With oil prices dropping down below $45USD a barrel its easy to forget the impact of $100USD+ prices of just eighteen months ago. People were driving less and trading in their gas guzzling SUVs for more fuel efficient vehicles. Now that prices have come down there is far less pressure on American’s to use less petroleum. Today, Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) President and CEO Robbie Diamond issued the following statement today in response to the release of government data showing that the 2008 trade deficit for petroleum and refined products was more than $380 billion, representing more than 56 percent of the entire national trade deficit.

We are dismayed that the president would deny the Iraqi people and its government the basic sovereign right to control their own natural resources. President Bush apparently believes that as commander in chief he is entitled to seize Iraq’s oil fields and control Iraqi oil if he should deem it necessary to protect U.S. national security,” said Jim Fine.

OPEC nations are not huge recipients of non-military US foreign aid. Our “aid” to Saudi Arabia involves congress giving them permission to pay our defense contractors vast sums of money. Knowing all this, why do we feel entitled to dictate how quickly other soveriegn nations sell off a natural resource that is often their only source of wealth?

We talk about and complain about oil prices but what we are actually talking about are oil FUTURES prices. When it comes to the actual black sticky stuff, it comes in many grades and with many different qualities.

From PhysicsWorld.com Physicists find new material for storing hydrogen Physicists in the US may have found a promising new class of material that can absorb and store large amounts of hydrogen. Adam Phillips and Bellave Shivaram of the University of Virginia measured around 12% by weight of hydrogen uptake in the metal-based composites. This is  Read more »