What is going to keep US petrol prices - already at record levels - high in the future? Ethanol, according to oil industry pundits quoted in the New York Times. It is an elegant argument: targets to replace petroleum-based road fuels with biofuels cast doubt on the future profitability of oil refineries, which deters new investment, which keeps capacity tight and refining margins high. So if you think you are paying too much for your petrol in future, blame the environmenatlists and the farmers and the Bush administration, and every other supporter of ethanol, but not Big Oil.

It is a provocative thesis, which has attracted comment both negative and positive. But while ethanol may be part of the picture, it is far from being the only deterrent to investment in US refineries. Consumer journalist Christopher Platt suggests such investment just hasn’t been popular with shareholders. And there are plans for new investment by Marathon, for example, (full story requires subscription).

The clincher, though, is that refining margins are simply not the most important determinant of petrol prices: that is the price of crude, as this analysis at the Oil Drum blog makes clear. Other things being equal, the more biofuels the US can use to replace petroleum products, the lower the price of crude will be.

In his last significant policy move as prime minister before he steps down in June, Tony Blair’s government has set out its energy strategy for the UK. There is a whole lot of stuff in the announcement: the main paper alone is 341 pages, and there are 25 supporting studies. The UK’s obsession, shared with other EU governments, for trying to combat climate change with a barrage of initiatives, is neatly skewered by this FT editoral.

All anyone really seems to care about, though, is that the UK has moved a step closer to building new nuclear power stations. There is praise for the government from the Nuclear Energy Institute, and a cooler reaction from 3E Intelligence, which identifies Mr Blair as "the man who started the nuclear renaissance in Europe." The problem is that the UK is facing an energy supply problem rather sooner than any new nuclear power stations can plausibly be in service.

Nuclear power may be a long term solution, but Mr Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, will probably have to come up with some other ideas pretty quickly.

In the latest sign of confidence in a new era opening for nuclear power, Areva is to spend E610m on a new uranium conversion plant in the south of France.  Meanwhile Eon of Germany has said it is "keen" to be among the leaders in building a new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK, where the Labour government is signalling a policy shift to back new nuclear build; with the backing of the generally pro-Labour Observer newspaper. And in China, a new company has been established to import up-to-date nuclear technologies, which has agreed in principle to buy for pressurised water reactors from Westinghouse . The door-stopping International Energy Outlook from the US government, buried in all the numbers here, predicted a seven-fold rise in China’s nuclear electricity output by 2030. Although the new plants are safer and produce much less waste than the old ones, however, they still have their problems, as pointed out in the International Herald Tribune: nuclear power may be part of the answer to climate change, but it also can be one of the victims.

Oil prices are being driven higher by a general dip in US petrol supplies, as Ed Crooks wrote yesterday. This is one of those counter-intuitive abnormalities that makes energy fun or frustrating, depending on your disposition. But it’s true, even though you may be hesitant to believe Abdalla Salem El-Badri, Opec’s secretary-general, because he has reason to want to downplay any blame attributable to the cartel, which has recently restricted its oil output to push prices up. See the AP story here. Instead, believe US refiners who are privately admitting to having trouble performing their regular scheduled maintenance on time, and for that matter on budget.

What is interesting is the reason: The general lack of parts and labour in a market of high demand that is making it more difficult to do everything from drilling new wells to retooling refineries. Now if only someone would come up with a better explanation than ‘psychology’ as to why refining less crude into petrol should drive crude prices up, rather than down. If you do, please do send us a comment…

US crude oil and petrol (gasoline) stocks rose more than expected last week, according to the latest weekly figures from the US Energy Information Administration. At R-Squared Energy blog, Robert Rapier suggests the increase may not be enough to prevent the US going into Memorial Day with record low inventory levels. As Adam Robinson of Lehman brothers put it in his note released immediately after the figures: "gasoline finally builds east of the Rockies, but stubborn demand limits stock increase." The EIA’s conclusion:  "With gasoline inventories likely to remain low all summer, retail prices are expected to remain close to $3 per gallon during the entire summer season. Prices could rise again towards the end of summer if demand surges, as it often does, in late July and August." And if there is any further disruption to supplies, prices could go higher still.

UPDATE: For a characteristically hard-hitting view of what the summer might hold for US drivers, check out Matthew Simmons, author of "Twilight in the Desert", here.

Clean coal technology, in which the carbon dioxide produced by burning the black stuff is captured and stored, is being heavily promoted as an answer to global warming by many in the power and coal mining industries. As part of its forthcoming energy white paper, the UK government will hand out subsidies to a handful of clean coal projects around the country, and most of the UK power generators are expected to compete for the cash. In today’s Times newspaper, however, Centrica, owner of British Gas, warns that clean coal plants will be expensive and a high price for carbon in the European Emissions Trading Scheme, as well as initial subsidies, will be needed to make them economically-viable.

UK energy companies are busy planning new coal-fired power plants, but are hedging their bets on clean-coal technology until they know more about the government subsidies available, and the forecast for carbon prices in the third phase of the European ETS, from 2012. RWE Npower said today it is looking at building a new £2bn coal-fired plant at Blyth in Northumberland. The new 2,400MW plant will be more efficient than older power stations, and will be "carbon-capture ready". Cynics suggest that this means little more than having enough spare land available at the site to possibly build clean coal equipment in the future……

How many businesses have a "chief energy officer"? And how many need one?

The question emerged from a new piece of research conducted by Hill and Knowlton, the PR company, among 420 senior business executives from the US, UK, China and Canada.

The survey found: a majority of senior technology leaders from around the globe (82 per cent) closely monitor the issue of global warming; most do not have a defined energy strategy to deal with it (65 per cent);

more than three quarters of business decision makers surveyed (77 per cent) believe there is a need to expand the C-Suite to include a Chief Energy Officer (CNO) to manage, implement and measure a company’s return on investment in environmental technology, the so-called Return on Environment (ROE).

I have never come across a company with a chief energy officer (or one that measures its "return on environment", come to that), and I wonder what type of companies might need one. For most companies, the most important energy issue is whether the lights stay on. In developed countries, that’s a given. Therefore designating someone at board level with such a title seems like overkill. But perhaps there are companies out there with "CNOs". Examples?

Chevron, the US’s second largest energy group, is close to admitting it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein, during Iraq’s oil-for-food programme with the United Nations, Claudio Gatti of Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian newspaper, reports. For an English version, picked up by the New York Times, go here. Chevron will pay $25m-30m in fines, about how much it earned in half a day’s work last year. But if the settlement with US attorneys goes ahead, it sets a precedent for other major oil companies, almost all of which, were accused in a report by Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserves, of having bought Iraqi oil through middlemen who paid kickbacks on their behalf.

Petrol pump prices in the US have hit a record average of $3.07, up 20c from two weeks earlier and 4c higher than the previous record reached in Aug 2006, the Associated Press reports, quoting analyst Trilby Lundberg. That may still be cheap compared to the $7.18 an average gallon of UK petrol cost last week, but it is again getting US politicians worked up about greedy price-gouging oil companies, with a Senate bill in the works. The real cause of the jump is of course far more complicated, with low inventories and refinery shutdowns the main culprits. But as prices on the futures markets fall, so analysts say will costs at the pump. What will likely remain unchanged is that a bottle of spring water available at the kiosk of most US petrol stations will still cost substantially more than the petrol that quenches the thirst of the cars parked at the pump. And on many days the water bottle is the one that also comes with the better proft margin.

Many in the UK energy industry have grown increasingly frustrated waiting for the UK government to publish its energy white paper, which will set the framework for future energy policy and most likely kick-start the building of new nuclear reactors. After several delays, the paper is now expected in the second half of May. But the Renewable Energy Association says the government should not be too hasty. In a statement, it argues that publication of the white paper should be postponed in order to include measures needed to meet new European Union targets, such as a 20 per cent reduction in energy consumption by 2020. “We can’t keep tinkering with our energy policy – this is the last chance to get on the right path and stay there,” says Philip Wolfe, chief executive of the REA, which represents a range of UK energy companies and technology providers.