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ELFORSK AB, the Swedish energy R&D organization established by utilities and manufacturers in the country has issued a statement on its website commenting on the 3rd party Report which it funded, along with the Alba Langenskiöld Foundation. Here’s the statement (Google translated) Researchers from Uppsala University and KTH Stockholm has conducted measurements of the produced heat energy from a device called the E-cat. It is known as an energy catalyst invented by the Italian scientist Andrea Rossi. The measurements show that the catalyst produces significantly more energy than can be explained by ordinary chemical reactions. The results are very remarkable.

BERLIN - German brewers have warned Chancellor Angela Merkel's government that any law allowing the controversial drilling technique known as fracking could damage the country's cherished beer industry. The Brauer-Bund beer association is worried that fracking for shale gas, which involves pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground, could pollute water used for brewing and break a 500-year-old industry rule on water purity. Germany, home to Munich's annual Oktoberfest - the world's biggest folk festival which attracts around 7 million visitors - has a proud tradition of brewing and beer drinking. Under the "Reinheitsgebot", or German purity...

House Republicans pushed through a bill Wednesday to bypass the president to speed approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. Democrats criticized the legislation as a blatant attempt to allow a foreign company to avoid environmental review. The bill was approved, 241-175, largely along party lines. Republicans said the measure was needed to ensure that the long-delayed pipeline, first proposed in 2008, is built. "This is the most studied pipeline in the history of mankind," said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., the bill's sponsor. "When is enough enough?" added Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif. "Five years? Six years?...

An energy company has received approval to start construction of a new natural gas processing plant in northwestern North Dakota. The Oneok company says the plant will cost $160 million and be able to process 100 million cubic feet of natural gas each day. Oneok is based in Tulsa, Okla.

South Korea imported 4.18 million barrels of Iranian crude oil in April, equivalent to 139,400 barrels per day (bpd), Reuters reported citing the latest official data on Wednesday. Earlier in January, statistics by Korea Customs Service indicated that Seoul bought 793,361 metric tons, or 188,000 bpd, of crude oil from Iran in December 2012 which showed a 24-percent rise compared with the 639,281 tons in the corresponding period a year earlier. South Korea halted crude imports from Iran in August and September 2012 after its refiners lost insurance coverage on ships because of the illegal sanctions imposed by the US...

An energy revolution is unfolding in the United States -- but unlike most past or promised revolutions, this one is not confined to a single fuel or technology. After falling for more than two straight decades after 1985, U.S. crude oil production has now risen for four consecutive years, and in 2012, it posted its largest one-year increase since the dawn of the oil industry more than 150 years ago. Meanwhile, in 2011, natural gas surpassed coal as the United States' biggest source of domestically produced energy, thanks to surging output and plunging prices. And all this growth in U.S....

While Texas and North Dakota's boom in oil production have been well-publicized, five other western U.S. states made a notable contribution to the growth in U.S. oil production since 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Tuesday. Onshore oil production, including crude oil and lease condensate, grew by over 2 million barrels of oil per day (bopd), or 64 percent, in the U.S. Lower 48 from February 2010 to February 2013. Production in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Texas' Eagle Ford play and Permian Basin outpaced other regions. However, gains in other Lower 48 states added up...

House Republicans on Wednesday took one of the first steps toward overturning a new Obama administration plan for managing wildlife and oil development in the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. During a House subcommittee hearing on a bill to repeal the reserve management plan, Republicans insisted the administration’s blueprint tilts too heavily toward conservation by walling off energy development in roughly half of the reserve. “The Obama administration appears determined, against the wishes of most Alaskans, to keep their energy resources off limits,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. who sponsored the repeal bill along with Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska. Finalized by...

In a remote stretch of the Omani desert, row after row of long, curved mirrors collect the sun’s energy. Similar facilities have been gathering sunlight in the Southern California desert for years, using the focused light to generate electricity. In Oman, however, the facility generates steam. Pipes shunt the steam underground, where it coaxes heavy oil from the rocks. The new solar steam plant is the first of its kind in the Middle East. It was built by GlassPoint Solar, a Fremont company that uses renewable power to squeeze oil from the ground. GlassPoint, which has raised about $32 million...

Back in October 2011 I first wrote about Italian engineer, Andrea Rossi, and his E-Cat project, a device that produces heat through a process called a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR). Very briefly, LENR, otherwise called cold fusion, is a technique that generates energy through low temperature (far lower than hot fusion temperatures which are in the range of tens off thousands of degrees) reactions that are not chemical. Most importantly, LENR is, theoretically, much safer, much simpler, and many orders of magnitude cheaper than hot fusion. Rather than explaining LENR in detail here please see my original posting for...

A North Texas company said Monday it plans to build a 10,000-barrel-a-day refinery in La Salle County in the booming Eagle Ford Shale. Dave Martinelli, CEO of Worldwide Energy Consortium Inc. of Irving, which will build the plant, said it will refine oil from the shale and sell its fuels in the area. He said the company has plans to build “several” more plants in the region. He expects the La Salle County plant to begin operating late next year. He said the company has started the initial engineering and permitting phase. However, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on...

Flame-resistant overalls are the latest reason to be optimistic about America’s future. The US shale boom is creating plenty of new jobs in the oil and gas industry, but it’s having a number of knock-on effects as well. Energy-intensive industries have been bolstered by the influx of cheap natural gas, for example. And a new sector has appeared to help support the rapidly growing number of oil and gas workers in America. Firms that feed, house, and, as the the WSJ reports, clothe these workers are capitalizing on this energy revolution, too. Back in 2010, a spate of refinery accidents...

An all too familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4th to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that dealt in fossil fuels. As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object. Although there were professors and administrators in the room — including the college president — apparently nobody had...

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 17 (UPI) -- Nobel Energy of Houston, which discovered Israel's big natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, is pressing the government to decide on an energy export policy as the prospect of an undersea pipeline to Turkey gains credibility. Israel's deep-water Tamar field, found in 2009 and containing an estimated 9 trillion-10 trillion cubic feet of gas, began production March 31. But Nobel and Israeli partner Delek Energy, the team that discovered Tamar and other fields off Israel, is reluctant to develop the much bigger Leviathan field, found in 2010, until it the government makes...

Word is that both Israel and Turkey are seriously entertaining the notion of constructing an undersea pipeline to deliver Israeli natural gas to Turkey and, perhaps, hence to Europe. The Turks reportedly have expressed willingness to foot part of the estimated $2 billion bill. Such pipelines exist elsewhere in the world, most notably from Russia and from Norway. It is becoming evident that a veiled agenda underpinned the recent Turkish willingness to consider a rapprochement with Israel. Turkey, it appears, hankers after Israeli gas. The perceived Turkish softening was fueled by Israel’s offshore gas discoveries, a fact which nevertheless did...

How long will the shale boom last? ODNR official sees ‘beginning of a historic era’ for oil and gas; other observers aren’t sure By Dan Gearino and Spencer Hunt Friday May 17, 2013 3:32 AM Oil and gas companies nearly doubled their production from Ohio’s Utica shale last year, part of an energy surge that is still in its early stages and whose potential is far from clear. The companies extracted 635,896 barrels of oil and 12.8 billion cubic feet of gas from the Utica in 2012, which is a year-over-year increase of 93 percent and 87 percent, respectively, according...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- A controversial oil pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast "absolutely needs to go ahead," Canada's prime minister said Thursday, and he warned that the oil will be transported through America one way or another.</p> <p>Stephen Harper addressed the Keystone XL project, a flashpoint in the debate over climate change, during a visit to New York City. The long-delayed project carrying oil from Canada's tar sands would need approval from the State Department, and Harper's remarks - with the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson, in the audience - were meant to apply some pressure.</p>

It’s Not The End Of OPEC…But Might As Well Be Matt InsleyMay 17, 2013If you could safely turn $8 dollars into $40, would you? What about turning $800 into $4,000? Same question, right? If you answered yes to those questions, which I’m sure you did, then you’re already onboard with half of today’s energy story. That is, most American shale oil wells are set to payout at the odds above. You see, the average shale oil well costs anywhere from $5-10 million to drill, complete and put into production – let’s call that $8 million in total upfront cost. Once...

A noted climatologist and recently-retired NASA research chief has entered the EU’s energy policy debate, with a warning that any re-industrialization strategy that increases fossil fuels use can only be short-term, irrational and economically wasteful. In a wide-ranging interview with EurActiv, James Hansen branded the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) “ineffectual” and flawed, and accused energy firms of preferring government bribes over investments in clean technology. Hansen, whose Congressional testimony on climate change in 1988 first popularized the issue in the United States, also said that approving the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to bring tar sands fuel from Canada to...

Sen. Amy Klobuchar has asked the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate the steep increase in Minnesota gas prices over the past few weeks. Gasoline industry officials say regional gas prices have jumped 80 cents in the past month and 30 cents in the past week because of both unexpected and planned shutdowns at gasoline refineries. But Klobuchar said the impact of temporary closures shouldn't have so much impact on the price consumers have to pay. In a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Democratic senator called on the Department of Energy to thoroughly examine the closures and timing...

In case you were wondering whether there was really an oil Renaissance happening in Texas, the state has 838 drilling rigs – about 47 percent of all U.S. rigs and 26 percent of drilling rigs worldwide. The Texas rigs are mostly operating in five fields across the state, according to the latest Baker Hughes Rig Count. The Permian Basin in West Texas has 397 rigs, the Eagle Ford in South Texas has 234, the Granite Wash in the Panhandle has 44, the Barnett Shale in North Texas has 31 and the Haynesville Shale in East Texas has 19. Our neighbors...

EOG Resources, the company with the most acreage in the Eagle Ford Shale, reported its first-quarter earnings recently. And basically, EOG is making a lot of money in South Texas. Mark Papa, CEO and board chairman of EOG, said the Eagle Ford continues to surprise “in an upside manner.” EOG’s U.S. crude oil production increased 24,200 barrels per day over the fourth quarter of 2012, mostly thanks to the Eagle Ford. The company is getting a rate of return on its South Texas wells greater than 100 percent. During the first three months of the year, EOG completed 27 “monster...

The price of a gallon of gasoline hit a shocking level overnight. In the Twin Cities, several chain gas stations -- mostly in the outer ring -- raised their prices to between $4.09 and $4.19 a gallon. That's about 20 cents more overnight, 60 cents in the last two weeks, and $1.20 since January. At many stations, prices rose into the $4 range yesterday afternoon, then fell overnight into the $3.90 area. What's going on here?

CARACAS — Venezuela in 2012 became a net importer of gasoline as a result of escalating problems at its refineries and increasing demand for fuel in its internal market, joining a growing list of countries that struggle with fuel supplies despite ample oil reserves. The OPEC nation exported 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline and naphtha last year, according to state oil company PDVSA's annual report. But it imported an average of 66,300 bpd of the same fuels from the United States alone, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

The head of the International Energy Agency on Tuesday urged the United States to decide quickly to allow crude exports, or the industry will find ways to get around restrictions. The Export Administration Act of 1979 banned the sale of U.S. crude abroad, except to Canada and Mexico, but the shale energy boom has since turned the North American energy market upside down in just a few years. U.S. oil production is now rising steeply, having been falling for decades, prompting some to say shipments abroad should be considered. "The answers have to be given by the U.S. government. I...

The surge in oil production in the U.S. and Canada and shrinking oil consumption in the developed world is transforming the global oil market. The threat of chronic oil shortages is all but gone, U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil will continue to dwindle, and oil will increasingly flow to the developing economies of Asia, according to a five-year outlook published Tuesday by... International Energy Agency. The changes will have ‘‘significant consequences for the global economy and oil security,’’ the IEA says. The report paints a picture of a world with plenty of oil to meet modestly growing demand. Where...

Thanks to a boom in domestic shale oil production, the U.S. is on pace to overtake Russia as the world’s largest non-OPEC producer. The revelation came in a semi-annual report released Tuesday by the West’s energy agency, the International Energy Agency, which said the U.S. could surpass Russia as soon as 2015. Moreover, the IEA anticipates that U.S. production will take care of most of the world’s new oil demand over the next five years. OPEC would therefore risk lower prices if it chooses to lift output. “North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout...

ast month, Earth Day came and went. Perhaps you missed hearing about it. For 2013, the theme was “The Face of Climate Change.” Other than a change in the Post Office cancellation mark on your letters from the usual wavy lines, to the four stick-like wind turbines and a sun symbol, there was little note of what was once an event celebrated by 20 million Americans. Tim Wagner, Utah representative for the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America Campaign, groused: “Media coverage of global warming has virtually disappeared.” According to EarthDayCentral.com, one of the goals of Earth Day is to help...

The world’s reliance on oil supply from OPEC and other large producing nations from Russia to several in Africa will end soon, as they are supplemented by U.S. output. That, in turn, means oil demand may not strain the global market and, as it has in the past, press crude prices higher. The United States is about to change how the oil price game is played for decades to come. The International Energy Agency (IEA) issued its annual “Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR).” Its two most notable observations about the global oil markets: According to the MTOMR, the effects...

inder Morgan Energy Partners said this week it would spend $106 million to buy about 20 acres next to its Pasadena terminal, build nine new storage tanks and build a new barge dock that is expected to help relieve current barge congestion in the Houston Ship Channel. The land will be used for a future crude condensate and refined products terminal capable of handling 10 150,000-barrel tanks with a connection to the Explorer Pipeline. The new barge dock, which will complement existing infrastructure at the Pasadena terminal, will provide additional capacity to handle up to 50 barges per month. And...

A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says. Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The US will change from the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter. Demand for oil from Middle-East oil producers is set to slow as a result. "North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world," said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven....

To the federal government, ethanol only counts as a conventional biofuel if it is produced from switchgrass, corn starch or some other easily replenished materials. But Texas Rep. Pete Olson wants to change that. On Tuesday, the Houston-area Republican is introducing legislation that would allow ethanol produced from natural gas to compete with corn-based ethanol under the federal renewable fuels standard, an eight-year-old mandate that forces refiners to blend an increasing amount of alternatives into petroleum-based fuels. Technically, the measure would create a new “domestic alternative fuel” category under the RFS, under which the natural-gas based product would qualify. Olson...

The environmentalist activist community has a new Public Enemy No. 1: Keystone XL. That’s the proposed 1,200-mile pipeline linking Canadian oil fields to Texas refineries. The project is up for debate at the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology this week – the latest in what is now a four-year-long national debate on the project. The facts have become nearly smothered by the small but vocal opposition, but the fact is the Keystone XL pipeline offers a safe, efficient and affordable means of transporting the resources our nation needs. Block the Keystone XL pipeline and Americans are going...

For the naysayers who maintained that Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) wasn’t going to make it, with the Model S too expensive to be successful, here is a fact worth reflecting on: in the first quarter, Tesla outsold comparable cars from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi. Tesla moved 4,750 Model S units in the first fiscal quarter. Among the top three German luxury builders, the Mercedes S Class came in second with 3,077 units sold. BMW took third place with 2,338 7-Series sedans sold and Audi’s flagship A8 sold 1,462 cars, good for fourth place. There are are few things to consider when...

Crude oil exports anchor the energy trade between Mexico and the United States. In 2012 Mexico was the world's ninth largest oil producer. The value of crude oil exports from Mexico to the United States reached $35.7 billion in 2012, having more than doubled since 2004. However, Mexico's crude oil production and exports to the United States have both fallen, with exports down to 0.96 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2012 from 1.48 million bbl/d in 2004. Last year was the first time since 1994 that annual exports of Mexican crude oil to the United States fell below 1...

A leading venture capital firm gets taken to the clean energy cleaners. The story in the New York Times says Kleiner Perkins has been “humbled” by the past decade’s performance. That seems appropriate. The nation’s most famous venture capital firm had a stunning 35.7 percent annual rate of return in the decade of the 1990s. That was before they met Al Gore. Somewhere around the time Gore had won his Academy Award for warning the world about global warming, the former Vice President was hired on as a senior partner at KPCB. Fortune wrote an article describing Gore sitting in...

State, ConocoPhillips, ASRC join defense of permit for first NPR-A development - - - - Quite a legal battle is shaping up over the expansion of oil and gas development into Alaska’s western North Slope frontier. The conflict centers on a planned project known as Colville Delta 5. ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. has a federal permit to build and operate the CD-5 drill site inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Seven residents of Nuiqsut, a predominantly Inupiat Eskimo village a few miles southeast of CD-5, are suing in Anchorage federal court to invalidate the permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of...

Shale oil production could revolutionize global energy markets, reducing oil prices and bolstering the economy globally, but its impact will vary on a country-by-country basis. After witnessing the impact that the U.S. shale boom has had worldwide, PwC decided to examine how the development of shale oil worldwide might impact oil prices and the economy worldwide, said Adam Lyons, director of PwC and co-author of PwC's global report, "Shale Oil – the Next Energy Revolution". "Shale oil is on the same journey as shale gas," said Lyons, who discussed the study's findings at a World Affairs Council event on the...

Officials with the Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce and Houston Northwest Chamber, the city of Tomball, and the Klein and Spring school districts went to Virginia recently to serve up a little Texas hospitality to Exxon Mobil employees who will be relocating to the new campus in 2014 and 2015. An estimated 3,000 employees and their families attended the “Let’s Discover Houston Fair” in late April at the Exxon Mobil headquarters for Downstream Operations in Fairfax, Va., to learn about the communities, schools and the amenities in the Greater Houston area. “What Exxon Mobil put together to bring us...

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore referred to Canada’s oil and gas riches as a “resource curse” and said the Alberta oilsands add “to the reckless spewing of pollution into the Earth’s atmosphere as if it’s an open sewer.” Gore speaks as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his efforts to educate the world on climate change. This would be the same Al Gore who recently sold his cable TV network, Current, to al Jazeera for $500 million. Al Jazeera, of course, would be the same network owned by Qatar,...

Following up on last week’s piece detailing the reasons why the Shale oil and natural gas boom has taken place in Texas, but not in other states like California and New York, we’ve seen quite a bit of interesting, related news pieces over the last several days. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published a very informative op/ed in its Review & Outlook section, titled “A Tale of Two Oil States”, which made more detailed comparisons between the economic performance between Texas and California, and the ways in which each state’s policy decisions related to shale development have affected that...

Roy Spencer is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville who may be the world’s most important scientist. He has discovered scientific insights and theories that cast great doubt on global warming doctrine. That doctrine has always been dubious and is often defended by attacking the integrity of anyone who dares to raise questions. Spencer is a rare combination of a brilliant scientist and a brave soul willing to risk his livelihood and reputation by speaking plainly. The global warming promoters say we must scrap the world’s energy infrastructure in favor of green energy. They say that burning coal,...

Over the past five years, technology has improved the productivity of the typical oil or gas rig on America’s shale fields between 200 and 300 percent.

For a man with a carbon footprint the size of a dwarf planet, Al Gore takes the hypocrite's cake for his ignorant statement that there is "no such thing as ethical oil." He was in Canada this week to sell his new book, of course, so what better way to get media attention than to insult both the host country and one of its major resources? If you want to know the name of his book, look it up. We're not going to shill for him, even if he is a former vice president of the United States as well...

If Republican leaders were to fully embrace a conservative reform agenda, it would address pressing national needs. It would position the GOP as forward looking, contemporary, and have appeal to swing voters. It would demonstrate a commitment to a brand of conservatism that is practical rather than narrowly ideological. And it contrasts well with today’s reactionary liberalism, by which I mean liberalism that opposes virtually every effort to reform institutions and programs that are sclerotic, outdated, and ineffective. .... There are five obvious areas for Republicans to focus on, beginning with entitlement reform ... A second area Republicans should focus...

Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum International have announced plans to build a $10 billion natural gas liquefication facility in the Gulf Coast port of Sabine Pass. The announcement comes as the two companies and the rest of the natural gas industry eagerly await permission from the U.S. government to begin exporting natural gas, which is cooled and liquefied before being shipped overseas.

The American Petroleum Institute urged the US Environmental Protection Agency to use a full Clean Air Act rulemaking process for its proposed Tier 3 rule instead of a rushed review process API says the agency is contemplating. The proposal to reduce gasoline sulfur limits and tailpipe emissions further is so controversial that it requires publication in the Federal Register, a comment period, and a properly scheduled public hearing, API Senior Downstream Policy Advisor Patrick Kelley told reporters in a May 7 teleconference. “Respecting the statutory rulemaking process in this case is particularly important because the proposal is hard to justify...

Historically, standard futures contracts for heating oil allowed for delivery of product with sulfur content up to 2,000 parts per million (0.2%). Beginning with the May 1, 2013 contract, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) switched its specification for the heating oil futures contract to the ultra-low sulfur diesel specification (ULSD). The ULSD contract is a distillate that contains less than 15 parts per million (ppm) of sulfur, the same specification used for most diesel fuel. Many states in the Northeast require the switch over the next several years (see chart) to lower sulfur heating oil. Switching the contract to...

The Three Affiliated Tribes have broken ground for a $450 million oil refinery on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in northwestern North Dakota The Thunder Butte Petroleum Services Refinery will be constructed in four phases over two years. A ceremonial groundbreaking was held Wednesday, after more than a decade of planning, according to The Forum and the Minot Daily News. Construction is expected to begin in August. “We grew up poor. We were lucky if we had a pair of clean overalls,” Tribal Chairman Tex Hall said. “But our parents made sure we went to school and got educated. They...

Leading oil industry groups said Thursday federal land managers are blocking new energy development and job creation by postponing all oil and gas lease auctions on prime public lands in California until October. Officials with the American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s recent announcement that it will temporarily put off energy leasing in the state will prevent economic growth. “We now know that California holds a vast amount of oil and natural gas resources, especially in the Monterey Shale located in the central part of the...