This post was up yesterday, but the discussion may have gotten confusing, because it was part of an open thread. I am putting the post back up, to facilitate discussion in a more organized manner. - Gail

Author's Note: Art Berman (aeberman) is an Oil Drum staff member and geological consultant whose specialties are subsurface petroleum geology, seismic interpretation, and database design and management. He has been interviewed on CNN and BNN about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. William Semple collaborated on this post. Mr. Semple is a drilling engineer and independent drilling consultant with 37 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. He worked for 16 years with a major oil company and has 24 years of experience as a drilling supervisor. He has been a guest contributor on The Oil Drum writing about the Deepwater Horizon (June 19, 2010).

A permanent solution to the BP Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico may be achieved soon but there are risks. Admiral Thad Allen announced on Monday, July 26 that a static top kill would be attempted on August 2. The schedule may be accelerated to July 31 or August 1 according to an announcement today (July 29). The sealing cap has successfully stopped the flow of oil and gas from the well and the pressure continues to build slowly. Temperature at the wellhead has not increased, and seeps near the well are mostly nitrogen and biogenic methane unrelated to leakage. BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells’ technical update on July 21 explained these findings and showed how the well will be killed.

There are risks involved in both the top and bottom kill procedures. The purpose of this post is to describe those risks. There are two risks associated with the static top kill. First, it may not work at all and second, it may rupture the casing by pumping heavy mud under pressure (“bull heading”).

Kent Wells described the static top kill as a process of continuously pumping mud into the well until the oil is pushed into the reservoir. This is clearly erroneous and must be a simplification designed for the general public. What will more probably take place is a practice called “bleed and lubricate”. Heavy mud is pumped into the well through the choke and kill lines on the blowout preventer (BOP) and allowed to sink to the bottom of the well. Hopefully, the mud will retard the flow so that some of the pressure can be bled off by producing oil to the surface for a short period. Then, more heavy mud will be pumped into the well, and the process repeated as necessary until the well contains enough mud to kill the well.

The first problem with stopping the flow from the top is that it has to be an annular kill: the flow was coming up the annulus outside the production casing. This is a very narrow space so mud will have to pumped at high pressure to achieve entry. It will initially be working against a full column of gas and oil and the shut-in pressure at the well head. On the positive side, if produced sand has accumulated in the annulus, the operation may not have to contend with the full force of the reservoir pressure in addition to these obstacles. On the negative side, the well head seals might prevent or restrict downward flow, or the pumping pressure could rupture the 22-inch casing, or reach a pressure high enough to call off the operation.

Figure 1a (based on a government document) shows that the upper part of the well bore is protected by three strings of casing (36-, 28-, and 22-inch) and cement down to 7,937 feet (measured depth below sea level). A fourth string of 16-inch casing extends nearly from the well head to where it is cemented at 11,585 feet, but it is apparently hung inside the 22-inch casing at 5,227 feet, leaving a gap of 160 feet. The 16-inch pipe has a burst rating approximately equal to the current shut-in pressure of 6,900 psi (80% of rating), but the 22-inch pipe does not meet this standard.

BP has said that the relief well DD3 plan will continue regardless of the success of the top kill operation. The main risk with a bottom kill is that it may take considerable time to accomplish. Because of the recent tropical storm, crews are just removing the storm packer today, and it will take time to re-enter and condition the hole before drilling resumes. BP estimate that the DD3 will intersect the Macondo well around August 10. Most efforts to intersect a blown-out wells require several attempts. The recent 2009 Montara blowout in the Timor Sea required four attempts that took a month after the relief well was near the blow out and cased. The bottom of the first Macondo relief well is currently located a few feet from the target at approximately 17,220 feet measured depth (based on Wells’ update and shown in Figure 1b).

The good news is that, in this case, the relief well does not, apparently, need to intersect the well exactly--it just needs to be close. Once the relief well penetrates the reservoir, enough mud can be pumped to hopefully overcome flowing pressure and kill the well. The bottom-kill option has the same annular flow path liabilities as the top kill, but it has the capacity to deliver higher flow rates directly to the reservoir. This approach will not cause significant pressuring near the well head and should not, therefore, pose a risk of rupturing the 22-inch casing.

The bottom kill option involves considerably less mechanical risk than the top kill, but time is the enemy, so the top kill makes sense. Maintaining the objectivity to abandon the operation rather than risk casing rupture will be critical.

The windows that allow significant work on the oil spill in the Gulf are likely to become rarer and more valuable opportunities as the hurricane season, forecast to be stronger than average, moves towards its mid-point. While the starting signals for a hurricane don’t begin by looking that ominous, and those initial signals don’t always grow into a significant threat, as Bonnie just demonstrated, the last thing that can be afforded in this disaster is complacency. And so, as plans are laid out for a methodical approach to sealing the Deepwater well, so we see two more possible threats appear on the horizon.

There is now a delay in both the relief well and the static kill because of some settlement in the relief well when work was temporarily halted for Bonnie. The Oil & Gas Journal write up says:

BP PLC is cleaning some debris from the bottom of the first relief well being drilled to intercept the Macondo well, and the “static kill” probably will be delayed until Aug. 3, National Incident Commander and retired US Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.

The static kill initially was planned for Aug. 2 although Allen had suggested it possibly could happen sooner than that depending upon how fast the Development Driller III semisubmersible could run its final casing. On July 30, Allen said cleaning out the debris would delay the static kill for 24-36 hr.

“Some of the sediment around the side walls just settled in on itself,” Allen said. “It’s not a huge problem, but it has to be removed before we put the casing down.”

There is now some curiosity on where all the supposedly spilled oil went (some of which might be explained by the ramp up in flow as the BOP eroded so that in the earlier stages of the disaster there might have been significantly less oil escaping into the Gulf than the flow levels seen at the time of the capping), but there is not a lot of new information. And so, with your indulgence, a little digression.

One of the reasons that I write is to help explain why things are being done the way that they are, and how technical processes now being used to produce fossil fuels came to happen. Early in my experience of doing this I discovered that you can really help ease a descriptive explanation by using the right illustration. As a result my classroom type lectures are now made up with many more illustrations than they are with word-intensive Power Point slides. Yet, to be honest, that knowledge came, in part, from the memories of my childhood, and my still fond recollections of reading historical fiction where, if I was lucky, the story would be illustrated with four or five illustrations of the action. (And it was the presence of those illustrations that often drove the selection of the books that I borrowed from the local library).

Many of these early stories were illustrated by N.C. Wyeth and it was his teacher, Howard Pyle, who noted that “Pictures are highly important for children, well worth a thousand words, especially if they don’t understand 800 of them. First graders know 6,000 words, adults 30,000 or more.” This remains true with older audiences where the technologies being discussed are a little arcane, where the artisans of this new era use words that are not in the common lexicon.

And so, having the chance at the end of the family vacation, today we dropped by the Brandywine River Museum, where for the second time in the last month we spent almost from opening to closing time, wandering around the galleries. (The other was the Peabody Essex in Salem, a more conventional museum and thus a totally different experience).

The Wyeths are a legend in American art, with the major focus being on Andrew and Jamie, and indeed the tour we lucked into joining and given by Andrew’s grand-daughter Victoria focused very much on those two with wonderful, and unique insights. (We went out to the Kuerner Farm that Andrew painted, and also up to the House and Studio that N.C. built; both of which were well worthwhile, and seeing the “backset” with some of the props held a fascination that could have used a lot more time than we had available).

Having stayed across the street in the Brandywine River Hotel, and eaten dinners at the two immediately local restaurants, we have had a really enjoyable break, and one that I would really recommend.

The art of illustration has, to a large extent, been lost over the last half-century even though there are programs such as Poser, Bryce and Vue; tools that folks such as I (who needs two rulers, a computer and a drawing table to create a straight line) can use to make our less mechanical ideas visual. (I use Strata for my mine models.)

It is no less critical now than it was in Howard Pyle and N.C.’s days that folk understand what the words are trying to say. Witness that Kent Wells uses illustrations and animations to help explain the complexities of the processes being planned at the Gulf.

Example of an illustration by Kent Wells, from the BP website.

Our family argue about ranking the members of the Wyeth family and their work, but the legacy of illustration that Howard Pyle and his students grew, and which N.C. Wyeth came to be a master of, brought his work and the pleasure of viewing it to more folk than I suspect have been influenced by his later family. Wyeth and the critics of his time downplayed the role of the illustrator, but it is an honorable and indeed vital need that we, who communicate information, have and make use of.

Sadly I don’t think that nearly enough technical teams across the board of technical application take the trouble to phrase their talks with illustrations, so that those outside of the “select few” that are masters of the technical terms can follow the discussion. And yet I should admit, on the other side there are also those who can present, with a suitably generated illustration a promise of a technical future that is not really born out by the technical details of the technology that is being sold.

But illustration can be a great help to imagination, and so I take my hat off to the masters who made it so, and if you’re in the neighborhood . . . . .

JPMorgan Cuts Forecasts on 2010, 2011 New York Oil Prices as Demand Slows

JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered by 5.5 percent its forecast for New York oil prices this year on speculation a slowdown in global economies will limit crude’s potential to rise.

The bank cut to $77.25 a barrel its estimate for the average price of West Texas Intermediate crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange during the rest of 2010, from a forecast of $81.75 a barrel made last month, according to a monthly report e-mailed today. It lowered its forecast for 2011’s average price to $79.25 a barrel from $90.

Crude Oil May Fall as U.S. Inventories, OPEC Output Increase, Survey Shows

Crude oil may fall next week amid increases in U.S. oil supplies and OPEC production, a Bloomberg News survey showed.

Fifteen of 36 analysts, or 42 percent, forecast crude oil will decline through Aug. 6. Twelve respondents, or 33 percent, predicted that futures will rise, and nine, or 25 percent, forecast prices would be little changed.

Motorists can expect fairly steady pump prices

Motorists heading out on vacation in the next month should expect gasoline prices to remain fairly constant, give or take a few cents.

Although gasoline demand has been slightly stronger in the past month, ample supplies have kept prices below $3 a gallon. It's trend that should extend to Labor Day, unless a hurricane shuts down oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

North Dakota Passes Oklahoma in Drilling Rigs as Baker Hughes Count Rises

North Dakota overtook Oklahoma this week as the third-most active state in drilling for oil and natural gas, according to data published by Baker Hughes Inc.

The number of North Dakota rigs exploring for and producing oil and gas jumped by two to 128, Baker Hughes said. Oklahoma fell by nine to 123, the biggest drop among the states. Oklahoma is home to the oil delivery hub for the U.S. Midcontinent.

China invests 40 billion dollars in Iran oil, gas

TEHERAN — Iran’s main economic partner China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the Islamic republic’s oil and gas sector, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday.

Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Noqrehkar Shirazi also said that Teheran’s oil exports to China fell by 30 percent in the first six months of 2010 compared with the corresponding period last year.

Exxon, BP, Imperial Oil Form Exploration Venture for Canada's Beaufort Sea

Imperial Oil Ltd., Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc formed a joint venture to explore for oil and natural gas in Canada’s Beaufort Sea.

Mexico Pemex Aims To Boost Investment In Coming Years-Official

MEXICO CITY (Dow Jones)--Mexico's state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, wants more capital expenditure money for 2012 as it seeks to control declining production at offshore deposits, squeeze more crude out of new and mature onshore fields, and move forward with plans to dip into the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico despite the BP oil spill, officials said Friday.

Chevron-Ecuador verdict unlikely until 2011 -judge

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A verdict in a multibillion-dollar trial against Chevron Corp in Ecuador over rain forest pollution looks unlikely to be reached until 2011, according to the new judge on the case.

Responding to a request from the international arbitration tribunal to which Chevron appealed last year, the judge in the case estimated his verdict would not be reached for another eight to ten months.

Government logs show delays in report of Michigan oil spill

What did Enbridge Energy Partners know about crude oil spilling from a ruptured pipe in west Michigan?

And when did the energy company -- and its Canadian parent, Enbridge Inc. -- realize it had a potential disaster seeping into the Kalamazoo River?

Investigation into oil spill cause begins

As cleanup efforts on Friday appeared to contain the spread of the Kalamazoo River oil spill, parallel efforts ramped up toward pinpointing a cause for the crisis -- an answer that could take up to 18 months to find.

BP's `Kill' Start May Be Delayed Due to Storm Debris

BP Plc’s next attempt to more fully seal its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico was delayed by a day so the company can remove debris from a relief well.

The “static kill” procedure, in which mud will be pumped into the well, may start Aug. 3 rather than Aug. 2, National Incident Commander Thad Allen told reporters on a call yesterday.

Many Gulf of Mexico oil rig relocation decisions have yet to be made

As rigs have gone idle, the contractors have been hit by a blizzard of force majeure notices from the oil companies invoking clauses in their contracts that give them an out if work is delayed by an unforeseen event. This appears to be a novel application of force majeure, which is more typically invoked in the case of a natural disaster, and the contractors are resisting, leading to ongoing discussions as the parties try to hammer out deals or agree to standby day rates far lower than the usual average of $400,000 a day.

Scientists point to better way to safer drilling: An editorial

The Obama administration has insisted that its blanket moratorium on deepwater drilling is unavoidable to prevent another spill and ensure drilling is safe before it resumes.

But scientists and disaster experts investigating the Deepwater Horizon explosion are advocating for better alternatives to the broad ban -- and the administration ought to listen and end the moratorium's economic choke hold on our region.

U.S. May Widen Range in BP Oil-Spill Estimate, Scientist Says

(Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration, which plans within a few days to announce a new determination for how much oil BP Plc’s leaking Gulf of Mexico well was spewing, may widen the range of its estimate because of difficulties assessing the flow, said a scientist involved in the research.

“There’s just a lot of uncertainty because there was no monitoring system put in place,” said Ira Leifer, a University of California, Santa Barbara researcher and a member of panel of scientists consulting the U.S. Energy Department on the spill.

BP May Sell Its German Gas Stations for $2.6 Billion, Wirtschaftwoche Says

BP Plc wants to sell its German gas station unit Aral to finance expenses related to the Gulf of Mexico disaster, Wirtschaftswoche reported, citing unidentified bankers involved in the sale.

Aral, Germany’s biggest chain of gas stations, is valued at more than 2 billion euros ($2.61 billion), the bankers said, according to an e-mailed preview of the magazine report, to be published Aug. 2.

Oil Spill Officials Shift to Long-Term Concerns

NEW ORLEANS — Officials in charge of the oil spill response in the gulf region say they are beginning to shift their efforts to a new phase, focusing more on long-term recovery now that some of the urgent demands of the spill are diminishing.

US Gulf Coast states push for offshore oil revenues

NEW ORLEANS, La. (Reuters) - BP Plc's massive oil spill has given Gulf Coast lawmakers leverage to push for a larger share of the billions of dollars in royalties that oil companies pay to drill in U.S. waters.

As a part of 2006 energy legislation, lawmakers like Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu secured a deal to direct a 37.5 percent share of U.S. offshore royalties to coastal states starting in 2017. The provision would net $650 million a year to Louisiana alone, with smaller amounts flowing to Alabama and Mississippi.

House approves oil spill reform bill

(Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Friday approved the toughest reforms ever to offshore energy drilling practices, as Democrats narrowly pushed through an election-year response to BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Passing the bill as the House leaves for its six-week recess gives lawmakers the opportunity to return home boasting they reined in Big Oil and held BP responsible for the worst offshore oil disaster in U.S. history.

Open season for Alaska gas pipeline closes Friday

Alaskans should know by the end of Friday whether natural gas producers have any interest in building a major pipeline in the state. But few other details will likely be released when TransCanada Corp. officially ends its 90-day process of seeking shipping commitments for its proposed line.

"If there are no bids, we will be able to say so very quickly," said Tony Palmer, TransCanada's vice president of Alaska development. Otherwise, "it will be generic in nature, as opposed to specific," he said.

North Dakota group worries about pipeline steel

A North Dakota environmental group wants government regulators to investigate whether a Canadian company used faulty steel in the construction of a pipeline that moves crude oil from Canada through six states.

Dickinson-based Dakota Resource Council says TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone pipeline used steel from a supplier that has had problems with steel in other pipelines.

Nuclear Power Games

Saudi Arabia wants to go nuclear. Like many developing nations, the kingdom has seen its electricity demand soar in recent years—more than 8 percent annually—and is actively searching for alternatives to fossil fuels. Enter nuclear power: last month Saudi Arabia announced a joint initiative with Japan’s Toshiba and American firms the Shaw Group and Exelon to build and operate at least two nuclear power plants in the country. This comes on the heels of the establishment in April of the King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Energy, an organization to manage future energy sources.

Of course, Saudi Arabia’s hardly alone in the Middle East in its desire for nuclear power. But unlike its poorer neighbors, it’s got the money to see its plans to fruition. However, the country’s legendary secrecy about its internal workings has some analysts worried about its nuclear ambitions. Unlike, say, the United Arab Emirates—which is quite transparent about its own $40 billion nuclear-power program and has even signed a bilateral agreement on nuclear cooperation with the U.S.—Saudi Arabia is unlikely to follow suit and show all its cards.

Richard Heinberg on 100 days of the BP gusher

As the 100 day anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf rolled around this week, WMNF's Kelly Benjamin spoke with Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and former advisor to the National Petroleum Council on Peak Oil and the ramifications of the BP tragedy. Benjamin asked Heinberg what should be learned from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in respect to the continued reliance on petroleum as the chief energy source for the planet.

Merging onto electric avenue

“The early market is driven by enthusiasts who have very strong feelings about technology,” says Tom Turrentine, the director of the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California, Davis. “A lot of the buyers are like people who buy iPads,” But research by his institute shows the next wave of buyers ranges from casual and hard-core classic environmentalists to people worried about air quality, from peak oil advocates to citizens concerned about the military and economic security of the United States. At this point, he says, a lack of knowledge about electric vehicles may be the greatest roadblock to their success.

The New Knowledge-based Age needs new Thinkers and Visionary Leaders, not the Occupants of the Dead Palaces

The prosperity fantasy bubble is fast approaching to an end with the peak oil forecasts as a visual reality in- waiting. Power, prosperity and poverty are all trials in human affairs and transitory phenomenon. Was the discovery of oil a conspiracy (“fitna”) for the Arabs to change the originality of their thinking, beliefs, values and passion for Islam as successful system of human life?

Transition Lake County get-acquainted potluck planned for Aug. 3 (Northern California)

LAKE COUNTY – Transition Lake County invites interested individuals and families to their get-acquainted barbecue and potluck at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 3.

The gathering will be held in the little park behind the Kelseyville Senior Center on Third Street, just south of Main in Kelseyville.

Official: More than 800 dead in Pakistani floods

NOWSHERA, Pakistan — Flooding in Pakistan has killed more than 800 people in a week, a government official said Saturday as rescuers struggled to reach marooned victims and some evacuees showed signs of fever, diarrhea and other waterborne diseases.

The flooding caused by record-breaking rainfalls caused massive destruction in the past week, especially in the northwest province, where officials said it was the worst deluge since 1929. The U.N. estimated Saturday that some 1 million people nationwide were affected by the disaster, though it didn't specify exactly what that meant.

How Prospects Cooled for U.S. Global Warming Bill

For advocates of action on climate change, it seems like a long time since the hopeful first days of the Obama administration.

Global warming blamed for extreme weather

Meteorological experts have blamed global warming for this year's extreme weather in the country, which continues to be hit by persistent heat waves and floods.

China has recorded 6.4 days of hot whether, 1.9 days more than previous years on average.

Moreover, satellite-monitoring data on July 25 showed the surface temperature in some regions of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang had reached 45 degrees C.

Meanwhile, storms and floods have hit 28 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities since March, resulting in 968 deaths and 507 missing people, with the total economic loss estimated at 181 billion yuan (US$27 billion), according to the latest information released by the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters on Thursday.

Greenland Ice Cap Melt Is Accelerating

A British research team studying the Greenland ice sheet has discovered evidence of a rapidly accelerating rate of melt.

Dr Alun Hubbard, leading a team from the universities of Swansea and Aberystwyth said the ice sheet in their region had lowered six metres in just a month.

The phenomenon is caused by surface melt, a vicious cycle in which melted ice brings about further thawing of the cap beneath it.

This thread is now being closed. Please comment on http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6795.

Author's Note: Art Berman (aeberman) is an Oil Drum staff member and geological consultant whose specialties are subsurface petroleum geology, seismic interpretation, and database design and management. He has been interviewed on CNN and BNN about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. William Semple collaborated on this post. Mr. Semple is a drilling engineer and independent drilling consultant with 37 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. He worked for 16 years with a major oil company and has 24 years of experience as a drilling supervisor. He has been a guest contributor on The Oil Drum writing about the Deepwater Horizon (June 19, 2010).

A permanent solution to the BP Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico may be achieved soon but there are risks. Admiral Thad Allen announced on Monday, July 26 that a static top kill would be attempted on August 2. The schedule may be accelerated to July 31 or August 1 according to an announcement today (July 29). The sealing cap has successfully stopped the flow of oil and gas from the well and the pressure continues to build slowly. Temperature at the wellhead has not increased, and seeps near the well are mostly nitrogen and biogenic methane unrelated to leakage. BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells’ technical update on July 21 explained these findings and showed how the well will be killed.

There are risks involved in both the top and bottom kill procedures. The purpose of this post is to describe those risks. There are two risks associated with the static top kill. First, it may not work at all and second, it may rupture the casing by pumping heavy mud under pressure (“bull heading”).

Kent Wells described the static top kill as a process of continuously pumping mud into the well until the oil is pushed into the reservoir. This is clearly erroneous and must be a simplification designed for the general public. What will more probably take place is a practice called “bleed and lubricate”. Heavy mud is pumped into the well through the choke and kill lines on the blowout preventer (BOP) and allowed to sink to the bottom of the well. Hopefully, the mud will retard the flow so that some of the pressure can be bled off by producing oil to the surface for a short period. Then, more heavy mud will be pumped into the well, and the process repeated as necessary until the well contains enough mud to kill the well.

The first problem with stopping the flow from the top is that it has to be an annular kill: the flow was coming up the annulus outside the production casing. This is a very narrow space so mud will have to pumped at high pressure to achieve entry. It will initially be working against a full column of gas and oil and the shut-in pressure at the well head. On the positive side, if produced sand has accumulated in the annulus, the operation may not have to contend with the full force of the reservoir pressure in addition to these obstacles. On the negative side, the well head seals might prevent or restrict downward flow, or the pumping pressure could rupture the 22-inch casing, or reach a pressure high enough to call off the operation.

Figure 1a (based on a government document) shows that the upper part of the well bore is protected by three strings of casing (36-, 28-, and 22-inch) and cement down to 7,937 feet (measured depth below sea level). A fourth string of 16-inch casing extends nearly from the well head to where it is cemented at 11,585 feet, but it is apparently hung inside the 22-inch casing at 5,227 feet, leaving a gap of 160 feet. The 16-inch pipe has a burst rating approximately equal to the current shut-in pressure of 6,900 psi (80% of rating), but the 22-inch pipe does not meet this standard.

BP has said that the relief well DD3 plan will continue regardless of the success of the top kill operation. The main risk with a bottom kill is that it may take considerable time to accomplish. Because of the recent tropical storm, crews are just removing the storm packer today, and it will take time to re-enter and condition the hole before drilling resumes. BP estimate that the DD3 will intersect the Macondo well around August 10. Most efforts to intersect a blown-out wells require several attempts. The recent 2009 Montara blowout in the Timor Sea required four attempts that took a month after the relief well was near the blow out and cased. The bottom of the first Macondo relief well is currently located a few feet from the target at approximately 17,220 feet measured depth (based on Wells’ update and shown in Figure 1b).

The good news is that, in this case, the relief well does not, apparently, need to intersect the well exactly--it just needs to be close. Once the relief well penetrates the reservoir, enough mud can be pumped to hopefully overcome flowing pressure and kill the well. The bottom-kill option has the same annular flow path liabilities as the top kill, but it has the capacity to deliver higher flow rates directly to the reservoir. This approach will not cause significant pressuring near the well head and should not, therefore, pose a risk of rupturing the 22-inch casing.

The bottom kill option involves considerably less mechanical risk than the top kill, but time is the enemy, so the top kill makes sense. Maintaining the objectivity to abandon the operation rather than risk casing rupture will be critical.

This is a guest post by Gregor MacDonald. Gregor is an oil analyst and energy sector investor, who, in his words, "also focuses on the coming transition to alternatives". This post was previously published on Gregor.us.

Left unaddressed during the past 3 years in most of the debates between economists has been the problem of energy. The reason is simple: post-war economists don’t do energy, except as an ever-expanding resource that the credit system and technology makes available. For the post-war economist, the supply curve of energy–save for brief lags–is always coming back into rough equilibrium with the economy.

Accordingly, the ongoing dispute between Keynesians and Austrians (or Austerians if you like) is exceedingly boring in this regard. As late as 2008, for example, economist Paul Krugman was at least an infrastructure-and-engineering Keynesian. However, Paul quickly converted to becoming just a throw lots of money at the existing system Keynesian. The hollow nature of Krugman’s debate with Niall Ferguson meanwhile comes via their shared belief that the system will self-organize, if you follow their respective prescriptions. They are indeed the inheritors of Adam Smith.

However, neither allowing the economy to deflate further from here via austerity, nor throwing more debt-marked stimulus will solve the present day problem. For the United States, along with the rest of the developed world, has reached a boundary in energy.

Only an economist could wonder in their leisure now, whether energy played a significant role in our current crisis. Indeed the public remarks of Ben Bernanke on the matter of energy, during the 2005-2010 period, were at least as clueless as his embarrassing commentary on the historic bubble in housing and credit. As the nation’s chief economist, Bernanke saw no problem with credit, with derivatives, with the fast inflation in housing prices, or with energy prices. And as an American economist, he was not alone.

As state’s see their budgets collapse and start a new round of layoffs, we should consider the fact that house price inflation masked the lack of wage growth in the United States. And now that house prices continue their descent for a 5th year, American workers are more fully exposed to the decade-long march higher in energy costs. They can experience this individually through energy prices, or more generally through the overall energy cost to the economy. Hence, the chart above.

Unlike many who were either shocked or angered at the ridiculous paper released by Richmond Fed Economist Kartik Athreya, Economics is Hard, I was delighted. For, the paper confirms that at the Federal Reserve, just as in the post-war economics profession, competency has been replaced with authority. Indeed, this was in fact Athreya’s central point: that only a PhD in economics conferred the proper access to discuss economic issues. The most beautiful rebuttal came from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who made a point dear to me and one that I have made for years: economics is a social science, not a science. In other words, economists are working down here, alongside the rest of us humanists. History, literature, psychology, and anthropology to mention a few disciplines are all equally competitive fields of knowledge to understand the system of behavior known as an economy. Accordingly, it behooves post-war economists to dislodge themselves of the view that their discipline neatly explains energy and energy supply. Lose the attitude. The problem of energy limits awaits you.

-Gregor

Chart: United States Energy Expenditure as a Percent of GDP 1999-2008. Data used is the latest available. GDP series comes from the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. Energy Expenditure data comes via EIA Washington’s SEDS series, for all states and also the country as a whole. I put these two data series together on my own, but, checked it against EIA Washington’s own calculation of Total Energy Expenditures vs GDP. 2009 is not omitted from the chart by choice, but rather, because expenditure data is not easily available yet for that year. Background photo is of a rooftop sculpture by Antony Gormley from his project Event Horizon, which was displayed in both London and New York.

ANALYSIS-Russian oil output yet to peak, say drillers

(Reuters) - Global oil servicing firms are seeing strong growth in Russia as companies order advanced technology for depleted West Siberian fields in a move that may allow Russian output to grow further from current peak levels.

Russian oil output has grown by 70 percent since 1999 to exceed 10 million barrels per day and become the world's largest. It has defied repeated predictions it would fall as depletion of West Siberian fields outpaces production growth in East Siberia.

But oil servicing firms say the quest for the best equipment and technology may allow Russia to achieve even its ambitious targets to produce as much as 10.7 million bpd by 2030 if Arctic and offshore Caspian Sea fields are also put on stream.

Why We'll See $300 Oil by 2020

For decades, the theory of peak oil—or the idea that the world either has or will soon exhaust its ability to produce more oil—was derided as a doomsday scenario too unbelievable to ever come to pass. But $147 oil and one commodity crash later, and suddenly peak oil doesn't sound so strange after all.

In fact, mounting scientific evidence suggests that peak oil will not only be a reality, but may soon be upon us, says Charles Maxwell, senior energy analyst for Weeden & Co.

Scientists: BP dispersants have made spill more toxic

Amid growing concern about the use of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, a group of scientists working for law firms suing BP says their testing indicates that the dispersants being used to break up the oil are making this spill even more toxic to marine life.

U.S. Justice Staff Said to Urge Subpoenas for BP Managers

U.S. Justice Department attorneys conducting a criminal probe of the BP Plc well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico have recommended that a grand jury be convened and BP managers subpoenaed to determine if any laws were broken, a person familiar with the investigation said.

Niger Delta Militants Threaten to Resume Attacks on Oil Facilities

Nigeria's main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), is threatening to resume attacks on oil facilities in two weeks unless there is more progress in tackling the region’s problems. A spokesman for the group blames what he calls government inaction.

Venezuela approves Orinoco oil joint ventures

Reuters) - Venezuela has formally approved the creation of three joint ventures with foreign energy companies in the next step towards developing the OPEC nation's vast Orinoco extra heavy crude belt.

The Latin American country signed deals with several companies in February to exploit the reserves in the region, which are seen as some of the biggest deposits in the world.

Sri Lanka: Where there’s oil – There’s turmoil

We are almost certainly on the threshold of a new era of economic development and international diplomacy ushered in by the imminent discovery of oil. Drilling is due to start in the Mannar Basin next January. This opens before us exciting prospects of economic prosperity as well as daunting challenges posed by players in the arena of global political and diplomatic relations.

Mexico arrests Pemex oil official in bribery case

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police have arrested an official at state oil monopoly Pemex on suspicion of trying to sell an exploration contract for around $19,000, the attorney general's office said on Thursday.

Kabul rioters burn SUVs, yell 'Death to America'

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan police fired shots on Friday to disperse hundreds of people protesting the deaths of civilians in an accident involving a U.S. Embassy vehicle, officials said.

A crowd of angry Afghans shouted "Death to America," hurled stones and set fire to two SUVs after the crash on a road leading to Kabul's airport, according to the capital's criminal investigations chief, Abdul Ghaafar Sayedzada.

A NATO official told AFP the vehicles involved in the crash belonged to the U.S. Embassy.

Greek gas pumps dry despite strike order

Serious fuel shortages persisted in Greece on Thursday, hurting businesses and the country's tourism industry, after an emergency order to force striking truckers back to work was stalled by red tape.

Large coal reserve base to be built in Wuhan

(China Knowledge) - Henan-based China Zhong Ping Energy Chemical Group Co will team up with the Wuhan municipal government to build a large coal reserve base in the city, according to a statement published on the website of the Department of the Commerce of Hubei Province.

China's Nuclear Power Building Boom

The demand for emission-free nuclear electricity in China is growing as quickly as its megacities and middle-class. Some analysts estimate that China will need to build as many as 300 new nuclear power plants by 2050 -- a nuclear building boom so ambitious that it threatens to tax the world's supply of uranium to its limits. China currently has 17 nuclear reactors under construction or in the planning stages and 11 in operation. For comparison, the United States depends on 104 active reactors to provide about 20 percent of nation's electricity.

Steve LeVine: How long will the Chinese put up with coal?

Woodmac's report concludes that China's appetite for LNG will swell for the next decade, requiring the gas equivalent of 380,000 barrels a day of oil imports, but that this demand will be cut in half in the 2020s. Why? Woodmac doesn't say China will give up on gas, but rather that it's going to develop its own domestic resources -- specifically shale gas, using hydro-fracturing technology invented in the United States. In this scenario, China's gas supplants its use of industrial oil, but not too much coal, which will continue to be far and away the fuel of choice for the production of electricity.

GM to boost Chevy Volt production

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors announced Friday that the automaker has raised its planned production of the Chevrolet Volt electric car to 45,000 in 2012.

Originally the automaker planned to produce 30,000 Volts in its second year of production.

Gazing at the globe through a glass half full

I’m settling into my summer reading: I’ve read Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist and I’ve now moved on to a note just out from Baillie Gifford called Rational Optimism.

I found myself rather taken by Ridley’s book – largely because I think I might be something of an optimist myself. I’m mildly concerned about peak oil. But I also think it pretty likely that any long-term crisis over a shortage of fossil fuels will be thwarted by something along the lines of Ridley’s “vast solar power farms” in Algeria and some “pebble-bed passive safe modular nuclear reactors”. As my husband mutters every time an oil doomster comes to dinner, the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones.

Industrial Graft-Vs-Host Disease and the Throw-Away Economy

It has been noted among many Peak Oil advocates that in the future, as the cost of a) producing consumer goods, b) shipping them from the other side of the planet, or c) both, rise with the price of oil, people will turn repeatedly to repairing that which they already own.

Unfortunately, when it comes to many (most?) of the small consumer items we take for granted, this may be somewhat wishful thinking.

How Can We Reduce Oil Consumption & Still Ship Goods and Ourselves Around the Globe?

Two things which I think are worth keeping front and center when discussing how we wean ourselves off our petroleum addiction: Travel between nations is good; trade between nations is good. It's easy to point out specific incidences where less-than-savory outcomes resulted from trade and travel, but on the whole both are beneficial for human culture. What we need to address is how are we going to move our goods and ourselves around in less energy intensive ways, so that both are less harmful to the planet (and therefore ourselves).

Trapped in an age of false plenty

In the 1920s, in southern US states like California and Florida, it wasn't uncommon to see solar water heaters on the roofs of homes. Not that there were a lot of people eager to be green back then, it was simply an inexpensive way to heat water.

Then natural gas wells were drilled, and pipes were laid, and new homes were built with the pipes running right up into the hot water heaters. And the rooftop water heaters vanished.

Why?

Because natural gas was cheaper? Of course not. How could anything you pay for be cheaper than free sunlight? But natural gas was more efficient, and it didn't require home builders to put up the rooftop heaters, and roofs probably looked a bit prettier without pipes running across them.

The watermelon party

Two years ago as the world's economy collapsed, The Economist devoted an entire issue to the idea of so-called steady state economics.

The issue featured two academics who were already stars of the environmental movement, Tim Jackson and Herman Daly.

First results from Transition Together evaluation

‘Transition Together’, the street-by-street behaviour change programme developed by Transition Town Totnes and now being piloted in 10 other communities, has just completed analysing the data that has come back from the first 4 groups, comprising 32 households in Totnes. They have completed all 7 of the sessions set out in the workbook, and the data offers a fascinating first look at whether the process works or not. The results from the other 31 groups currently underway are expected this Autumn. Here, Fiona Ward of Transition Together shares the results that have emerged.

Unnatural Science

Clearly I’ve been out of some loop for too long, but does everyone take for granted now that science sites are where graduate students, researchers, doctors and the “skeptical community” go not to interpret data or review experiments but to chip off one-liners, promote their books and jeer at smokers, fat people and churchgoers? And can anyone who still enjoys this class-inflected bloodsport tell me why it has to happen under the banner of science?

Hammering away at an ideology, substituting stridency for contemplation, pummeling its enemies in absentia: ScienceBlogs has become Fox News for the religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are 12 Times Support for Renewables, Study Shows

Global subsidies for fossil fuels dwarf support given to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and biofuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.

Governments last year gave $43 billion to $46 billion of support to renewable energy through tax credits, guaranteed electricity prices known as feed-in tariffs and alternative energy credits, the London-based research group said today in a statement. That compares with the $557 billion that the International Energy Agency last month said was spent to subsidize fossil fuels in 2008.

“One of the reasons the clean energy sector is starved of funding is because mainstream investors worry that renewable energy only works with direct government support,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of New Energy Finance. “This analysis shows that the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is around ten times the subsidy for renewables.”

Disguised Blessing

Oil is nobody's poster child at the moment, what with the spill off China's Dalian port an aching reminder of the much larger calamity on the U.S. Gulf coast and persistent fouling of places like Nigeria. This can be a dirty business, even before the fossil fuel is burned and we experience whatever the effects of that are.

Yet there is good news on the oil front--the gloomiest pricing scenario has not happened. Remember July 2008, when spot crude exceeded $140 a barrel? Serious people were contemplating a $200 level, and some in the "peak oil is here" camp--that's the theory that the world has already begun to exhaust its reserves and, thus taken by surprise, will enter a panicky price spiral--were talking $300. In fact, the spot price has barely touched $83 in 22 months.

Oil Falls, Poised for Weekly Decline, on Weaker Global Economic Concern

Oil fell in New York, poised for its biggest weekly decline in four, on concern that faltering global economic growth will curtail a recovery in fuel demand.

Crude pared yesterday’s 1.8 percent gain as Asian and European equities dropped before a report on U.S. gross domestic product. Oil has retreated 1.4 percent this week, its largest loss since the five days ended July 2. Prices may decline next week as U.S. inventories rise, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts.

British Gas warns of rise in energy bills

British Gas, major provider of gas and electricity to UK homes, has said energy bills may rise although it "will try to delay" the hike as long as it can.

The warning comes just as the company is being pressurised by consumer groups to cut energy bills, after it reported a 98 per cent rise in profits to £585m over last year.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Imports Rise as Floating Storage Wanes

Oil imports into the Gulf of Mexico region surged to a record last week as the profits from floating storage evaporated, pushing traders to unload their cargoes and forcing crude futures lower.

The price advantage for traders who buy oil and store it at sea for a month instead of delivering it immediately has shrunk 90 percent since May. Floating storage in the Gulf dropped 24 percent in the week ended July 23, Bloomberg data show.

Rosneft, Others May Deliver Gasoline to Iran

Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and Tatneft may begin delivering gasoline to Iran in a month, the head of the Iran Commission of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry said Thursday.

Talks are being held on a “working level” and the first delivery may take place in late August or September, Rajab Safarov said in an interview.

China Declares Sovereignty in Southern Sea as U.S. Seeks Role in Disputes

China declared its “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea and held naval drills in the waters, pushing back against a U.S. role in resolving disputes in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

“China has indisputable sovereignty of the South Sea and China has sufficient historical and legal backing” to underpin its claims, Geng Yansheng, a Ministry of Defense spokesman, told reporters at a military compound outside Beijing today. It opposes efforts to “internationalize” the issue and will resolve differences through “friendly negotiation,” he said.

Big Oil posts better profits on higher fuel prices

NEW YORK — The major oil companies continue to climb back from the recession, with higher fuel prices driving up earnings.

After setting record profits in 2008, the oil industry tanked last year as the global economic downturn induced a dramatic drop in oil and natural gas prices. On Thursday, Exxon Mobil Corp. said it earned $7.56 billion in the second quarter, its best result since the last three months of 2008. Royal Dutch Shell Group posted a 15 percent gain in net income. A day earlier, ConocoPhillips said net income nearly tripled in the April-June period.

Exxon Mobil, PetroChina In Talks On China Gas Project -Source

BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) is in talks with PetroChina Co. to jointly explore and develop an unconventional gas block in the resource-rich Ordos basin in north China, a person who has direct knowledge of the matter told Dow Jones Newswires.

A successful conclusion to the talks would mark the entry of another global energy major into China's huge but undeveloped shale or tight gas sector, which China hasn't been able to develop due to a lack of technical expertise.

Total Reports 72% Increase in Profit After Raising Production

Total SA, Europe’s third-biggest oil company, reported a 72 percent increase in second-quarter profit after projects started last year were ramped up.

Profit excluding changes in inventories and the value of a stake in Sanofi-Aventis SA rose to 2.96 billion euros ($3.9 billion) from 1.68 billion euros a year earlier, the Paris-based company said today in a statement. That beat the 2.65 billion- euro mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Sunoco Rebounds on Refining

Independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products, Sunoco Inc. reported significantly better-than-expected second quarter 2010 results, driven by steady earnings from most of its business segments. Earnings per share, excluding special items, came in at $1.31, outshining the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 74 cents. The reported quarter result was substantially ahead of the loss per share of 27 cents in the second quarter 2009.

Pair of Atlantic Weather Systems Have Low Chance of Becoming Depressions

Two weather systems over the Atlantic and southeastern Caribbean have a “low chance” of strengthening into depressions or tropical storms, the National Hurricane Center said.

Russia To Export 5.5 Million Tons Urals From Primorsk In Aug

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Russia plans to export 5.5 million metric tons, or around 1.3 million barrels a day, of Urals crude in August from its Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, which is lower than the 6 million tons planned for July, according to the loading program seen by Dow Jones Newswires Friday.

Formosa Oil Refinery Fire May Have Polluted Taiwan Fishery, Officials Say

A fire at Formosa Petrochemical Corp.’s residual processing unit this month may have polluted fishery near the plant, local government officials said.

Dead clams and fish have been found in an area of about 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) since the July 25 accident, said Lai Chien-sheng, a section chief at the agriculture department of Yunlin county, where the plant is located. “We’re probing the cause of the deaths,” he said by phone today.

Regulators Warned Company on Pipeline Corrosion

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — The company responsible for a massive oil spill here was warned in January by federal regulators about insufficient monitoring of corrosion on the pipeline that federal officials say leaked more than one million gallons of oil into a major waterway this week.

The owner of the pipeline, Enbridge Energy Partners, received several citations from federal regulators in recent years before the warning in January. Company officials said they had routinely tested the pipeline for corrosion.

Enbridge: Corrosion not clue in oil spill

Reports of corrosion on Enbridge Inc.'s local oil pipeline aren't necessarily clues to the cause of the company's possibly 1 million-gallon leak into the Kalamazoo River this week, Enbridge officials said Thursday.

The unseen damage of a leaking pipe

Thick, black oil covers patches of grass on Debbie Howard's property, which borders the Kalamazoo River for slightly more than a mile.

Flooding has brought oil from the river onto Howard's 60-acre property in Galesburg, next to the Fort Custer Recreation Area. The water receded but left a coat of oil in its wake, she said.

Report: Michigan ranks high in pipeline accidents

WASHINGTON -- Michigan is more familiar than most states with oil spills and other pipeline accidents, according to a report released Thursday by the National Wildlife Federation.

Michigan had 61 "significant incidents" over the past decade, the ninth-largest number in the country.

Spill halted, Enbridge’s reputation sullied

The Enbridge spill into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River has been contained, but it’s left a nasty sheen on the company’s reputation and its sprawling network of aging pipelines in North America.

US expert says China's worst oil spill is far larger than government has reported so far

BEIJING (AP) — China's worst known oil spill is dozens of times larger than the government has reported, and some of the oil was spilled deliberately to avoid an even larger disaster, an American expert said Friday.

China's government has said 1,500 tons of oil spilled after a pipeline exploded two weeks ago near the northeastern city of Dalian, sending 100-foot- (30-meter-) high flames raging near one of the country's key strategic oil reserves. It has not updated that estimate since a few days after the spill.

But Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska marine conservation specialist, estimated 60,000 tons to 90,000 tons of oil actually spilled into the Yellow Sea.

Explosion, Fire at Storage Tank at Pemex's Madero Refinery Evacuates 2,000

About 2,000 people were evacuated by Mexican authorities after an explosion and fire at a coker unit gasoline storage tank at Petroleos Mexicanos’s Francisco I. Madero refinery on the Gulf of Mexico.

The blaze was under control at 6:30 p.m. local time yesterday, said a Pemex spokesman, who asked not to be identified in accordance with company policy. No other facilities at the refinery were damaged, he said.

Libya boosts reserves

Libya's proven crude oil reserves rose to 46 billion barrels in the first half of this year after adding 612 million barrels from new fields, according to reports.

House to Take Up Offshore Drilling Reform Bill

Three months after the catastrophic oil rig explosion that sent millions of gallons of crude spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. House of Representatives was poised on Friday to debate legislation clamping down on the industry's offshore drilling practices.

BP's Hayward: 'I became a villain for doing the right thing'

Tony Hayward, who resigned as chief executive of BP in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, has said that he was turned into "a villain for doing the right thing."

In his first interview since deciding to step down, Hayward told the Wall Street Journal that he did everything possible after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, by taking responsibility for the spill and spending billions on the clean-up operation and efforts to stop the leak.

US gas stations: Stay BP or change name to Amoco?

NEW ORLEANS — BP gas station owners across the country are divided over whether the oil giant stained by its handling of the Gulf spill should rebrand U.S. outlets as Amoco or another name as part of its effort to repair the company's badly damaged reputation.

Sinopec Says BP Declined Its Offer to Buy Some `Good' Assets After Spill

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, said BP Plc declined an offer by the Chinese company to buy some of its assets.

“We’ve talked to BP on some good assets, but they won’t sell,” Zhang Jianhua, senior vice president of the company known as Sinopec, said in an interview in Shanghai today, without naming the ventures. “We aren’t in any talks with BP right now.”

Blowout Beneficiary

BP's spill is scaring oil and gas majors out of the deep water. That's good news for shale gas pioneer Range Resources.

Gulf of Mexico Has Long Been a Sink of Pollution

HOUMA, La. — Loulan Pitre Sr. was born on the Gulf Coast in 1921, the son of an oysterman. Nearly all his life, he worked on the water, abiding by the widely shared faith that the resources of the Gulf of Mexico were limitless.

As a young Marine staff sergeant, back home after fighting in the South Pacific, he stood on barges in the gulf and watched as surplus mines, bombs and ammunition were pushed over the side.

He helped build the gulf’s very first offshore oil drilling platforms in the late 1940s, installing bolts on perilously high perches over the water. He worked on a shrimp boat, and later as the captain of a service boat for drilling platforms.

The gulf has changed, Mr. Pitre said: “I think it’s too far gone to salvage.”

‘Peak oil boost for our industry’: 2020 Vision

However, the Twenty Teens are predicted to herald the arrival of Peak Oil. This will finally bring home the message that our transport needs to change dramatically.

Has this province reached its peak?

In a sense, Alberta reached its peak oil moment years ago with the decline of conventional oil reserves followed by the demise of its natural gas sector. When previous booms went bust, the expectation of the good times cycling back was always fulfilled — a resiliency no longer guaranteed.

Given its dependence on the oilsands, Calgary’s one-horse standing’s been whittled down to a pair of hooves and the pony they’re under has become an international pariah.

T3 presents - Making Sense of the Financial Crisis in the Era of Peak Oil

Transition Town Tramore (T3) and Futureproof Kilkenny have come together to organise for Canadian Energy Consultant and Financial Blogger Nicole Foss to visit the South East and give a presentation entitled Making Sense of the Financial Crisis in the Era of Peak Oil.

Nicole's presentation will give a thorough overview of the problems being faced within the financial system, and explain how it relates to the problems being experienced in the energy production system.

Living off the land

Five years have passed since we left Sydney. It seems like five minutes, yet our city life feels like a hundred years ago. We left to become as self-sufficient as possible after learning about the coming age of shortages and chaos resulting from peak oil (see opposite). Six months after leaving Sydney behind, I wrote a book called Choosing Eden (published by Random House Australia) explaining the move to the little farm we grandly called Eden Forest Permaculture Sanctuary.

Improved Gulf power grid reduces blackouts

The new GCC electricity grid has put an end to power cuts in four countries in the northern Gulf but the lack of an agreed tariff is hampering more effective use of the US$1.4 billion (Dh5.14bn) network, a senior official says.

The grid, which was connected for the first time last year, has allowed Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar to better handle surges in demand on the hottest summer days.

Spain Nearing Accord With Solar Producers on Reducing Subsidies

The Spanish government and solar- power producers are moving toward an agreement aimed at reducing subsidies to the industry and reining in electricity prices without damaging the country’s renewable energy industry.

Spain to Investigate Solar Plants Over Subsidies, Government Official Says

Spain may force any solar plant owners who cheated on paperwork to gain higher subsidies to repay income earned through deception, a ministry official said.

California Clears Hurdle for Electric-Car Charging Stations to Sell Power

California regulators voted to make it easier for electric-car charging companies to sell power in the U.S. state that’s likely to be the biggest market for such vehicles.

Fight Gears Up on Biomass

There is evidently no form of energy, including renewable energy, that lacks opposition. A big spat right now centers on biomass power plants.

Bike may spark an electric revolution

Eqbal al Yousuf said his company planned to sell Phoenix’s first 150 electric pick-up trucks by the end of the year but mainly in the US where there were government cash incentives for buyers and American authorities were pushing for green vehicles to be used in the public sector.

Without the government support to reduce the cost and risk in the UAE, local consumers will be wary of spending the US$75,000 (Dh275,475) for such a pick-up, he said.

“Humans get scared of anything new. We get scared of the unknown,” Mr al Yousuf said. “And this technology here is unknown for a lot of people around the world. So without the government push, without the government support, even if it’s cost-effective, a lot of people will not go for it.”

Instead of four-wheel vehicles, Mr al Yousuf plans to sell Phoenix’s electric bicycles in the UAE as early as September, before they are rolled out in any other market. The first shipment will be for 500 bikes, he said. The $800 bicycles have a maximum speed of 26kph and a range of 31km on a full charge.

Government funding for electric cars cut by 80%

A government scheme to give motorists money off when purchasing electric cars has been cut by 80 per cent. Despite recent warnings from independent climate change groups that Britain must increase the amount of electric cars drastically if it wants to meet EU emission targets, the fate of low-carbon charging points hangs in the balance. Environmental groups, politicians and electric car-makers argue that cutting the incentive will reduce the amount of green jobs and harm the cars’ take up.

Energy Department tests energy-saving program

The Energy Department has picked Bethesda-based Marriott International Inc. to be one of the companies in a pilot program to help businesses, governments and other organizations reduce energy use in their buildings.

EPA rejects challenge to climate rules

The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday rejected an effort to keep it from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, saying that e-mails released in last fall’s “Climategate” scandal gave it no reason to reconsider the science of global warming.

In a sternly written opinion, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said she didn’t agree with requests from the GOP attorneys general from Texas and Virginia, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservative groups that questioned the underlying science linking humans to global warming and also warned of the potential economic burdens from new climate rules.

Cutting soot emissions best hope for saving Arctic ice

According to a new study led by Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University in the US, the quickest, best way to slow the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice is to reduce soot emissions from the burning of fossil fuel, wood and dung.

His analysis shows that soot is second only to CO2 in contributing to global warming.