ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) said it will spend $600 million to develop biofuel from algae. The petroleum giant, the most profitable company in the United States, will work in partnership with privately held Synthetic Genomics. Exxon will spend $300 million on its research and provide… Read More

There is no doubt that investors flock to gold as a safe haven hedge during times of political and/or economic distress and instability. And up until recently, the economic backdrop was about as bad as it could get. Furthermore, with the printing presses… Read More

A key measure of wholesale prices rose in June at nearly twice the increase economists had forecast. It was the sharpest rise for the index since November 2007. The Producer Price Index, which tracks how much it costs for manufacturers to make things,… Read More

Regulators seeking to stave off a return to $140 crude want to crack down on oil-market “speculation” by putting limits on some big trades. Any new rules along these lines wouldn’t affect individual investors. The Washington-based Commodity… Read More

  Oil prices have dipped from their recent peak above $70 per barrel, and the price of another commodity suggests crude has farther to fall. A barrel of oil contains 5.8 million British thermal units (BTUs) of… Read More

Coal. If you think coal is dirty and does nothing but emit greenhouse gases and wreak environmental havoc, you’re wrong. You’ve bought the hype. The fact is that, used properly, coal can be used to generate power with ZERO emissions. And the trick behind this technology is so simple, so… Read More

My in-box is flooded. The other applications on my desktop are lining up two by two. It’s been a deluge. I have 40 pages — 40 single-spaced pages — of questions from readers about how they can benefit from government action. This topic has engendered more feedback… Read More