Oil & Power 2009

Wiliam Marsden: Big oil’s relentless lobby
As world leaders gather in Copenhagen next week for historic negotiations on climate change, a fierce battle continues in Ottawa between environmental groups and a powerful army of energy, manufacturing and power utility lobbyists to influence Canadian legislation governing greenhouse gas emissions and billions of tax dollars in clean energy and emission-reduction subsidies.
15 March
As Oil and Gas Prices Plunge, Drilling Frenzy Ends
The reversal of fortune could have important implications for the future health of the nation’s energy companies, for consumer wallets and for national aspirations to rely less on foreign energy sources.
17 January
Yes, there is life after oil
William Marsden
To say that this week’s international auto show in Detroit marked a new beginning might be going too far, given the history of the industry. But at the very least it was a sign. A new direction taken. A light at the end of the tunnel. The carmakers’ fresh lineup of electric and hybrid vehicles, and plenty of shiny promises of more to come, offered a glimmer of hope to a world stuck on oil. The message was simple. The future of clean energy is now. Viable alternatives to the combustion engine exist. We have liftoff.
With concerns over global warming and pending oil shortages growing, not to mention intense air, ground and water pollution on a local and international level, events such as the auto show have put a lie to the doomsday scenario that nothing can replace oil. … we have the technology to move toward a life without oil. What we don’t appear to have is the political will.
15 January
Chávez Lets West Make Oil Bids as Prices Plunge
(NYT) CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again.
Until recently, Mr. Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and imposing a series of royalties increases.
But faced with the plunge in prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials have begun soliciting bids from some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks — including Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France — promising them access to some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves, according to energy executives and industry consultants here. Read article
11 January
The age of oil is ending
For more than a century, it has been cheaper than coffee and as constant as ocean waves.
By WILLIAM MARSDEN, The Gazette
On top of the other problems plaguing the world such as global warming and the current financial meltdown, there’s a third pressing issue that threatens to bring the good life to an end. It’s the fact that the world is fast running out of oil.
Given that crude oil makes up 36.4 per cent of the world’s energy consumption, the seriousness of shortages cannot be overplayed. Our reliance on oil is almost total. It fuels 100 per cent of air and sea transport and most of our land transport. Without oil there is no petrochemical industry. Agriculture, manufacturing, building materials, the clothes we wear, the food we eat and the medicines we take depend on oil.