One big problem with plastics is that they’re largely made of petroleum. Sourcing bio-polymers from plants and bacteria has some big benefits – and the technology is starting to take off.
Australia currently keeps only a fraction of the fuel it needs in reserve.
It may be just as well the UK government scrapped its previous carbon capture competition.
The Navy converted to oil from coal a few years before the U.S. entered World War I, helping to solidify petroleum’s strategic status.
Naval History and Heritage Command
Before World War I, petroleum had few practical uses, but it emerged from the war as a strategic global asset necessary for national stability and security.
A family catches Mardi Gras beads during the Krewe of Thoth parade down St. Charles Avenue in 2000.
Reuters
Each Mardi Gras, 25 million pounds of beads hit the streets of New Orleans. One researcher went to the Chinese factories that make them – and spoke to the workers who believe the beads will be given to royalty.
The protagonist in the novel ‘The Silent Minaret’ gets us to question that powerful political-cultural myth of being tied to nation. That is a remarkable achievement in fiction.
Barrels in Nigeria used for transporting oil to communities.
Stakeholder Democracy/Flickr
OPEC has been declared dead in recent months as the group of oil-exporters has been unable to agree on a plan to stabilize the market. But was it really ever alive in the first place?
Will oil ever bounce back?
Mikael Tigerström / Flickr
No-one imagined that it would take Muhammadu Buhari more than 100 days to form a cabinet. But, then again, Nigeria is no ordinary country and it has its own inherent logic.
Shell chief Ben van Beurden is pointing the way for oil companies to demand greater certainty over future climate policy.
EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/AAP
In a speech last Thursday at International Petroleum Week – one of the biggest events on the industry’s calendar – Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, argued that big energy companies…
Saudi workers have been given a pay bonus by their new king, but unless oil prices rebound the country will find itself eating into its US$750 billion sovereign nest egg.
EPA/Ali Haider
In his first royal decree, Saudi Arabia’s newly crowned King Salman announced two-month bonuses for state employees, pensioners, students, and recipients of social service programs (that is, everyone in…
Predicting oil price movements is as risky as exploring for oil itself. The average price for crude fell 10.3% from the start of 2014 to the date of the Scottish independence referendum on September 18…