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Monday, October 3, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wholesale prices unchanged in August as drop in energy prices offsets costlier food
Companies paid the same amount for wholesale goods last month as a drop in energy prices offset higher food costs.Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core wholesale prices edged up 0.1 percent, the smallest increase in three months. The figures indicate that inflation pressures are easing.
The leveling off is good for cash-strapped consumers, Daco said, because it puts less pressure on businesses to raise their prices. That could increase consumers’ purchasing power.The Producer Price Index, which measures price changes before they reach the consumer, was unchanged in August, the Labor Department said Wednesday, after a 0.2 percent rise in July.In the past 12 months, the index has increased 6.5 percent, mostly due to higher gas and food costs. That’s the smallest 12-month rise...
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
More technical work needed to define SA’s shale gas framework
The exploitation of shale gas in South Africa could be a "game changer" for the gas sector, a senior Department of Energy (DoE) official said on Tuesday. But he also appealed for patience to allow a Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) task team to finalise its investigation into the issue of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and its appropriateness to the South African setting.A moratorium has been imposed on the issuance of exploration licences for unconventional gas in the arid Karoo region and in mid-August Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu extended the moratorium by a further six months to allow for further policy and technical reviews.Speaking at the fourth natural gas conference in Johannesburg, deputy director-general responsible for hydrocarbons and energy planning Tseliso...
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Council boasts 2012 outlook
Consol Energy Inc., an Appalachian coal and natural-gas producer, boosted its outlook for 2012 coal shipments after reporting profit rose 16 percent on higher demand.Net income climbed to $77.4 million, or 34 cents a share, from $66.7 million, or 29 cents, a year earlier, Pittsburgh- based Consol said today. The company was forecast to earn 72 cents, according to the mean of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales rose 23 percent to $1.59 billion.Consol, led by J. Brett Harvey, boosted its production forecast by 1 million tons to between 60.5 million and 62.5 million tons to capitalize on export demand for both thermal and metallurgical varieties of the fuel."Inventories are getting tight in the U.S., there's export demand," said Meredith Bandy, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets...
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
GOP fails to turn off light bulb standards
House Republicans on Tuesday failed to stop the enactment of new energy-saving standards for light bulbs they portrayed as yet another example of big government interfering in people’s lives.The GOP bill to overturn the standards set to go into effect next year fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. The vote was 233-193.For many Republicans, those newfangled curly fluorescent light bulbs were the last straw, pushed by an overreaching government that’s forcing people to buy health insurance, prodding them to get more fuel-efficient cars and sticking its nose into too many places.Their legislation would have kept the marketplace clear for the cheap, energy-wasting bulbs that have changed little since Thomas Edison invented...
Friday, July 8, 2011
Renewable energy tops nuclear power in the US
Plunging prices and booming investments are beginning to reshape the energy market, according to a couple of reports that were released this week. A report produced on behalf of Bloomberg says that investments in renewable energy have gone up by roughly a third over the last year, to $211 billion. Led by China's renewable push, the world is now on a trajectory that will see its investments in renewable electricity surpass those in fossil fuels within a year or two. As a result of these investments, the US is now producing more renewable energy than nuclear power.First, renewable investments. Bloomberg's New Energy Finance group has collaborated with the UN Environment Programme and the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management to produce...
Oil will hit $150 in U.S. despite IEA: Guild
Physical U.S. crude oil will average $150 a barrel this year due to the unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, despite the emergency oil stock release coordinated by International Energy Agency’s (IEA), a U.S. fund manager said.Monty Guild, the chief executive of Guild Investment Management, said the IEA’s move did not change oil’s fundamentals.“Our opinion continues to be oil prices will reach $150 barrels this year due to the fighting near Saudi Arabia,” Guild told Reuters in a telephone interview.He was referring to escalating violence in countries such as Syria and Yemen. These countries are very small producers but the market has been concerned about the spillover of the unrest to Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter.North African...
Abu Dhabi hosts Africa meeting on renewable energy
African governments should consider investing in renewable energies like wind, solar and hydro power to help feed the continent's growing energy demands and combat threats of climate change, the head of a new international energy agency said Friday.Adnan Amin also told nearly 30 African energy and foreign affairs ministers at the start of a two-day meeting that the key to ramping up renewable energy deployment was for countries to develop regulatory framework needed to convince institutional investors it's safe to put their money into these cutting edge technologies."If Africa continues to grow at pace it is growing and intensifies that growth and uses only carbon-emitting forms of energy, it will exponentially change the picture...
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Boulder Wind Power, NREL receive Energy Department grants
Boulder Wind Power, a Boulder-based company developing wind turbine generator technology, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden were two of six entities to receive a portion of nearly $7.5 million in grants from the Department of Energy to further “next-generation” turbine drivetrains, agency officials announced Monday.
Boulder Wind Power's project involves the testing of a magnet-based direct-drive generator for large turbines; NREL will test a hybrid design that involves both a single-stage gearbox and a magnet generator, Energy Department officials said.
Other organizations and companies to receive awards include Advanced Magnet Lab, of Palm Bay, Fla., to develop a superconducting direct-drive generator; Clipper...
Monday, June 27, 2011
Study: U.S. Cable Boxes/DVR's Fail at Energy Efficiency
The Natural Resources Defense Council has conducted a study that places the spotlight on how inefficient cable boxes and DVR's are in American homes.
These boxes, which guide cable signals and digital recording capacity into televisions, run at a constant rate and can utilize more power than a new refrigerator or air conditioning unit.
According to the study, there are 160 million set-top boxes in the U.S., and this number is increasing. These boxes run 24 hours per day, even when they're not being used. The study found that add-on DVR's use an additional 40 percent more power than the set-top box.
The Natural Resources Defense Council found that these boxes consume $3 billion in electricity per year in the U.S.,...
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Middle East's Push Toward Renewable Energy Spurred by Rising Oil Prices
There's a revolution sweeping the Middle East that has nothing to do with street uprisings or Twitter protests. It's a clean energy upheaval with international implications that could transform the Arab world from North Africa to the Persian Gulf.
Solar plants are cropping up in Jordan and Morocco. Wind farms are being built in Egypt and Tunisia. Eight Arab nations and the Palestinian territories have a renewable energy target, and at least five more are taking serious steps to promote the domestic use of clean energy. Some of the most surprising movement is happening in oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.Perhaps taking a page from Masdar, the famous carbon-zero city in the United Arab Emirates, these countries are spending their...
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Oklahoma tribe unveils solar energy project
An Anadarko-based American Indian tribe unveiled a solar energy project on Wednesday that tribal officials said would save it thousands of dollars and could lead to new jobs coming to southwestern Oklahoma.The construction of the 37.5-kilowatt solar array on the roof of the Delaware Nation's complex north of Anadarko will supply 30 percent of the complex's electricity, tribal President Kerry Holton said. The solar array should be finished by next month and a sign already hangs outside the headquarters building that reads "These buildings are powered by the sun."To pay for the project, the Delaware Nation received a $250,000 federal grant from stimulus funds and Holton said the tribe matched that amount. He said the tribe will recoup its costs...
