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The title of this year's conference, “Energy: Building a New Future,” reflects that renewed optimism. But it also suggests that, while the worst of recession may be over, what's ahead for the industry is unlikely to look anything like the past.
That's true not only in the short term, when the biggest issue remains what shape the economic recovery will take and how it will affect global energy demand, but also further out, when clean-energy policies from governments and shifting market dynamics could bring wholesale changes to the business.
To address these issues, as in the past, CERAWeek will feature some of the biggest names in the energy world, including CEOs of major oil and gas companies and electricity providers as well as policymakers, academics and economists.
Oil oversupply too little to hurt market - Iran
DUBAI (Reuters) - Oil producers are pumping more crude than consumers need but the oversupply is insufficient to have a big impact on the market, Iran's OPEC governor said on Sunday.
"There is some oversupply in the market," Mohammad Ali Khatibi told Reuters in a telephone interview. "But it cannot damage the market. It can be absorbed into stocks."
New Natural gas discovery is VITAL to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia holds large crude oil reserves, However, the Kingdom is very short in natural gas reserves.
India: Industrial sector reeling from power shortage
HYDERABAD: Expressing helplessness over power cuts and shortage of supply, Chief Minister K Rosaiah said in the present scenario, it is inevitable to impose restrictions.
The Philippijnes: Gov’t urged to consider putting up nuke plant
An opposition lawmaker urged the government Sunday to seriously consider putting up nuclear power plants that could generate sufficient power supply to Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, saying it could be the ultimate solution to the recurring energy crisis in the country.
Philosophy, Environment and Insanity
One of our most puzzling behaviours is our continued destruction of the natural environment that sustains us. When the consequences are so obviously disastrous and self-defeating, why don't we stop? The answer to this perplexing question seems to be hidden deeply within our human psyche, buried somewhere beneath genes and character until it expresses itself in culture. Exploring this inner territory in search of answers is challenging.
Our ideas of growth and development can’t involve the rest of the world (or even Americans) living like Americans.
1. If the Chinese ate meat like Americans, they’d use 2/3 of the world grain harvest.
2. If the Chinese owned cars like Americans, they’d use more than all the oil currently produced globally.
3. If the Chinese ate fish like the Japanese, they’d consume more than the current global harvest which is already not sustainable.
4. Now think what if India, SE Asia, and Africa followed suit.
Bark beetle debate adds fuel to the wildfire
Across the Western USA, the complex relationship between forests, logging, wildfires, drought, climate change, and yes, even beetles, remains a controversial challenge for politicians, logging interests, and environmentalists.
Iran’s Ace (or Deuce): Its Oil Reserves
Diplomacy and energy are never far apart in the Persian Gulf. So, as American officials seek new international sanctions against Iran this week, it’s probably wise for them to remember how much the world’s global energy map has changed over the past decade.
Iran’s leaders certainly do, and they’ve been counting on their increased ties with Asian countries, especially China, as their trump card against efforts to hem in their nuclear program.
At the same time, the Iranians may want to reconsider just how much that trump card is worth. A number of experts say it is losing its value with each month that the stalemate over its nuclear program continues.
Africa's oil exports to China only account for 13% of total
Africa's oil exports to China accounted for only 13 percent of its total oil exports, lower than the amounts exported to Europe and the US, which both surpassed 30 percent, China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said during a news conference at the ongoing Third Session of the National People's Congress on Sunday, xinhuanet.com reported.
Yang also said China's investment in Africa's oil sector accounted for only 1/16 of the world's total investment in African oil, which is also much less than the amount invested by either Europe or the US.
Iraq extends gas MOU with Shell - oil minister
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has extended a memorandum of understanding with Royal Dutch Shell on a natural gas venture around the southern oil hub of Basra for six months from March 2010, Iraq's oil minister told Reuters on Sunday.
"We will resume talks with Shell after the election," the minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, said after he cast his vote in the country's second full parliamentary election since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Iran says to issue bonds worth 1 bln euro
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will start offering bonds worth a total of 1 billion euro on March 9, the Oil Ministry's website SHANA reported on Sunday.
Nigeria arrests 24 over 'illegal' refineries
LAGOS (AFP) – Nigerian security forces have arrested 24 people accused of stealing crude oil and illegally refining it, a military spokesman said on Sunday.
Is fusion power really viable?
2010 is a big year for nuclear fusion but experts fear that a lack of fuel could push the dream of cheap, safe, clean and limitless energy far into the future.
The biofuel era - not on horizon - yet
The world, it is said, belongs to those with the most energy. And the search for alternative energy, for a number of reasons - from political to environmental - continues. The price spike in 2008, preceding the recession the world is now desperately endeavoring to climb out - gave a fillip to the pursuit.
Catalyst could power homes on a bottle of water, produce hydrogen on-site
(PhysOrg.com) -- With one bottle of drinking water and four hours of sunlight, MIT chemist Dan Nocera claims that he can produce 30 KWh of electricity, which is enough to power an entire household in the developing world. With about three gallons of river water, he could satisfy the daily energy needs of a large American home. The key to these claims is a new, affordable catalyst that uses solar electricity to split water and generate hydrogen.
Why did America's leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen and lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests--and runaway global warming? Why are their lobbyists on Capitol Hill dismissing the only real solutions to climate change as "unworkable" and "unrealistic," as though they were just another sooty tentacle of Big Coal?
At first glance, these questions will seem bizarre. Groups like Conservation International are among the most trusted "brands" in America, pledged to protect and defend nature. Yet as we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world's worst polluters--and burying science-based environmentalism in return. Sometimes the corruption is subtle; sometimes it is blatant. In the middle of a swirl of bogus climate scandals trumped up by deniers, here is the real Climategate, waiting to be exposed.
Climate change skepticism a litmus test for GOP
WASHINGTON - — It wasn't long ago that Marco Rubio and Tim Pawlenty, two of the brightest fresh faces in the Republican Party, supported legislation to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming. But in recent weeks both have suddenly begun to express doubts about whether burning coal, powering cars with gasoline and other human activities in fact have anything to do with a warming Earth.
The shifts by Rubio and Pawlenty — as well as other prominent Republicans — reflect the rising power of climate change skeptics in the GOP, where global warming is becoming a litmus test for conservatives.
RealClimate: Arctic Methane on the Move?
Methane is like the radical wing of the carbon cycle, in today’s atmosphere a stronger greenhouse gas per molecule than CO2, and an atmospheric concentration that can change more quickly than CO2 can. There has been a lot of press coverage of a new paper in Science this week called “Extensive methane venting to the atmosphere from sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf”, which comes on the heels of a handful of interrelated methane papers in the last year or so. Is now the time to get frightened?
No. CO2 is plenty to be frightened of, while methane is frosting on the cake. Imagine you are in a Toyota on the highway at 60 miles per hour approaching stopped traffic, and you find that the brake pedal is broken. This is CO2. Then you figure out that the accelerator has also jammed, so that by the time you hit the truck in front of you, you will be going 90 miles per hour instead of 60. This is methane. Is now the time to get worried? No, you should already have been worried by the broken brake pedal. Methane sells newspapers, but it’s not the big story, nor does it look to be a game changer to the big story, which is CO2.
Businesses will save $700m by cutting emissions: report
CLAIMS that even small greenhouse gas targets will hurt big industry have been undermined by a government report that found basic efficiency improvements could cut national emissions and save businesses more than $700 million.