Free Republic

04 October 2011 Paris --- Governments and taxpayers spent about half a trillion dollars last year supporting the production and consumption of fossil fuels. Removing inefficient subsidies would raise national revenues and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, according to OECD and IEA analyses.

Folks, there has been much misinformation published about energy subsidies. In fact gasoline is subsidized at around 3 times the rate of ethanol, but accurate information is hard to find. Most gasoline subsidies are permanent while ethanol subsidies have to be renewed annually. This is why ethanol subsidies gets all the ink while much larger gasoline subsidies are ignored Here is a PDF, published this year, that tells it like it is.

Celebrating Petrobras’ 56th anniversary, CEO José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo and the boards of Petrobras and of its subsidiaries held a press conference this Wednesday (10/07) at the company’s main office building, in Rio de Janeiro. snip "We are the world’s only major company that uses most of its production to feed its own refineries, which, in turn, market their products mainly in the domestic market. This characteristic is unique in the world," emphasized the CEO, who highlighted the role the company will play from now on, particularly in the supplier chain. "Petrobras will not only supply oil derivatives, natural...

President Obama declared war on oil and natural gas at the United Nations global warming summit, and he made the same pitch to the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports. "I will work with my colleagues at the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge," he told the U.N.

Sustainable Oils, Solazyme, Cargill to supply 600,000 gallons of jet biofuel to US military In Washington, the US Air Force has ordered a total of 400,000 gallons of renewable biofuels from Sustainable Oils, Cargill and Solazyme for testing as a military aviation fuel. the companies, in turn, will use UOP’s processing technology to convert oil from camelina, algae and animal fats into renewable jet fuel. According to UOP, fuel will be delivered in 2009 and 2010 to support flight certification and testing efforts. Combined with a 190,000 gallon US Navy order recently placed for algal fuels, using feedstock provided by...

A month ago oil giant BP announced a 600 million dollar investment in green algae research. Exxon did not stand still for that. Now they are matching that with their own 600 million bucks. Green algae is a very versatile crop. You can literally and inexpensively make anything from Green Algae that you can make from petroleum or from corn. Hundreds of companies world wide are already hard at work building infrastructure; hundreds of thousands of jobs will result as the Bio Tech Age and the green algae technologies mature over the next few years. Our defense department is supporting...

New oil discovery in California; one more place to not drill here drill now. Oxy oil discovery could spark new interest in California's energy potential The biggest find in the state in 35 years, somewhere in Kern County, could herald new exploration in California and the U.S., experts say. But some worry it could lead to a false sense of security.

This came over the AP, and was picked up by a New Zealand site. I have not yet located other sources. Obama wants to end all Federal subsidies for petroleum. Most people do not realize that Petroleum has been massively subsidized for the past 50 years. This will not affect state, county, city or township gasoline, heating oil and diesel fuel subsidies.

What is the status of the U.S. nuclear industry? There are currently 104 commercial nuclear reactors at 65 nuclear power plants in 31 States. Since 1990, the share of the Nation’s total electricity supply provided by nuclear power generation has averaged about 20%, with the level of nuclear generation growing at roughly the same rate as overall electricity use. Between 1980 and 1996, 33 new reactors were placed in service. In addition, nuclear generation has increased as a result of higher utilization of existing capacity and from technical modifications to increase nuclear plant capacity (expressed in megawatts). In response to...

Three times within the last 18 months, the National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Canada, which normally supplies about a third of U.S. technetium-99m demand, has shut down because of leaks of radioactive tritium-contaminated water. On May 14, it shut down for the third time, and it will not reopen until the end of the year. Some experts suspect it will never reopen if a containment vessel is badly corroded. Even if it reopens, its long-term prospects are not good. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this year that the country would be out of the radioisotope business by...