I would call this aggressive cornucopianism.

In sharp contrast to popular doomsday scenarios in which an oil supply crash triggers a global economic crisis, a U.S. energy think tank says the world has just over three times the oil supply envisioned by pessimists.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates says in a report released Tuesday that so-called ''peak oil'' theories are not only wrong, they're threatening efforts to develop new sources of supply.

Activists keep pressure on Canada at UN talks

"The only country that has a Kyoto target and that's turned its back on Kyoto is Canada," said Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace Canada.

He added that what makes Ambrose's claim particularly objectionable is that "one of the first things her government did when they came to power was abolish pretty much anything that existed in terms of implementation measures."

Liberal MP John Godfrey noted the Tories cancelled things like wind energy incentives and the Energuide program.

Canada faces debt crunch

Canada may have been racking up surpluses for the past decade but it has barely put a dent in the national debt and a new fiscal time bomb looms -- soaring obligations for programs like medicare, according to a report released yesterday.

Federal, provincial and local governments have accumulated $2.7-trillion in government liabilities -- $171,032 for each Canadian taxpayer -- in addition to $798-billion in direct debt, according to the report from the Fraser Institute.

"We are moving in the right direction," said Niels Veldhuis, senior research economist at the Fraser Institute. "But the bigger problem of course is the problem most Canadians are not aware of, the unfunded liabilities of the obligations we've promised."

Solar expected to shine

The Ontario Power Authority says there's great potential for solar power in the province, but sometimes you have to wonder whether it truly believes what it says.

Housing bubble burst in U.S. cools B.C. exports

The shock wave caused by the bursting U.S. housing bubble is hitting British Columbia faster and harder than the rest of Canada, and is expected to drag down the total value of B.C. exports by three per cent in 2007, according to an outlook prepared by Export Development Canada.

Nuclear program nearing fruition

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signalled Tuesday Iran is on the verge of mastering the entire nuclear fuel cycle, saying the country would soon celebrate the achievement.

He also claimed the world is ready to accept Iran's "full nuclearization" despite U.S.-led efforts at the United Nations to pressure Iran into rolling back its nuclear program.

The statements appeared to suggest Iran is increasingly confident it will prevail in its defiance of the West, given the changed political landscape in the United States and British Prime Minister Tony Blair's effective acknowledgment Monday that Iranian and Syrian help is needed to bring stability to Iraq.

Oil prices advance ahead of U.S. energy report

Oil prices edged up Wednesday as traders awaited the release of the weekly U.S. inventory report.

Mild weather in much of the Northern Hemisphere is dampening demand for heating oil and natural gas, however.