Australia, despite being deeply committed to curbing greenhouse gas emissions (GGEs), is nonetheless experiencing a fossil fuel surge. The growth comes despite a carbon tax, due to be implemented later this year, which is deeply unpopular with the country’s mining industry. According to the government agency Geoscience Australia, in fiscal year 2011 coal exploration spending in Australia surged by 62 percent, with investment in exploration for new coal deposits reaching $520 million, with spending on exploration surging faster than any…

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The Falkland Islands, a British windswept archipelago in the southern Atlantic off the coast of Argentina, last had its moment in the media spotlight two decades ago, when the two nations fought a brief but vicious conflict after Buenos Aires invaded the islands, providing a PR boost to Argentina’s ruling junta. But, Argentina lost, and the 11-week conflict claimed more than 900 lives, leaving Britain in control of the islands. UK analytical firm Edison Investment Research is now reporting that the Falklands’ oil industry…

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Beijing for years has relentlessly projected a benign image in its foreign policy, but as its maritime neighbors are discovering, China’s pacifist representations do not extend to energy issues, most notably in the disputed South China Sea. Now, Chinese “imperial” overreach may bring U.S. naval forces once again into the western Pacific, as Beijing’s southeast Asian neighbors feel increasingly threatened by China’s overarching territorial claims in the South China Sea. China currently contends sovereignty of the Spratly…

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Indonesia, which had begun producing oil in the early 20th century, had such substantial production that it was a major impetus for Japan invading the Dutch East Indies, as Indonesia was then known, in December 1941. Over the last several decades the country has seen its production relentlessly slide, so much so that it left OPEC in 2008, seemingly confirming Marion King Hubbert’s “peak oil” theory. But, rather than looking back, Jakarta is looking forward on a number of post-oil energy fronts. The archipelago is the…

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The U.S. new sanctions initiative, strongly supported by Israel, to impose new sanctions against Iran, is designed to punish it for its purported covert nuclear weapons program by imposing new restrictions on Tehran. As a result, many of Iran’s oil customers are scrambling to avoid collateral damage to their economies. The sanctions’ potential fallout is now hitting South Africa, Africa's biggest economy, which receives nearly 25 percent of its needs from Iran, roughly 98,000 barrels per day (bpd), or about 4 percent of Iran’s…

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