PARIS (Reuters Thu May 29, 2008) - Food prices will remain high over the next decade even if they fall from current records, meaning millions more risk further hardship or hunger, the OECD and the U.N.’s FAO food agency said in a report published on Thursday.

Beyond stating the immediate need for humanitarian aid, the international bodies suggested wider deployment of genetically modified crops and a rethink of biofuel programs that guzzle grain which could otherwise feed people and livestock.

“There’s an immediate need for humanitarian aid to avoid poor people going hungry,” added Angel Gurria, head of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

It singled out the big drive to produce biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels, a push the U.S. government is sponsoring heavily, and Europe as well.

The benefits at environmental and economic level as well as in terms of energy security were “at best modest and sometimes even negative”, the report said. “I’m saying it’s time for a serious review,” said Gurria.

Under U.S. plans, about a quarter of the U.S. corn crop will be channeled into ethanol production by 2022 while the European Union is also aiming for as much as 10 percent of road transport fuel to be produced using crops by 2020. The impact of high food commodity prices on retail food prices is clearer in developing countries than wealthy nations.

The proportion of total funds that households use to pay for food varies hugely, from more than 60 percent in Bangladesh, to 27 percent in China and just 10 percent in the United States or Germany, the report said.

LONDON (Reuters Wed May 28, 2008) - The pain of soaring oil prices provoked new protests in Europe on Wednesday, and Britain called for “global solutions” to the energy crisis.

Bulgarian truck drivers rallied, following the lead of British and French truckers and French fishermen in a wave of demonstrations and blockades by groups which say fuel costs threaten their livelihoods.

More than 150 truck drivers and dozens of bus drivers from across Bulgaria converged in a convoy on the outskirts of the capital Sofia, saying high fuel prices meant they were operating at a loss. Similar protests took place in the Black Sea port city of Varna, the Danube port city of Russe and other towns.

“Apparently we need to find a joint solution in the EU,” Transport Minister Petar Mutafchiev told reporters. “There is a transport problem not only in Bulgaria, it’s a European problem.”British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was no easy answer to spiraling oil price rises without coordinated global action, and met senior oil executives to discuss supply and demand.

Hundreds of protesting British truck drivers caused road chaos in London on Tuesday. Brown said he understood the impact on families, but that only an international strategy could help bring oil prices down.

“A global shock on this scale requires global solutions,” Brown wrote in the Guardian newspaper, pledging to put international action on oil prices at the top of the agenda at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Japan in July.

Italian fishermen in the Adriatic are expected to strike from Friday and Dutch truckers plan a national day of action for Thursday. In Spain, the Fishermen’s Confederation has called a protest in Madrid for Friday and the main truckers’ association has called a strike for June 8.

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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Fri May 23, 2008 Reuters) - Oil’s relentless price rise has pushed U.S. drivers off the road, curbed consumers’ appetite for expensive goods, forced airlines into their deepest cuts in years and threatened car makers with a flood of red ink.

It all points to a dramatic shift in the U.S. economy as oil’s surge above $130 per barrel forces already cash-strapped households and companies to rethink business as usual, and the changes are likely to be lasting, even if energy prices retreat.

The consumer response has been modest so far, but the pattern is clear. The number of miles traveled on U.S. roads fell 4.3 percent in March from a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Transportation said on Friday, the sharpest yearly drop on record and the first decline in the month of March since 1979, when the last major oil shock hit drivers.

Businesses are reacting even more dramatically. “Going green” with energy efficiency programs, once a popular image-burnishing exercise, have now become a matter of survival for oil-intensive companies.

Gasoline prices hit a record national average of $3.79 a gallon in the run-up to the Memorial Day holiday weekend, traditionally the start of the summer driving season. This year, 12 percent of drivers say they have canceled travel plans and another 11 percent have cut the distance of their trips because of expensive fuel, according to a survey by Deloitte & Touche.

James Hamilton, an economics professor at University of California, San Diego, who studies oil price shocks, said “Now, with wages stagnating and fuel prices rising more rapidly, consumers can no longer absorb the pressures. That is reflected in slumping consumer confidence and a steep drop in spending on non-essentials”.

“We’re back at a level of (fuel) expenditures that’s similar to what we had in the late 1970s,” Hamilton said. “It’s a big enough part of people’s budgets that it’s definitely getting their attention.”

The economic implications are huge. Consumer spending accounts for some two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, and there is no denying the slowdown. The Commerce Department’s retail sales data shows demand down sharply for autos and furniture, as well as at department stores.

When consumers curb spending, companies retrench, manufacturing falters, and employment dips. That is precisely what is happening now, and it points to a dangerous slowdown in the U.S. economy already grappling with the worst housing slide since the Great Depression.

“When gas prices hit $4 a gallon, you’re going to see America come to a screeching halt because for two weeks, consumers aren’t going to shop for anything except groceries,” said Britt Beemer, head of America’s Research Group, which surveys consumers on spending behavior. “Now, they’re not even going to the stores. They’re making the decision not to shop before they even leave their homes,” Beemer said.

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NEW YORK By Euan Rocha - The soaring cost of crude oil, coupled with the ongoing crisis in the housing market is pressuring the U.S. economy and changing consumer behavior, Dow Chemical Co Chief Executive Andrew Liveris, said in an interview on Friday.

“Inflationary pressures on the (U.S.) consumer through gasoline prices and food prices have reached the point where the consumer is clearly changing behavior,” said Liveris told Reuters.

“The weakness in the United States economy in housing that we have read about for over a year, (along) with the mortgage crises and credit crunch was one blow. But, oil is another blow, and its probably one blow too many,” he said.

Dow Chemical, the largest U.S. chemical maker, has seen its energy and hydrocarbon-based raw material costs now account for about one-half of the company’s total costs.

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Wed May 21, by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - Higher gasoline prices and fewer auto sales incentives jump-started Canadian inflation in April, as the price of goods and services was 1.7 per cent higher than a year earlier. That was up from a year-over-year increase of 1.4 per cent in March.

The month-over-month increase in headline prices was a much hotter 0.8 per cent, which would be close to 10 per cent if continued for a full year.

As with recent months, gasoline was the key contributor to inflation as pump prices in April were up 11.6 per cent from a year earlier.

Taking gasoline prices out of the calculation, the inflation rate would have been 1.3 per cent in April.

Fuel oil and other fuels surged 36.9 per cent, the fastest increase since September 2005.

ZED comment: The rapidly increasing price of petroleum is beginning to erode the economies of importing nations as industry and transportation pass through the increased cost of fuel to consumer goods. The hydrogen fueled ZED engine, is fully scalable to current internal combustion engine applications, with the intent of changing the transportation paradigm to exclude the use of petroleum. Economists agree that eliminating petroleum as a fuel, and replacing it with a stable priced alternative such as hydrogen, would provide a significant improvement in all industrial economies.

By Dan Morton (http ://EzineArticles.com)

I was recently given a price of $912.90 to convert my 1994 Ford Taurus to be able to run on E85 (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline). But not so fast - there’s more to the story. Both ethanol and gasoline can be made to burn satisfactorily in today’s cars with one major caveat - due to the ethanol content, a gallon of E85 contains approximately 27% less energy than a gallon of regular gasoline. This means that gallon for gallon, an E85 powered car will travel about 27% fewer miles than an equivalent gasoline powered car. For example, your Suburban, which gets about 13 MPG in town on gasoline, will now go only about 9.5 miles on a gallon of E85.

With this new information, a re-calculation of our cost/benefit ratio is in order. My annual E85 fuel costs for driving 15,000 miles at 18 MPG would be about $3,466, $400 more per year than plain, old gasoline. Which means that, after a $912.90 conversion plus over $800 additional fuel costs over two years, E85 would actually cost me over $1,700 more than plain, old gasoline.

Of course, if you think by coughing up the extra dough to go E85 you’re helping the environment by burning a renewable resource, think again. Some experts have estimated that using corn to make ethanol (as is the case in the US) for automobile fuel, it is possible that more fossil fuels (diesel and petroleum-based fertilizers) are used than the energy equivalent gained from the ethanol. How about lower emissions from E85 exhaust? Nope - any difference is negligible as todays gasoline cars are extremely clean-running machines.

Tuesday May 6, 10:28 am ET by Samantha Bomkamp, AP Business Writer.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Goldman Sachs analyst predicts that oil prices could reach $150 to $200 a barrel over the next 6 months to two years, but said that how far prices could climb still “remains a major uncertainty.”

“We believe the current energy crisis may be coming to a head, as the lack of adequate supply growth is becoming apparent,” analyst Arjun N. Murti wrote in a client note.

Oil for June delivery hit a record $122 a barrel Tuesday in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Murti said his highest forecast prices represent the possible culmination of a “super spike” — the steady rise in oil prices the analyst first called for three years ago.

NARRATOR: Eight hundred million cars. If you put them bumper to bumper, they’d circle the Earth about 100 times. That’s how many cars are on the road today. They come in all shapes and colors, but have one thing in common.

DAVID L. GREENE (Oak Ridge National Laboratory): Our transportation system is almost entirely fueled by petroleum, more than 95 percent. A quarter of all the petroleum ever consumed in the history of the world was consumed in the last 10 years. So we’re consuming it at an accelerating rate.

JOHN B. HEYWOOD (Sloan Automotive Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology): What is scary is that projections suggest that by 2050 there’ll be two billion vehicles, two and a half times as many as there are today.

NARRATOR: To lure buyers, cars and trucks have become bigger and more powerful every year. Since 1985, average vehicle weight has increased 1,000 pounds. Horsepower has almost doubled.

JOSEPH B. WHITE (Wall Street Journal): If you look anywhere in the world, not just the United States, you look anywhere in the world, people will buy the most horsepower they can afford. There’s something kind of primal and elemental about having a powerful machine at your beck and call and at your command. The car companies know this; they’re selling emotion. If we just needed an appliance to get from A to B, we’d all be driving around in Toyota Corollas.

NARRATOR: As weight and horsepower increase, cars are consuming more gasoline than ever before, despite its growing cost. Even a former Texas oilman seems to get it.

GEORGE W. BUSH (President of the United States, 2003): For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil, and this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes and to terrorists.

AMORY B. LOVINS (Rocky Mountain Institute): Think about where your money goes when you put your credit card in the pump. Some of your oil money is going directly to arm people who are trying to kill us.

NARRATOR: Burning oil is also changing the chemistry of the atmosphere.

AMORY LOVINS: Coming out of your tailpipe are all those carbon dioxide molecules. Those go up in the air. They’ll stay there for about a hundred years, messing up the climate.

NARRATOR: Increased carbon emissions are creating climate changes that scientists warn us are dangerous.

DAVID GREENE: We’re going to have to find other sources of energy to power the transportation system. And we’re going to have to make it more energy-efficient at the same time.

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