Some 65% of Saudi electricity is generated using black gold, even as successive price shocks and the relative inefficiency of oil generation have seen it all but phased out in rich countries.
Natural gas is a cleaner fuel than coal and crude oil and is becoming increasingly important with governments across the world encouraging the production and use of natural gas over coal and crude oil for energy generation.
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For Interface, the EPD process has encouraged it to reduce energy and material consumption (particularly oil), waste generation and emissions.
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Coal, used to produce steel, is also a viable replacement for oil, with its adoption for energy generation expected to grow incrementally more than natural gas, oil, hydro, solar, biomass, and geothermal combines over the next decade, according to Peabody.
In Chevron's 50-story complex in downtown Houston, geophysicists are sniffing out the next generation of deepwater oil wells.
No doubt the headline amount of this suit is just for show and Brazilian regulators are pragmatic enough to appreciate the risks inherent in forging a new generation of ultradeep oil exploration.
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Oil shale is an idea that was tested a generation ago, then abandoned when the price of crude oil plunged.
The oil not being used for power generation has been diverted to moving people and goods.
But the reduction in oil use from the first-generation Volt is negligible.
Now add onto that the fact that we have got, for the first time in a generation, growing crude oil production, growing natural gas production, and growing natural-gas liquids production.
Whites are first- or second-generation newcomers, whether conservative oil men or left-wing environmentalists.
Less than 2o years ago, electric generation was primarily the domain of oil, coal, and nuclear plants.
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"This is the worst time we've ever had in the business, " says Matt Bjornson, third-generation co-owner of Bjornson Oil Company in Cavalier, N.
The demand curve for physical oil is grounded in the real economics of electricity generation and powering factories and driving trucks.
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The company partners with leading global companies in the transportation, oil and gas, aerospace, defence, distributed generation and portable power markets.
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His generation had faced difficulties after Vietnam with the oil embargo, he said, but for these new veterans it was different.
The company is continuing to pursue contracts in the offshore oil and gas industries - and also in wind power generation from offshore sites.
The idea of obtaining more energy from off-shore and Arctic oil and gas deposits and accelerating the construction of a new generation of nuclear plants will continue to receive at least presidential lip service.
As the oil industry deals with the lowest inflation-adjusted prices in a generation, geophysicist L. Decker Dawson laughs.
Ironically, given its far greater effort to tackle climate change, the European Union has seen its emissions rise, partly because its higher gas prices (linked to oil) have led to an increase in coal-fired power generation.
Oil demand is recovering along with industrial activities growth, most accurately reflected in power generation.
Gas does now contribute 35% to power generation, but rock-bottom prices and a sniffiness about gas as oil's poor relation mean that exploiting its bounty (Saudi Arabia apparently has the world's fifth-largest gas reserves) has proven hard.
The biggest problem for this generation and the next generation is for the U.S. to break the addiction to foreign oil and not destroy the planet with hydrocarbons.
Some will no doubt remember back to a generation ago, when sponsorship signage on race cars was basically limited to motor oil and beer--STP, Pennzoil, and Anheuser-Busch 's Budweiser were staples.
Some will no doubt remember back to a generation ago, when sponsorship signage on race cars was basically limited to motor oil and beer--STP, Pennzoil, and Anheuser-Busch 's (nyse: BUD - news - people ) Budweiser were staples.
High oil prices have also increased the cost of energy imports, which Japan relies on for power generation.
Boone Pickens, now touting wind energy as a fix for electricity generation, favors natural gas as a way to alleviate the transportation sector's dependence on oil.
As oil production falls and oil prices rise, research will become more intensive as industry puts both feet forward to develop the next generation of energy technology.
Can we responsibly continue for another generation to lock our transportation sector (the principal, and most profligate, consumer of imported oil) into dependence on oil substantially imported from unfriendly places?
According to the World Policy Institute, coal-and-oil-fired power plants consume roughly twice the water than that of gas-fired facilities while nuclear generation needs three times that of natural gas.
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