Chief Scientist & Professor of Exploration Geoscience, Heriot-Watt University
Assistant Professor, Durham University
Chair of Urban & Regional Planning and Director of Canberra Urban & Regional Futures, University of Canberra, Visiting Professor, University of Warwick
Associate Professor in Biophysics, University of Pretoria
Production
Portugal fuel crisis continues as talks fail
Portuguese fuel-tanker drivers say they will maintain their strike after a meeting with the Socialist government failed to find an agreement. The 10-hour meeting took place after the drivers said they would suspend the six-day-old strike and hold talks over pay and conditions with their employers’ association, Antram. The authorities are keen to end disruption […]
Transmission
Study claims hydrogen breakthrough
Australia’s top research agency has announced a hydrogen breakthrough that could create an export industry targeting Asia and beyond. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Canberra published a paper on a membrane technology that separates ultra-high purity hydrogen from ammonia, while blocking all other gases. The development appears to overcome a limitation […]
Storage
Platinum firms look to develop batteries
The world’s largest platinum and palladium suppliers, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) and Platinum Group Metals, want to develop lithium batteries to respond to the demand for electric vehicles (EVs). “Platinum could play a big role in batteries, but we need to thrift out the other metals to make it viable,” said Mike Jones, CEO of […]
Consumption
US launches legal bid to seize Iranian tanker
The US Justice Department has issued a warrant for the seizure of Grace 1 (pictured), the Iranian oil tanker that was detained in Gibraltar. The US authorities are saying the vessel and the 2.1 million barrels of oil on board are subject to forfeiture. The Department of Justice cited violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers […]
Policy
US angered as Gibraltar frees Iranian tanker
An Iranian oil tanker held in Gibraltar since July 4 has been officially released by the authorities in the UK-run enclave but it still faces a US application to seize the vessel. British Royal Marines based in Gibraltar seized the Grace 1 oil tanker on suspicion it was delivering oil to Syria in violation of […]
Environment
World’s largest tidal turbine to be built in Scotland
The main manufacturing contract for what has been described as the world’s most powerful tidal turbine has been awarded to the Aberdeen-based Texo Group. Orbital Marine Power said the award of the contract marked the start of “major construction” on the Orbital O2 tidal stream turbine. Texo’s work would start this year at its quayside […]
Industry
RWE reveals half-year profits boost
RWE, Germany’s biggest energy supplier, said its core profit increased by 20 per cent in the first six months of this year, boosted by an impressive performance at its energy-trading branch. RWE said the first-half figures adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) rose by a fifth to €1.37 billion. Group revenue rose […]
Opinion
Bottlenecks, Batteries, and the Battle for Scottish Wind
Over the past 150 years, one cost has vexed the oil and gas industry more than any other: transport. The usually vast distances between producing fields and consuming markets made transportation the highest cost for consuming them. This conundrum is proving just as vexing for renewables in some ways, the most recent case being onshore […]
European Refineries Enjoying Summer of Friendship and Brotherly Love
In late April, organic chlorides contaminated Russian crude oil flowing to Europe through the Druzhba pipeline. The subsequent shutdown of Druzhba, which means friendship in Russian, took 1.8 million barrels per day (nearly 2 percent of global consumption) of Russian Urals crude away from European refiners in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and […]