Russ McBee

Paolo Scaroni is the CEO of the Italian oil company ENI, one of the 25 largest companies in the world (it sells fuel in Europe under the Agip brand, among many other things). He had this to say about American oil consumption: If Americans used the same cars as we do in Europe, they would save four million barrels a day, exactly the same as the ...

Today, Al Gore gave a speech at George Washington University in which he called for a massive push to transform our energy economy; he audaciously suggested that we can and must convert 100 percent of our electricity generation to clean sources within a mere ten years. By relying on solar, wind, and geothermal for all of our electricity, he said ...

Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) is pushing for tighter regulation on oil speculators: Every day, 20 times more oil is traded than delivered. Because of the way energy trades are regulated (or not regulated), speculators control vast amounts of oil by putting down as little as 5% of the purchase cost. In short, speculators use money they don't have ...

Robert L. Hirsch, former senior energy adviser for SAIC, author of the Hirsch Report on peak oil, and all-around energy guru, appeared on CNBC the other day to discuss current oil and gas prices. Here's what he said about gas costing $4 a gallon (via Crooks & Liars): ''[T]he prices that we're paying at the pump today are, I think, going to ...

Following a speech in Missouri yesterday, President Bush engaged in an exceedingly rare question-and-answer session with employees of the company where he was speaking. Among other topics, he repeated his threadbare spin of ethanol as a viable fuel source: ''As you know, I'm a ethanol person,'' he said, explaining his belief that it can help ...

Here's my first poll:

I'm not one to automatically trust the word of any OPEC minister, but this quote from Chakib Khelil, Algeria's energy minister, bears some consideration: Opec's president on Monday warned oil prices could hit $200 a barrel and there would be little the cartel could do to help. [...] Mr Khelil blamed record oil prices on the weak dollar and ...

This is incredible: a study conducted by NOAA has concluded that the practice of ''flaring'' natural gas (burning it at the outlet of an oil well) wastes an amount of gas worth $40 billion per year, resulting in an unnecessary annual injection of 400 million tons of extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That equals half the current CO2 ...

I'm sure everyone's looking forward to $100 for a barrel of oil. Shortly thereafter, we might think of $100 as a bargain once it hits $200. According to oil industry analysts, this could happen within the next year. These are not the prognostications of wild-eyed paranoid maniacs; these projections are coming from Goldman Sachs, Canadian ...

Well, this certainly isn't a good sign: Venezuela and Iran are forging closer oil ties in hopes of reducing their dependence on the United States, inking a $4 billion deal to develop a block of the lucrative Orinoco Reserve in Venezuela. According to Venezuelan Oil and Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez, production at the Ayacucho 7 block should ...