On November 8, in New Orleans, President Obama talked about improving the U.S. economy. He addressed the already forgotten government shutdown: “there’s no question that the shutdown harmed our jobs market. The unemployment rate still ticked up. And we don't yet know all the data for this final quarter of the year, but it could be down because of what happened in Washington.” ...

On Tuesday evening the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee released a communiqué from its four-day Third Plenary Session, held November 9-12, containing what many claim offers little real change. ...

Is wood the best fuel to generate electricity? Despite wood’s low energy density and high cost, utilities in the US and abroad are switching from coal to wood to produce electrical power. ...

Al Gore is for it. Student bodies are in favour. And for both the UK’s Guardian and the New York Times it’s already a cause celebre. Given such an array of entitlement culture, social engineering leftist consensus, we therefore KNOW it must be a dumb idea, right? ...

State-owned PetroVietnam received some bad news last Friday. Japan's biggest oil refiner JX Holdings said that it would not participate in its planned project to expand Vietnam's Dung Quat refinery, the only operating refinery in the country. ...

With abundant natural gas certain to become more plentiful, many wonder whether it could replace gasoline and diesel as a transportation fuel. Some even think the government should subsidize such a conversion. ...

In a time of partisan hostility, rare cooperation from both sides of the aisle and both houses is noteworthy. When the cooperation is over something essential to modern energy—including oil-and-gas development, wind and solar, and LED lights—it gets my attention. ...

Last week one British MP wanted to know why the country wasn’t doing more diplomatically to “help the Greenpeace 30”. Today I watched yet another British TV news broadcast lamenting the hardship these poor dears are suffering in a cold Murmansk cell. ...

Solar systems are being installed at hundreds of schools across the United States. Educators use solar panels to teach students about the “miracle” of energy sourced from the sun. But a closer look at these projects shows poor economics and a big bill for citizens. ...

China practically dominates the energy news of the day. The long-term effects will be far wider than the stories now fixating the American public. Last month the big news coming out of China’s Oil Patch was Beijing’s startling, if not long overdue, corruption allegations against one of its state-owned oil majors, CNPC, with corresponding executive resignations, and potential fall-out for more of the same. ...