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03.20.10- Good Vibrations Promise Cheap Wind Power
We all know the drawbacks of wind power. Aside from space and a sufficient amount of well, wind, power-generating windmills also require a significant investment for construction. 03.19.10- An Inconvenient Fraud? 
Al Gore and his pals in the science establishment want us to totally change our lives because of a theory that might not even be true. Have the sacred cows of global warming been gored beyond repair? It was good to be Al Gore in the last part of the last decade. In the year 2000 he was the world's biggest loser. By 2009 he was one of the world's biggest winners after becoming the master of disaster. Flummoxed by his noninvention of the internet and his nonelection as president of the United States, Gore found a winning hand in predicting the end of the world. In the process, he received an Oscar for his film An Inconvenient Truth, the Nobel Peace Prize, and millions of dollars through his interests in companies that dealt in "carbon credits." Gore became more of a "Comeback Kid" than Bill Clinton ever was. For most of 2009, it was still good to be King Al. But late in the year, Al Gore's beloved internet betrayed him. Read More 03.18.10- Backpack Hydroelectric Plant Gives You 500 Watts on the Move
Bourne Energy has developed two versions of the BPP; BPP-1 is aimed at civilians, while BPP-2 is designed for the military and was recently unveiled at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco. Both measure three feet in length and weigh less than 30 pounds, though the military version is 10% lighter. Both are self-contained with their own integrated power, control, cooling and sensor systems. They collapse into a backpack-sized module comprising three parts; the generator, hub and folded stored blades. Read More 03.17.10- 'Peak Demand,' Yes, But Not the Nice Kind
When oil crossed $120 a barrel for the first time in May 2008, oil cornucopians knew they were in trouble. Prices had quadrupled in just five years, yet had failed to bring new production online. Regular crude had flatlined around 74 million barrels per day (mbpd). The case for peak oil was looking stronger with every new uptick in crude futures. The following month, prominent peak oil critic and cornucopian Daniel Yergin of IHS-CERA changed his stance: The peak oil threat would be neutralized by peak demand. Gasoline consumption had peaked in the U.S. and Europe, he argued, due to the combined effects of increasing efficiency, biofuels, and the recession. Read More 03.16.10- Absolutely Ingenious Wooden Rube Goldberg Machine Editor's Note: Perpetual motion? - JSB
03.15.10- Barbarism and Good Brandy
A taste for irony is a useful habit to cultivate if you happen to write about energy issues in the declining years of a civilization defined by its extravagant use of energy, on the one hand, and the dubious logic it uses to justify that extravagance on the other. One of the things you can count on, if that description fits you, is that any time you discuss one of the fallacies that has helped back that civilization into a corner, plenty of readers will respond with comments that demonstrate the fallacy in question more clearly than any of your examples could have done. Read More 03.13.10- Pop Corn with your Cellphones Debunked (Editor's Note: This was initially brought to our attention by a, usually, reliable source. Shame on us. We fell for it. We apologize if it caused undue consternation. - JSB)
03.12.10- North Dakota oil rig count tops 100
Department director Lynn Helms said 102 rigs were drilling in western North Dakota's oil patch on Wednesday - the first time since 1982 that the number of rigs in the state has hit the three-digit mark. "This is a really important milestone," Helms said. "To have this kind of activity and a resource play that could keep these rigs busy for another 10 years is just remarkable." Read More 03.11.10- And now, for something entirely different...
03.10.10- Welcome to the Permanent Recession – Food and Transportation Prices Rising
Take food as an example: current factory farming methods are entirely dependent upon oil from planting to processing to getting the food to market. Certain types of food are also heavily subsidised, especially meat and dairy. Note that these subsidies do not necessarily include oil subsidies, taxpayer-provided roads, subsidised water, and so on. As the price of oil increases, so goes the price of food; in fact this has already been happening in Canada and the United States. Note especially the increase in transportation costs, and both sources cite rises in fuel as a primary driver of inflation, so-to-speak. Read More 03.09.10- Fracking Fluids Part I
The controversy surrounding fracking fluids is getting louder. Websites and media savvy organizations are getting more press on this issue, using a very simple and powerful pitch - are the chemicals used in fracking fluids in oil and gas wells contaminating our drinking water? North American investors have not been directly hit by this issue yet, meaning that a company’s stock hasn’t plummeted because they had to stop drilling over these concerns - yet. "Fracking" is sending a specially designed fluid down an oil or gas well at ultra-high pressure. The fluid, usually water - but can contain some chemicals with very long names - gets blown out into the reservoir rock, creating cracks and channels to allow the oil & gas to get to the well. Read More 03.08.10- Catalyst could power homes on a bottle of water, produce hydrogen on-site
(PhysOrg.com) - With one bottle of drinking water and four hours of sunlight, MIT chemist Dan Nocera claims that he can produce 30 KWh of electricity, which is enough to power an entire household in the developing world. With about three gallons of river water, he could satisfy the daily energy needs of a large American home. The key to these claims is a new, affordable catalyst that uses solar electricity to split water and generate hydrogen. Read More 03.06.10- A Storm Is Brewing
I think we will all admit it was one heck of a party, but like all good parties there's a price to pay. The Hangover! Read More 03.05.10- An Exergy Crisis
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A better windmill than the old fashioned wind turbine?
Hydroelectric power specialist Bourne Energy has developed a human-portable hydroelectric generator which can create clean, quiet power from any stream deeper than four feet. The "Backpack Power Plant", which joins the company's 
Why There Will Be No Recovery
BISMARCK, N.D. – The number of rigs piercing North Dakota's oil patch has topped 100 for the first time in nearly three decades, the state Department of Mineral Resources said Wednesday.
If employment is inversely proportional to oil prices (it is), and oil prices are only going to trend up...then employment by necessity is going down. Because oil is so fundamental to our economy, oil price increases ripple through the entire economy.
A Controversy Coming to an Energy Investment Near You
By mimicking photosynthesis, Sun Catalytix's system can store solar energy in the form of hydrogen
When the tech bubble burst in 2000, Greenspan tried to "fix" the problem by cutting rates and printing money. Fix the problem he did ... well sort of! What Greenspan did was create two new bubbles in the credit and real estate markets to replace the tech bubble that had burst. Millions of jobs were created in these two industries. Much needed jobs to replace the ones lost as the tech boom came to an end. 
In last week's Archdruid Report post, I discussed the difference between energy and exergy, or in slightly less jargon-laden terms, between the quantity of energy and the concentration of energy. It's hard to think of a more critical difference to keep in mind if you're trying to make sense of the predicament of modern industrial civilization, but it's even harder to think of a point more often missed in the rising spiral of debates about that predicament. 
