Energy Industry Archive

Aventine Renewable Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, yet another ethanol producer to go down the bankruptcy road in recent months. Just yesterday - and yes prior to the filing - BNET noted the Pekin, Ill.-based company was the next likely suspect among ethanol producers to file for bankruptcy protection. The bankruptcy protection will allow Aventine to continue...

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A year ago when I talked to execs at startups making thin-film solar panels, it was typical to hear creative variations on their hopes of making solar panels for $1 per watt — an important, if almost entirely arbitrary, number the industry had come up with to symbolize price parity with fossil fuels. Most made sure to stress that nobody was, at the time, capable of making panels so...

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Find a reference to duckweed dated earlier than last year, and you’re likely to be seeing complaints about the tiny aquatic plant. Like invasive water hyacinth and other floating plant species, duckweed is capable of quickly carpeting ponds and slow-moving water streams. Now it’s being pushed as yet another biofuel savior. From North Carolina State University: [R]esearch shows that...

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Pacific Ethanol joined last week a growing list of biofuel producers hurt by the trifecta of low gasoline prices, higher corn and energy costs and the global credit crunch. The Sacramento-based company announced it had run out of cash, defaulted on $250 million of loans and faces bankruptcy if it can’t renegotiate or find more additional financing. The maker of corn-based ethanol...

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Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish innovation from grasping at straws. Other times they may in fact be one and the same, as with a new project by General Motors, called PUMA, that would switch city transits from cars to an odd-looking transport pod, powered by electricity. The PUMA, standing for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, is pretty much a sit-down, shielded Segway....

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Total suspends Canadian oil sands pilot project – Coaxing oil out of the Canadian oil sands is getting a bit too expensive for some of the world’s largest energy companies. Totalrecently suspended one of its pilot projects because it did not hit the expected 10,000 barrels of oil a day production mark. Paris-based Total has a 74 percent in the Joselyn permit, which has a...

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Life’s not too rosy for the oil and gas drilling industry these days. The plummeting price of oil and gas as well as the credit crunch has idled onshore and shallow water drilling rigs as oil explorers and producers postpone projects, or cancel them altogether. In the U.S. alone, the number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas is down nearly 50 percent since the end of...

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Cleantech VC investment falls, stimulus funds soar and then there’s Google – Venture investment in the cleantech industry fell 41 percent in the first quarter of the year compared to the previous quarter, according to a report by the Cleantech Group. The news isn’t all bad. Governments are injecting money into clean technology through stimulus packages and tax incentives. And...

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No one really expected the federal government to just roll over and take a recent ruling that could prevent it from collecting billions in royalties on oil and natural gas leases, right? So it should be no surprise the Obama administration asked Monday for an “en banc” review — that would mean bringing the case in front of the entire 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...

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Nuclear is truly becoming the lesser of two evils in the public conscious. An annual Gallup poll is showing that the a record high number of people support nuclear power, at least out of the 14 years the poll has been running. With climate change becoming a big issue, nuclear power companies have been eager to get the ball rolling in their stalled industry. But some of the problems...

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