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Summary: In an article about President-elect Barack Obama's emphasis on alternative energy production in his economic stimulus speech, Reuters quoted criticism of Obama's plan by Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research. However, the article did not mention the Institute for Energy Research's ties to the oil industry or that Exxon Mobil Corp. has funded the organization.

Since oil gushed from Spindletop in 1901, the Houston area has been the energy capital of the United States and a major destination for federal dollars devoted to oil and gas production. But the mammoth economic stimulus bill that is winding its way through Congress largely bypasses Houston-based energy giants and fossil-fuel development in favor of funding new technologies to glean power from crops, the sun and heat trapped beneath the earth. "There's not a lot of oil and gas" money in the stimulus bill, said Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston.

Congress is planning to direct at least $10 billion in economic stimulus funding to an Energy Department loan guarantee program that hasn't backed any projects since it began in 2005. The new money is intended to generate $100 billion in loans for renewable energy and transmission projects, according to Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat. Congress previously approved at least $38.5 billion for clean-energy loan guarantees, and not a single project was funded.

The US renewable energy sector is capable of meeting President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to double US production within three years, but the ongoing financial crisis will challenge the industry in 2009, analysts and industry experts said. Currently, renewable energy sources comprise 7% of the US energy supply, according to the US Energy Information Administration. In a speech last week, Obama reiterated his pledge to make development of the sector a major part of his economic stimulus package.

Congress will not act until 2010 on a bill to limit the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming despite President-elect Obama's declaration that he will move quickly to address climate change, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee predicted Wednesday. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said that while every effort should be made to cap greenhouse gases, the economic crisis, the transition to a new administration and the complexity of setting up a nationwide market for carbon pollution permits preclude acting in 2009.

The London Evening Standard reports that the economic slowdown seems to have hit European truck slaes particularly hard - Volvo truck sales plunge 99.7%. The depth of the recession was revealed today as truckmaker Volvo admitted demand across the Continent has crashed by 99.7% as it took orders for just 115 new lorries in the last three months. That compares to orders totalling 41,970 in the third quarter of 2007. Global orders for Volvo slumped 55% in the last three months while Scania, of which Volvo has majority control, said its western Europe truck orders collapsed by 69%.

There is no lack of ideas for what President Obama and the 111th Congress should do to address three of the most pressing issues they will face when they take office in January - global climate change, the energy crisis, and economic transformation. It may be winter in Washington, D.C., but it's springtime in national politics. Policy agendas are blooming like cherry blossoms. For example, last week alone, Washington, D.C. was introduced to three comprehensive plans to address economy, energy and climate. Two were issued by the Center for American Progress, headed by John Podesta, co-chair of President-elect Obama's transition team, including an excellent strategy for green recovery by Bracken Hendricks and Benjamin Goldstein.

Oil fell below $52 a barrel on Thursday, deepening losses over the previous four sessions as battered financial markets reflected ever lower confidence in the world economy and evidence mounted of falling fuel demand. U.S. crude fell $1.42, to $52.20 a barrel by 7:09 a.m. EST, just off a session low of $51.95, the weakest level since January 2007. London Brent crude shed $1.13 to $50.59 a barrel. As economic slowdown has destroyed fuel demand, oil companies face the prospect of storing millions of barrels of unwanted oil.

True to their word, the 2008 World Energy Outlook represents a significant development by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the philosophy and methodology of their oil supply forecasts. The report attempts a bottom-up model of the world's oil production potential and even revises down estimates previously taken at face value from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The tone of the report has also changed dramatically, with an urgent call for investment in additional oil projects to avoid production shortfalls by 2015. Despite those significant changes, the report still relies on inflated estimates of reserves from OPEC countries, overplays the contribution of reserves growth due to technology and predicts the reversal of a decades long trend of declining oil discoveries. These are the real factors that will send oil production into decline, but at least now we have some numbers we can discuss and analyze instead of a decade of blind faith in oil market economics.

THE graphs climbing across these pages (see graph in detail, or explore the data) are a stark reminder of the crisis facing our planet. Consumption of resources is rising rapidly, biodiversity is plummeting and just about every measure shows humans affecting Earth on a vast scale. Most of us accept the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency. But are these efforts to save the planet doomed? A growing band of experts are looking at figures like these and arguing that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth. The science tells us that if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy.

Scientists, environmentalists and government and industry officials from around the world meet this week for a summit on greenhouse gas emissions that their host, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, hopes will highlight the economic benefits of pursuing green technologies. The conference, which begins Tuesday in Beverly Hills with some 700 participants expected, is an attempt by the Republican governor to influence a U.N. gathering in Poland next month.

Newsweek has an article on how "cleaner energy can create jobs and reignite global growth" - Why It's Time for a 'Green New Deal'. In rented offices on a quiet side street in Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower, analysts for the International Energy Agency spend long days and nights crunching numbers about oil production and greenhouse-gas emissions. They're the staid, sober global accountants who watch over the power supply for the 30 rich countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and their many reports are dry and technical. But lately, the group's pronouncements have taken on more ominous overtones. With a sense of urgency bordering on desperation, the IEA has begun calling for radical changes in the way the world drives its cars, its factories and, indeed, the global economy. This month the agency will issue a collection of comprehensive reports declaring that "a global revolution is needed in ways that energy is supplied and used." That kind of rhetoric has become familiar to U.S. voters, who've spent months listening to both presidential candidates tout their energy plans. Barack Obama has promised to "strategically invest" $150 billion over 10 years to build a clean-energy economy, one that will create 5 million new green jobs.

The Economist has a look at some of the factors affecting oil production, warning "Oil prices have plunged. Another spike may be on its way" - Well prepared. WITH the price of crude mired at half the peak of $147 it reached in July, this may seem like an odd time to invest in oil wells. Despite trimming its output along with other members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in an effort to prop up prices, that is just what the United Arab Emirates plans to do. Short-term price movements, its oil minister insists, should not distract from the world's enduring thirst for oil. Indeed the collapse of oil prices, one of the few reasons around for economic cheer, may be setting the stage for another spike. Just now oilmen are focused on the rapidly slowing demand for their product. Since early October, reckons the boss of BP, a big oil firm, America's consumption of crude has fallen by perhaps 2m barrels a day, or about a tenth. Sales of cars in America fell even more steeply last month-by 32%. There is also gloomy news from emerging markets, which have been the driving force in the oil markets of late. Demand for oil is growing much more slowly in China and India, for example, and car sales are down in both countries. There is even talk of global oil demand falling next year, for the first time since 1991.

The federal government is in bed with the coal industry. A prime example is the $2 million spent in advertising at both the Democratic and Republican conventions by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). Founded this year, the ACCCE combined the Center for Energy and Economic Development and Americans for Balanced Energy Choices. Already the ACCCE has spent $4.7 million on lobbying, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.

Rising fears of a global economic downturn are sinking crude oil prices and driving down the share prices of major oil companies despite the industry's record profits of the last two years. Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. company and largest Western oil company by market capitalization, has lost 17% of its share price since January, its worst showing since 1981. Its smaller peers are doing worse. The stock prices of Chevron Corp., BP PLC, Royal Dutch ShellPLC, Total SA and ConocoPhillips, the largest western oil companies, all hit new 52-week lows during the day on Monday.

OIL PRICES are plummeting, and the government ought to do something about it. You thought that the dramatic decline in the price of oil was one of the few good pieces of economic news lately? Well, in some ways of course it is. As the Post's Steven Mufson reported last week, the price of oil had dropped 38 percent since peaking two months ago.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal urged federal land managers to proceed cautiously in developing rules for oil shale leasing, even though commercial development is likely many years away in Wyoming, if at all. "While oil shale is a technology that may one day be used for large-scale economic production, it is still an unproven and unknown resource and thus caution should be taken in its development," Freudenthal wrote to Bureau of Land Management Director Jim Caswell.

For the first time in history the human family as a single entity is faced with multiple global crises, each of which has far-reaching implications for the future of our species. These crises are not just the consequences of specific events or even systemic flaws in say the global economic architecture. They are related to fundamental values and deeply entrenched worldviews. The solutions to these crises may require an unprecedented paradigm shift --- a radical shift in the way in which we look at ourselves, at others, and at the planet that we inhabit.

As last week began, Hurricane Gustav was threatening to tear up a substantial portion of the US's oil production and refining capacity in the Gulf as well as devastating New Orleans. However, Cuba, cooler water and the hurricane steering currents intervened so that within hours it became apparent that Gustav was going to be a more benign hurricane than those of three years ago. At the last minute, Gustav turned west, thus sparing New Orleans from substantial damage, but instead managing to tear up most of Louisiana's power grid. With this news, the oil markets focused on the demand destruction that was likely to ensue from sagging world economic activity.

Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute ... There is a veritable cottage industry of economists and statisticians (including Daniel Yergin, Bjorn Lomborg, Peter Huber, and Michael Lynch) who tirelessly implore their readers not to panic over oil prices because The Market will always come to the rescue. As easy conventional oil depletes, tar sands, oil shale, and biofuels become more economic to produce. Even coal-to-liquids becomes feasible on a large scale. And, as everyone knows, there is an endless amount of coal.