ConocoPhillips Company is an American-based multinational energy corporation that has their headquarters in Houston, Texas. It is the fifth largest private sector energy corporation around the globe. ConocoPhillips is found in over 40 countries and employs over 25,000 people worldwide. In 2007, ConocoPhillips was the first major United States oil company to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. Also in 2007, ConocoPhillips stated that it would spend $150 on research and development for new energy sources and technologies. Since then, ConocoPhillips has been doing a lot within the clean technology sector, especially when it comes to renewable energy and future environmental sustainability.

1 ) ConocoPhillips Increases Spending on New Energy Technologies. ConocoPhillips is looking to make itself more than just an oil company by increasing their overall technology budget that will go toward innovations in the clean energy technology sector. In 2008, ConocoPhillips expanded their budget to $500 million which would be used toward a number of new technologies, such as new exploration technologies used for the detection of undersea oil and gas deposits while minimizing environmental impact, new breakthroughs in lithium-ion battery technologies, carbon capture and storage technologies, and coal-to-gas technologies. Stephen Brand, the senior vice president for technology said, “With our emphasis on research and development, alternatives like solar, geothermal, clean coal and battery technology are where we put our efforts, in addition to moving forward on renewable like biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol.”

2 ) ConocoPhillips Joins GE and NRG in 2011 for $300 Million Alternative Energy Alliance. In the early months of 2011, ConocoPhillips partnered with GE and NRG to invest over $300 million into a number of alternative energy emerging technologies. Known as Energy Technology Ventures, this investment will fund around 30 growth-stage and venture businesses throughout the next four years. A number of investments include non-food based biofuels and solar photovoltaic technologies. Aside from investing in these companies, Energy Technology Ventures will offer opportunities for commercial collaboration in a number of sectors across North America, Europe, as well as Israel, including biofuels, water, emissions control, energy efficient, renewable power generation, and smart grid technology.

3 ) Partner with Virginia Tech to Have Town Hall Meeting. In July of 1007, ConocoPhillips and Virginia Tech got together to host a town hall meeting in Richmond, Virginia to discuss growing energy needs. ConocoPhillips was there to provide views on a number of topics that could help the area, including alternative energy sources, renewable fuels, energy conservation, and energy efficiency.

4 ) ConocoPhillips Builds Global Research and Development and Training Center. In February of 2008, ConocoPhillips announced plans that it would be building a Global Technology and Corporate Learning Center in Louisville, Colorado. Upon establishment, the center was designed to become a central location for the research and development of creating liquid fuels from sources of renewable energy. The adjacent learning center will be a location where thousands of employees can get together and be trained on new energy technology applications. The campus is said to be completed by 2012.

5 ) ConocoPhillips and NEED Create Renewable Energy Workshops. In February of 2008, ConocoPhillips and the National Energy Education Develop (NEED) planned to host together 26 energy education workshops over an 11 month time span. The goal is to help school teachers in American become much more aware of energy efficiency and conservation. Teachers that attend the workshops will then share the knowledge gained with their students. In the last few years, these two companies have offered training and resources to around 3,000 teachers.

6 ) ConocoPhillips Works with Tyson Foods to Produce Next Generation Renewable Diesel. In April of 2007, ConocoPhillips and Tyson Foods, Inc. created a strategic alliance to produce as well as market the next generation in renewable diesel fuel. In the partnership, they plan to utilize poultry, pork, and beef by-product fat to create a new form of transportation fuel that could increase America’s energy security and address concerns regarding climate change. Animal fats are to be processed with hydrocarbon feedstocks to produce diesel fuel that will meet federal standards. The animal fat will also improve ignition properties of fuel.

7 ) ConocoPhillips, NREL, and Iowa State University Partner for Biofuels Research. In April of 2008, ConocoPhillips joined a memorandum of understanding with Iowa State University and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to look for cellulosic biomass conversion technologies for short and long term capabilities. Through this collaboration, the goal is to look for cost-effective and efficient techniques to create liquid transportation fuels from plants. “ConocoPhillips is committed to the development of technologies that will convert sustainable non-food feedstocks into transportation fuels that will be critical to the nation’s energy security,” said Stephen Brand, ConocoPhillips senior vice president, Technology. “We are hopeful that this collaboration will expand the knowledge base and speed the development of these environmental technologies.”

8 ) ConocoPhillips Signs on to Algae Research Agreement. ConocoPhillips signed a $5 million multi-year research agreement with C2B2 – the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels – a joint venture with the NREL, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, and the University of Colorado and Boulder. This project looks to locate new ways to convert biomass into low-carbon transportation fuels. The first part of this project focuses on creating renewable fuel from sources of algae.

9 ) ConocoPhillips Gives $3.5 million to University of Colorado’s Biotech Building. ConocoPhillips recently gifted the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building at the University of Colorado at Boulder with $3.5 million to assist in bringing together top class scientists as well as engineers to create new viable solutions using biotechnology. “The Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building creates a Front Range anchor for the biosciences with the help of partners like ConocoPhillips,” said CU-Boulder Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “With interdisciplinary research, the possibilities for energy innovation are limitless, and ConocoPhillips is providing the foundation for this vital work.”

10 ) ConocoPhillips Invests in Israeli Wastewater Startup. In June of 2011, ConocoPhillips made an investment into Emefcy, an Israeli start-up company specializing in the generation of electricity from wastewater treatment. This was the first investment outside the United States and the money will be used to assist the company in scaling its technology for industrial and municipal applications.

Article by Shawn Lesser, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Atlanta-based Watershed Capital Group – an investment bank assisting sustainable fund and companies raise capital, perform acquisitions, and in other strategic financial decisions. He is also a Co-founder of the GCCA Global Cleantech Cluster Association ”The Global Voice of Cleantech”. He writes for various cleantech publications and is known as the David Letterman of Cleantech for his “Top 10″ series. He can be reached at shawn@watershedcapital.com

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The European Union says crude oil extracted from Alberta’s tar sands should be ranked as a dirtier fuel source than oil tapped from conventional oil wells, a move that could effectively ban the import of the controversial oil.

The European Commission endorsed a measure that would essentially rate fossil fuels based on the CO2 emitted during extraction, refining, and combustion. The EU has proposed that tar sands oil be ascribed a greenhouse gas value of 107 grams per megajoule of fuel, compared with 87.5 grams for ordinary crude oil.

“With this measure, we are sending a clear signal to fossil fuel suppliers,” said Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate change commissioner. “As fossil fuels will be a reality in the foreseeable future, it’s important to give them the right value.”

Such a ratings system may eventually be applied to natural gas extracted from shale oil formations. The exploitation of Alberta’s tar sands has generated increasing protest from environmental groups. In addition to destroying large swaths of forest, the extraction and processing of the sludgy bituminous material typically requires more energy and water than conventional production. Canadian officials and petroleum industry leaders vowed to fight the measure, calling it a “stigmatization” of a fuel source found only in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

photo: hidden side

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Muammar Gadhaffi’s 42 year-old regime is in its death rattle – maybe today, maybe tomorrow, his administration that has ruled Libya with a quixotic and brutal hand is about to pass, in Trotsky’s piquant phrase, “into the dustbin of history,” prompting the question “what next?”

The glittering prize is Libya’s 1.6 million barrels per day output of high quality crude, which accounted for about 2 percent of global oil output drawn from Africa’s largest oil reserves, whose exports have been stymied since the NATO-led campaign began six months ago. Projecting into the future, analysts believe that has reserves to sustain its previous level of production for 80 years.

Who will eventually control this asset, with oil prices currently at roughly $84 a barrel, generating an income of more than $12.6 million per day?

Italy’s ENI?

France’s Total?

Britain’s BP?

U.S. companies?

Or, will China add Libyan future production to its string of acquisitions, as it is already China’s eleventh largest source of imports?

The crystal ball is murky indeed, but when the uprising against Gadhaffi began six months ago, according to the Chinese media, about 36,000 Chinese were in Libya working on 50 projects.

Cautiously accepting the new reality, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement posted Monday on the ministry’s website, “The Chinese side respects the choice of the Libyan people. The Chinese side is willing to work with the international community to play a positive role in the reconstruction process of Libya in the future.”

The key word here is “reconstruction,” a noun conspicuously absent from any statements by the NATO coalition members.

When the uprising against Gadhaffi began 75 Chinese companies had already invested billions of dollars in Libya in infrastructure projects, including oil, railway and telecoms projects. After the insurrection erupted in February China began a substantial land, sea and air evacuation operation of its nationals.

Benghazi-based Libyan rebel oil firm Arabian Gulf Oil Co. (AGOCO) information manager Abdeljalil Mayouf cautioned however that China’s “softly, softly” approach to the uprising may initially cost it influence in the new Libyan reality, saying, “We don’t have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil.”

While many analysts believe that Italy’s ENI and France’s Total could be successful in post-insurrection Libya because of their countries’ heavy support for the rebels, it may all devolve down to a question of funding, and given Beijing’s pockets, despite its caution in its foreign policy, that may well give China the edge.

Few promoting the prospects of Italian and French energy firms now remember that just a couple of months ago the Libyan dissidents were literally begging for financial assistance.

Furthermore, particularly in African endeavors, Chinese investment has extended far beyond mere resource acquisition to providing infrastructure essentials such as roads, schools and health clinics, all of which will be in short supply in post-Gadhaffi Libya.

Finally, certainly last but not least, China has no history of colonialism in North Africa, unlike Libya (occupied by Italy, 1911-1947), Tunisia (France, 1883-1956), Algeria (France, 1830-1962), Morocco (France, 1906-1956) and Egypt (Britain, 1882-1922.) While such issues are not fiscally tangible, they may well influence the post-Gadhaffi negotiations.

Waiting in the wings are U.S. and Canadian companies such as Marathon, ConocoPhillips, Hess, Occidental and Suncor, which withdrew Libya at the onset of insurrection, as well as Russian companies, including oil firms Gazprom Neft and Tatneft, which had projects worth billions of dollars in Libya alongside Brazil’s Petrobras. BP, which did not have production in Libya before the war, said it was planning to return for exploration efforts.

In the coming weeks Libya’s National Transitional Council will doubtless be inundated with offers from various companies promoting their advantages. Total and ENI have the inside geographical edge, being across the Mediterranean, while American and British companies have cutting edge technology to refurbish Libya’s decrepit energy infrastructure.

But it is too early to count China out from the race – they do not come burdened by history, and they come with deeper pockets than all their competitors. The NTC, if it indeed represents the Libyan people, will not be unswayed by such concerns, as the European rivals have yet to utter the one of the words most dreaded on Wall Street in considering profits, “reconstruction.” Whatever the shortcomings of Beijing’s views of events in Africa’s largest oil producer, they do extend beyond mere corporate profits to include rebuilding, which is likely to ensure them a place at the table.

Article by John C.K. Daly, appearing courtesy OilPrice.com.

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After burning through five energy ministers, President Rafael Correa was finally able to pass the petroleum reform that replaces a production-sharing model with a flat rate per barrel produced payment scheme. The oil of Ecuador now belongs to the Ecuadorian state.

As the IPS reported, January 23rd marked the last day for private companies to renegotiate small and large field contracts. Over the last five months, 7 of the 16 foreign oil companies made the decision to leave Ecuador. These included U.S.-Colombian Pegaso and U.S. Bellwether along with Spanish, Brazilian, Argentinian and other mixed-consortiums.

Ecuador’s oil sector accounts for nearly 50% of export earnings and one-third of tax revenues, so for the state to reclaim this kind of control over its most profitable resource does promise to bring benefits to the people of Ecuador.

Correa has been working towards an increase in the percentage of petroleum revenues spent on social programs since his term began in January 2007. Just what kind of programs impact this new revenue will have on the lives of Ecuadorian’s poorest citizens will become more apparent over the next ten years as the multinational companies continue to invest.

Ecuador expects to hold on to an extra 2.1 million dollars a day or 771 million dollars for 2011 and is now set to receive 100 percent of rising oil prices, which will prove crucial with the increasing

Article by Allison Leahy, appearing courtesy Earth & Industry.

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(Reuters) – A reduction of ten percent in oil demand could knock about $20 off the price of a barrel of crude by 2035 if nations meet their climate change pledges and cut fossil fuel subsidies, the International Energy Agency says.

“The weaker and slower the response to the climate challenge, the greater the risk of oil scarcity and the economic cost for consuming countries,” the Financial Times on Thursday quoted a draft of the 2010 World Energy Outlook (WEO) as saying.

The report by the IEA, which advises 28 developed countries on energy issues, is due for release on November 9.

The inflation-adjusted price of oil would be $113 by 2035 in the WEO scenario that takes into account new environmental policies, versus $135 in the main scenario, with demand at 99 million barrels per day (bpd) and 107 million bpd respectively.

The IEA also forecasts Iraqi oil output will almost double in the next decade, reaching 4.8 million bpd by 2020, overtaking Iran “soon after 2015,” according to the FT.

IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka told Reuters this week it would be “very difficult” to reach agreement at this year’s Cancun meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC).

The COP-16 will meet in Mexico from November 29 to December 10 as a follow-up to last year’s Copenhagen meeting, which produced limited results on commitments to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

In last year’s WEO, the Paris-based agency presented a business-as-usual scenario assuming no policies were adopted to curb emissions, where global temperatures would rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2050 from pre-industrial levels.

The agency also presented a second scenario to cap global warming to just 2 degrees Celsius, which implied cutting emissions to stabilize the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide at 450 particles per million (ppm).

A scenario in this year’s WEO will include last year’s Copenhagen decisions, which would fall somewhere between the business-as-usual scenario and the 450 scenario of last year’s outlook, Tanaka said.

Article by Alejandro Barbajosa, edited by Himani Sarkar, appearing courtesy Reuters.

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The amount of food wasted each year by Americans represents the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil, or about 2 percent of the nation’s annual energy consumption, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Texas say it takes the equivalent of about 1.4 billion barrels of oil to produce, process, package, and transport a year’s worth of food in the United States — between 8 and 16 percent of the nation’s total energy consumption.

And, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, about 27 percent of food is wasted in the U.S. each year, including 33 percent of fats and oils, 32 percent of dairy products, 31 percent of eggs, and 25 percent of vegetables, according to the study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. “The energy embedded in wasted food represents a substantial target for decreasing energy consumption in the U.S.,” the researchers said.

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America’s military should wean itself off oil by 2040 in order to end the high vulnerability of its fuel supply to attack and price spikes, according to a new report. The U.S. Department of Defense currently relies on petroleum for about 77 percent of its energy needs, including aircraft, ground transportation, ships, and weapons, according to the Center for a New American Security, a non-partisan group based in Washington, D.C. That reliance makes the U.S. military vulnerable to extreme fuel price spikes as the global market competes for increasingly depleted petroleum supplies, the report said. “Ensuring that DOD can operate on non-petroleum fuels 30 years from today is a conservative hedge against prevailing economic, political and environmental trends, conditions and constraints,” the authors say.

While that shift will likely take decades, the report says the Defense Department has already established the groundwork, including significant development and testing of numerous renewable sources of energy. The report offered the military 12 guiding principles to make the transition to renewable sources of energy, including steadily increasing the use of renewable fuels at domestic military installations, improving energy efficiency, planning for an uncertain and unstable energy future, and developing new, non-petroleum fuels to use in existing equipment.

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(Reuters) Here is an explanation of how a relief well works, as explained by industry and academic experts as well as Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president of exploration and production.

* A relief well provides access to a blown-out well far beneath the seabed, at or close to the bottom of the problem well.

* Typically, it is drilled parallel to the problem well through multiple layers of rock and sometimes salt. Then the drillbit curves to intersect with the problem well. This is how BP’s relief wells are being drilled.

* The first relief well began drilling on May 2, and the second began on May 16.

* As of June 18, the first well had been drilled to 10,677 feet, or 2 miles, beneath the seabed. The second well had reached 4,662 feet, or eight-tenths of a mile.

* The first well also was within 200 feet of the side of the blown-out well, but had to continue drilling down to find the right intersect point.

* The Macondo well was drilled to 13,000 feet, or 2.4 miles, beneath the seabed.

* The drilling process is lengthy because it must stop at points along the way. That allows drillers to insert piping, called casing, to hold the well open and prevent a cave-in.

* The diameter of the well shrinks as it drills deeper to maintain control and integrity of the wellbore. BP’s target will be about 8.5 inches across, or about the size of a large dinner plate.

* BP is slowing the pace of drilling for the first relief well so electromagnetic sensors can be used to detect the blown-out well and gradually move closer.

* BP has detailed information on the Macondo well that is helping it choose the right path for the relief wells.

* BP intends to first pierce the space between the wellbore and the casing in the blown-out well, and then pierce the casing. That will ensure the well connects with the flow path of gushing oil and gas.

* Once intersected, BP can pump heavy drilling fluid down the relief well into the blown-out well.

* The weight of the mud reduces high pressures in the reservoir that send crude billowing up to the leak.

* As pressure is reduced, the flow of oil slows.

* Once sufficiently slowed, BP can pump cement into the Macondo wellbore and plug the leak at or near the source.

* A relief well can still work if it doesn’t precisely intersect with a blown-out well.

* In that case, if a relief well gets close enough, holes can be punched through its casing to allow drilling mud to flow through fissures and fractures in the reservoir rock to reach the blown-out well.

* Once the leak is plugged, BP can possibly return to the Macondo well at some point to try to produce oil from it. BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward told Congress the company estimated the reservoir holds up to 50 million barrels of oil, and the well would have produced 15,000 to 25,000 barrels a day had it been completed.

* If the Macondo well is too damaged to revisit, it is possible the company could turn one of the relief wells into a producing well.

Article by Kristen Hays; editing by Xavier Briand; appearing courtesy Reuters

photo:Deepwater Horizon Response

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What you don’t know will hurt you. That’s the message in Michael Lewis’ new book, “The Big Short,” which traces today’s worldwide economic downturn to a single problem: the secretive nature of prices in the subprime mortgage bond markets.

What’s this got to do with energy? Our industry has its own opaque corners that can cause widespread damage. This week the International Energy Agency (IEA) is attempting to focus light on a big one: energy subsides for fossil fuels.

It’s pretty easy to find out about incentives for clean energy, but not so simple to untangle how much government money supports coal, gas and oil, as they move from research & development through delivery to the consumer.

I suspect we hear so much about clean energy subsidies because they offer good PR for politicians. Government news releases tout new energy efficiency or renewable energy programs. But how often do you hear an elected official brag about offering subsidies to the fossil fuel industry? Is there a Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE) for fossil fuels I suspect not.

This creates a public image problem for clean energy. People think renewable energy gets government support and fossil fuels do not. I often hear the question: If green is so good, why can’t it stand on its own two feet? Green advocates counter that the competition – fossil fuels – receives incentives too and that green just wants a level playing field.

That leads to the next question: What will it take to create a level playing? Just how much do governments spend on fossil fuels anyway? Thanks to a new report by IEA, we now know the number is $557 billion worldwide as of 2008.

The number comes from IEA’s survey of the 37 countries that represent 95% of global subsidization of fossil fuels. IEA hopes to identify how subsidies artificially dampen fossil fuel pricing and encourage people to use more energy.

IEA says that phasing out fossil fuel subsides between 2011 and 2020 would:

• Cut primary global energy demand by 5.8% by 2020. This is equivalent to the current energy consumption of Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand combined.

• Cut global oil demand by 6.5 mb/d in 2020 – the equivalent of one third of current US oil demand.

• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6.9% by 2020, equal to current emissions of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK combined.

IEA intends to set up an online database of fossil‐fuel subsidies by country, by fuel, and by year. A next good step would be a side-by-side comparison of fossil fuel and clean energy subsidies.

Many would argue that energy subsidies are required because energy is a basic need. This may be true, but incentives skew true price. Not knowing true price at best leads to poor decisions by consumers, business and government and at worst opens the door for market manipulation, as we saw with the subprime mortgage markets. Better to have transparency on all energy incentives, so that we can steer ahead with open eyes, and avoid the kind of crash we’ve seen in the financial markets.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose work appears in many of the industry’s top magazines and newsletters. She is publisher of the Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

photo: blmurch

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The EPA may experiment with using containment booms made out of mushrooms to break down oil gushing from the Gulf, according to a leading mushroom scientist.

Paul Stamets, a pioneering mycologist, said he had been contacted “at the highest levels of the EPA” to discuss using long, floating cylinders of fungi to break down hydrocarbons floating in the Gulf from the BP oil disaster.

Stamets has experimented with a species of oyster mushroom, pleurotus ostreatus, that can withstand saltwater and establish itself on straw. Applied to diesel-contaminated soil, it cut the dirt’s oil content from 10,000 parts per million to 200 parts per million within 16 weeks.

However, mushrooms have never been deployed en masse to contain oil in the ocean, and many hurdles remain. A source of mushrooms and a local source of straw or shredded wood haven’t been located, and fungi need both time and expertise to reproduce in the massive numbers that would be needed to make a dent in such a large spill.

Oyster mushrooms break down simple oil molecules immediately but take longer with more complex hydrocarbons. This means that mushrooms might need to be deployed on the same slick several times in order to break it down, Stamets said.

Early in the spill the use of “hair booms,” cylinders of hair stuffed into used nylons, showed promise, but the use of them was curtailed for a simple reason: when soaked, hair sinks.

Article by David Ferris appearing courtesy Matter Network.

photo: jeua

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