Free Republic

<p>The Bush administration supports a three-year delay in a controversial proposal that its supporters claim would make it easier to run the nation's electrical system, the president's top energy adviser said Sunday.</p> <p>Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the proposal would "force down the throats" a federal policy of deregulation that states with cheap power oppose.</p>

A trio of oil companies are planning to drill wells an extraordinary six miles deep, and possibly more, in the shallow waters offshore Louisiana and Texas in search of the ancient geologic layer that has yielded billions of barrels in deep water farther offshore. Before the year is out drilling is expected to begin on the first well, with a target depth of approximately 32,000 feet. This spot is in an oft-drilled part of the Gulf where any well over 15,000 feet is considered rare. Wells that deep are costly and prone to nasty surprises for drillers, but they offer...

An Industry Trapped by a Theory By ROBERT KUTTNER In the search for the source of Thursday's blackout, the underlying cause has been all but ignored: deregulation. In principle, deregulation of the power industry was supposed to use the discipline of free markets to generate just the right amount of electricity at the right price. But electric power, it turns out, is not like ordinary commodities. Electricity can't be stored in large quantities, and the system needs a lot of spare generating and transmission capacity for periods of peak demand like hot days in August. The power system also requires...

<p>It is hard to imagine how our grandparents and great-grandparents lived at the end of the 19th century. The United States was still largely a rural society, and the amenities we take for granted today were unknown then.</p> <p>Most people lived on farms. Few Americans had running water, bathtubs, hot water, or flush toilets. Central heating, electricity and telephones were rare. There were no antibiotics. Infant mortality was high, and life expectancy was 30 years lower than it is today. For most people, educational opportunities were very limited. In 1890, only 5 percent of the eligible population attended high school.</p>

BOULDER, COLORADO - Energy experts have been warning about large-scale blackouts in North America since the early eighties. Bill Browning of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado says a report for the U.S. Pentagon in 1982 cautioned the American government about the fragility of the power grid system in North America. The institute is an energy think tank. Browning runs the green development section. "Everyone is pulling power and there's lots of big stations on the grid. All you need is one tenuous problem and it cascades throughout," Browning told CBC News Online. Other experts agree. "It's pretty close to...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.The world needs both more electricity and less pollution. The goals are not incompatible, but the solution will require better management of demand, smarter use of coal as well as renewable energy sources, and increased use of nuclear power. As Congress considers an energy bill when it returns from recess, it will be under pressure to expand or limit the use of nuclear power. The issue, however, is not simple. More nuclear power will be necessary — but more nuclear plants will be built only if more safeguards and incentives are put in place. The challenge is to make...

VHeadline.com petroleum industry commentarist Andrew McKillop writes: Relative to world oil demand forecasts of late 2002 and the first quarter of 2003, the demand picture has consistently firmed up with growth rates of consumption rising, or staying very firm in all major markets. Optimism by consumer country agencies on how much oil can be exported by Iraq has now given way to more realistic, lower, estimates as the ‘Baghdad Bounce’ upwards in oil prices continues. Apart from OPEC’s Saudi Arabia, only Russia could raise export offer sufficiently and fast enough to create any serious potential of oil prices falling to...

The Case For Space Based Solar Power Development by Arthur Smith,New York - Aug 11, 2003 Energy policy is in the news again, with debates in Congress, statements from presidential candidates, consternation over our dependence on the Middle East for oil, and a California recall election traceable in part to energy supply problems for that state. Use of energy, whether fuel for transportation, electrical energy running the internet, or the destructive energy released in weapons, is central to our economy and security. It is with good reason that the technical term for energy use per unit time, "power", suggests...

  In what seems to be the never-ending saga of whether it takes more energyto produce ethanol than itsaves, Cornell University Professor David Pimentel has issued an update to his2001 study. But whilePimentel found that it still takes more energy to produce ethanol than it saves,the number has droppedfrom 70% down to 29%.       Pimenel's findings were published in the latest issue of the journalNatural Resources Research.       &ldquo;[S]cientific studies have concluded that ethanol production does notprovide a net energy balance, isnot a renewable energy source, is not an economical fuel and its production anduse contributes to airpollution and global warming,&rdquo;...

Most Americans don't know it, but the price of natural gas has increased as much as 700% in the last three years. That's what happens in the marketplace when an essential commodity becomes scarce. It's not that there aren't huge amounts of natural gas. The problem is that access to it has been effectively blocked. "We're not running out of natural gas, and we're not running out of places to look for natural gas," says Keith Rattie, president of Questar, an energy developer. "However, we are running out of places we are allowed to look for gas." Why do you...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. DANGERS associated with radioactive waste, and the problems and huge expense of its disposal could soon end after a Scottish researcher discovered how to neutralise its harmful effects using light. New research by a leading scientist at the University of Strathclyde could revolutionise the waning fortunes of the nuclear power industry - restoring both political and public faith in an energy source that was once hailed as the future of clean, green energy. Using a laser, Professor Ken Ledingham has successfully transformed one of the deadliest products of nuclear fission into...

ITHACA -- A Cornell University professor has published a study he says cements his assertion that ethanol is a less efficient, more environmentally harmful fuel than gasoline. David Pimentel, an emeritus professor of ecology, has been studying ethanol for about 25 years, leading a Department of Energy study on the subject in 1980. Ethanol is a corn byproduct that is combined with gasoline to make gasohol, a gasoline substitute that proponents claim lowers pollution and eases demand for foreign oil. Because corn production uses more pesticides than any other field crop, and because millions of dollars in government subsidies are...

Oil: Prices soar to 7-week high on Iraq petrol line fire 02.08.2003 NEW YORK - Oil prices jumped to a seven-week high on Friday as a petrol pipeline blaze near former dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown added to oilfield looting concerns in Iraq, traders said. US light sweet crude settled up US$1.82, or nearly 6 per cent, at US$32.31 a barrel while London benchmark Brent crude settled up US$1.62 to within a penny of US$30.00 a barrel. Firefighters tried in vain to extinguish a blaze at the petrol pipeline in northern Iraq, near the country's biggest refinery. The line runs between...

DOE Solicits Bids for $200 Million Hydrogen Production, Delivery and Storage Projects; Supports FreedomCAR, Hydrogen Fuel Initiatives 7/31/03 12:48:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: Jill Vieth, 202-586-4940, Tom Welch, 202-586-5806, both of the U.S. Department of Energy WASHINGTON, July 31 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today announced the release of two solicitations for research and development in hydrogen production, delivery and storage technologies. These solicitations will provide funding of up to $200 million over four to five years to support the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. "These solicitations allow our universities and national labs...

Texas is the nation's fifth-biggest producer of coal, and its largest consumer. San Antonio's municipal utility plans to build the first new coal-fired power plant in Texas in more than a decade, signaling a new day for coal, say supporters. Coal produces half the nation's electricity, because it is cheap and abundant. Energy from coal is one-third the cost of energy from natural gas or oil and lacks the price volatility that the other fuels face. The United States has a quarter of the world's known coal reserves, a 250-year supply at today's consumption level It is enough to produce...

Spectrolab Terrestrial Solar Cell Concentrator Hits 36% ConversionSylmar - Jul 29, 2003 Spectrolab, Inc. has achieved an unprecedented conversion efficiency for a terrestrial concentrator solar cell. Using concentrated sunlight, these photovoltaic (PV) cells can convert 36.9 percent of the sun's energy to electricity, a technology capability that could dramatically reduce the cost of generating electricity from solar energy. Spectrolab's achievement is a necessary step to achieve one of the U.S. Department of Energy's major PV initiative goals, to develop solar modules that convert more than 33 percent of the sun's energy into electricity as targeted in the High Performance...

<p>Republicans' desire to pass a comprehensive energy bill in the Senate by the end of the week is imperiled by as many as 100 amendments offered by Democrats, the stickiest of which tighten fuel-efficiency requirements for automobiles and address global warming.</p>

<p>One might be tempted to think that if all the hot air expended in the U.S. Senate this week on energy legislation could be harnessed, it could fuel several power plants. But there will be useful debate on protecting states' rights in the energy field while, at the same time, attempting to halt an increasingly socialistic Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from rewriting U.S. power grid rules that could ultimately cripple the domestic energy market.</p>

Green-spirited individuals hoping to do their part to save the environment by buying hydrogen-fuelled cars next year are in for expensive and rude surprises, a study by a Canadian and a U.S. scientist says. Establishing an infrastructure to fuel hydrogen cars, touted by their proponents as a wonder solution to global warming and smog, would cost $5,000 per vehicle, says the study by David Keith, a Canadian atmospheric physicist teaching at Carnegie Mellon University and Alex Farrell of the California Institute of Technology. Although cars operating on hydrogen fuel cells emit only water vapor, switching to hydrogen would be...

As politicians and the public leap aboard the hydrogen fuel bandwagon, a University of California, Berkeley, energy expert suggests we all step back and take a critical look at the technology and consider simpler, cheaper options. In a paper appearing in the July 18 issue of Science magazine, Alex Farrell, assistant professor of energy and resources at UC Berkeley, and David Keith, associate professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, present various short- and long-term strategies that they say would achieve the same results as switching from gasoline-powered vehicles to hydrogen cars. "Hydrogen cars are a poor...