Fossil fuels

April 16, 2008 -- If winter is the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” as the popular song implies, it may not be too much of a surprise that gasoline consumers find the spring and summer anything but wonderful, when it comes to prices. This year’s upcoming spring and summer are expected to see retail gasoline prices rise even further from current high levels.

Seasonal increases in gasoline demand    » read more »

Where Have All the Drivers Gone?

Does it seem like there are fewer cars on the highway this year? The recent trend in motor gasoline consumption would appear to indicate so. Gasoline consumption has been declining for at least six months. Households may be thinking twice about jumping in the family car as a slowing economy and rising prices are stressing pocketbooks from Maine to Hawaii.    » read more »

Winter Fuels Wrap-Up

April 2, 2008 - Despite what may have appeared as a harsh winter in some regions, actual temperatures across the Nation remained close to normal over most of the 2007-08 winter heating season. The variation in temperatures over portions of the key heating regions in the Midwest and East Coast, with some periods of mild weather and others of more severe weather, contributed to moderate overall heating fuels demand last winter.

Gas pump nozzle: Photo by Brian Herbst (CC)

In contrast, past winters have shown that prolonged periods of extremely cold temperatures often caused significant supply disruptions.    » read more »

Washington, D.C.—Oil prices have skyrocketed despite the fact that world oil demand grew just 1 percent in 2007, according to the latest Vital Sign Update from the Worldwatch Institute. Contrary to published reports, the new era of $100-plus oil is not caused by soaring demand for the energy source, but by inadequate global supply.

Oil prices nearly doubled during 2007, from just above $50 a barrel in January to nearly $100 at year's end. Meanwhile, world crude oil production actually fell from 73.8 million barrels per day in 2005 to 73.2 million barrels per day in the first 10 months of 2007.    » read more »

Bait and Switch

Many drivers in the U.S. who chose diesel-fueled vehicles over gasoline-fueled ones may have done so for the expected savings from higher fuel economy and historically lower prices per gallon, especially during the summer driving season. However, diesel is currently selling at about a 70-cent premium to gasoline at the retail pump, and that has consumers scratching their heads.    » read more »

Heating Fuels Prices At Record Levels

With crude oil prices over $100 per barrel and cold weather in many parts of the country driving up demand, heating fuel prices have been setting new record highs. With residential prices from the beginning of winter to mid-March averaging $3.28 per gallon for heating oil and $2.46 per gallon for propane, and this week’s average heating oil price above $3.85, prices for the winter as a whole are likely to set a new nominal record.    » read more »

March 18, 2008, Juneau, Alaska – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today applauded the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission’s announcement that C. Michael “Mike” Smith has been selected as executive director. Smith will be responsible for providing advocacy, coordination, education and strategy to the IOGCC’s 30 member and eight associate states on key domestic energy issues.    » read more »

March 11, 2008 -- Under a new bill introduced today by Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, only coal plants using state-of-the-art technology will be able to move forward. The bill would ensure that all new coal plants address global warming pollution by capturing and storing at least 85% of their carbon dioxide emissions. The bill would also ensure that any new coal plants that do not capture and store their carbon will not be given free pollution allowances under any future global warming legislation.    » read more »

"The Long Run"

In 1979, the Eagles released “The Long Run”, an album whose title track includes the lyric “We’ll find out in the long run.” This week, EIA released revised long-run reference case energy projections which incorporate the estimated impact of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA2007) that was signed into law in December 2007.    » read more »

January 30, 2008 -- [Washington, D.C.] – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) along with Representatives Tim Johnson (R-IL), Jerry Costello (D-IL), Ray LaHood (R-IL), Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Danny Davis (D-IL) today sent the following letter to the President calling on him to move forward with the FutureGen program despite objections raised in yesterday’s meeting by Secretary of Energy, Samuel Bodman.    » read more »

January 29, 2008 -- CHICAGO – “The U.S. Secretary of Energy’s proposal to dismantle FutureGen is an example of politics at its worst. Secretary Samuel Bodman is not only jeopardizing the benefits FutureGen promises to deliver, but he deceived the people of East Central Illinois who spent time and resources competing for the project. We’re not giving up the fight to make FutureGen a reality in Illinois.    » read more »

Company to develop 70 wells in Nikaitchuq oil field

January 26, 2008, Juneau, Alaska – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today commended the major investment announced by Italian oil giant Eni. The company will invest $1.45 billion developing the Nikaitchuq oil field. Eni expects to drill 70 wells to recover 180 million barrels of oil.    » read more »

The Cost of Coming in from the Cold

It’s the middle of January, and the temperatures outside remain chilling. It’s the time of year when many people, especially in the Northeast, are relying on heating oil to keep the inside temperatures toasty. However, this year, using heating oil has been a costly proposition.    » read more »

23 January 2008 -- China is facing a serious power shortage, throughout the country, amid tight coal supplies.

It is a cold winter in most of China - an especially bad time for a power shortage.

One of the main reasons for the outages is that there is not enough coal in the country. Coal-fired power plants provided about 83 percent of China's electricity output in 2007.

Henry Li - an analyst with Hong Kong investment bank Core Pacific-Yamaichi - says the main problem is a shortage in coal, which is burned to create electricity.    » read more »

Washington (January 16, 2008) -- Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is on a trade mission to Washington, D.C., today where he is expected to seek American support for, and investment in, one of the dirtiest sources of unconventional fuels – the Canadian tar sands. Tar sands oil production generates almost three times the global warming emissions as conventional oil production, due to the massive amounts of energy needed to extract, upgrade and refine the oil.    » read more »