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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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