Energy

Egypt has established a US$30 million centre for renewable energy for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

A porous rock layer filled with saltwater that underlies much of the Midwest could permanently store half of the greenhouse gases released in the next century by industries in Ohio and neighboring states.

The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday said it reversed an earlier decision freezing solar project applications in six Western states and would accept new applications.

Utah this summer will become what experts say is the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees, joining local governments across the nation that are altering schedules to save money, energy and resources. Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he's making the change to reduce the state's carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.

Utah this summer will become what experts say is the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees, joining local governments across the nation that are altering schedules to save money, energy and resources. Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he's making the change to reduce the state's carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.

The World Bank on Tuesday agreed to establish two investment funds to help developing economies switch to clean-energy technologies to curb carbon emissions and help poor countries adapt to climate change.

U.S. motorists are risking rampant drug violence in Mexico to drive over the border and fill their tanks with cheap Mexican fuel, some even coming to blows over gas shortages and long queues. The gap between Mexico's subsidized gasoline and record U.S. prices has made it well worth making the trip.

Regardless of who is elected next November, both candidates agree that climate change is a fact and not a theory. John McCain and Barack Obama however vary widely in their response to this issue, leaving the American people with a choice of approaches when choosing the next president. McCain’s primary tools include implementing a cap and trade system for emissions and utilizing greater amounts of nuclear power and “clean” coal.

Utah this summer will become what experts say is the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees, joining local governments across the nation that are altering schedules to save money, energy and resources. Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he's making the change to reduce the state's carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.

OPEC will not be able to replace some 4 million barrels per day in lost Iranian output if Tehran carries out its threat to stop oil exports if attacked, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Tuesday.

Leaders in the U.S. solar energy industry blasted the U.S. government on Monday for a freeze on applications for new solar projects on public land in six Western states. The Bureau of Land Management announced the freeze a month ago, saying it would conduct an extensive study looking at the environmental, social and economic impacts of solar energy development.

In a ruling believed to be unprecedented, a Georgia judge halted the construction of Dynegy's Longleaf coal-fired power plant because it had not made provisions for reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most widely implicated in man-made global warming. The judge ruled that the plant must limit its pollution, according to the Sierra Club, which has been waging a campaign against Dynegy, an energy company with plans to build more coal-fired power plants than any other.

Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters.

This is an interesting discussion of the impact of higher oil prices from the newspaper of record in the heart of car country, the Los Angeles Times.

While I don't feel sorry for Ms. Carver and her Palmdale to Commerce commute (that was a bad idea even with cheap gas), lots of other assumptions from a world of cheap oil are going to be turned on their heads. India and China's stock markets have both been clobbered this year as being oil short (and generally food and resource tight) and manufacturing, export, and remote service long maybe doesn't look so good. Russia and Brazil, on the other hand, are holding up pretty well. As, until recently, was the US.

Los Angeles Times: Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil.

Over the past eighteen months, oil prices have more than doubled, inflicting huge costs on the global economy. Strong global demand, owing to emerging economies like China, has undoubtedly fueled some of the price increase. But the scale of the price spike exceeds normal demand and supply factors, pointing to the role of speculation—and underscoring the need for policy action to clean up the oil market.

Greenpeace posed as a pro-coal organization to become a sponsor of the 2008 McCloskey Coal USA conference, which was surprised but allowed them to deliver a brief anti-coal message, officials said Friday. When The McCloskey Group figured out who the Institute for Energy Solutions really were, they decided to let Greenpeace have their booth under the phone name and make brief remarks, organizers said.

The world needs a shift as radical as the Industrial Revolution to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 while safeguarding economic growth, the McKinsey Global Institute said on Thursday.

Civic leader Scott Nelson says he is as worried as anyone about global warming, but that does not make him happy to be one of the first North Americans to pay a carbon tax to curb climate change. Nelson, mayor of Williams Lake, British Columbia, says record high energy prices mean that the levy, for all its good intentions, could not come at a worst time for residents in his community, a lumber and ranching town about 525 km (340 miles) north of Vancouver.

Buried in the news a few weeks ago was an announcement by a small Californian firm called Amyris. It was, perhaps, a parable for the future of biotechnology. Amyris is famous in the world of tropical medicine for applying the latest biotechnological tools to the manufacture of artemisinin, an antimalarial drug that is normally extracted from a Chinese vine.

In the quest for coal, over a million and a half acres of Appalachia have been strip-mined, whole mountains removed, trillions of gallons of toxic slurry left behind, and communities devastated. Not exactly a promising place for a new green economy to arise.