Good Articles 9/29

Sour economy tied to psychology that fed gas panic

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - As anxiety on Wall Street led banks and other investors to hoard cash last week, a different kind of market fear gripped cities across the Southeast.

A hurricane-related disruption in gasoline supplies prompted jittery drivers from Atlanta to Nashville to top off their fuel tanks more than usual, causing sporadic shortages and temporary shutdowns of stations. These closures only magnified the problem, of course, leading to more shortages, which sent local prices skyrocketing.

"It's a wonder people didn't go out and empty all of the grocery store shelves, too," said Larry Lamb, of Nashville. "All you need to do when something like this happens is just calm down."

Perhaps — in hindsight — that is the sensible thing to do.

But economists and other experts say individuals — not just Americans — are hard-wired to respond quickly when they are scared, and in a way that is not always in their own, or their neighbors', best interests.

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Oil falls to near $103 on global slowdown fears

Oil prices fell to near $103 a barrel Monday on concern that economic growth will slow across the globe despite a tentative agreement in Washington on a $700 billion bailout package to stabilize the U.S. financial system.

By midday in Europe, light, sweet crude for November delivery was down $3.50 to $103.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell Friday $1.13 to settle at $106.89.

Iran's central bank to inject $15bn from oil fund into banks

Iran's new central bank governor said he would inject $15 billion (Dh55.1bn) into the banking system to help them boost industrial production, a move economists have warned will stoke surging inflation.

Governor Mahmoud Bahmani said the funds would come from an oil reserve fund and by helping to boost production would ease price rises, echoing the government's line.

The tank isn't empty

It is taken as an article of faith, thanks largely to a decades old prediction made by M. King Hubbert on American oil production, that the world is in imminent danger of running out of oil. Peak production, the day when oil production begins its irreversible slide, may be less than a decade away, say some experts, and the world economy could collapse overnight in response.

Except that isn't the truth, argues Robin D. Mills in The Myth of the Oil Crisis: Overcoming the Challenges of Depletion, Geopolitics, and Global Warming. He believes that the world is in little danger of running out of oil, that the world has enough conventional and unconventional sources of oil to last it many decades – even centuries. The peak oil arguments are based on faulty logic and science and assumptions which aren't grounded in reality.

Search for a strike

Consumers in Hawaii and the nation need to brace for continued high gas prices until alternative energy sources can be developed on a commercial scale, warns a prominent university futurist.

"I think that we are long past the time when we could more or less effortlessly and painlessly transition from oil to alternative forms," said Jim Dator, director of the Hawaii Research Center for Future Studies at the University of Hawaii.

Consumerist society fuels rising oil prices: The time has come to question our 'need' for excess

For some time it has been impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading about the soaring price of fuel. The increase has been truly dramatic due to a quadrupling of the cost of a barrel of oil since 2004. It is something that we all feel because of the impact that it has on our everyday lives.

What may be less obvious is that this same price increase has also been a major shock to the global supply chains that support commerce and bring most of the low cost products to the high street. Worryingly, the impact of the price hike is still working its way through those systems.

South Korea Seeks $90 Billion of Russian Natural Gas

(Bloomberg) -- South Korea plans to import $90 billion of natural gas from Russia via North Korea, with which it shares one of the world's most heavily fortified borders, to reduce its reliance on more expensive cargoes arriving by sea.

Russian govt plans more oil tax cuts for 2010

While the Russian stock market was suspended, Russian government officials put together a plan that would help increase investment in the Russian oil sector. Kremlin economic advisor Arkady Dvork ovich said on September 19 said his country would propose more tax cuts for the oil industry this year and implement them in 2010.

The Rise of Natural Gas Populism

What is interesting about the Pickens/Chesapeake twin campaigns is their direct, populist appeal. Most firms go to Washington to lobby for what they want, and there’s not doubt Mr. Pickens and Chesapeake are doing their measure of that.

But they are also spending millions of dollars doing things the old-fashioned way: taking their case over the heads of politicians and directly to the people — or more specifically, to consumers.

Congress' failure leaves energy policy up in air

WASHINGTON — Few issues have been debated as long or as heatedly in Congress this year as energy policy — with so little result.

Inaction means the debate over offshore drilling, how much the federal government should offer in new alternative energy incentives and whether higher fuel economy standards are needed is left to next year. There won't be presidential politics then or members of Congress seeking re-election. That could increase chances for consensus.

Oil flowing from offshore spigot still years away

WASHINGTON (AP) — The welcome sign is going out to oil and gas companies off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

v A quarter-century ban on offshore exploration expires in this coming week, but don't expect to see a chain of drilling platforms from the beaches anytime soon.

It will take a couple of years, at least, before any oil or natural gas leases are issued, years more before any oil is found and perhaps a decade before any of it begins to flow to refineries.

Dems fail to extend oil shale moratorium

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — Senate Democrats on Friday tried passing a bill that included language that would continue to prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from issuing final oil shale regulations.

But that effort failed when the financial stimulus package, which would have contained the oil shale ban, stalled in the Senate on a 52-to-42 vote.

Africa: Leaders Say Fuel, Food Crises Have Hit Nations Hard

The soaring cost of fuel and basic foods over the past year has left many countries in sub-Saharan Africa unable to adequately fund critical activities, such as healthcare and provision of safe drinking water, their leaders told the UN General Assembly's annual high-level debate on Thursday.

Guinea-Bissau's President João Bernardo Vieira said the sharp rise in the cost of oil had been particularly destabilizing on the economy of his country, which is already among the poorest in the world.

Wind power plans may be blown off course

Problems in sourcing sufficient turbines, and in planning, construction and grid connection are hampering the “wind rush”. A recent report by a committee of MPs showed that in most of the remote locations where wind farms are being built, there is no access to the national grid. In some places, developers are facing 12-year delays before they can be connected.

There is also an urgent need to expand the industry’s skilled workforce and present opportunities for graduates. According to Brown, the resurgence of apprenticeships and the launch of the engineering diploma will help to plug the gap.

Ammonia Fuel—The Other Hydrogen Future

It may indeed be the case that pure hydrogen will be one of the many solutions that can be harnessed to rescue us from our current reliance on imported oil. There is much promise in today’s research. But the technical challenges facing pure hydrogen today in economic production, storage, and transport put that piece of the puzzle years in the future—and we need answers right now.

What if this vision of a distant hydrogen energy future ignores a critical reality: that an alternative approach to hydrogen fuel is available immediately; that with minimal modifications we could convert the bulk of our gasoline and diesel internal combustion engines to an existing hydrogen based fuel, eliminating carbon emissions and reducing our dependence on foreign oil; that a proven technology exists to produce this hydrogen based fuel without carbon dioxide emissions; and that new and more efficient synthesis is already in coming online? What if we do not need to wait for the hydrogen future of the year 2030? What if our hydrogen future is within our grasp right now?

Pumping the biofuels, from Rio to the Humber

Finding oil is one thing but when it comes to getting it to the market, the big challenges stem from the demand for cleaner and greener fuel. Refiners and distributors worldwide are facing new regulations to reduce the sulphur content of fuels and tighter government targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

In the “downstream” sector (the business of refining, production and distribution), gas-to-liquids technology that converts natural gas into diesel and other liquid fuels is “on the verge of commercialisation,” according to Al Troner, president of Asia Pacific Energy Consulting in Houston, Texas. “It could make a big difference.

PM finds he can't sell coal to Newcastle

It was a city built on its steelworks and coal, but Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was confronted by a new breed of Newcastle residents committed to climate change.

Coal power plants 'must be clean'

Coal-fired power stations must not be built unless they can capture and store CO2, the Environment Agency has warned.

Cities get too much blame for global warming: study

LONDON (Reuters) - Cities often blamed for producing most of the world's greenhouse gas emissions actually generate just two-fifths or less, according to a study published on Friday.

U.N. agencies, former U.S. President Bill Clinton's climate change initiative and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg have all said that 75 to 80 percent of total emissions come from cities, the paper in the journal Environment and Urbanization says.

But using data from the U.N. climate change panel, it estimates the correct figure at between 30 and 40 percent.

Scientists pressure Australian PM to step up carbon cuts

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's leading climate change scientists Monday pleaded with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to override his top adviser on the issue and drastically slash carbon gas emissions.

Professor Ross Garnaut, commissioned by the government to review Australia's response to the global problem of climate change caused by mounting carbon gases, has recommended a 10 percent drop from 1990 levels by 2020.

But 16 scientists, including Roger Jones, coordinating lead author of a United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, said emissions must decrease by 25 percent.

Europe warms fast: Med drier, north ever wetter

OSLO (Reuters) - Europe is warming faster than the world average and governments need to invest to adapt to a changing climate set to turn the Mediterranean region arid and the north ever wetter, a study showed on Monday.

Europe's mountains, coasts, the Mediterranean and the Arctic were most at risk from global warming, according to the report by the European Environment Agency and branches of the World Health Organization and the European Commission.