Industry

Alan Kohler had an interesting column in The Business Spectator recently ("The cars that ate Australia") warning that as our car fleet transitions from the internal combustion to electric vehicles, local car manufacturers need to start looking to manufacture EV's or they (and all their suppliers) will end up shutting down.

-The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol’s Hidden Costs
-Big Oil Behind Yet Another Biofuels Research Paper
-Harrabin's Notes: Battle over biofuel strategy

-World oil demand’s shift toward faster growing and less price-responsive products and regions
-Economists deliver a sturdy smackdown of peak oil demand
-Study Finds that Peak Oil Demand is Decades Away, but Minimizes Effects of Rising Consumer Product Prices
-Forecasts underestimate oil demand, study says

My busy eating, drinking & breathing schedule prevented me from going down to Houston for CERAWeek this year. It's funny how that works—something seems to come up every year. So I'll have to use news reports to get a feel for how this year's exciting oil & gas Schmooze-Fest went. Tuesday, March 9th was Oil Day.

David Shields is a journalist and independent oil industry analyst based in Mexico City. Steve Andrews caught up with him yesterday and posed a few questions.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-From the IEA
-China
-CERA week
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

It is hard to imagine a case weaker than that made by the climate change deniers against the science of human-caused global climate change. But there is one, the nonexistent case against the reality of human-caused ocean acidification. So, it's no wonder they don't want to talk about it.

-EU to exceed 2020 green energy target: forecasts
-Quantum Physics Breakthrough: Scientists Find an Equation for Materials Innovation
-Solar PV has failed in Germany and it will fail in the UK

-Is East Africa the Next Frontier for Oil?
-'Market can absorb spare Saudi capacity' - Al Falih
-Royal Dutch Shell halts gasoline sales to Iran
-Traders bet on higher gasoline prices
-How a 22-year-old student uncovered peak oil fraud

Solar thermal is a way of harnessing the largest source of energy available to us, so in this post I'll have a look at the upswing in interest in the use of this technology for electricity generation in recent years and look at some of the approaches being pursued to make it economically competitive with coal fired power generation.

In a finding that may speed efforts to conserve oil and intensify the search for alternative fuel sources, scientists in Kuwait predict that world conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014 — almost a decade earlier than some other predictions. Their study is in ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal.

A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China's foreign trade

-Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?
-Solar panels are not fashion accessories
-There is no 'green treachery' in questioning this solar panel rip-off
I accept George Monbiot's £100 solar PV bet

-Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to report
-Chemists create biofuel from plant waste
-Seeking a More 'Poplar' Biofuel