slowed as a response to fewer well additions.

The acceleration of producing well additions from the second half of 2011 resulted in a steeper build up of oil production as shown in Figure 02.

With time, and as more actual data is published, more precise estimates of the decline rates will become feasible. In the current analysis the decline rates used beyond 2-3 years after the start of production are the ones derived from the typical NDIC well shown in Figure 01.

Presently there are lively discussions about future decline for tight oil wells that span from moderate declines (beyond year 3) to those who expect tight oil wells in general to become stripper wells 6 to 8 years after they began to produce.

A well producing 10 - 15 Bbls/d is commonly referred to as a stripper well.

Presently the number of actual data for a significant amount of tight oil wells and their later time decline rates (beyond year 2 of the well life) is very limited, and for this reason it was decided to use the decline rates beyond year 2 for the “2011 average” well as these were derived from the typical NDIC well shown in Figure 01.

Decline rates later in well life (beyond year 2) that deviate from what has been used in this study may affect developments in late life total production (decline). The wells’ first year production and net added producing wells were found to be the dominant parameters for development in near term total production.

THE TYPICAL NDIC WELL

Figure 03: The colored bands show total production (production profile for the typical NDIC well multiplied by net added producing wells during the month) added by month and its projected development (left hand scale). The yellow circles show net added producing wells by month (right hand scale). The thick black line shows actual reported production from Bakken (North Dakota) by NDIC (left hand scale).

The model was calibrated to start simulations as of January 2010.

The results from the simulation show that if the wells added as from January 2010 were like the typical well used in recent presentations by NDIC, total production from Bakken (ND) by February 2013 would have been around 1.1 Mb/d.

The thick black line shows actual production from Bakken (ND) reported by NDIC which was 0.7 Mb/d in February 2013.

If the NDIC typical well represented the “average”, the production build up would have been steeper as shown in Figure 03.

This supports earlier findings that the “average” well yields less than what has been reported, and actual well data from NDIC shows that the first year’s production from the average well presently yields around 55% of the typical NDIC well production used in several public presentations.

THE ”2011 AVERAGE” WELL

Figure 04: The chart above shows development in the sequential moving average of reported total production for the first 12 months for wells studied and that started to produce as of January 2010 and through January 2012 (yellow circles connected by black line). The dark red line shows the sequential moving average of the most recent 50 wells (50 WMA; 50 Wells Moving Average.The blue line shows the sequential moving average of the most recent 200 wells (200 WMA; 200 Wells Moving Average).

Figure 04 illustrates that the well productivity (as expressed by total oil production for the first 12 months) has been in general decline since the summer of 2010. Presently it appears that the well productivity stabilized around 85 kb during 2011. Simulations with the “2011 average” well suggest now that the level of around 85 kb has been maintained through 2012, refer also to Figure 06.

Through 2012 it was observed from NDIC data that a high number of wells continued to be added in the “sweet spots” (like Alger, Heart Butte, Reunion Bay, Sanish, Van Hook to name a few). In areas/pools with wells that had a lower well productivity than the “2011 average” well, it was found that few or no wells were added during the second half of 2012.

Around 30 pools that show promising/good well productivity were also identified.

Future developments of well productivity

Presently it appears that companies give priority to drilling wells that have the potential to meet targeted returns within the boundaries of (oil) price, (well) costs and (well) productivity. This may cause the average well productivity (as expressed by first year total productivity) to improve for the near term.

More than 870 producing wells were added between June 2011 through December 2011 and the study included more than 230 (more than 26%) of these wells to develop the composite well which in this post is referred to as the “2011 average” well and which is shown in Figure 05.

Of the studied wells that started during 2010 around 14% were equal to or better than the typical NDIC well shown in Figure 01.

Of the studied wells that started during 2011 around 3% were equal to or better than the typical NDIC well shown in Figure 01.

Figure 05: The chart above shows the well profile and cumulative for oil from the “2011 average” well that was derived from 230 wells that started to produce as from June 2011 and through December 2011.

This “2011 average” well was used for the simulations shown in Figures 06 and 07.

Dry wells and wells with tiny and erratic production were not included for the development of the “2011 average” well. These wells were found to be 1 - 2% of the total number of wells studied.

NOTE: The decline from year 1 to year 2 has been derived from actual data (refer to Figure SD2). Decline rates later in the wells’ life according to those derived from the typical NDIC well shown in Figure 01.

Figure 06: The colored bands show total production (production profile for the “2011 average” well multiplied by net number of wells added during the month) added by month and its projected development (left hand scale). The white circles show net added producing wells by month (right hand scale). The thick black line reported production from Bakken (North Dakota) by NDIC (left hand scale).

The chart also shows forecast developments for total oil production with, respectively, 1 300 (dark blue dotted line) and 1 500 (red dotted line) added through 2013 and 2014.

The model was calibrated to start simulations as of January 2010.

Simulations with the “2011 average” well result in an almost perfect fit with total reported production by NDIC as from early 2011. The model comes in lower than actual production during 2010 and the explanation for this is believed to be due to higher well productivity for wells started during 2010, refer also to Figure 04.

If the model over time develops a growing deficit against actual reported production, this would suggest that newer wells have an improved well productivity relative to the “2011 average” well and vice versa. 

SOME FORECASTS WITH THE ”2011 AVERAGE” WELL

Table 1; Actual annual production and forecasts for tight oil production from Bakken (ND) with 1 300 and 1 500 “average 2011” wells added annually through 2013 and 2014.

NOTE: Forecasts should be viewed in the context of developments in well productivity, (well) costs, (oil) price, decline rates from the “older” population of wells and the strategies the companies deploy as they come to hold acreage by production.

PLATEAU OF 700 kb/d THROUGH 2013

Figure 07: The colored bands show total production (production profile for the “2011 average” well multiplied by net number of wells added during the month) added by month and its projected development (left hand scale). The white circles show net added producing wells by month (right hand scale). The thick black line reported production from Bakken (North Dakota) by NDIC (left hand scale).

The transparent colored bands shows a plateau of 700 kb/d through 2013 and the white (smaller circles) estimated number of “2011 average” wells added each month to sustain the plateau of 700 kb/d.

The model was calibrated to start simulations as of January 2010.

Simulations with the “2011 average” well found that around 1 200 wells were needed through 2013 to maintain a plateau of 700 kb/d. As shown in Figure 07, the number of wells added monthly will decline as a result of a “thickening” production base from a growing population of wells.

TIGHT OIL IN A GLOBAL SUPPLY PERSPECTIVE

Figure 08: The chart above shows development in crude oil and condensates (C + C) production for OECD split on Canada (red columns), North Sea (green columns), USA (blue columns) and the rest of OECD (yellow columns). (Data from EIA.)

Between December 2011 and as of December 2012 OECD had an annualized growth in (C+C) supplies of 0.71 Mb/d. This growth was facilitated through the rapid production growth from tight oil in USA and from oil sands in Canada that more than offset the decline in oil production from the North Sea and other OECD countries.

As shown in Table 1 a slowdown in the growth in tight oil production from Bakken (and other tight oil formations) should be expected through 2013. This needs to be seen in conjunction with production developments from conventional oil reservoirs in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico and the Lower 48 to get a complete understanding of what to expect through 2013 and beyond for developments in total (C+C) production for USA.

For 2013 it is expected that (C+C) production from the North Sea will continue to decline at an annual rate of 10%. Thus total OECD (C+C) production for 2013 may experience less growth than in 2012.

Figure 09: The chart above (based upon data from EIA International Energy Statistics) shows developments in (C+C) production for the world split on economic zones (plotted towards the right hand scale).

The economic zones are OECD (green), Russia (white), Rest Of World (ROW, which includes Brazil and China) (blue) [OECD, Russia and ROW is also referred to as Non OPEC] and OPEC (yellow).

Development in the oil price (Brent spot) is shown as white dots connected by the black line (plotted towards the left hand scale).

Figure 08 shows that annualized Non OPEC (C+C) production has been flat for recent years. The growth from tight oil (USA) and oil sands (Canada) has offset declines from the rest of the OECD and provided growth in OECD (C+C) supplies. Annualized growth in Russian (C+C) production has slowed to around 0.14 Mb/d during 2012. ROW (C+C) has seen an annualized decline of roughly 0.54 Mb/d since 2011.

Chances are that (C+C) production for Non OPEC may decline in 2013 (and beyond) despite the expected growth from tight oil.
Growth in global (C+C) supplies during the last 2 years has primarily come from OPEC.

If Non OPEC experiences a decline in (C+C) supplies in the near future, this leaves OPEC to offset this decline and also provide for any growth in global (C+C) supplies. This combination may put OPEC’s (C+C) capacity to a stress test during 2013 or later.

SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTATION FOR THE “2011 AVERAGE” WELL

All the wells included in this study have verified full time production series.

Figure SD1: The chart above shows the first 12 months’ production for the wells studied against their reported start of production and the study included the production history of more than 440 wells that started to produce as from January 2010 and through January 2012. This represents around 22% of the wells meeting these criteria.

Around 2 060 wells were reported to have started to produce as from January 2010 and through January 2012 and thus had 12 months or more of reported production in January 2013.

443 of these 2060 wells were subject to in depth studies of the full time series of production.

The wells studied were from 30 companies and 89 pools in Bakken North Dakota.

The density of wells with a production above 200 kb during the first 12 months was found to decrease with time.

Figure SD2: The scatter chart shows decline rates for oil from year 1 to year 2 for 156 wells that started as from January 2010 and through February 2011 and thus had a history of 24 months of production or more as of January 2013.A total of 860 wells started to produce during the studied period that met the criteria.

Figure SD2 illustrates that the decline rate is all over the place. A linear fit suggests that decline rates from year 1 to year 2 should be expected to be a function of first year (first 12 months) production. It appears that the higher the first year’s production the higher the decline rate from year 1 to year 2 becomes.

Figure SD3: The scatter chart above is a variant of the one shown in Figure SD2, and here first year (first 12 months) production has been plotted against the production of year 2 (months 13 through 24) of the wells’ life.

The production developments in Bakken and other tight oil plays are very much a function of monthly additions of producing wells, developments in well productivity, decline rates (for the growing population of “older” producing wells), development in costs, strategies deployed by the companies for development of their acreage, adequate infrastructure and not least the developments/expectations for the oil price.

Just this month, Saudi Aramco announced that production had begun at their Manifa oilfield, and by July would be supplying up to 500 kbd to the new refinery that is being built at Jamail with the collaboration of Total. The first oil from the refinery is expected to ship in August, and both projects are currently ahead of schedule. Manifa will further increase in production next year, to 900 kbd, with the additional flow going to the Yanbu refinery being built with the collaboration of Sinopec. Both these refineries are designed to take heavy crude, and can also accept oil from the ongoing projects to expand production at Safaniya. Collectively this is said to ensure that the company will be able to achieve a maximum sustainable production of 12 mbd.

The gains in available reserves are required as the current production from Ghawar and the other major fields in the Kingdom continue to decline in production, as was discussed last year. I remain relatively convinced that Saudi Aramco will not increase their crude oil production above 10 mbd, despite the wishes and projections of others that they will end up doing so. By the time that their domestic consumption reaches the point that it lowers exports to a level that would hurt the KSA economy at current prices, the shortages globally will have raised the price sufficiently that the available production at that time will continue to suffice to meet their needs. (This is, however, a projection only for this decade).

This month’s OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report continues to anticipate a significant increase in available crude over the next three years, although this is indirectly recognized through the growth in crude distillation unit (CDU) capacity around the globe in that interval.

Figure 1. Increase in crude distillation capacity by regions in the near term. (OPEC April MOMR.)

Given that the world must increasingly deal with a heavier crude supply, the need for new refineries, as exemplified by the new Saudi construction, is evident. Increased demand to absorb this supply will come, in part, by an increase in the growth rate of the GDP of the BRIC nations, although the poor growth in the developed nations continues to hamper their export markets.

Overall demand is still anticipated to increase by around 0.8 mbd, with half of that coming from China and the rest of the non-OECD nations contributing an additional 0.7 mbd, offset by a decline in demand from the OECD nations of around 0.3 mbd, taking global demand, by the end of the year to nearly 91 mbd. Internal demand in the Middle East will continue to sap a fraction of this relative to exports. Overall the Middle East demand is anticipated to increase by 280 kbd, though the impact of the turbulence in various nations is hard to estimate.

Figure 2. OPEC estimate of global demand for 2013. (OPEC April MOMR.)

Virtually all the growth in supply is anticipated to come from North America, with a slight increase in production from South America coming from Colombia and Brazil. There is some concern, however, over the impact of attacks on the energy structure in Colombia.

Figure 3. Anticipated regional change in supply in 2013. (OPEC April MOMR.)

For the US the OPEC report has the following projection:

The expected growth in 2013 is supported by the anticipated supply increase from shale oil plays in North Dakota and Texas, as well as by minor growth from other areas in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. The infrastructure situation is improving in North Dakota, with reports suggesting that the railroad loading capacity will reach 1 mb/d. Eagle Ford oil production in January continued to increase from the same period a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, US supply is expected to average 10.57 mb/d, 10.62 mb/d, 10.56 mb/d and 10.55 mb/d respectively.

Canada is expected to reach a production total of 4 mbd by the end of the year, with the largest impact coming from the Kearl Oil Sands production anticipated to bring 110 kbd to market in the third quarter. (This is not dependent on the Keystone pipeline.) Mexico will see a slight decline in production though the Kambesah field (at 13.7 kbd) and increased production from Tsimin will offset most of that.

OPEC is anticipating that Norwegian production will fall 110 kbd this year, with a small decline of 40 kbd in UK production. OPEC expects that Russian production will increase to average 10.43 mbd in 2013, slightly down from first quarter numbers, while, in anticipation of Kashagan production, OPEC expects Kazakhstan to increase production to 1.67 mbd. The decline in production from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field is expected to cause a slight ( 50 kbd) reduction in Azerbaijan production.

There is, as previously, some difference between the production that the individual nations of OPEC report each month and that reported by secondary sources.

Figure 4. OPEC crude production from secondary sources.(OPEC April MOMR.)

Figure 5. OPEC crude production based on national direct reporting.(OPEC April MOMR.)

In short, over the course of this year OPEC remains relatively complacent that North American production gains will continue to meet the global demand, and that OPEC (i.e. largely the KSA) can back away from full production in order to balance supply and demand at a price level that keeps the OPEC bankers happy.

Back in March the EIA TWIP noted the change over the years, not only in amounts, but also in the sources of US imports, which remain significant. There has been quite a bit of change since 2005, when imports were at their highest level (10.1 mbd).

Figure 6. Change in the countries and volumes for the ten largest suppliers of crude to the USA. (EIA)

The EIA anticipates that US liquid fuels consumption will remain sensibly stable through the end of 2014, ending that year at 18.61 mbd. At this time production is expected to rise to 11.75 mbd.

Figure 7. EIA estimates of US liquid fuels production through 2014. ( EIA)

In that interval they anticipate that the price of gasoline in the United States will slowly decline. In contrast with the reports by the major oil companies that were discussed recently, these forecasts are short enough that it will be fairly quickly evident how accurate they are.

In Montana, ranchers line up against coal The McRaes and some of their neighbors say the Tongue River Railroad, and a proposed coal mine at Otter Creek, puts southeast Montana and ranchers like them at risk for an energy plan that mainly benefits Asia.

"It's going to cross our land, wreak havoc with our water, go through our towns," Clint McRae said recently, sitting in the rustic wood house his father built, its hearth hewn from local stone.

The Montana ranchers are in the minority. For many others, coal has been one of the few good things to come out of a region so barren it sent many early homesteaders fleeing to greener lands farther west.

Land-locked Alberta mulls oil pipeline to Arctic port OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's oil-producing province of Alberta, trying to deal with a lack of pipeline capacity to the Pacific Coast and the United States, is mulling the idea of building a line north to an Arctic port, the province's energy minister said on Friday.

Ken Hughes said he has been talking to the government of Canada's Northwest Territories, which lie directly north of Alberta, about a pipeline to a port such as Inuvik or Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea, a section of the Arctic Ocean.

US congressmen favour export of natural gas to India Washington: Top American lawmakers have strongly favoured export of US natural gas to India, in the absence of which, they said, the energy starved nation might be forced to join the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline.

During a Congressional hearing on export of US natural gas, the lawmakers argued that it is in the national security interest of the US to export the excess natural gas to its allies like India and Japan and also to its European allies to reduce their dependence on Russian gas.

Crude Trims Biggest Weekly Gain Since June on U.S. Growth West Texas Intermediate crude fell, trimming the biggest weekly increase since June, as the U.S. economy grew less than expected in the first quarter.

Futures dropped 0.7 percent after the Commerce Department said gross domestic product rose at a 2.5 percent annual rate. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected a gain of 3 percent. Oil jumped 5 percent in the past two days on lower-than-expected U.S. jobless claims and a decrease in gasoline stockpiles.

Permits for oil, gas wells surge, report says The Railroad Commission of Texas on Friday reported that 2,053 drilling permits were issued in March, up 309 from 1,744 the previous month.

U.S. Gas Rigs Drop First Time in Three Weeks, Baker Hughes Says The number of gas rigs in the U.S. fell for the first time in three weeks, declining by 13 to 366, according to Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI)

Oil rigs increased by 10 to 1,381, data posted on Baker Hughes’ website show. Total energy rigs slipped by four to 1,754, the Houston-based field-services company said.

Do Oil Companies Pay Enough in Taxes? Or Too Much? In the most recent budget proposal from the Obama administration, there are several mentions about increasing revenue from oil and gas companies to fund efforts in the Department of Energy to spur clean-energy initiatives. The oil and gas industry is vehemently opposed to the idea, claiming that the government is using the industry as a piggy bank for its new energy endeavors. At the same time, many advocates claim that major oil companies don't pay their fair share of income taxes.

Can both sides be right? In a way, yes. Let's look at both sides of the argument and see how the case can be made for both.

Union Fenosa takes Egypt's Egas to arbitration over fuel supply A liquefied natural gas plant majority owned by Spain's Gas Natural SA (GAS.MC) and Italy's Eni SpA (E) has taken Egyptian state-controlled Egas to arbitration over failing to comply with a supply contract, a person familiar with the matter at Egas said.

The Damietta LNG plant, 80% owned by Union Fenosa Gas, a joint venture between Gas Natural and Eni, complained to the International Chamber of Commerce's arbitration court in Paris that it has been inactive since December after Egas halted gas supplies and kept the gas to meet soaring domestic needs, the person told Dow Jones Newswires.

Total oil find good for Ivory Coast - Ghana’s Energy Minister Ghana’s Energy Minister Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah has lauded the oil find in Ivory Coast.

France’s Total this week announced it has struck oil on a block off Ivory Coast adjacent to Ghana’s giant Jubilee Field.

Petrobras Quarterly Profit Beats Estimates on Price Gains Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the world’s sixth-largest oil company by market value, said first-quarter profit fell 17 percent, less than analysts expected after it increased fuel production and curbed imports.

New Alberta bill could force oil companies to pay for environmental monitoring Alberta is giving itself more power to strengthen environmental monitoring in the oil sands, tabling a new law that would force energy companies to comply and pick up the tab.

Empty nets in Louisiana three years after the spill About two-thirds of U.S. oysters come from the Gulf Coast, the source of about 40% of America's seafood catch. But in the three years since the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank about 80 miles south of here, fishermen say many of the oyster reefs are still barren, and some other commercial species are harder to find.

"My fellow fishermen who fish crab and who fish fish, they're feeling the same thing," Barisich said. "You get a spike in production every now and then, but overall, it's off. Everybody's down. Everywhere there was dispersed oil and heavily oiled, the production is down."

Tesla offers idiot-proof battery warranty NEW YORK (CNNMoney) Tesla Motors is offering a new "no fault" warranty on the batteries in its Model S sedans in a bid to entice more buyers to try its all-electric luxury car.

The battery is covered even if an owner fails to follow charging guidelines laid out in the owners' manual. "Any product that needs a manual to work is broken," Musk said.

Inside Nissan's $300 million battery factory FORTUNE -- Modern auto factories hardly resemble their noisy, dirty, chaotic forebears of the previous century. Nissan Motor Co.'s new lithium-ion battery plant in Smyrna, Tenn. goes one step further with an atmosphere reminiscent of a laboratory.

The $300 million factory, which operates with 100 workers --many clad in white smocks, toiling away amid robotized machines in clean rooms -- manufactures battery packs for the electric Nissan Leaf. The Leaf's initial slow sales are perking up, thanks to steep discounting announced by Nissan in January.

Oil sands country: Remote region at the heart of the Keystone controversy While the possible construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has made for contentious disagreements from the halls of Congress to ranches in Nebraska, the real environmental debate begins in a place most Americans have never heard of.

Nearly 700 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border sits Fort McMurray, Alberta, the unofficial capital of oil sands country, and the heart of the Keystone controversy.

Kepco mulls Takahama plant restart OSAKA – Kansai Electric Power Co. could apply for government permission in July to restart reactors 3 and 4 at its Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, sources said Saturday.

Groundwater at No. 1 plant tainted Samples of groundwater taken from monitoring holes around the sunken reservoirs at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are proving radioactive, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday.

Strontium and other radioactive elements were detected in samples taken from 13 of the 22 observation holes dug around the reservoirs, which were built to hold water tainted during the cooling of the reactors, Tepco said.

Germany's clean energy drive fails to curb dirty brown coal FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's green energy drive is proving surprisingly good for dirty brown coal as utilities squeezed by rival renewables and low wholesale gas prices use more of it.

Cost effective clean energy can meet Nepal's power needs, curb emissions: Report A study carried out by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has shown that Nepal's ability to meet its future power needs and to curb a rapid rise in greenhouse gas emissions will hinge on the rollout of clean energy technologies which are highly cost-effective in the long run.

Presenting the report "The Economics of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in South Asia" at a seminar held at ADB's Resident Mission in Nepal on Friday, Mahfuz Ahmed, Principal Climate Change Specialist with ADB’s South Asia Department, said replacing 50% of all kerosene lamps with solar powered lighting, for example, would result in a substantial reduction in emissions for relatively low cost.

How the National Football League became a champion of sustainability America's National Football League might be an unusual place to find some of the biggest advocates of green business and sustainability in the United States. But some NFL teams have now started to engage in a competition off the field to become as green as the turf they play on.

Hope for US-China collaboration on climate change, clean energy A few weeks ago, Secretary of State John Kerry went to Beijing to meet with the leadership of the Chinese government. This meeting was mostly noted in the press as an effort to defuse tensions in the ongoing crisis over North Korea – and clearly that was important; there has been a notable ratcheting down of tensions since then.

However, over the long term, there was an agreement that came out of the meeting that could be much more important to the world’s future stability and security – a joint U.S. – China Statement on Climate Change. It was so overlooked in the press, that I missed it for the last two weeks. The statement indicated that the U.S. and China recognize the “dangers presented by climate change” and that a “more focused and urgent initiative” is needed.

Delaware: Sea level rise panel won't recommend 'future flood' disclosure A state advisory panel on sea level rise on Friday backed away from a proposal to require sellers to disclose a home’s vulnerability to future flooding.

Instead, they informally agreed to focus on education and steps that will make it easier for buyers to find out if a property is at risk of flooding or storm surge induced by sea level rise.

‘Peak Fossil Fuels’ Is Closer Than You Think: BNEF Every time an iPhone is charged or an episode of "Mad Men" plays on a television, puffs of vaporized carbon join the atmosphere, products of power-plant combustion. And every year the world demands more. That era may be nearing an end, as the world approaches “peak fossil fuels,” a phrased used by Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich at the group’s annual conference.

The concept of “peak oil” -- that world oil production will plateau and decline -- was popularized by a Shell Oil geologist named M. King Hubbert, who predicted in 1956 that U.S. oil production would max out in the early 1970s and gradually decline. Globally, the peak oil hypothesis has been consistently undermined by new extraction techniques: deep-water drilling, tar-sands extraction and most recently the fracking boom. The world now has enough of these fuels to last hundreds of years.

When will people start to understand peak oil? Peak Oil will always be a controversial theory… always.

But it’s a reality.

What’s maddening is explaining it over and over again to people that don’t get it.

Unconventional: Jim Letourneau's Investment Taste The Energy Report: How was your presentation, "Is Peak Oil Dead?" received at the Calgary Energy and Resource Investment Conference on April 5?

Jim Letourneau: It went really well. There are a lot of professional engineers and geologists there who work in the oil business, and most of them were agreeing that technology is a big factor that pushes out when peak oil is going to occur. For each pool or technology, there is going to be a peak, so peak oil is really the average of hundreds of different peaks, but I think my big-picture point was well received.

WTI Crude Retreats to Pare Biggest Weekly Gain Since June West Texas Intermediate fell for the first time in seven days amid speculation the biggest weekly advance since June was excessive.

Futures slid as much as 0.9 percent after failing to settle above a technical-resistance level, paring this week’s advance to 5.9 percent. Prices may rise next week on speculation that the European Central Bank will cut its key interest rate to a record low, a Bloomberg News survey showed. Brent crude’s premium to WTI shrank to its narrowest since January.

Ras Tanura Oil-Tanker Capacity Seen Falling 13% in Latest Week The combined carrying capacity of oil tankers calling at Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura fell 13 percent in the week ended April 20, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The implied capacity of vessels calling at the world’s largest crude-export complex slid to the equivalent of 7.66 million barrels a day from 8.80 million barrels for the prior week, according to signals gathered by IHS Fairplay, a Redhill, England-based maritime research company. The data may be incomplete because not all transmissions are captured.

Coal Slump Seen Ending on Deal at Four-Year Low A deal to sell Australian thermal coal at the cheapest level since 2009 is raising the prospect of production cuts in the world’s second-biggest exporter and an end to a slide in prices.

Argentina to Get Belgium LNG Spot Cargo at Bahia Blanca April 28 Argentina is scheduled to receive a spot cargo of liquefied natural gas from Belgium over the weekend, according to ship-tracking data.

The Galicia Spirit, with a capacity of 137,814 cubic meters, will arrive April 28 at the port of Bahia Blanca southwest of Buenos Aires, according to ship transmissions captured by IHS Fairplay on Bloomberg. The tanker sailed from Zeebrugge, Belgium’s LNG receiving terminal, where it loaded the supercooled natural gas and departed April 10.

Global slowdown pulling prices lower for consumers, businesses Bad economic news from China and Europe may be good news for U.S. companies and shoppers.

Fresh data from the world’s second and third largest economies this week showed they continue to face big headwinds, raising fears that the U.S. may be headed for another "spring slump."

But with global demand weakening for raw materials and other commodities, prices are falling. That discount amounts to billions of dollars in savings for American companies and households.

Involuntary Unemployment Is Real What's going to happen when all these people get their new widget-related jobs? There's going to be inflation. There's going to be a lot more cars on the road. There's going to be a lot of newly employed kids moving out of mom's basement and driving up rents. As people start occupying more dwelling space per person, there's more demand for winter heating fuel. And the jobs boom doesn't narrowly target the unemployed. Some fraction of the currently employed population will take advantage of the boom to quit their current job, so currently profitable firms are going to need to start raising wages to avoid losing staff. Then of course you have your various firms in monopolistic industries—your Comcasts and your Verizons—who'll take advantage of higher incomes to raise prices. And the increased commodity prices will cycle through into non-energy factors. Gasoline is a production input for airlines and delivery services. Electricity is a production input for everyone.

Norwegian Oil Fund Gains $37 Billion as Stock Markets Rally Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, gained 219 billion kroner ($37 billion) in the first quarter as stocks surged amid unprecedented stimulus from central banks to boost economic growth.

The $728 billion Government Pension Fund Global returned 5.4 percent in the first three months of the year, the Oslo- based investor said today. Stocks returned 8.3 percent, while bond investments climbed 1.1 percent. Real estate investments lost 0.3 percent.

Sinopec Profit Gains as Refining Losses End, Output Increases China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, reported a 25 percent gain in first- quarter profit after ending refining losses and increasing oil and natural gas output.

Mexico's Pemex posts first-quarter loss of 4.39 bln pesos (Reuters) - Mexico's state oil monopoly Pemex posted a loss in the first quarter, compared to a profit during the same period a year ago, hurt by weaker exportrs, lower oil and derivative prices and a stronger peso, the company said on Friday.

Total Profit Drops 7% on Lower Oil Price as Production Falls Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil producer, reported a 7 percent decline in earnings as output fell and weakening fuel demand pushed down the price of crude.

Exxon Profit Rises as Chemical Earnings Offset Crude Price Drop Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest company by market value, said net income rose as widening chemical margins made up for lower crude production and prices.

Chevron Net Income Falls as Prices Decline on Weakening Demand Chevron Corp., the world’s third- biggest energy company by market value, said profit declined as weakening demand lowered oil prices.

UPM to Cut Power Use by 3.5% After Shutting Two Paper Machines Finland’s biggest electricity user is closing newsprint machine number 3 in Rauma, and magazine paper machine number 4 in Ettringen, Germany to cut costs amid falling demand, UPM said today in its first-quarter earnings statement. Power use in Finland’s forestry sector slumped 28 percent to 20,100 gigawatt- hours last year after producers including UPM and Stora Enso Oyj shut unprofitable plants.

China slams Philippine bid to "legalise" occupation of islands (Reuters) - China accused the Philippines on Friday of trying to legalise its occupation of islands in the disputed South China Sea, repeating that Beijing would never agree to international arbitration.

Frustrated with the slow pace of regional diplomacy, the Philippines in January angered China by asking a U.N. tribunal to order a halt to Beijing's activities that it said violated Philippine sovereignty over the islands, surrounded by potentially energy-rich waters.

Syrians Turn to Backyard Refining as War Reaches Oil In an open field northeast of the Syrian city of Aleppo, teenagers set fires under large vats of crude oil and siphon the byproducts into jerry cans.

The scene, captured on footage and uploaded onto YouTube, shows a young man walking around fires and through smoke near the town of Al Bab, explaining the production of mazut, used for home heating, and diesel at his homemade refinery.

Obama’s Syria Red Line Tested by Chemical Weapons Report President Barack Obama is under renewed pressure from lawmakers to increase U.S. efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after U.S. intelligence agencies reported “with varying degrees of confidence” that the regime may have used small amounts of sarin nerve gas.

That’s a shift from the administration’s previous responses to chemical-weapons allegations by Syrian opposition groups. Although the U.S. intelligence community has differing levels of confidence that Assad’s regime has used poison gas, the new assessment draws Obama closer to his previously declared “red line” over such use and has fueled calls for action by lawmakers already advocating deeper involvement.

E.ON says reaches deal to keep Irsching plant open IRSCHING, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's top utility E.ON said it reached a deal with regulators and grid operators to keep open its modern but unprofitable Irsching gas-fired power station in Bavaria, providing reserve power to stabilise the grid.

The agreement with the German network regulator Bundesnetzagentur and power grid TenneT ensures the Irsching blocks 4 and 5 will remain operational over the next three years, E.ON said, adding it would be paid based on Irsching's contributions to the grid.

The United States Can’t Be the World’s Courthouse Two things America is known for—its love of lawsuits and its delight in meddling in the affairs of other countries—led to a strange form of litigation in which foreigners bring suits in U.S. courts against other foreigners, for human rights violations in foreign countries. Last week’s 9-0 Supreme Court ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum has finally put an end to this litigation. Human rights groups complain that the decision means that foreign governments and corporations will be able to violate human rights with impunity. But cases like Kiobel, in which a group of Nigerians sued a Nigerian corporation and its Dutch and British corporate parents over their role in human rights abuses in Nigeria, never led to real human rights enforcement. In more than 30 years of litigation involving hundreds of cases, hardly any money went to victims. The Supreme Court got rid of a popular but unworkable idea that U.S. courts can be used to police behavior around the world.

With security eyes focused on airlines, terrorists look to rail, experts say WASHINGTON - An alleged al Qaeda-backed plot to derail a U.S. passenger train in Canada sought to exploit the vulnerabilities of railroads that have not gotten much attention from the American public.

While the United States has sharply tightened security around airlines since the September 11, 2001, attacks, trains are far harder to police, with masses of passengers getting on and off and stops at many stations on a single line. Thousands of miles of track, bridges and tunnels present a major challenge to monitor.

Elon Musk hates 405 Freeway traffic, offers money to speed widening Entrepreneur Elon Musk has already spent $50,000 trying to make the 405 Freeway better – and he’s willing to pay even more.

Musk said he is open to pay the cost of adding workers to the widening project "as a contribution to the city and my own happiness. If it can actually make a difference, I would gladly contribute funds and ideas. I've super had it."

Top 10 fuel-efficient cars for 2013 With gas prices in a constant state of flux, and the federal government offering as much as $7,500 in incentives to buy “green” cars, it would seem the only question for someone buying a new vehicle should be, “Which one do I pick?”

Kelly Blue Book attempts to answer that question with its list of Top 10 Green Cars for 2013. The car in the top spot shouldn’t be a big surprise: the 2013 Nissan Leaf.

Drive On: Clean diesels finally catching on Every time we've driven a new diesel car lately, we've been amazed at how indistinguishable they have become from conventional gas cars. No clatter. No smoke. No rattling engine noise. Now it appears consumers are catching on: Registrations of diesel-powered passenger vehicles increased by 24.3% in the U.S. from 2010 through 2012, says an advocacy group, the Diesel Technology Forum.

The increase is not as much as for hybrids, at 33%, but far more than overall registrations of all vehicles at 2.7%, the group says, basing its information on data from compilers R.L. Polk and Company.

S.Africa police investigate PetroSA over alleged graft JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's police anti-corruption unit said on Friday it had opened an investigation at state oil company PetroSA, which reported "deviations" in financial procedures that a newspaper said involved millions of dollars of irregular payments.

In an investigative report published on Friday, the weekly Mail & Guardian questioned payments made when PetroSA last year secured crude oil acreage in Ghana through the acquisition of Sabre Oil and Gas Holding Ltd.

Shell Canada reports hazardous materials leak in Corunna (Reuters) - Shell Canada issued an alert for a hazardous materials leak at its Corunna facility in Ontario, according to a notice on Sarnia-Lambton Network Alert System on Friday morning.

Consultants’ role in NY drilling study questioned ALBANY, N.Y. — Government watchdog Common Cause and 11 environmental groups raised more questions about the role of gas industry-associated consultants in the state’s environmental impact study of shale gas drilling and fracking.

A review of Department of Environmental Conservation documents obtained by Common Cause through Freedom of Information Law requests shows two more firms with memberships in the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York were contracted for the state’s review.

Don't let America get 'fracked' (CNN) -- Even the heads of fossil fuel companies read the polls. They know the majority of Americans see global warming as an imminent threat and a clear sign that the way we use energy must change. But instead of offering the solar and wind choices America wants, fossil fuel companies like Shell, Exxon and Duke are offering what might be their most disastrous bait and switch yet: natural gas.

The bait? Burning natural gas is "clean" because it produces less carbon pollution than burning oil and coal. The switch? The catastrophic pollution caused when companies like Exxon fracture the earth -- commonly called fracking -- to get natural gas out of the ground.

U.K. Fracking May Fail to Cut Local Gas Prices, Report Shows Developing U.K. shale gas may fail to follow U.S. precedent and cut local prices due to differences in geography, population density and environmental controls and as world fuel demand grows, according to a parliamentary report.

On the flipside, shale would benefit the U.K. by reducing reliance on gas imports and adding to tax revenue, the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee said in the report.

Frac Daddy to represent oil field workers in Kentucky Derby run This year’s May 4 Kentucky Derby field includes a horse oil and gas workers can get behind – though his odds of winning aren’t very good.

Horse owners Carter Stewart and Ken Schlenker both work in the energy industry, according to interviews they gave to the Billings Gazette of Montana. Stewart is a petroleum geologist and Schlenker is a land man. The horse’s name is a nod to hydraulic fracturing.

Keystone pipeline start date to be pushed back, costs expected to rise: TransCanada TransCanada Corp. expects further delays and higher costs on its flagship Keystone XL project, citing delays in receiving a U.S. presidential permit.

The company now expects the proposed project to start in the second half of 2015 and cost more than the US$5.3-billion it had estimated earlier,according to a statement released Friday.

Study: Buyers of energy-efficient homes less likely to default Eileen Ryan and Matt Cooper wanted their new house to be good for the environment and they were willing to pay a premium for it. They spent $350,000 to build their two-story, 2,000-square-foot energy-efficient house in Olympia, Wash., and they are happy they did.

“It costs more to build an energy-efficient house, but it costs significantly less to live in one,” Eileen explained.

Their energy bills tell the story. They pay a measly $70 a year to heat and cool the place.

Is wind energy’s future bladeless? A Tunisian wind energy startup says it is in talks with a number of major industrial players as it looks to move its bladeless wind towers to a commercial scale.

Saphon Energy’s sail inspired towers wobble in the wind, with pistons converting kinetic energy to electricity. It says that by removing blades and gearboxes it can “comfortably” reduce the cost of wind energy by 25%.

Empirical tests it has conducted suggest bladeless wind devices could be 2.3 to 2.5 times more efficient than three-blade turbines, capturing about 60-70% of the wind’s kinetic energy.

Sudan's biggest sugar firm plans biofuel expansion, Joburg IPO KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Kenana, Sudan's biggest sugar producer, plans to more than triple its ethanol output within two years to become a major biofuel exporter and intends to make a stock market offering in South Africa, its managing director said.

Kenana, which is mainly owned by the governments of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, is aiming to more than double its annual sugar output to 1 million tonnes by 2015 as the firm seeks new export markets such as South Sudan, Mohamed El Mardi El Tegani told Reuters.

West, Texas, explosion demands action Over a half-century, the town of West crept up around the fertilizer facility until the plant sat near a middle school, a nursing home, an apartment complex and numerous houses that were destroyed or damaged by the explosion, which dug a crater 90 feet wide and killed 14 people.

To the extent regulators paid attention to the plant, they seemed to have worried about lesser dangers. Texas regulators monitored air quality and truth-in-labeling. On the federal side, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration hadn't inspected the business for worker safety problems since 1985, and the Department of Homeland Security didn't know it housed the fertilizer that apparently triggered the explosion.

Scientist Says Pollution From China Is Killing a Japanese Island’s Trees YAKUSHIMA, Japan — A mysterious pestilence has befallen this island’s primeval forests, leaving behind the bleached, skeletal remains of dead trees that now dot the dark green mountainsides. Osamu Nagafuchi, an environmental engineer with a passion for the island and its rugged terrain, believes he knows the culprit: airborne pollutants from smog-belching China, hundreds of miles upwind.

For years, Mr. Nagafuchi’s theory was ignored by fellow scientists and even mocked by bureaucrats in the national government who administer the forests on this southwestern island. But Japan has begun taking his warnings more seriously, as the nation has been gripped by a national health scare over rising levels of potentially dangerous airborne particles that have swept into other parts of Japan and that many now believe were produced by China, its huge and rapidly industrializing neighbor.

Elephant poaching on rise in chaos-hit Central African Republic DAKAR (Reuters) - Elephant poachers are taking advantage of the chaos in Central African Republic to hunt down the animals in protected wildlife areas and openly sell their meat in village markets, campaigners said on Friday.

The killings were part of a wider surge in poaching, fuelled by growing Asian demand for ivory, that threatened the region's entire elephant population, eight organizations said.

Impoverished but mineral-rich Central African Republic was plunged into turmoil in March when rebels charged into the capital and ousted President Francois Bozize.

In Midwest, Drought Gives Way to Flood CHICAGO — The nation’s midsection, which was for months parched by severe drought, suddenly finds itself contending with the opposite: severe flooding that has forced evacuations, slowed commercial barge traffic down the Mississippi River and left farmers with submerged fields during a crucial planting time.

The flooding, driven in part by rainfall of as much as eight inches in some places last week, has affected a remarkably wide stretch in states along swollen rivers in the Midwest.

NM grapples with tough choices as drought persists HATCH, N.M. (AP) -- In southern New Mexico, the mighty Rio Grande has gone dry — reduced to a sandy wash winding from this chile farming community to the nation's leading pecan-producing county. Only puddles remain, leaving gangs of carp to huddle together in a desperate effort to avoid the fate of thousands of freshwater clams, their shells empty and broken on the river bottom.

Across the state's eastern plains, wells stand empty and ranchers are selling their cattle. In the north, urbanites face watering restrictions while rural residents see the levels of their springs dropping more every day.

Going on three years, drought has had a hold on nearly every square mile of New Mexico. Now, with forecasts predicting hotter, drier weather ahead, farmers and small and large communities alike are questioning whether dwindling supplies can be stretched enough to avoid costly fights over water.

Land O' Lakes: Melting Glaciers Transform Alpine Landscape Climate change is dramatically altering the Swiss Alps, where hundreds of bodies have water are being created by melting glaciers. Though the lakes can attract tourists and even generate electricity, local residents also fear catastrophic tidal waves.

Ireland: EU consensus exists for setting 2030 greenhouse gas targets DUBLIN, Ireland (UPI) -- There is a consensus among European energy and environment chiefs backing new 2030 greenhouse gas reduction targets, Irish Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte says.

Rabbitte issued a statement after this week's informal meeting of EU energy and environmental ministers in Dublin indicating that while significant national differences remain on what form they should take, a broad consensus exists on the need for a new set of climate change targets after the current binding framework expires in 2020.

No End to Power Rout as Carbon Market Vote Fails Europe’s failure to rescue the region’s carbon market is likely to encourage utilities to burn record amounts of coal, putting power prices in Germany on course for the worst-ever sequence of quarterly declines.

Electricity for next year, the benchmark contract already trading near an almost eight-year low, may drop a further 4.8 percent through June, according to a Bloomberg News survey, extending an unprecedented eight quarters of losses. Coal-fed power generation in Germany rose 16 percent last quarter, Federal Statistical Office data show.

State College mayor urges fossil fuel divestment PITTSBURGH — The mayor of the central Pennsylvania borough of State College has endorsed a campaign that urges municipalities to divest from fossil fuel companies, the environmental group 350.org said in a release Thursday.

Borough Mayor Elizabeth Goreham joined nine other mayors in urging municipalities to divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies because of climate change, but other officials said the issue hasn’t been voted on.

Scientists Advocate a Simple, Affordable and Accurate Technology to Identify Threats from Sea-Level Rise A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Edward L. Webb of the National University of Singapore (NUS) is calling for the global adoption of a method to identify areas that are vulnerable to sea-level rise. The method, which utilises a simple, low-cost tool, is financially and technically accessible to every country with coastal wet­lands. The team seeks to establish a network to coordinate the standardisation and management of the data, as well as to provide a platform for collaboration.

Egypt to issue schedule next month for gradual fuel subsidy cuts CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt aims next month to issue a schedule of gradual rises in the subsidised prices various industries pay for fuel, to bring them near to world levels in four years, its trade and industry minister said.

A reduction in energy subsidies is widely seen as an important step towards allowing Egypt to secure a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to shore up its finances.

Egypt spends around a fifth of its budget on fuel subsidies, and the government is under pressure to reduce them to plug a deficit that has mushroomed since the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in early 2011.

A growing population and a falling currency are expected to push the energy subsidy bill to more than 120 billion Egyptian pounds ($17.4 billion) in the financial year that ends in June.

BP predicts growth in global demand for energy resources by a third World energy demand will grow by 36 percent by 2030, senior economist at the British company BP Lev Freinkman told journalists in Baku on Wednesday.

He said the increase in demand for energy resources is mainly due to increased consumption in the electricity sector.

WTI Crude Climbs to One-Week High After U.S. Supply Drop West Texas Intermediate crude advanced to the highest in more than a week amid speculation that the European Central Bank will cut its key interest rate to a record low next week.

Futures increased as much as 0.9 percent in New York to the highest intraday price since April 15. Banks including UBS AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) expect a rate reduction for May. U.S. crude stockpiles fell 845,000 barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said yesterday. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey before the API report had forecast government data today to show supplies climbed 2 million barrels to the most in 22 years, according to a Bloomberg News survey.

Drivers benefit as oil prices drop sharply The price of oil is being driven lower by rising global supplies and lower-than-expected demand in the world's two largest economies, the United States and China. As oil and gasoline become more affordable, the economy benefits because goods become less expensive to transport and motorists have more money to spend on other things. Over the course of a year, a decline of 10 cents per gallon translates to $13 billion in savings at the pump.

Diesel and jet fuel have also gotten cheaper in recent weeks, which is good news for truckers, airlines and other energy-intensive businesses.

China Cuts Fuel Prices in First Adjustment Using New Controls China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer, will cut gasoline and diesel prices in the first adjustment under new controls after crude declined.

Retail gasoline will fall by 395 yuan ($64) a metric ton and diesel by 400 yuan, effective from tomorrow, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner, said on its website today. The reduction is in line with changes in average global crude costs in the past 10 working days and includes an amount from the last price review, it said. The pump price of 90-RON, China III gasoline in Beijing will decline 4 percent to 9,325 yuan a ton, or $4.31 a U.S. gallon, the NDRC figures show.

Global LNG-Asia down more as stocks full London (Reuters) - Asian prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes for June delivery fell sharply this week on scant demand due to packed terminal inventories. Prices fell to between $14.20-$14.50 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) compared with around $15/mmBtu earlier in the month, as buyers lowered bids in light of poor demand.

"A big Asian buyer paid between $14.20 and $14.30 for two cargoes spread across June and July," a source from a trading house said, adding there was little expected incremental demand expected until June.

Encana boosts hedges on gas CALGARY – Encana Corp. is hunkering down for what it sees as a prolonged stretch of low gas prices, pledging to slash costs even as others point to an improving outlook for the furnace fuel.

Goldman Cuts Commodity Outlook as It Exits Bet on Gold Drop Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its “near-term” outlook for commodities and reduced forecasts for oil and coffee amid prospects for weak demand from China to Europe. The bank also exited a bet on lower gold prices.

U.S. Risks Market Loss Without Gas Export Permits, Dominion Says The U.S. needs to act quickly to take advantage of overseas demand for its glut of natural gas or lose market share to international competitors, Dominion Resources Inc. Chief Executive Officer Thomas Farrell said.

“The U.S. must act very soon -- or the door is going to close and our country will have missed a major economic opportunity,” Farrell said today during a luncheon speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

OPEC fracked Since its inception in 1960, OPEC has never been shy in flexing its energy-fuelled power over the West. But those days are done. To put it bluntly, you could say that OPEC power has been well and truly fracked. And it’s not just the US and Israeli shale gas and oil revolutions which threatens OPEC’s decline. OPEC is already grappling with a whole bunch of serious energy problems that are colluding to hasten its demise.

Let’s just focus on the OPEC kingpin and world’s leading oil producer, Saudi Arabia. Even as the Saudis and other OPEC leaders have played down the nascent impact of US shale development on global production (especially America’s growing self-sufficiency), the signs are that the Saudis are increasingly desperate to keep their world number one ranking in oil production. But the runes are not falling their way.

Scientific viewpoint or 'religious' belief: My cat explains energy optimism Each morning when I release my cat from the basement where he sleeps, he rushes to the upstairs bathroom to drink water from a bowl placed there for him. He appears to have a 'religious' belief that the water in this bowl is far superior to that in the bowl sitting alongside his food in the basement. So far as I can tell, there is no discernible evidence available to him to make this distinction. I take his preference then as a matter of faith rather than evidence. The water upstairs is holy. The water in the basement—not so much.

How do I know that the upstairs water is really holy? When I forget to fill the upstairs bowl, the cat complains even if his basement bowl is full. It is hard enough to reason with a cat, but even harder to argue one out of what is essentially a religious belief.

Abu Dhabi Plans Gasoline Imports for Year Until Refinery Starts Abu Dhabi will continue importing gasoline for at least a year to meet domestic demand until a new refinery begins producing the fuel 12 months from now, officials with the state oil company said.

UAE to achieve petrol self-sufficiency The UAE will be self-sufficient in petrol once a US$10 billion refinery upgrade in Ruwais in western Abu Dhabi is completed next year, said officials at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

A big increase in the use of the transport fuel has forced Adnoc to import petrol over the past year, as demand outstripped domestic supply.

Ghana Oil Output to More Than Double by 2021 With New Fields Ghana, West Africa’s second-biggest economy, expects oil production to more than double to 250,000 barrels a day by 2021 as output rises at the Jubilee field and other sites start pumping.

The country has new crude discoveries at different stages of appraisal and development, Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye, chief executive officer of the state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corp. known as GNPC, said in an interview in the capital, Accra, yesterday. At the Tullow Oil Plc-operated Jubilee field, 60 kilometers (37 miles) off Ghana’s western coast, output has averaged 110,000 barrels a day over the last three months, he said.

China has arrived as a major energy player Driven by the biggest, fastest growing energy demand in the world, a major transformation is taking place in China. But this exciting, dynamic country faces environmental challenges, too, as the recent big smog in Beijing dramatically demonstrated. Our summit, co-hosted by WEC and the China Industrial Overseas Development and Planning Association, will help us to understand, within all the big-picture developments, whether there is a change or refocus of energy ambition within the new government.

India cuts oil import from Iran by 26.5% in FY'13 NEW DELHI: India has slashed import of crude oil from Iran by over 26.5 per cent in the financial year ended March 31 as US and European sanctions made it difficult to ship oil from the Persian Gulf nation.

The nation imported about 13.3 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran in 2012-13 fiscal, down from 18.1 million tonnes shipped in the previous financial year, official sources said.

US arms deal ratchets up Middle East tension The United States' promised $10-billion arms deal with Israel and two Arab allies sends out a clear signal and further increases the pressure on Iran, but where is all this tension leading?

As "clear signals" go, this one could hardly be clearer. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced over the weekend that the US was preparing a $10-billion (7.7-billion-euro) arms deal with Israel and two key Arab allies - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Chinese and Japanese ships cluster around disputed islands Hong Kong (CNN) -- The fragile relationship between China and Japan came under fresh strain Tuesday as ships from both sides crowded into the waters around a disputed group of islands and nearly 170 Japanese lawmakers visited a controversial war memorial.

Muslims helped foil alleged Canada train bomb plot The two suspects in the alleged al Qaeda-backed plot to blow up a rail line between the United States and Canada appeared in court on Tuesday, as revelations emerged that the Muslim community helped foil the potentially deadly plan.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday that it had arrested Chiheb Esseghaier, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, of Toronto, over what sources said was a plan to derail a train from the United States after it had crossed the border.

Dutch court orders chemical trader to pay Saddam gas victims A Dutch businessman who sold Iraq's former regime chemicals that were used in deadly gas attacks against Kurds in Iraq and in Iran was ordered on Wednesday to pay 400,000 euros ($520,000) in compensation to some of the victims.

The court ruled that Frans van Anraat must pay 25,000 euros plus interest to each of the 16 plaintiffs in the case.

Backers, opponents of giant Keystone XL pipeline face off in Nebraska GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Increasingly polarized as the bitter fight over the Keystone XL pipeline drags on, backers and opponents of the 1,700-mile project met in the same place Thursday for the only federal public hearing scheduled before the Obama administration decides whether to allow its construction.

The gulf between them was larger than the ice-and-snow-covered Heartland Events Center, the state fairgrounds and arena complex where nearly 1,000 people braved a late April snowstorm to testify to State Department officials. Even the smallest points were hotly contested throughout the all-day hearing and in dueling news conferences that preceded it.

Keystone Foes Say 1 Million Comments Show Grassroots Power Keystone XL critics said they amassed more than 1 million comments against the pipeline to carry oil from Canada, showing what they called grassroots opposition to the $5.3 billion project.

Keystone will “contribute dramatically” to global warming and pose an “unacceptable risk to water,” according to a letter posted on the website of environmental group 350.org that visitors could electronically sign and submit to the State Department, which is reviewing the comments.

EPA wants State Dept. to rework analysis of Keystone XL pipeline The Environmental Protection Agency objected Monday to the State Department’s latest review of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, suggesting that more work must be done before the Obama administration can determine whether to approve the 1,179-mile northern leg of the project.

The EPA recommended that State reassess the amount of greenhouse gas that would be emitted by the development of oil sands in Alberta, Canada, as a result of construction of the pipeline, which eventually could transport as much as 830,000 barrels of diluted bitumen crude to refineries in Texas.

Cuadrilla must tone down fracking safety claims - UK watchdog (Reuters) - British shale gas explorer Cuadrilla Resources has been criticised by the country's advertising watchdog for exaggerating the safety of fracking, increasing concerns over the disputed extraction method.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said Cuadrilla's assertion in a 2012 brochure that it uses "proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas" were misleading, exaggerated and not substantiated.

FracFocus Fails as Fracking Disclosure Tool, Study Finds FracFocus, the website used by Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and other energy companies to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, fails as a compliance tool for the 11 states that rely on it, a Harvard Law School study found.

Using the voluntary registry for compliance with state disclosure requirements is “misplaced or premature” because of spotty reporting, lack of a searchable database and an “overly broad” allowance for trade secrets, according to the study published today by the Environmental Law Program at Harvard.

Greenpeace launches Arctic "whistleblower" site for oil workers OSLO (Reuters) - Environmental group Greenpeace launched a website on Wednesday seeking to attract whistleblowers from within oil companies to reveal risks with drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic.

Greenpeace wants governments to ban oil and gas firms from the fragile Arctic environment.

Graham Puts Hold on Energy Nominee Over Nuclear Facility Cuts Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is blocking a vote on the nomination of Ernest Moniz to be energy secretary over proposed funding cuts to a nuclear processing facility in his home state.

Tohoku Electric, Tepco in nuclear compensation talks SENDAI – Tohoku Electric Power Co. has started talks to seek compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Co., manager of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant, over losses from dropping electricity sales in Fukushima Prefecture, sources said Wednesday.

Tohoku Electric saw the amount of electricity sold in Fukushima drop by up to nearly 30 percent in a single month after the March 2011 disasters triggered the nuclear crisis that forced residents from their homes. The amount sold has yet to recover.

Life in a Real Nuclear Wasteland Soviet radiation biology took a different trajectory from science in the United States. American researchers at that time were working with the highly politicized medical studies of Japanese bomb survivors. They narrowed the list of radiation-related illnesses to leukemia, a few cancers, and thyroid disease. Soviet doctors in formulating chronic radiation syndrome had grasped the effects of radiation on the body more holistically. They determined that radiation illness is not a specific, stand-alone disorder, but that its indications relate to other illnesses. They determined that radioactive isotopes weaken immune systems and damage organ tissue and arteries, causing illnesses of the circulation and digestive tracts and making people susceptible to conventional diseases long before they succumb to radiation-related cancers.

Slow is scary if France quits nuclear : state institute TOURNEMIRE, France (Reuters) - A long slow retreat from nuclear power in France or indecision over policy could be very risky as skilled staff retire and young people reject careers with an uncertain future, the state-funded atomic safety research institute said.

If France does decide to pull out of atomic energy it should follow Germany's example and do it quickly, or face operating with inadequate personnel, said Jacques Repussard, who heads the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN).

China auto market balloons; pollution could choke growth Ford and General Motors are reviving two familiar nameplates at the Shanghai Auto Show this week in a bid to make inroads in China, where the auto market could soon eclipse the U.S. and European markets combined.

Hybrid sales increase, but some eco-drivers are disappointed Demand for hybrid and battery-operated cars may be increasing – the Toyota Prius accounted for 3.1 percent of the total U.S. new car market last year – but that doesn’t mean car buyers are trading in their eco-cars for another “green” model.

According to industry reports, only about one in three hybrid owners buy another gas-electric model when they trade in.

Could Biofuels Help Power Jets? A new synthetic type of biofuel created by mixing and matching bits of DNA from different organisms could one day replace diesel and jet fuel, scientists say.

Ethanol Mills Get Tax Breaks as Brazil Seeks Output Lift Brazil, the biggest ethanol exporter, will give tax deductions and extend low-cost credit to mills in a bid to lift output and reduce fossil-fuel imports.

The government will grant 970 million reais ($480 million) in credits to offset a 0.12 real per liter tax on ethanol and offer 4 billion reais in loans for crop renewal this year, Finance Minister Guido Mantega told reporters in Brasilia today. There will also be a 2 billion-real line of credit for ethanol stockpiling and tax credits for the chemical industry, he said. Shares of energy and petrochemical companies rallied.

Super wind turbines represent a major technological breakthrough Harnessing the wind's energy is the objective of a new project, which aims to provide an important breakthrough in offshore wind industrial solutions.

The EU-funded project, called SUPRAPOWER, is working on a more powerful, reliable and lightweight superconducting offshore wind turbine. The four-year project has the expertise of nine European partners from industry and science under the coordination of Tecnalia in Spain.

We must continue to Europeanise our energy strategies – EU Energy Commissioner “We must look beyond 2020 to come to a next level of binding energy targets up to 2030 and to agree common energy and climate change policies” – these were the words of the EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, who was speaking in Dublin this morning at an informal meeting of EU energy ministers.

The ministers are convening in Dublin Castle for the second day of the informal energy meetings to discuss everything from unconventional oil and gas to ICT and energy innovation, energy efficiency and the integration of variable renewable sources in Europe.

U.S. States Turn Against Renewable Energy as Gas Plunges More than half the U.S. states with laws requiring utilities to buy renewable energy are considering ways to pare back those mandates after a plunge in natural gas prices brought on by technology that boosted supply.

Renewables Tapping Partnership Tax Plan Backed by Big Oil Renewable energy companies moved a step closer to accessing a tax financing structure that’s worth more than $350 billion as the American Petroleum Institute said it would back Congressional plans to expand the program.

Allowing wind farms and solar-power plants to organize under a corporate structure known as master-limited partnerships would help wean them from federal subsidies, Jack Gerard, president of the oil industry’s main lobby group, said today at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit.

Seven Spectacular Places Saved by the Environmental Movement Introspection is healthy within limits. And yes, saving the planet is more complicated now than it seemed 40 years ago. But analysis and what-ifs shouldn’t obscure a simple point: Without an environmental movement, the United States would be a lesser country.

The 10 Things Americans Care More About Than the Environment 1. Strengthening nation’s economy 86%
2. Improving job situation 79%
3. Reducing budget deficit 72%
4. Defending against terrorism 71%
5. Securing Social Security 70%
6. Improving education 70%
7. Securing Medicare 65%
8. Reducing health care costs 63%
9. Helping poor and needy 57%
10. Reducing crime 55%
11. Protecting environment 52%
12. Dealing with nation’s energy problem 45%
13. Strengthening the military 41%
14. Dealing with illegal immigration 39%
15. Strengthening gun control laws 37%
16. Dealing with global trade 31%
17. Improving infrastructure 30%
18. Dealing with global warming 28%

Food poisoning on rise in US, survey finds A crackdown on slaughterhouses has helped cut rates of certain types of food poisoning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. But other causes of stomach upset are on the rise – a trend that indicates better regulation of meat from hoof to plate is needed, as well as stricter regulation of produce and processed food, the CDC says.

One type of stomach bug called Campylobacter, carried in chicken and unpasteurized milk and cheese, is becoming more common, the CDC’s regular survey of foodborne illness finds.

Book review: ‘Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation’ by Michael Pollan Pollan shows us the folly of our decision to hire food corporations and other industrial forces as our live-in cooks. The consequences include the gluten intolerance that he suggests might be tied to modern flour cultivation and processing, and the compromised immune systems that might be related to our diet’s relatively recent absence of live-culture foods. What’s the most reliable predictor of a nation’s obesity rate? It’s not income. It’s not the share of women in the labor force. Quite simply, the higher the percentage of a country’s residents who cook, the fewer of them who are obese.

And about that time crunch that keeps so many of us ordering takeout? Time for a recalculation. Pollan cites Richard Wrangham’s fascinating theory, espoused in “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” that it was the control of fire to help make food more digestible that allowed us to develop smaller jaws, teeth and guts, and a larger brain. In Wrangham’s calculation, cooking gave humans an estimated four hours of extra time a day, time that we once spent chewing food to prepare it for digestion — and time that now, Pollan points out, happens to be about what we spend watching TV. We have plenty of time to cook; we just don’t choose to spend it that way.

How Did the World's Rich Get That Way? Luck At the international level, the relative impact of effort vs. luck is even more biased in favor of luck. A recent New York Times story pointed out that household incomes in Manhattan are as evenly distributed as in Sierra Leone — in both places, the wealthiest fifth make 40 times more than the lowest fifth. The difference, of course, is the average around which that income lies. The median household income in Manhattan is around $67,000. Gross domestic product per capita—a measure of mean incomes in a country — is $1,131 in Sierra Leone and the median will be significantly lower. According to Branko Milanovic, about two thirds of total global inequality can be explained by geography. Put the two factors of locational and parental determinants together and about 80 percent of your income as an adult, compared to the global average, can be explained by where you were born and to whom you were born.

No City for Little Boys Our one-floor-of-a-brownstone apartment is just too small for a family of four. We are fortunate to have two children and three bedrooms, though the rest of our living space is limited. There is little room for movement, and any movement is mitigated by the fact that we have neighbors downstairs who don’t want to live below the circus. “Please stop jumping,” is the sentence I repeat more than any other while at home (followed closely by “Do we have any more wine?”). Like most of our peers, we have no outdoor space safe for children, nor a basement or even a room dedicated to games. We do have a front door and weekends, but what’s outside our door isn’t much better.

There are not a lot of easy options for parents and their young children in the city. Most schoolyards are closed on the weekends. Many neighborhood parks are open concrete, with tiny playgrounds bursting with toddlers through teens. The big city parks, for most, require a hike beyond physical means of a child or a time-consuming trip via public transportation. People do it, but having an active small child along severely complicates matters. Riding bikes on the sidewalks or bike lanes is too perilous for my son. Simply walking around can be scary. On three separate occasions, he has bolted across a busy street. Once in the park, he can run till near collapse, but there’s nowhere for him to explore on his own. Neither in the park nor on our way there can I let him out of my sight for a second.

In China, Breathing Becomes a Childhood Risk Levels of deadly pollutants up to 40 times the recommended exposure limit in Beijing and other cities have struck fear into parents and led them to take steps that are radically altering the nature of urban life for their children.

Parents are confining sons and daughters to their homes, even if it means keeping them away from friends. Schools are canceling outdoor activities and field trips. Parents with means are choosing schools based on air-filtration systems, and some international schools have built gigantic, futuristic-looking domes over sports fields to ensure healthy breathing.

“I hope in the future we’ll move to a foreign country,” Ms. Zhang, a lawyer, said as her ailing son, Wu Xiaotian, played on a mat in their apartment, near a new air purifier. “Otherwise we’ll choke to death.”

She is not alone in looking to leave. Some middle- and upper-class Chinese parents and expatriates have already begun leaving China, a trend that executives say could result in a huge loss of talent and experience. Foreign parents are also turning down prestigious jobs or negotiating for hardship pay from their employers, citing the pollution.

Court Backs E.P.A. Veto of Mining Permit The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to revoke a mining permit to protect streams and wildlife, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The decision was a victory for the agency, which in 2011 retroactively vetoed a permit granted by the Bush administration in 2007 to allow a subsidiary of Arch Coal of St. Louis to dump tons of mining waste into several West Virginia rivers and streams.

20 Pounds? Not Too Bad, for an Extinct Fish PYRAMID LAKE, Nev. — For most fishermen a 20-pound trout is a trophy, but for Paiute tribe members and fish biologists here the one Matt Ceccarelli caught was a victory.

That Lahontan cutthroat trout he caught last year, a remnant of a strain that is possibly the largest native trout in North America, is the first confirmed catch of a fish that was once believed to have gone extinct. The fish has been the focus of an intense and improbable federal and tribal effort to restore it to its home waters.

Ottawa and Alberta release oil-sands environmental data for Earth Day The Federal and Alberta governments are putting a present under Canada's 'Earth Day tree' today, as they open up a new website that will give the public access to environmental data from the Athabasca oil sands.

10 Signs Climate Change Is Already Happening There is no real debate about whether climate change is occurring. The only dissent comes from the fringes, and generally from those whose research institutions or blogs are devoted, for ideological or other reasons, to attempting to debunk the notion that human activities are altering the planet's climate. But for many, the discussion, such as it is, can seem confusing. Is the Arctic Ocean predicted to be ice-free by the summer of 2100, or 2050, or 2030? And what exactly does ice-free mean? Are hurricanes supposed to become more frequent, or less frequent but more intense?

For scientists studying the impacts of climate change, such questions - and answers - are constantly being revised and refined as more information is gathered, models are fine-tuned, and feedbacks are better understood. But even as they focus their forecasts, those scientists are increasingly seeing the evidence of global warming happening right now, many of them in line with predictions and some of them even more severe and more rapid than anticipated. The following list provides a sampling of some of the key pieces of evidence that climate change is not just a prediction, it is already underway.

Nigeria: NSA Blames Insecurity on Climate Change The National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), Tuesday blamed the widespread insecurity in different parts of the country on the phenomenon of climate change.

He said there was a link between the disruption of local economies and the insurgence of the Boko Haramm sect, the activities of the Niger Delta militants and other groups involved in violence and criminality across the country .

U.S. should do more on climate change to aid economy - UN's Figueres OSLO (Reuters) - The United States should do more to fight climate change and help industry catch up on missed economic opportunities in clean energies, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said on Tuesday.

Christiana Figueres, speaking during a visit to the United States, welcomed President Barack Obama's plans to promote wind and solar power or to set tougher emissions standards for power plants in the coming years.

Saudi Arabia blocks climate change from UN poverty goals Saudi Arabia is leading calls for climate change to be omitted from the UN’s 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

At an SDG meeting in New York last week attended by over 70 nations the Saudis, together with fellow oil producers Venezuela and the UAE called for discussions of climate change to be separated from those on energy.

Why is Reuters puzzled by global warming's acceleration? The rate of heat building up on Earth over the past decade is equivalent to detonating about 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs per second. Take a moment to visualize 4 atomic bomb detonations happening every single second. That's the global warming that we're frequently told isn't happening.

There are periods when the ocean heats up more quickly than the surface, and other periods when the surface heats up more quickly than the oceans. Right now we're in a period of fast ocean warming and overall, global warming is continuing at a very fast pace.

The confusion on this subject lies in the fact that only about 2 percent of global warming is used in heating air, whereas about 90 percent of global warming goes into heating the oceans (the rest heats ice and land masses). But humans live at the Earth's surface, and thus we tend to focus on surface temperatures. Over the past 10–15 years, Earth's surface temperature has continued to rise, but slowly. At the same time, the warming of the oceans – and the warming of the Earth as a whole – has accelerated.

Is Saudi Arabia Losing Its Importance in the Oil Market? For three decades or so, Saudi Arabia has wielded considerable influence on the global oil market. The kingdom's status as the world's only "swing producer" has given it the unparalleled ability to influence oil prices by boosting or reducing its production and exports, which it has done at various times over the past few decades.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia may be the only major oil-producing nation in the world with the ability to influence the global price of oil to a noticeable degree. But now, it appears that the Saudis are gradually losing their powerful grip on the world oil market.

There are at least two major reasons why we could see Saudi Arabia's influence on oil prices wane over coming years. The first is expected growth in non-OPEC oil supplies, mainly from North American shale and oil sands production, while the second is changing oil consumption patterns among the Saudis themselves.

Brent Above $100 to 5-Day High as European Stocks Rise Brent crude futures rose to a one- week high above $100 a barrel on speculation last week’s drop was excessive.

Brent advanced as much as 1.2 percent after the contract’s 14-day relative strength index slipped to 31 on April 19 signaling prices had declined too rapidly. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index increased as much as 0.9 percent. Money managers reduced net-long positions, or wagers that West Texas Intermediate will rise, by 6.8 percent in the week ended April 16, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They trimmed holdings on Brent for the second week to the lowest since Dec. 18, data from ICE Futures Europe exchange show.

UAE seeks to boost oil production to 3.5m bpd - min The UAE is seeking to increase its production capacity of crude oil to 3.5m barrels per day, according to the Gulf state’s Minister of Energy.

Speaking at the Annual Middle East Petroleum and Gas in Abu Dhabi, Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei said that the rise would contribute to maintaining stability of global oil markets. He did not give a timetable for the increased production.

U.A.E. Energy Minister Sees Global Oil Market as Balanced The United Arab Emirates’ energy minister said he considers global oil markets to be “well- balanced,” with adequate supplies of crude, a month before OPEC meets to review its production target.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, due to convene on May 31, is ensuring that supplies are sufficient, Suhail Mohammed Al Mazrouei told reporters today in Abu Dhabi. Global oil demand may increase by 1 million barrels a day until it reaches 105 million a day in 2030, amid economic expansion in Asia and South America, he said.

Libya Calls for Higher Oil Quota in OPEC Libya will seek to increase its oil output quota in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Oil Minister Abdelbari al-Arusi said on Monday.

OPEC dropped individual allocations in 2011 when it adopted a 30-million-bpd output target. But with production rising in Libya and Iraq the issue of quotas may need to be addressed at some stage.

U.S. Gasoline Prices Fall to $3.536 a Gallon in Lundberg Survey The average price for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps fell 11.04 cents a gallon in the past two weeks to $3.5363 a gallon, according to Lundberg Survey Inc.

China’s Diesel Exports Rise to Three-Year High as Demand Weakens China’s diesel exports rose to the highest level in almost three years in March and gasoline shipments climbed to a one-year high amid the nation’s weakest domestic oil demand in five months.

Rupee falls on heavy dollar demand from gold importers MUMBAI (Reuters) - The rupee fell on Monday as gold and crude oil importers bought dollars to meet payment obligations, with dealers also citing outflows related to a gas utility.

Some dealers pegged the dollar outflows related to the gas utility at $150-$200 million.

BP US Mad Dog plan pause may be due to redesign, not oil price: Citi London (Platts) - BP's decision to rethink its big US Gulf Mad Dog Field development may have more to do with a needed redesign rather than the current falling oil price environment, Citi analysts said Monday.

BP, in a statement, said "market conditions and industry inflation" are why the second phase of the Mad Dog Field plan is not as "attractive as previously modeled."

'Pakistan State Oil near bankruptcy due to energy debt crisis' Karachi: Continuous cash flow problems due to a debt crisis in the energy sector has brought Pakistan's only public sector oil marketing company Pakistan State Oil (PSO) close to bankruptcy, a report has said.

Pakistan State Oil Managing Director and Chief Executive Naeem Yahya Mir has warned that if the public oil company fails, its bankruptcy will not only shake the entire economy but also take down many banks.

Circular debt woes: Alarm bells ring in PSO as international bank questions creditworthiness ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso has been informed that Pakistan State Oil (PSO)’s creditworthiness has been questioned in the global financial market, and that at least one leading international bank has expressed serious concern over a default on Letters of Credit (L/Cs) issued by the oil marketing giant. It is feared that PSO’s inability to pay its dues may have serious implications on the creditworthiness of the country.

According to sources, Deutsche Bank has written a letter to PSO over a default on a L/C, implying that the latter is losing its credibility in the financial market. “PSO may face problems in dealing with oil businesses in the Middle East if it continues defaulting on L/Cs issued for oil imports,” sources said while quoting the letter. They added that this was an alarming development for the state-run giant, which is on the brink of defaulting on other international payments due to the burgeoning circular debt in the nation’s power sector.

UK blocks Shell paying Iran oil debt in food, medicine (Reuters) - Britain has blocked efforts by oil major Royal Dutch Shell to settle a $2.3 billion debt it owes Iran by paying in kind with grains or pharmaceuticals, industry sources said.

Nevermind Peak Oil – What About the Price? There have been many calls on peak oil – the tipping point at which global production reaches a peak – and, due to dwindling reserves, production declines, even if demand continues to rise.

In reality, the industry and the technology have proved more resourceful than predictions have allowed and production has continued to rise. Indeed, the recent opening up of tight oil reserves in the US heralds the possibility that the US may become self-sufficient in a number of years if rates of production growth continue.

ANA, JAL Said Set to Start Battery Fixes of Grounded 787 ANA Holdings Inc., the biggest operator of Boeing Co.’s grounded 787 Dreamliners, expects to complete repairs next month to get the jet airborne for the first time since battery flaws halted flights in January.

Halliburton Reports Loss on Gulf Oil Spill Legal Costs Halliburton Co., the world’s largest provider of hydraulic-fracturing services, reported a first-quarter loss on $637 million in costs for the 2010 U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Net loss was $18 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with net income of $627 million, or 68 cents, a year earlier, Houston-based Halliburton said in a statement today on Business Wire. Excluding one-time items, profit was 67 cents a share, exceeding the average of 34 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

France's GDF Suez denies it is planning job cuts PARIS (Reuters) - French gas and power utility group GDF Suez denied a union's claim that it is planning to cut more than 4,000 jobs over the next three years.

"There are absolutely no plans to reduce the group's workforce," a GDF Suez spokesman said in an emailed statement on Monday, adding that it planned to hire 18,000 people over the next three years.

Algeria Oasis Towns Clamor for Jobs in Shadow of Al-Qaeda Rising unemployment is sparking unprecedented unrest in the southern oasis towns in Algeria, the third-largest gas supplier to the European Union. It comes when the authorities are already tightening security after a January attack by militants linked to al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, at the An Amenas gas plant that killed 38 foreign workers and amid preparations for elections next year.

Florida Sues BP Over Gulf Oil Spill TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The state of Florida filed a lawsuit Saturday against the oil company BP and the cement contractor Halliburton over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, becoming the fourth state to seek damages for the 2010 disaster.

Cooling suspended at Fukushima reactor Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday it had suspended cooling operations at a pool for spent fuel rods at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant after dead rats were found on an electricity transformer.

The utility planned to halt cooling operations at the No. 2 reactor pool for three to four hours in order to check the transformer. The nuclear plant was badly damaged in the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami.

IAEA tells Tepco to improve critical systems at Fukushima No. 1 The International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday called on Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, to improve “essential systems” as it struggles to deal with leaks and power cuts.

Turning Toward the Sun We decided to build on our expertise in providing remote services and to focus on distributing solar energy. We install solar panels free, then sell the energy they generate to customers, often at a lower rate than they pay their utility providers. We have more than $1.7 billion in backing from investors including banks and companies like Honda North America and Google. We have grown to more than 2,800 employees in 14 states. Last December, SolarCity began trading publicly.

Global finance officials endorse World Bank target to end poverty WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global finance officials endorsed a new World Bank goal to end extreme global poverty by 2030 and emphasized that its focus should be on ensuring that the poorest benefit from strong growth and rising prosperity in developing nations.

"For the first time in history we have committed to setting a target to end poverty," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said on Saturday following a meeting of the World Bank's Development Committee. "We are no longer dreaming of a world free of poverty; we have set an expiration date for extreme poverty," he added.

Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline fuels climate of suspicion in Quebec In many ways, Sainte-Justine-de-Newton is a typical Quebec village. A stone Catholic church anchors the main street, small businesses are scattered about and behind them, towards the nearby Ontario border, dairy farms speckle the landscape.

But in this town, population 973, its mayor, Patricia Domingos, is taking a stand against one of Canada’s biggest energy companies: Enbridge Inc.

Hedge-Fund Billionaire Leads Donors in Pushing Obama on Keystone President Barack Obama faces growing pressure from Democratic donors to reject the Keystone XL pipeline amid signs that the project is headed for approval.

Americans more supportive of Keystone than Canadians, poll finds Americans are more supportive of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline than Canadians are, according to a poll by Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Seventy-four percent of Americans surveyed said they support U.S. government approval of the TransCanada Corp. project that would carry oil from Canada through the U.S., compared with 68 % of Canadians, according to polling by Nik Nanos, a scholar at the Washington-based institute. Americans also are more likely to say achieving North American energy independence is more important than reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the poll.

50 000 Citizens Walk For A World Free of Fossil Fuels MONTREAL /CNW Telbec/ - More than 50 000 citizens gathered today in Downtown Montreal to signify their opposition to the pipeline projects that would bring, for the first time, tars sands oil to Quebec. The Walk for Earth focused on these themes: fossil fuels, the fight against climate change and the rights of future generations. It was part of a larger North American movement against the tar sands expansion.

Texas can protect, save its water To some, this might seem like a typical story of the collision between human needs and preservation of the environment. But it's not. Much of the water withdrawn from those rivers, and from rivers, reservoirs and aquifers across Texas each year is simply wasted - evaporating from farm fields, sent up the cooling towers of power plants, leaking from cracked water pipes or injected deep underground after being contaminated during the process of fracking for fossil fuels.

Before we subject Texas rivers to more water withdrawals that threaten wildlife and our ability to enjoy those waterways, shouldn't we first take every reasonable opportunity available to save water?

Water Rights Tear at an Indian Reservation A water war is roiling the Flathead Indian Reservation here in western Montana, and it stretches from farms, ranches and mountains to the highest levels of state government, cracking open old divisions between the tribes and descendants of homesteaders who were part of a government-led land rush into Indian country a century ago.

“Generations of misunderstanding have come to a head,” said Robert McDonald, the communications director for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. “It’s starting to tear the fabric of our community apart.”

All Sizzle and No Steak Why Allan Savory’s TED talk about how cattle can reverse global warming is dead wrong.

A wealth of planets: Avoiding bankruptcy and foreclosure Now Rockstrom has co-authored a solution-oriented book based on that earlier analytical framework - Bankrupting Nature: Denying Our Planetary Boundaries. It's written for a wider, non-scientific audience, though not so much the broad general public as those already keyed in to public policy debates. "An abundance of scientific reports clearly point out that we are very close to a saturation point, where the biosphere cannot handle additional stress," the book says, and it proceeds to draw on such reports, along with significant studies of how we might avoid catastrophe. The book makes a compelling case that technological solutions - such renewable energy to replace fossil fuels - are well within our capabilities. But whether economic, political and cultural obstacles can be overcome is another matter.

The 21st Century Economy Will Be Urban, High Tech, and Green But there's a third fact many business leaders don't always see: how much money there is to be made in this transition to zero. Climate action is the next great boom opportunity.

Quickly getting to carbon neutral societies cannot be achieved by tinkering at the margins. Up until recently, there's been a kind of consensus image of what action on climate might look like: a pastiche of wind turbines, electric cars, green shopping and LEED buildings.

Such steps are insufficient: indeed, the climate action we need involves innovating at a systems level, not just improving the performance of the components of that system.

In Europe, Paid Permits for Pollution Are Fizzling LONDON — On a showery afternoon last week in West London, a ripple of enthusiasm went through the trading floor of CF Partners, a privately owned financial company. The price of carbon allowances, shown in green lights on a board hanging from the ceiling, was creeping up toward three euros.

That is pretty small change — $3.90, or only about 10 percent of what the price was in 2008. But to the traders it came as a relief after the market had gone into free fall to record lows two days earlier, after the European Parliament spurned an effort to shore up prices by shrinking the number of allowances.

Group kicks off planting of ancient tree clones COPEMISH, Mich. — A team led by a nurseryman from northern Michigan and his sons has raced against time for two decades, snipping branches from some of the world's biggest and most durable trees with plans to produce clones that could restore ancient forests and help fight climate change.

How can we save our planet for future generations? Activists and scientists have long warned that our overstretched planet is reaching an environmental tipping point after which humanity will face cataclysmic consequences. Natural resources are stretched, climate change is altering the planet’s weather patterns and the rising human population will eventually become unsustainable. The time to act is now. Thankfully international governments are taking notice, but these issues are already having a profound impact on the world. Here, Friday takes a look at the problems facing the world and asks what can be done to solve them.

Michael Klare: The Coming Global Explosion Brace yourself. You may not be able to tell yet, but according to global experts and the U.S. intelligence community, the earth is already shifting under you. Whether you know it or not, you’re on a new planet, a resource-shock world of a sort humanity has never before experienced.

Two nightmare scenarios -- a global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of extreme climate change -- are already beginning to converge and in the coming decades are likely to produce a tidal wave of unrest, rebellion, competition, and conflict. Just what this tsunami of disaster will look like may, as yet, be hard to discern, but experts warn of “water wars” over contested river systems, global food riots sparked by soaring prices for life’s basics, mass migrations of climate refugees (with resulting anti-migrant violence), and the breakdown of social order or the collapse of states. At first, such mayhem is likely to arise largely in Africa, Central Asia, and other areas of the underdeveloped South, but in time all regions of the planet will be affected.

I suspect I should apologize. Here I am talking about the future projections for energy production made by companies such as ExxonMobil and Shell, as though they were still the key and only players in the world. Yet in reality, Saudi Aramco (12.5 mbdoe), Gazprom (9.7 mbdoe) and National Iranian Oil (6.4 mbdoe) appear in the list before ExxonMobil arrives (at 5.3 mbdoe), and then there is PetroChina (at 4.4 mbdoe) before BP arrives (at 4.1 mbdoe), and it is only then that we find Shell, which lies 7th at 3.9 mbdoe.

So the projections of the ExxonMobil’s of the world are of somewhat lesser value than they might have been at one time. (For those curious, the list continues with Pemex (at 3.6 mbdoe), Chevron (at 3.5 mbdoe) and Kuwait Petroleum Co (3.2 mbdoe). This not only rounds out the top ten, it also closes out the list of those producing more than 3 mbdoe. (Abu Dhabi comes next at 2.9 mbdoe).

Yet with those caveats, and recognizing that Saudi Arabia now produces only slightly less than ExxonMobil, Shell and BP combined, let me review the BP forecast, having already completed that for ExxonMobil and Shell. While the latter two looked sufficiently far into the future as to obfuscate a little their shorter-term projections, BP is still focusing on the relatively short-term that runs to 2030.

Within that time frame, BP expects overall energy demand to grow by 36%, though like the ExxonMobil projection, BP expects that a “tremendous increase” in energy efficiency will continue to develop, thereby slowing the need for future resources. They point out that without this improvement in efficiency, global energy supply will need to double by 2030 in order to sustain economic growth.

This is particularly true for the United States, which BP sees approaching self-sufficiency in Energy, while it is the continued growth in demand from countries such as China, India and the Asian Pacific countries that provide most of additional need. Comparing their view from 2 years ago with the present there does not appear to be much change in the overall forecast. (Note that after the first two figures all the remainder come from the 2030 BP Energy Outlook).

Figure 1. Comparison of BP data and projections for population growth between their 2011 report (left) and that for 2013. (right)

Figure 2. Comparison of current and anticipated energy demand through 2030, from 2011 (left) and 2013 (right) BP reports.

There is a small increase in the overall demand from non-OECD countries in the more recent projection, but not a great difference. But this increase in demand reduces from a growth averaging 2.1% in the 2010-2020 time frame, to a growth of 1.3% in the following decade.

Within the period to 2030, BP anticipates that all major energy sources will continue to see an increase in overall energy production.

The fastest growing fuels are renewables (including biofuels) with growth averaging 7.6% p.a. 2011-30. Nuclear (2.6% p.a.) and hydro (2.0% p.a.) both grow faster than total energy. Among fossil fuels, gas grows the fastest (2.0% p.a.), followed by coal (1.2% p.a.), and oil (0.8% p.a.).

Figure 3. Growth in different energy sources through 2030

However, there is a change in the ranking of the different fossil fuels from the earlier projection. While BP were projecting two years ago that coal, oil and natural gas would virtually tie in terms of market share by 2030, coal is now given a more dominant role, with natural gas falling below oil.

Figure 4. Change in market share for the different energy sources.

Within this time frame, coal is not really bounded by available supply, though BP anticipate that more will be produced indigenously in the Asian Pacific than at present. One assumes that this is partly necessary for financial reasons, although it will also be a need-based growth as the countries increasingly need electric power.

In terms of natural gas and oil supply, questions are more urgent and BP provide the following answer:

Figure 5. BP anticipated sources for the anticipated growth in demand for energy.

By far the largest production from the tight oil and gas shales will come from North America, where the current growth in production is anticipated to continue.

Figure 6. Anticipated production of tight oil and shale gas by region in 2030.

One of the drivers that BP see in the fall in oil demand comes from its continued high price. This has already significantly lowered the use of oil as a power generating fuel, and the continued high price will drive the move to vehicles of increasingly greater efficiency. Thus, although global liquid fuel demand will continue to grow, it will only be at the rate of 0.8% pa, reaching 104 mbd by 2030. The sources to meet this are various:

Figure 7. Liquid fuel supplies through 2030.

With the conventional supply of crude from non-OPEC countries diminishing, OPEC crude levels can be seen to increase over the next seventeen years while the major increase in production from tight oils is anticipated to come from North America. In 2030 it will provide 9% of overall demand, providing almost half of the 16.1 mbd of overall increase in production. The increase will, however, slow post 2020, as the costs of production and the limits of the resource base.

BP make the following prediction:

The US will likely surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2013 as the largest liquids producer in the world (crude and biofuels) due to tight oil and biofuels growth, but also due to expected OPEC production cuts. Russia will likely pass Saudi Arabia for the second slot in 2013 and hold that until 2023. Saudi Arabia regains the top oil producer slot by 2027.

Other than tight oil, BP anticipates some increase in biofuel production, and from the oil sands, with significant increase in Iraqi production, and some gain from the remaining OPEC countries (one suspects Venezuela is included here) and from NGL production.

The largest increments of non-OPEC supply will come from the US (4.5 Mb/d), Canada (2.9 Mb/d), and Brazil (2.7 Mb/d), which offset declines in mature provinces such as Mexico and the North Sea. The largest increments of new OPEC supply will come from NGLs (2.5 Mb/d) and crude oil in Iraq (2.8 Mb/d).

In this regard, BP believe that currently OPEC has a spare capacity of around 6 mbd, but will continue to cut production to sustain prices over the decade.

BP see roughly a 7% p.a. increase in shale gas production with most coming from the United States, Mexico and Canada. This will bring total natural gas production to 459 bcf/day by 2030. Of this, North America will see a growth in production of 5.3% pa and by 2030 will be exporting roughly 8 bcf/d. In other countries the biggest growth will be in more conventional natural gas production, coming from the Middle East (31 bcf/d), Africa (15 bcf/d) and Russia (11 bcf/d).

This increase in supply, and the greater use of LNG tankers is likely to keep natural gas prices relatively stable.

Russia says Egypt asks for help with gas supplies to Europe MOSCOW (Reuters) - Egypt, struggling to meet domestic energy demand, has asked Russia to help it fulfil its gas supply contracts with Europe, Russia's Energy Minister was quoted as saying on Saturday.

He also said Egypt had offered some Russian companies, including Gazprom , Gazprom Neft , Lukoil and Novatek , opportunities in the North African country's offshore oil and gas sector.

"The gas, which they were supposed to ship (abroad) under a contract, may be left for domestic consumption, while we could fulfil the contract via a swap supply by Gazprom," Alexander Novak was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

Fossil fuel subsidies: the addiction Egypt just can’t kick Fossil fuel subsidies cost governments $523bn a year, but despite a growing consensus that they should be reformed, they linger on.

Earlier this month Egypt walked away from negotiations on a $4.8bn lifeline loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), despite its parlous financial situation.

The falsehood of ‘Peak Oil Theory’ In the last few years, there were several attempts from several non-specialized writers in the Saudi media to advocate for what is called “Peak Oil Theory” that wrongly predicts dark future for oil production.

This theory was introduced in the US after the oil embargo in early 70s by some bankers stating that when 1/2 of the oil reserves in any field is produced, the production will follow steep decline. This concept is based on a probability theory that is not linked to any scientific facts or physical laws that govern oil production in oil reservoirs.

In addition, what makes this theory completely false is the fact that it totally ignores the impact of technological advancements in increasing the recovery factor and the probability to find new oil discoveries.

Crude Increases a Second Day Crude advanced for a second day, paring its third weekly drop, on speculation that declines were excessive and as the euro increased against the dollar.

West Texas Intermediate oil rose 0.3 percent. Prices gained the most in three weeks yesterday after the 14-day relative- strength index sank below 30 on April 17, a sign the market is oversold, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Commodities gained with the euro after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview with Wirtschaftswoche magazine that the European Central Bank should reduce liquidity in the euro area.

Heavy Louisiana Sweet Oil Weakest Against WTI Since January 2012 Heavy Louisiana Sweet oil’s premium to West Texas Intermediate on the spot market shrank to the narrowest level since January 2012 as Brent held at about $11 a barrel more than WTI.

Brent’s premium over the U.S. benchmark has fallen by more than half since February as refinery turnarounds and disappointing economic data out of Europe and Asia have diminished demand. The June European benchmark’s premium to WTI for same-month delivery was $11.24 a barrel at 2:14 p.m. New York time.

Los Angeles Gasoline Weakens as Refinery Restarts Unit This Week Transportation fuels on the spot market in Los Angeles weakened as Chevron Corp. was scheduled to bring the fluid catalytic cracker online this week at its El Segundo refinery in Southern California.

Iran sees no need for OPEC emergency meeting over drop in prices TEHRAN - Iran sees no need for an emergency meeting of the oil cartel OPEC over a recent drop in crude prices before the producers' annual session at the end of May, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said Saturday.

"No extraordinary meeting is needed as the May 31 meeting is coming up, and the price of oil had not gone below 100 dollars per barrel for a long time," Qasemi told reporters on the sidelines of an oil and gas trade fair in Tehran.

Commodities Supercycle Seen Intact by Mercuria Energy The commodity supercycle is in no danger of ending even as raw materials prices head for their worst month since May, according to Mercuria Energy Trading SA.

Economic growth in China will keep driving demand for everything from oil to metals, with crude prices likely to recover later this quarter, Roger Jones, Mercuria’s global head of non-oil trading, said this week at the Financial Times Global Commodities Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Ethanol Strengthens Against Gasoline on Below-Average Production Ethanol strengthened against gasoline on speculation that demand for the biofuel is outstripping supply.

The fuels’ spread shrank by 1.11 cents to 28.44 cents a gallon as production of the fuel reached 832,000 barrels a day last week, the lowest level for this time of year in records going back to June 2010, a report from the Energy Information Administration showed. Inventories have fallen 11 out of the 15 weeks so far this year.

California Power Facing Biggest Test Since Enron California may face the biggest regional power shortages in more than a decade this summer, sending wholesale prices higher, as idled nuclear reactors and low hydroelectric output cut generating capacity.

Official: Venezuela will audit 100% of election results (CNN) -- Venezuela's top election official said Thursday that authorities will complete a 100% audit of votes cast in Sunday's presidential election.

Tibisay Lucena, president of Venezuela's National Electoral Council, said officials decided on the audit after a lengthy debate.

War-torn Caucasus may be at root of the brothers' rage MOSCOW — The journey that led two brothers to bomb the Boston Marathon has its roots in the strife-ridden violent Muslim region of Russia known as North Caucasus, where jihadists have been trying to take over for years, an expert says.

"Although the two suspects may not have lived in Chechnya, they are likely to have socialized with Chechens, both in the United States and online," said Oliver Bullough, an author and North Caucasus expert.

Experts: Growing piracy across West Africa takes root in oil-slicked creeks of Nigeria LAGOS, Nigeria — Experts say that the growing piracy off the coast of West Africa takes root in the oil-slicked creeks of Nigeria’s southern delta.

Speaking Saturday at a conference on piracy, the experts say the majority of the attacks happening across the Gulf of Guinea mostly happen along Nigeria’s coast. The experts say those committing the acts likely come from the militant groups of the Niger Delta.

Uganda: Battle for oil contracts With local businesses crying foul over big oil contracts and jobs going to international companies and expatriates, oil companies are drawing strategies to improve their local content input.

French oil giant Total E&P has announced it is spending US$ 1.5 million (Shs 3.9 billion) for an international firm to conduct an industry survey to map the Ugandan market and find out what companies and competencies are available in its local content drive.

In latest legal blow, Pakistani court confines Musharraf to his home Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A day after he made a swift exit from an Islamabad court when a judge revoked his bail, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf appeared before a magistrate on Friday and was formally placed under house arrest.

The development is the latest setback to Musharraf since the former military ruler returned to Pakistan last month to fight a series of court cases against him and re-enter the country's turbulent political scene by seeking to run in upcoming elections.

Tehran, Pyongyang in Talks over Supply of Iranian Crude Speaking in a Q&A session at the 18th International Exhibition of Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemicals here in Tehran today, Qassemi said his North Korean counterpart is visiting the exhibition at the head of a delegation.

"We have had some negotiations with the country's oil industry minister about exports of oil to North Korea and these negotiations are still underway," Qassemi said.

Iran, EU Strike Agreement over Payment of Shell's Overdue Debts to Iran TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran has worked out a deal with the EU to receive its blocked money from the Royal Dutch Shell, Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi announced on Saturday.

Official: India Keen to Join IP Gas Pipeline TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Oil Ministry Spokesman Alireza Nikzad Rahbar said that New Delhi has shown interest in the extension of Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline to India.

"Since India has been motivated by Pakistan's seriousness in construction of the (Iran-Pakistan) peace pipeline, New Delhi is negotiating to join the project," Nikzad Rahbar said on Friday.

Women Cash In on Dakota Oil Service Needs to Sustain Boom Amanda Kieson gets calls at 2:30 a.m. to collect urine samples from workers involved in accidents in western North Dakota’s oil industry. The 33-year-old mother of two says she opened her testing service two years ago to get a part of the economic bonanza engulfing the region.

Canadian ambassador to U.S. calls for Keystone XL approval As the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline sharpened this week at State Department hearings in Nebraska, Canada’s ambassador to the United States called for approval of the giant pipeline intended to carry oil from Alberta and North Dakota south across the Great Plains.

BP Halts This $10 Billion Project The Gulf of Mexico site where BP planned to start the second phase of Mad Dog is still a sore spot for the oil giant. In 2010, the biggest oil spill ever off the coast of the U.S. prompted a multi-billion dollar settlement and bad press worldwide. BP was planning to get production going with this project and was to invest close to $10 billion to access the oil-rich reserves and potentially start bringing the oil to consumers by the end of the current decade.

The company’s decision will stop effectively that momentum, leaving BP with the recent court defeat in the Deepwater Horizon settlement as its primary concern in the Gulf of Mexico area. The oil spill required a giant settlement following the damage caused to human lives, property and business in the region. The mining industry will take another major hit following the halting of the Mad Dog project.

BP Still Uncertain Over Spill Cost at Third Anniversary BP Plc faces the third anniversary of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico today with no sure knowledge of how much more it will have to pay government and private plaintiffs over the disaster.

Three Years After the BP Spill, Tar Balls and Oil Sheen Blight Gulf Coast The rest of the U.S. may have moved on, but along the coast where oil drifted to shore, residents are still waiting for some kind of closure.

Mississippi Suing BP Over Gulf Oil Spill Mississippi has become the third state to sue BP over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. State Attorney General Jim Hood said on Friday that the state had filed suits in federal and state court.

3 Years Later: What BP's Disaster Has Taught America? First of all, as despised as BP was as it raced to cap the well, we're actually lucky that the disaster happened to a company with the financial resources of the oil giant. So far, the company has agreed to pay more than $30 billion in fines, settlements, and cleanup costs. Very few companies could pull that off without going bankrupt.

That's why we need to look at the disaster in terms of risk. For most Americans, we see the spill and its aftermath as evidence of the risk of doing business, so to speak. We need the oil, and it's better to get it from our own backyard than to import it from overseas.

Will hunt for oil off Atlantic coast, Florida deafen dolphins? Hunting for oil and gas deposits off the Atlantic coast with gear that produces underwater sound blasts 100,000 times stronger than a jet engine could harm or kill tens of thousands of whales and dolphins, an environmental group contends in a new report.

The devices, called seismic air guns, are routinely used during offshore geological surveys. Towed behind vessels, they fire intense bursts of compressed air that shoot sound waves and bounce echoes off the sea floor that help pinpoint promising areas for exploration.

Boeing 787 Battery Fix Wins Approval to Resume Flights Boeing Co. won U.S. approval for the 787 Dreamliner’s redesigned battery, setting the stage for ANA Holdings Inc. and Japan Airlines Co., the jet’s two biggest operators, to seek domestic clearance to restart flights.

E.P.A. Issues Plan on Tainted Water From Power Plants Power producers would have to curb the tainted water they discharge into waterways under a proposal issued by the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday, the latest in a series of rules focused on utilities that burn coal.

U.S. Supreme Court asked to hear EPA greenhouse gas challenge (Reuters) - Top industry groups and a dozen states have asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision upholding the Obama administration's plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions generated by power plants and vehicles.

An Earth Day Message: Take Heart from the Abolition Movement On this Earth Day, those of us fighting for climate justice and an end to the world’s fossil fuel domination should take heart from the struggle against slavery.

Climate inaction likely to deepen EU divisions - paper (Reuters) - The European Union must take measures to prevent the destruction of crops and property by extreme weather or face instability and deeper social divisions as a result of potential climate change, a European Commission document said.

The discussion paper, seen by Reuters, calls for a pre-emptive, EU-wide strategy, taking account of factors such as disruption to energy and food supplies.