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a community peak oil portal
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| Output plummets at huge Mexican oilfield |
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 Production at Mexico's Cantarell oil complex, one of the world's largest, has plummeted by a third in the past year, an indication the country could lose self-sufficiency in oil in the medium term.
Average daily production dropped to slightly more than 1m barrels a day in May compared with more than 1.6m b/d in the same month last year, according to the energy ministry.
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| The Next Generation of Cars: Gas-Free |
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 For years, car manufacturers have thrown around ideas for gas-free cars, but most have gone nowhere quickly. General Motors introduced a fully electric car in 1996 that was scrapped a few years later, Honda recently unveiled a hydrogen-powered vehicle that cost a mere, oh, $1 million apiece to build, and Toyota's next-generation Prius has a fully electric mode with enough juice to carry you all of seven miles (no zeroes omitted). For big auto companies, the thought of a gas-free vehicle that actually resembles a car seems worlds away.
But for one high-profile start-up, fully electric cars are hardly a dream. Elon Musk -- the same guy who co-founded PayPal and later sold it to eBay -- has built a car that is likely making Detroit sweat bullets by the gallon.
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| Greed and dogma fertilize food crisis |
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 The so-called demand-side arguments for increases in food prices - that consumption, especially consumption of meat and dairy has gone up in China and India - ignore a crucial point. While it's true that changes, sometimes significant changes, have occurred in the diets of the middle class of both of those countries, the middle class in each constitutes a small minority. Other segments of the population, especially in India, often consume less than they have historically and suffer from chronic malnutrition. According to the Indian economist Jayati Ghosh, both China's and India's per capita grain consumption have been more or less constant for the past 20 years. With this in mind, it seems unlikely that the dramatic rise in prices has anything to do with increased demand.
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| Polar bear harassment by oil companies challenged |
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 Two conservation groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the Bush administration's decision to let oil companies unintentionally harass or harm polar bears and walruses off the northwestern Alaska coast.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage claims that federal officials violated laws designed to protect the animals and their sensitive habitat in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea.
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| S Korea to take further steps to tackle oil price surge |
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| South Korea will enforce extra energy-saving measures earlier than planned if international crude oil prices surpass 150 U.S. dollars per barrel, Yonhap news agency quoted the Ministry of Strategy and Finance as saying.
According to the ministry, the second-phase contingency plan could include restriction of private-sector vehicles and outdoor lights usage in addition to possible oil tax cuts.
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| Russia's uranium breakthrough |
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| Russia has overtaken Niger to become the world's fourth largest uranium producer, after Canada, Australia, and Kazakhstan. Russia received its new rating in 2007, when it produced 3,527 tons of uranium.
It has ambitious plans to mover even further up the league, based on promising deposits in Eastern Siberia and other regions, and opportunities for mutually advantageous cooperation with countries rich in uranium ore.
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| From Solar Energy to Electricity: A Growing BIPV Market with Great Potential |
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| The Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) market is a growing sector in the environmental search for continued energy-saving building materials. Already a segment of the expanding Photovoltaics (PV) market, BIPV is becoming a popular way to use solar energy to generate electricity. In 2007 the PV market raked in approximately EUR 6.24 billion, with a growth rate of 46%. As a part of that growing market, in 2007 BIPV brought in EUR 149 million with a market growth rate of 33%. With public awareness and concern shifting to applying greener methods for generating energy, BIPV holds great potential as a key player in the future.
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| Scotland and Ireland to launch joint renewable energy study |
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| Scotland and Ireland are to work together to harness the power of the wind, the waves and tides between the two countries from Cork to Kintyre.
A feasibility study into offshore renewable energy projects, and how the power they generate could be transmitted to the respective national grids, is to be conducted by the Scottish Government in partnership with the Irish government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
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| GM installs world's biggest rooftop solar panels |
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| The largest rooftop solar power station in the world is being built in Spain. With a capacity of 12 megawatts of power, the station is made up of 85,000 lightweight panels covering an area of two million square feet.
Manufactured in rolls, rather like carpet, the photovoltaic panels are to be installed on the roof of a General Motors car factory in Zaragoza, eastern Spain.
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| Peak Oil: Crisis alters lifestyles |
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| Aaron Newton has a foot in two worlds.
Four days a week, the 33-year-old husband and father of two works as a land planner in Concord.
In his free time, Newton prepares for a time when energy could become unreliable or too expensive for his family.
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| Opposition to ethanol plants may be 'NIMBYism' |
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OTTAWA - The bloom is off the environmental love affair with ethanol.
Most Canadians - 53 per cent, up from 45 per cent last year - would now oppose construction of a local ethanol plant, according to the Saint Consulting Group's second annual national survey of responses to various real estate developments.
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| Why Europe backpedals on biofuel targets |
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Europe is signaling a retreat from its bold commitment to biofuels as concern mounts that the plant-based alternative to gas and diesel, once heralded as a panacea for climate change, is contributing to spiraling global food prices.
Officially, the 27-nation European Union is sticking to a target that will require 10 percent of motor vehicle fuel to be derived from renewable sources by 2020, as part of overall efforts to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent.
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| Report urges U.S. to embrace nuclear power growth, despite risks |
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WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- A report from a State Department advisory panel says a coming large expansion in global nuclear power generation poses proliferation risks, but the United States must embrace it to ensure that nuclear supplier nations build safeguards into the growing market.
The report highlights division among experts about the future of civil nuclear power across the globe, the risks it poses, and the degree to which U.S. policy should support its spread. Some critics of the report say the expansion of nuclear power is not inevitable and should be resisted.
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| Pelosi Asks Bush to Draw From Petroleum Reserve to Combat Surge in Oil Prices |
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked President Bush on Tuesday to draw down a portion of the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a way to reduce crude prices and help motorists who are suffering from the rising cost of gasoline.
The House Republican leadership responded to Pelosi's proposal by noting that she was supporting a supply increase — something the Republicans have rallied behind in the form of increased offshore drilling, which the Democrats oppose.
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| Alberta to spend billions to cut emissions |
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 CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - The oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta said on Tuesday it will put C$4 billion ($3.92 billion) into two funds that will be used to pay for carbon capture and storage programs and to boost use of public transit to cut the province's carbon-dioxide emissions.
The Alberta government said it will set aside C$2 billion in each of the two funds, with the cash coming from its budget surplus for this year - a figure last pegged at C$1.6 billion but expected to be billions of dollars higher due to the increased royalties the province is collecting from record high oil prices.
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