Energy Shortages

Malah abu Lashin lay in the intensive care unit of Nasser Children's Hospital here Sunday, her frail 20-month-old body attached to a ventilator, an oxygenator and an intravenous pump. The lifeline that kept those devices functioning was equally fragile: a tenuous flow of electricity from a generator with just enough diesel in the tank to last 10 hours. "If the power goes off, we can pump those machines by hand," said Anwar Sheikh Khalil, the hospital's director.

When the gas gauge on Jada Burns' Kia wagon was on empty Tuesday afternoon, she lucked out, catching her neighborhood Chevron station at a time when its pumps were open. But the clerk, Mamadou Diallo, said he expected to be sold out by rush hour. With drivers already forming a line, it was about 20 minutes before Burns could fill up. "This is the first time I've had to actually wait," said Burns, 33, who earlier had passed by a station where the line was much longer. "This is crazy, isn't it?"

Gasoline shortages hit towns across the southeastern United States this week, sparking panic buying, long lines and high prices in the wake of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. In Atlanta, half the gasoline stations were closed, according to AAA, which said the supply disruptions had taken place along two major pipelines that have operated at well below capacity since the hurricanes knocked offshore oil production and several refineries out of service along the Gulf of Mexico.

More than $1 trillion in annual investments to find new fossil fuels will be needed for the next two decades to avoid an energy crisis that could choke the global economy, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday. The warning from the Paris-based agency comes as major oil companies pull back investments amid the most severe economic downturn in a generation.

Two former Enron Corp. traders accused of driving up energy prices during California's power crisis were each sentenced Wednesday to two years of court-supervised release. Timothy Belden, the former head of trading in Enron's Portland, Ore., office, was sentenced in federal court after pleading guilty in October 2002 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. His plea was the first prosecution of anyone related to the West's energy crisis in 2000 and 2001.

California faces a small, although worrisome, chance of rolling blackouts this summer, according to the operator of most of the state's power transmission system. Southern California faces a 3.7% probability of a supply problem, while Northern California has a 3.5% chance for a Stage 3 power emergency, the California Independent System Operator, or Cal-ISO, said in documents on its website.

Two power companies will pay $84 million to settle claims against them stemming from the 2000-01 California energy crisis, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said Thursday. The agency found widespread manipulation during the power crisis in Western states in 2000 and 2001, when California endured a huge jump in natural gas and electricity prices, rolling blackouts and the bankruptcy filing of its biggest utility.

It is a rare three-day summertime weekend, and that means a headlong rush out of sweltering, smoggy Tehran toward the shores of the Caspian Sea. The narrow highway is hopelessly jammed; drivers abandon their cars for the kiosks selling sodas, ice cream bars and hand-woven souvenir baskets along the roadside. Families despairing of a hotel room spread out straw mats four rows deep on the sidewalks and parking lots of this beach town, snoozing for the night alongside itinerant rice harvesters.

U.S. gasoline supplies are the lowest ever recorded in terms of demand, at just 20 days of average fuel consumption, the Energy Information Administration said. "This is even fewer days than seen following the hurricanes in 2005," the administration said in its weekly review of the oil market. Inventories have fallen in recent weeks by more than 12 million barrels to just under 193 million barrels, a bigger decline than normally seen at this time of year, the EIA said.

Much of Iraq ushered in the new year under a near blackout today as a week-old power crunch worsened across huge sections of the northern and central parts of the country. Baghdad's already sporadic electrical power supply was cut to about an hour Saturday, causing a legion of private generators to roar steadily and dampening the spirits of millions of Iraqis preparing for New Year's Eve, traditionally a joyous time of fireworks, family gatherings and public outings.