Yanhui Zhang of the University of Illinois, father of pig manure-to-oil technology. (Tom Roberts/AP)
he legendary streets of El Dorado were said to be paved with gold. Now we learn that the roads in Missouri one day may be paved with…
Climate change is an urgent national security issue. So says a recent National Intelligence Assessment and an influential group of retired military officers and defense experts at the Center for Naval Analysis, a nonprofit policy analysis group.
Left unchecked, they say, global…
U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, the Republican candidate for governor, visited with Post-Dispatch editors and writers this week. You’ll see more about our conversation later, but here’s a part of that conversation that focused on energy.
Mr. Hulshof has…
To most of us, energy policy means figuring out how much $4-a-gallon gas to put in the tank and still have money left over to buy school clothes for the kids. It means paying higher prices for just about everything,…
In previous posts, I have mentioned the revolutionary in situ extraction method for oil shale recently developed by Royal Dutch Shell that finally makes the extraction of oil shale not only economically viable but environmentally friendly.
The United States is sitting…
My column this week dives into oil and energy, drawing heavily on the delightful work of Lisa Margonelli. She’s the author of the 2007 non-fiction best-seller “Oil on the Brain,” which tracks petroleum from deep in the ground to the…
Most people probably believe that the age of exploration — at least on this planet — ended long ago. It’s tempting to assume that with today’s advanced technology, every corner of the earth has been mapped, scanned, and scoured for every…
Oil prices rose above $140 a barrel for the first time on Thursday as Libya threatened to cut its oil production and Opec’s president warned that prices could surge to $150-$170 this summer.
Shokri Ghanem, Libya’s top oil official, said that the…
Twenty years ago this week, a then-unknown NASA scientist named James E. Hansen ushered global warming from the realm of climatology into the hot house of public policy.
He did it in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, delivered…
Earlier this week, I wrote a blog item about the debate over U.S. domestic oil exploration. It includes background information on the issue, including data about estimated oil reserves and U.S. production, importation and consumption.
With oil prices hitting $130 a barrel and gas averaging over $4 a gallon, energy is an issue weighing increasingly heavily on Americans’ minds. It’s also promising to play a major role in the upcoming elections.
Both John McCain and Barack…
Here’s a way to get oil prices down, at least by a little: Take a regulatory whip to the speculators who’ve been bidding prices up.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the somewhat toothless federal watchdog over oil markets — needs…
The Middle East region has consistently dominated world news coverage in the U.S. for many years, far outstripping coverage of events in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and even Europe. Few would disagree that this is due to the great…
CARACAS, VENEZUELA
Americans might well marginalize President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela as the megalomaniac who denounced President George W. Bush as “the devil” who left the smell of sulfur in the air after he spoke to the United Nations in 2006.
Chávez…
