Can a brain trust of seven people convince the U.S. government to spend upwards of $16 billion each year on research and development of clean energy technology? What about if that group includes Bill Gates, John Doerr, and Jeff Immelt? These three corporate leaders, along with a handful of others, recently established the American Energy Innovation Council, an organization…

The price of crude oil was up again in early afternoon trade in New York. Gains came on a stronger euro after comments from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, on a Labor Department report that 3,000 fewer new unemployment claims were filed last week in the US, and after China reported that its exports

Original Source of Crude oil…

Democratic and Republican leadership in both the House and Senate have named 43 individuals to

The newspaper industry is almost, but not quite, running like a headless chicken in the last throes of life thanks to the digital revolution. Can it be supported by extra taxes? Should it be? Regardless of your answer, a new survey shows that nobody wants to pay the tax anyway. A national telephone survey by Rasmussen Reports has a…

Five years ago, shortly after Kyle Saunders (Prof. Goose) invited me to help him start The Oil Drum, Hurricane Dennis, a Category 4 hurricane, struck the Gulf of Mexico. It formed on July 4th, 2005 and dissipated on July 13th. This was the first hurricane that The Oil Drum covered, and the focus, naturally, was on the impact which…

This is a guest post by Michael Levi who is a Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. It is a critique of Steven Kopits of Douglas Westwood’s recent guest post. The version of the guest post Michael Levi is commenting on was published on Econobrowser under the title EIA: Hard Core Peak…

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics: HERE’S SOME RANCID TEA FOR YOUR WORLD CUP: The Revolutionary War. The War of 1812. The British Invasion. Put aside that whole “ally” thing during a couple of world wars, and the United States and England have smacked each other around a good bit. Come…

What is the topic that dominates the media these days? What is it that we’re reading on websites, in newspapers, seeing on TV and hearing on the radio? Even if you only read the front pages or skim the headlines, you know it’s all about the economy. Everyone’s talking about Wall Street and financial turmoil. Here’s what I know…

Because of the large number of comments, this is a second copy of this post. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has now tested water samples from oil plumes at three sites in the Gulf of Mexico, at varying distances from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said that the tests conducted at three sites…

This is a guest post by Sharon Astyk, who posts here as jewishfarmer . This is an abridged version of a post which was previously published on Causabon’s Book on scienceblogs. Note : Deciding whether to move is probably a US issue. In much of the rest of the world, folks don’t just pick up and leave, because someplace…