Green Options

With the spotlight shining on clean energy, the stage has been set for the U.S. to rid itself of a harmful addiction to foreign oil. The stars are aligned and the cards have been dealt. Soon we’ll have kicked the dirty habit, right?

Looks like the road to the White House for Governor Sarah Palin may be a pipeline that doesn’t exist…yet.

In a rare admission of China’s strategic petroleum reserve capacity, a senior industry executive acknowledged that all four state-owned emergency oil reserve tanks – holding a total 100 million barrels – are filled to the brim.

Revealing that China’s current stockpiles have already exceeded the capacity of the first phase of facilities, which the government built over the last two years, China Shipping Group President Li Shaode urged the government to use foreign exchange reserves to finance floating storage capacity in the short term.

Li’s comments come after a string of recent oil- and gas-related events in China. Within the last few months, China has entered into natural gas supply agreements with Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and has already begun construction on needed pipelines. Just yesterday, China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) signed a 25 year gas supply agreement with Qatar.

Mini turbines will be installed inside the UK’s gas pipeline grid later this year in an attempt to gather energy from pipeline pressure. The set-up will be tested in east London and should produce 20MW by 2010. If successful, future installations across the country could produce up to 1GW. That’s the same amount of power produced by a coal or nuclear power station.

Louisiana is oiling up for a hydrogen network.

Exxon Mobil has entered in to a long-term contract with Air Products for constructing a new Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) Hydrogen production facility in Louisiana. The facility will be connected to Air Products’ Louisiana Hydrogen Pipeline Network and will service Exxon Mobil’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana refinery.

Russian environmental groups have today launched a legal challenge against a consortium led by U.S. oil and gas giant Exxon, for threatening critically endangered whales in the far east of the country.

Last year, Russian authorities gave Exxon the green light to build a pipeline across a lagoon on Sakhalin Island that is a crucial feeding ground for the world’s last surviving colony of Western Gray Whales.