Ouch!

This might be very painful for commercial enterprises and consumers right across the planet - Oil price could hit $150 a barrel.

On the other hand it could go down by $30 a barrel.

Isn't 'could' a great word.
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Call for curb on speculators - The Guardian.

Fundamentals? Or financial flows?

As oil approaches the $100 per barrel marker, decide for yourself. As reported in the FT.

Not that long ago $80 a barrel was considered damaging for the world economy, yet here we are seeing the $100 barrel around the corner.

And yet some of the big boys are already profiteering. On my journey across the south coast last Sunday I spotted diesel offered at a lowest price of 98.9p/litre, more commonly something like 101.9 to 102.9p/litre, but some Texaco garages had it priced at a staggering 108.9p/litre. I hope the greedy bastards go bust! (Fat chance!)

The sad thing is that it will ALL be at that level before long. And guess who benefits the most? All that extra tax goes straight into the government's coffers. More cash for additional quangos, targets and surveys then?

Arctic ice cover hits new record low

A little while back there were several predictions that this year the annual summer melt would mean that the arctic ice cover would reach a new record low. This from the BBC on August 13th is one such report.

As of the 16th August, the ice cover had already retreated to what was its previous record minimum extent. See these dramatic images from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Now, as of the 22nd August, it is "currently tracking at 4.92 million square kilometers (1.89 million square miles), already below the 2005 record absolute minimum of 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles)"; and there are still perhaps 4 to 6 weeks of melting to go yet!

No wonder the Arctic gold (Oil) rush seems to have already begun!

And its getting so warm that the Innuit are now wandering around wearing T shirts and sandals! (As reported in today's Gruaniad)

How much petrol does the USA consume each day?

OK, so we all think ...... a lot, its probably the largest single consumer on the planet as far as nations go.

So how about as much as South Korea, South Africa, Taiwan, Spain, Venezuela, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Brazil combined?

Nope, nowhere near.

So what if we also add the consumption of France, Australia, Iran and Italy?

Nope, still nowhere near.

OK, so if we also add Britain, Mexico, Germany and Russia into the equation, we must be getting close?

Nope! Even if you add and Canada, China and Japan into the equation, you still don't get a cumulative figure that reaches the daily gas (petrol) consumption of the USA.

They say a picture paints a thousand words - but this is simply a jaw-dropper. Take a look at the graphic from Treehugger.

Gob-smacking!! As someone who invariably has an opinion on just about anything, as far as this goes I'm, well ......... simply speechless!!

Big Plastic. Big Oil. Big Recycle?

This, going around and coming around from the ever useful Red Ferret: Hawk 10 turns plastic back into oil - seagulls rejoice

What's not to like? Well, here's hoping they don't use the oil so gained to stick in the nearest Prius' fuel hole.

Assuming it's the ultimate in recycling, and unless I have missed a trick, there's the ocean of plastic my local council won't... yet... take, too.

Mind you, as a lot of my site is about turning them into other, equally useful things, do keep back a few. You never know when they may come in handy!

Alberta's 'Black Goo' Rush

We all knew that a great deal more R&D funding would be redirected into renewables as the price of crude oil stayed high, right? Well, not really ...... in fact, hardly at all.

Although some of the Big Oil players ARE looking at some renewable energy forms, and indeed, buying up the rights to quite a few patents in this field, the renewables R&D spend pales into insignificance in comparison to what is happening right now in the Canadian oil shale belt.

The extended high crude oil price has finally made Alberta's Black Goo commercially exploitable, and the cost to the planet is ........ even higher CO2 emissions!

"The industry already contributing to climate change more than any other is frantically turning up the heat. The process of refining bitumen emits three to four times the greenhouse gases produced by extracting oil from traditional wells, making the tar sands the largest single contributor to Canada's growth in greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, the industry plans to more than triple production by 2020, with no end in sight. If prices stay high, it will soon become profitable to extract an additional 141 billion barrels from the tar sand, which would place the largest oil reserves in the world in Alberta."

For a depressing read see the full article by Naomi Klein at Rabble News. The black goo rush was recently described by the FT as "north America's biggest resources boom since the Klondike gold rush"

All in all a bit of a one-sided match: Renewable Energies 0 - Big Oil 6

And the winner of the prize for the newest destructive eco-disaster is .......... Northern Alberta.

Vivoleum - made for the people by the people.

Ashes to ashes? Perhaps that should be Oil to Oil?

This is absolutely hilarious – it has to be one of the best stunts ever pulled on the Big Oil fraternity. See Daily Kos - Vivoleum .

It does, however, have some potentially serious undertones – they couldn’t really be thinking of making a replacement fuel out of human carcasses ……… could they?

Shades of Soylent Green ….. but this time as a fuel rather than as feedstuff?

The curse of Junkk

There was a time when I pretty much jogged along, did what I did, tried, a la Google, 'to do no harm', and accepted pretty much all that those who knew better - government, teachers, doctors, police... media - served up almost without thinking.

That has now rather drastically changed, so when I see such as this I really can't resist a scope and a ponder. And, often, get moved to put RSI-riddled wrist to keyboard rest. Which is a curse, because throughout the day I seem to do it a lot.

Take this: World oil supplies are set to run out faster than expected, warn scientists

My first thought was 'So what?', and the second was 'What scientists?'. Well, let's look at the second first.

First up, it seems this headline has taken a rebuttal by group of scientists to one from another group, which seem to be saying there's a bit of it still sloshing about. This is shaping up like a climate change debate, and we know by now where those get us.

To my very simplistic 'So what?' the kicker is at the end. Of course, if it's the stuff we are addicted to and messing the place up, then having no more to play with would seem to sort out the problem... er.. wouldn't it?

Well, as this clearly shows... no.

And I am now cursed some more with trying to get my head around it all.