Iran has finally offered to resume talks about its nuclear program. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council; the US, Russia, China, France, and Britain, along with Germany, have accepted a proposal from Iran that talks be resumed. The time and place have not yet been settled. The Iranian Nuclear negotiator, Said Jalili, announced in a letter, dated February, that Tehran was ready to resume the talks at the earliest possible moment, so long as it would be allowed to continue with its peaceful atomic energy program. The EU foreign policy…

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A delegation from the International Energy Agency spent two days in Baghdad speaking with high-ranking officials in preparation for an end-of-year report on the country’s oil sector. By some estimates, Iraq could hold some of the largest oil reserves in the world and an international auction for oil and natural gas blocks is planned for May. Without a hydrocarbon law, and considering the fractured political system, the IEA’s report may be more about political obstacles than oil potential, however. Baghdad announced triumphantly this week that…

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One of the most striking social phenomena of industrializing societies is that, when the nation’s economy begins to improve, those on the land increasingly move to the cities for greater economic opportunities. To give but one example – in 1960, the population of Istanbul had an estimated population of 1,738 ,000. Today? More than 12 million. Between 1960 and 2000, the population of Istanbul surged  443.8 percent. With such population explosions comes an unprecedented demand for increased services, which municipal authorities scramble…

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It has been six weeks since we last discussed the problems that could be in store for the U.S.’s East Coast due to closing of refineries in the Philadelphia area. Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a second, more detailed report on what could happen to the availability of oil and prices in the event the third and largest of the three Philadelphia refineries in question be forced to close down this coming July. In contrast with most DoE reports, this one contains a clear, unambiguous warning that there likely will be serious troubles…

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First, the good news. Bolivia has South America’s second largest proven natural gas reserve, totaling approximately 24 trillion cubic feet (tcf), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Of this, 85 percent is located in the Tarija region. Bolivia is on schedule to produce 52 million cubic meters of natural gas per day beginning in April, according to Bolivia’s state-owned oil and natural gas company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos SA (Bolivian Oil Company, or YPFB). YPFB-Andina CEO Jorge Ortiz said that the San Antonio…

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The news out of Detroit had all the feel of a wake.  GM announced that it was suspending production of the Chevy Volt idling its Hamtramck factory where the electric car is made from March 19 to April 23 is “to match production with demand”.  The 1300 workers get laid off, but because of contract terms most still get paid. It may seem like a wake but the patient is not yet declared officially dead—-but with sales at a miserable 7,671 vehicles in 2011 against a target of 10,000.  With Volt sales of 1,626 cars in…

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My personal journey into home energy reduction began with taking stock of past energy use as reported on my utility bills. I quickly migrated toward reading the meters directly to gauge the impact of particular activities. What I learned from our gas meter shocked me, and ultimately led to our single-biggest energy-saving behavioural shift. I’ve already ruined any hope of suspense in the title of the post, but just how bad does something have to be before I’ll resort to a word like “evil?” And how bad are your own demons?…

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Electricity from solar power is produced via photovoltaic cells in solar panels, or mirrors reflecting the suns energy onto giant solar towers. But a team of researchers at the University of California, known as the Davis team, have just developed a revolutionary approach to solar energy that could well be the next big thing. A tree made from nano-scale silver filaments. The scientists based their design on a tree due to the vast surface area that its leaves provide for absorbing sunlight in relation to the small support structure of the trunk…

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The fire has finally gone out at Chevron’s Funiwa natural gas rig off the coast of Nigeria. It started back in January when equipment failure caused an explosion that is thought to have killed two contractors working on the well at the time. The fire was proving difficult to control and a relief well drilled to try and stop the flow of gas to the Funiwa rig had been unsuccessful. Chevron Corp released a statement declaring that the raging fire had gone out by itself. “The site of the Funiwa 1A natural gas well offshore Nigeria ceased…

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We often think of oil and gas being used to provide fuel for power plants in order to create electricity, or to create petrol and diesel for running vehicles; but oil and gas are also vital for other products such as producing plastics. Due to the shale gas boom natural gas prices in the US are the lowest in the world, outside of the Middle East. Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., a new joint venture company created between Chevron Corp and ConocoPhillips, believes that the plastic industry could invest $30 billion into constructing factories within…

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